Sleepless Nights

I wasn’t sleeping too well in the week or so before June 23^rd, but since then, I’ve barely eked out three or four hours a night. It’s like somehow, the gaping chasm that has opened up under the feet of Britons has opened up in my own heart as well. I can acutely feel the pain and the chaos from here. What is so perplexing to me, as an unusually sensitive and “prescient” person, is that I didn’t really feel it coming when I was over in England two months ago. Each household received a rather slick mailing from the government outlining the reasons it recommended staying with the European Union, but the brochure might easily have been thrown out with many people’s recycling of store ads and other mass mailings. Generally speaking, there didn’t seem to be a sense of urgency or concern. People must have assumed there could never be a vote against the status quo, and somehow I (as a visitor) thought that this referendum was informational only, not binding. Whether it is a given that Britain will leave the European Union is still unclear. The potential ramifications and outcomes of this single day are almost mind-bendingly diverse. And in the middle of the night, I am perseverating about all of it.

Ultimately, I had no say last Thursday and probably ought to stay out of the world’s intensive chorus of commentary. Some of the spiritual lessons in all this are revealing, but analysis of this at such a traumatic moment, unbidden, could be quite unhelpful. My one effort to do that in an email to an English friend may have fallen quite flat, so no more of that. I do think, however, that it is entirely appropriate to speak to the tsunami that has washed over my own life. I mean, only a few weeks ago I finally managed to fully embrace my passion for choral evensong and English history, art, landscape, and literature, and to move beyond the family, practical, and other inner and outer considerations that have kept me for half a century from fully committing to what I love or being in my element. As some of you know from this blog, I’ve worked through a long process of accepting, “these are the things that interest me, and so many other things do not.” Now this. It’s huge. The way forward at least “felt” somewhat clear and joyful a week or so ago, but now, the fog has moved back in, as it has far more intensively for people across the Atlantic. I’m back to wishing, as I often have, that my life dream had been to run a bed and breakfast or go to law school, something with a more straightforward process.  And yet that would not have been me.

The only “energy” in the Universe is Love. On some level that we cannot understand, the world’s current volatility is bringing all of us to a higher experience of Love. It may not seem like it today, but if I can remind myself of that tonight, maybe I’ll move up the scale from four to five hours of sleep. I need it. I’m exhausted. And I’m probably getting far more sleep than my British friends!

Love and Fear

Woke up, as the rest of the world did, to the stunning news that Britain voted to leave the European Union.  I did not expect this outcome, and don't think any of us can know where it will lead. 

But all I could think of when I watched an hour or so of American and Canadian TV analysis, was this: to remind myself that there are only two things in the world, love and fear. There is so much fear out there, about this and so many other things. If there was ever a moment to hold our inner cores in a place of love, this is it. Hang in there, keep breathing, and try to love each and every person who is trying to make sense of and shape a changing world. That is, love everyone.

Community

This post comes on the day of the "Brexit" vote. I hold Brits in the light that the referendum leads to growth and loving community, however it is ultimately defined.

I was going to get up the nerve to follow up on the archetype thing, but instead, I realize today that the issue of "community" seems to have more resonance. I have recently discovered, through social media primarily, that there are many other people "out there" who are on a journey toward creating new paradigms, spiritually, socially, medically, financially, and in every area of human endeavor. For so long (through the '90's and '00's) I felt alone ahead of the curve, a "scout" as a friend of mine so kindly put it. There's nothing wrong with the role, until you begin to buy into the idea that this solitude is glamorous and heroic -- and permanent.  Since I didn't really own a computer until a little over a year ago, I had few opportunities to discover whether there might in fact be a few other people on my wavelength, people who were also finding it difficult to operate within established systems. 

Since last summer, I have found that there are intelligent on-line forums not only for people who love choral evensong as much as I do (yay!) but also for people basically questioning everything, such as Charles Eisenstein's "A New and Ancient Story." He brings together a remarkable set of contributors. On another site, I listened to an introductory video called "The Abundance Code." Featuring a number of prominent self-help gurus, the video explores how each one experienced a serious crisis leading ultimately to a new career and sense of abundance. I can't speak for the class this video is promoting, but just hearing a whole lot of 50-plus-somethings speaking about their burnouts -- and their subsequent new directions -- was so encouraging. The recent Hay House World Summit was also valuable exposure to dozens of speakers on the cutting edge. That so many of them are women thrills me. 

The world is evolving more and more quickly, and although I may have some hermit-like tendencies, I don't want to be permanently isolated as change swirls around me. Very few people do. We all need community. We need to figure out who we are, then discover the others who share the same passions, joys and goals as we do. We all need help sometimes, and moral support, and to be supportive in return. Even as we change as people and nations -- especially as we do -- and even as the major transformation must come from within -- may we remember that we don't always have to go it completely alone.

Archetypes

It is interesting. One of the things I have noticed in the last few months is that some of my 60-something friends are envious of the fact that I have passions at all, however challenging they have been to align with. Many women, I think, have buried their true passions or long since left them behind entirely.  Sometimes by 60, everything seems to have faded into a misty medium tone, and it's hard to see bright colors through the fog. It may take a few months or even a few years, but simply trying to notice when something gives you pleasure or joy is the first step. Whether it is growing heirloom tomatoes or reading/writing fiction or being active in the environmental movement or singing or stamp collecting or helping newly-settled refugees. Just notice the joy and act on it, as I did six years ago or so when I heard English sacred music in a cathedral for the first time in many years. The world needs all these gifts.

But I think there is a second prong to the process, and that is discerning the manner in which you will present your passions to the world. For a few years I have been playing around with the notion that it is helpful to look to medieval archetypes for guidance here. It seems nonsensical in this egalitarian modern world, but it is exactly the fact that we are being presented such standardized ideals of success that makes these older, more colorful identities, useful, at least for me. Several times over the last few years, I have asked myself, who am I at my very core? Which of these resonates? Am I a peasant farmer? A hermit? A nun? An abbess? An actor? A courtier? A court musician? A queen? A scribe? A professor? A beggar? A merchant? A mother? A wise woman? A shaman? A warrior? A physician? I may be some of each, but ultimately, how do I operate in the world? What feels like my true identity "home"?

The answer I consistently come up with is one that I'll talk about in a future blog, because it has been a bit hard to come to peace with. But think about it: say you have a passion for helping refugees. There are still many ways to express that passion. Will you be a leader in the public eye? A PR person? Will you write a fictional novel to bring people's attention to the problem? Will you literally help families find shelter, or start a fund? Will you be out on the street protesting, or hugging and comforting terrified children? I suppose this roughly corresponds to understanding your astrological house, or the "variety of gifts" in the Christian tradition.  If you are operating in the world as a CEO but you'd rather be on the ground in Africa building an orphanage, you may be so out of sync with your true nature that the world is not benefitting fully. And if the chasm is too wide, all aspects of life get out of whack.

This whole process requires such courage, and such total honesty with oneself. The world is weighing in. Your family is weighing in. Your friends are weighing in. At a certain moment, with blessings to them all, it's just about you and the Spirit within.  When the passions and the manner of being your passions in the world finally synchronize, you'll know it. You'll feel the "zing." And that is only the first step.

Being a kid

One of the advantages of a peripatetic life is that your current living environment can bring you surprising life lessons. I am staying in a friend’s spare room dedicated to children’s books and toys, a wonderland for visiting grandchildren. But for this short moment in time, it is my room. On the shelves are hundreds of children’s books, most of which I have never read. I am kind of mystified by this, because, yes, I was a small child fifty-five or so years ago. But in 1960-ish, people didn’t have tempting bookstores, online shopping or the money to spend on children’s books, and I don’t remember too many on the shelves. There were a handful of English children’s history books from my Dad’s childhood (which were rather dilapidated so we rarely opened them.) The family collection also included The Little Engine that Could, various books by A. A. Milne and Dr. Seuss, and a story about an aunt taking her niece and nephew to the beach, with gorgeous illustrations. Overall, though, I learned to read so quickly that I think I jumped from being read Now We are Six and Madeline (and I am grateful for that and can hear my mother’s voice to this day), to my own reading of the Little House on the Prairie books, Nancy Drew mysteries, and fare like Little Women and Huckleberry Finn. I didn’t have an interest in fantasy or magic and/or it wasn’t encouraged. As a result, scanning these bookshelves (even if you subtract more modern fare) is like scanning a parallel but unlived childhood: The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, The Wind in the Willows, The Black Stallion, The Real Mother Goose, etc. Where do I start?

The other thing is that I never had any stuffed animals. Evidently, my grandmother convinced my mother that they were unsanitary.  I did have one doll with chin-length brown hair and eyes that closed, and grandma made some clothes for her as well as a Barbie later on.  But mostly, I had a formal “doll collection” of dolls that had been acquired on family trips (I remember an Amish couple, and one or two in Colonial dress.)  I also played with my mother’s Depression-era dollhouse, complete with miniature wringer washer and brown radio with a moving dial.  There is nothing really wrong with any of this, but as I look around my current room, with brightly colored stuffed birds lining the top of the bookshelf, hand puppets, and posters from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, I feel an odd sense of loss. There is a playfulness and joy to this cornucopia of clutter, and a rich sense of delight in the process of being young.  I think I was an old person by the age of four or five, at arm’s length from childish things. By five-and-a-half I was in first grade, and I would continue to be pushed ahead academically in school, which tended to give me an analytical slant on books and experiences that perhaps my contemporaries were simply, well, experiencing.

Back in January of this year, there was an excellent article in The Atlantic called, “Why the British Tell Better Children’s Stories.”  Basically the thesis was that almost all of the great British children’s literature is fantasy, whereas American children’s stories tend to be history-based and moralistic. American kids, thanks in large part to Harry Potter, have a more wide-ranging set of choices these days. While I have put my toe in the water of fantasy in recent years by becoming much more open to my own intuitive, creative nature, the books around me this morning tell me that I have quite a long way to go to catch up with children fortunate enough to have dozens, even hundreds, of books on their shelves and toys in their hands…that is, if they ever take a break from their high tech devices…(!) And there have always been many children worldwide with no homes or books at all, children who grow up too fast for altogether different reasons.  May we all eventually have the opportunity, whether at 6 or 60, to just “be a kid.”

A Ripple in the Pond

The Orlando shooting continues to haunt and traumatize, despite my attempt to focus on the bravery of the responders and the love being expressed by people across the nation. As always, I turn within, in this case, to examine my own relationship with violence. It would seem to be non-existent, yet this morning as I was making coffee I unthinkingly squashed a tiny ant on the kitchen counter. I looked down, suddenly horrified. Unlike even a mosquito, this ant had done nothing to me. I had acted only out of a vague sense that it’s not good to have ants in a kitchen. Does that really warrant ending a life, even one so small?

And circumstances conspired a few days on either side of the shooting to force me to look at ways in which I – like most Americans and perhaps people all over the world – could be said to “consume” violence, conflict and murder. I rarely attend movies, but recently I have seen two. One I guess you could say I saw by mistake, since I don’t like violent movies or thrillers. It was dressed up in the guise of a chummy-ha-ha buddy movie, but the fact is that I had my hands in front of my eyes nearly throughout, and would have left entirely if (not having my own car) there had been public transportation available. The second film was Disney’s Jungle Book, a marvel in modern animation, yet even here, there was the obligatory good-versus-evil plot with the snarling tiger threatening the peace-loving wolves. And just the other night, homesick for good English drama, I had occasion to watch an episode of Hinterland, extremely well done, moody, with only a trace of overt violence, but the repressed violence and depression were palpable. 

In light of Orlando and so many other similar events, suddenly all of this just makes me sick. It’s like my willingness to take in this sort of trauma – at least voluntarily through “entertainment,” literature, sports, or advertising – has reached its limit. Even the miniscule percentage of my life that I have devoted to consuming this kind of negativity seems to be too much. At the same moment as the shootings, many thousands of Americans were undoubtedly watching “virtual” violent entertainment, not making the connection that our psyches are deeply affected by both.

I’m a 60 year-old woman. I don’t know whether I have three months, three years, or three decades left to my life. But today, I’m just asking myself, why on earth would I want to spend one more hour of it “consuming” conflict? People say, well, that’s our human reality. Does it have to be? Really? Maybe it seems like a tiny step to gravitate away from such fare, and maybe it will cause only a small ripple in the pond of the world’s troubles. Maybe I’ll slip from time to time and watch an old original Law and Order, Inspector Morse or Inspector Lewis, or read one of the medieval mystery books I enjoy. But overall, I’m afraid my jug is full to the brim. Life will undoubtedly continue to bring it on, but I can choose not to self-inflict trauma. I can choose not to use my spare time to watch or even read about characters hurting each other. The time has come to be really, really choosy with my hours on this planet. And to honor all forms of life, no matter how tiny. I'm sorry, dear ant. 

Hiatus

What I thought was going to be two days without my computer turned into about six, and I decided to use it as a nearly high tech-free time. But I am sorry I didn't alert my readers (used, I guess, to hearing from me every two to four days) to the hiatus. I guess it's a sign of my age that it's a relief, not a hardship, to be unplugged.  It's kind of like, a return to a reality that feels more natural.  But when I just woke up now in the middle of the night and my laptop was at hand, I couldn't help myself. Time to get back to work. Time to plug back into the world.

What a week it has been. This blog has not yet been a forum for commenting on the events in the news, and for the moment, I won't start now. It is not, I assure you, that I am clueless to what is happening or even worse, insensitive. Quite the contrary. As a former Time Inc.-er, I cannot help but be drawn to analysis of world and national events, personalizing it with a spiritual spin. It is just that there are so many other venues for commentary these days, I don't think for the moment that my heart is in it to be one of them. Today, I guess I'll just speak for what I hope are millions of people out there who would not pick up a weapon of any kind in any situation, offensively or defensively. It is all I can do to "defend" myself in a verbal situation, or even (as you may have gathered by now!) to engage in our financial "fight for survival" model. The whole "conflict" paradigm is so over for me. I have a hunch that there are many more of us out there than the news might indicate. When these events shock us to the core, may all of us try to find the glimmer of love trying to break through.

I was visiting the friend who, bless her heart, has held my 20-or-so motley boxes and bags in her basement these last few transitional years. I had a clear leading that the moment had come, not only to consolidate my belongings one more time, but to get them packed up properly in boxes that could easily be shipped when the moment comes. This is an illustration of how the Liz path is the reverse of many people's -- I don't wait to know where I am moving or how it will happen. At so many different forks in the road, I have just had to give the Universe a decisive sign that I am ready for what's next.  So a trip to the Salvation Army and several trash bags later,  I'm down to 15 well packed, mostly smaller boxes. 

The hardest choice was what to do with a dozen or so journals from about 2012-14.  The historian in me had promised myself not to throw out any more journals but they are literally weighty.  I said a prayer, and kind of flipped through them thinking, if they feel good, I'll keep them and if they feel yucky, they're out of here.  They were mostly process journals, gratitude lists and prayers to try to keep me going during a rather challenging time. Overall, though, the energy coming from them was negative enough to warrant tossing them.  Before doing so, I did flip through and keep selected pages. It's all about telling the new story now.

I was reminded, however, of an event back in, I think, 2013, before my first recent trip back to England. I had seen a book in the library about drawing a map of your inner landscape.  I meditated briefly, and the image that had come to me immediately was of me being a small child huddled under a dead tree in a dry gulch in the desert. For several weeks, I worked with this, even leading myself on a guided visualization where the only other person in the picture, an old grizzled prospector, came up to me and eventually gained my trust enough to help me back on my feet. He led me up a dusty hill, from which there was a view of a much greener landscape below, and he sent me on my way in that direction. I have kept the little sketches I did in my journal of all this, because I know it was literally and figuratively a huge turning point.

So for fun, I decided to see if I have a new inner landscape now, three years or so later. And after about thirty seconds, this is the image that came to me: I am now an adult woman, standing on my own two feet with (OK, yes...) a bag over each shoulder.  I am standing facing a very ornate bridge over a major river. While beautiful with carved marble and light fixtures, the bridge is empty of people or traffic. It is completely open and waiting for me to step onto it. At the other side of the bridge is "my house" -- this house that I have started to envision, welcoming, warm, inviting. I'm not quite in it yet, but it is there within reach now. The process that started in the desert seems to be bringing me home. And while time will tell how metaphorical or real the specific house is, I do know that this is big progress. Big. 

I am thankful for my hiatus, and the reminder of how far I have traveled.

Mornings

Don't you love the early mornings as we near summer solstice? Here it is, 5 or 5:30 AM, and I've been up for at least an hour, literally with the birds.  Many spiritual teachers speak of the importance of keeping a positive "spin" going early in the day, for as long as you can, and I guess it's kind of funny that nature offers even more half-light time at this moment in the year.  I'm sure I'm like many of you, initially glad for the new day, enjoying the birdsong, inwardly counting some blessings...then it starts.  The chorus of another kind.  The chorus of dread or terror or "oh no, I am still facing that." There are several schools of thought about negativity/"contrasts"/recurring "issues" or old traumas.  One is that they need to be faced and honored, given the space to breathe.  Kind of, "good morning, you, are you still with me? OK, let's move forward."  And the other is that we need to do anything, anything, to get into a positive mental place and leave the negative behind so that we attract new experiences from the highest possible place.

The latter makes so much sense philosophically, and yet seems to be almost as big of a challenge sometimes as the most daunting outward impediment.  Yet I'm ever hopeful that someday, I'll awake to an attitude of pure bliss.  When I read my daily "Tut" "Note from the Universe," at least for that second or two I truly do believe that I am on an amazing life adventure, and that I am operating spectacularly, that all the angels and holy beings are cheering me on, and that today will be a wonderful and important day -- for all of us!  Within a few minutes, I realize that those "issues" are still there.  But the good thing is, they don't kick me in the stomach or take my breath away the way they used to.  I've found kind of a happy medium where I am able to hear the dissonant chorus and welcome it to sing with the rest of the choir.  It just doesn't drown out the overall harmony the way it used to, or bring the music to a screeching halt. I guess it's kind of like a musical (Renaissance, particularly English) "false relation," where a b and a b-flat sound simultaneously.  I listened to some Thomas Tallis yesterday, and it's just like that.

Hallelujah...

"Likes"

You know, I continue to be amazed at how, if used deliberately and thoughtfully, the internet and social media are actually tools for clarifying one’s own identity and passions.  There are clubs, appreciation societies and information groups for just about every possible interest under the sun.  I scroll through my friends’ posts about horses and politics and organic food and meditation retreats in Asia, and I celebrate these varied expressions of the human spirit, but the moment has finally arrived where I grasp that there are really only two passions that matter to me: England/English cathedral music, and writing about my own spiritual journey/the cutting edge of the human spiritual path forward.  My “likes” basically illustrate this; as hard as it has been for people-pleasing me, I try hard not to “like” other peoples’ passions, just so I don’t get confused!

The journey “home,” then, is taking both a physical and metaphysical form.  Every day, that house I described in an earlier post is becoming more tangible to my senses.  And every day, I am drawn more and more to the people, sometimes spread around the world, who share my two main interests. 

I think the hardest chasm to bridge has been the one that superficially exists between the traditional Christian/cathedral music paradigm and the cutting edge of contemporary spirituality, including the sacred feminine.  At times, I’ve been afraid to let the two worlds meet, either in myself or publicly.  After all, they seem almost impossibly “opposite” and irreconcilable.  I reasoned that it would be better not to let the church music crowd know how progressive I am, and similarly, better not to let the post-Christian crowd know that “I’d rather be at evensong.”  If it doesn’t make sense to me, it won’t make sense to anyone else.  And more to the point, I feared not being "liked" in either camp.

But the energy expended trying to keep these two sides of myself separate, and selectively hidden, has been too much and certainly may have contributed to my inability to ground.  Where do they meet?  Humans have tried every word and concept under the sun to express and honor Source energy, and the male (which Christianity surely represents) and female constructs are simply two sides of the same coin. Ancient abbeys and audio talks by a wide range of modern spiritual teachers are two sides of the same coin.  After all these generations, all of us are still simply trying to grasp the unfathomable.  If I can be both archaic and cutting edge, and lovingly bridge this divide in myself, perhaps that healing will extend to the outside world.  For now, I’ll just try to get used to my hyphenated “name,” enjoy my “likes” wherever I find them, and keep travelling home.

A blueprint

My dear readers who have followed this blog from the beginning (about nine months ago) know that I started it, at least in part, to chronicle my journey from living extremely lightly on the land to having a home.  A case could be made that I've really never had a permanent home as an adult, and certainly I have never owned one. I won't go over old ground, except to say for newer readers that in recent decades it has been the perfect storm of $10-an-hour jobs, not feeling at home anywhere, somehow not imagining a home without a husband, and, eventually, not feeling I deserved one or that I could ever afford one. Once you head far enough down that road, turning the corner really can't be done well without some help on the divine plane.

So another outcome of my retreat the other day was this: I sat down and sketched out a blueprint of my home. It flowed from my pen as if I had been living in it all along: the library whose shelves go wall-to-ceiling, the formal living room, the comfortable "open concept" kitchen/dining space, the master bedroom, art studio and even the small outside guest house. I mean, I can see it as clear as day. I imagine choosing paint colors, shopping for antiques and floor coverings, and feeling fabric swatches. I imagine walking barefoot on soft carpets and painting in my studio and picking herbs in the garden for cooking dinner. I imagine sitting on the deck with my laptop, writing. I imagine the sound system playing music by Tallis and Howells. I imagine the neighborhood and the sounds from the street. I am happy being in the house alone, but know it would be a welcoming space for either an eventual partner or guests.

This is truly a miracle. Unprecedented. The image of this home has been with me several days now, getting clearer by the day. I cannot consider what Mike Dooley calls "the cursed hows." If I focus on how many lifetimes it would take me now -- at 60 -- to "earn" such a house, the picture will disappear completely. So I'm just focusing on the fact that "my house" is making me smile. It's warm and beautiful and inviting. And I am grateful. Maybe the encouraging message I received the other day opened my heart to the idea of being worthy of a home base from which to use all my gifts. Maybe, as with everything on the Liz path, it had to start from within. It had to start with a blueprint.