This coming week, I had very much hoped to get back to England for several overlapping events taking place. Late July is a cornucopia of delights, from the Three Choirs Festival (this year in Gloucester, which I have come to know quite well) to an opportunity to sing at Lincoln Cathedral under one of my favorite conductors and people, to -- yes, this will surprise you -- an annual meeting of people interested in crop circles. Which I am. There is no way I could possibly have done all three anyway, and had I had to choose between the three, it would have been difficult. What remains so frustrating is that none of them were an option. I barely have the wherewithal to hop on a city bus. I've spent the last few months doing my darndest to do creative visualization and all the hip and trendy methods of manifesting, but I'm still here, in an American city that is unusually beautiful, filled with at least menial jobs for the taking and lots of music (jazz, blues, rock, folk, bluegrass.) Yet by many measures, I am depressed and not functioning at all which has so often been the case wherever I live over here. It is, quite simply, not my world.
What I am trying to stay with is that, in the end, my system is functioning beautifully. I know what I love, who I am, what interests me, and what my true nature is, and what it is not. I saw this quote online this morning, by Michael Neill, an author and life coach: "Finding your true nature is the key to pretty much everything." And I have done that. Once you do, however, going against your true nature becomes more and more acutely painful. When your Masters of Music in Historical Musicology from the University of London is in Early Christian Chant, when your thesis studied a 12th century piece of music dedicated to an 8th century French female saint who was beheaded by her fiancé, when your passion is English cathedrals and abbeys, choral evensong services, and the lives of medieval mystics and saints, and when you are starting to be a powerful mystic in your own right, your "true nature" is actually working beautifully when it chafes against settings and situations that don't fully support those things. If I can stand back far enough, I am grateful to feel enough to understand what is happening.
This week, rather than feel separate from the events I would have liked to attend, I am going to hold a "vigil" for them -- to be, if you will, a vessel for their energy on American soil. I will hold all of them in the light, try as best I can to channel their joy, beauty, mystery and learning, and be an energetic match. I will practice being aligned with what I love, despite appearances. And we'll see what happens.
