Halloween 2016

On this grey, drizzly, cold October 29 Saturday, it feels like Halloween has already started. Just about exactly a year ago, I wrote about my lack of enthusiasm for Halloween, so I won't go over that old ground. It's just simple -- I am uncomfortable with, almost terrified by, people who pretend to be something they are not, really or symbolically. Masks are scary enough, but then you add in the dark, "evil" stuff and I just can't stand it. On Monday night, I will be childishly hiding under some covers somewhere, reading. Indeed, I may do a lot of reading this entire weekend.

I think it's all been magnified this fall by the election season. It's been like walking through a haunted house of all the worst our democracy could possibly ever offer, demons we didn't even dream were present. I feel beaten up, as if ghouls have indeed come to life in front of my eyes and taken baseball bats in hand.

What's my advice to myself? Abraham-Hicks says it all the time, as do many other spiritual writers, but it is so hard to do when the ghosties and ghoulies surround you -- don't focus on what you don't like! That only makes it grow. Focus on what is beautiful. I've told friends that I have tried to start almost every morning the last few weeks listening to the Bach "St. Anne Fugue" and whether it is that, or a good book, or a funny movie, or beautiful photographs of places you love, or petting someone's kittens, I think it is good advice for this dark moment of the year. I'll find something that makes me smile, and hang on for dear life until November 1.

Statute of Limitations

I am still trying to get a handle on this age 60 thing, almost nine months into it. I mean, 50 was bad enough, kind of "how can I be that old?" But sixty seems to be a watershed of a whole 'nother dimension.

I've thought a lot recently about my grandmother Winnifred Wilton Wilson, who I believe I've mentioned before. She became one of Canada's first female lawyers in 1915. When she decided to marry, four years later, her fledgling career ended because in that era a married woman could not have a career. Marriage and motherhood never replaced her passion for the law, and I think once her three sons made it through World War II and into adulthood, she looked at the early 1950's landscape (no kinder to brilliant lady lawyers than the 1920's) and just literally lost heart, dying at about 61. While I'm too stubborn to die, I understand now what a huge portal this time period is. It's definitely a death and potentially a rebirth.

The phrase "statute of limitations" keeps coming up for me, as in, my own personal statute of limitations on a whole host of things is up. "Stick a fork in me, I'm done." My patience with things that don't make sense is almost nil. My patience with other people's cynicism or sarcasm or inhumanity or violence is nil. More than anything, my statute of limitations is up on not trusting my own personal instincts. For decades and decades, people have condescendingly made fun of my life, and tried to "explain" (yes, sometimes "mansplain") the importance of credit ratings and home-ownership and marriage and interest rates and health insurance and getting my act together to be like everyone else. I've often felt like the village idiot, but the statute of limitations on that is up. I am a woman with a genius IQ, so if some of these things don't make any sense to me, is it remotely possible that they simply don't make any sense, period? I was recently reminded that in major cities, there is such a thing as buying and selling the rights to the air space above a building. Buying air? Really? That makes almost as much sense as buying land or buying water. Sorry gang, none of this is ours. We can't own it. It "belongs" to something larger than ourselves. I guess everyone else is having the last laugh since they have homes and "normal" lives, but for me sixty is finally being OK with my own quirky reality, finally feeling really, really feisty.

Months ago, the metaphor I explored for this transition was being in a boat on one stretch of river, then entering a lock, rising up to a higher level, then heading into the new stretch of river. That imagery still seems apt, but I'll add a few more details. I've headed into the new stretch of river early in the morning, and there is a dense fog on the water. I literally cannot see the landscape at all clearly. I finally understand that while I have been able to capture small facets and exquisite moments of my earlier life dream, like sparkles of sunrise on the water, I won't be able to go way back down the river and literally start again. And yet although it is a rebirth, it's not necessarily about starting an entirely new career as a brain surgeon either. Lordy, I can barely put on my bra in the morning because of arthritis! Moving forward from 60 seems to be a paradox, sailing down a new stretch of river finally "owning" your own (and old) passions, perspectives and body. It seems to be about focusing on feelings of happiness and joy and love and anticipation -- before the mist rises and you can see the details of what's now ahead. And it seems to involve somehow believing a statute of unlimitation...despite physical appearances.

Wheels

One of the perks that can come from house- or pet-sitting is the use of a car. When you don't own a car and love to drive, this is no small thing. This weekend, "it" was an older station wagon with over 200,000 miles and a stick shift, but it drove like a dream. I had to use it just for a few errands that took me around the countryside, but the freedom was what was blissful, not the spectacular red leaves and dramatic dark grey skies.

Yes, I guess regular readers of this blog might be surprised at how much I love to drive. It might seem incongruous in a person with my interests. But I do. Many of my friends just drive because they have to. I've always loved it with a passion. My first car, a faded, rusty red 1968 VW fastback, was a tumbledown eyesore that I managed to keep going through my two first post-college years in the Washington DC suburbs. Have I ever told you about how it (and I) inadvertently became part of the Begin-Sadat motorcade to the White House in 1979? I had driven onto Rock Creek Parkway, and suddenly realized no one else was on the road...until a policeman on a motorcycle drove parallel to me and gestured for me just to keep going.  I could see the motorcade in my rearview mirror. Once I pulled off near the Watergate, someone told me what was going on, that the two leaders were headed to the peace accord signing. I guess someone had forgotten to block off one of the entrances.

After I left NYC in 1990, I drove around the country, settling for a time in one of the most wonderful cities anywhere, Duluth, Minnesota. In order to think the deep thoughts that I don't seem to be able to help, I'd find excuses to drive up and down the North Shore, or down to the Twin Cities. One time, I drove from Minneapolis to Denver in one day, about fourteen hours. I was alert and just loving it until I saw the sign saying "Welcome to Denver," at which point my body collapsed and it was a miracle I made it to my destination. (Note to self, that's just a little too much driving on one's own for one day.) I drove over the top of Lake Superior back to the East Coast, and have also driven from the East out to the Rocky Mountain west and back several times.

If I were to wake up one morning and learn that I miraculously had the means to go back and live in England for some period of time, the only, only factor that might give me pause is the driving over there. No, it's not the left side of the road. That I can get used to. It's the cramped narrow roads particularly in the countryside, roads so narrow that people have to back their cars up into little pullovers to let the other car go by. It's the tiny cars barely being able to get by other cars in the cities. It's that feeling of not really being able to take off and be free. That's the American in me, I guess. While car ownership hasn't been a very high priority for me in recent years, and I have bigger environmental qualms about cars now than in the past, that urge to turn the key in the ignition and go is always there. It's probably no accident that I want the Gram Parsons/Flying Burrito Brothers version of "Wild Horses" played at my funeral. It doesn't exactly outweigh Anglican chant, but it's in there in this variegated ol' mix. In the end, I am a wild horse.

Pet-sitting

Something that has been a big part of my life over the last few decades has been pet-sitting. Dogs and cats. Now, I'm not actually a huge lover of animals, but I've become more and more of one over time, and it seems that usually they love me a bit like children do, because I don't make a big fuss over them. Pretty quickly they come to me, and yes, I warm up to them. Right now, what a solace, to spend time with "people" who love but don't speak. We're all hearing too much talk.

Last post, I alluded to accepting my power to choose, and yes, I accept that I have chosen a life of gigs like this cobbled together rather than "a real job," despite the obvious lack of security. I've done it for many reasons, some of which I've spoken of...basically, I can't think of any "real job" that, at midlife, I want, or any institution I would be effective in representing. I am too independent and outspoken. I have a larger goal that I want the freedom to up and achieve when I can, and I love my freedom. I also love that I focus on small jobs for people I love, sometimes with their pets who I love (or develop a love for.) It has been my experience that most Americans are just stressed beyond the breaking point. They need someone helping them from time to time to keep the wheels rolling. Enter me, or people like me.

A quote from Mike Dooley, who is one of my favorite Law of Attraction authors, is making its way around social media. It says, in effect, that taking responsibility for our choices is the beginning of power.  My moments of fury or frustration are fewer and farther between nowadays because I've learned to say, "I am choosing this. I have chosen that." This isn't because of a bad economy or the world is against me or no one hiring me or the fault of potential employers. I have chosen autonomy. If I haven't learned to thrive in this situation, well, I have chosen that too, and can learn new lessons when I am ready.

So this weekend two old girls, me and an old dog, will hang out together. I get to love her as if she were my own, and my friends' house as if it, too were mine, just for a few days. It's a better solution at their end than a kennel, and it's nice for doggie and me. Have a good weekend folks, and find your own old dog, or equivalent!

Anger

I feel led to speak about anger today, even though I haven't written a draft of this and find it very unnerving. We are all being bombarded with anger right now. It's very easy to look at all the examples of it and to try to convince oneself that, hey, I'm not out there fomenting hatred, I'm not starting wars, I'm not using weapons, so I'm not like them. But the truth is that most people experience anger at some point in their lives, even regularly.

Someone told me recently that they thought my life has been tragic, and in a way it has. There was only one thing I wanted to do in my life, and that was live in England and sing (or be involved in directing) choral evensong at the highest level. Even now, the latter is rare for an adult woman, although the situation is slowly changing. I've spoken enough about this, but I guess I will only add that it was particularly infuriating as a Smith graduate of the late 20th century to feel so utterly powerless to have the "career" I would have wanted. I choose the word "infuriating" deliberately -- yes, at this late date I have tried to have a detached, wisdom-infused take on this situation, but the fact is that my life has had this undercurrent of fury. I have so much intellectual power, so much musical talent, and so much spiritual (if not exactly "religious") alignment with the kind of setting I would have been in, that it has literally been a form of death to be chronically separated from what enlivens and fills me with love and joy, and to be prevented from effectively sharing that love and joy. Not to have figured out some kind of solution to spend more regular time in England hearing evensong in person is also infuriating. My tiny job "gigs" clearly aren't going to do it, but neither would an unrelated full-time job or career with almost no time off. It's a mystery I don't seem to be able to solve.

The key thing is, what do you do with your fury? In my case in the past, I mostly tried to distract myself, do other things with my life. I tried to convince myself that I wouldn't have made it anyhow. I've been depressed at times. Although I don't believe I would ever have acted on it, I have often not wanted to go on. The gap between what I know I could have accomplished and what I was able to accomplish is too huge.  When you are a woman with no children, "you" are your children. That my child hasn't thrived, and I can't figure out how to make her thrive, is endlessly frustrating.

But is it because I am a woman? I have no desire to take this out on other people. My anger is my anger. It is my spiritual "gift" to work through it, hope in the new day, and see what may come next. There is a bigger historical current at work here of increasing opportunities for women, and ultimately it is not "about" getting back at individuals or groups, protesting them or hurting them or fighting back. I watch all the people converting their fury into hatred and violence, and I guess I just don't get it. I look, in a sense, at all of history's wars and conflicts, and I just don't get it. In the end, violence just begets more violence, and anger more anger. The fall of 2016 will go down in history as illustrating that!

Even I don't fully trust the smiling New Age gurus who act like they've transcended anger. I don't think it's possible if we are on the human plane. But covering it over and distracting ourselves or making ourselves sick or hurting ourselves isn't the answer either. There must be a middle path, something in the realm of calmly assessing that we hurt, that we are angry or sad, and trying to get to the bottom of it -- while holding on to the lifeline of Divine Love -- seems like the only path forward. Something in the area of taking responsibility for our life (I've come to believe that I actively chose this life path -- which I'll talk about another time) seems like the only path forward. In my case this week, a fictional English family in a ramshackle house near the ocean filled my heart. There was England and love and permanence and beauty in the picture. Perhaps ten years from now I'll see how all of this (plus choral evensong) finally came together -- but it will not happen if I lash out.

I see a little of myself in those angry people after all, but I know that I will always try to make the choice not to hurt others in the process of healing and moving forward.

Teaching moment

I said on Friday, in effect, that I would spend the weekend trying to find something to love in response to the ever deteriorating news last week. It would turn out to be rather hard.

Saturday morning brought me some personal news that shook me deeply. Despite the unseasonably warm weather, I worried. To try to get some perspective, I went to the local art museum, which I hoped would uplift or inspire or soothe. But instead, everything from some Picasso drawings of women (with the figures of course looking like they had been through a blender) to seemingly harmless impressionist paintings of women in white 19th-century garb bothered me. Last week was definitely some kind of watershed for me in terms of awareness.

Saturday night, I couldn't sleep to save my life. The brilliant hunter's moon seemed to pierce through my soul, trying to shed light on something that I can't quite put my finger on. 

Sunday, I heard some fine church music and yet, as usual, I could not connect to the service itself. I wandered back through the crackling, dead leaves, tried to make up a little sleep, then made my third supper in a row of roasted vegetables and rice. I love roasted vegetables and am grateful that I have them to nourish me, but I made the mistake of turning on the television to eat my meal by, where inevitably I learned that hate had not taken the weekend off.

It took until 8 PM Sunday to finally find something to love, PBS's "The Durrells in Corfu." Love, love, love. I was in Corfu. I was part of an eccentric but loving family. I had four children (a prospect that is about as far from my reality as is humanly possible!) I was in heaven, a huge dilapidated, empty-ish house in pastel colors overlooking the water. I don't remember any movie, book, or TV show drawing me in this completely, ever. For an hour, I was literally "in" love. Escapism? Yes. But absolutely essential right now. I must remember the quality of that love energy, and the factors that made me so happy, fictional though they may have been.

We have been handed the "teaching moment" of a lifetime. If you have never taught, it is that moment in the classroom where something bigger happens than the lesson on the syllabus that you were meant to be teaching -- it can start out awkwardly, even very unpleasantly, or as the result of humor. But there is some kind of epiphany, leading to the entire classroom being taken to a higher level of understanding about life, about being human. It seems to me that if we can see it this way, this national/international teaching moment will bring us higher. Hang in there, everyone.

What a week

As often as I take solace in metaphor, and am sometimes too capable of detached wonder, this extraordinary week my emotions have been all over the map. Disgust. Anger. Despair. Sadness. For years I tried unsuccessfully to believe the people who said, "Times have changed. There's no need for feminism any more." But of course there was, and is. This isn't about one situation, but about the experiences of most women at some point in their lives. This week, millions of memories have flooded to the surface across the country and the world. There's a kind of post-traumatic tsunami racing across the female landscape. And of course, if you scroll through social media, you know it's not just about women's lives. Each and every previously disempowered group is thankfully finding a voice. It's like a dark, dank box in the basement has been opened and a flashlight is shining on the contents. It's all coming out now. It is hard to go through, but absolutely essential if we are to move forward as a species.

If I stand back just far enough, I rejoice in this hard but noticeable growth spurt humanity is going through. I rejoice that paradoxically, there seems to be so much more love and appreciation of beauty and humor about. I actually feel sorry for people with no love in their hearts; they simply will find it harder and harder to tolerate a love-filled, cooperative world. They will flail about and bluster and lash out, and ultimately shrivel up if they cannot turn the corner and learn to love. It is very hard to start from scratch. I know. But those of us with some capacity for it must set the tone. Let's grieve and rage and cry, then stand strong and find something to love this weekend.

What a week.

It only took a second...

The last few days, I have continued to think about "the man behind the curtain." More accurately, I have thought about Dorothy's response to the epiphany that is thrust upon her when Toto playfully pulls aside the curtain.

I mean, this is a young lady who has been through a lot. Her house flew through the air and landed in an alien landscape. She's met new friends, true, but she also fought the Wicked Witch of the West, and was attacked by terrifying flying monkeys. Only seconds earlier, she stood before the supposed face of the "Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz" in fear and trembling. She was a powerless mortal standing before an almighty power.

Then, presto, that terrifying magician is revealed to be a fake, a shaky old man barely taller than she is. When he admits that he's The Wizard, she looks straight at him and says, "You're a very bad man," to which he replies that he's actually a reasonably good man, but not a good wizard (!) 

I just love the fact that it only took a second for her to take that growth spurt from shaky supplicant to confident young woman. Dorothy tells the Wizard the truth about himself, but she doesn't actively attack him in frustration or rage. Despite her disappointment, she takes his pathetic reality in stride. After a journey like hers, nothing daunts her...not even his balloon taking off for Kansas without her. Because in the end, the point of this journey was not to meet someone outside her with the power to arrange the one-way ticket back to Kansas. It was for her to learn that she had the power within herself to get home. Her own passion was her power. Her strong desire to go home to her loved ones was her power.

Dorothy is my heroine right now. As curtains get pulled back on many of our so-called realities, may I stand tall, stay calm, tell the truth, and turn my focus from disappointment to what I love. And please, dear Universe, someday soon when I am settled enough, bring me a nice little dog like Toto! I'd like that.

"Pay No Attention..."

I am not, I am sure, the only one recently who has seen a fascinating parallel between events in the news and that wonderful, pivotal scene in "The Wizard of Oz" where Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow, and the dog Toto face "The Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz." They are literally terrified, shaking, and quaking before the blustering behemoth head in front of them, until little Toto runs over to the corner and pulls back a curtain to reveal a little old man furiously pulling levers and pushing buttons, speaking into a microphone. "Oz" tries to salvage the situation by pulling the curtain back again and yelling, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain..." but it's too late. The "humbug" has been found out.

This moment alludes most perfectly to a specific news event this weekend, but I think that curtains are being pulled back on more and more people, situations, and institutions. Not all of what is being revealed is false or evil or even wrong, but I just think humanity is growing up, maturing spiritually, and that ways of being that worked for us even a few decades ago simply do not work any more. Too many individuals have done too much spiritual work of their own, and are courageously pulling back curtains in their own lives, their communities, and the larger world.

Once "Oz" was found out, he admitted to being a humbug, and let's face it, he became a real life person from that point on, not a caricature. And the story's heroine didn't attack him or kill him. In fact, he played a pivotal role (although not the obvious one) in her return home, in her moment of learning where her real power was located. As we pull back curtains, let's not be afraid. In facing our worst fears, we are finding our more beautiful selves.  We are finding our own power within, and not looking for it up on the screen.

Popcorn

Yeah, I am coming to appreciate 60 more and more.

Today's metaphor came to me in the night. I was thinking about my life being a kettle with a little oil at the bottom and a layer of popcorn, over a medium-high heat. The heat is, of course, the love energy of God/Goddess/Universe/Source, and the popcorn kernels are my potential creative outcomes. All these years, I should have been just shaking the kettle and experiencing the ever-faster "pop" of great ideas, great accomplishments, and great creative outputs. Instead, I think I spent much of my adult life trying to keep those kernels from popping. It was exhausting. Enter 60, when frankly, you just don't have that extra energy. You finally get that the whole point of putting popcorn on the stove is to let it pop. And you feel such relief finally just starting to let your creativity and honest thoughts come to fruition, when they are love-based. Not knowing exactly how many viable "kernels" are left in this lifetime, you want to let them live.

This week, between posting the Allegory blog on Monday and being able to speak kindly but more forthrightly-than-usual to people on several different subjects, I have had practice at letting go of my instinct to hold back. It's like using a new muscle. I don't feel entirely comfortable yet, but I feel more energized this week and new synchronicities and opportunities are arriving unexpectedly. On Tuesday, in the course of an hour, two enjoyable future temp jobs came my way, with utterly no effort on my part. A lot of other things have unfolded more "easily" this week than they usually have.

The moral of the story: let your popcorn pop.

Liz's New Allegory

Today's post is different from my others. It is much longer, and is something I wrote nearly ten years ago, late in 2008. It is a rewriting of Plato's Allegory of the Cave.  Except for sharing it with one or two friends, I never published it. Why? My usual problem. Fear. Fear of being honest, different, and audacious. Soon after writing it, I went through the huge distraction and trauma of bankruptcy, and simultaneously re-discovered my love for the English church music tradition. Balancing my personal preference for focusing on the feminine face of the Divine with ancient rites of the Christian tradition has been almost impossible at times. To this day, I struggle to find the common ground. And yet, as I listened to some quite fine church music yesterday, I found a little bit of peace. Divine Love, in all its faces and forms, loves music, and the reverberations of it make their way to the center of the earth and the outermost galaxies. A dear friend who read this eight years ago recently asked me about it, and so I have decided it is time. At this second, this is the only outlet I have to "put it out there." I hope you will be enriched by it.

Elizabeth L. Wilson

December 2, 2008

For six years now, I have taught a college course that features a unit on Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.   You remember this story: a line of men are chained in a cave, facing the wall.  Shadow images are being projected against the wall in front of them by a “puppet master,” and the men truly only see shadows and hear echoes.  One of the men breaks free, and slowly finds his way out of the cave.  Once his eyes adjust – first to the direct firelight in the cave, then to the dark passageway, then finally to the direct sunlight – he realizes that the “reality” of life is what he sees outside the cave, and the source of that life is the Sun.  Rather than stay free in the outside world, however, he chooses to go back, potentially to take on a leadership role and inform his fellow cave mates of the new reality outside and their ability to experience it rather than the “unreality” of the cave.  But once he returns to the cave, the prisoner is chained up again, and the other men attack him for talking insanity.

The students and I discuss the Allegory in the context of learning and freedom – what “chains” were they in early in their lives, and what steps have they taken to break the chains and move towards the light --- enlightenment, freedom, knowledge?  Once they attain the education they seek, do they know what they might want to do once they re-enter society, to help the world?

This topic has had a particular resonance for me.  Since abandoning a church music career in the 1980’s, I have been on my own spiritual journey.  I have questioned everything – the traditional notion of God, the apparent male gender of God in the major religious traditions, and searched for a spiritual paradigm that would work for me.  This journey took me literally all over the map, and yet spiritually, I’d have to say it took me inward.  Through journaling, artwork, discussion with friends and reading, I have analyzed the world’s spiritual landscape, my own spiritual landscape, and the human condition, from deep within myself.  I guess you could say I have been a modern-day contemplative nun, minus the church or religious setting.

As I read and re-read the Allegory of the Cave every semester, its superficial appeal to me as a spiritual traveler has begun to give way to troubling questions.  Why is it that the Allegory seems almost “reversed” to me?  Why is it that I feel my journey has taken me “underground” to a place where I am not seen or heard, not out into the open? Why does the metaphor of the distant sun as the “Source” feel so impersonal and unsatisfying?  Why do I find the metaphor of the enchained prisoners so very sad, and the mysterious puppet master/jailer/tyrant so creepy?  Is this really the best metaphor for our human existence? Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, why would Plato have written something that makes the process of returning to the world seem so hopeless and depressing?  Will I, too, return to the “cave” only to be chained up, deprived of my freedom, and verbally or physically attacked by humanity?  If I am intended to take on a leadership role, how will I ever survive long enough to do so?  The whole thing seems oppressive and ultimately uninspiring.  It becomes harder and harder each semester to present this model to students.

I know, however, that this scenario has played out many times over the course of history.  Look at Jesus, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr. – unique, heroic, inspiring men attacked and killed as they began their destinies as leader.  The blame for these events can hardly be placed at Plato’s door.  He was only reflecting his own reality, having seen the deaths of Socrates and others.  Is this kind of scenario reflective of a male perspective that I still, after five decades, can’t quite grasp? Yet this best known centerpiece of The Republic has been read by thousands, or perhaps millions, of people over the centuries, and has inevitably entered our communal consciousness.  How many tyrants have found in it justification for their tyranny? How many wise ones have returned into the world, assuming they would be attacked or martyred?  And how many other wise ones have just simply opted not to return to the “real world” – or have covered over their immense gifts – out of fear of attack?

Many of us have been considering “The Law of Attraction,” and it makes me wonder if such a profoundly influential piece of writing has actually caused us to create and recreate oppressive societies in our world, and tragic ends for those who attempt to break free and model wisdom.  (I know that at almost every step of my own journey, I have expected to be ignored, rejected, deprived of financial and moral support, and that this has frequently been the case – with the notable exception of some of my best female friends.  Even as I write this, about to sink under an unmanageable load of debt, I still hear myself saying, “That’s your form of martyrdom, Liz, your tragic end.  No matter how heroic or worthy your efforts to self-actualize, there’s no happy ending in the cave, and you are silly to expect one.”)

Yet I want a happy ending, gosh darn it!  I want it for me, and I want it for the world.  I began to wonder whether the Allegory could be re-written in such a way that would seem more hopeful, especially for women, but potentially for all 21^st century men and women. Could a new story “attract” the makings of a more love-filled future?  I can’t know that yet.  But I do know that writing the attached has made me feel truly hopeful for the first time in 52 years.  And that’s a start.

So I offer this alternative Allegory...

Imagine a human society living relatively happily, despite the inevitable stresses and strains of living.  This community lives on the surface of a gorgeous world of natural wonders and human inventiveness.  Men and women live and love, grow food, grow their communities, laugh, cry, delight, get dirty, get rich, get poor, but overall have a free and abundant life experience on the planet.

Then imagine a young woman, we’ll call her Eila, who has been happy and free, and who has experienced marvelous adventures in the course of her life.  One day, she said to herself, “What is the source of all this joyful abundance? I am grateful, but I can’t quite tell to what!  To whom?  What is my Source?  Where does the energy of life come from?”

Several months later, not far from the community, Eila found the entrance to a cave.  Curious, she decided to explore, flashlight in hand.  At the beginning, the passageway was rough and rocky, but she was so excited to be exploring new territory that she didn’t mind the discomfort.  Her eyes were having trouble adjusting to the dark, and as time went by, and she started to struggle for her footing, she started to question her decision to come into the cave.  She tripped and fell, and at one point even sat on a rock and sobbed.  “What on earth did I decide to do this for?”  In the dank, dark passageway, she began not only to question her decision to explore, but also everything in the world above that she’s just left.  Maybe it wasn’t so great after all.  Whatever negatives she had ever experienced in life were suddenly magnified in the dark, and she became angry and sullen, at herself and at a world that didn’t look so bright any more.  She wasn’t sure she wanted to continue with her journey, but going back home suddenly didn’t seem very enticing either.

Suddenly her ears perked up.  What was she hearing?  She couldn’t quite describe it as music or as sound, but there was a vibration coming from further down in the cave that intrigued her.  She stood up and decided to move forward.  In the circle cast by her flashlight, she noticed that the passageway was slowly getting wider and smoother, and increasingly beautiful.  Other travelers had been before her, and left artwork and designs on the wall, many of which seem to portray a powerful female form.  All at once, Eila recognized this as being an image of the Goddess, the deep Source of all life.  The vibrational sounds that she had begun to hear started to sound more and more like music, as if all the music she had ever heard was playing at once and creating a denser and denser wall of fantastic sound.  The colors in the passageway were getting warmer and warmer, and the artwork began to be more and more joyful.  Eila knew that she was getting closer to her goal, and, as she turned a corner, a huge archway opened up into an enormous circular, cavernous room. 

The ceilings were high, and the walls were covered floor to ceiling with extraordinary artwork and geometric designs.  Energy fields seemed to be dancing to this mysterious but amazing music, and light filled the room, both torches and energy-light.  Intricate patterns of marble and precious stones lined the floor and indicated, as if it were not obvious, the way to the center of the room.

Seated there on a modest throne was the Source of all life.  To call her the Goddess wasn’t enough, and Eila could barely look at her. Dressed in reds of various hues, she wasn’t enormously big or powerful looking.  It was unclear how old this woman was or even, upon closer examination, whether she was a woman at all.  She had some features that are somewhat animal-like (or was it bird-like?), and there was energy swirling around her in joyful, brilliant currents.

The Goddess spoke.  “Come near me, dear one.”

Eila, who was barely breathing, walked as strong and tall as she could, eyes forward in awe and wonder.  As she approached, the Mother stood up, opened her arms, and enfolded her saying, “I have been waiting for you dear one.”

The young woman allowed herself to be unfolded.  She had experienced love and joy on life’s surface, she had smiled and laughed and always taken part in life most enthusiastically.  But to have the Source of all life, the Great Mother, encircle her in her arms was an experience beyond all other experiences.  For the first time, she understood the roots beneath her earthly existence.  She understood her connection to all other beings, to all the cells of earth, to all the stars in the sky.  She understood love, she felt love, she was love. And she was being loved so profoundly that she felt – briefly – that a return to the surface of life would not be necessary.  How would any experience compare, ever, ever again?  How would she be able to concentrate on the day-to-day experiences of planting, cooking, working, reading, painting, loving, cleaning, childrearing? 

She tried to stop thinking.  Just to be held by the Source of all life long enough to feel at one with that loving energy, that extraordinary power, was life changing.  It was enough.  The rest would take care of itself. 

How much time elapsed? Ten minutes? Ten hours?  Ten days? Ten years?  She didn’t know.  But finally, our heroine knew she was ready.

Slowly, she disengaged from the Mother’s arms.  The Great Mother beamed at her with absolute and total love.

“Mother, what can you teach me? I mean, nothing is quite perfect up there on the surface.  There must be many things you wish to tell me.”

“Just being here, you have learned all you need to know.  Love is all there is.”

“But what about healing?”

“Love.”

“What about prosperity?”

“Love.”

“What about feeding people?”

“Love.”

“What about bringing up boys and girls?”

“Love.

“Is there nothing else I need to learn?”

“Not really, dear.  Feel the love and energy that I have shared with you, and pass it along to every person and situation you meet.  Be in love with that life on the surface of earth.  It is there TO love and to share.  Support your creative people, and be joyful.”

“But don’t you want to be worshipped?  I mean, what can I do to honor you?  Ceremonies? Offerings?”

The Goddess smiled.  “No worship.  Just love.”

She hugged Eila one more time, and wiped the few tears that had brimmed up in her eyes. “Now, it’s time for you to go home.”

Eila cringed.  “But my home is with you!”

“No dear, your home is your home.  I am the source of energy, of all life, but it must have an outlet out on the surface of life.  I power your home, but you need to be there to live.  Take care of it, dear.  Tell the people to take care of earth.  It is their home at this time and needs to be loved.”

“Yes, mother.” With one last hug, Eila got up the courage to leave.  She backed up slowly, then, with a small, shy wave, said goodbye to her Mother and turned around.

“Dear girl...” the Great Mother added.

“Yes...” Eila turned around for one last look.

“One more thing. Circles.”

“Circles?”

“Your world still needs to balance out all the sharp edges and boundaries with circles.  Tell the people to think circular.”

“OK.”  For a moment, she was silent as she tried to remember it all. “Bye!  Thank you!” Eila turned and walked out of the archway once more, the joyful sounds of energy music singing in her ears.

The trip back to the surface was hard for the young woman, however.  She walked slowly, not wanting to leave the warmth, love and safety of this environment that she had so briefly been nourished in.  The artwork in the passageway – so colorful and bright near the center of the world – grew more sparse as she walked upward.  Seeing colored chalk near the floor, she added her own drawing of the Goddess to the ever-expanding exhibit, but with some sadness in her heart, because she knew a drawing wasn’t the same as the real thing.  The reds and golds and oranges of the passageway began to give way to cooler greys, browns, and blueish-black stone.  So open and passable near the center, the passage became narrower and rockier.  She stumbled and felt teary.  She knew she had to leave the Goddess, but couldn’t it be easier?  She stumbled on a rock and fell, this time gashing her knee quite seriously and blood began to pour out.  She wrapped a handkerchief around it, but just then her flashlight stopped working.  It was clammy, pitch black, and she was feeling her way nearly on hands and knees.  She could at this point barely remember what the Goddess’s beautiful home had been like, much less her own home.  Should she go back or forward?  At this point, she just didn’t have the energy to decide...since she was facing forward, she would continue heading out of the cave.

Suddenly, she became aware of a dim light ahead of her.  The light grew and grew as she went forward.  She called out, hoping someone would hear her and help her, because she was exhausted almost beyond belief, but no one heard.  Soon, she knew she was only yards from the cave entrance, and would soon be returning to friends and family, and “reality.”

Eila stood up with difficulty, her eyes blinking in the now-unaccustomed light.  She said a prayer that she might be worthy of telling what she had experienced.  She had been gone so long – would anyone even know her anymore?  One or two last steps brought her out of the cave.

The small homes and public buildings of her community were visible in the distance.  It was a warm sunny summer day, and the fields were shimmering with bright light.  She had to close her eyes a few times to acclimate herself.

Slowly, Eila began to make her way to the village.  At one point, it occurred to her that there was still time to turn back, to retreat back to the cave and disappear into the heart of the Goddess, the heart of her Source.  There she could be surrounded by these profound energies of love forever, and never again experience them in even slightly distilled form.  She stopped in her tracks.  No one could see her yet.  There was still time.  The temptation to retreat was so strong. 

But she remembered the Goddess’s instructions, to go home, to love, to be at the surface where love met oxygen and became life.  She knew that the Goddess wanted her to live and do Her work in the world, and that such a path required somewhat more courage than retreating.  She glanced back at the cave entrance, envisioned the Goddess’s encouragement, and then faced forward and began to walk again.

The footpath met the main road into town, and as she began the last phase of her journey, some tension mounted in her.  What if her friends and family had forgotten her?  What if they had rejected her? What if they didn’t believe her story?  She shivered and hesitated once again. But in the end, she knew and trusted a Goddess who would not desert her at this crucial moment.

She saw people in the fields and the street ahead of her.  As she neared, she strained to see if these were the same people she had left – how long ago was it?  All at once, she realized she was being noticed.  One by one, heads turned in her direction and then, almost as one body, the crowd shouted for joy and raced toward her and surrounded her.  Yes! These were the very friends she knew, slightly older but not much.  One day, she’d ask how long she had been gone, but not today.

How many people hugged her and loved her that day?  Too many to count.  Everyone exclaimed that they had missed her and everyone – herself included – was in tears over this blessed reunion.

Where had she been? As that question surfaced, the noise of the crowd began to dim in expectation.  Eila knew they wouldn’t judge her.  Even if she had simply wandered aimlessly for ten years, they would still love and support her.  So she knew she could tell the truth.

So she told them.  She had taken the long passage to the center of the world to find the Source of all life, the Goddess.  That the Goddess had held her and nurtured her and infused her with love and wonder, then instructed her to return home and spread love, honor creativity, and “remember the circle.”  Eila stopped and self-deprecatingly acknowledged that she wasn’t sure she was completely worthy of this honor.

The crowd listened, rapt.  From out of the crowd, a woman emerged who Eila recognized as the leader of the community, Sage.  There was a hush as Sage came forward and stood before Eila.

“Dear one, do not be afraid, embarrassed or feel unworthy.  Indeed, you were worthy before you went on this journey, and you are even worthier now.  Only a handful of men and women take this journey every generation.  It takes a lot of courage to leave the safety of the community.  Yet as free people, we can all make the choice to do so.

“I am the leader of this community because, many years ago, I took the same journey you did.  You don’t remember? That’s because it was when you were very young.  When I returned, this is what happened – for a full year, I was honored and served and supported by the community.  It was a way for people to say, ‘well done. You did something that I couldn’t do, and I’m grateful.’ I did not return to my previous occupation – it took a full year to re-adjust to the energies of life on the surface, and I needed an intense period of nurturing.  I also was asked to write about my experiences and to express them through poetry, art and song which I shared with the community.

“Then, on the one year anniversary of my return, the leader of the community, who had taken me under her wing, handed over the leadership role, and I have been leader ever since.  This is a challenging job, Eila, but one that I have had the courage to do only because I had experienced the unconditional love of the Great Mother and of this community.  I have done my best to operate from that place of love every day, and knew that some man or woman would eventually follow their curiosity to the heart of the Mother.  I rejoice that you have done so, not because I wish to relinquish my leadership role, but because I know that it is the Goddess’s intention that leadership keeps changing and that people and societies keep growing. The important question is, do you accept this challenge?  After a year of support and time to process your experience, will you accept the role of leader of this community?  And will you take on that role gladly, knowing that you may inspire even more people to take the wisdom journey? Your time as leader may be short or long, but when the moment comes, you must pass it along.”

Eila closed her eyes.  She could immediately see the face of the Goddess, her immense love and pride.  She remembered, too, the Goddess’s admonition about circles and knew intuitively that the more people took the Goddess journey, the more people would be in the community’s circle of wise ones.  She felt committed both to leadership as well as release of leadership.

“I accept this path that the Goddess has opened up for me.  With the help of this wonderful community, and your guidance, Sage, I will do my best to model wisdom, courage and the love of the Goddess in everything that I do.”

Sage beamed and hugged Eila.  With that, the entire community shouted with joy, pledging their love and support indefinitely.  Almost without prompting, the crowd moved as one to the Great Hall and began preparing the greatest celebratory feast in a generation.  Eila didn’t have to lift a finger, which was good, because the exhaustion of her journey had begun to take hold.  After many hours of celebration, Eila slept for a full day, and woke up the next day in the knowledge that her journey had mattered, that her community was fully supportive, that they were giving her the luxury of time to adjust to her new role, but that the most important job of her life was only a year away.  She smiled as she felt the energy of the Goddess surging through the earth, her feet and legs, and her whole body.  With joy, she knew she was up to the task. 

After a year of creative processing, nurturing and training for leadership, another celebration took place where Eila formally accepted the role of leader from Sage.  Sage remained her most trusted advisor, along with several other former leaders and male and female wise ones.

Eila’s community thrived under her leadership, and she relished her role.  It sometimes actively troubled her that so many people seemed complacent and happy, and unwilling to take their own journeys of discovery, but she knew that eventually an unusual being would do so.  One day, about eight years later, it became common knowledge that a young man of about 18 had gone missing.  No one knew where he had gone.  “You know boys,” they said. “He’s just off sowing his wild oats.  He’s chasing after girls, fame and fortune.”

Eila wasn’t so sure.  She remembered this child as being one who had hugged her particularly hard on her return nine years ago, and she had noticed in him, from time to time since then, and his unusual level of wisdom for his age.  His name was Ben.  Could it be that he had taken the journey into the cave?  She hoped so, knowing it would be a great model for other young men, but she tried not to think about it.

The following summer, as she worked in the field planting a lettuce crop, Eila was the first to notice him.  He’d grown up and was taller and walking with more confidence.  Eila smiled broadly, and stood up to walk forward to greet him.  Around her, others were standing up and beginning to cheer and shout with joy.  As Eila approached Ben, and looked in his eyes, she saw the love of the Goddess, and knew instantaneously that her period of leadership was drawing to a close.  The cycle continued and the circle was growing.  Inwardly, she thanked the Goddess as she welcomed him back home.