I'm glad...

At the end of a year, a writer is faced with the temptation of trying to be unusually brilliant. I would so like to find a way to encapsulate it all, to be inspiring, to articulate this remarkable year's "perfect" epitaph. And yet, what with the proverbial one thing after another, and in the face of almost epic world events, I'm just glad to reach this particular finish line. All I seem to have the energy to do is to present one of my "lists of ten," in no particular order.

1. I am so glad to get to the end of 2016. Yes I am. It has been indescribable, personally, and much more so for the world. It has been catalytic, and it certainly has been revealing. If I thought it were possible, I'd ask the Universe for a year off for all of us to take stock of what's going on, but I don't think it works that way. The best we may get is a quiet weekend. So, 2016, thanks for being a great teacher. Please give all of us the strength to deal with the new factors you birthed!
2. I am so glad to be in a warm house with two sleeping but personable cats.
3. I am so glad that my computer (at least temporarily) came back to life and got me to the end of the year, and maybe beyond.
4. I'm glad I travelled to England this past spring and heard choral evensong in a number of new (to me) settings. I am glad that, while I may be "done" with many things, this specific place and this specific tradition remain alive at my core.
5. I'm glad for my dear readers, and my dear friends.
6. I am glad to be me. Wow. Yes, it's true. I'm glad to be all the wonderful and challenging things that I am. No amount of money would tempt me to be someone else.
7. On the same note, I am glad to be a woman of almost 61. This "sixty" thing has been unexpectedly liberating. You just stop wanting to hide your light under a bushel. You just stop being afraid of being laughed at.
8. I'm still only at the baby step phase, but I am so glad to be exploring the divine feminine, and the real meaning and power of love.
9. I'm glad for my increased understanding of how the law of attraction works.
10. Lastly, I'm glad because I believe all of us have the tools and resources deep in us to grow stronger and wiser in the face of 2017's challenges.

Thanks, all. I love you and wish you the best that can be in the new year! Liz

Ladders

Several threads seem to be converging, with me in a little house with a woodstove and two cats, and snowflakes wafting down.

The first, which I'll just "put out there," is a concept that a friend introduced me to around 25 years ago: that life is like a ladder, and we are all going up, rung by rung. For the most part, the people who are meant to "help" us are the ones on the rung above ours, and the ones who we are meant to help are those on our same rung or the rung or two below us. As well-meaning as it may be, it is counterproductive for us to leave our step and go back ten or twenty rungs and try to be helpful, because we really are not the right person for that job, just as someone way above us isn't going to be very effective helping us. I'm not sure where this friend had read or heard this, but it has at times been a wonderful reminder. Arguably the people we are the most likely to influence in our lives are people somewhere near our same stage of spiritual evolution, and then the wave of assistance will work its way along the ladder.

These dark mid-winter days haven't been entirely serene. I found myself two days ago in sort of a pique of passion about all the things, people, places, situations, and mindsets I am "done" with. In my personal journal, I wrote in big, loose, capital letters, "I AM DONE WITH ___," "I AM DONE WITH ___," for several pages. Some of the things on the list weren't too surprising, but some were. In the end, most of these things just have no spark or resonance for me any more. I'm bored with them, done with them. I've outgrown them. I've learned the life lesson I needed to learn from them in this lifetime, and now it's time to move forward. There has been a bit of disorientation in this. I mean, you can be on such a deliberate spiritual path and yet still be surprised by the heavy boulders that are weighing down your coat pocket, and unsure about how to proceed once they are tossed aside. It's not a judgment of these things, overall. Just a sense of, thanks, but now I'm done. I've graduated.

I happened across this quote online this morning, by inspirational teacher Iyanla Vanzant: "Release and detach from every person, every circumstance, every condition, and every situation that no longer serves a divine purpose in your life. All things have a season, and all seasons must come to an end..."  To shamelessly mix all these metaphors, I guess the message I keep getting is not to fear stepping onto that next rung, and to do it completely. If a season is over, if a series of lessons is over, it doesn't mean life is over. It simply means it is time to move up the ladder toward greater expansion and life. It is OK to move, even if others aren't moving as fast, even if no one understands, even if events in the world seem to be more important than you, or even if you aren't clear exactly what is on that next step.  It is not only "OK" to move forward, it is exactly what we are here to do.  

Another soft-ish landing

As is so often the case, this isn't exactly the post I intended to write today. The one I wrote in my head in the middle of the night was inspired by the fact that yesterday, I thought my computer had completely died. I hadn't used it on Christmas Day, and yesterday morning, I got up early and answered some important emails, checked the weather, etc.  Then I put it into sleep mode, cleaned the woodstove, gathered some new wood, and put birdfeed into the feeder. When I came back, nothing seemed to be working, the screen, the touch pad, control-alt-delete,  escape, even the on-off button. I ended up listening to the fan whir until the battery died, and blessed it and wrote it off as dead. People always talk about Mercury retrograde (which we are in) being hard on electronics, and I figured my well-worn computer had succumbed.

This morning, I decided to plug in the charger and just see...after 45 minutes, I turned on the "on" button, and lo and behold, here we are. It is working. It's a Christmas miracle, literally, because I had walked through a whole process of letting go, talking myself into envisioning a newer computer, accepting a better reality that better suits my needs, and I never despaired or freaked out. This may only be a reprieve, and overall it is time for a brand new (not six or seven year old) machine, but somehow facing the reality calmly led to a soft-ish landing. And as you know, I am the Queen of those.

I had so many other things on my mind, but I think I won't press my luck today. I'll just express my gratitude that there's a little life in the old girl yet. My computer and I have something in common.

Lessons and Carols

I don't remember a time when the service of Nine Lessons and Carols (as sung at King's College, Cambridge) was not a part of my life. The men and boys' choir at my home church of St. George's, Schenectady sang it, as did the pick-up choir at tiny St. John's Church in Essex, NY in the 1970's when I came home from college. For a long time, I owned an old Argo record of the service from King's, and then starting in the late 1980's, public radio began to broadcast it live on Christmas Eve morning (mid-afternoon in England), and this tradition continues. ("Check your local station for listings.")

My yearly Christmas Eve "settings" might constitute a book in itself, if I could only remember them all: thirty floors up in an office on New York's Sixth Avenue, answering letters; at a cash register at a toy store or stationer; on an airplane; racing around in a car doing last minute Christmas shopping with the service on the radio; two years ago, listening to the broadcast from Gloucestershire, England, as the sun was setting over still-green hills out the window. In 2010, I joined the choir of New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine just in time to sing multiple Christmas services, and what a thrill that was. But by far the most memorable Lessons and Carols experience happened back when I lived in Duluth, Minnesota in the early 1990's. For several years in a row, this was my Christmas Eve morning routine: Duluth was (as mentioned several blogs ago) absolutely frigid in late December, and the extreme cold made for an extraordinary, roiling, steaming lake, a sight to behold. I would drive my little red car up the north shore towards Two Harbors, and park in a little pull-off just in time for the service to start. Keeping the car engine and heat on, I sat, mesmerized by the lake's unique "show," listening to every second of the service, from the treble solo that opens "Once In Royal David's City" to the final Bach postlude, In Dulci Jubilo. I basically know the service, and most of its readings, anthems and carols by heart, so I spoke and sang along with tears absolutely pouring down my cheeks. At that point, I had "deep-sixed" English church music, believing girls and women would never have any real opportunities to sing it. I think I found my way to Duluth precisely because it was a world away from the music I loved entirely too much. But every Christmas Eve, I allowed myself this one broadcast and one good cry over my life's strange incongruities. As the service came to an end, I dried my eyes, put my car into drive, and headed back to Duluth where I had a standing invitation to a Scandinavian feast complete with lutefisk, lefse, mashed potatoes, sugar cookies, and white foods of every description. I'm so grateful to the friends who have regularly included me so wholeheartedly in their celebrations, and for the exposure to other traditions and tastes.

Tomorrow, for that ninety minutes, I'll be with a friend who also wants to listen to the broadcast, and we'll cook and bake while singing along to carols. (I hope this aligns with the spirit of the thing!) I've learned a lot of lessons in my six decades of Lessons and Carols, not the least of which is that time and space aren't quite what we think they are. An actual physical presence isn't absolutely necessary for loving participation in this kind of tradition. But having said that, I've also made a decision. Christmas Eve afternoon 2017, I will be in Cambridge, England, lining up to attend the service in person. Because it is time, isn't it? It is time.

May all of you have a beautiful weekend, whatever tradition you are observing, whatever music you are singing, whatever warmth you are choosing to chase the cold and dark away. Blessings, all.

Solstice

When you own as little as I do, packing for a two-week stay away is basically the equivalent of moving entirely. There's an hour or two of total chaos as you try to re-organize things into bags, and decide on what few things will stay behind. Then, presto, out the door to a friendly ride and off you go. The last 24 hours have consisted of getting trained in the art of the latest pet-sitting job and staying out of the way of the friends heading, themselves, off on a trip.

And now, at 2 PM on the solstice, total silence except for the sound of wood crackling in the wood stove and the Christmas music I'm going to play periodically the next few days. There is no TV where I am, so for the most part I'll be able to shut out the worst of the world's demands, and hold an energy of calm. How very, very thankful I am for this moment. I know how few people have the privilege of regularly experiencing such peace.

For today, I am not going to try to visualize or manifest or make anything happen. For today, silence and stillness. For today through the weekend, the year's darkest days, may we all have a "stille nacht," and a few sparkling stars for good measure.

No No

One of the main premises of law of attraction thinking, articulated in numerous Abraham Hicks talks and in the writings of other New Thought writers and metaphysicians, is that there is no "no" in the divine mind. I've written about this before, but it has been on my mind again, both in terms of my own life and the scenario unfolding before us.

The concept is this: this is an attraction-based universe, where people and situations of like energies bond with each other. Attention itself is a form of attraction, and if I say "no" to something, I'm having to look at it long enough to say "no." If I say, "heck, no," my attention level to the thing I don't like rises, and if I become apoplectic about the thing I dislike -- if I begin to hate it and rise up to fight it -- from the standpoint of law of attraction, I am in fact saying "yes" to it. By giving something constant, emotional, negative attention, I am in fact helping to create it as a reality as much as if I were saying "yes."

I am the poster child for No No, as most of you know (!) By age six, all I wanted to do in the world was to sing English cathedral music, and by ten, I wanted to live in England and be the first woman conductor of the Choir of King's College, Cambridge. Yet at 60, I am still living in the U.S., having never had job satisfaction, livable income, or permanent connection to this tradition except what I hear on records or online. I have experienced a few glorious moments of alignment, but nothing remotely permanent. I can see how the early "no" ("girls cannot sing this music") translated into a domino effect of outer and inner "no's." I tried over the years to say "yes" instead to a variety of American life options and to shift gears to other interests, yet after a short time, my inner "no" would come out. I'd say, "No, this isn't right for me," and move on to another place or situation that wasn't inherently right for me either, eventually saying "no" before moving on yet again. Not only did I lose sight of myself in a sea of "no's," everyone around me lost faith in me. I've had so-called friends joke about how they thought I was dead, and in a sense, I have been, because I've been exiled from my life passion, my personal conduit to Divine Love. 

How does this relate to this extraordinary international moment? As I observe the pushback to this unfortunate path we are on, I am struck by the fact that it is essentially (and understandably) a great big "no," a great big "heck, no." My heart sinks, because I know what that means. Unwittingly, the "no's" are saying "yes" to this path, yes to these horrifying trends. We think we are doing the right thing by saying "no," but we are co-creating the very thing we fear. We are co-creating our own exile from the values we love, our own "death."

There is nothing harder in the world than to detach from your "no" long enough to vividly and lovingly envision your "yes." It goes literally against all of human history, which has been one dramatic fight "against" after another. But I'm setting a goal for myself these next two weeks, when I will live quietly, pet-sitting for friends in the country. I plan to focus almost entirely on my lifelong dream. I plan to envision it and feel its beautiful energy daily for hours at a stretch. At 60 I won't become that exact choir director or achieve success in the traditional way, and that is OK. But there is still some way to live my dream that only a consistent "yes" can create. "Yes" is the only path to life. In terms of the national and international scenario, I will try my hardest to envision what I know most of us want: enlightened leadership, a world where everyone is validated, accepted and supported, and where everyone honors and cares for our earth home. I invite my small but hardy band of "Liz Path" readers to spend these two weeks saying "yes" to what they really want, not "no" to what they don't want. And let's see what this New Year brings!

I'll check in in a few days to let you know how it's going.

Brr...

Yesterday, I stood for about ten minutes waiting for the bus to a job. (Sharing the bus shelter with me was a shattered television, all broken glass and sharp metal.) It was eight AM, and about minus 5 degrees F, with a wind chill of at least minus 15. After years of living in Duluth, Minnesota, I should have been used to it, but I guess I'm no longer as hardy as I used to be. All I could think of was, if the news reports about the incoming cabinet are even partially true, and the combined wealth of only 17 individuals exceeds that of a huge proportion of the rest of the U.S. population, I guess it is safe to assume that public transportation is unlikely to be a high priority in upcoming years. Have any of these people even taken a bus or a subway in the last twenty years or so? Have they got any clue?

This weekend, I am holding the members of the electoral college in the light. It's not necessarily that I think there will be a major surprise (although that would be darned interesting! My hunch is that an avalanche has been triggered that will just have to go its course.) However, I hope that all of these folks will listen to their gut feelings and have the courage to align with the best truth they can find within them. Yesterday I heard someone say, "We were meant for these times," and that is true of all of us in our unique roles.

Speaking of Duluth, two astonishing photographs of my former home showed up online yesterday. One was of "sea smoke" (formed by frigid air hitting a relatively warm Lake Superior) parting in the shape of a heart to reveal the sunrise. The other was of a fifteen-or-twenty-foot ice-filled wave rolling down the center of the lake. Those waves used to literally crash into the beach outside my window, creating ever-changing mountains of ice. One of the things I loved about my experience out there was coming to understand the overwhelming power of nature. It's reassuring to remember that the human power games we are watching just don't hold a candle to it.

Brr...

As if...

I won't lie. Yesterday (Wednesday, December 14) was a hard day. After listening to such amazing, forward-thinking, wise speakers on The Shift Network's leadership forum late last week, the three early days of this week proved to be excruciating. The old-paradigm, "boot stamping on a human face forever" (Orwell, 1984) kind of "power over" other humans seemed to be the only model in the spotlight. By yesterday, I had returned to the same stupor I was in on Wednesday, November 9th, five weeks ago. Is it possible? This month-plus feels like years.

People are saying that the only antidote to these developments is to respond, to do something to counter the insanity. And yet sometimes I feel like my whole life has been an inner or outer response/reaction to others' lack of humanity, and I am exhausted. As if I would knowingly be cruel to anyone. As if I would kill another person. As if I would want to hold another person in slavery, have power over them, or eradicate their humanity or God-given inner power. As if I would disallow a qualified person from any position based on gender, origin or other superficial factor. As if I would ever want to profit unduly when others were losing. As if I would ever claim one acre of Mother Earth as my personal property. As if, as if, as if...Since I have no compulsion to do these things, is it really my only option to spend one more minute of my increasingly short lifespan reacting? I keep going back to this topic because it is so hard to find or focus on my personal, genuine, active passions right now, things that have nothing to do with others' misdeeds. Not surprisingly, these people are sucking all of the oxygen out of the room. It takes all my energy just to keep breathing.

I wrote most of this essay in the middle of the night, and I could not sleep at all, a testament to how thoroughly this time is unsettling me and, I am sure, countless others. I pulled an oracle card to help keep me going today, and got "Dawn: New Beginnings." It certainly is a new beginning. Earlier this year I played around with the metaphor of the boat going through a lock into a new, higher stretch of river. I'm beginning to think that I inadvertently touched on a theme applicable to the whole world, not just to me. Maybe these so-called strongmen, still thinking that the old rules apply, are having a fit because the lock gates have closed on them and boats are sailing into the new stretch of river without them. It helps me to realize that as loud as the clamor is right now, as my boat continues to head downstream, the screams of pain, self-righteousness and outrage will become less and less audible. It is a new beginning on a river of love. Ultimately, those who lack a measure of kindness and caring for others will simply not make it in this new landscape. They are not energetically compatible, not as they are now. I just have to hold firmly to the tiller of my own little boat and encourage my dear friends and kindred spirits to do the same in theirs. Find whatever oxygen you can find. Breathe. Keep your boat upright. And keep going, a day at a time.

Qualifiers

If my dear readers could be "flies on the wall," so to speak, they would see an energetic editing process right before I post my essay.

Even after fifteen or sixteen months of writing this blog, I continue to struggle to write clear, concise prose with no self-inflicted "wounds." In writing, as in some of my verbal communication, I still habitually qualify the most important things I say with weak, apologetic, fuzzy phrases like "kind of," "sort of," "just," "I think," and "maybe." There is a place for qualifiers in academic or legal writing and journalism if you don't have all the facts and you need to make exceptions or uncertainties clear, and I'm pretty careful about that. But the situations I am referring to are when I am incapable of stating my own opinion or telling stories of my own life without diminishing myself. I don't know if this is a result of my upbringing, my generation, being a woman of my generation, being a woman, or all of the above, but it's a serious uphill climb for me. In my first draft, I simply do not see what I am doing, and it takes about half a dozen readings for me to weed out the worst of the wobble. And of course it is a process that works both ways. There would be no vacillation in my writing if I completely and fearlessly believed in my right to have a voice. I am making progress in all these areas (and I just edited out this sentence's introductory "I think"!)

Why is this important? Now more than ever, the world needs honesty, clarity, and self-confidence in those who have previously been silent. Not boasting, just solidity and inner power. I keep reminding myself: I am "qualified" to write about my own life and opinions. No qualifiers necessary.

Drama

I struggled a bit starting this, not because there is too little to say, but potentially too much. In the end, I'm trying to at least embrace the fascination of living in a moment where the "dramatic structure" (I didn't know until now that it is called "Freytag's analysis") is so perfectly embodied. When I taught at the community college and my class discussed a short story, I would grab a piece of white chalk and draw a pyramid-like shape on the board, reminding students that in any story, book, movie, TV show or play, the background or context is presented, then there is a rising tide of complication and conflict, leading to a climax, crisis, or turning point, followed by a denoument, or resolution. However, never in my life have I "felt" the steep slope of the pyramid so very sharply in real world events.

There are still so many potential outcomes to this drama that prediction, while an interesting intellectual exercise, is probably unwise. What I keep holding onto is this: historically, have there ever been so many humans aligned or aligning with love and interconnectedness in a genuine, beautiful way? I doubt it. That fact won't forestall the turning point, but it may make for a softer, less painful "landing." For the foreseeable future, my prayer every morning will be, please help me to operate from a place of love. May my small little energy send out positive ripples, today. Just today.

Class Notes

When I was at Smith, there was a joke about the Seven Sisters colleges. Basically, it was, "A professor comes into the classroom and says, 'Good morning, girls'" (because in those days, they would have been likely to call us girls, or possibly "young ladies.") The joke was, how would the students from the various colleges respond? The punch line was that we Smithies would conscientiously write "Good morning, girls" in our notebooks. To this day, in any lecture, meeting or workshop situation, I take formal handwritten notes in an old-fashioned, modified outline style, sometimes complete with A's, B's, Roman numerals, indentations, etc. etc. I cannot not take notes.

So it is that, although I wasn't able to listen to all the interviews presented in Shift Network's Leadership Roundtable, I compiled over twenty pages of notes from the ones I did hear. The event was inspiring as all get-out. If I had to summarize, the theme was that there has never been a better moment for people to align with their true life purpose and lead from that "place."

I'm going to list the handful of messages that most spoke to me -- with the caveat that these discussions were so lively and thrilling that it was impossible even for me to keep up. Go to the authors' websites or books for more information or their direct words.

• (Riane Eisler, author, founder of the Center for Partnership Studies and Caring Economy Campaign) We need to re-define what is productive, caring for people and mother earth.
• (Patricia Albere, founder of the Evolutionary Collective) An evolutionary leader is someone bringing forth a future that wouldn't happen without them...do work that is yours to do.
• (Thomas Heubl, founder of the Academy of Inner Science) The more I'm in the present, the more the future speaks through me.
• (Marcia Wieder, founder of Dream University) Say no to what isn't yours to do. If someone else can do it, it may not be ours to do. Stop putting out fires...life gave me the perfect life/challenges so I can fulfill a sacred destiny.
• (Raj Sisodia, co-founder of Conscious Capitalism Inc.) Work should be meaningful. Some people are born, live and die with their music still inside them.
• (Andrew Harvey, founder of Institute for Sacred Activism) We are in an evolutionary crucible right now, for all of us to embody the divine.
• (KC Baker, founder of WomanSpeak) Unleashing the Brilliance of Women's Voices.

Clearly, these people are "my tribe." My other tribe are in England, singing choral evensong at cathedrals. The unlikely spot where those two circles intersect must be my place of power. That is all I know today.

Class of '77

There is so much to "hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest" (thank you, Book of Common Prayer) right now that it is hard to know where to start. Fortunately, all my themes have managed to intertwine into what I hope will be a single essay.

The inspiration came, literally, out of left field, a passing reference in a New Age-y journal to a group which believes that there is a new male religious "savior" currently on the planet who has been influencing the world from behind the scenes since July of 1977, and is soon to go public. Normally, I would have ignored such an outrageous claim and outdated construct, but the specificity of the date intrigued me. It is the month that I headed out into the world after college (university) graduation, the year that many millions of women born in 1955/56 entered the adult realms of work, further education, family, and civic engagement. In America, we were the first generation of women to be told, en masse, that we could be anything we wanted to be, and if the infrastructures were not in place to make that literally come true (and in a sense, still aren't), there is no question but that we have been uniquely influential, whether quietly or openly.

I had this idea. What if over the next year, 60-something women all over the globe were to speak even more courageously and publicly about what kinds of societies, economies, health care systems, religious constructs, and educational institutions they would create from scratch, and the processes they would use? What if 60-something women could speak to their communities about our human relationship to the earth and the heavens without being interrupted, contradicted, fought, or told, "that's not the real world"? What if their audiences truly heard, read, marked, learned and inwardly digested their wisdom, and considered acting accordingly? Not all women would say the same things, but I feel certain that the ideas would be invigorating, exciting and forward-looking. The "Person of the Year" in 2017 might well be the women of the class of '77, and a camera lens wouldn't be big enough to capture all of us.

Leadership

Two in one day!

A blog or two ago, I made reference to the fact that I think I am (slowly) learning to be a leader. Well, when the student is ready...

Today, tomorrow and Thursday, there is a great series of interviews being presented on The Shift Network, the Shift Leadership Roundtable: Awakening our Full Potential Personally and Collectively. (shiftleadershiproundtable.com)

Some really, really fascinating stuff. Check it out!

PS: Joy

Yesterday, I forgot to add something to the list of life lessons I am still learning. I probably forgot several, but one has already popped to the surface thanks to author Elizabeth Gilbert (of "Eat Pray Love" fame.) She wrote in a post about how she discovered an old journal entry -- written during the worst year of her life -- where she wondered what had happened to her joy.

I thought back to the worst year of my life, and the worst day of that worst year, when I felt I had two impossible choices in front of me, declaring bankruptcy, or hiking west into the Adirondacks and sitting under a tree to wait for large animals to eat me. Joy was a concept that was so far out of my picture, I don't think I could have uttered the word. And yet that very day, an angel friend shepherded me away from the hike into the wilderness, and by the end of the week, I had received an invitation to a US concert by "my" English choir, Royal Holloway. That was the return, if not to stability, at least to remembering what brings me joy.

One month ago today, we all experienced a watershed moment, one that will continue to resonate down the years. Many of us were completely drained of our joy and optimism. I'd say that a good 90% of the time these last four weeks, that sense of bewilderment and emptiness has persisted in me. And yet...there have been moments of intense personal joy, as well as indications that positive, uplifting, and beautiful events are happening in the world, possibly with as much momentum as the negative.

So this is what I'll add to yesterday's list. "I am learning not to forget joy." Joy. Beauty. Goodness. Love. They shouldn't be an afterthought. They are life's essence. Note to self...

Life Lessons

One of the hardest aspects of the last few weeks, for me, wasn’t the election result itself, but watching the momentum of reaction to the election. Although I totally understand the impulse to “fight hate,” “hate prejudice” and “push back against violence,” the fact is that hating hate equals hate. I know that there will be valid, constructive non-violent protests, and I am glad of it, but for me to take part I will have to be convinced that the energy is completely creative of a loving new paradigm, not a reaction to the old one. That's a difficult distinction sometimes.

So to figure out my role in the hurricane we are poised on the edge of, I am assessing what life lessons I have already learned (in this or previous lifetimes), and what lessons I need to learn. This is something that perhaps one cannot do objectively, or should not attempt, but I must try because at my age I don’t want to waste one minute going over old ground.

I’ve already learned what love is, and what it is not. I have learned not to deliberately hurt people, physically or emotionally, or to be violent. Although I still deal with remnants of snobbery (when I am on the city bus or at the food shelf, I sometimes struggle with this), in the end, I know in my heart that each human being is supposed to be here, so the urge to fight them, quash them, or “send them back where they belong” is not even on my radar screen. I already know how not to personally profit off of other people (and if I’ve gone too far in the other direction, it is because I believe that we have outgrown old paradigm economic systems that “use” people and do not essentially honor each person’s best gifts.) I know the difference between truth and a lie. I know what is ethical. I know what is truly beautiful. I know what is honorable. And I know enough to know that fighting people on the other end of the spectrum -- or even focusing undue attention on them -- may never bring permanent peace. I don’t need to learn these things right now.

So what life lessons am I in the process of learning? I am learning not to hate and be ashamed of myself, which was the case for far too long. I am learning the courage to express myself openly, and to love the world enough to share my gifts. I am learning that it is OK to stand up and love what I love. I am learning to be courageous enough to go against the grain, no matter what other people think. I am learning to be courageous enough to live in a new paradigm that is yet to exist, and to try to imagine thriving within it. I am learning to trust myself. I am learning to believe in myself and my creative powers. I think I may be starting to be comfortable with notions like power and leadership. I am learning more about the laws of attraction. I am learning (or reminding myself) that nothing in life is anyone else’s fault. I am learning that everything, absolutely everything, starts within us.

How will I use these life lessons in the coming storm? I think I must simply continue to have the courage to be me. Even now, I am a quiet reproach to just about every status quo I can think of. If all I manage to do is “stay the course,” and stay alive, trying in my somewhat bumbling way to model a new paradigm, that may be enough, especially since others are waking up and doing the same. At least it’s a start.

A beautiful day

Yesterday was a beautiful day. Not weather-wise, although it wasn't too bad in that regard either. It was beautiful because of two great experiences. I spoke to a small class about the service of choral evensong, and played some representative music. There is nothing like meeting bright, thoughtful people, and being in a position to share your passion with them and field fascinating questions. I had always assumed that if my contribution to this field did not come from singing or playing the organ, I'd have to go in entirely different creative/career directions (as I did for many years.) Recently, writing (and speaking) about my church music journey has become a surprising, satisfying outlet. I feel confident and in my element, glad to use my skills even if not quite the way I expected.

Then last night, I heard an extraordinary ensemble sing a cappella medieval and Renaissance music (see my blog on November 11.) Oh how I love those parallel fourths, that early polyphony. Even though the concert hall never quite seems right for this music, I try to close my eyes and imagine fan vaulting above me. It doesn't take much work to go from listening to Hildegard of Bingen, to feeling like her 21st-century sister. Could she have imagined how popular her music would be 900 years later?  Can any human imagine such a legacy?

In between, the bus, my legs and one taxi got me where I needed to go, I met up with an old friend for late lunch, and life was good. I am thankful.