Sovereignty

Like most people, I have often set a New Years resolution, only to break it within days. This year, I am going to start a new tradition: naming a "word for the year." And for 2018, that word is "sovereignty."

In different forums recently, visionary activist Caroline Casey and author Sharon Blackie (in If Women Rose Rooted) have highlighted the Arthurian story of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle. The moral of this story is that women want sovereignty more than anything else in the world, and I woke up today almost on fire with the desire for true sovereignty. We want sole power over our own bodies, life directions, and choices. We wish to "govern" ourselves, first and foremost.

In a recent blog ("Dark Nights"), I referred to the four huge centuries-old traditions that my life seems to have challenged, wondering what I had been thinking! I have been picturing them as four random, unconnected life "jobs." Yet seeing them from the lens of female sovereignty, they suddenly seem focused, understandable and almost manageable. They were all about sovereignty, in the end. I never wanted to lose sovereignty by marrying (at least the wrong person). I want to sing the music I love, and to live where I want to live. I want the power to conceive of the Divine exactly how I see it, not to "import" (to use computer terminology) another "program." And, yes, I want the power to be valued for who I am, and to value (find worth in) what is important to me, not what some external force has determined is "worth money."

Of course, just the way I have written the above signals that I am on a learning journey toward sovereignty over my life. Language is everything, isn't it? How would I phrase these concepts if I were sovereign, and truly felt like one? I'm sure no king or queen in history ever talked about "wanting to do" things. 

1) My sovereignty is not open to question. Any partnership(s) from this point forward will be within the context of both people understanding each other's inherent divine worth and self-empowerment.

2) Somewhere within me is the power to be where I love to be, singing the music I love to sing. If I haven't yet accessed that power, at least I know that it is absolutely part of my sovereignty.

3) My sovereignty allows me to embrace as much of the Divine identity as I can, and to respect each human's effort to do the same. It is safe and natural for all of us to continue to search for a more complete understanding and articulation of Love.

4) My sovereignty allows me to continue to insist that Love (at least no harm to others or the earth) be central to my "currency," and for me to be involved in transitioning to a future love-based economic system, if indeed money ends up being necessary at all.

In 2018, "sovereignty" is my word. And it's sovereignty over my life, not others' lives, of course...What is your word for next year? May 2018 surprise us, and be the best one in years!

Post-Christmas thoughts

A few post-Christmas thoughts.

I love the Christmas story. I really do. I love the carols, the music, the centuries of medieval and Renaissance art, the legends, the imagery. As a feminist, I have to cringe my way through some of the readings and try to re-frame it all, yet it's still there, part of my life, my spiritual DNA, the holy music that surges through my veins.

A few new and old considerations made their way through me the last few days. A new one: really imagining the dirt, pain, mess and grime surrounding an outdoor birth two thousand years ago. Mary's robes couldn't possibly have been jewel tone blue, or her demeanor "meek and mild," as she gave birth under the stars or the dusty roof of a shed or cave. Let's hope the holy couple found a few women willing to boil water and help as midwives. Let's hope someone gave them rags to use for swaddling and diapers. Let's hope that (as the current joke going around the internet puts it) someone brought the equivalent of a hot dish to feed the couple for a few days, and clean water to refresh the exhausted mother and bathe the baby.

The old consideration (and this has been on my mind for decades): is there a parallel universe somewhere, where prophets foretell the birth of a wise girl child? Where her birth and life are celebrated for thousands of years in song, art, myths, peals of bells, and religious liturgies? I look at so many of my wise female friends, and in my heart, the Christmas story extends to them, to me, to all women. Somewhere in the heavens, the angels were singing when we were born, too.

Clarity

Yesterday at noon, the sun was only about two inches above the horizon (well, you know what I mean) and everything was casting oversized shadows. Telephone pole shadows were about a block long, and even inch-high ragged icy footprints in the snow cast foot-long purple-blue memories. The pale white sun on these shortest days of the year creates a unique kind of clarity; a truth so stark that it chills you to the bone, even when the temperatures don't.

Yesterday's vote will cast a long shadow. We see the selfishness, the cruelty, the lack of conscience or process, and walk carefully forward through the snow, stunned but not surprised. Everything is clear in this sharp light.

Dark Nights

Many of you probably know the phenomenon from your own spiritual journeys -- no sooner do you take a step forward in understanding things, then you are thrown backwards with a "thump." Last Friday, I wrote metaphorically about life off the merry-go-round, and by the middle of the night, the reality of feeling bruised, listening to a virtual Greek chorus saying, "What happened to Liz? Is she dead yet?" and watching the proverbial vultures circle above me was almost too much to bear. It was the darkest night of a very dark season in an even darker year for this world. I couldn't see or feel the path forward, magic or otherwise.

What got me through the weekend? Number one, honesty. When people asked me, "How are you?" I didn't give the stock reply. I said, "I'm going through a dark night of the soul." With my peeps, this was all it took to start a meaningful discussion in person, on the phone, or in an email. I wrote truthfully in my journal, and am doing my best to do so now here. Telling the truth somewhere, validating where you are "at," is crucial.

Number two, standing up and getting out. In this case, to an oasis in the wilderness, an unexpectedly good concert of medieval English and European music, with people in their 60's through 80's singing, playing crumhorns and viols and generally being exceptional musicians. They aren't dead yet, and neither am I. This "MMus in historical musicology from the University of London" perked way up, validated in another way.

Lastly (and this is where being an Aquarian mystic comes in handy), the bigger picture. I've had kind of a joke with myself for a while, that back in 1955, the Divine One (God/Goddess/Universe/Source) sat me down and said, "Have we got a job for you!" I was to break ground in areas that were unthinkable in the 1950's, being a woman who would never marry, live with a man or have any significant other, never have children, or even become a nun. I would explore the post-monotheistic world, live much of the time in a post-capitalist dimension, and of course, be an American woman trying to sing English church music. There must have been a really exceptional ethereal gin-and-tonic involved, because I thought this would be jolly good fun, and signed on the dotted line. Fast forward about 63 years to the other night, exhausted, battered and down again to my last $10, and I just couldn't see what I was thinking when I said "yes" to this laundry list of impossibilities. And yet...the world has shifted in all these areas, not due just to me but to hundreds, maybe thousands of people doing the impossible jobs they signed up for. Somewhere deep in my being, I can feel a heavenly "retirement" party starting to get into gear, because, darn it, I did my job and did it well! 10% of the time it was glorious, and about 90% if the time it was entirely too hard, but I'm not dead yet!

The cool thing is that I think I can take the lead on my post-retirement contract, and negotiate some new goals. Will that guarantee no future dark nights? No. But if I can hold onto friends, music, and the notion that I have already successfully accomplished the primary "jobs" I signed up to do in this lifetime, then the dark nights should be manageable. I dearly hope yours are too. 

Winter magic

I told someone the other day -- and this is true -- that as a child, I didn't much like fairy tales, fantasy, anything about magic or make-believe. I was having enough trouble trying to figure out the realities around me. So stories about children going through the back of wardrobes and entering magical lands, or riding animals through the sky, or swinging on a swing high up above the trees into another dimension just didn't grab me then.

It's hitting me, at this most unreal time of an unreal year, that magic may be about the only thing left that I do believe in right now. I mean, I have been off the proverbial merry-go-round for decades. For the longest time, I kept thinking maybe one day I'd make my way back on, but it's pretty clear that if anything, the gap between me and it is only growing.

So "magic" may not only be a survival tool, it may be who I am on some level that I never understood; my extensive schooling and my desire to make logical sense of the chaotic world around me almost quashed the wonder-filled little girl, but not quite. In a month or so, I will "retire": from what? From walking around in circles trying to make my way backwards, not forwards. From ignoring my intuition. From trying to get back on the merry-go-round, rather than exploring a serendipity-filled path to the future. During this dark month or so, I'm starting anew, releasing myself into wonder: What if I could fly up to the stars? What if I could walk through a snowy woods and find a foreign land on the other side? What if reading one paragraph in one book could change my life? What if there are, indeed, millions of invisible potential realities to choose from at every fork in the road? What if, what if, what if? Wouldn't it be wonder-ful?!

Metaphors

It continues to be a bit challenging to stay on top of the potential metaphors to use when speaking of the intensive process I am going through. Yes, I've referred to everything from new stretches of river, to coming about in a sailboat, to pregnancy and rebirth (did I tell you that I recently had a dream in which I was literally pregnant, the first one I ever remember?) 

This morning, a new and very apt one literally greeted me as I turned on my computer. You know how it is some evenings when you go to turn your computer off, and it says it's installing updates, then it turns itself off, and when you turn it on the next morning, it is installing yet more updates? It tells you "this may take some time," or words to that effect. Well, that seems to be my metaphor du jour. In keeping with the Advent theme of waiting, I have a feeling that a rumble of updates is going on under my surface, under the level of my conscious awareness, and that my job right now is to wait for them to completely load, at which point the "computer" that is Liz will restart. I won't have a new computer, just one capable of more complex and up-to-date thinking and acting. I will be more aligned with my own future. This waiting isn't passive, although in an action-oriented culture we are so often encouraged to think that it is. I can only imagine that at a workplace, a ten or fifteen minute wait for updates may be utterly infuriating. For a mystic, a time of limbo is just fine and dandy. But I also can't completely fall asleep, because when "I" restart, there will be a new action calling me.

Baking required

I've done quite a lot of baking this fall. I don't quite know why, except that with things so chaotic in the world, and not having kids and grandkids, I've felt the need to do something that connects me with women past, present and future. Mixing, kneading, rolling pie crusts -- when you do it, you can almost feel your hands aligned with those of millions of other women over time.

There seem to be two things I am "known for." My pies, thanks to a very simple, straightforward crust recipe given to me years ago that always comes out flaky. I don't do anything fancy, just fill the bottom crust with thinly cut up apples, a little orange or lemon juice, a little flour and about 3/4 cups of sugar mixed with a small amount of cinnamon, and several pats of butter. Then I put on the top crust and crimp the edges, poke with some holes, and it's ready to bake. These pies aren't camera-worthy -- they generally look ragtag and patched up, like something from the 1700s. But they taste delicious. Then there are my chocolate chip cookies, from an old Joy of Cooking recipe which I often adapt with some oatmeal or other cereal, or raisins or butterscotch bits rather than chocolate chips. In both cases, I no longer need to look at the recipes, and can do them by heart ("One cup and two tablespoons flour...")

People tell me I should work in a bakery. Well, I literally couldn't stand the heat. And I'm a little embarrassed to say that in a "Downton Abbey" test, I would be the Dowager Countess of Grantham, not Mrs. Patmore. But life circumstances and the time of year come together in the fall and winter, and more so this year. Much more so this year. Baking required.

Mirrors

In my two-plus years writing a blog, I don't think I have ever had as much trouble writing the next one as now. Yes, I have to respond to the astonishing tax bill. It is utterly woeful in its priorities and in the process that brought it across the finish line. Yet I am so, so tired of draining all my life energy in inner and outer protest to the way life "is," the way other people "are" or have been. Protesting people operating in an old paradigm is less important to me now than trying to survive long enough to see the birth of a new paradigm.

As someone who doesn't even understand why we humans use money at all, I guess I am not qualified to respond to the tax bill as a financial document or future financial reality. I respond to it as a mirror. It is a brilliant mirror, really, of the priorities and beliefs of a small handful of people. Yet those people don't "look" like me, and don't look like the vast majority of Americans. Their lives and access to power aren't shared by most Americans, or people worldwide. They forget that their actions were meant to mirror the bigger community. They are only allowing us to see them clearly, and that is such a gift, providing us with a creative moment of our own. What do we want to look like when we look in the glass? What do we want our society to mirror back?

It's complicated. All of us have different ideals. This is what I would like to think would be reflected if I were involved in creating a community, or even an "economy" -- its currency would be love, and that would be the measure of people and groups of people. These questions would shape the image in the mirror: how much does my life exude love and beauty? Have I been willing to do the hard spiritual work to become more aligned with my divine source? Do I do what I love, where I love, and with people I love? Have I earnestly sought to identify my highest talents and gifts, and does my community encourage me to use them? Do I honor the inherent worth of all people? Are wise people valued in my community? Are women's perspectives and contributions valued as much as men's? Are Mother Earth's resources used sparingly, reverently, and wisely? Are beauty and all kinds of artistic and personal creativity valued? Is each individual supported with access to at least basic housing, food, and healing? Do "technologies" and "industries" consistently help people and the planet? Do leaders understand the temporary, shared, representative nature of their positions? Is joy encouraged by this community? Is fear seen as a warning sign that love is missing? As people and societies, do we simply bless and release those who we are potentially in conflict with, knowing that actual conflict is pointless? (It's just an energy mismatch, after all.)

I bless these lawmakers, and I release my focus on the image in their mirror. It doesn't seem to me to reflect love and beauty. And I guess, for today, it's as simple as that. 

Weird

I had essentially written the below before learning the shameful news from late last night. Thoughts on that will no doubt be part of a blog next week.

I just discovered the most wonderful phrase: to "dree our weird." I guess it is Scottish, and basically means to align with our fate or our destiny, although some of the listings I saw were a little more along the lines of "put up with your lot." I prefer the former, of course. I never knew that "weird" could be a noun, but it is. 

Thinking back, when did I part with my weird? It was pretty deliberate and pretty well timed, if astrologers are right that most of us experience our first Saturn return at around age 27. That's when I said, only men and boys' choirs sing the music I love, mostly in England, so I'm going to deep six both of them immediately and completely. To use the sailboat analogy that I have used before, it's like I pushed the tiller sharply away from me, came about on a dime, and headed in the opposite direction. I wasn't a bad skipper. I paid close attention to new stretches of water and the landscapes on shore, and at least early on, easily survived being becalmed as well as being buffeted by gales. I enjoyed friendly fish and birds, and I stayed afloat, learning numerous new skills and meeting new people. I covered a heck of a lot of territory. But "anything but the thing(s) you love" is not a destination. It's not a strategy. For a while it may protect the heart, but eventually it breaks your heart. And while it may play a role in a really interesting "weird," it is not itself the destiny. One day a few years ago, probably around the time of my second Saturn return, I finally caught a glimpse of my guiding star, and came sharply about again. Trying to follow it and get back to an older woman's version of the original path has been outrageously challenging as my readers know. My boat is battered, holding the tiller straight in strong winds has taken all my strength, sea monsters and mirages have beset me, and mists have periodically clouded my star. Despite it all, I'm getting there. I'm weirder (and closer to my weird) than I've ever been, and I'm really proud of that.

I've been revisiting Sharon Blackie's If Women Rose Rooted, and she notes that "...this long, arduous Journey requires endurance, stamina and focus...The path will vanish behind you: there's no way back now." (page 154) That is so, so true. To use my sailboat metaphor, I couldn't at this point go back and retrace the steps of my long detour even if I wanted to, although like many old salts, do I have tales to tell! But this skipper is only sailing in one direction now -- forward, aligned with my weird. 

The Chatter

The other day, I had the opportunity to read one of my recent blog posts ("Thanksgiving at Midnight") to a medium-sized group of people. I really looked forward to this, because (to my knowledge) I have never read any of my own writing to others, and I have only once or twice spoken into a microphone. I have a rather deep, resonant voice, and I thought it would be a powerful experience to speak as well as say, if you get the distinction.

But about two sentences into the piece, the most annoying thing happened. An internal monologue started, chatter which sounded something like this: "OMG. This essay is too long. I thought it was going so be shorter. It looked shorter on the page. People aren't going to want to hear what I have to say. I should have edited this piece. Maybe I can skip a few sentences. Hmm...which ones should I skip? Darn, I can't read and edit at the same time. Maybe I'll just skip a few words. It's so quiet in here. They must be bored. Why did I decide to do this in the first place? I am drawing too much attention to myself. My mother was right that I'm self-centered. When is this going to end? Should I apologize to them for talking too long? Phew, here's the last sentence."

You might be wondering, why would a woman who has three post-high school degrees, who was a spokesperson (in writing) for a major magazine, who has taught many hundreds of students over the years and written two excellent published articles about an English composer, why should such a woman be reduced to rubble when reading her own words aloud? Well, that's the point. I've tended to "succeed" when I use words to talk about history and current events and things outside myself. When I've talked about matters close to my own heart or tried to live in alignment to that heart, at least in the past, I have not been embraced. I think "The Chatter," bless it, has tried to protect me from hurt and other people's anger and abandonment. It has tried to keep me from the risk that comes from operating in integrity. Not to be melodramatic, but I think it has been trying to keep me alive.

But the chatter, on that day, also served another purpose: it distracted me in real time from the fact that my voice speaking into a microphone had power. Real. Authentic. Magnified. Power. My inner chatter has tried to keep that power under wraps, and it was working overtime as I broke through another barrier. As it turns out, a few people came up to me later to tell me how much my words had meant to them, so through some miracle my parallel inner agenda didn't completely dilute my words.

Dear "Chatter": thank you for the role you've played in trying to keep me safe and invisible. I know you meant well, and really, you did an excellent job. But it's time for you to retire, and for me as I approach 62 to really start my life's work. To do that, I must write from the heart, and my voice must freely speak and sing aloud. No hesitation, no agonizing self-doubt, and no apologies.

Wonder, anew

If my quick glance at some television news today reported the truth (who knows these days?) I gather that Friday was a huge sales success. Clearly my last blog post didn't reflect the general mood, but hey, I've been out of the cultural loop for decades. In my own little way, I'll continue to follow the deep late November/December pattern that I described in my last blog to the best of my ability...reading, writing, making a few gifts or trying to be a gift to others. Loving the stillness, loving the dark. 

For me, this Thanksgiving week has been like being turned inside out. This re-born being cannot take much frenzy. A few blocks away, a holiday parade is taking place and there is much honking of horns and sirens and the sound of bands playing, but I'm quietly in my perch, thankful to be hearing it from afar. 

There's been an interesting alchemy to writing deep personal things each day for a possible future book, then to feeling the transformation in my bones and in my cells and in my spirit, sort of "as it happens." For over two years, I have spoken of being in a new stretch of river, but I was dragging some mighty heavy old seaweed and ballast through the water. It seems to be dropping away as I honor it by writing. And as it drops away, the boat feels fragile suddenly, but (of course) lighter, freer and easier to steer. I finally see my north star as mists around me are clearing. And understanding is coming in waves, waves that literally make me smile with satisfaction. "Aha, now I get it!"

Perhaps not surprisingly, it was a joy on Thanksgiving day to sing "ABCDEFG..." and nursery rhyme songs with a very musical little two-year-old boy, and to look into smiling blue eyes filled with curiosity and quick learning. I don't really remember being that age, and I'm going to be mighty protective of myself as I go through these early phases again, but I hope that I'll keep this little child's voice with me as a touchstone for wonder.

Thanksgiving at Midnight

It probably won't come as much of a surprise to my regular readers that you won't find me lined up outside a big box store Thanksgiving at Midnight, chomping at the bit to buy a flat screen TV. Money aside, it is hard for me to reconcile what I had always assumed to be the spirit of the season with people stampeding to buy flashy items which are mostly made abroad by workers who may earn only a few dollars a day. In fact, the whole season-as-it-has-become nearly brings me to tears. It doesn't seem sustainable or fair, and doesn't seems to be "about" what it's meant to be about. I know there are people who love this coming Friday and the ensuing holiday hoopla, and I genuinely wish I were them sometimes! 

But as usual, I can't help but wonder, "What if?"

What if, Thanksgiving at Midnight, we all fully entered into Nature's gift of silence, darkness, and stillness? What if we all had the next four weeks off (from work or other obligations) to at least half-hibernate? What if we woke up late every morning with the sun, and went to bed early, soon after sunset? What if we stayed close to home, and after an early supper, turned off all electronics and most lights, just leaving one on to read by? What if this coming month was dedicated to our creative selves, so that artists would paint during the daylight hours, and musicians and dancers would practice, and writers would write, and mystics would think, and knitters would knit, and sewers would sew, and woodworkers would build? What if we really did just make a few homemade gifts for our dearest friends? What if those who loved to cook spent the month baking and simmering winter stews on the back of the stove, in readiness for the celebrations of late December? What if we walked more, or helped neighbors more with shoveling and warm clothes, or watched stars and northern lights more? What if we really remembered what it was like to be still, and slightly sleepy, looking out from our warm caves at the brilliant night sky or bare trees bending sideways in the frigid wind?

And then, what if mid-to-late December's chosen festivities really were about the return of the light, and songs and carols breaking the silence, and pageants celebrating life's hopeful, brave story? What if our feasts hungrily and enthusiastically ended a month of basic survival? What if, after a quiet, inward-looking few weeks, we embraced each other and gave select gifts and heard the heavenly choirs and really understood what it was all about? What if the holiday season made sense again? What if Thanksgiving at Midnight made sense again?

Unthinkable

The other day, a post crossed my path that said, essentially, why would our lawmakers want to make America a land of poor, sick, uneducated, homeless people? The cynical, but I think arguable, answer was something along the lines of, to create powerless slaves for big corporations. It is impossible to understand how leaders with even the slightest iota of true humanity would pass the kinds of laws that are currently making their way through the pipeline. It is literally unthinkable. But the unthinkable seems to have become our bread-and-butter. Forget cake. "Let them eat 'unthinkable.'"

Hopefulness comes and goes with me, but mostly, I am heartened by how, around the edges of what my eyes interpret as a train wreck, real, caring humans are waking up, being heard, insisting on loving and embracing others, and creating beauty and new growth. I remember back in 1989, I visited Yellowstone Park about a year after the terrible fires there. Huge swaths of the Park were blackened, with dead tree stumps as far as the eye could see. Yet on the forest floor were millions of green shoots, even lawns of colorful flowers. The infrastructure had burned to the ground, but the impulse of life and beauty coming from under the surface couldn't be stopped. 

I guess at the moment, that's where I am at with the unthinkable. We clearly see what's happening. Yes, some who currently think themselves powerful may grin like banshees at their clever and selfish manipulation. Many of the rest of us see destruction where our values used to be, and feel nearly left for dead. But we are still very much alive, in some cases being completely reborn, and our verdant shoots will continue to grow. In the end, thankfully, life and love are the only lasting powers-that-be.

Home

You know how it is, when you get on a certain wavelength, and suddenly books appear out of nowhere, or album titles speak to you, or songs have meaning that didn't have meaning the day before. I suppose it's not surprising, what with all that's happening with me, that I just discovered the song by Stephen Paulus called, "The Road Home." The song's lyrics were written by Michael Dennis Browne, according to the composer's website (https://stephenpaulus.com/blogs/news/17806884-work-story-the-road-home). I mean, there cannot be lyrics in the entire world that resonate more with me right now. But it's the last verse that bowls me over: "Rise up, follow me, come away, is the call, with the love in your heart as the only song, there is no such beauty as where you belong. Rise up, follow me, I will lead you home."

The hardest part, when you are still in pieces, is believing that such a thing can happen. But I can feel a subtle shift now that I have sewn my pieces back together. These lyrics don't sound silly or make me cynical or angry or hopeless as they once would have. Love is the only song. There is a beauty to being where you belong, and where you belong is where you belong. There is a gentle but powerful river of love capable of leading us all "home" -- and we don't need to die to get there. Whether that home is a place, or a group of people, or a beloved activity, or "just" that blissful moment when you finally love and trust yourself, this is the work we are meant to do more than any on the planet. Rise up, gather up the scattered pieces, put them back together as best we can, and then follow love home to where we can be our finest selves. 

The Real Miracle

Well, this certainly has been quite a week. My last post  ("Finally") was picked up by the good people at Choralevensong.org (https://www.choralevensong.org/), and within days had well over three hundred readers around the world. (This is the wonderful site to go to if you are visiting the UK, and wish to find out where and when to attend evensong. They also provide a lot of written material about the service. Check it out.) I have a handful of dear, regular readers, but to have hundreds for a few days was the first miracle. 

Life has started to return to normal, well, "my" normal anyway, but any of you who are American women of a certain age may understand that the real story went deeper. I have the feeling that when my little mystic, brilliant, musical, creative soul was born into 1956 America with its shiny kitchen appliances and shiny teeth and shiny cars and moms in aprons and dads in suits and briefcases, she immediately broke into hundreds of pieces from shock. Talk about an energetic mismatch. And I've been carrying the pieces around ever since in kind of a metaphoric knapsack, sure that this had all been a mistake, that I was born on the wrong planet and wanted to go home. Yet somewhere around age 55, I think it finally dawned on me that if I was still alive (and I was) I really was on the right planet and if nothing else, at least I had to try to sew the pieces back together. These last few years have been a valiant and, at times, balancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin scary effort to do that, which my blog posts have attempted to chronicle. Yet two sides of the quilt were irreconcilable. No matter how strong my thread, the edges would fray then break back into two distinct panels.

By what grace did I wake up last Monday morning with the right words in my head? I scrambled to find my journal and pen and scribbled them down. Then within a few hours, I wrote the blog post. And here's the deal. A week has now passed, and the seam is still holding. I still understand, and feel in my heart, the place where the almost-500-year-old choral evensong tradition overlaps with my 21st century woman's soul. I'm still holding my breath. After all, life is about a million times more complex than it was in 1956. My quilt feels extremely fragile. But so far, I am in one piece. The stitching has held. All my pieces are back together. I may be, just may be, reborn, at 61-going-on-62.

That's the real miracle of it all. 

Finally

If you have followed this blog for a while, you probably know that I have regularly engaged with what seems to be the core conundrum of my life: how is it that I (a 21st century American feminist who has undergone a wrenchingly diverse and difficult spiritual/life journey) am still drawn to the Church of England's choral evensong service? I mean, I literally live to sing or hear that service in an English cathedral, abbey or college chapel. Most of my major life decisions have been predicated on "getting over there" or, conversely, on trying to escape the tradition's hold on me, thinking I might be happier that way, which never worked.

Yesterday was a case in point. I attended a church service in a denomination that I am not super familiar with. There was lovely music, and there were interesting readings. There was a thoughtful sermon. There were great people, and fellowship followed afterwards at an extended coffee hour. I left feeling somewhat bewildered, but that's been the story of my life. I have felt that way in most of the settings I have found myself in; they don't "speak" to me. Yet I felt a sincere appreciation for the fact that the experience spoke to others.

Later in the afternoon, as it was getting dark (too early!), I decided to listen to Choral Evensong on BBC Radio 3, which came this week from Salisbury Cathedral. Relief poured over me to hear the sung words, "O Lord open thou our lips/and our mouth shall shew forth thy praise." The Clucas responses, the psalms and the Howells Collegium Regale Te Deum were familiar to me (the latter, gloriously so); the service (Walmisley in d minor) and the anthem were not, but it didn't matter. The idiom and the sound were "home." It's not the same thing, listening on the radio or by webcast, but it's closer than other religious experiences. It is the spiritual language that I speak and understand.

That's what hit me when I woke up this morning. The service I attended early on Sunday -- like most of my spiritual explorations from about 1985 to 2010 -- was in a foreign language. Yes, I understood the individual words, but they didn't string together to create spiritual meaning for me. It is a mystery, but it is true. The Church of England's choral evensong service is my language for expressing belief in a Divine Being, even though my 21st century image of that Being has expanded way beyond anything the 16th or 17th century framers of the service would have understood or accepted.

I'm scrambling to try to explain this. Please forgive the inadequacy of my words. We are all energetic beings with a different "signal" going out, and with different experiences matching that signal. Late afternoon choral evensong is an energetic match for me with what being in the presence of the Divine would feel like, sound like, look like. It feels like awe. It feels like wonder. It feels, sounds, and looks like transcendent beauty and harmony. In Britain, you are likely to sit in ancient nooks right near the choir, carved throne-like seats that enfold you and make you feel safe and loved (American churches by and large aren't designed this way). The exquisite musical sounds and their reverberations are, literally, heavenly. The repetition of ancient words and the candle-lit singing of the tradition's music are almost a form of time travel, linking you to distant past and distant future. You are in a liminal space between light and darkness, between heaven and earth, as day is coming to an end. And when you are in the soaring architecture of a cathedral, you literally feel as if the stars and galaxies are right overhead, and that they will continue to expand and swirl through the night until the service the next afternoon.

There isn't a chasm between modern me and this service after all. I know "God/Goddess/Universe/Source" -- however imperfectly -- because I have "felt" divinity energetically at evensong, in all its immediacy. It's not just the music, or whether I do or don't sing in the choir. It is not just the architectural setting. It is not the theology or the readings, which can sometimes rub me the wrong way. There is a much bigger energetic and beauty match at work here. There is a oneness at my core after all, not a split. And with "getting" that, I think I've finally "gotten" that each person who finds meaning in any tradition's religious ceremonies, or none at all, or sitting at the top of a mountain or by the edge of the ocean, has an opportunity to find an energetic match with their concept of Source. Thank goodness for all of today's options. Choral evensong isn't for everyone. But finally, after half a century of trying to explain it away, I get why it is my spiritual language. And I embrace it. Finally. 

New York and Colorado

So much is being said. There is so little that I can add, except my usual. I don't understand wanting to hurt people. I don't understand wanting to kill people. I don't understand wanting to own, make, or use weapons against other humans even when it might "protect" me. And what a strange moment this is, when any of us could potentially lose our life walking down the street, or at a concert, or at a big box store, or at work. Violence democratized. Violence showing us exactly how nasty and pointless it is. Violence in our faces. 

I think if there is any purpose to it all, it is just this -- no more hiding behind "wars" (just or unjust) or distant lands or behind the scenes. No more "it's just a video game" or "it's just a movie." No more, "it's over there, not here." No more, "we'll protect our womenfolk and children from the grim realities." No more delusion. It is right here, and it is traumatizing everyone.

My belief in only one divine power (for good) remains intact, although this last year has sorely shaken it. I think as humans we are graduating from a duality-based reality to a oneness one, and, ahem, some people just aren't ready for the transition. The beautiful, loving stream of life is taking them somewhere where they aren't willing to go.  Those of us who can, today is a good day to do something calm, unifying, beautiful, loving. Today (All Souls' Day) is a good day to remind ourselves that all souls are "us."

Pearls

I'm thankful to this process I'm in the midst of. It's certainly given me the freedom and courage to think differently. 

Remember that Seinfeld episode where George decides he has been doing everything wrong, and starts to follow the opposite of his normal instincts? He goes up to a beautiful woman, and instead of trying to impress her, he tells her he's unemployed and lives with his parents, and she is immediately attracted to him. A few years ago, I started to formulate a similar theory about my life but I don't think I've written about it here, and in the wake of "The Real Me," I figure, what the heck? It's Saturday.

OK, here goes. What if, instead of spending years learning to play the organ and getting a master's in church music history, I was just meant to go straight to singing and hearing the music I love in its own setting? What if, instead of learning Old Masters oil painting techniques and getting an associate's degree in art, I was meant to have someone paint a John Singer Sargent-like painting of me, and to be surrounded by great paintings and beautiful architecture? What if, instead of working for a decade for a major news organization, I was meant to be a newsmaker? What if, instead of my paid jobs as paralegal and paraprofessional and adjunct professor and other "helper"/support staff roles, I was meant to be a leader? What if, instead of cooking and baking for others (which I genuinely enjoy), I was meant to be cooked for? What if, for me, having my feet in the right place isn't on a rocky shoreline or in the mountains or in a forest, but surrounded by human-created art, music and beauty of all kinds -- that I am not solely responsible for creating? 

These are just queries. I don't know the answers right now. It's like, in the late-20th century world and economy I was born into, everything had to be a career, especially if you walked out into the world with huge student loans and no resources. With my skill set and passion for beauty, was my career going to be writing, or playing the organ, or painting and teaching art? What training did I need? It turned out that all of these almost guaranteed too little income to immerse myself in the beauty I yearn for, and too little income to be powerful or secure as a single woman in any way. Absurd. It's not that I want to be passive. But my true active "power" is my intelligence and wisdom -- the rest is, in a sense, the beautiful home for and expression of that power. (The reason I have no home isn't that I never got a degree in architecture, but it feels that way sometimes.)

I'm so "post"-everything and new paradigm and feminist that even if a fortune were to come my way tomorrow, I know that the right apartment and the right art on the walls and the right concerts or church music or museum exhibits wouldn't be the whole story. Me being me, I would continue to push the envelope of tradition somehow, trying to make it happen in the context of all people finding their right place in the world, the "place" that works for them. And in that formal portrait, I'd probably be wearing a 21st century swingy tunic, leggings -- and pearls. Definitely pearls.

Wednesday Miscellany

This has been a magical few days. Early on Sunday morning, I saw, if not a whole meteor shower, then at least a few shooting stars. Just to have the excuse to lie on the ground and gaze upwards at the heavens was healing. Why don't I do it at least once a month? It puts everything, everything into perspective.

Then, Sunday into Monday, I made homemade chicken soup and an apple pie, the latter of which requires (on the Liz path) some strange ingredients -- plastic wrap and tape. You'll be happy to hear that these inedibles do not make it into the pie itself. There is something so grounding about all the chopping and mixing required to make from scratch. And fresh fall McIntosh apples make all the difference.

This food was to honor the visit of four dear friends who I see only rarely, and so hugs and meals and reuniting and catching up and playing board games was a joy. 

Then, this morning, after a crazy dry fall, torrential rain. I don't think the torrential part is a good thing but at least the reservoirs will be replenished.

Lastly, I finished quite an extraordinary book. Indeed, I suspect I was influenced by it last week when I wrote "The Real Me" and I may need to read it again to fully take it in. It is, If Women Rose Rooted: The Journey to Authenticity and Belonging by Sharon Blackie. In it, she weaves her own life path, and the wisdom of other contemporary women, with Celtic mythology, exploring women's relationship with the earth, the elements, and our own selves. She notes the powerful difference she has felt when she leaves the "Wasteland" and her feet are "in the right place," and for her, that has meant returning literally to a place with Celtic roots. What a gift to find women expressing truths that really resonates with me, even though the details are different. Right this second, I can't say that I feel rooted, but I do feel a bit grounded, thanks to the miscellany of this late autumn week. 

Exploring Oppositeland

The few days since I wrote the last blog, "The Real Me," have been intense, and if you haven't read that post I would definitely read it first. I am so gratified, hearing from friends who said it spoke to them! And it has released some additional thoughts...

The first is immense gratitude for having lived in a part of the world where a woman's intensive 35-year search for "the real me" was possible. I mean, at times it has felt impossible, but I know full well that in certain parts of the world it would literally have been impossible. 

The second thing (and I think I implied this in that essay) is to remind myself that sure, once the keys to my London flat were in my hand, I would probably spend a good few months or longer joyfully immersed in real me's musical world. But current me is powerful too, searching, cutting edge, nomadic, American me, and "she" wouldn't disappear. That's the whole point of getting them under one roof, as it were. After a short time, they would lovingly work together toward a new, richer and more all-encompassing goal, possibly the goal that's been the point of this whole thing all along. 

The last thing, for now, is to mention that over the last six or seven years, a number of my friends have envied the fact that I at least had some idea who "the real me" was. They said they did not know who they really were inside, and wanted suggestions about how to start. All I knew to say was to pay attention to what you love, and/or to find a great coach, spiritual director, counselor, or therapist as I have off and on over the years. After writing "The Real Me," and thinking more and more about the surreal "oppositeland" quality of much of my life, I also wonder if other people might learn from the process of writing their own story of meeting up with their "opposite" (which of course is really their complement and possibly a clue to a more whole self...) I mean, if you are working the night shift at a convenience store, write down your conversation with CEO "you." If you are married, have five kids, a mortgage and three cars, converse with contemplative nun "you." If you live in a cabin in the woods, write a story of your meeting with the "you" who teaches in the inner city. If you live in New Mexico, write a story of meeting up with the you who lives in New England, or if you are living in the Y, imagine and write about living in a penthouse. I think many of us get pushed down a rigid "opposite" path by society's expectations or even our own desire to protect our beautiful real self. What are the complementary qualities that we are seeking to knit into our whole? Power? Solitude? Community? Respect? Warmth? Wet? Gardening? Music? Silence? City streets? Bushwhacking in the wilderness? It may be that just an hour of writing will give you some important clues. (I am sure other authors and spiritual teachers make this recommendation, but I don't remember reading it, or perhaps I needed to reach a point where it would happen organically, in my own time.)

I don't know what a psychologist would say, but I know what is in my heart. Bringing together the two sides of me that have literally been oceans apart, and "hearing" them joyfully compare notes over a glass of wine, has been the happiest moment of my life so far. I finally feel whole. A little shaky, but whole. And right now, the world needs as many whole people as it can get, doesn't it?

The Real Me

My first trip to the UK, in 1978, took me within hours to choral evensong at King's College, Cambridge, and then via old fashioned BritRail Pass north to Scotland, around Scotland, and finally back to London, where I stayed with an older American friend who lived in South Kensington. At the time, I remember thinking, "this is my life." For several days before flying back to the States, I used her flat as home base as I explored the city on foot and on the Tube, and two years later when I arrived to start my master's degree at Royal Holloway, I somehow assumed I would never leave. I would easily figure out how to live in London. In the end, with the intense work on my degree, there simply wasn't time. Thus it was that the flight back in September of 1981 was utterly wrenching, as has been, on some level, my entire American life since then. Despite wonders and miracles and unique life lessons, I have never felt like I was really in my own life, more like traveling across the surface of its opposite, as I guess some of my readers have gathered (!) 

Last night in the middle of the night, I had one of those moments which was either entirely crazy or entirely healthy and significant. I imagined that, in fact, the "real" Liz is alive and has been living in London all these years. After a few years of working at a job, she fell into a wonderful living as a freelance writer. She attends choral evensong at least twice a week at St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey, the Chapel Royal Hampton Court, Southwark Cathedral, and elsewhere. She is in a high caliber choral group which sings evensong at least once a month. She attends concerts of The Tallis Scholars, The Sixteen, Voces8, and other groups, and has dozens of musical, artistic, writer and visionary friends with whom she eats out and attends concerts. She volunteers at the National Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum, and frequently travels to the south and west of England to sites of historical and spiritual significance to her, which she writes about. And she spends a lot of time on her own, loving her small but comfortable flat with its handful of oriental rugs and oil paintings.

And I imagined current me, with her $12.99 haircut, hand-me-down clothing, and roller bag, showing up at real me's flat. She opens the door, and we immediately recognize each other and fall into each other's arms like sisters. She's better coiffed than I am, somewhat slimmer, with nicer clothes, but with the same dark-rimmed glasses and dark (but greying) hair. She whooshes me into the kitchen, orders some delivery Thai food, and opens the first of at least three bottles of wine. And we start talking. And talking. And talking. "No way! You did what?" "You met who?" "You went where?" "What was it like singing there?" "What was it like going there?" "Tell me about your book!" "Tell me about your blog!" Etc. etc. An entire adult lifetime (or two), shared in five or six hours. 

By three in the morning, we agree that it made a certain amount of sense that we had had such diverse life experiences, and that it was meant to enrich our future. Then she shows me to the guest room, and I collapse onto the bed and fall asleep until at least eleven the following morning.

The flat sounds awfully quiet. I get up, and get dressed, and walk from room to room. "The Real Me" seems to be gone, but when I see a note on the mantelpiece saying "Welcome Home," I realize that she's not gone, it's just that we are finally the same person after all these years. I walk over to the desk, look at my calendar for today, and, with a big smile on my face, get ready to walk out the door and get on with my life.

Friday the...

Yes...the thirteenth. In a year where every single day has been weird by almost any reckoning, at a moment when an Atlantic hurricane is heading to Ireland for goodness sake, and parts of California are on fire, it's almost like every day has taken on the energy of a Friday the thirteenth. Maybe today will simply be calm and lovely for most of the world, as a little much-needed gift.

It really is overwhelming to think of the number of Americans whose lives have been utterly upended over recent months in floods, hurricanes and fires (and this is, of course, just the tip of the iceberg for what is happening worldwide.) There are so many issues facing these populations, yet I guess because of my life story the thing that most resonates is imagining the very moment people realize all they have left in the entire world is a purse full of important papers, a gym bag filled with clothes and an extra pair of running shoes, and a family photo or two. For many people, house is gone, a lifetime of accumulated possessions and family heritage is gone, workplace is gone, heck their bank may be gone and paychecks have stopped. Life will never be the same again. I doubt that many of them have ever read this blog, but I just want to say (as someone who has put herself through semi-voluntary huge transitions over and over) that my heart is with you at this moment, and I celebrate the person you are without any of the trappings. I celebrate the "you" who is driving away from the fire to an unknown destination, or scrambling for higher ground as the water rises, or hunkering down in a shelter on a cot just staring at the ceiling. I celebrate the "you" who is courageous right now, whether you feel that way or not. I celebrate the "you" who has, willingly or not, stepped out on a hero's or heroine's journey. Something new will come of all this, so just hang in there a day at a time. If there's anything to love in the current situation, love really is the only path through chaos. That has been my experience, anyway. 

And if you can't find love, anything positive or likeable will do, somebody being kind or seeing a child play with a toy. Even something ridiculous or strange, like an "open" sign outside a building that is in ashes. Focus on it, not the tragedy -- if you possibly can. Don't "look down" quite yet. When you get to the other side to a safe place, you can tell the whole story.

To weed or not to weed

This morning, I spent about 45 minutes weeding and cutting back dead flowers. I mean, I'm not a gardener. I haven't had my own home or flower bed in which to really hone my skills. However, if there is a garden at my disposal in the fall, and there are any shriveled, brown, dead plants to be pulled out, I'm your gardener, as long as I don't have to spend too much time at it or make decisions. As with most physical chores, I'm best at the really obvious kinds of gardening, not detailed minutiae. I spent hours this summer removing enormous ferns that had taken over a garden. It required brute strength and some twisting of the below-ground seed pods, but there were hundreds of these suckers and they all had to come out. I could only stand to do it for about an hour at a stretch, but it's amazing how much you can get done in an hour when you are just a culling machine.

In another area of my life, I am trying not to weed. Yes, I've gotten back to work again on my book, and, reminded by my friends of Annie Lamott and the concept of the "shitty first draft," I'm trying to curb all my natural instincts to sound good. To please people. To write logically. To be nice. I'm just typing into the computer like a wild woman for short stretches, and even resisting the temptation to re-read each section once I am done. For now anyway. It's very, very hard for someone who has spent her lifetime self-editing. I've had the darnedest experiences, but until now I hoped, in effect, that no one would notice, that I'd slip under the radar screen of life. Well, I've managed to survive six decades, so I guess the time has come to just be and grow and have these adventures, and not self-prune so much. Lordy, enough other factors regularly cut me down to size without my help! This blog is teaching me to write faster and more freely and instinctively, and these qualities are beginning to color my other writing projects. I'm so thankful. 

Duluth

Today is "Liz in Duluth" day. What, you might ask, is Liz in Duluth day?

Back in 1990, I left New York City, having finished paying off student loans and achieved an associate's degree in illustration from Parsons School of Design. I spent several months at Pendle Hill Quaker Study Center at this crossroads and, having re-examined the whole English church music thing (still all male), I realized that I was probably going to spend the rest of my life in the U.S., so I had better darned well get to know the country. I bought a small red used car, and spent the better part of the summer meandering around from state to state, staying with family and friends and, basically, following my gut. By late September/early October, I had made my way back around as far as Minnesota, and at a Quaker gathering, I met someone who invited me to visit Duluth. This seemed rather hilarious to east coast me, but I decided to do it. 

I'll never forget, driving up 35 and cresting the hill near Proctor and looking down at the enormity of Lake Superior with the cities of Duluth and Superior tucked at its edge. The highway wends its way down a fairly steep hill, and toward the bottom -- not knowing anything but having a good instinct for destinations -- I followed signs to the Aerial Lift Bridge and Park Point, which turned out to be a spit of land sticking out into the end of the lake. The road took me several miles through mixed housing and sand to a parking lot at the end, where I turned off my car and burst into tears. I just basically asked God, what in the Sam Hill am I doing here of all places?

A day or two later, Sunday the seventh of October, I attended the local Quaker meeting, where I met some friends who are still among my dearest to this day, and I decided to at least spend the winter in Duluth. When I called my parents to tell them, there was dead silence at the other end of the phone, followed by, "Well can you at least get the New York Times there?" At that moment in history, the answer was no.

With the exception of a year or so in the middle of the decade, I would spend most of the rest of the '90s in Duluth. I loved it there. It is one of the most extraordinarily beautiful places on this earth. My east coast-England-y resume being what it was, I couldn't find a "real" job to save my life, so over the course of my time there, I worked at a toy shop, a stationery shop, a candy shop, Duluth's coolest restaurant, and as a "community visioning aide." I had many beautiful friends. I took up rowing, and practiced when the moon was going down and the sun was coming up. I drove up and down the North Shore. I got frostbite. I lived on Park Point, and woke up every morning to the sometimes turbulent sight of an inland sea. I saw northern lights multiple times. I painted the lake and its mind-boggling horizon line. I experienced weeks at a stretch at below zero degrees F. I used to think I should create a tee shirt that said, "Most people go to Nepal or Tibet for enlightenment. I went to Duluth."

In 1999, I returned east permanently due to my mother's illness. It would take another ten years to remember my passion for English church music, but I suspect I wouldn't ever have done so in Duluth. As several friends have pointed out, it was about as far from that civilized world as is humanly possible. But it was like the dreamtime. I think the Great Mother held me in her arms near that great lake, kept me safe, and opened my eyes to wonder. 

What I was going to say...

I was going to say something about going on retreat this weekend.

I was going to say something about sleeping in a tent for the first time in twenty years, feeling the cold earth beneath me and cuddling under an ancient cheapo sleeping bag and several warm blankets.

I was going to say something about sitting in the middle of a field at sunrise, and watching the sun brighten the tops of the trees to the west. I watched the process as the light then slowly moved down until each tree was completely shimmering in bright green, yellow, brown and red. It was like a reverse window shade. I had to keep reminding myself that it really had little to do with the sun "going up" behind me but rather with the earth turning around. When you stop and watch it happening in real time, it is quite astonishing, isn't it?

And in the end, I don't know what to say about Las Vegas that hasn't already been said, here or by someone else. I don't understand people killing other people. Ever. I don't understand wanting to own weapons of any kind. I don't understand wanting to create those weapons, or to glorify them in movies, books, games or other entertainment. But even my own vague focus on the negative illustrates part of the problem. Those of us who are literally peace-loving will only create the world we want by focusing on the world we want. A consistent fight against (or focus on) what we don't want will only create more of what we don't want. I really believe this essential law of attraction-ism.

I want a world where I can watch vibrant trees coming to life in the morning and not have that immersion in beauty snatched away a few hours later. I want outbreaks of beauty and love to be world news.

Moving forward, and occasionally stopping

A variety of factors personally and in the news have had me musing about the concept of freedom. My recent life has been a paradoxical blend of freedom and utter restriction; the freedom to be myself and to make periodic trips to England has been accompanied by its twin, financial instability and practical uncertainties of every kind. I seem to have figured out how to manifest opportunities to sing in cathedrals, but I have no car of my own with which to drive to a supermarket. I freely follow the stream of my life to new, more spiritually rich destinations, but often during transitional moments, I literally have nowhere to go and no way of getting anywhere. Eventually I breathe a thread of love out to the future and attract a growth-filled next step, and I am so thankful for having learned to do this, but it is like walking a tightrope across the Grand Canyon. I cannot stop, and I cannot, cannot look down.

Choices. Freedom. This weekend, I will be attending a women's retreat. Should the little bit of money I have to my name have gone to that, or to buying new glasses or supporting my physical rather than my spiritual needs? Should it have gone to job-hunting or networking or making a five-year plan or hiring a career counselor? Arguably, yes. But this event called to me. I don't recommend my kind of path -- our physicality is such an important part of our earth journey -- but I'm at that point where it's hard to imagine that I, Liz, could have gone a different way. And periodically, I stop and celebrate my power to have made other choices. At step A or B or C, I could have returned to the full-time work world. I could have made marriage a priority, or high income, or a house, or worldly success. I could have, but I did not. My impulse to understand myself and my world on a deep level seems to be too strong. My impulse to move forward spiritually (which often seems to involve physically) is too strong.

The good news is that I go into this weekend absolutely committed to the book that I have already started to write. Creating this blog two years ago was an important step; my fear of putting myself out there has largely abated. Several book attempts have piled up over the last few years, and been outgrown. But now I know that it's time to stop my forward movement just long enough to finish a real, substantial book. What inner compass I have been following? Which of my life lessons are ready to be shared? What aspects of my journey may help others, or speak (as Quakers say) to their condition? If I can gain an insight or two on how to approach the book over Saturday and Sunday, I will feel that the return on my small investment has been rich indeed, and that I've freely made the right choice. For me, and maybe eventually, for my readers.

Autumn

It is quite mind-boggling to remember the school clothes shopping I did with my mother back in the early 1960s. I mean, we did it at Schenectady's three (yes, three) downtown department stores -- malls didn't exist yet -- and for the most part, I remember wearing long-sleeved shirts, plaid wool kilts, cardigan sweaters and high socks with my brown leather-soled shoes. And this wasn't a uniform, just the kind of clothes girls wore to public school back when it was actually cool or cold in September. (In the summer I got to wear shorts or jeans, but I don't remember wearing them to school.) I remember my first trip on the school bus; all the first-graders sat on the long back seat, and somebody said, "let's tell everyone how old we are." So all the kids chirped up "six" or even "seven" until it got to me, and I said "five-and-a-half" and everyone stared at me like I had a dreaded disease. Being younger and often pushed ahead academically was an interesting dynamic all through school.

I thought of the heavy woolen back-to-school clothes this week as the northeast was suffering through another abnormally hot stretch. Most schools don't have air-conditioned classrooms in this part of the world, so I gather that 80's and 90's and clanking old room fans are a nearly unbearable way to start a school year. Some leaves are starting to turn, but the nights aren't getting chilly enough to really create a colorful forest palette. Maybe we are in for another year of shriveling brown. This is, of course, not something to shrug off...it is intimately connected to the floods in Texas and Florida, and the utter devastation in Puerto Rico. Someday, perhaps we will all finally wake up and say, "what was our first clue?" When kids stopped wearing wool to school.

In a few days, the forecast is calling for cooler weather. I'm praying that a lot of things cool off with the temperatures.

Location

If my next-to-last post was called "Dislocation," this one has to be called, "Location." It's funny, I looked up the word and found the geographic definition which involves the meeting point of longitude and latitude. From that perspective, there isn't any other human being at my same point right this minute -- what an awesome thought that is!  I guess in a city or in a skyscraper, one can rarely make that claim, but in much of the world, we each inhabit a unique locus at any given moment.

I'm proud of myself. While I may never approach a new American landscape with the same feeling of "home" as I do an English one, still, I find myself neutral but open right this minute. The inner "no" hasn't expressed itself. Just a somewhat muted "It's OK, I'm here to learn." For me, that's quite a step forward. I'm going to try to focus more on an inner "place" of resonance and acceptance and work outward. 

There's a dresser for my clothes, a desk to write at, and a small bookshelf that fits all my books, which run the gamut of my interests, from English cathedrals to women's spirituality to Mary Balogh romances. That's pretty much me in a nutshell. Nice to know that no one will ever be able to say, "she didn't know who she was." I totally know the "who"; the only thing that has ever been in question is the "how."

This is the bookend moment to that quiet one before my latest journey. The sun is streaming in the window, and it's blissfully still except for a few cars passing in the street. 

Checklist

Today is the day of your favorite wandering mystic's next move. For the last week, people have been asking, "Are you packed yet?" Well, when you own as little as I do, the process takes maybe an hour. The worst part of the process is the last five minutes, when there is a scattering of toiletries and scraps of paper and telephone messages lying on the floor, and I can't quite figure out what to do with them, so I just stuff them all into the closest tote bag, willy-nilly. I suspect for normal people with a normal move, the process involves tossing scattered final bits of furniture, bags and boxes into the moving van. Everything is relative.

I thought I'd share my little inner checklist of what to do before leaving any place, large or small, short-term or long-term. Perhaps it will help some of you with your next move:

• I touch base with the people I am closest with, have lunch with them, and let them know their presence meant a lot.
• "When in doubt"(if people are merely acquaintances), I just bless them and let go of feeling responsible to actively seek out their presence a final time.
• I send actual old-fashioned thank-you notes to anyone who has been particularly helpful or important in this phase of my life. 
• I change my address or do any bureaucratic stuff that I am ready to do. 
• I thank the house I've been in, and the person or people I've been with, face-to-face and with a hand-written note left behind. 
• This time, I bought all new 2017-2019 calendar, phone card, journal, and address book so I am literally starting afresh.
• I check that I have important papers, my purse, my computer, and my power cords.
• This time, I have also allowed myself to keep more books and other items than usual, to signal to the Universe that I'm ready to own more and find a more grounded situation. Some people might need to force themselves to get rid of more. It depends on what phase of life you are entering.
• Lastly, I spent a few minutes this morning simply being thankful for all aspects of my current step forward, with particular gratitude for my relative good fortune compared to residents of Puerto Rico and so many other places.

I have a few minutes of silence before getting my ride. I can hear people swishing through the fall leaves on the sidewalk, the screech of the garbage truck's brakes, cars hitting that pothole across the street, a leaf falling from the tree and loudly hitting the sidewalk. As I think I have mentioned, since I'm such a terrible meditator, listening to life's sounds and identifying them has become my version of that, and I am glad to have a few minutes of calm before I go. This definitely appears to be the end of the seven-year phase that started with bankruptcy in 2010-11, and I appreciate this lovely moment to inwardly wrap up the threads. The fall equinox seems to be a good day to move forward.

Dislocation

Once in a while, you read something that you feel was written just for you, to help you understand something important in your life. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course...it was written to help the author understand something. But the healing ring of truth, the "zing" (that word again) of truth, can be stunning.

The other day, in a little street library near me, I saw the book The Spiral Staircase by Karen Armstrong, and knew it was waiting for me. Armstrong is also the author of A History of God, and by the time I got about five pages into this memoir, I recognized a kindred spirit. She entered a convent in her late teens full of spiritual zeal, but left it around seven years later, wanting nothing more to do with religion. Her story mostly recounts the time between leaving the convent and writing A History of God, and all the false starts and seeming failures that beset her on the path to finding her true calling.

On page 23, I found these words, which may have just changed my life: "Looking back, I can see that during those first few months [after leaving the convent], I was experiencing something akin to the culture shock of those who, for one reason or another, have been forced to leave homes in Pakistan, Palestine, or Zimbabwe and migrate to a Western country...Exile is, of course, not simply a change of address. It is also a spiritual dislocation. Anthropologists and psychologists tell us that displaced people feel lost in a universe that has suddenly become alien. Once the fixed point of home is gone, there is a fundamental lack of orientation that makes everything seem relative and aimless. Cut off from the roots of their culture and identity, migrants and refugees can feel that they are somehow withering away and becoming insubstantial. Their world--inextricably linked with their unique place in the cosmos--has literally come to an end." Armstrong goes on to analyze how, despite her desire to leave the religious life, she initially felt this sense of disorientation in the secular world as well. 

These words describe to a tee how I have felt every time I have left England to return to the U.S. I am sure this sounds like hyperbole. After all, I am American. The phenomenon should work the other way around. But with me, it does not. My "home," however inexplicably, is in the choir stalls of an English cathedral, and in the orbit of these cathedrals and college chapels and that kind of musical and intellectual milieu. Yet I have spent about 59 of my 61 years outside that orbit, and this quote perfectly describes the ghostlike, surreal quality of trying year after year to function outside of my "unique place in the cosmos." Armstrong's words have validated something so enormous, so potentially tragic, that I have never quite wanted to fully articulate or face it. But the validation is also a relief. It's like having been sick for years and having a physician finally find the correct diagnosis.

A few years ago, a member of the clergy condescendingly told me that if God really wanted me to be in England at the heart of the world of this music I love, then I would already be there. At the time, I was outraged at his presumption. Yet now, four trips later and still finding the boomerang bringing me back to the States, even I have begun to wonder whether there may be some larger reason for my lifelong exile. I am dislocating yet again this week, to a space which will potentially allow me to make progress in discovering what that reason is. If nothing else, I will undoubtedly continue to explore in writing some of the issues faced when one is out of one's right place. This phenomenon is affecting growing numbers of people around the world; perhaps I am giving voice to something important. Indeed, social and technological change is happening so fast, even the most settled of us must be feeling pretty discombobulated. Where do we find our "fixed point," some small place within where we feel at home? It's hard to imagine a time when my writing will have moved beyond these topics.

I am grateful to Karen Armstrong for articulating my truth so well. I take heart from the fact that she eventually found her unique calling, which, of course, was simply a different iteration of her original passion. Hmm...

From Above

Not too surprisingly, television images that were mesmerizing before Irma hit land, and shocking during the storm, became overwhelming by about Monday. I don't remember whether we had the capacity for such extensive aerial coverage even ten years ago; these kinds of images from above are relatively new to the human psyche, and this storm's swath was so enormous that I don't think anyone can fully take it in. Picture after picture of destruction across the Caribbean into Florida and Georgia has seared its way into our collective consciousness. 

I am glad that overall, relatively few lives were lost. I resonate with people left adrift, although I cannot begin to imagine the suddenness and irreversibility of their experience; my heart goes out to all whose lives have changed. And first responders and workers restoring power and water are doing a heroic job. But here's the thing that haunts me in this video feed from above. Where (literally on earth!) is all the manmade trash, much of it toxic, going to go? I mean, this detritus represents untold tons of aluminum siding, acrylic paint, sheetrock, old asbestos, carpeting, roofing, and plastic lawn furniture. Countless cars, refrigerators, air conditioners, mattresses, rubber tires, and electronics have either made their way into the ocean or will have to be landfilled. Households lost invaluable personal belongings, as well as plastic items small and large, from toothbrushes to kitchen storage boxes to pet toys and table- and drop-cloths. Cleaning supplies. Toiletries. Batteries. And then there are the fiberglass boats. Little old north country me has mostly sailed in wooden boats on lakes which may host only a few dozen sailboats on a beautiful summer day; from that perspective, it is shocking to see enormous marinas filled with ruined boats, maybe tens of thousands of motorboats, sailboats, and yachts, either swamped by the storm or washed up on land blocks from their berths. Each boat represents a significant weight of fiberglass (polyester), not to mention sails, motors, gasoline, life vests...the list goes on. 

More than anything, it's the plastic. Somehow, not having a home of my own and being in a town where virtually all packaging plastics are recycled, I have been able to at least stomach my own plastic "footprint." I don't particularly like synthetic anything, fabrics, plates, cutlery or furniture, but my consciousness about it hadn't been fully raised. Since Monday, the thought of all our trashed plastic debris has made me feel sick.

The move to rebuild is starting. I understand the urgent need. But most of our modern building materials just simply cannot be fully absorbed into the earth this time or the next time. Nature cannot break them down as compost for future use. 

I stand in awe of the extraordinary power we just witnessed. In fact, as I said the other day, I embrace nature's wide range of expression, its own heroic effort to stay in balance. But gosh, now the ball is in our court. I really hope that all of us look at the bigger picture of what this storm was trying to teach us. I hope we all look at it from above, and from the perspective of the future. My hunch is that we are being asked to stop and think before rebuilding. Unfortunately, when you stop and think, other people interpret it as "doing nothing"...

Storm Surge

Despite myself, I was mesmerized by the coverage of Irma. I don't know if it was the suspense of it, or the spiral shape of the radar and satellite images, or the metaphor/life lesson aspect of it. And I don't know Florida at all. The only cities I would have been able to locate on a map before this weekend are Orlando and Miami, so I had no personal stake in the storm. It's just that it was monumental, and it was nature being nature. The storm's power was literally awesome. 

Human lives were completely upended, at least for the short term. This morning, the assessment begins in terms of property, life, and infrastructure damage. Yet something keeps gnawing away at me. And that is that what from a human progress standpoint is a disaster, or destruction, or devastation, may be, from nature's perspective, re-organizing, returning to balance, a simple release of energy. I don't see it as nature's anger, rather nature's attempt to keep earth habitable for future generations of plant, human and animal species, a simple attempt to keep conditions on this delicate planet within that narrow habitable range. 

I know I have an irritating (even to me) propensity for trying to see things a different way, but I guess there's this little part of me wondering, how do we spread our arms wide and say "thank you"? As storms surge over us, even in our individual lives, where is the gift? Personally, I don't want to hear one more comment about "Mother Nature's Wrath." I think, paradoxically, she is trying to keep us safe, and wake us up to what needs to be done to keep ourselves part of this unique earth picture. Yes, dear life force, I am watching and listening, mesmerized.

Waves

This probably isn't the blog that it was going to be. Maybe none of them ever are.

It's been a hard week for news about friends. Things seem to be coming in waves. I just found out that my best school friend from 11th and 12th grade died back in May. We had been rather out of touch (she was in the world of high finance living many states away, and somehow with all my moving around and my low-finance interests, we only occasionally saw each other at reunions). She was indomitable; it is inconceivable to me that she is no longer here. Another dear friend spent the summer fighting cancer, and she told virtually none of her family and friends. She's recovering, and I am so thankful. But it's hitting me in waves, these "life after 60" moments on top of the literal storms of water, fire and wind. 

Yesterday, I saw a wonderful Martha Beck video which I seem to be too inept to figure out how to share here. But basically, she was mulling over the chaos we are experiencing, and how, trying to find a video about Irma, she stumbled across a video of a surfer riding one of the biggest waves in the world. To paraphrase her, this guy looks like he's been swallowed up by the wave, but then he surfs right out from the middle of it with style. And it was a beautiful metaphor. OK, maybe we won't all survive these big waves (I don't really believe in death, which I guess it's about time I talk about but not today), and maybe we won't all surf in style, but maybe we can at least navigate our board fearlessly up to the wave and glide to safety as best we can. 

Tomorrow, I'm going to be giving a brief presentation to a group about my trip to England. Right this second, I can't think of anything that seems further away from my reality than the choir stalls of an English cathedral. But there are entire islands that have washed away in the Caribbean and people whose lives couldn't be more upended. All in all, I am as fortunate as they come. When the waves hit me, may I keep breathing, and keep celebrating life and love wherever I see them.