Meditation

I have always found it extremely hard to meditate. I don't know why, except that my active brain simply kicks me out of that space almost immediately. And traditional prayer, outside the choral evensong setting, has never taken hold. Over the years, I managed to find alternative ways to enter an aware state. I spent many years living right next to big lakes (Superior and Champlain) and meditated by staring out at the horizon line (and for a time, that was the theme of my acrylic and oil paintings). Singing or listening to the music of my church music genre helped me connect with the divine, as did journaling. Pulling a daily oracle card has often helped bring my focus higher and given me a sense of loving guidance.

But there is no question that this extraordinary, outrageous era is going to call for a new kind of start to the day. These days, from the moment I stand up, I feel out of kilter. That breath of love, sometimes just a wisp, is hard to connect with at the best of times, but now "breath-taking" is happening literally. Of course, that is what non-love does so well, takes the oxygen out of the room, and out of our lives.

As I write this, I am having a realization. At least for a time, my morning routine will simply have to include five minutes of sitting at the edge of the bed, breathing, and paying attention to my breath. I'm not going to aim for enlightenment, or great epiphanies, or loving thoughts, or even the avoidance of thinking. I'm going to have to start from scratch, and just breathe and be thankful that this oxygen, in the midst of it all, is available to me.

Digging

This is a rather challenging time to hold the law of attraction belief that there is no such thing as "no" in the Universe...that saying no (and fighting against something) is the equivalent of saying "yes," because of where the attention is going. I know intellectually that all this attention on the unwanted is causing it to grow. I know intellectually that I must, must focus only on the qualities of life that I want for the world and myself personally: love, peace, freedom of thought and movement, spiritual and intellectual growth, a place to call home, health, and companionship. Yet it takes an almost unheard of level of self control in a moment as heated as this. I had the first panic attack of my life yesterday. It was over something completely unrelated to the news, but it was a sign to me of how the imbalance is spreading. All of us must be very sensitive to our own responses, and do personal light and healing work regularly to potentially soften what could be a very hard, dark landing. Unfortunately, we have chosen to fall. But there are many ways to hit the ground, including running.

It's odd what I have turned to for solace in the last few months. It isn't (as I might have expected) recordings of choral evensong, or glossy "Masterpiece Theatre" productions. Late last fall, I watched the British show, "The Detectorists," about two absolutely adorable but hapless metal detectorists in the east of England who live to detect and, occasionally, dig. Then, during my animal-sitting gig over Christmas, I discovered "Time Team," the now somewhat dated British archaeology show, which I've been watching online. And the other day, I happened upon a book in the library, "The Dig," by John Preston. It's a fictional account of the Sutton Hoo dig back in 1939. What is the appeal here? There is almost no conflict, except the occasional, reasonably lighthearted professional difference of opinion as to where to dig. There is the landscape that I love, not only its surface, but the layers upon layers underneath, which I am utterly fascinated by. (When I visited Gloucestershire two years ago, I swear that I could almost "see" ghostly figures in Roman togas, the energy from that time period is so strong.) And lastly, at least on "Time Team," the diggers are having so much fun. They love what they do. They get so excited when they find something. They love piecing the pieces of history together, and it's an endeavor that hurts no one, and educates everyone. That's entertainment.

History being what it is, it's not a stretch to remember that in hundreds or thousands of years, someone with a shovel will start digging, and down a few feet they will find the icons of our generation, the plastic fast food signs, the automobile dashboards, the cell phones and skyscraper girders. They'll struggle to figure out what it all meant, and shout for joy when they make sense of it. But let us also hope that our generation is remembered more for the loving qualities that became our true icons when it mattered most.

Astonishment

Yeah, and not in a good way. I feel like I have aged several decades in seven small days. The positive thing about this is that I know I am not alone. In an odd way, I feel less alone right now than I have in decades. The veneer I personally shed over twenty years ago, the veneer of "hey, I have it together, I 'get' this paradigm and love being part of it," seems to be cracking right and left. You can almost hear it, can't you?

This is when I am so thankful for the words of Florence Scovell Shinn. In The Game of Life and How to Play It, she wrote:

"Getting into the spiritual swing of things is no easy matter for the average person. The adverse thoughts of doubt and fear surge from the subconscious. They are the 'army of aliens' which must be put to flight. This explains why it is so often, 'darkest before the dawn.'

A big demonstration is usually preceded by tormenting thoughts.

Having made a statement of high spiritual truth one challenges the old beliefs in the subconscious and 'error is exposed' to be put out.

This is the time when one must make his [her] affirmations of truth repeatedly, and rejoice and give thanks that he [she] has already received."

I believe this is what we are now seeing on the collective level. In recent years, more humans than ever have reached high levels of personal spiritual consciousness, and old non-love people and paradigms are literally being shaken out of the woodwork. They are scared, angry, and making a huge ruckus, one that may continue for quite some time. May I never make the mistake of believing that the cacophony is "about" the "error." It isn't.

Periodically I receive a newsletter from author and speaker Charles Eisenstein. He put it really brilliantly: "The revolution is love." Yes, yes it is. let us hold onto that this weekend.

Today's List

I keep thinking that I'll give my poor readers a break, and yet the momentum of change is so intense right now, there is too much to say. So whether five readers or fifty check in today, I'll plow ahead. "Plow" isn't the right word, really. As you can tell, I love to write (!) I guess it is more a case of no longer blocking myself.

As I have probably mentioned in the past, one way I stop my own personal downward slides is to write a "list of ten" -- things that I am grateful for or which seem to be positive in a hard situation. As someone wise said (and at the moment I cannot remember who), you cannot be thankful and miserable at the same time. So, here goes.

1. I am thankful that this situation seems to be bringing people and their passions back to life.
2. I am thankful that this situation is forcing all of us to really be clear on our true values.
3. I am thankful for society's opportunity to see what blocked channels to Divine Love really look like.
4. I am thankful to be reminded that my mission is always to love more. However, it is OK to focus most on those people and situations which have some capacity to love and heal in return. In the face of the empty, it is best to bless then simply turn away.
5. I am thankful to be reminded that nothing outside of me can make me happy or unhappy -- in the midst of chaos, aligning with "that of God within" is my main job.
6. I am thankful to have had the opportunity (in the face of potentially losing them) to fully appreciate our freedoms.
7. I am thankful for the power of women.
8. I am thankful for the power of music.
9. I am thankful to have a roof over my head today, access to some food, and a tiny stream of income from things on the neutral-to-enjoyment spectrum. (This is really quite a step forward after decades of falling back on employment that could not fully challenge or interest me.)
10. I am thankful for the spring-like bird I just heard in the 40 degree temperatures.

What's on your list today?

Rachel Carson

Last night, I watched PBS's excellent American Experience special on Rachel Carson, the author of "Silent Spring." I am sorry to say I have never read the book, even though it is one I clearly remember on our family's living room bookshelf c.1962-63.

Like many girls of my generation, I experienced early success in science (A+ in chemistry in seventh grade) followed by a swan dive. The biology teacher at my girls' private school was probably a great scientist but he barely spoke English, and I quite literally could not understand him. Biology is so word- and concept-oriented that this was a disastrous thing for a teenage girl, at least circa 1967. I made the "decision" that I did not like science or math, and the rest is history. I still remember many of the periodic table abbreviations and I can balance my checkbook, but that is about it. To this day, I probably would lose steam in "Silent Spring."

However, what riveted me last night was Carson's personal courage, her tenacity, and her prescience. She took a holistic approach to nature that was impossible for the nearly all-male scientific community to understand or accept. I've struggled individually with the "kill or be killed" mentality of our institutions. Watching this, I see clearly where pesticide use fits into that mindset, and am in awe of her fearlessness, and her determination to write the truth as she knew it. The glare of the spotlight may have taken its toll on her intensely private nature, as she sickened from cancer and died at 56, not long after the book's publication. Fifty-six.

My list of heroines just keeps growing and growing.  

She becomes feisty

All right, you may be wondering, why is Liz about to discuss her resume a few days after the most significant weekend in modern history? Well, bear with me. I guess it is just a case of, with everything cracking open, the truth is coming out. Old issues look different in the light.

The day before the inauguration, a dear friend made the same suggestion to me that dozens have before. "Why don't you just take your master's off your resume? It might be easier to find work."

In the past, this suggestion brought up deep shame. I often thought people were basically right -- that my Master's of Music in historical musicology from Royal Holloway, University of London was impeding a serious general American job hunt -- but I couldn't quite bring myself to omit it. This time, however (was it the stress of current events?), I uncharacteristically almost shouted, "No! I am not taking the one achievement I am truly proud of off my resume!" and stomped away. I should have apologized to my friend but darn it, on top of everything, I'm so tired of apologizing.

For "American Liz", this degree has been the elephant in the living room from the get-go. From the moment I returned from London in 1981 and my mother said, "Did you have a nice time dear? What are you going to do next?", my M.Mus has been in the category of "that weird thing Liz did that we totally don't understand". It was devastating on a personal level not to be asked by most friends or family what my experience (research in the UK and France, writing, transcribing chant, and singing) had entailed. But at least in the corporate world at the time, human beings read resumes, and it was possible to get a job such as the one I had with Time, answering letters to the editor. My degree showed that I was bright, resourceful, a good researcher, and articulate. Unfortunately, as I moved forward, it took me too long to grasp that computers had begun to do the human resource scanning, and that they were literally not registering "M.Mus", "historical musicology", or "Royal Holloway". I was getting tossed from the get-go. Just to survive, I fell back on retail, waitressing, and odd jobs, so the chasm between my education/intellectual potential and my actual work experience was so deep that, as I may have said in a past blog, even I would not have hired me. The "ifs" haunt me here too. If I hadn't been drowning in student loans, maybe I would have tried to stay in London. If I had stayed in London, my degree would have opened doors. If I had chosen a more academic direction or to be an arts administrator, if, if, if...

At almost-61 with years of insignificant income behind me, you'd think I would be more open to my friend's suggestion rather than less. But I am not. Quite the contrary. It is too unbearable, this metaphor of self-annihilation at a moment when all my personal values seem to be at risk of annihilation from the outside.

So I am proposing two new versions of my resume going forward.

A.

Liz Wilson

Master of Music (historical musicology/chant)

Royal Holloway, University of London

B.

Liz Wilson

Mystic Queen

Singer of Choral Evensong

Visionary

Artist

Writer

Depending on the situation, I'll use A or B. When I am feeling really feisty, I'll put the words "Get over it" at the bottom of the page. Period. Full Stop.

(Is that the Hallelujah Chorus I hear wafting on the breeze?!)

A thing of beauty

OK, so I have to confess that, despite being on "silent retreat," I did sneak a peak at a TV news channel at around 6 pm on Saturday. I may not have chosen to march, but my heart was with the marchers and I wanted to reassure myself that things had gone relatively well. They did, and then some. Millions of people all over the world expressed themselves; overall, marchers and police were laid back, and it was a thing of beauty.

Do I now regret my decision not to march? Some of the photographs on social media have made me regret it a little, photos of entire planes full of smiling women heading to Washington, a picture of a little girl with a sign reading, "I'm a girl. What's your superpower?", and the amazing video of a street full of marchers respectfully singing our National Anthem as it was being played on the carillon at St. Thomas Fifth Avenue, New York. The latter has had me in tears. There's a patchwork quilt of the millions of experiences and impressions of January 21, 2017 big enough to warm us all.

So it is that my patch is a little different. I am so not comfortable in crowds. I knew in my heart that even one of the more modest marches would have been more than my poor little claustrophobic self could have taken. If I were a mom or a grandmother, or had had a cadre of people to hold hands with, perhaps I might have done it simply to have a shared experience with younger women. If I had had a car, the money to get to one of the big marches, if, if, if...in the end, this twelfth house Aquarian mystic just needed to do it her quiet way, and it was fine. I started Saturday in the chapel of a retreat center. I'm not big on prayer, but I prayed for a peaceful day all over the world. I rejoiced in my freedom to do something a bit different, and to hold a specific energy. I read, I slept, I wrote, and I ate. I had a few important epiphanies which will undoubtedly make their way into this blog. In the end, I felt very much a part of it all. I'm proud of all of us who intersected respectfully with Saturday on any level, and it has helped me start to snap out of a prolonged low season. I feel quite energized.

Heroism

Back when I taught at the community college, I had many students -- male and female -- who had had extraordinarily difficult lives. Sometimes we had occasion to discuss a story or philosophical issue that lent itself to considering the hero's journey, and the heroine's (which can be more of an inner, rather than outer, "fight the dragons" one). I would urge students to think of themselves as the heroes of their own epic journey. What would the fairy tale version be like?

If this isn't an epic moment, I don't know what is. I would be utterly beside myself if I didn't believe that many of us out here are as "epic" and "heroic" as, if not more so than, the scenario playing itself out in front of us. For the moment, I address this primarily to my female readers: this weekend, whatever you are doing (marching, sitting in silence, caring for children or ageing adults, grading papers, singing, painting, cleaning house) -- hold your head high. You are the heroine of your journey at an absolutely extraordinary moment. You are my heroine. Something has come into the open that we didn't expect, and slowly, steadily and organically, we will walk through and beyond it. We will gain courage from each other's heroism.

I'll be on retreat until Monday noon. I'll plan to check in again by Tuesday. Courage, all.

"The Sound of Silence"

As so often happens, this wasn't originally the plan. I actually wrote yesterday, but wasn't entirely happy with the essay, postponed printing it, and now have chucked it.

From Friday afternoon through Monday morning, I will be sitting in silence, away from all media and communications. Some of my marching friends may see this as avoidance, and I don't know as I blame them. My heart is certainly with them and I thrill that there will be marches all over the world. But here's the way I look at it. This is not "me, holing myself up in my comfortable home, above the fray." Indeed, I really haven't had a home (in any true sense of the word) my whole life. I am the Queen of "the fray"; I seem to have chosen a path of regular insecurity, discomfort and change. One might think that this leaves me singularly prepared for a moment such as this, and in a way that is true. My only "home" is who I am. And I am not an activist so much as I am a mystic, possibly not a great mystic, but a mystic nonetheless. And I did not wish to "react" on this energetically intense weekend and be someone I am not.

I won't spend the weekend thinking superficially "nice," "happy" thoughts either. I wish I could, but I won't lie. I feel so forever changed by the events of the last few months that I am struggling to find an iota of innocent joy, to hear even a few notes of my inner music. I will try to hold at least a relatively positive energy, but my main goal will be to try to rise as far above these events as I can, and see them in the widest possible spiritual and historical perspective. In the silence, I hope to get some clues as to where, in this new context, my own gifts are calling me.

Silence does have a sound, a resonance. It has a power all its own. May my little honest silence ring loud and true.

Clueless

Has something like this ever happened to you?

I went to church yesterday, which is a little rare right at the moment. I had been offered a ride (in the cold, for which I was grateful) that got me there an hour early, so I wandered into the adult forum and sat down a minute or two after they had started. I consider myself so bright, so able to switch gears on a dime, and yet it took at least ten minutes to fully figure out what the discussion was about. There were references to a woman, but at first I didn't know whether they were talking about someone in the congregation, or a public figure or an author. Then, slowly but surely, I narrowed it down to an author, and grasped that several of the attendees had books in their laps. Finally, the topic of the book began to become clear, and after several people read significant passages and I listened to their personal experiences with the subject of the book -- and the nice lady next to me handed me the book to look at -- I shook, Quaker-style, because I was feeling led to contribute an observation of my own.

But that first ten minutes was so interesting, like being a person from a foreign country, utterly clueless, not understanding the language, feeling adrift. I was a sleuth, trying to put the clues together. And as I sat there looking out the window at a bare black tree trunk and branches filling the grey sky, I though, this is what I have been feeling like since the summer conventions, like I have entered a world I simply don't know, don't understand, and whose vocabulary is grating to my ears and my soul. Who are these people? What is happening? Was all of this in front of me all the time only I didn't see it? Why does nothing make sense to me?

And unlike the discussion group, I somehow think it is unlikely that a kindly lady will hand me a little book that will elucidate matters. Somehow I suspect that intellectual brilliance won't help -- and indeed, using logic may make things much harder. It consoles me, however, that there appear to be millions of us in the same situation. May we all hold each other in spiritual kinship, and never lose heart.

Poise

For today, this, from Florence Scovel Shinn (Your Word is Your Wand): "I am poised and powerful..." Let's all be poised and powerful this week! 

Remarkable Women

Yesterday, I went to see the movie "Hidden Figures." I recommend it unreservedly.

At the end, I just sobbed. I wept for the pain of the indignities African-Americans had to go through in the segregated south, and still experience. I wept with pride at these three women's spunk and persistence in the face of a wall of white men in suits. I wept that ultimately, each woman used her unique genius to its fullest. I wept, wondering what that would feel like. I wept that all of them had men in their lives who loved them for the remarkable totality of who they were. I wept when the head of the space program (played by Kevin Costner) shook the hand of Katherine G. Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), thanking her for what she did. I wept at the spiritual transformation some of the white characters went through. And I wept at the thought that in one fell swoop, we seem to have elected to regress 55 years, almost as if none of these transformations ever took place. We must, must keep in mind that they did, and that there is no reason on earth to undo them.

Age of Aquarius

The 5th Dimension song from 1967 is on my mind again. I referred to it back on May 31, but in the last few days it has returned, big-time. For the record, I just about missed the "hippie" era, being a little bit too young. That year, I was 11. I wasn't a radical. I didn't march. And I didn't take drugs, ever. Seriously! I didn't listen to the songs of the sixties from some kind of hazy fog. This was an ultra-serious, ultra-studious, goody-two-shoes eleven-year-old girl, listening to a transistor radio. Lyrics like "harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust abounding, no more falsehoods or derisions..." and "love is all you need" just simply resonated. My astrological sun sign is Aquarius, and so I think my interpretation was that the world being described was my world, the only reality. That was the kind of world I wanted to live in. It still is.

I gather that there is quite a bit of discord in astrological circles about when the Piscean Age will end and the Aquarian one will begin, if it hasn't happened already. (Not being an astrologer, I don't know enough to weigh in.) And what we are seeing in front of us seems to be such a complete reproach to "harmony and understanding," that right now, the song just seems almost ridiculous. This may be why so many of us in my generation are feeling so devastated. But I continue to believe that humanity is heading into ("transitioning," to use the term I used yesterday) an age where those peace-filled qualities are more the norm. I believe that before too long, there simply will not be room for people and institutions that are such a gross energetic mismatch to love. Their current expression/manifestation literally has no future. This thought is keeping me relatively calm. This thought helps me keep my hand on the tiller of my little boat.

"Let the sun shine in" today.

High wind warnings

Late yesterday and early today, the wind has been intense. A year ago, I would have thought, "wow, it's windy out." Now, of course, it's a metaphor.

One of the hardest aspects of my life has been the frequency with which people have told me I am wrong. This goes back as far back as I can remember and, of course, once a momentum for something gets started, it's hard to stop. To this day, with some important exceptions, I seem to choose the company of a lot of contrarians! (And, truthfully, to do things destined to elicit that response.) I think what it stems from is that I notice everything, and have the kind of mind that draws conclusions from what I see. And I always try to speak the truth as I see it. This quality is not always fully appreciated (!) and of course, that is part of the reason that it took until fully 59-and-a-half to even drum up the courage to write for the public. It's not an issue of wanting to be seen as "right," because that whole duality thing is part of what I think we are outgrowing. No, it's just a case of starting to believe my observations at least have always been "valid." The small group of you who regularly read this blog have helped me to believe that, for which I cannot thank you enough.

So I will let you decide whether the following has validity for you. Back in the 1990's and early 2000's, I did some writing where I predicted that society would enter (somewhere around 2015-2020) something I called "The Transition." This would be an extremely volatile, challenging time but one that would open up space for more enlightened societies and institutions. I reckoned that it might take several decades to walk through.

What's interesting is that there are a lot of chilling predictions being made right now, but only a few spiritually-based thinkers seem to see it in the larger context of eventual renewal, which seems to me is inevitable as long as a large percentage of us stay fearless, with our channels open to genuine divine love, and our eyes attuned to larger realities than those in the news feed. Everything we think is right may be upended. We all may be told we are wrong. The wind is going to blow with a gale force at times. This is likely to be one heck of a storm. But when it subsides, I think we will be stunned by the beauty in front of us when the sun shines again.

So batten down the hatches. Clarify your values and be prepared to stay aligned with them. Try to always act from love, not fear. Be yourself, don't hide below decks. Your little boat needs a captain now more than ever. This, as they say, is our time.

This Picture

Perhaps it is the sign of a topsy-turvy time that I am seeing things in new ways. I don't quite know what to do about most of it, but here goes today's observation.

I continue to think about Friday's shooting, and so many similar, horrifying events in recent years. A gunman or terrorist makes the decision to act, and an event that may take, what?, five minutes, ends up costing society many thousands, maybe millions of dollars. Someone is surely studying this; there are the huge numbers of law enforcement personnel from the local level on up, the communications, cars, trucks and armored vehicles, the losses to airlines and nearby retail establishments, the expensive stress on first responders, health and transit systems. There's media coverage locally, nationally and internationally. If the suspect survives, there are all the expenses of the legal system and his (or her) incarceration. There's the ripple effect of trauma that moves out from the center of the event (where professional mental health treatment may be necessary.) And there is no way to "calculate" the loss of lives, careers cut short, the effect of long drawn-out injuries, and debilitating grief. The excess cost to society from any one act of violence by only one person is truly incalculable and unimaginable.

And yet many of us cannot kill anything larger than a mosquito. (Speaking only for myself, if an entire battalion of fighters aimed their rifles at me, I could not and would not fight back. I would stand tall and hold them in the light, and hope they came to their senses.) We quietly go about the business of getting degrees, getting jobs (or work in other capacities), marrying or staying single. We have children or help care for other people, we volunteer, and we create art or music or poetry or novels or sculpture. We take walks or sail boats or hike mountains. Some of us pursue other personal dreams that have no potential to harm another human being. We are just trying to make a positive contribution to the world. We don't place undue financial or other stress on the system, and indeed, often we pay to do what means the most to us.

I not sure I am expressing this well, I don't know where to go with it, and perhaps I'm comparing apples to oranges. But clearly there is something askew here. For today, that's all I can say.

Yesterday

Again. Add Ft. Lauderdale to the world's terrible list.

And again, the cries to stop the horror, stop gun violence, stop, stop, stop. Fight back. Fight back. Fight back. Yet in that language lies the guarantee that it will continue.

The violence we are seeing isn't something that can be solved by tweaking some small part of the picture. Our entire paradigm is based, I believe, on a simple underlying misunderstanding, the belief in two equally powerful forces, "good" and "evil." This belief is so tragic because it guarantees that fighting and killing will never end. Decades ago, someone (watching me floundering) told me, "It's kill or be killed, Liz. If you can't learn to kill, you'll never survive." It was meant in the metaphorical, business sense, and I looked at this person and basically said, you are out of your mind, but of course, they turned out to be right.
This eternal conflict model is the focus or underpinning of just about everything: our military and financial systems, our medicine ("fighting disease"), our adversarial legal and political systems, much of our entertainment and sports, our history and much of our literature, even some of our educational and religious constructs. Every time we take an antihistamine, try to protect ourselves by locking doors or buying a home alarm system, or sign a petition "against" something, we are taking part in this outmoded construct. Every time we read even the most little old lady murder mystery (I'm guilty of this) or thrill to a classical opera based on tragedy, we are taking part in this outmoded construct. Every time we try to get a better deal, or a lower price, or to profit, or even when we simply accept the "profit/non-profit" split, we are taking part in this outmoded construct. Perhaps earlier in human evolution we needed the separation model to survive, but we don't now.
Believing in only one essential power ("good," for lack of a better or more all-encompassing word) has so far left me way out of the pack, and can be terrifying because new institutions aren't in place, but at least I understand that this single stream of good is eternal. I understand that there is no death, so I won't ever "die" in the larger scheme of things, and no one can kill me, so there is nothing to fear. I understand that souls come to this world for a reason, so I have no right to curtail their experience on this earth, and no one has the right to curtail mine. I understand that if I am angry or frustrated, lashing out is pointless; I need to look within to where I am blocking my own good. I need to figure out why I am not flowing with the river. I understand that if someone or some situation is painful, my job is to change myself and my responses. It's all about personally and courageously aligning with the one river of life/love/good/beauty/harmony.

Yesterday proved once again that violence is painful. Being held hostage is painful. Angry people are painful. Most of us are so very tired of this whole model. It is so "yesterday," really! Yet if we are to create a less violence-centered tomorrow, it takes an enormous amount of individual inner work today, and a whole new set of individual moment-by-moment decisions. We have to always, always, choose life, love, goodness, beauty and harmony. Period. (We can't say, "well, just this once I'll watch this violent movie, or hang out with someone negative so that I won't be alone, or read this news report which I know will make me fighting mad.") Unfortunately, there is no shortcut. That's hard work for the weekend, but if the alternative is more of the same, I'm willing to do it as best I can. Moment-to-moment. And if I cannot find anything new paradigm to do, I need to create one, or do the least "old paradigm" thing on offer. And there's always just taking a walk or a nap.

Standing tall

The film "It's a Wonderful Life" has been with me the last few days. Somehow, I had hoped that I would wake up early in the new year to find that it all has been a bad dream, kind of like the vision angel Clarence presents to suicidal George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart). George's beloved hometown, Bedford Falls, has become Pottersville, a garish, nightmarish place of cynical, nasty people and institutions. A short tour of the dystopian town convinces George that his life has in fact made a huge difference to the people around him, and he finally stands tall and walks home to the love and acclaim of the townspeople.

No, we can't unwind our current film. It is for real. However, I think there is some sense in which we are being given the benefit of a glimpse into the nightmare so that we, too, can choose not to despair, can choose to stand up tall, can choose to be fully present and fully who we are, fearlessly representing a higher set of values.

Right this moment, I'm speaking primarily to my women friends simply because I think how we women stand up, in this moment, will make a huge difference in how events unfold, but it applies to men and women. I hope most of you sleep better than I do, but I urge you sometime in the next few nights to turn the alarm on for 2 AM, and spend an hour or two completely on your own, away from family, media, cell phones, work colleagues or other considerations. Make yourself a cup of tea, and do that thing that most of us avoid like the plague. Sit there in the presence of the Mystery, and ask those hard questions. Who am I? What is my primary gift to the world? Is there something else I am meant to be doing with my precious life? What have I been holding back? What are my highest values, and am I living in alignment with them? What do I love? What am I passionate about? The answers may or may not come clearly, but just see what insights surface.

This is our time. Whatever gifts we have held back, our courage, our creativity, our power, it is time to stand up and use them. I'm more and more convinced that it isn't a case of doing things that don't come naturally to us in order to push against the unwanted. It's a case of simply being who we are. Have you been writing poems in your journal but they haven't seen the light of day? Send your best one to all your friends. Are you a painter? Paint more, and make sure the images are seen, even if it means hanging them on the front porch. Are you a doctor or healer? There are so many traumatized, sick people who need you. Are you an activist or leader? Get out there and do it. And if at 60-something, you feel tired of old roles, listen deep in your soul for the emerging new role. Do and be whatever is "you" to a greater degree than you have dared before. It took so much courage for me to take on the writing of this blog, and now I know I need to push it up another notch as well, which I'll talk about in the next few days. If we flood the "airways" with our creativity, absolute integrity, positive power, healing and compassion, at the very least we may find that our stay in "Pottersville" is a relatively short one.

Coyotes

Last night around midnight, on my last night of housesitting, I could hear coyotes crying not far away. That eerie sound was a reminder of how close we are, in this country anyway, to wilderness, to a wildness that has nothing to do with human behavior.

Coyote, in Native American symbolism, superficially represents "trickster" or "joker" energy. People sometimes see it as a negative, especially in a card reading or when a coyote enters their consciousness, as happened to me last night. But as I meditated on it in the context of this extraordinary year, I realized that there may be a deeper message than to watch out for people playing tricks on us.

Perhaps it is a reminder that things may not always be what they seem, in a positive sense. Truth may be coming to us round the edges, in that gut feeling, or that wild singing in the night, or from the mouths of babes or animals. The truth may come to us in a playful, teasing moment, or when we do what seems like a small gesture and it turns out to mean mountains to someone else. If I turn off the TV or online chatter for a few days, what sounds do I start hearing, and what do they mean?

For those of you who might have discovered this blog through my writing about choral evensong, you might be wondering, as do I almost every day, what is the overlap between the howl of a North American coyote and the precise, stylized singing of the Magnificat in an English cathedral? What is the overlap between a life largely lived in the American wilderness and a soul at home in a cathedral choir stall? Welcome to the Liz path, where such things walk the road together, not quite holding hands, yet usually at least touching fingers tentatively and curiously. The best I can come up with is that both sounds constitute life celebrating life. May I find the opportunity to sing or howl wholeheartedly today!

Simple. Uncomplicated.

I cannot remember a previous early January where the people I know were more distressed about the new year than the old one. This pessimism isn't universal, but in our country, it is palpable. Something has happened which most of us neither chose nor understand, nor wish to understand. And simple, uncomplicated optimism and affirmations just don't seem to cut it right now.

In the middle of the night, I was up with a brilliant idea for this blog, but it has disappeared with the morning light. So I'm winging it...again.

My new year's resolution continues to be (despite a little travel and some uncertainties about the health of this computer) to write at least every two days from this point forward for the foreseeable future, as I promised a few weeks ago. The temptation to withdraw into fearful silence always seduces me, but there is simply more and more to say. I must bear witness, not only to my own unique path but to the larger one unfolding in front of all of us.

What is the most optimistic statement I can make about 2017? Here it is: we must go through this doorway for our greatest possible spiritual growth as a species.  On the other side of the portal is a new landscape, a new stretch of river, whatever metaphor works. Moving through this new landscape will take every ounce of our courage, love, authenticity and power, and we are as much the future's co-creators as the people in the news. We are up to the task; the world in 100 years will surely be more astonishing than it has ever been, in a good way. I'm going to take that as a given, and try to stay in the present moment more than I ever have. The sun is out. The sky is blue. The snow is melting. And I am still breathing. Simple. Uncomplicated.