A Dedication

Any of you who have been on a spiritual journey of your own, or undergone a rebirth of any kind, have probably been chomping at the bit reading my last few posts. You already know the "moral of the story" -- if other eyes and ears haven't been able to see or hear us, we need to see and hear ourselves; if other hearts don't love us, we need to love ourselves; if other people's economies don't value us, we need to value ourselves. It's so easy to read this in a book and "get" it. Goodness, how many millions of books about spirituality have I read over the last thirty years or so? But I guess it is classic "spiritual journey" stuff that we may never turn ourselves inside out completely until we are literally at our wit's end, where everything we try doesn't stick, where most everyone we know thinks we're a goner, when we are at our most non-functional, and when all the giant waves of old you-know-what in our life are breaking over us.

At that moment, it is just us and the Divine One alone on the beach, however we conceive of him or her. You know, for years, I have tried so hard to adopt gender-free terms for a force that is clearly beyond human conceptualizing. Like many in my generation, I have found it easier to say "Universe" or "Source" than "God" (at least when I wasn't in a cathedral music setting). But over the last few weeks, it hasn't been the male or gender-neutral face of the divine keeping me company through the storm, it has been the feminine one. She has been in every grain of sand shifting at my feet, every drop of water pouring over me, every gust of wind trying to blow me over. She has been in the hardy grasses peeking out of the dunes, in the gulls crying overhead, in my patient little boat pulled up, waiting for me to survive the onslaught so I can pull back out into the river. She has cried with me and felt my grief. She has been the one whose pure voice I hear in the wind, saying and teaching me to say, "I see you, I hear you, I love you, I value you and all your gifts." 

I don't like buying into duality, and have avoided it. But as the waves continue to crash over me, I need to make a dedication. Whether I survive another four weeks, four years, or four decades in this lifetime, I dedicate myself to the feminine face of God, the Goddess, the Great Mother, Gaia. Yes, I will often use other terminology, but in my heart, Goddess energy best represents all-love, all-joy, all-life. The funny thing is, I actually suspect my life was dedicated to Her all along and I just didn't realize it. How this relates to the world of Mags and Nuncs and Preces and Responses, I still don't know. I think She'll help me figure that out.

"Magnificent Things"

As anguishing as this last year or so has been, it has also been thrilling. At least once a month, another heroine is added to my list, and the newest one is Judge Rosemarie Aquilina. She is the amazing judge in the case of the abusive gymnastics doctor, who has spared no words condemning the accused, and given unprecedented space for the women he victimized to speak. She said to one of the women,"Leave your pain here, and go out and do your magnificent things." I mean, this is the tsunami, the wave of truth, right here. Right now.

Perhaps millions of women, this minute, are going through their own personal variations on the theme of naming their pain, facing it as the waves rush to shore, taking their shattered but magnificent selves forward into the world to change it. When I feel overwhelmed, I try to focus on the fact that the momentum of women's influence is finally reaching a tipping point.

This judge brought to mind my own grandmother, Winifred (also spelled Winnifred) Wilton Wilson, who I have mentioned before and who became a pioneering Canadian lawyer one hundred years ago, back when only "persons" could become lawyers, and women were not legally considered persons. Her short law career ended upon her marriage to my grandfather, and unfortunately she died before I was born never having fulfilled her legal potential, but how utterly and completely I see her spirit in Judge Aquilina. 

Winifred was inspired throughout her life by William Ernest Henley's poem, "Invictus," and its slightly archaic words have supported me, too, these recent weeks: "Out of the night that covers me...I thank whatever gods may be/for my unconquerable soul...my head is bloody, but unbowed...I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul." We are unconquerable and magnificent.

Tsunami, too

As I am writing this, actual tsunami warnings for Alaska and the West Coast were being withdrawn, although some threat remains. The real thing is no joke, and written metaphors about "facing the wave" don't apply -- be safe, everyone.

My recent references to tsunamis have apparently confused even some of my good friends, who have wondered what happened. I guess I've been too metaphorical by half. So a tiny bit more clarity is in order. Several years ago, it finally hit me that the experience I had within my family was not one of love. I have no doubt everyone was doing the best they could (myself included) but what I experienced was pretty grim, really. So imagine little Lizzie at aged 4, hearing this marvelous music at church, longing to sing it, only to learn that the tradition was essentially closed to girls and women, and would be pretty much until the 21st century. By six or eight, I think I had a big cosmic, hopeless "No" hanging over my head...I achieved great things academically, but when I entered the work force, my "jobs" really didn't interest me, and the closer I came to learning what made me tick, the less I earned. (The system itself feels quite incapable of love to me, complicating matters.) Then, I somehow never fell in love, got married, or had children. If it weren't for some wonderful, wise, loving friends and beautiful experiences along the way, I might not have survived at all.

So the waves that I have been speaking of have been emotional pain of feeling invisible, unlovable and "worthless." If, as I believe, love is life, then I have regularly felt left for dead but tried to avoid the pain. I spoke of choices the other day, and yes, from the time I was 18, I was making my own choices. But a great many of them were within the limited spectrum of, if you do X, you'll be rejected, but if you do Y, you'll be rejected somewhat less. And of course, in that scenario, you start proactively doing a lot of the rejecting. The recent resistance movement is painful to me because most of my life has been about being resisted and resisting. Now that the wave has washed over me, I don't like that feeling at all, in either direction; I finally understand that you just have to face the future and move resistance-free toward your own star.

This process of rebirth really has very little to do with changing who I am. It's about finally allowing myself to feel the despair of how largely unfulfilling this lifetime has been emotionally and financially, despite so much effort to do good. I've expressed so much passion and excellence, and yet it often felt like it disappeared without a trace into the ether. This recent wave of emotion has shattered me, but it has also cracked open some deep knowing about what true love, joy and welcome feel like. I can now almost imagine, for instance, walking up the sidewalk to a house, the door opening before I even need to knock, and people running out to hug me, dogs with their tails wagging and children laughing and jumping up and down. I can now almost imagine a scenario where someone says, "Liz, you are just who we have been looking for. You have all the right skills and interests, the right courage, the beautiful wisdom, the voice of an angel, the ability to create and promote beauty. You are a writer of truth with a passion for a specific place and music, and a passion for the lives and actualization of women. Welcome! We are so glad you are here!" The real rebirth will come when I not only "hear" those words, but believe them. The real rebirth will come when I look ahead and see "Yes!" hovering over the horizon. The fact that I could even write the words is a good start. Intense. The Liz Path...

I sang

In the end, I sang. The march-like,"Qua-re-sur-get-ex-fa-vil-la-ju-di-can-dus-ho-mo-re-us." Mozart's Requiem seems a strangely appropriate anthem for these times, and I know that perhaps it would have been powerful to have been part of an actual march, but ultimately, it was the kind of decision faced over and over again in life: to do "X" or not to do it. 

I've referred before to Mike Dooley's book, Manifesting Change. He talks (pp. 151-153) about how, on the path to manifesting joy, you sometimes have to choose among several options, none of which is optimum. And the best path is the "least unattractive" one. That sounds decidedly unsexy, but the last few years this advice has probably saved my life repeatedly. My two major options for Saturday were not Hallelujah Chorus material -- either to go to an unfamiliar city and march/listen to speeches for an unspecified period of time, or to stay in a more familiar, comfortable setting, sing and listen to music, take a walk, and bake cookies. I chose option B. I don't know that it furthered the cause for women, but I hope it did. It felt safer and more beautiful, and after such an unsettled lifetime, making such a choice even for a few hours was even more empowering than marching. But the photographs from cities like New York and LA were thrilling.

It just goes to show that each of us has the power over our lives, at every moment. We really do. We make the choices. To go here, go there, do this, do that. We, or our deeper selves, make the best decision based on our background, our upbringing, the society we live in, our beliefs about people and money, and our values. We have some idea of where we are going and what we want. We may struggle with what people expect of us vs. what we want. Then we take a deep breath, and choose. And then we choose again, over and over again every day. Saturday, I chose to sing. It felt good. I may not be where I ever expected to be, but the future starts today and with the choices I make, today. May "choosing to sing" remain high on my list.

A Woman's March

As of now, I'm still a bit on the fence about whether to attend the nearest women's march tomorrow. I'd like to say it's about my feet and claustrophobia and crowds, but it's more a psychic energy thing. Last year at inauguration, I simply had to go inward; later, though, I was sorry to have chosen not to be part of history. This year, so soon after having turned to face my life's "tsunami," I'm dealing with the same contrasting impulses -- to join hands and be with people, or to breathe deeply and quietly on my own.

That's the thing, really. My whole life has been a woman's march. I questioned everything from the get-go, and deep within believed that women had the right to sing their passionate songs, to walk their own walks, to take the journeys they needed to take to get where they needed to go. I've marched to a different drummer, alright, and that stunned look in my eyes these last thirty-five years or so has been by way of saying, "Why on earth doesn't this work? Why isn't an infrastructure in place to encourage women, single or not? Why are we such an afterthought? Why is it so very hard to stay authentic and powerful? Why is it so hard to even survive?" Things are changing before our very eyes now. This year has been the catalyst for changes I never thought I would see, and I rejoice in that. 

Speaking of rejoicing, the decision to stand and face my wave of pain has elicited some very hard aftershocks. But it has also done something almost magical. I suspected that it might crack open a door to hope; last night, even better, I followed a thread of online music to real joy. I discovered a good recording of the Mozart Requiem, which I believe I sang only once, forty years ago, with the huge symphonic chorus, the Cathedral Choral Society in Washington, DC. To my shock, not only do I remember my alto part and most of the words, but most of the other parts, choral and orchestral. I sang with total abandon, even with the soloists, without needing a score. I "conducted" and intuitively aligned with the piece's expansive emotional expression. It reminded me that, at my essence, I am a musician. In the eighties, when I basically gave up choral and organ music in frustration at not being able to sing English cathedral music with the men and boys, I gave up joy. I gave up "me." I won't do that again.

If I don't march tomorrow, I'll sing more Mozart instead. I see that the translation of one of the lines of the Dies Irae is, "all creation is awaking." Yes it is.

  

Still standing

Yes, I am still standing. The image I have had is of the Easter Island statues, huge stone figures (Moai) looking out to sea; I may have water dripping from my nose, and a seaweed coat, and the landscape around me may have been utterly transformed, but I am still standing. I am still strong, organic, shaken but somehow essentially in one piece.

How to make a connection to Martin Luther King Day? April 4, 1968: I remember my mom driving me home from Thursday church girls' choir rehearsal, up Nott Street in Schenectady. I was twelve years old, probably still humming something from choir. The radio was on, and the news report took my breath away. I wasn't old enough to fully understand the civil rights movement, and my life and my school classes arguably never really caught up. But the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, King, and two months later, of Robert Kennedy were vile, heart-shattering bookends for a sixties childhood. I didn't understand then why such hatred and violence existed toward anyone, anywhere, and I still do not. With the passage of decades, if anything, the perplexity and horror magnifies. The tsunami the other day wasn't just a personal one; I felt a world full of pain. It broke over me, a wave of emotions I have spent a lifetime trying to fend off. Kind of a cosmic, keening,"Why?"

Those statues, and standing stones like Stonehenge, are what I am holding on to today, such good symbols for the battered human spirit. Still standing, still standing.

A tsunami

Several years ago, I finally solved a lifelong mystery. It was a stunning revelation, and in the time since then, I have dealt with it pretty well intellectually. And I suppose you could say (using my sailboat metaphor) that I have been zig-zagging across the wide lake, hoping to avoid what I knew would eventually be a tsunami of emotional fallout. This winter, I was thankfully offered a small sandy beach upon which to pull my boat, and I could have ditched the vessel and run for the hills. Maybe I should have run for the hills. But I didn't. I turned around, faced the oncoming wave, and let it crash all over me. There's a moment when you just cannot run any more. You're too tired, too "pregnant," too ready. Standing up, looking the thing in the eye, even embracing its power, is the only option.

I am still standing, but I am badly shaken. I'm not even sure that what I am feeling is, strictly speaking, "emotion" -- horror, incredulity, a sense of loss. Maybe the deeper emotions are still to come. Yikes. 

Paradoxically, while feeling utterly shattered, I immediately feel more whole, more of value too. I sense that inner, unconditional joy may now be possible for the first time. I will write more about this as I can; meanwhile, I acknowledge my deep gratitude for the time and place to face the monster wave. Truth can be a tsunami. It always eventually hits the shore. And it always transforms.

Birth and Rebirth

Sixty-two years ago this month, I was getting ready to be born. Probably another snowy, frigid, northeastern US winter. Despite the fact I know I made deliberate decisions about where and into which family to be born, I suspect I was already having some major-league second thoughts about the whole enterprise. I put birth off as long as I could, well into February. My grandfather, who was in Europe, pestered a small post office daily from mid-January on, waiting for a telegram. (Imagine, I'm from the era of telegrams!) Finally, when my Dad sent the birth announcement, the postman grumbled to my grandfather, "Your god-damned granddaughter has finally arrived." Forget the choir of angels, I had a cranky foreign civil servant announcing my birth. Hey, I'll take it. And it has always seemed strangely appropriate.

I think I sent all my "superpowers" flying to the four winds, that cold February morning long ago. Intuition being one of them, I knew that this was not a family or a culture that would warmly welcome an extraordinary girl. I knew the four winds would keep my gifts safe, and I proceeded through life working on perhaps 20% power, kind of an empty wheel rolling through school, jobs and life, occasionally hearing the winds of my spirit in the trees, but finding her mostly out of reach. Seven years ago, in the wake of bankruptcy, I started to actively look for her again, and, zigging and zagging, I pulled the pieces back into me. The four winds had done their job. How thankful I am.

In the last few months -- and particularly this frozen, wind-blown tundra of early 2018 -- I have stayed still, like a pregnant mama waiting for her time. I can now almost physically feel the last few pieces magnetizing to me, filling me closer and closer to 100%. This rebirth has been hard won and was sixty-two years in the making, but at least I can hear the divine feminine rejoicing. (If others are grumbling or cursing, it's nice to be too old to care!)

"An Acceptance of Wings"

Sometimes a word or phrase from the most unlikely place sends chills down your spine. So it happened the other day when I was reading novelist Elizabeth Chadwick's early book, The Running Vixen. In reference to a woman character's emerging feelings for one of the male characters, she spoke of "a wild tenderness...an awakening, an acceptance of wings."

An acceptance of wings. Wow.

This phrase has not only stayed with me, but taken on wings of its own. Bear with me.

A year or so ago, I listened with sorrow as a friend was offered a fabulous opportunity, and she turned it down saying, "I am just not ready." Perhaps my sorrow came from knowing that in a sense, I too may have kept too much of what I love at arm's length, thinking I am not ready, worthy, whatever.

But I have this funny feeling that 2018 is one of those years where it simply will not be possible to sit on the fence any more. It is some kind of portal. If we have been sitting on one side of the threshold, weighed down by emotion (grief, resentment, pain), possessions, illness, too many responsibilities, or a sense of powerlessness, I think we have these early months of the year to try to identify and focus on a situation we would love ever so much more. This isn't about selfishness, but about our Source needing as many people in places of greatest loving productivity as possible, to benefit the whole planet.

Yes, as the year unfolds, I think many of us will have once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. We will be presented with "wings." What form will they take? Maybe a gift. Maybe a moment of forgiveness and grace. Maybe an offer on the house or a golden parachute retirement package. Maybe a one-way ticket or an unexpected vacation or a miracle cure or a serendipitous meeting or career opening. 

And in that moment, will we immediately accept these wings? Are we ready to really fly, to really thrive, and give the world the benefit of our true selves? Or will we hesitate and say, "sorry, I am just not ready"? 

An acceptance of wings. Thank you, Elizabeth Chadwick. What a great, great phrase.

Welcome, world

Welcome to 2018, folks! It's a strange new world, but we're still here...

And a belated welcome to my readers outside the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. Bloggers are provided with a little map of where our blog is being read, and increasingly I notice regular color in parts of Europe, Asia, South America, and Australia. For this "little girl from Schenectady" who took much too seriously childhood admonitions to be "seen and not heard," not to think so much, and not to be selfish, it amazes me that my explorations into what I really think, am, want and want to say are now read quite literally around the world. I am sorry that I haven't set foot in many of your countries and have no idea what your lives are like, but I can only hope that there is something universal that makes our paths similar.

I won't make promises about upcoming blogs, except to say this: friends tell me the most successful posts are the ones where I push through my fears and express things I've been trying to hold back. Vulnerability isn't easy for anyone, but it is particularly hard when you are simply "you," with no possessions to speak of, no fame or fortune, nothing whatsoever to buffer the vicissitudes of life. Just your little boat, the winds of change, and a small but steady world readership. Every post terrifies me. I'm confident about my writing skills, but pressing "publish" reveals even more of the me that I've always felt I needed to hide. Two-and-a-half years into this blog, the process hasn't gotten easier, but it has become like breathing -- absolutely necessary. So it means the world to me, literally, that you are there. To use a Quaker phrase, I hope I will continue to "speak to your condition."

I wish I could say that 2018 will be easier than last year, but somehow I doubt it. If humanity will ever transition into a more loving, sustainable paradigm, it's got to happen soon, and the process could continue to be messy. But if many of us can maintain a high, beautiful energy, maybe we will all have what I've sometimes called a "soft-ish landing." Join me in finding a personal thread of joy, beauty, love or passion to focus on, and sail with it through the storms surrounding us. I can see our fleet of little sailboats on the horizon now.