Taking it in

Way back in 2016, I wrote a blog called "Anger"; even then, the process had started of accepting that I felt some anger at the way my life has turned out, as well as the process of trying to figure out what to do about it. And yet this last week or so took it to a new level, beyond intense. It isn't just about the specifics of my own life; indeed, it may only be about 30% personal. Aspects of world history and current news that in the past I have tried to look at from a higher perspective, suddenly outrage. This is a world that seems to operate the complete opposite of how I operate, but to face how war, violence, a non-love-based economy, and the destruction of the planet really make me feel would previously have completely done me in. I suppose it's an odd credit to how strong I've become that I'm beginning to feel and tolerate my honest feelings, and others'.

There are two major pieces of this that I am trying to at least gently come to terms with. The first is the probability that most occasions when I tried to convince myself I was frustrated, or impatient, or bored, or taking the high road, or seeing something in a better light -- even, at times, when I was trying to be "helpful" or "diplomatic" or "do my duty" -- I may well have been angry. That means I may often have been the very thing that I have always found the hardest to deal with in other people, passive-aggressive. It was entirely unintentional, but then again, passive-aggressiveness probably always is, right? Some past writings in this blog may even have had that quality. Today I can only acknowledge this, not "apologize"; I'm one of those people who has spent a lifetime apologizing, so today I can only just tell the truth the best I can. 

The second thing is the awareness that most of my major life decisions may have been made in anger. The only moment of my life that I can see in a pretty pure light of love is my year at the University of London, 1980-81. People may see this as "nostalgia," but it isn't nostalgia. It's just that more than any other time, I was where I loved to be, singing the music I love to sing, using my intellect to its highest capacity, surrounded by friends, even having opportunities to read and speak French and to travel through the UK and Europe. I was me. I was, for a year, pure love, doing what I love. Unfortunately, I didn't believe a continuation of this stream of love was possible, and almost every step I took from that point on was from a place of, "Since I cannot do what I love, I will do the opposite, and I'll somehow learn to love it." In retrospect, what a set-up for an impossibly twisted mess. I never dealt with the fact that I was angry. I never dealt with the possibility that love could have paved a happier solution, because I didn't believe deep down that I deserved love (and I am not even talking about romance, here). 

So I'm taking it in. I like the fact that I'm a freer person now than I was a few years ago. I feel increasingly free to express what I need to express, even about this hard rebirth, with less beating around the bush. And I feel like some cosmic artist, now free to use the color "anger" in my life painting. Being free to use it, and choosing to use it are two different things, of course. I'm wise enough to understand that the healing of anger will have to come mostly from within, and that the mixing of the color "anger" with other colors could potentially, eventually, create beauty. 

An adjunct no more

My spiritual nature has given me the gift of detached wisdom; in a crisis, I can see the bigger picture and operate from a place of understanding. My WASP genes gave me the gift of "a stiff upper lip" -- just plow ahead, regardless, right? And I've had enough self-deprecating humor to make fun of my own foibles and the insane ridiculousness and absurdity of much of my life.

But exhausted from a week of nose-blowing, a new tsunami has washed over me, and I have had nowhere to hide. Underneath the detachment, the bemusement, the poise, the amusement, has been anger, pure and simple. Fury. 62 full years of it.

As I told you the other week, I understand now that at birth, I was emotionally sent off to a black hole in "outer space," which is the only way I can describe it. It set in place a pattern, of Little Lizzie, spinning up and away from families, jobs, housing situations, careers. I've been everybody's "adjunct," on the far edge of other people's lives and work. Yes, I did everything I could to return into the heart of things, the heart of "home," but it's like a glass wall separated me. No one could hear me. My thoughtful insights were rejected, my most beautiful singing wasn't audible, my artwork wasn't visible, my knocking at the door wasn't answered. The more I spun around, the less visible I was. And of course, the more fully I came into my own outside the paradigm in place, the more fully I have been pushed back as not fitting in.

I finally feel it. This hurts. It hurt in 1956, it has hurt over and over again over the years, and it still hurts now. I finally feel my anger. Yes, some of it is "anger at" certain people and situations, and I'm also kind of mad at myself, at how long I endured being rootless, an "adjunct" this and a "paraprofessional" that. Why didn't I understand sooner that there was some core dynamic at work here? Yet ultimately, the issue is love, and how desperately awful it feels not to be able to access it. I, who talk about it all the time and have loved some things so passionately, really have had little experience of love being unconditionally returned so I could feel connected to the world. (Thank the goddess for a few dear, exceptional friends.)

This anger is waking me up. It makes me realize that what I want from my rebirth isn't so much a new me. I pretty much know who I am (although this anger piece is certainly a new wrinkle!) I am OK with who I am. But what I need in this rebirth is to have it happen among people who will welcome me, no holds barred. It's not just about hearing the words, "Thank goodness you are here. We love you. We need you here for the foreseeable future, with every iota of your wisdom and talent. Don't hold anything back." I need to feel the energy of unconditional love and cherishing long enough to get a better start this time. This time, I will not be that "goddamned granddaughter." I must be "that extraordinary, irreplaceable woman who we love so much." It is time to be the powerful engine living at the very heart of my own life. It is time to exist in my own right, an adjunct no more.

Back, sort of!

Well, you know how it is when you've been sick. You start to feel better, and throw yourself into one or two normal activities, and are fine for an hour or so, and then you collapse into a heap. In fact, I was thinking about how even a seasonal cold/flu manages to take away all those aspects of health I was feeling grateful for ten days ago. You can't think clearly, see clearly, breathe clearly, walk further than the tea kettle, even hear clearly. It's a temporary situation, but it is enough to remind you how fortunate you are most of the time.

The scenery outside isn't quite yet conducive to springtime rebirth...the ground is still brown, the trees still leafless. But in the last few days there have been little hints of green grass, and I saw a crocus yesterday for the first time. A few days of warm temperatures may be all we need to bloom again. 

Check-in

Late last week, I had the opportunity to hear first-hand stories from people who have experienced quite a few health difficulties. It was one of those things where I mentally added another thing to be "glad" about -- I can see, I can hear, I can walk, I can enjoy and digest food, I can breathe, and I can think. In that respect, I have been outrageously fortunate. I walked around for several days literally thanking the Universe for every step I took -- and then I came down with a miserable cold. Life is funny like that, isn't it? So now I am glad for the space and time to stay still, to drink a lot of tea and soup, and for lots of tissues. I'll check in again in a few days. 

Glad

Leave it to Florence Scovel Shinn to give me today's shiver. From her The Power of the Spoken Word: "The first start toward success is to be glad you are yourself."

Literally, right now may be the first time in my life I am glad to be myself. I think from early on, I had a strong but almost invisible thread of self-love and understanding of divine love, but "liking"? "Glad to be me"? I don't think so. I wasn't glad to be a girl who couldn't sing the music I wanted to sing. I wasn't glad to be intelligent. I wasn't glad to be rather plain looking with thick glasses. I wasn't glad to be called "holier than thou" and "too serious/smart/unrealistic." I wasn't glad that I didn't understand much of anything about our economy or society (my brain was no help there!) I wasn't glad to be single, poor, searching. I wasn't glad to never find a home or a tribe across thousands of miles of American wandering. I wasn't glad to be perceived of as rather pathetic, too spiritual and not "worldly" enough.

Metaphysical/Law of Attraction thinking really is predicated on a person having an essential liking of themselves. Ultimately, I think we "attract" as a magnet to that very core. Nice sounding affirmations about attracting abundance or new homes or careers weren't working with me because, in a nutshell, I wasn't glad to be me. There was an empty hole where gladness was supposed to be, and emptiness attracted emptiness.

What has changed in this tsunami season? Left on the beach, I aligned more completely with Goddess energy than ever before. My heart cracked open in the waves. I was washed into the black hole of nothingness and found my way out. Then I became the tsunami and found my own power.

For several decades, I've understood that the 2020s and 2030s are probably going to be the biggest energetic transition in human history. I will come out of this winter finally appreciating that the factors on the list above were, in fact, gifts to help me be a leader in the future. I didn't fit in up until now precisely because I wasn't energetically aligned to the times; I am more so to the times we are entering, times that will become far more love-infused. Finally, glad to be me.  

Half-life

It perhaps should not come as a surprise that several days after "becoming the tsunami," I'd be at the receiving end of a few of them as well. And of course it happened on a relatively quiet Sunday morning.

I was waiting for 11 AM, when I had planned to listen to a webcast of a choral eucharist service. What to do for an hour? I had a ton of energy, too much for a small project like needlepoint, or reading, or drawing, or coloring in the adult coloring book I was recently given. I have no car, so taking a drive was out. I don't particularly like taking walks unless I have somewhere to go, and I have virtually no money to spend, so some of the all-American pastimes like shopping or going out for coffee were out too. I looked around the room at the tiny (5x7 inch) oil painting I painted a few years ago, and my tiny note cards which I periodically send to friends, and suddenly I had a tantrum. Literally. I started wailing with frustration at the enormous amount of creative life energy I have had all my life, and the miniscule ways I have expressed it. I went stomping around the house I'm staying in (luckily, no one was around) and my next thought was, maybe I'll use this excess energy to bake. Thumbing through a cookbook, I had another tantrum. I will not bake another batch of cookies! I will not even metaphorically put on my little apron and bake a nice batch of cookies like a good little girl. Eventually, I baked date bread, took a walk, and listened to the service, but not without even more layers of frustration at how utterly backwards my life has been, how invisible I have been, and how none of these activities even begin to express who I really am, what I love, what an enormous amount of creative energy I have, and how valuable it is.

Here's the thing. I think that pretty much at birth, I got the message that I didn't -- or shouldn't -- exist. Somewhere deep down, I knew this couldn't be true, and that I was an unusually intelligent, creative, musical, spiritual, loving being, but it was clear that I needed to hide these assets. So I have, quite successfully. I have stayed crouched in a little spinning ball, occasionally stretching out to full size to try living, then returning to fetal position again. I believed the people who said I had done nothing worthwhile with my life; and then believed them again when I did things I found worthwhile and was ignored, unpaid or critiqued. "Nearly invisible" has been my default setting. It's been like pouring a tsunami through a dripping kitchen faucet.

This "sea-swell" seems to have broken something down in me. I am done, done with tiny. If I paint again, no more miniatures; the energy of my creativity is bigger than life. I'll do a self-portrait eight feet tall, or a sculpture 20 ft. tall. I've had it with singing along with webcasts; if I sing, it will be to be heard. When I speak, may it be to large audiences. I will keep writing this blog, but may it be with the intention of being widely read and respected. And heck, on days when I don't feel like creating, perhaps someone will paint a John Singer Sargent-style painting of me, or write about me, or cook for me. Maybe I'll become visible in ways I never thought possible.

Perhaps this isn't so much a re-birth, as the completion of the process that only partially began 62 years ago. Finally, I will really be in the world. Ultimately, it isn't about becoming visible to others so much as finally knowing within myself that I do exist, that I am meant to be here and fully express myself, and that a half-life is too much like death to be worth living any more.

"I am the sea-swell"

There has been a dreamlike quality to the last few months. Regular readers know my metaphor for this period of time: "facing the tsunamis," the big issues of my life that until now I was trying to skirt. I pulled my boat up onto a safe beach but didn't run for higher ground. I've simply dug my feet into the sand and waited for the waves to wash over me, so that I could finally see and feel them. My blog readership recently appears to have dropped. I understand. This hasn't been the easiest process, and I've only scratched the surface of writing about it.

Last week, I took a mystery out of the library called The Celtic Riddle, by Lyn Hamilton (Berkeley Publishing Group, 2000). The plot device is that legatees gathered for the reading of a man's will are handed envelopes containing clues to a larger treasure. It is soon discovered that these clues are lines from an ancient poem, "The Song of Amairgen" (or Amergin, with this translation by a Dr. Harry Roe). The first three lines electrified me: "I am the sea-swell. The furious wave. The roar of the sea."

I was immediately reminded that one way of approaching dream interpretation is to identify with all the people/objects in a dream. In the case of my current "dream," up until now, I've identified almost exclusively with the figure on the beach, waiting for each tsunami to come ashore, allowing it to either wash over me or, in a few cases, to send me tumbling into black holes in outer space. I have been courageous, but ultimately passive, referencing the tsunami's power, not sensing much in myself.

These lines of a poem, discovered serendipitously, opened up an entirely new realm of interpretive possibilities. What if "I am the sea-swell"? What if I am the result of an earthquake deep at the planet's core, and am the energetic wave moving out through the ocean, gathering size and power as it heads toward shore? What if rather than having been invisible and powerless all these years, I have been larger than life? What if people have been zig-zagging their small boats to avoid getting too close to me? What if people have been pulling their boats up on shore and running for the hills to outrun me? What if something in my life is actually so powerful and true that it could change people and landscapes? What if many of us seemingly "powerless ones" are actually tsunamis?

This particular dream interpretation is so mind-blowing, I'm just going to leave those queries out there. I need to let the ramifications of being (not facing) the tsunami sink in. "I am the sea-swell. The furious wave. The roar of the sea."

My Confirmation

Fifty-three years ago, on April 4, I was confirmed in the Episcopal Church. Baptism was the sacrament that brought you into the church as a baby (and your "vows" were made by parents and godparents); Confirmation, back in the 1960s in our diocese at least, took place in fourth grade, when children were theoretically old enough to speak for themselves. We had to attend a number of special classes, where I assume it was ascertained that we understood basic Christian beliefs and could recite the Lord's Prayer, the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds and other key statements of faith. 

One of the most memorable (and retrospectively entertaining) aspects of my Confirmation process was that we were expected to make confession. We had been handed a book to study that was geared to adult confessions, and it contained literal checklists of every possible sin under the sun. As I have now discovered (and you, dear readers, have kindly held my hand through this rather traumatic process), I had a deep underlying sense of nonexistence and exile, which must have made me vulnerable to genuinely believing I was capable of any and all evil to boot. I was so terrified of not owning up to this fact on this important occasion that I knelt in front of the rector and confessed to several heinous adult sins whose names I didn't understand, including adultery. (I threw in that I had taken a piece of my brother's candy, although I am pretty sure I hadn't done that either.) The rector broke into a spasm of uncontrollable coughing (to mask laughter, perhaps?) and I was told to go out to one of the church pews and say the Lord's Prayer a few times. I don't remember confession being included in the process two years later when my next brother was confirmed; Confirmation itself is now geared to teenagers and adults who can make a "mature commitment" to the church.

There's a picture of me somewhere, a serious and solemn nine-year old, with brown, chin-length hair parted in the middle, white barrettes, white linen short-sleeved dress made by my grandmother, white ankle socks and white shoes, holding my brand new white 1928 Book of Common Prayer (at that time, still in use) demurely in front of me. At the service, the Bishop had put his hands on my head, saying: "Defend, O Lord, this thy Child with thy heavenly grace; that she may continue thine for ever; and daily increase in thy Holy Spirit more and more, until she come unto thy everlasting kingdom. Amen." Indeed, "consecrated to God" is essentially what my name, Elizabeth, means, and through some miracle, a sense of the eternal truth of belonging to the Divine has stayed with me.

But within a year or so, as I've mentioned in a previous blog, I shocked my mother by announcing that I was a good Episcopalian but not a Christian. I just couldn't understand why God would have only one child, a son. Weren't we all His children? I also found the focus on a violent death on the cross extremely strange and distressing. Ultimately, I am not sure I ever really got on board theologically. But liturgically, the music and the glorious Tudor-era words tuned me to a wavelength of beauty and majesty that absolutely continues to be my home to this day. I am Episcopalian/Church of England through and through, despite, well, technically believing too few of the articles of faith to make that statement credible. Perhaps only the Goddess is wise enough to embrace all these paradoxes of my life. Perhaps we are all just doing our best to tune to a loving truth beyond all limited human expression.

It starts here

It starts here.

Yup, a whole new, updated process. A whole new inner dialogue. Ears tuned as much as possible to "I dare" rather than "How dare you?" Easter Monday seems like as good a day as any to start.

Basically, this is what it all boils down to: what words come out of the mouth of a woman who dares to really, fully exist, to blossom on her own terms? How does a woman who knows her worth and her power act? If I no longer have to use a huge percentage of my power holding on for dear life to keep from being sucked into a black hole of nonentity, what do I do with that energy? Where will life take me once I am completely convinced that my destiny is important to the world? How will it feel to know that I matter on both the divine plane and on the earth one? And if society's current structures aren't particularly suited to supporting someone like me, where is the life support that will ground me and help me thrive?

There has been a divine timing to all of this. I don't think I could have survived last week's "tirade" without having aligned myself more fully with the divine feminine; for all I know, having done that might have brought the tirade on. I also can't say that "How dare you?" has totally dissolved into nothingness. Its shadow will undoubtedly persist, like the robber trenches on "Time Team." But I hope that I will feel it for what it is, quickly sense any underlying hopelessness in my words or actions, and stop to re-direct my power. I thought I had done this work years ago, but I guess it hadn't been addressed at the deepest level, so back we go. It starts here. Again.