Boat in the water

Last night, I watched a movie with a striking image from the air of a man getting into a red row boat in the blue water. He's wearing trousers, which are soaked, and from above he looks so small, and the body of water looks so large. It sounds like where I am at today, one foot in my boat, and one foot just about to push off from shore. I am both ready and not ready. New tsunamis of pain continue to wash over me and I may need a safe harbor sooner rather than later. I am not sure I have the right clothing, or enough resources, or even enough strength. But I have a few temporary harbors lined up in upcoming weeks as I get back into the stream of life. "Setting sail" this time has much in common with other, past journeys, although the process seems less solitary than it has often been, in part because this harbor was particularly, wonderfully safe to germinate in. I am so very thankful.

I suppose there aren't many newborn babies who can immediately articulate their goals, but as a 62-year-old baby with a blog, I'll give it a try. I won't say my goal is to love more, because I've expressed a whole lot of love for a whole lot of people, places and things over the years. But my goal in this rebirth is to discern a little more quickly whether that love is being reciprocated. No, it's not that I think we should only love those who love us back...there's enough love in the universe for a whole lot of random, wild loving. But with key people, places and things, there should be an ebb and flow, a give and take, a wild enthusiasm coming back in your direction at least from time to time. If the electrical current is only moving in one direction, well, that's not good, and the tsunamis and electrical storms build up. I'd like to get better at weathering storms and feeling the nuances of interpersonal energy in real time, reducing the need for such a major reboot.

My technology is somewhat outdated, and my access to the internet may come and go these next few weeks. It is my intention to try to keep to my usual every-few-day schedule, but it may be that you'll only hear from me more like once a week. Skippers need to focus on the present, right? This is an intense time for all of us; please know that continuing to celebrate the unique twists and turns of my path through it is my highest priority and I will check in as soon as I can. Thanks for being there, and see you soon! 

Now

Now. Yes, this seems to be it, this next two weeks or so. The re-birth. The re-entry. The return to the river. This little being has probably never been more fragile, more stunned, more shaken and stirred, and she is decidedly not ready. The boat is still a bit leaky. But circumstances seem to be lining up with a mind of their own, and the flow of love seems to want to take me...toward more love. Toward a set or two of open arms and open hearts. Toward a landscape that may be able to hold this much bigger, more expansive being.

If I were a better director of my own movie, I am sure that destination would be England. And if the open arms were there, I would go. But they are not, and I am trying to learn the feeling difference between flowing with the flow of love and battering down the castle walls. Life may still hold some surprises; this morning, my Note from the Universe ("Tut") made a comment about "spiritual logistics," and how you may need to move farther away to get closer! But I no longer want to be limited by a single dream, either. I'll flow toward more love and freedom, and see what happens.

I discovered a wonderful poem yesterday, "She Let Go," by the Rev. Safire Rose: "She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go...There was no effort. There was no struggle. It wasn't good and it wasn't bad. It was what it was, and it is just that. In the space of letting go, she let it all be. A small smile came over her face. A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and moon shone forevermore." I'm letting go, and letting the river take me. Now. I'll check in with you from mid-stream!

"The Call"

Last night, I had the opportunity to teach some singers Ralph Vaughan Williams's beautiful, simple, glorious hymn "Come My Way, My Truth, My Life" ("The Call" from Five Mystical Songs, with words by George Herbert.) 

As you know, one of the things about my life has been the huge rift between "English church music" me and I suppose you might say the more organic, feminist, American me. There's been so little overlap between "my music" and "other music." The group I was with comes together regularly simply to sing for the joy of singing -- no performances, no sheet music, and no religious construct. Someone had suggested that I find a piece to share with them that might help bring these two sides of myself together, and it was a good idea. I've so rarely led singers, and leading when there are tears in your eyes is hard. But I think they loved the piece, especially, as I do, the words...

Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart

Such a Joy, as none can move

Such a Love, as none can part

Such a Heart, as joys in love.

My other memory of this hymn is that about eight years ago, when I had been completely away from church music for decades, I walked into a cavernous Gothic-style Episcopal cathedral and sat at the front, near the crossing. No one else seemed to be around, and I fumbled through the hymnal, and decided to sing this hymn. However imperfectly and rustily, my voice rose up to the roof and reverberated. I cried then too. I like the fact that I sang it alone that time, and in community this time. Perhaps all of this is connected with my call, but I won't worry about that this longest day. Let us all "joy in love" on this summer solstice.

Awareness

You might think that, with all my attention these last few months being focused on tsunamis of personal old trauma, readying myself for new birth and, now, the process starting, I haven't paid any attention to what is happening in the world. That is not the case, although I guess it has been a true pregnancy in the sense that I have had, first and foremost, to keep the main focus on my emerging, post-retirement self. I've watched US news with particular horror, perhaps my only experience in this lifetime of "how can I bring a 'baby' into such a messed-up world?" Do I really want to keep going? There is new active trauma hitting all of us, wave after wave of it, and yes, I am aware of it, perhaps more acutely than ever. Even in a somewhat stronger, more enlightened form, can I handle this? I'm not entirely sure the answer is yes, but I know that the world needs "people like me." Checking out is an option, and it would be so tempting, but I've always been a bit too courageous and persistent to retreat from life entirely. Everything I've experienced up until now has been preparation for this time, and that may be true of millions of us.

There is one good thing about the era we are in. It almost seems like a truth serum time, doesn't it? The truth of who people, institutions, and policies "are" is clearer than clear. You don't have to scratch your head and say, "hmm, maybe separating children from their parents is ethical." It's not. It's an atrocity. The great mother, the energy of the divine feminine, is aware of what is happening, and that's the truth too.

New Moon

Wednesday's new moon actually brought actual new possibilities and the beginning of some old closure. I suppose to use my birth analogy, I'm still in the birth canal but can literally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Or to use the beach analogy, I've had just about all the tsunamis I can take this go round, and I've brushed off the sand and seaweed and started to walk shakily down towards the shoreline, to see what condition my boat is in. There's a little work to do before I push off again into the stream of life, but it is doable.

I am sitting next to a beautiful cat which is curled up and lightly snoring. There is a cool breeze wafting into the window, setting the curtains a-flutter. My feet are on a soft carpet, and I just had a satisfying tuna sandwich. These are the kinds of details I want to try to focus on the next few days before things really get going. It is a miracle that I'm still alive. I have breath and all my senses and a new stretch of river and a new safe harbor beckoning. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Maybe I'll double that. Thank you, thank you, thank you again.

Scouting report

I guess I had had a long time to prepare for my dad's death, but nothing has prepared me for the energetic blow to the system that I continue to experience three weeks on. At the only comparable moment earlier in my life, when my mom died seventeen years ago, I immediately sprang into action to start the process of helping dad get the house ready for sale, and his life downsized and ready to move. There was a job to do. This time I am not playing a similar role. The entire experience is purely emotional and personal, trying to make heart- and head-sense of the death of the patriarch and all its complex ramifications.

Of course, in many respects I released my male-focused family a while ago, and on a bigger level, for decades I haven't been on the same functional wavelength as any of our traditional social, economic, spiritual, educational or health care systems; it was all I could do to barely use any of them, much less to work within them or represent them in higher- level leadership or managerial capacities (ergo, "no career"). As I have probably written previously, a friend of mine once called me a "scout," and that description is rather apt. I was better suited, it seems, to cutting through the undergrowth of future paths, bushwhacking and canoeing through "the wilderness" of the post-everything world to try to understand where we are headed, to understand what it would look like if a culture were not fear-based. As we all know from our history books, when scouts return to quote-unquote civilization, they can be looked on rather askance, with their shabby looks and rusty social skills. From the scout side of things, it can be tempting to react to the funny looks and just say, the heck with this, I'll return to the wilderness. I'll disappear again. But coming at this from the perspective of the divine feminine constantly reminds me that, ultimately, none of this is about me. It is about relationship. It is about the intertwined energies of all life, human, plant and animal, the earth, and all the galaxies beyond us. 

I am ready to fully use what I've learned as a scout, but to do so less solitarily, in a human tribe or community. The last few days (to mix my metaphors yet again!) I've created a lot of inner angst about the new stretch of my life's river; where am I going? Will I recognize the right harbor when I see it? How will I get there? I am exhausted. Can I even get the boat repaired enough to head back into the water? How can I be "re-born" when so many of the old superficialities have washed away?

This morning, though, I'm feeling somewhat calmer. It isn't "about" any of that. I need to keep returning to the powerful core that continues to stand statuesque on the beach, the only truth I know; I am a woman mystic, writer, musician and artist. I am learning to love and to follow only the thread of love. If I stay focused on who I really am, the return to the river will happen effortlessly, and the destination will sing to me. All I need to do is keep my ears and my heart open.

"The truer life"

I don't know if it is the months of letting tsunamis wash over me, or the death of my dad, or the increased alignment with the divine feminine, or thinking about Mark Rothko's paintings. But right now, I feel like every false layer of my existence (that huge fluffy down jacket that I guess most of us carry around) has washed away, and I am nearly down to the bare-bones truth. I've had fewer layers than a lot of women, not having married, had children, been a home-owner or a career woman. Yet layers still built up over the years, concealing, distracting, covering, making me palatable (or when not palatable, invisible) to the outside world.  

My physical body has felt ripped to shreds over these last two weeks. In the wreckage has emerged a few new buds of life; I am articulating my truth more straightforwardly to people, singing my music, and accepting loving care. I'm down to the bare bones of me, and nothing that is not "about" that seems to be getting footing now. It's the only light beaming out of this lantern, the only energy that I am capable of expressing. I'm lean. Hopefully, not "mean." Just focused. 

That wonderful poem by Adelaide Anne Procter (shared by Sharon Blackie in If Women Rose Rooted) seems perfect for today.

"No star is ever lost we once have seen

We always may be what we might have been...

The hope that lost in some far distance seems,

May be the truer life, and this the dream."

It has taken a bit longer than I expected, but in upcoming weeks and months, I will walk this leaner me through the sand and down to my boat. I'll bail her out and make a few repairs, make her seaworthy. I'll put some supplies on board. Then she and I will head into the new stretch of river. I don't know yet whether the river itself will be different or whether the quality of my steering and leadership will be different, but somehow, I will get closer to my truer life. I suspect that this blog may evolve somewhat too, that the nature of my writing may become more intuitive, led more by my heart than my thinking head. This is the dream, anyway, to steer by heart toward my personal star. We all have a star, and it is never lost. Adelaide is right about that.

An implied "and"

I cannot believe I am writing today, the day after my elderly father's memorial service took place far away. I am absolutely exhausted, "gutted," I think my British friends say. I feel like I am, myself, considerably older than 62, hopefully temporarily. I am not going to try to do much, yet I woke up with an essay in my head.

Back on March 16, I wrote a post called "Temperance" where I really owned up to some of the paradoxes in my life, including the fact that I use so-called oracle cards of various kinds, including tarot. This could seem quite bizarre in someone with a passion for English church music, and indeed I've spent a good part of the last few years hiding one from the other, even within myself. 

About two weeks ago, I decided it was time to replace "eagle" as what some people call a "totem animal." (Today is not the day for me to unpack the cultural appropriation issue...I was led to the Sams and Carson Medicine Cards during my many travels around the country in the 1990's, and still find them very helpful and meaningful.) So I shuffled the deck, stated my desire to have a new power animal symbol for the next phase of my life, and pulled Bear/"Introspection" from the face-down cards. This is a far more appropriate teacher for this emerging phase; the time has come to set aside flight high above the landscape in favor of hibernating in a settled, rooted place, attuning myself "to the energies of the Eternal Mother." From the Sams and Carson reading (pages 57-59), it seems clear that this is good power medicine for a mystic. This morning, I chose another card from another deck picturing a bear in hibernation. She is certainly with me right now, and that is the kind of day I need.

Even in my barely awake state, I couldn't help but laugh at the contrasting superficial concerns brought on by my dad's death (the biggest tsunami of all) -- my WASP obsession with appropriate correspondence and clothing (described in two previous blogs), and my mystical choice of a comforting oracle card. They are both valid, if so very different, in face of such a rocking change to one's sense of self and family. In front of my eyes, I saw a Mark Rothko-type painting, two enormous color fields, one deep turquoise and one blue-red. I reminded myself that these two color fields, brushed by a great painter, do not fight each other for domination. Their very presence together on the canvas is an implied "and," as is that rich line where the two colors meet. They are meant to be together, as are my contrasting colors. Which brings me back to the "horizon philosophy" that I tried to articulate back in the 90's...but not today(!) 

To those readers who have stuck with me the last few weeks, thank you. Thanks for being there.