What to Say?

I'm not sure I know what to say on this particular New Year's Eve. I think I know what not to say. "Happy New Year." Even when you believe you understand what's going on and why, it is still hard to access a "happy place" in the midst of pandemic illness and death, entire towns and cities razed by fire, tornados and flooding, and the dashing of people's hopes of an imminent return to "normal". Things are moving so fast, that I almost don't dare say "Happy New Year", in case friends' lives are in turmoil.

Right now, I feel "somber". I still seem to be able to access what I believe to be the truth and the longterm positivity of our current moment, but it is balanced out by feeling the pain of people racing out their doors to the car, fleeing for their lives before a wall of flames. Will any American want to watch movie thrillers ever again? They've become our life.

It just occurred to me that, in a sense, my choices over the last thirty years "inoculated" me to face this time, or at least prepared me. I learned to live without a real, permanent home, without adequate income or medical care, without partner or family, without any measure of worldly success or recognition, and without old paradigm spiritual comforts and constructs. I've lived largely without a modern safety net. 

So, what to say to people in this moment? 

Look every day for something you love. In the midst of chaos, uncertainty, doors slamming shut, and fear, be good to yourself and find one beautiful or lovable thing to care about or embrace. Notice the good. Notice the one thing that goes well. The one deer that runs down the street or the one star you can see through the clouds. Love and beauty may seem fragile or even pointless right now, but they are the only path through uncertainty and terror. What to say instead of "Happy New Year"? Perhaps, "May the New Year bring more love and truth to your life". Such a new year may not always be "happy", but it almost certainly will bring unexpected blessings. 

It's Liminal

If there was ever a time that could be called "liminal", this is it. I suppose in a way, I've been in it my whole life, in a space or time between worlds, on a threshold, in transition to a new reality. When you are mystically inclined, you hold the spiritual and physical realms in an uneasy balance all the time anyway, slipping easily from one side of the "line" to the other. And, of course, in a post-duality world, there is no line...

Anyway, over Christmas weekend, I think I moved farther from old realities than ever. I was alone, and with the COVID surge, not feeling really inclined to see people in person, tests or no tests...winter, the pandemic, the solstice -- all were calling me inward, and that is mostly where I stayed. Yet it was unnerving. "Lessons and Carols from King's" didn't elicit the usual responses from me (joy, appreciation of the beauty, homesickness). Even the dreaded first lesson (about women being to blame for everything) didn't send me into a fury. In the context of this pandemic and its ripple effects, the carol service lost its former meaning and attraction. And even music on the classical station seemed jarring. Except for food, I hadn't spent much money over the holiday, so TV ads were even more unpalatable than ever.

I'm not sure what I feel like reading or doing any more. Jobs, paid or volunteer, are all part of the dying paradigm, and I simply do not want to put my focus there. Sometimes I fall back on watching good and bad "crime" television, not because crime attracts me per se, of course, but because in the past it has engaged my problem-solving muscles. Yet over the last week, all these entertainments and activities fell flat as well. I sent Christmas cards to people who I may never see again if travel doesn't open up. I still have some belongings out East, and need to arrange to ship the boxes here, only everything in them is "history" -- family portraits, childhood scrapbooks and boxes of pictures, notes for my master's thesis, my mom's sewing box, little bits of family silver (picture frames, dining sets, etc.) All the WASP accoutrements for this low income senior citizen in Minnesota. Even if I get them sent out here, what do I do with them? I don't have a permanent home, and even if I did, somehow, I have moved on. The items don't reflect who I am now.

If the lives we have created are morphing into something new, what did it all mean? Where are we headed? This is hard stuff.

What keeps me going is the fact that I was already predicting a "Transition" decades ago, and now that it's finally here, it's not surprising me in the least. I am oddly relieved. Deep in my heart, I rejoice that many unsavory truths about how we have been operating in the world are finally being revealed. The conflict-based paradigm is more visible than ever but it is paradoxically less effective. We don't need to "fight" it, just notice when it no longer serves and shrug it off. The liminal space is awkward, uncomfortable, and unsettling because future ways of being are still far off on the horizon. We've taken off the old coat, and the new one hasn't been sewn together yet. It is tempting to keep holding on to the old just to have something, but this stream is going to keep moving. That's one thing we can be sure of.

A Moment in Time

At this moment in time, lyrics of "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" keep coming to me -- "the world in solemn stillness lay". Solemn stillness. Florence Scovel Shinn said, "One's ships come in over a calm sea." Calm seas. Stillness and calm.

Tuesday, I listened to an online solstice event, and what was most moving was not so much the event itself (wonderful as it was) but rather the fact that we participants could send greetings and identify where on earth we were. We couldn't see these hundreds of people or hear their voices. Our greetings just scrolled by at the bottom, faster than you could read. It was clear that there were listeners from literally all four corners of the globe (where did that expression come from?! How can an orb have corners?) We didn't have to break the holy silence or physically cross the ocean. We were still, together (and still together). For all that computer technology is a mixed blessing, it certainly is helping us practice new fourth and fifth dimensional muscles. There are new ways of being present with people, new ways of feeling at one with others, that simply didn't exist a decade or two ago.

It will be a still, calm weekend in my little perch near Lake Superior. Unlike 30 years ago, I don't own a car, and won't listen to the service of "Lessons and Carols from King's" on the car radio at a pull-off near Two Harbors. The lake, whether calm or wavy and steaming, will be visible from the window where I live, so I can listen and remain still. Certain threads keep weaving their way back into this scarf that is my life, and nothing weaves the polarities together more efficiently than listening to English cathedral music in Duluth. The paradoxes that used to be almost unbearable are finally becoming more comfortable. May you, too, find your polarities easier to bear -- fear and love, illness and passion for life, uncertainty and inner peace. May this extraordinary moment in time be as blessing-filled as possible.

The Holy Week

In the Christian tradition, Holy Week precedes Easter in the spring. But for me this last decade or so, the holiest week of the year is the week surrounding winter solstice and Christmas.  Several of these years involved a whirl of cathedral services (when I sang at St. John the Divine in New York) or travel to England to audition for choirs or hear cathedral choral music. But most late Decembers have found me sinking easily into the stillness, the mystery, and the darkness.

I watch the frenzied activity (and have done for years) like a being from another planet. It is painful not to be in close contact with family, but because it is more painful for me to be in close contact with them, travel cross-country remains undone, presents un-bought. (The fact that my income is so limited is part of the story, but really, at this point, I would retreat into the silence even if I won the lottery.) Making homemade cookies or pies seems appropriate to the energy of the week, as does giving these goodies away when it can be done COVID-safely. I send out cards, read, listen to music, and overall try to stay in a mode that comes naturally, contemplation.

None of this is news to my handful of patient readers. I've said similar things frequently and recently. So why revisit these themes today? I guess it is that this morning I feel an almost overwhelming wave of compassion for those who are battling COVID, battling to help people with COVID, battling not to get COVID, battling lines to get tested and get on airplanes and buy last-minute presents, battling traffic jams and check-out queues. From the depths of stillness, the pain of all this frenzy and fighting is palpable. If I could morph into an angel with the capacity to be in several billion places at once, I would gently whisper in the ears of the people of the world, "It doesn't have to be like this. No matter what your spirituality or religion, this can be a holy, serene, and loving week, even this year. If a week is out of the question, try to find one moment of peace." 

Just to show that divine contemplation doesn't preclude bad jokes, this one came to me this morning. I am making chicken soup for dinner tonight (truly). Chicken soup, good for the sol-stice. (Ugh!)

Breaking Through

These last two or three days have been challenging in a way that I guess none of us expected when vaccines were rolled out. I feel like I'm on the observation deck of a tourist train, watching the lefthand track curve off to the left and the righthand track curve to the right, and the train itself about to derail completely. There's such a disconnect between the pandemic news/warnings and the millions of people shopping in stores, going to football games, and traveling in airplanes, trains, buses and cars. What is real? What is "safe"? 

There are so many questions out there, a cacophony of queries. And yet, in my mind, there is only one: what has humanity's relationship been with Nature/Gaia/Mother Earth/the Goddess? Human ingenuity is extraordinary, but our efforts are unsustainable if we keep Her out of the equation.

More and more, I see life as a single powerful river of love. Think of the biggest, most roiling river you know of, and imagine that water being the loving, enthusiastic, all-powerful life force. When we don't actively work with nature, perhaps it is the equivalent of building a dam, a blockage of what is naturally trying to happen. Eventually, water breaks through dams. It isn't angry, it isn't getting back on the people who built the dam, it is just stronger than anything we humans have the capacity to build. Right now, nature is breaking through our carefully-constructed world. Somehow, the culture at large didn't expect it. 

One of the hardest things to remember, even for me, is that there is no such thing as death. Humans often make dramatic departures from our physical planet to other realms, but that isn't "death". It's the continuation of life in another form. In coming years as earth rocks and rolls and tries to regain a sustainable energy flow, the key will be moving with the river of love as much as we can, and not fearing death so much. Nature is breaking through our world in large part so that we can experience positive, upward-trending breakthroughs too.

In on the Action

Back in 1990, when I first set foot in Duluth and decided to spend the winter here, I called my parents to tell them, and there was a stunned silence. "Can you get the New York Times there?", my mother asked with a tremor in her voice. And of course, back then, the answer was, "no." It was the very fact that the city was so far from all that seemed "civilized" -- New York City, the U.K., the northeast, the world of private schools and high-powered careers -- that attracted me. I didn't become a wild nature woman, a fact that drives a few people crazy. "How can you be aligned with the Goddess and not love gardening or trekking in the woods?" But there are different ways of losing your worldly veneer; being perched on the edge of earth's largest lake started a radical shift in perspective that continues to this day. Last week, I did a visualization where I saw my heart strings tied around Lake Superior, like a bow. These days, the word "civilized" is highly problematic in so many ways, and rightly so; whatever it did or does still mean, I'm proud to have become less so. 

There's a paradox in play right now, however. Where northern Minnesota used to feel like the back of beyond, in this strange new era, we're almost on the cutting edge. Definitely "in on the action". Last night, there was a completely strange storm, with thunder and lightning, rain and sleet, and wailing winds. A front has come through and now it's snowing hard. But the southern part of the state seems to have had a tornado, the first ever in December. I saw a map of the country the other day with various shades of red indicating warming temperatures across the U.S. The one swath of extremely dark red/burgundy spanned, you betcha, northwestern Wisconsin and across Duluth, into the Iron Range. Summers are much hotter here (gone are the days of wearing your winter coat in July!) and winters are brutal, but not anywhere near as much so as in the 1990's.

And Minnesota was the second state to discover the Omicron variant. We aren't in some far-off eden, we "are" New York and London and LA. We are in on the action. It's not a kind of action any of us wanted, but I actually embrace how this new era is leveling the proverbial playing field. The impulse to cut and run, to find a safe haven, will be sorely challenged as we move forward. Same with the impulse to fight and destroy. The only option, wherever we are on earth, will be to face those gale force winds lovingly, fearlessly, openly, and with curiosity. History is being made. All of us  chose an amazing time to live...we are all in on the action. 

Tornados

I had planned to write on Saturday, but when I woke up to the news of the extraordinarily devastating tornados that flattened entire towns in the American midwest, I knew I had to hold off.  Over the weekend, bird's eye/satellite/drone views of the destruction have been truly astonishing, overwhelming. This is not a case of people in one small neighborhood losing homes and having to temporarily camp out with friends a few miles away. This is entire towns and parts of states being completely wiped off the map. Six weeks ago (Natural Disasters, October 27), I wrote about the word "disaster" in this context, and I wouldn't change a word. However, for the people who have lost absolutely everything -- homes, important papers, family memorabilia, furnishings, appliances, jobs, cars, and in some cases, lives -- this word is the only one that begins to apply. It may take years for people and communities to recover their equilibrium, if they ever do. And judging from the warm December temperatures across the country, there may be many more unseasonal tornados touching down before the end of the year. There is a paradox inherent in calls to rebuild, clean up the mess and return to normal. It is ever-more-universally agreed that this very "normal" is actively causing more potent storms. When towns and cities are clean, and running relatively smoothly, it's hard to see the human-created dangers under the surface. Things look nice, prosperous, permanent. A tornado, hurricane, or fire pulls away the veil. Mile after mile of plastic waste, chemicals, oil, twisted metal, broken pavement and electrical wire...they are all exposed, out of context. No longer useful, much of this waste is dangerous and toxic, to us and to earth. 

Taking these kinds of weather events into perspective as well as the newly-worsening COVID situation, I think we are being asked to pause in 2022. Take a deep breath, and try, if possible, to rise above our limited human perspective and see if we can hear what Earth/Gaia/Divine Love is trying to tell us. I don't think it matters how you see the creative force underpinning life -- male, female, or "just" love. That force is awesomely powerful. Numerologically, 2022 is a 6. I'm not a student of numbers (as anyone who knows me will tell you!) but six relates to healing, wholeness, peace, and other good things. Can we stop and listen to the guidance inherent in these events? Just long enough to consider what is working and what is not working as we interact with this precious earth home. Can these events teach us how to really heal, and bring peace, harmony, and stability?

A last comment, an almost complete non sequitur. Time Magazine's Person of the Year was just announced. Back when I worked in the magazine's Letters Department (most of the 1980's), I was often tasked with responding to complaints about what was then called the "Man of the Year" issue. And almost every year, we received complaints about that title. Personally, I completely agreed so I had to suppress my own opinion and tweak a form letter that the department had used for many years. The magazine did not change over to "Person of the Year" until 1999, nine years after I left the company. It is hard for me to feel enthusiasm about this year's choice because it seems to reflect the traditional 19th and 20th century male perspective on what constitutes newsworthiness, and worth in general. I guess it's reasonably easy to change the superficialities, much harder to shift entrenched belief systems. Until, perhaps, the tornados come.

 

Goodness Me

You can tell I am a million years old, because my "expressions of mild surprise" are the ones my crossword puzzle clues call "archaic" or "old-fashioned" -- "goodness me", "my heavens", "egad", etc. In a nutshell, I sound like my grandmother. 

Well, such is life. I wish grandma was here right now, although I don't think there is any way on earth she would have made sense of a COVID/artificial intelligence/online world. She died almost forty years ago. It was another era altogether. She painted oil paintings, hooked rugs and did needlepoint. 

It is frigid in northern Minnesota, for the moment anyway. Honest to goodness, -25 degrees F windchills kind of thing. I'll get out later today when it's slightly warmer to deliver some homemade cookies to a community organization. That, for the moment, is my "grandma" activity, grounding and sweet.

What can I say? Everything I see on the news, in advertising, in the world, seems literally insane. Unbearably so. I'm starting to understand why contemplatives and anchorites and hermits are what they are, why I am what I am. It's not to avoid evil, or "the things of this world". It's more to be able to align with oneness, to be in the one place where you can live with what you know to be the truth. The duality-/conflict-driven world makes no sense whatsoever. The pain of watching suffering is excruciating, but for Aquarian me, what is even worse is not being able to make spiritual sense of it. My brain tries so hard to understand, and when things don't make sense, it is hard to connect to the world. There's such a chasm between duality thinking and harmony/unity thinking.

So...heavens to Betsy. What a time we are in. I'm not making light of it...indeed, I think it is a major turning point. But all I seem to be able to do about it today is channel my inner grandmother. My tools are things I can feel, like baking ingredients and wooden spoons and wool and old-fashioned paper Christmas cards -- once I get off the computer!

The Movie

Well, the pandemic isn't in the least funny, but I guess you have to find the odd humorous aspect. Last night, I watched TV around news time (I confess to having reverted to this habit just to hear the headlines and know the basics of what is going on) and on the screen in big letters were the words "The Omicron Variant". All I could think of was, it sounds like the title of a Hollywood thriller or a dystopian novel, and yet it is not fiction. It is our reality.

Every time I hear words like, "We are fighting this virus and will win," I cringe. I know I'm probably one of only a handful of people in the world who see a direct correlation between this escalating fight and the pandemic seeming to get worse, so I say these words with a sense of resignation, not in an attempt to persuade. I know all involved are doing their very best with what they were taught. And "fighting", ingrained in our psyches and belief systems, is happening all across the spectrum of responses to these interlocking events. It's almost like we are reading from a movie script, one side fighting for more masks and more protections, the other side fighting for freedom from masks and regulations. The energy of the whole event is agitated, angry, fearful, distrustful, and combative. It's not the kind of movie I have ever chosen to watch, that's for sure.

So in the middle of it all is little old me, wearing a mask, getting my shots, doing only the errands I absolutely must do, and saying, please, oh please, can we release the need to fight? Can't we just train ourselves to heal and love? 

The Wave

It didn't take special psychic powers to see the wave of fear that went around the world on, what was it?, Saturday. A new variant. 

Oh, dear friends. What to say about this? I think we are at a moment when two major things are converging.

I think poor old Mother Earth, who up until now has tried to absorb all of humankind's arguable missteps -- pollution (earth, air, water, space), paving of wetlands, felling of forests, shedding of blood, and much more -- just simply can absorb no more. It's like a sponge soaking up water. There is a point where no more can be taken in. So there is going to be a faster revolving door between our actions and what comes back to us, both positive and negative.

Then, as I've said before, I think we are in a transitional phase from a duality-driven world to a more unified one. Actually, I'm liking the word "harmonic" better today. Maybe we are finally entering "The Age of Aquarius", 55 years or so after the song was written. "Harmony and understanding...", eh? We may be more "in harmony" with this virus than we think. It may be less scary than we think. Time will tell. But the word "transition" is important. Humanity has never been able to turn on a dime, and with old paradigms dying out and new ones being born, this is going to be quite the decade or two or three. Or more...

For the record, I have had vaccinations and booster, and believe that's important right now. So are masks (as much as I hate them) and sensible measures being suggested or required. But equally important is our inner health. Anger and fear may do as much to lower resistance as any virus. 

This isn't a moment when superficial waves of "happiness" or "fun" will effect change. Those of us who can, simply have to dig really deep, stay calm, stay centered, accept emerging changes, and be as consistently loving as we can be. No one is being punished here. It may be hard to feel it, but love is all around us as we undertake this steep learning curve. We have no choice but to move away from "ways of being" that are not sustainable to "ways of being" that are sustainable, if this planet is to remain a viable home. As hard as it is to see beyond the waves of fear, there is a bigger picture to focus on, if we can get the water out of our eyes. 

Thanksgiving

Most years around this time, I do a post about Thanksgiving, but never exactly by that title. So this year, as it is getting harder to find unique post titles that I haven't previously used (!), I am going for the obvious.

I can think of a number of aspects of my life which challenge a full, open-hearted expression of thanks, including the fact that my readership has dropped (since my pandemic silence) to just a handful of you. I know that I could work on advertising (something that I seem to be constitutionally unable to do) or writing less challenging material or opening up to comments or debate. But my path is my path, and regular readers are literally my companions through the dark forest. I am so glad you are there. I literally and quite heartily give thanks for you!

Thanks giving, too, for a roof over my head, regular meals, friends to connect with even mostly by phone or text these days, this computer, a few basic items of clothing and footwear. Then there is: the ability to breathe, the ability to walk, the ability to digest my food, the ability to reach, to read and write and hear and sing, to get on tiptoe, to smile, to comb my ever-longer hair, to shovel at least small amounts of snow, to walk uphill to the city bus. To watch birds eating the last of the fall berries, and see a dramatic sunrise over the greatest lake in the world, to enjoy blue skies, to have the freedom to eat no breakfast, to eat lunch before noon and supper by about 5. For these and other basic daily pleasures, choices, and necessities, I am so thankful.

Lastly, to keep this short-ish. I am thankful for a remarkable, unexpected, unlikely lifetime. I am thankful for the courage to be different, for the beauty of English church music. I am thankful for persistence in discovering my alignment with the divine feminine, and the wisdom to stop questioning where that takes me. I am thankful to the other people out there, scouting out improved and more loving ways of being human on this beautiful earth, wherever their journeys have taken them. I may end up being alone on Thanksgiving Day itself, but in the bigger picture, I know I am part of a glowing/growing network of openhearted humans, and that the aloneness is just an illusion. Whether you eat turkey or turkey burgers or boxed macaroni and cheese or ramen noodles on Thursday, and whether you are alone or at a big table of loved ones, may it be a day of many blessings.

My Perspective

Well, last night's news certainly made it official -- my perspective on life is making world and national events ever more impossible to understand, and painful to watch.

I won't try to unravel or explore all the strands of these events. Others have started that process. But here's the thing about being "post-duality": you know that every person (and life form) on the planet is you. The earth around you is you. There is no need to protect yourself from others because they are you. There is no excuse to defile the earth because doing so endangers all life on the planet. 

Sometimes, when I have told friends that I would never pick up a weapon to "defend myself", they have said, "Well, Liz, we can tell you aren't a mother. Those of us with children would do what it took to protect our children." And it's true. If I had had children in this lifetime, the only defense of them I might have managed would have been spiritual or psychological, and even that is ultimately not necessary in a unity construct. I would have known my children were safe or, if I couldn't be absolutely sure of that, I would have known that in the bigger picture of many lifetimes they were having the journey they needed and signed up for. I could not bring myself to be physically violent to another person for any reason, including to protect myself or my loved ones.

Here's the thing. We are entering a time when earth and human energies are going to shift so fundamentally upwards, that all forms of conflict, fear mongering, violence, and even competition will simply stop working. To the extent to which they "worked" in the past, they increasingly won't work now. If we can stop, take a deep breath, and really observe, we'll see that this emergence from the duality construct has already started. Things that seem extreme are kind of a "last gasp" of an old paradigm. At this, of all times, we mustn't lose heart. Imagine standing joyfully and fearlessly in front of the world as it changes. Seriously, can you imagine it? 

Friendships and Pandemic

Some of us who are relatively introverted have joked among ourselves about the one way that the pandemic wasn't so bad; It has given us permission to be ourselves, and not to spread ourselves too thin with social events that we aren't fully enthusiastic about anyway.

And I have pretty much done everything by the book. Last year, living with folks whose health isn't strong, I went out into the world (masked) only about once a week, for groceries, yarn, and books. Essentials. I was vaccinated in the spring, and last week had my booster shot. As things opened up this past summer, I still functioned very conservatively. Since June, I think I have eaten inside restaurants with very high ceilings only three or four times, and in outdoor settings the same number of times. I've attended no sports events or concerts (outside or in), have still done relatively little shopping (always with a mask). I've only been inside two friends' houses, once masked, once not. This fall, while the weather was nice, I enjoyed meeting friends for a walk by the lake. But now that it's cold and icy, I am again struggling to figure out how to be with people. The old "inviting someone over for a cup of tea in the kitchen" idea seems dicey to me, with Minnesota experiencing a renewed COVID surge. Vaccinations help protect me from getting seriously ill, but it's balanced out by the fact that I am exposed to a lot of people of uncertain vaccination status on the city buses. And, like all of us, I haven't figured out how to eat or drink with a mask on!

Now, the hardest thing of all for someone who is basically alone in the world -- I've been invited to a friend's house for a big family Thanksgiving gathering. They are not wearing masks, and are just trying to do the traditional event the traditional way. I'm so delighted to be included. I want to go so much! But I'm just not sure I can do it. I'd probably be ready if Minnesota's numbers were going down, but they aren't.

Even the most contemplative and introspective people in the world need other people, and when and if we see the end of this pandemic, I suspect that the social fallout will be studied every bit as much as the medical fallout. I relish my solitude when it is by choice, but these two years have clearly been too much of a good thing.

Questions

Over the weekend, winter came in, in earnest. Falling temperatures, snow, icy sidewalks, clouds hovering over the relatively warm lake. This "pregnant" lady (see previous post) is glad in many ways, having already become a relative homebody, and even though there were the requisite glitches and new daily considerations. Do I wear my ice grippers on my boots? Do I leave them off but carry them in my tote bag? Is it windy enough to need multiple layers? How do I time arrival at my bus stop so that I don't stand in the cold too long? And, first and foremost, do I absolutely need to do such-and-such an errand? Between COVID, icy streets, no car, and my natural inclination to "consume" relatively little, this winter of 2020/21 gestation period is definitely is well-timed.

I have finally accepted that the questions on the minds of many modern humans are simply not the questions on my mind. This came up a few blog posts ago, but the contrast is becoming more and more acute every day. Is the question really, how do we open up the supply chain? Or is it, why do we need all this stuff? Is the question really, how will we get all the things we need for holiday celebrations? Or is it, how do we adapt and make holidays more about people and sharing insight, support and love? Is the question, how do we protect ourselves from the world's most visible present dangers (COVID, other diseases, terrorism, gun violence, environmental catastrophe)? Or is it, how do we walk forward fearlessly, and with love, no matter what surrounds us? Is the question, how do we get what we need, or is it, how do we train ourselves "to need" less?

All the challenges facing us, individually and collectively, are ultimately spiritual questions, not material ones. It's easy for some of us to dig far under the surface to find deeper meaning, harder for others. And it's painful being able to see so much and to understand things so differently, and constantly live out-of-kilter with the world. But my hunch is, there are many of you like me, and hey, folks, this is our time. Our questions, so long ridiculed and ignored, are valid now. They need to be asked. We are entering that kind of pivotal time.

Pregnant

Yesterday, I happened to look at a digital clock right at 11:11 AM -- on 11/11. I mean, talk about portals! That's a quadruple one. I have experienced a lot of change these last few years, walked through many metaphorical doorways, and even, as longterm readers know, fallen through a few. 

Yet in this lifetime, there is one "portal" that I never experienced and presumably never will, and that is physical pregnancy. I know I must have been a mother in other lifetimes. I have an urge to "mother" in many situations, and a surprisingly live housewifely side. I love to cook and bake, in the general sense, to feed people. What volunteer activity I do this coming winter will undoubtedly be in that ballpark. But that is not the same as having carried a baby within you. I am sometimes sad not to have had that experience this time around.

The combined influences of having reached 65 ("retirement age") and a new COVID spike are creating an opportunity. The quiet of this coming winter can support, if I allow it to, a really powerful "pregnancy". I am not ready to "retire", or begin to slide away from life, and to avoid that will require an energetic push in the not-too-distant--future which I need to prepare for. 

The phase I was in for the last twelve years or so -- attempting to re-engage with England and the English cathedral music world from a number of different perspectives -- started to peter out during the pandemic because of travel restrictions and restrictions on cathedral choral singing. Do I feel less connected with England? Right now, yes. It's just the reality. I am not there. In 66 years of life, I have lived less than three in the British Isles. I may essentially still feel English, but I have decided for the next year to completely set aside the impulse to try to get back there. It's not the angry/frustrated thing that it was in my 30's, more just a letting go.

Some kind of enhanced expression of the divine feminine is percolating in me, so for the heck of it, I am going to think of the next 9-12 months as pregnancy. Above and beyond this blog, what new creativity is being born in me? What form will it take? What do I need to do next? When these questions start to plague me, I will place my hands lovingly on my belly, and smile enigmatically, and trust the process happening within me. The thing about pregnancy is that a baby doesn't come out of the womb until it comes out of the womb. He or she isn't out in the world, well, until birth. So while I may speculate a bit in upcoming months about what is happening, I won't expect to fully "see" or understand what I am giving birth to until next August, plus or minus. I'll try not to panic, or push the process forward, or make assumptions. I'll try to make my inner and outer environments increasingly nurturing and welcoming, and ready myself to warmly embrace my new creative direction -- whether or not the compass points to a certain island nation!

The Hardest Day of the Year

No matter where I have lived in the U.S. (virtually always the northern tier of states), the day after daylight saving time ends in the autumn is the hardest day of the year. Yes, you gain an hour's sleep the night before, and that lovely earlier sunrise is wonderful. But, ugh, the early 4:30-ish onset of sunset and night always comes as a shock. It's always a Sunday, so nine times out of ten you are simply home, getting ready to make dinner, about to watch some Sunday night public television shows. But by 8 PM, it feels like midnight. 

As a woman increasingly clued into the divine feminine, I feel like I should welcome the darkness. I don't fear it, and I don't think I suffer from seasonal affective disorder. But there is a suddenness to the early November change that, coupled with anticipation of upcoming months of snow and ice, feels heavy, poignant, even a little scary. Last night's sunset was a brilliant red, almost as if the Universe was trying to soften the blow with a stunning display of beauty. I was grateful. But it's really winter now.

Who Asked Her?

Here's a question that has begun to consume me at times:

Over the last few thousand years or so, when has the Goddess/Mother Nature/Gaia ever been consulted about any human endeavor? As in, "Let's Ask Her to see what She thinks of these plans". When we made plans to wage war, or extract water or gas or minerals or oil, or expand cities, or treat people inequitably, or create oceans of consumer goods, has there ever been a representative of the Great Mother on staff to provide feedback? Literally, who has ever asked Her?

I'd like to think that a century from now, that will be what astonishes humans -- the fact that, by and large, until now, we didn't Ask Her. And the fact that, by and large, we didn't see that as a problem.

Job Titles

Way back on 11-3-15, I did a blog post called, "My New Resume". Almost exactly six years ago today! In it, I mused on how utterly inadequate my resumes have been in portraying who I am and what my skills are. Caught between paradigms, my resumes tended to be conservative and 1970's and 80's in format, hopelessly inadequate at "selling" my highest gifts of creativity, visionary thinking, and wisdom -- qualities that the traditional work world doesn't always much appreciate anyway. They were passively angry documents, so it's understandable how rarely they actually worked in getting me a job. Sort of, "the heck with this whole work paradigm. Please don't give me a job. You won't want someone like me. And I won't like the kind of job you offer." At the time of that blog post, I had just created a self-portrait collage that I thought I should use instead.

Featured at the top of my old resumes, yet paradoxically lurking deep under the surface of my life, has been my associate's degree from Parsons School of Design. Back in about 1982, when I finally gave up on the concept of trying to make inroads in England or in church music, and also catalyzed, unfortunately, by pique ("...the heck with the men and boys' choir tradition! There's no rule stating that women cannot become artists is there?"), I started an illustration course at Parsons, much of which was paid for by my employer, Time Inc. I took one or two courses per semester at night. It was one of those strange things where I had no passion for actually doing art, but I was so good at it that I got great grades, and even taught some color theory courses at the school and sold some magazine illustrations. Yet by the time I earned the degree, I was back at square one: I believed so little in the capitalist system that I couldn't face the prospect of using my skills commercially, and doing art for its own sake didn't light my fire. My color and design creativity was part of a greater whole that I simply couldn't yet articulate.

For years, I've received Parsons' alumni magazine in the mail, glanced through it, then tossed it in the recycling pile. I didn't resonate with the kind of achievements presented in it. The latest issue could have had the same fate, only toward the back of the magazine, the editors profiled a number of graduates, whose "job titles" were so extraordinary, forward-thinking and exciting, I could hardly contain myself: "Data Storyteller", "Sensory Sartorialist", "Design Advocate", "Architect of Change", "Collaborative Portraitist", "Unabridged Historian"...I mean, oh my goodness. These are my people. They have created their own wildly unique specialities, and defined themselves based on the intersection of what they care about, what they see as a societal need, and their highest skills, not based on the needs of a potential employer, per se. 

It would still be tempting to fade out into the sunset. Every day, through fear, inertia or fatigue, that temptation beckons. To fully embody Goddess spiritual values, and express them using a range of traditional and futuristic forms of creativity, requires 100% dedication, and a fearless belief in oneself. It has taken a whole lifetime, but I'm as close to that -- and a two- or three-word job title -- as I have ever been. I am thankful for these role models! Oh, so thankful!

The First Hour

Friends have told me on a number of occasions that the blog posts they have most appreciated are the ones where I am the most honest about my personal experiences and feelings. So here goes one of those. It will be a miracle if I get up the courage to publish it. Much of this you may have heard before in some form, but today I go a bit deeper. And although my current housing situation has stabilized, the topic is still applicable in other ways.

I know that my mother did her best to welcome me, given the 1950's hospital setting and my probably having been taken away seconds after birth to be cleaned up, checked over, and dressed up. Mom wasn't a demonstrative woman. She was also tiny, and had just given birth to a three-week-late, 9 pounds 1 oz baby, so her joy or satisfaction must have been muted by activity, exhaustion and fluorescent lights. But at least I have a vague memory of some slight bonding. What I have a clearer sensing memory of, however, is that first moment meeting my father. He told me once that he had gone out drinking while he waited to hear the news that I was born. (This was way before the days of fathers helping out in the delivery room, but I know for a fact that he would not have done that in any event.) While I am sure he jollied up my mom and the nurses and said all the right things, I am also sure that, when I was placed in his arms, I looked into eyes that simply could not see me. With the exception of a few occasions when his own ego was boosted by his attention to me, and up to his death three years ago (when I "inherited" $725), I have no memory of any genuine, two-way interaction with him, or, frankly, between him and anyone else. The problem, of course, is that until I was about 60, I did not understand that my efforts to engage him were futile. I literally spent much of this lifetime searching for some way to break through the surface and find the human being within, only I don't believe there was one. I was not successful, in any event.

The problem with such a start is that hour one ends up defining one's whole lifetime. You are removed from your mother's loving arms, cleaned up, made perfect, and then handed over for inspection. Rightly or wrongly, I felt that I hadn't passed inspection. So year after year, I replayed the tape. Maybe if I'm a good girl, Daddy will see me. No? Maybe if I do well in school, Daddy will see me. No? Maybe if I develop an unusual talent, Daddy will see me. No? Maybe if I am perfect, Daddy will see me. No? Maybe if I take an interest in his family genealogy, or help the family out during crises, or help him organize his living space, or drive him to his mother's home town. Maybe if I create beautiful art and give it to him. Maybe if I am in crisis, or if I lose my temper, or if he can see that he has hurt me, Daddy will see me. No. Maybe if, a year before his death, I just give up and stop contacting him, Daddy will remember me and call me. No.

This First Hour pattern morphed into a bigger search for where I would be loved and appreciated simply for who I am, and it took on rather mythical proportions. I'm sure some similar eldest daughters play out the search in dating and marriage; for me, it was in having a talent/passion that was impossible to pursue, and the subsequent search for somewhere, anywhere, to feel at home with work or people or landscape. Earlier than most people, I reached a point where I couldn't bear "the job search", the cleaning myself up and presenting myself as beautifully as possible in the hopes of being selected, being "loved", only, more often than not, finding out I was too qualified or not qualified enough. Not right. In recent years, that First Hour has manifested itself in not being able to do a conventional housing search. It's the same issue. Deep in my soul, it hurts too much to have to prove my worth, or to be turned down or asked to leave. It hurts too much not simply to "earn" a viable living space by virtue of being the essentially good human being that I am. (I think our whole economy has more in common with a man like my father than most of us realize. Overall, it only cares what its needs are and how we, as workers, will fill that need. It really doesn't want to look at us, it wants to look at the bottom line. There is something so soulless and painful about the whole thing. The fact that so many people have been functional in it is a miracle.)

It always feels satisfying to trace a lifelong problem back to its source, but how can I reframe that First Hour moving forward? I cannot change my dad's first encounter with me, but moving back maybe a half hour to the very first moment is striking. Some very competent doctors and nurses helped Mom through a hard labor and got me out of the womb safely (thank you, to whoever you were!) My mom must have held me briefly, and warmly, at least for a minute or two, and then a caring nurse took me (was I screaming?!) to wash me off and dress me up. She (most nurses were women in those days) undoubtedly had a lovely, encouraging voice, and told me I was beautiful and how proud my parents were. That's what I would do if I were ever to hold a newborn baby. It was in the context of such warm greetings that my dad's blankness so wounded me. But I need to start focusing on the murmured voices of the women, telling me I was welcome in this world. I need to start focusing on the first moments of that First Hour. It's not too late to change the pattern.

 

Natural Disasters

Natural Disasters. I have been thinking about them, and the use of the word "disaster" to describe natural weather events.

Fortunately, northern Minnesota had a very mild and long summer, and we haven't experienced any serious gales of October or November -- yet. But that's just one little patch of the earth's surface. Clearly, people all over the U.S. and the world are experiencing increased climate chaos, leading to loss of life, possessions, property. Although I have chosen to detach from possessions over and over again over the years, I still really resonate with the pain people feel when their home flies away in a tornado, or drops into a rainy chasm, or burns in a wildfire, or falls down a hillside avalanche. It is a disaster to us, humans, when we unexpectedly lose things we love or have spent a long time building. It is painful to lose a home or not have one for whatever reason.

But I have been trying to imagine these huge weather events from the perspective of Mother Earth, or even, the world before humans created such widespread infrastructures. I mean, if no humans were in the picture, would earthquakes be considered "disasters"? Tornados? Wildfires? Tsunamis? They are awesome examples of the power of nature and the power of the divine. They are the earth stretching and re-orienting, refreshing herself. In the modern era, they are earth trying to regain a sense of balance after centuries of, at times, very inappropriate overuse. Before the era of electricity, parking lots, high-rise buildings, cars, suburbs, fast food restaurants, jobs, home and property ownership (virtually every aspect of our modern world) early humans had, well, fewer possessions to lose. And because I don't believe, per se, in "death" (the passionate stream of life goes on and on and we are all part of it, whether on the earth plane or not), I am not quite as worried about loss of life as some people are. Ultimately, there is no loss of life, just a change in form.

I guess I'm personally trying to shift, just a little, away from this idea that nature is hurting us, or causing disasters. A case could be made that the "disaster" has been "humans progressing full steam ahead without considering the health of the earth". But I don't even want to go down that road. I'm trying to get beyond the fear, blame, and anger, to a place of embracing earth's natural processes, allowing her to do what she needs to do, honoring her agency and power. To stand next to Lake Superior in gale force winds with open arms, welcoming the energy. Can we call these events something else? "Natural Adjustments"? "Nature being Nature"? "The Beautiful Force"? 

A Free Woman II

Still mulling over freedom, and I guess it's OK to do that being American (!) We are still one of the freest countries in the world, and I am immensely grateful that this, plus coming of age in the late 20th century, provided me with opportunities to at least try to self-actualize and travel. I made some unusual choices, and wasn't directly forced into a specific ill-fitting mold.

And yet I can't help but find it interesting that our whole system is predicated on huge blocs of free or low-paid labor, not to mention Mother Earth being left completely "unpaid" for all her natural resources. This seems like "freedom" turned on its head. Young people are propelled into higher education with the promise of better jobs, only to leave campus deep in debt and needing to put their "nose to the grindstone" immediately -- at the only moment in their lives when theoretically they might be free to see the world, do volunteer work, or learn an arts or crafts skill. People take, or stay in, jobs not because they like them, but because of health insurance and other benefits. They are bound to their mortgage and credit card debts, their over-the-counter or prescription medications, expectations about "success", appearance, and relationships. Americans can be tied up in knots, just in different ways.

Probably half-a-dozen times in my adult life, I had some kind of meltdown, where I burst into tears and told whoever I was with that I couldn't play this "game". I couldn't think of any kind of job or office setting that appealed to me, and the whole network of other related expectations was simply too much for me. Looking back at it now, I think what was hardest was the notion of giving up my freedom to be what I am, a spiritual contemplative. Money, possessions, relationships, even home meant nothing if I didn't have the space and time to focus on the deeper meaning of everything and try to communicate that meaning through writing, music or art. My Goddess values seemed to be completely off the spectrum, almost like a color you cannot see.

The COVID era has given all of us an opportunity to re-consider what is important, individually and communally, and to re-think what freedom means. People are interpreting it very differently, aren't they? If there was ever a time to remember that notions like "freedom", "liberty" and "the pursuit of happiness" are not rigid universal constructs etched in stone, it is now. What makes me feel "free" may not be what makes you feel "free". Even opening our hearts to appreciate these differences can be a challenge. Potentially even more challenging is considering whether our freedoms enslave others. In the ripple effect going out from my life, is anyone, anywhere being actively harmed or deprived of freedom? And if so, how do I re-vision my goals? How do we as a society re-vision our goals? I have a hunch that going forward, we will no longer have the luxury of ignoring these questions.

A Free Woman

I'm touching base on this topic, even though I wrote about it once before (in July of 2016) and even though, at this point, I am nearly reader-free! I am not sure my blog is what the world needs right now, but I plow ahead because I need to write. It is like breathing. And because somehow I trust that there are some little crumbs of truth scattered through "The Liz Path" over the years that perhaps some future readers will benefit from.

I am slowly making my way through two extraordinary books. The first (The First Free Women) is a small book of poems edited and "reimagined" by Matty Weingast; the writings are by some of the world's first Buddhist nuns. I can only read, at most, one of these short poems a day. They are poignant, universal, timely, and muse upon freedom in many forms -- freedom from (husbands and families, belongings, food) and freedom in (a spiritual path, wisdom, the daily minutiae of life). To say that the "nun" in me resonates with each and every page is an understatement.

Then, at a used book store I found a 1980 book, The Moon and the Virgin: Reflections on the Archetypal Feminine, by Nor Hall. The first chapter alone speaks to me in a similar way, even though modern and almost academic in tone. Hall helps readers get beyond the superficial definition of "virgin", and really see the word as referencing a woman's freedom to keep her own counsel, be true to her own nature, to be unfettered. 

I sometimes don't fully appreciate how free I have been. This journey has at times been so terrifying and so humbling/humiliating that I couldn't see it clearly. Yet through the lens of these books, I can see the truth, which is that I have been unusually free. I've been either rejected or relatively unchained by most of the male constructs in our world. I don't own a house, which means I'm essentially homeless but I don't owe money to the bank. I've never had a husband or life partner, which has been extremely lonely, but it also means I was always free to make my own decisions without compromise. I was not able to pursue the life path I would have preferred, but this meant that I had perhaps hundreds of very unexpected learning experiences and delightful adventures. Being a free woman comes at a high cost, but would I go back now and change any of it? No. 

As it should be

This is one of those days when somehow, inexplicably, I feel a calm sense of life being "as it should be". 

The living situation that two weeks ago seemed to be teetering, has stabilized into something that should last a year or more. 

And learning that St. John's College, Cambridge is opening its choir program to girls and women seems to have completely released something in me, a lingering sense of responsibility to work toward equality in that field. The minute I hit "publish" on my last blog post, I felt the weight of a VW bus fall from my shoulders. I'm 65, and my life's work on and off this whole lifetime is now well and truly out of my hands, off my back. I had been "this close" for a few years, but now that phase of my journey is really complete. I can listen, sing along, travel (at some point) to England, follow developments, but I've "done" everything I could and can now "retire".

Yesterday, my early morning card reading was so apt...four of vessels/cups...often interpreted as boredom, disinterest, or inability to choose. The image was apt. Four full cups within reach, but not tempting enough to engage me enough to reach out. Then, a friend forwarded a link to some lectures offered by Harvard Divinity School. I listened to one of them, and was completely drawn in. My brain thrilled at the intellectual stimulus, the forward thinking, and the brilliant use of words. I felt nourished, in my element. At home.

This morning? The Hanged Man, a beatific figure seemingly at peace with being literally upside down in relation to the world. It's about acceptance, realizing that your journey could only have been topsy-turvy. Everything about the divine feminine is opposite (but in an ideal world, complementary to) the spiritual paradigms in place, and it's OK. That is as it should be. I could never have conformed to the modern American norm, and it's OK. What a lovely way to start the day, and the next leg of the journey. 

 

Saturday Sparkle

In ways, this is just your average clear, crisp autumn morning in the upper Midwest. I am close enough to Lake Superior to be able to see the early morning sparkles of sunlight on the water through the trees. It reminds me of how, fifty summers ago, I loved the same morning sparkles on Lake Champlain, barely visible from our family's "camp"/cabin. We would sit along the porch railing, eating breakfast before heading to the tennis court or beach. I am thankful for this early imprint of beauty and magic. (And, ahem, privilege.)

There's some extra sparkle to this day, having learned the stunning news from England that St. John's College, Cambridge's Choir program is poised to start including girls and women. Even as other cathedrals and choral foundations had begun to be more inclusive, it had seemed like the three or four most prominent men and boys' choirs were likely to stay that way. So it is thrilling to live to witness this change, and to understand that I had a role, however small, in the early shaking of the foundations of a longstanding tradition.

I used to listen to records of St. John's College back in the mid-sixties, when its choir was under the direction of George Guest. These recordings, along with those of King's College, Cambridge, Westminster Abbey, and Christ Church, Oxford, were my own personal choir school. I literally learned how to sing as much from singing along to recordings of these choirs as I did singing in church or school choirs. There were summer mornings at Midwood when the rest of my family had all scattered to play tennis, hike or sail, and I would put a record on the record player and sing -- at the top of my lungs -- along with the Howells "Collegium Regale". "At the top of one's lungs" in the middle of the trees in Adirondacks is decidedly not the way this music was intended to be sung, but perhaps in breaking that sound barrier, I helped to start breaking down other sound barriers too. Perhaps my passion registered somehow in universal consciousness. 

So, thank you, St. John's College, and all the institutions that have embraced female voices. We were never less passionate or less competent. All we ever wanted to do was sing the music we love.

I Can See

Back on July 31, 2018, I wrote a post called "The Eyes Have It," where I talked about my serious nearsightedness, and how my eyes in recent years have started to improve. Yes, I wear bifocals, but my actual level of nearsightedness is diminishing. I went to the eye doctor again yesterday, and the improvement is quite marked. The glasses that I got three years ago are really, really wrong for me now, and I cannot wait for the new ones to come in.

As I just said to a friend, to be 65 and have any aspect of your physical body improve is just simply miraculous. The powers-that-be in this world may be hoping that we older women will just disappear off into the sunset, but fortunately I can at least see more and more clearly. And understand what I am seeing. And trust my own instincts.

Of course, that still leaves me often "seeing things" differently. The news item that currently seems to me to be the most metaphorically important is the container ship crisis, both at U.S. ports and overseas. Most of the news reports I have heard or read about this development seem to place it in the context of how people had better buy their Christmas gifts early because many items will not be available. Various entities are getting into place to resolve this problem, to make the supply chain "flow" which will make our life easier so that we can buy more things. What stuns me is that as a culture, we haven't started to question the core wisdom, economy and ecology of this crazy consumerist model. It stuns me that we don't see these bird's eye views of anchored container ships, and say, "there is something so wrong with this picture". Could the "problem" be that we are consuming (and then discarding) so much stuff, rather than that the shipments are stuck in port?

My eyeglasses were a big purchase, and strictly speaking, in buying them, I "bought into" consumerism. Actually, I had even considered just living with my old glasses for a few more years. But these glasses are simply wrong for my current eyesight, to the point where I can barely function with them. So I am grateful when our system makes available the things we absolutely need, like glasses, clothing and food. My hunch is that the container ships are mostly filled with things that are, by my simple standards, nonessential. And of course, we all have a different definition of "nonessential"... My question for the day might be, what does the Goddess think is essential for human life on earth? Is it found in these container ships?

 

Grandma

It never ceases to amaze me how responsive my oracle cards are to my thoughts and feelings immediately prior to making a blind pick. This morning, I was trying (as ever!) to keep my thoughts empty and meditative, but for some reason they were drifting to my maternal grandmother, Agnes, who lived in Schenectady when I was growing up. I'll tell you about the cards in a second.

But the gist of what I was thinking about was, not only is my life absolutely about the photo negative opposite to hers by the time I was conscious of her presence (probably when I was two or so, and she was 67). But secondly, life in general is so radically different. I was literally feeling nostalgic. Can't we just go back, for a few days, months, years? Back to an "easier time"?

Grandma lived in a large Victorian brownstone on lower Union Street. The front doors of the building must have been about nine feet tall, and the musty Victorian smell hit you as you walked through the entryway and then climbed up the long staircase. Her rented apartment was on the second floor, and the front two rooms were spacious and light. As I think I might have mentioned in an earlier blog, she was a painter (self-taught by copying the Masters), and several "Reniors", "Degas" and "Turners" adorned the walls. In the dining room, she displayed her collection of Vaseline glass, and art books were scattered throughout the apartment. Her oils, pastels, needlework, knitting, tole painting, rug hooking, and other supplies were in her bedroom closet and dresser, I think, because if she wasn't working on a project, her house was remarkably free of clutter. Her bathroom towels had pink roses on a ground of white, and the smell of her rose-scented soap is still with me. My grandfather had died by about 1951, and on the desk there was an early photograph of him in his World War I uniform. But apart from this, this was her apartment. I've never thought about it before, but she had an unusually solid sense of who she was, and that was reflected throughout her space, which she lived in until a year before she died in the early 1980s.

I think Grandma was one of the only people, to this day, who always welcomed me literally with open arms. Starting around the time I was eight, I would often walk from church choir rehearsal to her house to wait for one of my parents to pick me up, and sometimes she would make me early dinner. That hug...it wasn't a bear hug, but it was genuine and loving. She was about 5'6, of medium build, with short wavy grey hair (treated with bluing) and she never, ever wore pants/slacks/trousers. Usually she wore a blue or blue flowered dress or skirt and blouse (she called it a "shirtwaist"!) Sure, she had a TV, but it was a small portable black and white on a stand that she kept rolled out of the way. Once in a blue moon we would watch the local news, but usually, as I was her only granddaughter and the only grandchild who shared her interests, we'd sketch, or look through art books, or just talk. If we ate dinner, it was at the dining room table with real silver and china.

Even for the time, she (and her space) had a slightly antiquated aura. Her trash went to the basement in a brown paper bag tied up with twine. Her only concession to "junk food" was goldfish crackers. Any cookies or meals were homemade, no fast food. I appreciated then -- and now -- the fact that she literally was a being of the 19th century, as all my grandparents were. She had a car (a light blue Chevrolet with metal trim), and did drive, but even that seemed wrong somehow. There was a photo in her apartment of Grandma and her sister Anna, two little Bronx-born girls, in a small pony cart in New York City's Central Park probably circa about 1900. Even as a 1960's youngster, I related more to that era than my own, and still do.

So what cards did I pick this morning? Seven of Bows (Wildwood cards) -- Clearance, and Six of Cups (Rider) -- Nostalgia. It didn't feel like a critique (as in, "what are you doing, starting the day off woolgathering?"). But it did seem more like a reality check. Grandma's life and journey are not mine, and this is a very different era. She came to earth to achieve different things than I did. Remembering, appreciating, and gratitude, are appropriate. Actively wishing that I could return to that time or have the relatively easy post-65 life that she had is not, just simply because it cannot be. 

I feel her with me today, and I can hear her saying, "Eat your beanies!" (I didn't like canned green or lima beans.) Thank you for being so genuinely you, Grandma. You were an excellent role model, and to this day, one of the most solid, stable, and loving presences in my life. 

What an Example

The other day, I only half jokingly said to a friend that perhaps I have done more in the last few years to put people off the Goddess than to inspire them. I mean really. Chronic homelessness, no career, difficulty achieving goals, loneliness...not exactly an appealing picture. Perhaps I should go back to hiding my divine feminine orientation so that no one will see me as such a good example of how non-functional it can be. And at least part of this outcome has to do with apparently being "post-duality", not the same thing as being oriented to the divine feminine, but arguably linked. 

I keep coming back to the fact that our current society is calibrated to support only certain kinds of success, certain kinds of progress, certain kinds of recognition. Every time in my life that I have hit a wall and thought I couldn't go any further, a friend or relative has well-meaningly pointed out that the system in place is all we have, and we have no choice but to follow it. I always hated this lecture. I know that in other dimensions and other lifetimes, I have experienced love-based paradigms, and that, yes, these are an option for humans on planet Earth. But apparently few people realize it, and there aren't yet any solid systems in place to support "all love, all the time". So, the fact that I have survived decades of chronic fear and conflict is its own kind of success. Anyone who survives life as we know it for any period of time is successful in my book.

On this strangely warm and humid October Saturday, may I be fearless and unconcerned with opinion, discomfort, and uncertainty. In our time, humanity itself is hitting a wall. I've longed for the day when someone would say, "Liz, tell us what's going on here. Is there another way? If so, what is it?", and that day seems to be getting closer. There are many of us out here, examples of a different way of being, speaking, and believing, and our lives are, however imperfectly, a blueprint. The picture may seem shimmering and insubstantial, but with every day and every new moment of focus, it gains substance. For my part, I need to move beyond self-deprecating comments of any kind (lighthearted or not) and honor my own efforts and example. It has taken a certain inner strength, that's for sure. Be strong too, dear readers.

A Close Call

The other day, I had a close call.

It was at one of the busiest intersections in town, and about five of us pedestrians were ready to cross on the walk sign. However, cars on the cross street also had just had a green arrow to turn left into the street we were traversing. When the coast was clear, this little group of us started to cross. As we did, another car must have decided to swing around and make his turn before we made any headway, and he came to a screeching halt literally about three feet from me. I "screeched to a halt" too, and there was a domino effect as the lady behind me walked into me, etc. I looked up at the driver, and I guess what stunned me was that he didn't appear remotely sorry to have almost plowed into almost half a dozen people. He appeared to be angry that we were in his way. I don't know that for sure, of course. But I do know that the look on his face didn't appear to be apologetic, sheepish, or relieved. Just irritated as heck.  Every day, as a pedestrian or a bus passenger, I am seeing our current level of stress manifesting in these kinds of ways.

My life didn't pass before my eyes. (For me, that happened day in and day out over COVID year, as I was reminded of all the experiences I'd had in life that were suddenly no longer possible.) And once I safely reached the other side and thanked the heavens for that outcome, I went along on my round of errands. But in the few days since then, that moment has stayed with me and I have been conscious of several things.

Firstly, I believe there are no accidents. Had there been a spectacular crash, it would have been because collectively, all of us involved might have been sending out mixed signals about our determination to live. I know that somewhere in that positive outcome -- despite all the ups and downs of my life -- my soul was singing "yes" to life, and I am relieved about that. I'm still profoundly curious about the future, and am grateful to be here to experience it.

Secondly, last week on the equinox, I made a commitment to being more profoundly present and grounded this fall than I have ever been. Without pushing away other options (England or otherwise), I made a promise to myself to anchor myself as firmly as I possibly can to this little spot on the tip of Lake Superior. Being present and alert at that moment certainly helped me stop on a dime, and it may have helped a few others to do the same.

Lastly, as you often hear about in the lives of other people, a near-death experience does serve as a doorway to increased sensitivity, openness to magic and mystery, and gratitude. It seems to be an invitation both to take life more lightly and more seriously; whatever happens around me, I am still here and I have some purpose still to fulfill, even if it is simply to align with joy and the Goddess. It was literally as much a wake-up call as a close call, and the moments since then have had a new poignancy and energy. 

 

The Blue Mask

Life being, as always, a little uncertain for me (although it may be less so than I thought a few days ago), I am focusing on doing the things that will ground me, since that is one of the hardest things for this Aquarius sun/Pisces moon and Pisces rising. Taking short walks, sitting outside with feet on the ground, making homemade soup, even looking out my window at Lake Superior. She's still there. Phew.

It was on a walk yesterday that I noticed an outrageous number of blue masks, clearly used, then, literally, disposed of on the street and in people's yards. So many things went through my mind. First, the fact that anytime before 2020, you almost never saw blue masks anywhere except a doctor's office...certainly not on the face of the public or tossed aside like soda cans. Now they are ubiquitous. I tried to comfort myself that they were made of paper, and so might eventually degrade. But two seconds of research this morning taught me that they are partially plastic, so they are not recyclable or compostable.

The blue mask sitting there, covering up (what?) ten or twelve square inches of bright green grass, has become a potent symbol in the last 24 hours. The mask serves to block sun and rain from reaching the grass, and at least for a time, the grass may die. The very items invented to protect the public and health care workers from COVID, are, themselves, making it incrementally harder for Mother Earth herself to breathe. After their single use, these items are landing on the grass, on the sidewalk, in plastic trash bags at the dump, or in the ocean. Millions upon millions of them a day. 

I don't know quite what to say about this. It is so enormous, where do you start?  But it is almost as if the symptoms of this disease (fever/overheating and the inability to breathe and use other senses) are the very symptoms we are seeing in the earth herself, and her precious climate. Earth is becoming overheated, she cannot breathe, and she cannot cool herself with pure waters. Her struggle to regain health (more powerful storms, temperature extremes, and natural "disasters") are, of course, becoming our struggle. Indeed, there is no separation. We and the earth are one. But I don't think overall, as a culture, we have started to understand and embrace that reality.

My masks are multiple-use. I hand wash or throw them in with the laundry. That isn't really a solution, but I guess it's one small thing I can do today. Anything that grounds, connecting me to the earth and what she is going through, is good.

Up in the Air

As I write, things are again moving and changing beneath my feet. My new situation may, itself, be in flux, so at the moment when I had started to feel a little grounded, I can feel the subtle shifting again. The metaphor of "shifting sands" may be overused, but that is what it feels like. Not enough movement to throw my balance completely off, but I cannot quite settle in yet.

I trust the Goddess enough to know that I am being guided, so overall, I remain pretty calm. On an emotional level, I feel a great deal of empathy with the Haitian refugees and so many around the world whose lives are fluid, who don't have a permanent place to be.  But I also know that I remain comparatively fortunate. So far, I have never been without a roof over my head. And my situation, while not by "choice" exactly, has always been due to finding no appropriate niche, and little or no financial support for my specific gifts; it is not due to climate disaster, war, or political turmoil. Still, nearly an entire lifetime without a permanent home is beginning to take its toll.

Yesterday, I walked to Lake Superior and sat in the calm sunlight, soaking in her expansiveness. Today, it is cold and seriously windy. Things change quickly around here, literally on a dime. They sometimes change back again just as quickly. May I  stay open-hearted and open-minded as the winds roar around me. 

Patchworks

What an odd weekend. Hot for late September in Northern Minnesota. I did a little food shopping on Thursday, and sat outside over iced tea with a friend on Saturday. Other than that, I felt like I was holding my breath. It might literally have been the calm before the storm; the sky this morning was completely orangish-red, "red sky at morning, sailors take warning". And heavy rain is due soon. I just heard a bird that sounded like something from the rainforest, not that I've ever been to the rainforest, but it didn't sound like a north country bird. All a bit odd, surreal.

I didn't watch any television all summer, and starting tomorrow, I won't be in a situation where extensive TV watching will be appropriate, and so the last few days I confess I binge-watched several favorite British mysteries and also watched morning and evening news. This morning, the patchwork of news items was, itself, surreal. Horrifying and heartbreaking (the Haitian migrants at the border), maddening (the discovery of the body of the missing young woman out west), encouraging (the development of a COVID vaccine for children), and, well, hard to take in (the return of four average people from outer space). My mother died about six months before 911, and as I watched that morning's news twenty years ago, I was so glad that she wasn't there to see it. Since then, increasingly, I've been glad that she (and other old friends and family) can't see the kaleidoscope of strange and jarring visual images we are all exposed to. What would Mom make of any of it? The development of space tourism when millions on earth are homeless. Football stadiums crammed with people in the midst of a pandemic. And, of course, our online world, where we flit from thing to thing every second. I had a moment when I thought, I'm too old, myself, to take all of this in. 

This summer was so healthy, in part, because I didn't watch TV or spend much time online. Plopping myself in front of a television screen for a few days after a long hiatus gave me a new awareness -- frankly, I felt manipulated. It may or may not be the intention of news directors (or for that matter, the creators of even the best drama series), but I had the sense that I was being dragged deliberately over a variegated landscape, through horror, then fear, then outrage, then hope, then warm, touchy-feely "isn't that cute". Moving through so many emotions so quickly leaves you numb, doesn't it? Not to mention feeling like a child.

Those of us in our sixties have a patchwork life behind us, no matter what the colors or patterns on the squares. I'm hearing a common theme from friends, the need to do less and focus only on the one or two aspects of life that are most pressing or most appealing. We simply haven't got enough energy to engage in everything that is happening in the world, as urgent as much of it is, and to switch emotional gears every two seconds. We are exhausted and, in many cases, physically disabled or ill. No other generation of human elders has ever been exposed to so much visual and written stimulus, so much anger and human emotion, and so many toxins and manmade foods and materials, through the course of their lifetimes, and each of us is on an unmarked trail through this rocky landscape. News images are of reality, often heartbreaking reality, but we cannot split ourselves into enough pieces to help fix every crisis. It is so easy to fall into hopelessness. Many of us have narrowed down our focus, whether it's committing to addressing a worldwide problem, or helping our community, or helping the environment, or helping our family or friends, or caring for grandchildren, or healing from illness, or trying to benefit humanity in a less tangible way, through the arts, spirituality or culture. At a certain point, you realize you cannot spread yourself so thin any more. It has become an "or" not an "and" scenario, regrettably.

Those black clouds to the west took all morning, but they're about to drop heavy rain. I am thankful to be under a safe roof, and to be well enough to create a new section of my patchwork quilt. I had my TV binge, but it was oddly exhausting, for something you sit passively to do. It's just not a good use of energy at my age. One less thing to focus on. 

Smart

Back on September 6, 2018, in my post "Genius", I spoke about the experience of having, quite by accident, encountered another person with a so-called "genius IQ" out in the world -- he was a retail clerk. Anyone reading this might wish to read that essay first. 

I write today's post in the full appreciation that there are many forms of intelligence, and that the kind of left brain-logical-academic one measured by the traditional tests is (rightly so) no longer considered the only way to measure "smart". Indeed, I believe we are going through a transition that may either transform, or replace completely, the institutions that were a product primarily of that kind of intelligence. Having equally strong "right brain"/creative intelligence, I am personally looking forward to a more balanced world.

Having said that, the fact remains that I was gifted by God/Goddess/Universe/Source with superior reasoning/academic skills that have gone largely unused in this lifetime, which I find I am grieving right now. I discovered my IQ (when I was ten or twelve, it was 148) listening to my parents talking in the front seat of the car. I was already a grade or two ahead of my age, but apart from that, this aspect of who I was would never again be referred to by family, teachers, or anyone in a position to guide me into the future. When I arrived at Smith in 1973, there were relatively few women professors, although by 1977 there were considerably more. Still, I couldn't "see"  myself in academia...my own grandmother had become a lawyer in 1915, but within five years, she had married and had to abandon her career. My parents were not academics, and there were none in my extended family. The area of my passion (English church music) was not open to women at all; I didn't want to study or teach it, I wanted to sing it. 

If the truth be known, I pursued my master's degree at the University of London (in "historical musicology"/chant) mainly so I would have the experience singing in the chapel choir. If there were specific academic programs in English church music in England, I hadn't found them. In 1981, laden down with student loans that needed repayment, I returned to the U.S. to work them off. I was proud of my academic accomplishment, and dying to talk about my studies. But my mother's only comment was that the skirt I had bought in London made me look like a bag lady. My dad insisted on calling "Royal Holloway College" "Royal Hallowell". They were glad I had had a nice time, but what was I going to do next? Over the years, I got used to consistently dismissive, negative or teasingly critical feedback about my intelligence and education. I was a "pithy Smithy". How was all that education helping me get a job? Why didn't I leave my master's degree off my resume? Wouldn't it be a good idea if I downplayed my education/intelligence? Etc. Etc. 

Of course it is true. I now understand that my resume screamed "this is not a team player. This is a leader". And yet not having found a milieu in which I wanted to lead, I floundered. Of course what happened then is that my resume screamed, "This is a woman who has not achieved her potential". In recent decades, my Lake Superior-sized intelligence has been funneled into truly inappropriate jobs, being super-organized at things like shopping lists and, Goddess be praised, this blog and my two articles about Herbert Howells. Yet it is still not enough. I have been bored so much of the time. I've tried so hard just to survive that my intellect got left behind. 

Recently, two separate women on separate occasions have told me that they love hearing me speak and express myself, that they are inspired by my beautiful way of speaking and organizing my thoughts. I am so incredibly grateful for the positive feedback. Even though I know it is unlikely to become a global in-the-streets kind of movement, and even though boys and men clearly get left behind too, I particularly want to honor all those girls and women in the world whose intellectual gifts have not yet been adequately identified or supported. These women are everywhere. "You are beautiful. I love how smart you are. And the world needs you now, more than ever!"

 

 

Shape-shifting

Back in Duluth, after summer in the big city. As the bus crested the hill and headed down toward Lake Superior, I wasn't as thrilled by the view as I was 30 years ago, more filled with a certain wonder. The vast expanse of lake and the "arms" of her shoreline were welcoming me yet again. Are there any other residents of this city who have left and returned and left and returned more times? Always thinking, I've outgrown Duluth, time to move on, yet coming back...I suppose it is hubris on my part. How do you "outgrow" the largest lake in the world? She has something more to teach me. I am not sure how completely I'll take root this time, but I have made a commitment to just being present, at every moment. 

I was saying to someone the other day how living with a succession of different peoples' "homes" over the years forces you to a kind of adaptation most people never experience. When you are under someone else's roof, you tend to adapt to their way of life whether they expect it or not, or are physically present or not. This summer, I had one of the most pleasing sets of circumstances I have ever had, and one that came closest to an easy alignment with my preferences: no television, morning meditation, healthy food (and a co-op two blocks away), healthy simple lifestyle, beautiful small garden easily accessible in the back, and always-meaningful conversation. That, and lots of quiet time too. The real me came out to play. 

But I have had to shape-shift again. Within minutes of arriving Sunday at a short house-sitting gig, I had turned on the television and grabbed a piece of paper toweling as a napkin, rather than the cloth alternative. Because the "normal" supermarket is closer than the health food store and I am on foot, I walked to it to get some groceries. I tried to choose organic options whenever possible, yet I inevitably grabbed several overpackaged and over-preserved items. I am our current environmental crisis in a nutshell -- convenience and adaptation to what's easiest and on offer guided my actions. I'm trying not to be too hard on myself. Many people would never have survived a life of constant transition at all; at any given moment I am doing the best I can to shift gears and be as fully where I am with as much integrity as possible. I'm glad I had this summer to experience "shifting" into a model that suited me. Staying aligned with that model in different circumstances may be hard, but not completely impossible.

And, hey, I suspect that an elementary ability to shape-shift may actually come in handy in upcoming months and years!

Earring Mystery

At a moment in history when one is fortunate to be alive, healthy, and under a safe roof, this is going to seem like an extremely frivolous subject.

So, yesterday, when I had all my things out on the floor and was sorting, tossing, and otherwise "organizing", I did what I always do when I am about to move. I own about thirty pairs of earrings. I don't wear makeup, bracelets, or do anything fancy with my hair. Most of my clothing is handed down, or from inexpensive big box stores. Earrings are my only real form of fashion expression, although mine are pretty unfashionable, if the truth be known. Or at least not "stylish" -- kind of who I am, somewhat conservative, but artsy, somewhere on the classic/eye-catching cusp. A bit "different". I've rarely purchased earrings, only once in a blue moon. But friends sometimes give me earrings they are about to take to the thrift store, and I have a few nice ones that I was given for Christmas or birthdays.

At the end of the process of pairing the earrings up and putting them in the little zippered bag I keep them in, there was a horrifying sight -- not one, not two, but six single earrings! I've searched all over the room I have been living in for their mates, and through all my bags. Nothing. Then it finally hit me. All summer, I have been putting masks on (to go into stores or the bus) and taking them off again when I get outside. In addition to that, I wear glasses, and a sun hat that has a chin strap. Most of my earrings are drop earrings, and all this unusual activity around my ears must have led to earrings simply falling out onto the street. I am surprised that I didn't notice what was going on sooner, at the end of the day when I took them off. But it's the only explanation I can think of.

I did a search, and I guess I am not the only person having this problem. Something I saw suggested wearing post earrings, which of course makes sense because they have backs that prevent the earring from falling out. But I prefer drop earrings. I'm going to have to go out and buy some extra backs to use on my remaining earrings, and also try to be more intentional and careful taking off masks. There are lots of ripple effects to the pandemic, and while this may be near or at the bottom of the list, it is still "a thing", especially for people whose earrings were expensive. Mine were not, but there are two in particular that I will miss. They are like old friends.