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!