The High Wire

After a "soul retrieval" of any kind, I imagine most people go through an interesting few days, and certainly that has been the case here.

My brain naturally turned to metaphor. (I seem to like them, as a few of you know!) 

It is as if I was born in 1956 on one side of the Grand Canyon, and was almost immediately pushed out onto a high wire. Whether I was actively told "go to the other side", or I simply looked down and realized that was the goal, I don't know. But either way, I stood up and slowly but surely inched my way across, without any special shoes, balancing poles, or even a safety net. My only "net" was operating with nearly impeccable alignment with my values, and trying to hold to those values no matter what rocks or critiques flew at me through the air. I could have/should have fallen hundreds of times -- crashed to the ground/succumbed to disaster/ended up on the literal streets/or, of course, simply found a career in the institution that the was least problematical to me, and lived a more "normal" life. Instead, knowing that as a single woman my life was an experiment anyway, and that I might be learning something important, I tiptoed on. I think "the other side of the Grand Canyon" has been within sight for a few years, and that I finally reached it the other day when I wrote the last sentence in my "Soul Retrieval" blog post.

Of course, that place of power (for a contemplative, mystic or visionary) is always within. My feet are back on solid ground, but not the exterior ground of a permanent home, adequate income, meeting a life partner, or finding a career that will better help me navigate what is, for me, the ethically troubling capitalist system. I am no further ahead in those regards than I ever was. The other side of the chasm, for me, was my soul surviving the trip across the abyss. I may have kept going hoping that some material security would finally come my way; that would have been nice, very nice. But at this moment, I understand and honor the fact that my soul had to come first.

Over these few days, the metaphorical place I've been in is shaking uncontrollably. I'm seated on the other side, remembering the dozens upon dozens of times I nearly went crashing to the canyon floor. How I let go and scrunched my eyes shut, preparing to topple over and down through the air, only it didn't happen. Somehow, following only the most elementary notions of what a Goddess-centered paradigm must be like, I stayed upright. And I survived intact. That is my age 65/66, "retirement achievement".

In the midst of my shivering, I cannot help but be aware of all the ways that our current world construct is on the brink. Maybe more aware than ever, since at least for this moment, my focus isn't entirely on staying personally balanced enough to take one more step on the high wire. (I've moved on hands and knees a few more feet away from the edge, just to feel a bit safer, however!) I'm trying to fully take in the scene in front of us. I can't sit, goose-bumped, looking backward, and recovering, till the end of my days. Within the next few months, I'll stand up, bow a little gratitude to that scary high wire, then turn around and walk into the next phase of the journey, grounded in what I believe to be the only power that really exists. 

"Soul Retrieval"

Over the last month, when I have picked a morning oracle card, it has more likely than not been "Soul Retrieval", with a picture of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. No matter how often I shuffle the cards, no matter where the card must end up during that process, I seem to find it. I think the term was originally specific to a shamanic ritual to help people retrieve lost parts of themselves; it seems to have gained a bit more general usage in therapy and self help -- and, of course, various card decks.

I don't think I mentioned something I did around April 1. In my actual handwritten journal, I compiled a list of the ten qualities that make me, "me". In the end, my list extended to thirteen. For the moment, I won't enumerate them (my instinct to have a little privacy still kicks in!) but anyone who has read this blog for any period of time could probably write the list themselves. 

Within minutes, I looked at the list from the standpoint of one question: Over the years, which of these gifts and qualities were actually encouraged by other people or by the institutions of the world? And of course, the horror being, the answer to that was, none of them. Not "a few", none. After the obligatory early "good grades in school", I received next to no enthusiastic encouragement, much less tangible support, towards a logical goal of using all my gifts to their utmost. Worse still, I often proactively hid my own best qualities in order to avoid criticism or derision, or made fun of myself to others. I felt ashamed of myself, inadequate, worthless, whether or not exterior feedback (or a low "paycheck") was making me feel that way.

A friend recently asked me, have I been angry or resentful about this? I now understand that, yes, I have been, although rarely at any one person or institution. I think it has been more of a dull sense of incredulity, that all the energy in "the room"/"the world" seems to flow to the humans who may be the most soulless. Frustration, that, as a woman, I have been measured by a yardstick that means nothing to me. And I also confess to having been jealous of younger women and men who achieve success with the help of friends and family. It isn't so much their achievement or virtuosity (I seem to feel this most acutely when people make a name in the music field) but the fact that they were actively supported in their efforts. Somebody wanted them to self-actualize, and it makes me cry. I can barely imagine what that kind of welcome feels like. I regret that I have carried around this kind of negativity for a lifetime, and perhaps communicated it here in this blog or elsewhere. Passive-aggressive anger and frustration may not kill like a weapon, but it can send out twisted or hurtful tendrils. Oh dear, it is painful to "own" this kind of anger. But I also know I need to avoid excessive shame and guilt in a life already overburdened in that area. Much of this was all but inevitable, given what my family was like, how the world has been from 1956 to the present, and a paradigm that was all but set in stone.

Sunday morning, I awoke very early to do my own little ritual. I lit a candle, poured about half an inch of sherry into a small glass, and prepared a small plate with a few crackers. Basically, I went down the list and, one by one, thanked the Goddess for the gifts. For the first time in my life, I was able to do this with genuine gratitude, untinged with irony or sarcasm. Even those qualities that seem paradoxical (loving Goddess values and English church music, for instance), I finally just released into. The Great Mother is well able to navigate these complexities, so it's time I do so too. I sipped my wine and nibbled on my crackers, and then, at the end of the list, I put my hand down on my journal and felt for any remaining negativity. I didn't feel any. I think that I have finally "retrieved my soul". This isn't to say that there won't still be outer or inner pushback. If others want to stomp on me, fine. If I have moments of wanting to hide from my truest self, fine. But in the end, I am exactly who the Goddess made me to be, and perhaps even more. I am finally happy to be me, and even happy with (or at least far less "bittersweet" about) the journey that brought me to this place of acceptance of myself. Deep down, I know that I have never been in a more powerful place. 

The Next Step

So, when you have leapt ahead energetically, only to hit a wall of pushback, what do you do?

The next step, as mentioned last time, is to try to align with your true center, Love. And then, to the best of your ability, dedicate an entire day to love. Yesterday, I was able to do that, meeting with friends by most of the current available phone and online methods. Then a friend drove me to a supermarket that is hard to access by city bus -- I simply needed a change from my usual grocery store, as grateful as I have been for it these last two years. So when I sat down last night to a meal of foods I haven't eaten in a long time and a glass of sparkling orange juice, I felt very thankful and somewhat renewed. (I almost said, "re-booted", which is ironic given my reference the other day to Orwell's boot!) Love, and doing things that you love or which are refreshing, is always the answer.

Still, this has been an exceptionally hard few days for northern Minnesota. We are not immune to what is happening around the country or the world...a gunman killed a family of four (and their dog), then turned the weapon on himself. There have been threats to a number of local schools, and several other painful incidents. The local morning news has a Hollywood segment, and the other day it featured three new movies. One was about a superhero (and the clip had lots of violence), one was some kind of Viking-inspired epic (the clip had lots of violence), and the third was a movie adapted from a children's video game, where animals are under constant threat of exploding. Excuse me, really? Then, a network ad came on plugging that evening's prime time line-up, which, of course, featured explosions, fires, people on fire, and all manner of crises. 

I can't help but think that, energetically, the vibration America emits out into the world can be nearly as shockingly negative as that of the countries we consider our enemies. Those of us who are sensitive internalize all this violence, even if we are not its direct, literal "victim". But the answer is not to fight back against violence. (Maybe the gift of this time is how clear this is becoming!) On this Earth Day, the next step is to dedicate ourselves to Love of earth and each other. And to make each day, Earth Day.

After the Step Forward

I know I have spoken about this before, and I'm sure many of you have experienced it too. You have an epiphany, an "aha" moment, or a step forward in your growth or consciousness. Or perhaps (as in my last post) you get up the courage to say something that has long been on your mind.

For perhaps 24 hours, there is a feeling of liberation, lightness, freedom. It feels so good to move ahead, and reach new clarity and understanding. On Easter morning, I had my own personal celebration of rebirth, minus the rituals and hymns and Easter bonnets. But by Easter afternoon, I had totally crashed. The pushback had hit me. It wasn't unexpected -- this has happened over and over in my life -- so I reminded myself to keep breathing and just get through the hardest few days as best I could. 

This particular tsunami seems to have two parts to it. The first may seem a bit fanciful, but I started to feel the presence of hundreds, maybe thousands of women from the past who had even fewer choices than I ever did, who lost family or friends to conflicts that they didn't understand or want to be a part of. There is such a huge well of historical grief, female grief, that still lingers in the world and I guess I tapped into it in a way I haven't before. I feel it in my heart, in my body. Coming from such a "stiff upper lip" background, I have sometimes seen news footage of women in other countries wailing over dead bodies, and I did not understand. But the last few days, I've gotten it. There's been a part of me wailing too.

The second aspect is grieving how male violence -- however subtly -- has been a constant in my life experience, and when not the violence itself, then being held hostage to potential violence or intimidation or belittling. I may only be alive because my father, after serving in Europe in World War II, returned to the US, crossed the country by train, and then was on a troop ship about to leave Santa Barbara for ground conflict in Japan when the atomic bombs dropped. The ship went instead to the Philippines, he survived, and the rest is history. He lived, I was born, but many thousands died horrible, cruel deaths. More than ever, that equation infuriates me now. My first letter was written to President Johnson, asking him to stop making nuclear weapons. Pleas like mine have been ignored for half a century; there are no greater hostage-takers than the holders of the world's deadliest caches. But words are powerful hostage-takers too, and many of us have been at the receiving end. Don't make too much of a fuss about singing the music you love because you'll look foolish. Don't delve into family issues and problems or you'll be disowned. Don't be so sensitive, you're being ridiculous. Don't question our all-growth capitalist construct, because otherwise you'll end up poor, with no health insurance. Don't show people how smart you are. Don't show people how creative and spiritual you are. And for goodness sake, don't show people how much of a feminist you are. Don't be who you are, basically. There is no room for you, no home for you, no need for you. That awful end to Orwell's 1984, the image of a "boot stamping on a human face -- forever", feels so real to me. At 66, I feel its accumulated blows to my body and soul. And for the last three days, I have simply felt overwhelmed at how in this moment, I see violence everywhere, violence I did not cause and cannot fix. It's hard to breathe, once you become aware of all of its countless, crushing manifestations.

What will keep me going until the worst of this pushback recedes? I have complete confidence that I am connected to the source of life, the divine feminine, the Goddess. Somewhere, there is a spiritual "energy" warmly welcoming me and wanting me to be exactly who I am. I believe that ultimately, Love, Joy, Truth, Life and Beauty are the only things that exist, and that the pushback so many women experience is because of our connection to the only real thing. Mother Earth is more powerful than any disease, any human conflict, and the mess we have made of the environment. My spirit will live forever, whether I "die" tomorrow from man-made stressors, or of old age at 90 or 100. I know that I am incapable of violent actions or reactions, and I just need to keep being myself. I need to stay on my "Liz Path". It's hard, and I feel more fragile than usual, but it's ultimately a good thing that I am actively processing this grief and pain; once I weave it into my life it should make me stronger.

Another "Good Friday"

You have to love northern Minnesota (indeed, that is literally true because if you didn't, on some level, you'd move!) Here it is, Good Friday, and we had almost an inch of snow overnight and the windchill is -2 F. On Easter, it may snow, appreciable, shovel-able snow. It's that time of year when, if I spy bright green grass on television, I stare at it kind of hollow-eyed, like a crazy person. It's like, I cannot figure out what I am looking at. My mom used to watch The Masters Tournament each April, not because she liked golf, but just to see miles of verdant lawns and flowering trees. But even upstate New York wasn't quite this wintery in early-to-mid April. Oh well, it is reassuring on a certain level. Mother Nature is in charge, not us.

I'm processing everything under the sun, but the biggest thing is, knowing that people will think I am nuts, to be capable of even a moment's joy in the midst of current world events and climate chaos. I think I have figured something out about that. It's something I have been circling nearer and nearer, and started to refer to recently, but I think I finally have had that moment of reckoning.

All through history, men have operated violently, starting wars, killing random people on the streets, attacking friends and family, attacking the earth, creating situations where other people end up homeless, sick, and without food. No, it isn't all men, and sometimes women do these things too. And men create much that is good and beautiful. But overall, armed conflict is a male phenomenon. Perhaps because I never married (in this lifetime), don't have sons, don't have grandsons, and don't really have many close male contacts, I have the "luxury" (if you will) of facing something eye to eye; I simply do not wish to spend one more minute of this lifetime reacting or responding to the actions of men. I do not want to fix the messes they create. I don't want to attack them or stop them. I don't want to honor their heroes or fixate on their deeds, both good and bad. I don't want to be depressed because they choose to do something odious. Indeed, I do not want any more of my life to be "about" them until the day I meet a man operating at approximately my level. (At 66, I cannot assume that will happen this go-round!) And even then, I won't be willing to shift focus and lose myself again.

Phrasing it positively, what does this mean? I intend to act more and more from my own center, with my own agency and power. I intend to have sovereignty, even if only over my own body and a small energetic space around it. I intend that my life be about me and my genuine gifts, not what the male construct thinks it needs from me. I intend to gradually raise my capacity for joy, and not squelch it in solidarity with victims of violence. I intend "Yes!", not "Yes, but..."

Coming from my family background, this is hard stuff. Exceedingly hard. Does this mean I have become narcissistic -- or worse? Perhaps even more than many women, I may have surrendered my power and my inner flame simply to prove I wasn't heartless or unempathetic. I've lived in the limbo world of the bittersweet, trying to keep the balls of both happiness and sadness in the air, or in the future. In a duality paradigm, that may have been what was meant by "being human". But in the paradigm beyond duality, there is only joy, love, and beauty. This way of being will be as possible on earth as "in heaven". Contrast will be only that, contrast, a different color, not the enemy. Future Good Fridays may actually be good, not good because of an act of violence.

Living the Paradox

This is a paradoxical time, that's for sure. 

I guess it's a good thing that virtually my whole life has been lived in that "place", yet it doesn't necessarily make it easier. At least once a day recently, often ten or twelve times, I experience heartbreak, whether it is processing the news footage of war, or violence in our streets, or melting polar ice, or the lives of people I know. Sadness and grief are more vivid than they have ever been, whether it is because there is more of it around, or the fact that I have unpacked some of the padding around my heart. I'm crying more than ever. I find it hard to distract myself, and even when I try (by watching TV, say), trailers for Hollywood movies or upcoming TV shows feed me more explosions and shootings and violence. The books I used to turn to aren't as satisfying, and yet I don't know what I actively want to do, volunteer for, or accomplish. I know I cannot be part of a dying paradigm, but it's hard to find a role in a paradigm that doesn't exist yet. I have been trying for years!

And yet in the midst of all the trauma, I've had unprecedented moments of joy. Literally, for no good reason, sitting with a happy smile on my face. I finally know who I am, and I love her unconditionally. I've nearly released all that baggage around worrying about how I am perceived. And I am beginning to experience the satisfaction of knowing that some of my theories about things seem to be playing out. I've written before about my belief that we are entering a time when conflict simply will no longer work (most recently back on November 20, 2021, "My Perspective"), and some news items seem to be supporting that belief. It is so satisfying after all these years to enter a time when I can say, "Maybe I was right." Yet being right, for its own sake, is no good unless eventually it helps the world in some way...and it is still an example of duality thinking.

We will all have to grow new muscles, a new ability to operate in a place of more alignment with Love, just as what we see outside ourselves seems to become less loving. Our instinct to fight evil is a learned behavior; we can gently let it go now. I'm finding that the more I let go of feeling at odds with the world, and the more I feel aligned with myself and with the Goddess, I simply can tolerate less and less conflict in any arena. At the very least, conflict and fear sure aren't working for me. As they become less effective in all areas of our culture -- health care (fighting disease), economy (profit vs. loss), politics (left vs. right), sports and entertainment, interpersonal relations, the legal system, religious constructs, you name it -- people may become confused, frustrated, even terrified. It may tempt a lot of people to become more violent, not less so. The landscape we look out on may become hard to understand from a left brain, "logical" standpoint. That will be the moment when the only things that will "work" are Love, Trust, Beauty. Joy. People may think we're crazy, but we aren't. We're living the paradox of this transitional time, and day-by-day paving the way to the new paradigm.

Crossings

Over the last few weeks, I have attended several organ recitals, part of a Lenten noontime series.  It was nice to hear organ music again (it's been quite some time since I have attended church services or organ recitals, in part because of the pandemic) but what I found myself focusing on was crosses and crucifixes.

In one of the churches, an enormous hollow cross filled with sand sat (horizontally) at the church's crossing. There were kneelers around it, and candles to place in the sand, evidently so the faithful could use it as a focus of prayer (whether during Lenten church services or in private, I don't know). It reminded me that at a Maundy Thursday service a few years ago, a rough wooden cross was set up in front of the altar, and people (except me) lined up to genuflect to the cross or actually kiss it. And then in a different church the other day, there was an enormous crucifix over the altar. It was white (marble or painted wood?) and the body of Jesus was white, but that didn't whitewash the excruciating violence of the image. Having grown up in this religion, I know that his hands and feet were pierced by nails, and that death was painful. In your mind's eye you cannot help but see the blood dripping from the wounds. In fact, one of the Bach pieces played in the recital translated into English as, "My heart is bathed in blood". Ugh, really?

When you move away from a religious construct, I guess it takes years, maybe decades, to fully process certain things, and what was coming up for me was the oddness -- even unhealthiness -- of this veneration of the cross itself and the violence that took place on it. Once again, old hymns come to me. Number 66 in the 1940 Hymnal ("Sing my tongue, the glorious battle") calls the cross a "noble tree", refers to the "sweetest wood, and sweetest iron"...and then goes on in the next verse to nearly equate the cross to a mother's tender bosom! Now, these words are attributed to a 6th century writer. The sensibilities here are hardly modern; I sort of "get" the desire to honor the setting of Jesus's last hours. But ultimately, I still don't understand. The cross was an instrument of torture and death. What is glorious about that? How did all this, literally or figuratively, become the crux of the Christian message? Some of the most stunningly beautiful music of all time is intricately tied to acts of traumatizing atrocity (sort of a heart-wrenching polyphony); it is becoming harder and harder for me to listen to it, much less to sing it.

Out-of-Body

They say that when what you love to do meets what the world needs, you find your calling. Well, given that I still have next-to-no readers, I can see that I haven't found my calling. I love writing this blog, but evidently what I am saying is not what people want to hear. At the moment, I am plowing ahead even recognizing that possibly my readership will never increase, and that's OK.

This weekend, I had my second COVID booster, and then settled in to read. I am reading a book about the post-Roman era in Britain. I continue to immerse myself in all things British; it still seems to be what I am most passionate and curious about.

And yet...as I read about the process by which local leaders became lords, and then tried to gain territory and "power over" and become kings, I found myself entering a type of out-of-body experience. All my life, throughout junior high, high school, college, and even as a letters correspondent at Time Magazine, I accepted, I guess, that wars and brutality and power struggles were part of the human condition. I didn't understand them, but I was fed this his-story, and chewed and swallowed and tried to incorporate it into my system. And, as I did in all those Lenten church services a half a century ago, I accepted that I was an equal player in sinfulness. "I crucified Thee," after all, even if the crucifixion took place two thousand years before my time.

I kind of floated above the landscape all weekend, even more so as I watched this morning's horrific portrait of the Russian withdrawal from certain cities, and the atrocities their forces clearly have committed.  Perhaps this is the first time in history when bland sentences in history books are illustrated in real time. The only difference is the sophistication of some of the weaponry. The brutality hasn't changed in 1500 years.

Here's the thing. I'm not responding just to these and similar events all through time, although clearly it is the kind of human activity that is too contrary to the love of the Goddess to continue forward into the future; I am responding to the fact that we women were forced by many religious constructs to accept equal responsibility for violence that we are rarely more than a peripheral part of. Indeed, we are often seen as the literal cause of the world's sinfulness, even though it seems we are almost always at its receiving end. At the moment, I find this so completely absurd that it is inevitable that my spirit floats upward, away from my pain and rage. I'm doing my own version of "lying back and thinking of England", as Victorian mothers advised their daughters before the wedding...

I cannot speak for other women. I will just speak for myself. I've spent a lifetime apologizing for things I didn't do, and I know for a fact that I cannot, and will not, take further responsibility for these horrors and others like them. For me, it stops here. I have entered a new reality. In future, if I ever hurt someone, I pray to the Goddess that I ask for forgiveness, or otherwise find a way to atone or balance the scales. But that's it. I need to return to my body, and feel safe in my own physical space, free from the heavy load of guilt for all man's atrocities. 

 

"Crisis"

"Crisis" is a word I rarely use. In fact, searching my 600-plus blog posts, I see that I have used it only about a dozen times, and never as a title.

Why not? Good heavens, most people would look at my life as one crisis after another, as I try to navigate with little-to-no income at times, no real home most of the time, and being on such a different wavelength from the culture at large. But somehow, within myself, I have never seen myself in crisis. I have always tried to relax into whatever situation I was in, and not fight it. I've fallen out of dozens of airplanes, but mostly been what I've called the "Queen of the Softish Landing", somehow managing not to hit the ground, splat, game over. A tree's welcoming branches have usually caught me, for which I am grateful.

Right now, the word "crisis" is being used everywhere, and certainly, within the context of a conflict-driven paradigm that is teetering on many edges, it is perhaps appropriate. As usual, however, the crises I see aren't always the ones being presented in the media.

OK, take the crisis of high gas prices. 

Clearly these prices have risen substantially. Clearly this is hitting Americans hard in the pocketbook. Clearly, if this goes on for a protracted period of time, it will affect "the American way of life." All of this is the truth.

Putting aside the arguable narcissism of this perspective (is there no crisis in the fact that thousands of people have died in eastern Europe, and millions more have been left homeless and in exile?), for me, the primary crises have been building for years. A crisis was born at whatever point we started to spread out over the landscape, creating sprawling suburbs that could only be navigated by automobile. We created a crisis in our over-reliance on a substance that is probably finite, and definitely tricky to maintain global access to. Another crisis is the excruciating pain inflicted on Mother Earth in the extraction, refinement, and use of this substance. A further crisis is using this substance to make additional products, like plastic, which are toxic to nature and not easily broken down. It is a crisis that all of us are addicted to this substance in its many forms, to one degree or another. As a society, we never respectfully consulted Nature (or people who might reasonably speak for Nature) before going all in. But the overarching crisis, I think, is our bigger decision to separate ourselves with such hubris from our earth home. We have considered ourselves better or more important than our earth home, above it, as it were. We're above it all right, falling fast.

Will we go "splat"? It remains to be seen. The more we make our way of life "about" love, beauty, spiritual growth, and healing -- and less "about" cars and large homes and consumerism -- the more likely it is that pockets of humanity will have a softish landing. We have to do this individually, though, and not wait for institutions. They will be the last to even acknowledge that we have jumped out of the plane.

I hate it when I get preachy. Sorry, folks. But I couldn't erase this post.