The Flip Side...

...to yesterday's topic...

In the midst of having had some genuinely bad dreams recently, I have had some startling, positive moments.

I've already mentioned having found that I am far more self-accepting, even to the point of looking in the mirror and being happy with what I see. This in itself is nearly miraculous.

The second piece of this, I've been almost afraid to mention because it is so fragile and new. But if this blog is to be an accurate record of someone's spiritual journey (which, come to think of it, is what I am attempting!), then I need to say it. I have started to think about England in an entirely positive way. 

Now you might think, this woman has had a "thing" for England since about the age of four, how on earth could thinking about the place have been so problematical? (I'm talking, of course, only about my relationship to the country, not external events or situations there.) It's been such a perfect storm interweaving the confusing messages from family and society about the value of things I love, women and girls not traditionally being part of the cathedral choral tradition, not having ever earned enough money or had enough career success to make a permanent move possible, and inner bugaboos about not being worthy of experiencing joy, recognition, a sense of home, financial security, etc...Thinking about England has almost always brought on a mild sense of depression, hopelessness, homesickness, and a bittersweet longing/kick in the stomach. Those books about England on my shelf, which I spoke of the other week, were at times a reproach. And, I'm sure, deep down I was angry with myself and "whatever Gods there be" that I couldn't orchestrate better solutions.

In this context, imagine how shocking it is to find myself actually smiling when I think of England, feeling a warm glow, and a sense of "how privileged I have been to love such a place". To feel pleasure, then wait and wait for the usual kick in the stomach, only for it not to happen. To grin from ear to ear with happiness. Now it helps that I have re-discovered "Antiques Road Trip", that (let's face it!) rather zany English TV show featuring antiques experts going to antique shops all over the country. I love this show. And I get to see places I know as well as places I don't, to see beautiful and unusual works of art and crafts, and to laugh along with their silliness. At the end of an episode, I'm not bitter or homesick, just happy. This is not solving world hunger, but I believe happiness energy is so rare, you have to notice it and cultivate it! That I can do it without trying to plot and plan my next trip is remarkable. Truly remarkable.

What has changed? I think finally coming more fully home to myself. Not so much is "missing", so I can embrace what I love without waiting for the undercutting downside.  I guess it is worth it to endure some nightmares if I'm magically moving forward in other ways.

 

Dreaming

I mentioned a few months ago that I had had an unusually violent dream, of being in the presence of a bombing. Since then, I definitely seem to have eased out of the kinds of dreams I had for years (frustrating ones about trying unsuccessfully to reach a goal or place), and am remembering ones that are almost like bad true crime shows. The other night, I dreamt that I was in some very desolate corner of the U.S., in what was essentially a ghost town. However, I must have found an inn or bed and breakfast, and was walking alone in the huge rectangular back yard. There was a single tree in the center of the yard, and to my surprise, I saw that two young men (age 16 or 18) were climbing the tree and managed to disappear out of sight. My first thought was, kind of, "Isn't that charming? I didn't know that kids climbed trees anymore!" However, with the next step I realized that there was a piece of paper on the ground in front of me. I picked it up, and it was a modern "Wanted" poster: two young men, accused of murder, were on the loose, "armed and dangerous". It didn't take more than two seconds to realize, it was the two men in the tree. And to realize that they had seen me, they knew I had seen them, and that they had seen me read the poster about them. I nonchalantly dropped the paper, and turned around and headed back to the house, knowing that I was probably about to be killed. That's when I woke up. I wasn't afraid, just kind of, oh, this is how it will end, whether immediately or whether they will follow me around until they kill me later.

What is so frustrating is, here I am, someone who has arguably focused on spiritual growth for an entire lifetime. Considering everything, I am pretty centered and fearless. I "consume" relatively little violence in entertainment or in life. Yet clearly the violence in our culture is beginning to even get under my skin! It's like a constant level of trauma, leading to a certain fatalism. Why on earth do we live like this? 

This is the kind of dream I'd like to have: I'm walking up a grassy green hill to a verdant "tree of life". In front of the tree is a beautiful angel, who gives me a lovely message or instruction about life!! Believe me, the minute I have that kind of dream, I'll let you know!

Thanks

Yesterday, as part of a Thanksgiving ritual, I read a poem to a friend; David Whyte's "Everything is Waiting for You", the wonderful piece about the lively (and living) presence of everything around us, the "conversation" going on (if we are willing to take part!) when the tea kettle sings, and the window presents an opportunity for freedom, and so forth. It is a gentle feeling of thanks, kind of "where I am at in my journey is OK, and everything around me wants to help me". To add to the feeling of warmth, it is literally warm after two weeks well below normal, so in 34 degree air, the six inches of snow that recently fell has started to disappear. 

On Black Friday, I generally avoid all kinds of shopping. In a lifetime of rather deliberately standing back from the whole consumerist thing, it is a day when I have tended to be particularly doctrinaire. And yet, today I don't feel quite that rock solid about it. There is nothing I need, I don't particularly have the money to spend, and I don't particularly want to be in crowds. But the duality/conflict piece of it ("it is so stupid and I'm fighting back by not participating") has softened. I just simply don't have to take part. I think we are past the point where human effort could mitigate the coming changes, so right now, it's easier to just send an energy of acceptance out there, to hope that people stay safe and learn the life lessons they need from the day. And not push back so much. Just let everything be what it is. 

The sun rose a vivid orange-red, way to the south, and because the trees are virtually leafless, the fiery reflection was visible in the lake, blindingly so. Winter solstice isn't far away...soon the sunrise will start heading east across the lake again. This early morning sight is today's "gift" -- and I didn't have to spend a penny. To GUS (God/Goddess/Universe/Source) -- thanks! Thanks, thanks, thanks.

Books

When I first started this blog back in 2015, all my books were in boxes, and had been for about five years. Most of them remained in boxes (although they were shuffled around a few times) until last year around this time. I am not in a permanent home and neither are my books, but I am convinced that having them open to view -- and to grab and re-read -- has been a crucial factor in finally reaching place of some peace with myself. Right now, I am re-reading The Meaning of Mary Magdalen by Cynthia Bourgeault (2010). It is so fascinating how you crack open an older book and see page after page of underlinings and marginal comments -- proof positive that you read it many years ago, but it still ends up feeling like you are reading it for the first time. As a reader and a person, you have changed.

I actually have at least six books about (or in part about) Mary Magdalene. Perhaps two dozen books about England (including English Country Churches by Derry Brabbs, the Cathedrals of England by Alec Clifton-Taylor, Literary England by David E. Scherman and Richard Wilcox, plus offbeat ones like A Guide to Glastonbury's Temple of the Stars by K.E. Maltwood, The Queen's Clothes by Anne Edwards, and a 1989 book about the crop circle phenomenon). Feminist classics: Mary Daly's Beyond God the Father, Doris Lessing's The Marriages between Zones Three, Four and Five. My church music-related books include the 1940 Episcopal Hymnal, books about Herbert Howells, The Oxford Book of Tudor Anthems, and The Music of the English Church by Kenneth R. Long. I have books on the Tarot and other oracle cards, metaphysics, and books about women's lives, creativity, power and spirituality (Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women, Art and Society by Whitney Chadwick, all three of Sharon Blackie's books, and The Moon and the Virgin by Nor Hall). In terms of "light" reading? Two dozen old, battered copies of Mary Balogh regency romances (what can I say? They are about England and love!) and maybe ten of Peter Tremayne's Sister Fidelma mysteries, set in 7th century Ireland.

Taken together, almost 2/3 of my books are "about" "The British Isles", or I have read them trying to illuminate my passion for the place that feels like my home. 

When you come from a family context of narcissism, and self-effacement took on too strong a hold, it is excruciatingly hard to go through the process I have gone through, gradually finding and embracing what makes you tick. Your fear of falling over the edge into that black hole is acute. And yet, there is no way to make a significant contribution to the world if you don't know who you are! I can finally look at my bookshelf without cringing with embarrassment at how strange I am. The books finally feel unified at some core level. So do I. 

Just as I was writing this essay, my local classical radio station played Ralph Vaughan Williams's "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis", which cuts through hundreds of books' worth of words like a warm knife through butter. If I were to disappear -- "poof" -- off the face of the earth tomorrow, my books and that one piece of music would be all anyone needed to know. My preference would be to live another twenty or thirty years after finding a way to more effectively use what people nowadays call "my superpowers"! I am ready to go further.

STEM

I believe I mentioned this years ago -- I headed into "junior high" quite a whiz in science. In seventh grade, I was pushed ahead in most of my courses, and took Chemistry, which was a cinch. My final exam grade was something like 110. But the following year, Biology became a whole different story. My private school had hired a science teacher from Indonesia, and there was nothing wrong with that; he was undoubtedly a good scientist and teacher. However, his first language was not English, and none of us could understand him! Literally, not a word. Biology is so word- and concept-based that this was disastrous. I did what was common at the time for teenage girls; I had a little hissy fit and declared that from thenceforth, I would focus on the arts and literature, not science or math. I'm sure that for me, that was what was meant to happen in this lifetime, but still, it is too bad.

So, on principal, I am glad that girls are now encouraged to move through that 11- or 12-year-old hump, and stick with the sciences. I'm interested in the ads and public service announcements that encourage girls in "STEM", the Saturday morning educational shows featuring young women pursuing science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers, and the prevalence of women experts on public television's science shows. 

Do I have reservations? Yes. Foremost among them is my concern that these disciplines are very heavily informed by dualistic thinking and conflict. And while this doesn't guarantee that a scholar's research might eventually lead to the actual creation of weapons, that outcome (and new developments that harm the environment even further) are all-too-possible when technology way outpaces spiritual growth. As ever, we are putting the cart before the horse. Plus, I think "how the universe works" will be seen very differently -- and possibly work very differently -- within the next few decades.

It would be so lovely if women were encouraged to be whatever it is that they are truly meant to be, without any reference to the needs of corporations or institutions. I get it -- girls hardly wish to end up in my boat, having gifts and strengths that don't pay the bills. Their parents probably find this kind of outcome even less palatable. But that is the weakness of this dying paradigm, not of the young people who are musicians, artists, dancers, poets, or mystics at heart. As we move further into the emerging new age, these arts and spirituality "careers" will be more highly respected, and better supported. (Whether there will be any such thing as money is another story...! I don't believe it will be necessary once love becomes the currency.)

I have this hunch that the occupations women have had to fight the hardest to enter are the very ones that are still too one-sided to survive the coming changes. If I had a daughter (and sadly, I don't), I would encourage her to try to align with her passion, whatever it is. But I'd also want to help her stay afloat, hard when you can barely do it yourself! If she rejected my path because engineering thrilled her, I would be happy. But if she and I were able to work together in attempting to model/construct a more Goddess-centered world, that would be even better. Doing the impossible together always beats doing it alone!

I have images of educational TV programs chronicling the life and studio time of young oil painters, the hours of practice of young musicians, the hours of silence, reading, and contemplation of budding mystics...

Goddess Words 13: Music

It is interesting that it took until word number 13 to focus on "music". Music is at the heart of me, I know, and possibly that's why I hesitated. It's so big.  And I see it at the heart of the Goddess, the swirling creative light and love energy encompassing everything and moving ever-outwards. I mean, that energy must have a sound too.

So by "music", I don't just mean my beloved genre of the choral evensong tradition, and the exquisite sounds of a cappella vocal groups like The Tallis Scholars and Voces 8. That is the music that zings straight to my heart. Undoubtedly you have a form of music that does the same for you. And I don't just limit the word to the "Western" canon, the music that one is likely to hear on local classical music radio stations or at symphony concerts. That may have been the focus in all my musical education and degree courses half a century ago; at the time, there was little acknowledgement of the countless other music traditions worldwide. (I hope students today are receiving a more well-rounded picture, and developing a more flexible ear than I did!) There is music, too, in all our "manmade" constructs, highway noise, construction sounds, the horns of the great ships communicating with the lift bridge, airplanes overhead, and even the sounds of bottles and cans being dumped into a dump truck.

In the context of Mother Nature, there is music everywhere, in webs of life hundreds of miles from the nearest radio station or concert hall. Hundreds of miles from the nearest humans, humming on their way to work or listening to contemporary music in the car or by headphone. It isn't much of a stretch to hear music in the wind, in the waves hitting the lakeshore, in the calls of birds or coyotes, in a swarm of bees or the click of deer hooves on the sidewalk or pebbles. The bigger stretch -- but I believe it is there -- is hearing the music of the stones, the birch bark, the moss, the desert floor, the flower in the garden. On this snowy early winter day in northern Minnesota, surely there is music in the snowflake as it floats down, lands, and merges with other flakes or, perhaps, melts. 

But on this same day when the world population evidently topped 8 billion (Lordy), I am also interested in the ways in which every single one of us is essentially a musical instrument. Our cells are singing, the blood surging through our bodies is singing, and our moods are sending out a song to the people around us and the Universe. Are we singing a song that is beautiful and harmonic, or dissonant and painful? Is ours an instrument making an effort to blend in with other instruments, or a beautiful soloist, or are we taking our instrument and bashing all the other members of the orchestra on their heads? It comes back to what I wrote about the other week, sensitivity. Can we hear our own music? Can we hear the music of our souls, the music that earth transmits out into space, the creative song of the Goddess? When we cannot, or when trying to meditate isn't really working, a few moments of silence just listening may help. You will hear music. There is music everywhere. 

Love Your Mother

As I have probably mentioned before, I wasn't a hippie "back in the day". I was a little bit too young (12 in 1968). I was a little bit too serious and academic. I wasn't in a family or academic setting that might have promoted it (having gone to a private girls' school and had to wear a uniform). I focused on English church music and getting good grades, basically. No pot, no drugs, no Woodstock, no anti-war marches, nothing.

So I never carried a sign declaring, "Love Your Mother," or had that bumper sticker on my car. Until I wrote the post the other day, I'm not sure the phrase ever broke through my consciousness. But after I finished writing, it hit me. That is the crux of our environmental impasse. For thousands of years, few of our major religious, economic or social constructs have been based on reverence for women or the earth. And now we are paying the price, as it were. 

I honor the fact that internationally, there are efforts being made to address climate chaos. I hope that there is at least some success in mitigating the thoughtless damage we have done, and helping people to adapt to the coming extremes of weather and temperature. But until most of the world's most powerful people can stand up publicly and say, "Mother Nature's needs are at the top of my list of priorities," it's hard to see how these steps will work. And we seemingly powerless people aren't off the hook. At this moment in history, we also need to put Her needs ahead of our own convenience or comfort, and stand up and say, "I Love My Mother. I Love Mother Earth." I'm going to try to say it daily, the minute I wake up and pull aside the curtain and see light on the horizon. It will be interesting to see if it helps me to make new kinds of life decisions, small and large. 

Beyond the Horizon

Back in the 1990's, when I first lived in Duluth and was inspired by my view of Lake Superior, I tried to formulate a life philosophy based on the idea that the horizon line place where two "opposites" meet (say, lake and sky) is the most vivid and full of life. That one plane was not meant to fight the other -- and win. Both planes/opposites were meant to be in the picture, and to learn to interact vibrantly, not violently. I continue to like this concept, although I guess in the intervening 25 years or so, I have evolved into a post-duality "place" that simply emerges out of duality, a "place" more informed only by values of love, beauty, warmth and peace -- qualities that in the present world are considered "feminine". No violence is necessary; it seems to me that this is simply the direction we are headed in. It is evolution out of where we are, not a revolution. We will simply grow out of conflict, hatred, and pain as we enter the age of Aquarius. 

But being in this "place" continues to be a real challenge, especially when watching world and national events unfold, or trying to participate. (Spoiler alert, as ever, I read and study relatively little about these events, because my system can't seem to handle even that much conflict!) No matter what happens at the UN meeting on climate change, the focus is undoubtedly (as it is almost everywhere it is mentioned) on "fighting" the phenomenon. Yet fighting any phenomenon only creates more of the phenomenon. And when you see climate change as at least partly Mother Nature's effort to rebalance earth's energies, "fighting climate change" feels like another form of fighting the feminine. Now, ignoring climate change and moving full steam ahead, continuing to pollute the earth, cannot work either. Is there a path forward? The only one I can see is to lovingly embrace the fact that enormous changes are coming, and to release all emotional attachment to institutions and solutions that are not, themselves, based in love. Addressing climate change (as a phase we must walk through) will only "work" in a context of love, not a context of fear or profit or conserving/fixing the status quo.

It was also surreal listening to what American voters were concerned about going into the elections -- high prices, education, lack of affordable housing, violence, etc. I guess it is too scary to look further down the road, beyond the horizon. Yet many of these issues may fade into insignificance when climate changes become even more acute. As I headed to the polls, if a reporter with a microphone had asked me what my greatest concern is at this moment, I would have said something like, "The fact that we aren't looking at the bigger picture.The fact that we are not looking beyond the horizon." That is the blessing -- and curse! -- of being a mystic! 

 

Still Thinking about Nonviolence

I wrote about nonviolence back in July, and every day since then, I have continued to think about the topic...evidently, many people are trying to come up with better words and processes for addressing society's problems, ones not directly referencing violence. That's encouraging! I've tried a few possible options on for size, such as "loving action/communication". 

There are stumbling blocks. The first is, coming from my background, I am supersensitive about only wanting to use words like "love" when I really, really love something or someone. Gosh, I refer to love all the time, and yet I also know that there is no word more twisted up in knots in this world. There is no word more misused by people who are completely incapable of love. (It's no accident that in George Orwell's 1984, the Big Brother regime's Ministry of Love is in place to torture people.) The most tragic moment of my life came about two years before my father's death; after nearly 60 years of pouring love, support, and spiritual effort into the man, I had to turn away. I could no longer act or communicate lovingly with him, because all my energies had disappeared down a black hole. I was no closer to genuinely connecting with him than I had been 20, 30, 40 or 50 years before. And assuming that a lot of the people in this world doing the most vile things have a lot in common with my father, it's likely that my efforts at loving communication would similarly go nowhere with them, and might end up making me feel insincere or passive-aggressive at best, infuriated at worst.

Another big block for me is this whole issue of constantly reacting rather than acting. Constantly in a place of, if person A is doing such-and-such, I need to react/push back/neutralize their action. Needing to be nonviolent because someone else has chosen to be violent. As a woman, it's bad enough that most of my life has been dictated by masculine principles that I didn't understand and couldn't operate within. It has taken 66 years for who I really am to emerge from under the rocks...if my role going forward were to continue to be only "responding and reacting", I don't think I could go on. What does it feel like to be the primary actor? The star of the show? To actively embody principles of love, beauty, joy, truth, acceptance, etc.? To have agency and power? This effort -- in the world as it is -- is incredibly hard and exhausting. (And it is absolutely not the dreaded "doing nothing", even when there are painfully few positive outcomes, and others may not see or understand what you are doing.)

I guess what it boils down to is, everything is a stage in our human spiritual journey. Nonviolence is far better than violence. Grappling with the limitations of the term "nonviolence" is another step forward. And once enough people individually create lives aligned with Love, and gather together to create institutions aligned with Love, there will be less and less violence to react to. The knee-jerk instinct to react against will start to fade away.

 

"For All the Saints"

At this All Hallows/All Saints/All Souls time, I cannot help but remember the rousing, wonderful hymn to the music of Vaughan Williams, "For All the Saints". Back when I was in the girls' choir at St. George's, Schenectady, we got a morning off from school to sing the All Saints Day service; strange that it was our choir (not the men and boys) who got to sing these odd mid-week services and play hooky. I won't go too far down that road (!)...but this morning just for fun, I just opened my 1940 hymnal to look at the words to hymn 126. I guess I had forgotten (or was numb to, as in so many other areas) just how martial this hymn is. People were considered saints had fought "the well-fought fight". Saints were "soldiers, faithful, true and bold", who earned rest at the end of their long life of strife. They confessed the name of Jesus, even at the risk, presumably, of death. At the end of it all, they won "the victor's crown of gold".

Ugh.

Ugh, ugh, ugh.

As ever, I find myself re-framing, re-articulating everything. What, for me, is "sainthood" in my post-Christian, Goddess-oriented meadow beyond these warlike structures? Here are just some off-the-top-of-the-head thoughts. First of all, I wouldn't make such a distinction between the three days and kinds of energy. Every soul who has some connection to divine love and acts out of that place is a saint in my book. Every woman or man who "does no harm", who adds beauty, honesty, love, harmony and truth to the world without fighting others, is a saint...and honoring the mystical, eerie, other-worldly, mysterious aspect of living such a life is great too, especially on the cusp of winter. I'm not a fan of how dark, menacing, and consumerist modern Halloween can be; on Halloween, I prefer to focus more on joyous mystery, earth energies, and our connection to the divine. 

This year, it is hard to feel a sense of the onrush of cold, dark winter, because Duluth is freakishly warm. We've had several weeks of clear, dry, nearly hot weather, no doubt adding to the challenging low water levels further south on the Mississippi. It's practice living in paradox, when the sun is low, the day starts late and ends early, and the leaves have almost all dropped from the trees but the air is warm and the lake is calm. Something is "wrong with this picture" -- or is it? Nature is responding as she must to all the environmental challenges around the world...if I can give her only one gift today, it is thanks for the break from Duluth's norm, and enjoyment of what is. And thanks for all those whose lives illustrate a pure, non-conflict-driven, love.