And so a year ends

First, may I say that I am profoundly grateful that in the larger picture of the pandemic, my experience of the disease found me in my own little room, listening to Christmas music. Many, many people had far more traumatic, or even deadly, experiences...among the many things I am thanking the Goddess for at year's end, this is probably at the top.

I do want to say one more thing about the near avalanche of carols, which came to a rather stunning end on Boxing Day! (Suddenly, near silence, in terms of choral music!) This is it: we will probably never know how many times in the last few thousand years a girl baby was born with the potential to profoundly change the spiritual outlook of the world. Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? How many girls have there been whose songs were never sung? Whose words have been lost to history? Or who are just beginning to enter our consciousness today? Unfortunately, you can't just tweak Christmas carols...eventually, celebrating women's wisdom will require new eyes, new hearts, new ways of thinking, new songs. But I hope one common thread -- beauty -- will run through these new traditions, when they manifest.

2023. Superficially, it was a rather quiet year for me. With the exception of writing this blog and making my way around Duluth, Minnesota on errands and to see friends, I didn't go anywhere or do anything significant. And maybe that is why I was able to have such a huge epiphany. In the end, my life hasn't been "about" trying to sing English church music, trying to get home to England, trying to find new creative outlets, or even trying to make sense and meaning of my birth family. These were "how" I came to learn major lessons. I think I'll remember 2023 as the year I finally embraced the two major lessons themselves: I have been (all along) aligned with spirituality of the divine feminine, and I have been (all along) "post-duality". There would never have been a way for me to more successfully navigate our patriarchal, conflict-driven culture. While I end the year rather depressed looking out at the world,I am at peace with myself, completely so, in ways I never have been. Finally, just about everything I have experienced makes sense. And events outside me make sense too.

And so a year ends. Duluth remains freakishly warm. This may be comfortable, but it isn't a good thing. It also makes sense, as part of an evolving transition. It makes sense, as Nature adapts to stress and trauma. To my dear readers, try not to be afraid. Be yourselves, keep breathing, find beauty in every day, and find love in every day. "See you" in the new year!

Soundtrack of a season

I've had to continue chuckling at the Universe's sense of humor. No sooner had I said, I'm not going to listen to any more Christmas carols this year, then I get sick, and truly haven't the energy to do much more than listen to public radio. Of course their carol and music selection is of the highest quality (I've even heard the Choir of Royal Holloway, which I sang in briefly over 40 years ago). Yet that doesn't change the tradition, the beliefs, and the feeling of ostracism. There's no place for me in that religious story, just as for so long there was no place for me in the men and boys' choirs and the kind of music I loved. I don't think I am wrong in saying it is time for some entirely new musical and spiritual traditions.

However, from the fog of the sickbed, I've had no other options, or the energy to search for other options. Christmas music has been the soundtrack of this season. COVID forced my personal shutdown, and in a sense, forced me to listen very carefully to the only music I can easily access. Interestingly, this is the only time of the year when I think 70% or more of the works played are choral. And there is no question: I have heard some amazing new harmonizations, new excellent choirs, and medleys ingeniously blending multiple carols. Some unfamiliar settings are almost "new age", and there are some solo and small group voices out there that are heartbreakingly beautiful. There was a reason I loved singing choral music and wanted to devote my life to it -- it is beauty, pure and simple. The human voice as a musical instrument.

I've made an executive decision, about the soundtrack of my 68 years of life and of this particular season. I dedicate it all to the Goddess. That doesn't change the intentions of generations of composers, poets, choristers, musicians and theologians; I have no right to meddle with that. But I can state now that every hour of my life's musical experience (choir practice and organ practice, BA and MMus studies, singing in any capacity, listening to recordings -- and now, in Advent of 2023, listening nonstop to a carol "stream") -- is dedicated to Her. 

More Christmas Songs

Well, Christmas music remains on my mind, because I haven't had the energy to do much more than listen to public radio. Almost four years into the pandemic, I "finally" got COVID. It's manifesting as a particularly bad cold; my mega-booster didn't completely protect me, but it seems to be holding off a worse experience. Anyway, for a few days, public classical radio -- even with almost nonstop Christmas music -- has been my only companion. Fortunately, there are a lot of new approaches to the old carols, new harmonizations, surprising instrumental versions, and so forth. When you are sick, there's comfort in the familiar, and for these few days, I'm just trying to say to that pesky sidekick of mine, "yes, these words no longer resonate with me, but please settle down and let the music play. I'm not feeling well, and it's the only radio station I can tolerate at all!"

Still, I just cannot help but ask the question: Can any of us imagine a world where for 2,000 years, the birth of a girl child was celebrated in song, pageantry, artwork, religious institutions, and ritual? Somewhere in the midst of the fog of this illness, I realize that I was right in my last post -- it's time for new carols and hymns. It's time to start a new musical/spiritual tradition. And I'm not sure I'm the best candidate to do it, but with all this church music training, I cannot possibly be the worst! I've started writing short prayers to the Goddess in my personal daily journal, and soon they may make their way into this blog.

Goddess Words 24: Song

I love the British slang expression, "to go pear-shaped". It basically means, when everything starts to go wrong, turn upside-down. And what is a woman to do when the world is going seriously pear-shaped, but add a new word brick to the foundation of her Goddess house?

And from my still very long list of potential words for today, I've chosen "song". I guess it drew me because of being so closely related to the Christmas "carols" that I can no longer sing. (I just looked up "carol", and indeed, it is any joyful song, but most commonly used in the Christmas context.) What I'm thinking about today isn't too much different than what I said in "Goddess Word 13: Music", on November 15 of 2022, if you want to go back and look at that. Yes, everything in the Universe is a form of music, an energetic vibration. Our lives are music, and Nature's creations, out to the furthest galaxies, are music writ large -- entire symphonies.

Song is distinct in that it is music paired with words. If you love a song's melody and harmonies, and are completely on board with the lyrics, there may be no human action more powerful than singing. But as I seem to have done for decades, it is also possible to go on auto-pilot and sing comfortable old tunes (or even complex service music) without completely believing or liking the lyrics (or possibly, vice versa). This discrepancy is energetically problematic...there is a moment where it may be absolutely necessary to find alignment, or stop singing the songs, or go "off the tracks". There is a moment where silence is preferable to the old song, and eventually  you have the freedom to compose a new song, with new lyrics.

One of my favorite films of all time is "Educating Rita" (1983). At a crucial moment, Rita is trying to join in with some singing at the pub, but can barely do it. Her mother, next to her, is crying. When Rita asks why, her mother says, "There must be better songs to sing than this." For both women, the old song is no longer bearable. An old life is over. The old way of doing things doesn't work. They've sung the old song one too many times, and just cannot do it any more.

It's hard, not having a new song ready to roll. My whole life seems to have been spent in this kind of limbo. And as a singer, not singing has been torture. Not having quite the right song (literal or metaphorical) for my emerging spirit's expression has been torture. But when you keep singing the old songs on auto-pilot, the problem is that it's impossible to hear the authentic song of Nature, the song of the Goddess, coming back in our direction. I think She is singing new music for our benefit, new higher expressions of music to resonate and harmonize with. Staying mostly silent this holiday season may help me to hear these songs more clearly. As I release the habit of singing the old songs, I hope I'll gradually start to sing the new songs.

A seismic shift

I spoke last time about how this year, I finally can no longer sing (or even bear to hear) most Christmas carols.

This is a seriously seismic shift for a woman with a master's in early Christian chant, and a passion for English church music/choral evensong. I mean, I've known since childhood that I wasn't really a Christian (I am sure I have told the story several times of nine-year-old me announcing to my mother that I was a good Episcopalian but not a Christian), but in the many decades since then, I've tried valiantly to compartmentalize, keeping the music and the words in different boxes. 2023 seems to have broken the walls to smithereens...I no sooner hear the opening few notes, and the carol's words unravel before me. I "hear" immediately that there are no references to the divine feminine, and I have to turn off the radio, currently my only exposure to the music. I thought I might be able to tolerate some of the more obscure English carols (Howells's "A Spotless Rose", "The Holly and the Ivy", "Masters in this Hall", "In the Bleak Midwinter", etc.) but by their second verses, there are inevitably lyrics about the newborn king, worshipping "him", etc. I just cannot do it anymore. 

Christmas music was nearly all I had managed to retain of this holiday season (in my heart, anyway -- out in the world, the ghastly advertisements and background music are impossible to ignore) -- and now I am left with what perhaps is how it all started, the dark time of the year and its mysteries. Late the other night, I opened the front door to try to see northern lights, and was unsuccessful because of street lights, but three silent deer were making their way down the sidewalk. That made it truly a "holy day", whose carols are yet to be written.

'Tis the season

Well, this is going to be a rather hard week/season for being "jolly", that's for sure. Putting aside a personal loss, with two wars, and a climate conference that seems anything but apt, looking out at the "manmade" world is excruciatingly hard right now. There's little that I could say that others haven't done already.

I've started getting repetitive (and if that becomes too true, it may be time to stop writing!), but I'll say it again. The catastrophes we face aren't of the present or in the future. They began many centuries ago, as cultures all over the world chose not to actively honor the feminine face of the divine, humanity's women, and our Earth home. "We" chose conflict (with other humans and the earth) over love. It is as simple as that. The thing that at least keeps me afloat (but not jolly) is knowing that as a higher level of love enters our world, which I think has definitely started, all endeavors that are unloving, or detrimental to women, the earth, or the Great Mother, will simply falter and collapse. We don't have to fight anything, anymore. Love per se will prove stronger than any other force, and we will see "proof" of this (if we needed it) in front of our very eyes.

On a personal note, this year has been a watershed in one new way. I had gradually become less and less enamored of Christmas music over the years, although even last year I could take my brain out of the equation and tolerate, even enjoy, some of the music as presented on public radio. This year? No. I guess "it" is over for me. If I hear one more reference to celebrating a boy king, or a savior of the world, or animals, angels and magi bowing down in worship, I think I'll throw the radio through the window. If I celebrate any births this season, it is any and all girl and boy babies born anywhere. We are all of the divine. They are all of the divine. May they live up to their potential to serve a world in pain. May they bring beauty and love to the world. May these new babies come into the world already understanding that "love is all there is". May they help us transition to a completely new kind of reality.

I guess 'tis the season for things turned upside down.

Post 800

Wow. Post number 800, and eight years. It is a new month, too. I have to thank my handful of regular readers, plus other folks who come and go. If I had to visualize what this work-in-the-world looks like, I'd have to say, a tiny, fragile aquamarine-colored thread of thought weaving in and out of my little room overlooking Lake Superior, around the area, the country, the world, maybe even the galaxy. I suspect I influence few but I care a lot.

I finally cried over the lost household dog. It was a silly thing, really. For the moment, I am the house vacuumer. I, who am the worst housekeeper the world has ever known.  (My mom never taught me anything, I guess under the assumption that I would end up in the class of people who can hire cleaners. My efforts are, at best, C-, as in "cursory", but they are always better than nothing.) When I would start my Wednesday morning vacuuming, a certain doggie dog would settle herself in the first room, only to roll her eyes once the noise started, and run out the door to the other major room on the floor. A few minutes later, of course, when I entered that room, she'd roll her eyes again, and run downstairs to the living room. We'd go through the same routine when I brought the vacuum down to do that carpet. On her part, it was sort of this interesting mixture of trying to be at the center of everything-cum-being above it all. This week, the empty space where this routine used to be was too much, and I finally sat down and cried.

In the end, she was a force for love. Why she disappeared now, I don't know. Why I fell so hard for this particular dog-that-wasn't-mine, I don't know. A lot of spiritual people seem to love the fact that there are so many questions with no answers, but it drives me crazy. I like, eventually, to find answers, and hope in this case that they will gradually make themselves known. I am grateful to have known her, that is for sure.

When it is not your dog

One of the strange truths about owning "nothing" (except clothes, books, a little artwork, and small treasures) is that, in an odd sense, you own everything. 

In the past, I never thought of myself as a dog person, or a pet person, given that I didn't have a stable place to house myself much less an animal. However, in the last five years or so, I have become very fond of two dogs who I had the privilege of living with. So I came into my most recent living situation knowing that something new was true of me -- I am capable of loving a dog. And slowly over the last fifteen months or so, I've grown to love the dog that lives here. I've been her constant presence off and on during the day, and take her for short walks. At times, I've been the person feeding her, or caring for her on the odd weekend. She has the most amazing eyes, and increasingly I've felt that, indeed, she "sees" the world in a profound way, and may even understand when I talk with her. Not being her owner, I found that I often tried not to love her too much. Coming from the background I come from, this isn't a good thing, "trying not to love", but I also have boundaries. Confusing.

On Wednesday, she disappeared. I won't go through the whole story, but she appears to be gone, despite a huge search effort. It doesn't help that winter finally hit with a vengeance, and we've had, like,10 degree F temperatures and 40 mph winds, which adds to the heartbreak. If it had had to happen, why not when it was 40 degrees with 10 mph winds? 

I miss her terribly, the sound of her footsteps running up and down the stairs, her scratching at the back door, her eager attention when I opened up a can of tuna or soup. I miss walking her. I don't enjoy walking for the sake of it, but to walk a dog is fine. She would sometimes look up at me, like, can't you walk faster? But then she'd slow down and poke around in the dirt, and it would be me trying to get her to move along. She trusted me, and I trusted her. I had come to love her, and I think she really, really liked me (and possibly loved!). 

When it is not your dog, not too many people offer you condolences, and since no one knows what happened, it's one of those grey etiquette areas anyway. But I can tell that my heart must be far more open than it has ever been, because it has broken. I know there is no death in the divine mind (and no loss), and I know she wasn't "mine", but it will be a long time before I don't see her and hear her everywhere I go.

What I am most thankful for

It has taken nearly a decade, but I think I can finally say with some honesty that I am thankful for having had the kind of father I had, the kind that could not love -- not even himself, I dare say. His only interest was himself and his own comfort, but I don't think there was even a tiny thread connecting him to any kind of genuine Love.

Why is this something to be thankful for, when it was the catalyst for so much pain and confusion? I think it is because I finally realize that without that experience, I wouldn't understand so many things going on around me, nearby and on the world stage. When you have spent a lifetime unsuccessfully trying to change someone, or get them to at least see you, it's a little easier to accept that there are other people and situations similarly impossible to budge, similarly impervious to love. 

Examples of non-Love seem to be becoming more and more frequent, and more and more spectacular. If it hadn't been for my dad, I might have gotten locked into fighting mode -- it helped me understand that there is another option, manifesting the contrasting spectacular energy of love/beauty/understanding/harmony, and letting other energies fall away.

Overall, I have become more of a thankful person these last few years. Whether it is age, COVID, or higher levels of wisdom, I don't know, but I find myself spontaneously thanking the Goddess for everything from walking safely to the bus stop, to finding what I was looking for at the store, to hearing from an old friend, to the correct working of my body (!) Seriously! I was able to walk safely up a flight of stairs? Thank the Goddess. My shoulder hurts? Thank the Goddess that for nearly 68 years it never hurt! I'm living where there is a working washing machine? Thank the Goddess...you get the picture. I wasn't always able to live in a consistent place of gratitude, but now that I've finally got to that neighborhood, thank the Goddess. It's one of those spiritual lessons you can read about in books until the proverbial cows come home, but until you hit the "mother lode" within yourself, it doesn't matter. To whoever is reading this, I am thankful for you, and hope you have a beautiful Thanksgiving!

Freakishly Warm

Yup. Duluth, Minnesota was freakishly warm this week, reaching 60 yesterday. I mean, when the global climate chaos effects are delightful (walking barefoot on the back stoop or to take out the trash, needing only a light jacket at a time of year when you are normally tackling snowbanks, ice, and below zero windchills...), I guess you have to simply enjoy it. On Wednesday, I sat in the sun down at the beach near Canal Park, amazed to be feeling just a light south breeze, not the frigid gales of November roiling down the lake. Yesterday, the promised cold front blew in, but it remains relatively mild.

Still, there's something slightly ominous about it all. The light is all wrong, for one thing. The sun is too low in the sky. The trees are bare of leaves, and most of the lawns are finally brown. So to see people walking down the street in tee shirts is jarring. To hear the return of spring birds (however beautiful) is jarring. 

And it continues to be jarring to hear assorted news items about communities trying to adapt to global warming, corporations and nations negotiating limits on this and changes to that. This action, while perhaps well-meaning, seems to me to mask the harder truth, that our modern way of life is completely at odds with protecting Nature. Creating more and more goods for more and more people, to be consumed then tossed out -- well, I just don't think it was ever in alignment with Goddess energy or can become so at this late date. I don't believe the Goddess thinks in terms of money (perhaps that's just my personal projection though!!!). But heck, all these generations we have taken "natural resources" without paying for them. There hasn't been a "bank" where we've paid Her for every gallon of oil, or every tree, or every ounce of ore, or every fish, or breath of fresh air...etc. And even putting money aside, for the most part we never even thanked Her (and I include myself, although finally, genuine gratitude has started to take hold). So now, we feel the longterm effects of the one-sidedness of this relationship. And unless our actions start to weigh in the direction of "loving Nature" rather than "saving humanity", they may have little effect. And they may have little effect at this late date, anyway.

How to proceed without despair? Complete rootedness in the present and awareness of the beauties that cross our path. This morning, I had an existential moment where I couldn't believe that the sun (91 million miles from earth) was shining on me. For the first time in 68 years, I realized the miracle of it all. Perhaps in that sense, it's never too late to change?

I'll Never Understand

As happened last time, I had a whole 'nother plan for today's blog but my mind keeps gravitating to the wars being waged in this world. Talk about falling into a dark hole.

It is something I will never understand -- how and why humans hurt and kill other humans. Perhaps it is the perspective of being post-duality and post-conflict...but I simply do not get it, on any level. How can any person or group of people feel they have the right to cut short another human life (or ten, or a thousand, or a million)? And this isn't one of those things where if it's my country, I'm all for fighting...no, I don't think it is acceptable anywhere in the world, by anyone, for any reason, including self-defense. There will never be a "war to end all wars" -- unless it literally ends human life on earth. The only way to end wars (longterm) is for individuals to commit to complete and utter personal nonviolence, and then walk forward fearlessly and weapon-free, not holding on to whether you live or die, and not holding on to how other people or groups think of you. 

Am I completely adept at this? No. There are moments when someone I encounter raises my hackles, and I feel stressed, defensive, or fearful. I try really hard to arrive at an immediate understanding of what the core fear was for me in the situation...and  sometimes I manage to do that quickly enough to apologize to the person, sometimes not. Yesterday, a complete stranger said, "Do you mind if I ask you your name?" And I said, "Yes" and kept walking down the street. (Yes, I did mind!) My inner big city girl found this just too strange, and I felt kind of off-kilter for a good hour or more. Perhaps this young man meant well, or perhaps he meant ill; I'll never know. As a woman, I always feel somewhat vulnerable. But would I ever carry a weapon to attack such a person? No. 

I'm tired, too, of a lifetime of grieving all the lives cut short. I guess that's a subject for another day. In the end, I can't help but feel that I've already lived in an era where they "studied war no more", and all I can do is make it real in me today and hope there is a small ripple effect.

Goddess Words 23: Home

Not too surprisingly, I have struggled with this post. When you have never had a permanent home, when you've spent so (relatively) little time in the country (or the creative field) where you originally felt most at home, it's an uncomfortable, sharp-edged concept. Then, when you look out at a world where growing numbers of people are homeless, displaced, exiled, on the move, and in despair, you realize how completely unwieldy the "issue" of home is...not to mention all the damage we humans have done to our earth home. I wrote a long essay yesterday, but I just completely erased it and am starting again.

I mean, in the end, when you are Goddess-centered and post-duality, there are few "homes"/energetic matches here on earth, in the current paradigm. Over the decades, you may be tolerated, looked at crosswise, kept on temporarily, seen as a figure of humor, or even feared. But once people come close to understanding who you are, very few can fully welcome you. Because in the end, for me, "home" is less a physical place than it is an energy of genuine welcome. Genuine delight in your presence. Genuine acceptance. It's hard to be fully accepted when you represent a reality that doesn't really exist yet.

Of course, it works both ways. It's been hard to be loving, to put down roots (or work effectively in any manner) in a world that is so violence- and hatred-driven. It is like being a seed tossed down on a parking lot. There are so few spots where the tendrils of love, beauty, joy, and harmony can take root...virtually none, at times. I myself have been in despair, and had no option but to go out on the road to regroup, over and over and over. Yet by the time I wrote my "The Words of the Goddess" list in the early 2000's, I clearly had begun to see Her values as my "home". I had clearly begun to understand that I had volunteered for the exploratory, scout-in-the-wilderness role I've played these last 68 years, wrenching as it has been. I suspect that many decades from now, when the values of the Divine Feminine have finally taken root, "home" will have completely new meaning for all of us. We will understand that we are of Her, and of our beautiful planet, whatever is left of it by then...We will also understand that everyone we meet is playing the role in this grand drama that they signed up to play, and we will warmly welcome them -- at best, with genuine love and delight, and at the very least, as necessary and valuable teachers. We will understand that this is their home too, and never send them away.

A Split Screen

Although I spend relatively little "screen time" compared to most people, not having a smart phone, I still do watch some television every day. Interestingly enough, most of it has a mildly competitive "energy", as I think I have mentioned -- "Jeopardy", "The Voice", "Antiques Road Trip". At the commercial breaks, I cannot help but see what is being advertised, even when I mute the sound. And that is what is on my mind today.

Obviously, the products being advertised are increasingly hi-tech, informed by AI, and, heck, "clever". I mean, human ingenuity is an amazing thing. I would never, ever, deny that. Yet most of the objects being advertised are way, way beyond my means (phones, homes, cars, gadgets of all kinds). And if they are beyond my means, how. much further are they beyond the means of a large percentage of the world population? And putting cost completely aside, what good are any of these items to people living with war, starvation, loss of homes, jobs and power due to climate change, political turmoil, you name it?

For better or for worse, the split screen is always with me. I may see impossibly "smart" cars and houses in the ad, and happy people using them, but I also "see" war's devastation. I "see" impossible social imbalances, sickness, poverty and pain. Perhaps living in that liminal place is the challenge of being a mystic.

More fancifully, perhaps, I "hear" something when I watch those ads on mute. I hear childlike voices saying, "Wow! Aren't I clever! Isn't this amazing? Aren't I wonderful!" I "hear" and "feel" pride and even hubris. I keep thinking back to one of my favorite books of all time, Elizabeth Dodson Gray's Patriarchy as a Conceptual Trap (1982). In it, she suggests that over time, men created a "culture to reassure" themselves that their achievements are as important as women's timeless roles in the creation of homes and family. Forty years later, this little book seems to be more thought-provoking than ever...and I suppose it is a measure of my own narcissism that I'm proud that she was a "fellow" Smith College graduate. I wish I had met her.

In the end, the litmus test for both sides of the screen is, is it love? Not just "loving the process of creating", which I share. (Or even what must be, for some people, the "love" of conflict.) The test is, does the creation or action reflect love of all of humanity, of all plant and animal life on earth, of earth itself? Is it created out of a heartfelt desire to extend the human experiment well into the future? 

All I Can Do Today

Over the last few months, I have been the regular recipient of pre-read issues of the New York Times, as I may have mentioned. Like most former New Yorkers, I used to read the newspaper "religiously", and I was interested to see how I might respond now, after so many years away. I don't know whether it is this particular time frame or too much time having passed, but I have found the experience almost completely overwhelming.

In a sense, scanning the headlines has the same impact on me as hearing similar soundbites on radio or television news: my reactions range from complete mystification to active horror. With the exception of some articles about the arts, food, culture, and design, everything seems steeped in hatred, conflict, fear, competition, thoughtless waste, and distrust, sensations that feel more foreign to me with every passing day. I feel like I am no longer reading about planet earth, but some other "place". Have I changed, or has the world changed?

I keep grappling with how we were taught to love our "enemies". Yet when an entire world seems to operate in ways that are unbearably painful, this seems like an impossibility. Or worse, to open the door to hypocrisy. Even "loving the people but hating what they do" is too dualistic and too much of a high wire act for me. And fighting everything is out of the question.

All I seem to be able to do today is remind myself that as increased levels of love enter the world, many people will be as mystified and horrified as I am now. Love may not compute with them, or will be as much of a struggle for them as our current paradigm has been for some of the rest of us. All I seem to be able to do today is accept that humanity is on quite a complex journey, and it's much bigger than I am, and I cannot control anyone but myself.

I'm going to give it a few more weeks. If by Thanksgiving I am not enjoying this newspaper reading (or really, "perusal"!), then I guess I will thank the donor but turn down future copies. What will I do today in love? Get together with dear friends, walk a dog, give away some homemade cookies, and appreciate my view of "my" great lake. That's all I can do. That is, literally, all that I can bear.

No Words

It is rare for me to go for a whole week without writing. There were a few different factors this last week, including trying to race around and do things/see people before the cold weather and snow, which started last Friday. But the main thing was simply finding no words with which to respond to the war in the Middle East, among other heartbreaking events. It is with absolutely no irony whatsoever that I say, I can't understand why people are drawn to horror movies, many TV shows and ads, "spooky" Halloween events like haunted houses, and dressing up for that holiday, when our day-to-day world has become so horrifying and violent.

I guess when there are no words, it is best not to spend long paragraphs analyzing everything! So I am just going to return to a few of the messages I seem to have "channelled" (if you will) from the Goddess. The first: that we are entering a period of much higher spiritual energies (throughout the world and the Universe), and anything conflict-, hatred-, fear-, profit-, or power over-driven will simply stop working as effectively, no matter who is involved. More than ever in history, only love, joy, beauty (and their related qualities!) will "work". She told me She will never ask me to fight for anyone or anything, or against anyone or anything. Energetically, fighting is not aligned with the Goddess, and adding even the slightest iota of anger or pushback energy to our toxic mix will not lead to peace. Lastly, focusing on the condition that is sick or violent will only attract more sickness and violence. Yes, I, too, have been "perseverating" on the world's two most prominent wars, but as soon as my mind can stand such agitated thinking no longer, I seem to be able to let go. The only response must be to create some small bit of beauty, express some small bit of joy, or embrace someone or something in love. 

Last night, public radio played the entire Faure Requiem. It has probably been over 40 years since I sang this exquisite choral piece, and yet I remember every single word in Latin, and just about every note of the four choral parts, the solos, and the instrumental accompaniment. I closed my eyes and sang the whole darned thing from memory, all 35 or 40 minutes. Love, joy, and beauty twined into a rare braided ribbon of ecstasy. Finally, there were words.

Threads of joy

I had basically "planned" to spend the weekend meditating on joy. I knew I had stumbled on something important last week; that joy is hard to uncover when you place decades of external (often male) expectations and preferences on top of it.

While I don't for a moment think joy is insubstantial or fragile, there are moments when trying to find its threads -- to follow the path to the well of joy within -- is challenging. On Friday, I had scheduled my COVID booster, and wow, did this one ever do me in! I was all but "out for the count" from midday Friday through Saturday, even into Sunday. Perseverating on the Middle East didn't help.

Back on January 5 of this year, I wrote about Joy as one of my Goddess words. And interestingly enough, I note that I have used the word quite frequently in this blog. So it's there, it's in me. The best I can do today is consider what brings me joy right now, and it is the belief that we are (despite appearances) heading into a world beyond war, and that the feminine face of the divine is re-emerging from behind the clouds. Embodying and expressing Her, as best as I can on this paradoxically dark, rainy day, is my only "job". Holding onto joy's thread inward is my only job. (Interesting that "job" and "joy" are only one letter different, eh?!) May this week bring you peeks of joy. Even peaks!

Defining questions

The last few months, I have been building up to an epiphany. Those of you who read these posts have seen the uphill steps; I'd be tempted to apologize, only I try never (these days!) to apologize for my life. Let's just say that when you are a mystic, awareness of your process is your daily bread. However, I do hope that I don't repeat too much...or at least that today I am speaking from a different vantage point.

The other night on "The Voice", one of the coaches told a contestant that they were using their God-given talents to bring joy to the world, or words to that effect. No doubt I have heard those very words on previous episodes of the show, not to mention in dozens of self-help and spirituality books. For the first time, the words really resonated. But when I asked myself, "With which of my talents am I bringing joy to the world?", I experienced a horrible, deafening silence. I haven't sung at all in five years, or painted seriously in at least ten or twelve. The purpose of this blog has been to record the steps of an intense spiritual journey, and I hope that a little joy has peeked through here and there, but spreading joy wasn't consciously my main goal. For a few hours, I found it hard to breathe. In my interpretation, the core values of the Goddess are love, joy, and beauty. If I wish to represent Her (no matter how imperfectly), these three qualities must emanate from me somehow. If it has been hard to allow them to emanate, and if I haven't always thought of how I was helping the world experience love, joy and beauty, clearly I have been seriously blocked.

It got me wondering, what were the "old" questions that propelled me forward in the past? What questions helped me define myself and my goals? Here are just a few: what do I need to do to get my Dad to like or even tolerate me? If I am perfect enough, will I get noticed or loved by my family? What do I need to do to enter the musical world of the men and boys' choirs? If I take piano and organ lessons, major in music at Smith, and get a master's degree in England, will it be enough? In my 20's, the questions became more "practical": what job do I need to get to earn enough to pay off my student loans? Then, once that goal was accomplished, where and with what skills can I forget about England, church music, and the career I will never have, and make enough money to live on? As my situation not surprisingly began to go downhill, it was, like, what belongings can I sell? Can I paint enough little paintings or do enough menial jobs to stave off starvation? Can I live without most of the things other people have? Eventually, my focus returned to, how can I get back into church music? How can I get back to England? What do I need to do to be recognized in that field? Most recently, having allowed those questions to lapse yet again, it has been more about, can I simply come to peace with invisibility and non-"success"? I think I said last time that it has been a heartbreaking journey, and it has been, and, with some exceptions, a largely joy-free one too. I've hung in there, and survived, but my well of actual "joy" sometimes seems pretty empty. 

But now I get it! In the end, these defining questions primarily referenced our male-dominated culture and its preferences -- not who I really am. I had long since taken the focus off my inner joy and passion, in favor of looking outward for acceptance and a paycheck. I was trying, trying, and trying some more to find a home in a paradigm where I could never have been at home...and I mean this metaphorically as well as literally. 

This week, it is particularly hard to imagine feeling joyful. Images of yet another war horrify and traumatize, almost off-the-scale. The black hole beckons, and tries to grab our full attention. But this does not invalidate the impulse to embody -- and spread -- joy, love and beauty. For a number of weeks, I have been feeling uncharacteristically depressed and wobbly, but I think I am experiencing a death, the death of my lifelong focus outside myself. My new question is, how will I, Liz, manifest my Goddess-given joy, love, and capacity to express beauty? How can I make those qualities my only work each day? Can I start to define myself by looking only at me? So very hard to do when you were brought up in narcissism's family net, and yet absolutely necessary when you are nearly 68 and single. Losing sight of oneself is a kind of death, and that will come soon enough as it is. I have no time to waste.

It is Heartbreaking

This morning, we are having an early "gale of November" in Duluth. Lake Superior is churning, 30-, 40-plus mph winds from the northeast are wailing. Trees are bent over, losing their remaining summer leaves. Some rain is falling, and in the "place" I am at this morning, the drops of water are the tears of the Goddess.

If She is crying, why? Because it is heartbreaking. (All the many "its".) It is heartbreaking that humanity has still not learned that war is never a solution. It is heartbreaking that humans still hate each other and willingly cause violence to one another, to animals, and to the earth. It is heartbreaking that we haven't learned to see the same warlike violence in our common institutions, our entertainment, our assumptions -- in order to make different daily choices. It is heartbreaking that we still hope that our modern models will want to fix the problems they have caused. If She is crying, if She is heartbroken, it may be because She had hoped we would have gained more wisdom by now.

As for me, heartbreak has been my constant companion this entire lifetime, even when my pain was not superficially evident to people around me. However, in recent months the tidal wave of trauma has started to ebb as I have finally more fully let go of the structures-that-are, and begun to "inhabit" a structure-that-will-be. (Is that why my right arm has been hurting?! I've been holding on for grim dear life, and have finally had to relax my grip and let go.) The rooms of this brand new house are basically empty; the structure only consists of a foundation-cum-scaffolded walls and roof. Only the bare bones are in place for a house, and for the values which some people will see as "home". It's a little early, perhaps, to take refuge here, but it may be the first time in 68 years that I have felt sheltered as the storms rage.

 

Ageing

My computer isn't happy with my use of this spelling of "ageing", but that's life.

There is no way I'm going to try to address the entire topic of "getting older" today, so just a little aspect of it. For a few weeks I have had an issue with my upper right arm, which in true "me" style, I tried to essentially ignore/allow to heal itself. Well, over this past weekend, I was in more pain, so I finally went and had an initial look at it, which will be followed soon by another appointment. That's as far as I will go with this today.

However, no matter how you slice it, this event has reminded me (as if I needed it) that the 67-year-old body is not as strong or resilient as the 47-year-old one, or the 27-year-old one. Overall, I have been outrageously fortunate. I'm beginning to realize that I am the one needing to do more "thanksgiving"! But, with no car, I carry heavy loads...I remember a day back in August when I carried two too-heavily laden grocery bags too far. It just simply wasn't smart. And whether that event triggered this injury or not, it's the ageing reality -- you keep having to pare back a little bit here, a little bit there. When your spirit is still strong and you still have work to do in the world, it goes against the grain to say "no" to life. But it becomes a survival skill of its own, I guess!

Goddess grant me the wisdom to know where to move forward and where to release and relax. Help me to navigate vulnerability and even, at times, the shame of looking older to the outside world. Help me to become ever-clearer about those things I absolutely must do to fulfill my destiny, and once I become clear, help me to act --safely. Thank you.

Just Wondering

There's something I have been wondering about for a long time, so I guess this rainy day in October is as good a time as any to get up the courage to ask.

What if, over many generations, humans had had to pay Nature for her resources...the resources themselves (not for the labor to extract them, cut them down, whatever)? I mean, these things have effectively been free gifts from Nature (or items freely taken by humans, depending on your perspective). Would it be possible to have our modern profit-based economies -- or any kind of money economy at all -- if we had been charged for these valuable assets? 

I don't know the answer to this, and perhaps it would be impossible to calculate. But as every day brings news of efforts to address climate change -- taxes, new technologies, laws, suggested personal choices -- I can't help but sense ever more acutely the need to fill in the most gaping hole. At the very least, for starters, can we (individually and collectively) just thank Nature? I can't see how any of these other actions will work if we cannot respect Her, express gratitude to Her, and listen to what She has been trying to tell us. It isn't too late to gratefully acknowledge the immense value of what She has given us for free over the centuries, and to do this unconditionally. 

Life Can be Like a Board Game

Over the last two weeks or so, my life has had the quality of a board game, perhaps even the old one literally called, "Life". Or in this case, "One Musician's Life".

I referred last time to having had to leave a concert because the loud rock music was  deafening, to me anyway. If I had been playing a board game, I can picture the space on the board: "Attend loud concert, leaving you inexplicably traumatized. Go back two spaces." (I spent almost a week feeling even more "pushed back" than usual, as it turned out.) Then, this past weekend, I heard a local choral group do a lovely job singing Herbert Howells; it was almost as if the Universe had decided to even up the scales, and the afterglow from hearing this music sent me way ahead, maybe five spaces on this imaginary game board. Still glowing, I tuned in early Sunday morning, as I usually do, to "Pipedreams", the public radio organ music show. Michael Barone was presenting some highlights of the first forty years of that program, and lo and behold, more Howells: the Coll Reg Te Deum, sung many years ago in St. Paul, Minnesota by the St. Paul's Cathedral, London, choir. This is not only "more Howells", it is perhaps my touchstone piece, one of the first that I taught myself to sing from a late 1960's record by King's College, Cambridge. I was interested to see whether I would start to cry at the end, the composer's dramatic and heartrending setting of, "O Lord, in Thee have I trusted, let me never be confounded." And I did, although perhaps not quite as hopelessly as I did many times over the years. (Heck, being confounded has been my almost daily experience in this lifetime. I'm rather used to it.) Yet my overall experience of hearing this music clip was surprisingly positive, minus a good deal of the homesickness and heartsickness that has often washed over me ("I wish I could be in that choir/in England"). More than anything, I felt a curious synchronicity and encouragement. I'm still alive to thrill to the music of Howells. And his music came to find me, twice in one weekend! My imaginary space on the board might say, "you are so filled with love, appreciation and beauty, move ahead five spaces."

And it turned out, that wasn't the end: from my new spot on the board, I watched "The Voice" on Monday night. Yes, the silly banter among the judges makes me laugh, but I watch because I appreciate their musicality, and that of many of the contestants making their way onto the world stage for the first time. A new contestant came out, but this time I let out a shriek. According to the information on the screen, she was from Essex, NY. Essex, NY, the town where I spent almost every summer of my young life, where my parents lived for 12 or 13 years in the 70's and 80's, and where I lived much of the early 2000's. OMG. I don't know her -- and as it turned out, she didn't get any chair turns and won't continue on the show -- but the chances of someone from a town of only 700 or so, a town which I know every nook and cranny of, being on this show would seem to be almost nil. 

The square here might say, "unusual synchronicities coming your way, and because you are noticing them, go ahead two more spaces"! I don't know what it all means, but I want to remember this metaphor. You can move ahead in life, even when you don't realize you are doing so.

Too much to take in

There are times when there is simply too much to take in -- occurring on the world stage, the local stage, and within. What I have to do when this happens is, literally, retreat. I hate to think of it like that, but a physical retreat may be necessary, to a place or situation where I can be quiet, be myself, and continue to breathe.

A week ago, I inadvertently found myself at a concert where there was deafeningly loud rock music. It wasn't what I had expected, and I stayed as long as I could but I finally had to leave. I realize that in my whole life, I have almost never exposed my ears to such loud music, and it has taken this whole week to recover, physically and emotionally. It seemed to trigger some kind of trauma response which I don't quite understand. 

Another new thing is that I have been gifted with some regular pre-read copies of the New York Times. There was an era when I couldn't live without the Times...heck, it was part of my job at Time Inc. to read it every morning, cover-to-cover. But for a number of years I haven't had it in my life, and I'm finding it, too, quite overwhelming. National news, international news, business, and even the arts and entertainment; the majority of articles are about conflict. I can barely wait to find the crossword puzzle and cut it out, to do later on. 

And in the midst of all this, after a completely dry summer, northern Minnesota's September has been soaked with rain. While I welcome this opportunity to wash away some of the world's stresses, and I welcome the Goddess wisdom that it is bringing, it's a hard moment for wall-to-wall grey skies. 

I talk a lot about love, and am such a novice at it. But there is one thing I do know as we head into this rather pivotal weekend: I cannot yet love with any genuineness (or even try to love) all the millions of people who seem to approach life differently than I do, and I don't think I will ever be able to "love"/understand conflict, war and violence. I cannot even try to love (or forgive) what I do not love, or closely embrace everything that goes against my grain...in my late sixties, I simply do not have the energy. I do have the energy not to hate. I do have the energy to genuinely love a few things and people in my present. And I do have the energy to appreciate all the things and people I have loved in the past, and to keep that energy of love as close as possible. When the world offers too much to take in, I need to "take in" only love. 

(As a postscript to this, written ten minutes later: soon after finishing this post, I looked out the window to see a pileated woodpecker at work on the tree about five feet from the house. He/she made her signature call before flying off. May I just say, "I love" my recent bird sightings and connections?! Love, love, love. I take these experiences in, literally and gladly!)

Goddess Words 22: Optimism

It is interesting that back in the earlier 2000's, when I wrote my Goddess word list, I included "optimism". It is such a duality-based word, and it seems to verge on being dependent on "luck" or "fortune", events and conditions outside ourselves. Are we optimistic or pessimistic about the future? Do we think that events will turn out for the best or the worst? There is an implication of powerlessness to the word, so I actually don't use it or like it very much.

Yet, there it is, in my handwriting, and I felt drawn to it today. So I guess I need to see why.

I think it may be because, based on everything going on right now, I am ultimately not optimistic about our current paradigm's ultimate success. (Of course, "success" in itself is basically a duality concept!) Our world is so heavily weighted in the direction of conflict, competition and violence, and most of those in leadership positions don't seem to have the tools to transform away from that model. Each day, I am reminded anew about how traumatizing modern life feels to someone like me. There are millions of us out there, and that fact gives me a bit of hope, but we don't seem to have much influence in places of power. So, no, I don't feel very optimistic that humanity's current path is leading inexorably to a better world. 

What makes me optimistic? It won't come as much of a surprise if you have been reading this blog...the belief that a "return of the Goddess" is happening right now, and that these values of the divine feminine (which I am trying so imperfectly to discover and describe!) are absolutely necessary building blocks on the path to the future. Beauty makes me feel optimistic. Love makes me feel optimistic. Harmony and Unity make me feel optimistic. And it is wonderful to get to the point where I don't see these qualities as one side of a conflict divide. For me, they are all that is. At some point in the near or distant future, our world won't be in such pain, so that does make me optimistic!

The Merlin

Since I mentioned my close encounter with a merlin (bird) in my last post, I thought I would tell the whole story.

So, about a week ago, I was in the living room, standing in front of the large front window, but looking down at something. I heard a crash against the window, and felt that sick feeling of knowing a bird must have hit it. When I looked up, the most extraordinary sight met my eyes. There was a bird outside the window, flapping its wings like crazy, and seeming to stare at me. It wasn't a small bird like a wren or chickadee; it was fairly large (maybe 10-12 inches) and looked a little like a small hawk. But I was completely confounded. Had it hit the window and was stunned? I felt a little like a character in a movie, with my eyes agog and mouth gaping open. The bird appeared to be staring directly at me, almost like it was trying to communicate. After about 20 seconds, it flew off, but almost immediately came back and hovered for the same amount of time, staring into the house, then took off and didn't return. 

Once I could move again, I thought I should run outside and make sure the bird had been able to fly away, and hadn't dropped onto the sidewalk or street, but when I opened the front door, I realized that there was a dying robin on the porch! At that point, I burst into tears...I knew it was suffering, and I wasn't sure I had it in me to do what was necessary to put it out of that suffering. Long story short, thankfully, a friend was able to help the robin to a respectful end, and, still kind of stunned and tearful, I looked through my book of Minnesota birds and found my hovering bird -- a merlin! I have since heard from friends that they can be rather common here. The book said that they are less likely to swoop down and hover than other falcons, but I guess in this case, it definitely hovered (which in my ignorance, I thought only hummingbirds did!) 

Reasoning it out, I realize that the merlin must have been chasing the robin, and the robin hit the window, but the merlin stopped short and hovered. And it is likely that it was transfixed more by seeing itself in the window's reflection than by me (although there was enough late afternoon light in the room that I might also have been visible). But the feeling that I had this encounter for a reason -- that it was giving me a message -- continues to linger. Hawks and falcons have a number of spiritual meanings, including "messenger", and the merlin's intense black eyes may never leave me. It's also not lost on me that one of the key figures in the British Arthurian legend is the wise man, "Merlin"...hmm...

Doing our Best

This has been a strange few days, with a merlin at my window, a sick dog, a trip out of state (20 minutes by city bus to nearby Wisconsin), and, of course, attention to the news, especially as it relates to climate and earth changes.

It is probable that every person on this planet is doing his or her best with the qualities they were born with, and given the qualities of the culture into which they were born. For those who believe that the climate is undergoing rapid re-formation, it is natural to ask, "What can I do? What can we do? What should our institutions do?" The urge to "do something" is almost overwhelming.

And yet here is where I get stuck. It feels like, that's the problem. Over thousands of years, we have "done" too much, most of it without, in effect, asking Nature's permission. I spoke of this a bit a few weeks ago...I mean, when did we ever ask Nature whether it was wise to dig under earth's surface, or send chemicals into the air/water/our bodies, or build skyscrapers, or use finite resources to travel, heat and cool? It makes sense to communicate with/express concerns to various present-day institutions, and yet few of these institutions would even exist if humanity had considered our earth home worthy of tender care in the first place. Our approach to virtually every aspect of human society would have been completely different starting many generations ago.

I guess that is why my "best" right now looks, as usual, as if I am doing nothing (!) All I can "do" is welcome, as wholeheartedly as I can, the fact that the Goddess is doing whatever She needs to keep earth viable for life. This is Her time. About all I can do is quietly and rootedly open my arms in gratitude, and let Nature use Her advanced wisdom to set things on an eventual right path, no matter what that may mean to our short-term human plans. It may mean getting out of the way, or if I am in the way, to release control of outcome. This is a time when "doing my best"/"doing our best" will probably be more about not-doing than doing.

The Creatress and Her Blank Canvases

A little over two years ago, I wrote a post called "The Blank Canvas", and this isn't really a follow-up to that, but after nearly 800 posts, it can be challenging not to repeat my titles!

Anyway, the point being...on Monday, I wrote a post that I left in draft form because it wasn't ready, or I wasn't ready, or the timing was wrong, or whatever. And this morning, without even reading it again, I deleted it. I can't explain why this gave me such pleasure...I had worked hard on it, and there was, I am sure, much in it that was worthy or pertinent. But it was too wordy, and I knew I just had to let it go. I started this morning with, if you will, a blank canvas.

I think I told the story several years ago (although I cannot find it) of one of my painting classes at Parsons School of Design. We spent three hours working on a piece, and all of us assumed we were meant to take it home and finish it. However, when we got to the door at the end of class, the teacher told us to toss our work in the trash! It was extremely hard to do this! She told us it was a life lesson in not taking ourselves (or our work) too seriously/letting go and, as you can see, I have never forgotten it. When I was painting in oils, I sometimes reached a point in a painting where I knew it had gone off track, and wasn't what I had intended. So I would take the turpenoid or mineral spirits, soak a rag, and completely wipe the canvas clean of paint. Of course, once the canvas dried, there was usually a ghost image still remaining, and it often informed the new painting, kind of a spiritual underpinning. But I never tried to actually replicate the original. Somehow, between my brain and my heart and my brush, there must have been a dialogue about, what (from the old painting) do I want to recreate, and what isn't working. The new painting was nearly always better, but would an observer have "seen" the old one peeking through? Unlikely. Yet it was energetically present.

I guess I put that out there today, in the context of so many people losing homes and belongings, and the earth's maps literally being redrawn. Can we find a way to look at these times as "painting a new painting"? Can we find a way to welcome the blank canvas?

 

Opening More Boxes, Finding Self, Celebrating Her

This is one of those days when there are so many potential topics, I don't know where to start. So I'll start with me. 

This week, two more of my stored boxes reached me. I still think this is miraculous. Taken in the context of a world where increasing numbers of people's possessions are burning up in wildfires or floating away in floods, the fact that after all my many moves, I still have these items available to me seems just remarkable. I am grateful to  friends and total strangers (the delivery-people strong enough to carry them to the porch!) 

I've only opened one of the boxes, but it was extremely emotional to do so. I guess you could say that the contents are evidence of my serious lifelong effort to use all my skills productively: my master's thesis and accompanying course papers, notebooks full of slides of artwork and advertising for art workshops I led, course syllabi that I created when I taught at the Community College of Vermont, and even some stationery and draft letters from when I worked at Time Magazine Letters. 

The most poignant is my work for my master's. I don't believe anyone thought I would get through that year successfully, since "early Christian chant" was pretty far off the mark from my real passion, the English cathedral choir tradition. And because of my American liberal arts degree, by the standards of the day I was teetering close to the edge of unqualified. But I worked harder than I ever have in my life before or since, and passed. Could I speak for more than about two seconds today about Aquitanian neumes and "my" specific piece of 12th century chant? No. But that year at Royal Holloway/University of London used every ounce of my left-brain intelligence, my intuitive and design skills (creating a modern transcription of ancient notation), and my musical skills (singing daily morning choral services). I was in fertile soil that year, and blossomed, doing all this in addition to travel, many new friendships, and -- of course -- loving England. I was "fully me" in a way I truly have never been since.

But when I returned to the U.S., my parents distractedly asked me if I had had a "good time", and then essentially elbowed me out the door. I had big student loans which I had to start repaying within about two months, so all I could think of was to go to New York City and start job hunting. My packet of degree materials (including the 75-page thesis typed on a manual typewriter, a 25-page hand-written chant transcription, and a number of - yes! - hand-written papers for the related classes I took at Holloway and in London) was packed up in a box, and has only surfaced a handful of times since then. I, literally, put it away. I ended up in living situations and workplaces where this work was essentially irrelevant, and, having never been really asked about that year, I didn't tell the story. Several people have told me over the years that I have done "nothing worthwhile" with my life, and it hurt but I semi-believed them and swallowed it, even joking about my master's degree myself. In turn, having an intimidating-looking foreign degree on my resume worked against me in the U.S., especially as I began to struggle even to find restaurant and retail jobs. 

So I wept when I gathered these materials up in my arms. I begged the forgiveness of the Goddess for my having played a role in downplaying my own intelligence. Yes, I studied for the degree within the most patriarchal of constructs, and perhaps it all would have turned out differently if I hadn't already begun to un-tether myself from that world. But it's like, I had to see these papers again to remember how intelligent I am, which is a gift from the Goddess. It's a homecoming of its own, a return to my real self. Imagine the brilliant women of the past who were denied an education at all. Imagine those women, worldwide, today! It is such a ridiculous tragedy.

I haven't begun to make a dent in this topic. But all I can say is, if any of you have degree work or diplomas packed away where no one will see them (including you), bring them out into the light. As I am trying to do today, love that part of you that was "too smart". Celebrate Her.

My Mother's Sewing Box

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I am slowly having most of my remaining boxes of belongings sent to me from out east. I'm probably not in a permanent home, but at least it is permanent enough for me to finally deal with these things, many of which have been packed up for decades. People in the emergency room have to do "triage" -- and triage is the story of a life like mine! You are constantly going through boxes from a new perspective, and as you go up the spiral, you can "feel" what no longer resonates or remains useful. Symbolic things start to mean a lot -- it just is no longer acceptable for me to have half my boxes with me, and half halfway across the country. They may only add up to a small closet's worth, but they are all I own, and those I choose to keep need to be re-knitted into the fabric of my life.

Rediscovering my mother's sewing box was surprisingly poignant (and symbolic, given what I just said!!!) Here's a box that probably dates to the mid-50's, around the time I was born. It's about 10 in. x 12 in., and 6 in. high. The cover is a quilted flower fabric, and the top had been covered with clear plastic. But as I took it out of the box, this "ancient" plastic completely disintegrated in my hands! So the bottom fabric is dingy and tan, the hinged top clean and new looking. I am hard on plastic (at this moment, rightfully so, I think) but in this situation it had certainly served its protective purpose.

Opening the box up, it is just like I last used it, at least a dozen years ago, and for that matter, the last time my mom must have used it, maybe 25 years ago. There's a top "shelf" specifically for spools of thread, which has been broken ever since I can remember, so it doesn't hang properly from the side. No matter. Most of the spools are wooden, of the pre-70's era, and some I suspect made their way from my grandmother's early-20th century collection. Some of them are priced at 15 cents! Coats & Clark's, Belding Corticelli, Talon...names both familiar and not familiar.

Underneath, chaos. My grandmother's ancient pinking shears. Several measuring tapes. A small pink plastic box of size 17 "brass silk pins" at 39 cents. Two darning eggs. A small, early 20th century sewing scissor. A round box of extra buttons. A roll of tapes with my name on, which my mother sewed into my clothes for several years. Lots of little papers wound with extra wool, for mending sweaters and socks. A thimble. Some plaid fabric that my mother paid someone to make napkins from. And yes, several packets of sewing needles. Inside the top of the box is a pocket containing yet more wool for darning. I think almost every wool sweater came with these packets of extra wool, back in the day.

So, the amusing thing about this is that, with the exception of perhaps two or three occasions when mom sewed a button back on, I have absolutely no memory whatsoever of her using the contents of this box. She did not own a sewing machine. Her mother had been a seamstress, so she went out of her way not to be one. It is a box into which a lot has been tossed, but very little ever used. In fact, I suspect that in the early 2000's, after mom passed away, I used its enclosed needles and thread far more than she ever had. I'm not much of a seamstress either, but I've had to mend things to prolong their usefulness.

A friend somewhat cheekily asked me, if your mom didn't sew, why on earth did she own a sewing box? Well, it is what a newly-married woman in the early 1950's was expected to own. Perhaps it was a gift from her mother or one of her female friends. I'm proud of the many ways in which she quietly bucked the expectations of the era, but also extremely glad to have this connection to my female lineage back in my own hands, at least for now.

It's Surreal

We're heading into a very hot weekend in northern Minnesota, the hottest of the year. It's pretty rare, apparently, to experience the hottest stretch of summer in the month of September. But the again, a lot of rare things have started to happen, right? A lot of bizarre, even surreal things.

"Surreal". I mean, my whole life has been surreal. It used to be that I thought it stemmed from being an American girl (then woman) wanting to sing English church music. That's surreal enough in itself. Then, for decades, it seemed to be about looking out at an economic/political/social landscape that made no sense to me, and having to hang on for dear life to my physical health, sanity, and sense of humor. But in the last few years, I realize that the core issue has been that I was operating from a Goddess-centered "place" in a non-Goddess-centered world. You're moving ahead side-by-side with other people, but on a completely different track that has no institutions or solid road signs. Your life is parallel to everyone else's "real", but completely different.

Take this morning. The news items ranged from the beginnings of "the recovery" from  the fires on Maui and hurricane in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, projections about good employment numbers, people buying one-time-only outfits to wear to pop concerts, and -- of course -- politics. I listen to all this and just feel lightheaded. To me, there is only one "issue", one "item". It is the health of our earth home. And my perspective isn't, how do we address it by building more stress-proof houses, or creating a "green" economy, or studying species loss. It isn't about fighting what's happening. It is simply recognizing that for centuries, virtually all our major thought processes discounted the value of the earth itself, and now, inevitably, that boomerang is coming back to hit us. Even if all eight billion of us were to start to think and act differently tomorrow, I doubt that it would change the trajectory of the transformation that is at our doorstep. And that transformation will probably include spiritual growth elements that we have no control over anyway. 

Having somehow hung on to what's "real" to me (beauty, music, art, harmony, love, and the wisdom of the divine feminine), that's my only path forward. Believing, knowing, that the eventual outcome will be centered on those qualities -- whether or not I will be around to see how it all turns out -- keeps me calmer than I might be otherwise. In this blog, I've tried not to tell people what to do (!). So I won't start now...but to those of you who have walked some variation on this path, thank you for being out there too. Surviving this long has been a gift to the world. We've been a preview of the future. I "really" mean it!

 

Vanishing Words and Concepts

I've reached the point where I seem to be writing only "if I knew I were going to die tomorrow" kind of posts, things that I've held back on or wasn't quite ready to say but need to address now. To my dear friends, don't get me wrong. I don't think I'm going to die tomorrow, and I don't want to most days (if only because I'm curious about how things are evolving!) But our outer world is in the kind of state that seems to suggest "no more putting things off"!

A few years ago, I think I touched on this, but let's go a little further. If (as I believe) we are entering a new, post-duality paradigm where love is the only real energy, there will simply be no more "evil" and no need to be saved from evil. So one word that I think will thus become mostly obsolete is "salvation" (and all its related words like "savior"). This won't be because some all-powerful ruler declares its removal from the dictionary and forbids us from saying it, but because it no longer serves a purpose. Although there will always be "contrast" (and I appreciate Abraham-Hicks' use of that word, which inspires me still!), the kinds of virulent threats from which we must be saved are unlikely to be a big part of our future world. 

For years, I think I have been operating post-salvation, along with everything else (!) I mean, I haven't thought I could be "saved" by religious leaders, politicians, teachers, a job, an amount of money, a physician or therapist, buying a car or home, buying a new washer-dryer or wardrobe, finding a spouse, or learning new skills. Yes, I always teetered on the edge of thinking a return to the U.K. might "save" me, but all these years later, I'm still an American living in the U.S., so even that lifelong notion is slowly fading away. And personally, I don't believe any manmade technologies or efforts will ultimately save us from war, climate chaos, pandemic or the other big challenges of our time. 

The only way to navigate the emerging paradigm will be to align within oneself with love, which will draw us to love outside ourselves, and also create new love. It's as simple and hard as that. The "savior" we are looking for is the connection to divine love within us. (Thus, the people who don't appear to have the ability to love will find this a harder and harder world to navigate.) I guess this is why I'm becoming increasingly upbeat. A more beautiful and loving world is what I always wanted to live in; it is something that doesn't have to be fought for, and I don't have to spend my life grasping for a savior. All I need to do is open my own floodgates and stop holding back; being my unique variation on a loving self/expressing beauty and my truth will automatically change the world for the better. (With my background, it's hard using so many "I" statements. But this blog reflects my journey and lessons learned, and each person must find their own path...) More vanishing words and concepts to come...if they haven't vanished before I get to them!

Are they the same thing?

As many of you know who have been following this blog, I have been presenting (one by one) a list of "Goddess Words" that I wrote out sometime in the mid-2000's. Also, at times, I have tried to express the "place" I seem to be at, which is post-duality, for lack of a better word. Along the way, I have been trying to figure out whether they are the same thing; whether a "Goddess world" would be, by definition, more unified and harmonic, and less conflict-driven. My assumption has been that it would be, but I don't know that I can confidently answer that question at this moment in history!

Yesterday, I read carefully through my original list, hand-written on a sheet of heavy cardboard. I was interested to see that the words (over 140 of them) focused on the qualities of a potential Goddess being, or a being who fully embodied the divine feminine.  I guess fifteen or twenty years ago, I was a little less interested in what kind of bigger culture such beings (on the spiritual or human plane!) might usher in. A number of words don't show up on the list: peace, unity, harmony, oneness, nature...Hmm...

I'm just throwing this out there for people to think about. I know that, ultimately, who I am and what I am is not political, or economic, or religious, or scientific, or societal. It's that certain things (war, violence, hatred, conflict, profit, ownership, ugliness, fear) only barely compute. My heart and brain cannot function from those places, and I watch much of what happens in the world like a bad movie. When people say, "all humans are capable of violence", for instance, I really don't think that is true. But whether I can only resonate with and envision a world in harmony because of values that are arguably feminine, or whether I would be much the same person if my spiritual path had taken me in a more traditional religious direction, I don't know.

So this is just a "check-in" to acknowledge what I don't know. (I suppose if I were truthful about that, this post would run to a million pages!!!) May your weekend bring you a measure of peace and beauty in the midst of all our uncertainties.

Summer of '23

I woke up in the night to the sound of rain, and it's a measure of how unusually dry this summer has been that it came as such a surprise. I don't think we got a whole lot in total, and given how smoky our skies have been from Canadian and Western wildfires, I dare say that the rain contained a fair amount of toxicity. I tried unsuccessfully to release that thought...but never did get back to sleep.

Locally, in addition to the smoke and the drought, this summer will be remembered as the beginning of a revamped public bus system, with new routes, route numbers and schedules, and changed or removed stops. To say that all of us dependent on the bus are somewhat anxious would be an understatement. This week is the last on the old schedule, and I am throwing in trips to places that either will no longer be accessible, or will be, in a new way. An extra block has already been added to my walk to the bus stop, which would have been a piece of cake 20 years ago, but at post-65, it's significant. Right now, it is doable, but from November through April, you have to factor snow, ice, walking uphill or downhill in the street because sidewalks aren't always shoveled, etc. Hopefully this will be balanced out by more frequent buses, and more easy access to a few key destinations. No doubt all of us -- riders, drivers, and city officials -- have our fingers crossed for a smooth transition.

Thankfully, we still have a city to take the bus around. The summer of '23 may well be remembered as the one when as a world community, we finally grasped that global warming could mean entire neighborhoods, towns and cities being burned to the ground, covered in mud, or flowing away. I don't think any of us (myself included) completely understood that reality. I must be in the minority, but I find it is making me even more Goddess/Gaia/Mother Nature/Nature-centered ...and strangely grateful to be alive to watch this transition. I am glad She is doing what She needs to do to re-balance and re-vitalize this earth plane. My heart seems to be opening up more and more, as the process progresses. That's what I will remember most about the summer of '23.

An Old Story

The story I'm telling today is only "old" in the sense that it happened almost thirty years ago, and to some extent I've been anxious about telling it. However, if it will ever be relevant, I guess it is now!

Back in, I think, 1995, I spent a summer working at Omega Institute. I had left the corporate world only five years earlier, but I already knew that, in effect, I was "up a creek without a paddle" (or whatever expression you prefer!) The world of my musical passion not having been open to me, and having gotten off the corporate train, I realized that there wasn't one area of modern American life that I enthusiastically wanted to work in. Worse, although I probably could not have articulated the reasons for it yet, I was coming to understand that my values were completely 180 degrees opposite most of those in our culture. I didn't want to profit. I didn't want to own. I didn't want to compete. I didn't want the consumerist way of life I saw around me. I knew my experience from this point forward would probably be a struggle, and I saw the opportunity to work in exchange for food and a tent platform as momentary relief.

Part of the agreement was that at some point during the summer, I would be able to attend the workshop of my choice. Now, that ended up being harder to schedule than I thought, and in fact, I didn't end up in the workshop of my choice but perhaps rather the one where I would hear something I needed to hear. At the question-and-answer time, one young participant brought up the fact that he had seen an interesting chart, perhaps in a magazine article, I don't remember. Someone had created a graph that showed the history of human inventiveness...how, early in history, we created new technologies rather slowly, and the line stayed almost horizontal for many thousands of years. But back several thousand years ago, the pace of our inventions (of tools, etc.) began to pick up, rising quite strikingly during the Industrial Revolution. Of course, in the 20th century, the rate of change rose exponentially, and was reaching the point where the line on the graph would go straight up vertically. A discussion ensued about when we thought this moment would happen, and what would happen next. The general consensus of participants in the class was that there would be some kind of breaking point, where the "line" would fold back on itself, and we would be sent backwards to an earlier phase of human technological development. 

Of course, if I was finding it difficult to engage "normally" in the world already, this discussion cemented the deal. It was hard to take most of our constructs seriously, sensing even in myself that they were not beautiful or sustainable. More recently, the environmental piece of this has come far more to the forefront than it was in the '90's...on the news this morning, someone was commenting on how toxic the smoke in Maui was because of manmade materials, and that this toxicity would extend also to the water and soil for years to come. It's astonishing that we're only now thinking about these things. How could we have even considered filling the world with such materials without any concern for their eventual disposal in the best or worst case scenarios? 

I guess the reason it's taken so long to tell the graph story is that I know that there is a lot of human fear surfacing, and I've even had to face that in myself. In me, it's mitigated somewhat by having become clear that a) there is no death in the divine mind and b) love and beauty will survive whatever comes. Last night, I heard a remarkable string quartet and pianist, and I was reminded of how musicians, artists, craftspeople, poets, and most creators of beauty have always had the key: create beauty. Nourish joy. Create only things that healthily support life on earth and the earth itself. 

D and D

OK, first "D". Dreams. For two nights in a row, I have had very surprising dreams. I'd almost go so far as to say, "shocking". The two members of my immediate family who were, in life, most incapable of being caring or spontaneously helpful came to me in dreams to offer assistance. I guess that's all I will say. For years, I have tried to figure out whether such people are new souls, who do not yet know how to act lovingly, or old souls playing a teaching role in a given incarnation. These dreams have added a little weight to the latter possibility...in any event, it has been personally healing.

Second "D". Deadheading plants with friends. Recently I visited a friend who has had a challenging summer of loss and illness. In the midst of it, she had to leave an enormous plant outside uncared for, and there were hundreds of dead blooms. So we sat on the deck, she on one side of the flowerpot and me on the other, talking and deadheading. Every ten minutes or so, she would rotate the plant about a quarter turn, and we would continue pulling off the dead flowers. I wonder if this should be "a thing". I mean, what a good way to talk about hard subjects with an old friend. It keeps your hands busy, and your eyes on the plant, but your soul and ears are engaged in a uniquely focused way. 

Lastly (I love things that come in threes, but I don't think there is a "D" in this!) -- I did a surprising thing for me, at least these days. I was rather rude to someone at, of all places, the local farmer's market. An older woman (even older than me!) looked to be jumping the queue/line, and I somewhat testily said to her, "Don't you know that there's a line?" The worst of it is, my apology (such as it was) was something that wouldn't be likely to be interpreted as such in northern Minnesota. I said, "Oops, sorry. Being a pushy New Yorker". I mean, fascinating that I still consider myself a New Yorker (although it makes some sense since, to this day, I've spent more time in New York State and City than anywhere else). But it really wasn't an apology, because I didn't say, "Sorry, that was rude of me." And I feel bad for reinforcing an overused stereotype. The universe doesn't usually give me much leeway -- my boomerangs of "not love" usually come back almost immediately. On this occasion, I'm not aware of any bad karma later in the day, perhaps because I realized so quickly that I had been snarky. Still, I'm not sure why that milieu put me on edge. Strange.

Life lessons galore, eh?

...Then Ashes

Our hot and dry conditions thankfully lessened somewhat yesterday with the arrival of a small amount of much-needed rain. Heavenly to listen to, and nourishing to grass, soil, and soul. Not enough to erase a drought, but welcome nonetheless. Thankfully, only a few small wildfires in the vicinity...so far.

But this is an interconnected world, and I "feel" the disastrous scene in Maui as if it were in my own bones. And if I had even the slightest doubt as to the seriousness of the situation facing us, it evaporated upon seeing the drone footage of the burned line of cars trying to escape the fires. As much as I understand officials trying to reassure people that things will be rebuilt, you just have to wonder, when will we all "get" that that is the problem in the first place? 

The other day, these words came to me: "Clearly I wasn't preparing for what what I thought I was preparing for." I've spoken recently of the life I thought I had wanted to live, and the life my background might have suggested I would lead. If, 40 years ago, I had gone directly from my University of London master's studies to a musical, creative life in that city, it probably would have been a far more fulfilling life...and I'm still sorry it didn't happen. But if that had become my "normal", I would now be far less prepared for the time we are entering. Having had to regroup and regroup and regroup -- and live on the margins -- has forced me to look at our world more truthfully, I suppose. I see truth breaking out all over the place, and I see it with different eyes than I would have if I had been settled and happy.

People probably wonder, what brings you joy in these times? And I guess it is the emergence of truth, of love, and of the embracing power of the divine feminine. It's the promise of new paradigms emerging out of the ashes.

 

Hot and Dry

The north country of Minnesota is hot, and extremely dry. Not as hot as much of the U.S., but unbelievably dry. Every time they call for rain, it just doesn't happen. You can see the line of green approaching on the radar, and then it just simply breaks up, a combination of the "head of the lake" effect and simple drought...not enough moisture. Yards are crisp brown, many trees are losing their leaves early, and then to add to it all, we have continued to experience regular smoke and haze. It is all so surreal, especially as we had the snowiest winter on record. I yearn to hear the sound of the rain, and its beautiful smell. Speaking of sounds, I just heard a bird singing that I would associate with the American south...I've never been there, but it just simply did not sound like a Minnesota bird. No doubt the extreme southern temperatures are sending birds all over the place, just to survive.

Late July and early August have been hard for me for decades. It is the time of year in England when there are dozens of music and other festivals. In 2017, it was this time of year that I sang with a choral group at Canterbury Cathedral. But can you believe I have never been to the Three Choirs Festival? Or the Southern Cathedrals Festival? Or the Proms, or Glyndebourne (I'm not big on opera, but I'd love to attend that festival!) It's the time of year, too, for alternative events focusing on things like Crop Circles and the Goddess. I've always imagined what it would be like to live somewhere in southern England and go from event to event, and just binge. But this has never been within the realm of the possible, for many reasons, especially money. Most of my recent trips to the UK have been in winter, a slightly cheaper time to travel, and when I could temporarily leave our bitter temperatures for slightly warmer ones.

I spoke the other week of having wanted to attend something in England, and it was last week's Goddess festival in Glastonbury. Once I realized it was happening this year, I had a frenzied day or two trying to figure out if there was any way to arrange it at such short notice. Having decided there wasn't, I tried to arrange taking part in the online event. But in the end, even that didn't work...that's all I'll say. I had to work through some shame and frustration, not to mention that sense of feeling -- not "hot and dry" but "high and dry". So exiled, so far -- for a whole lifetime -- from things that interest and captivate me. And perhaps because of the Goddess and my unconventional values, never finding a way to the financial power to "just do it" -- whatever "it" is!

But I spoke of the "dog and pony show" -- certainly this event (which is quite large) reflects someone else's take on the Goddess, not mine, and I knew it might not be right for me when I envisioned sitting on the sidelines most of the time. I would love more than anything to meet some women like me, powerfully aligned with the values of the divine feminine, but not witches or Wiccans, or pagans, per se. And could there possibly be one or two Goddess women anywhere in the world whose spiritual practice is choral evensong?!

So my Goddess festival last week cost me $1.50 round trip. I took the city bus down Park Point, and got off and walked to the beach. I had my bathing suit on under a sundress, and I took two quick swims in the brisk water. Then I wrote a prayer to the Goddess, and read it three times, basically saying, "Here I am. I am in northern Minnesota, not England, and I am yours. Help me to do what you need me to do right now, and moving forward." I had a snack, I listened to happy children and watched my favorite horizon, unusually free of approaching ships. Then I packed up again, minced across the hot sand, and waited for the next bus. I guess you could call me a satellite event!