Freezing

We are in the middle of a three-or-four-day stretch of really frigid temperatures. The air temperature is in the teens below zero Fahrenheit, and the wind chill today may be around -30 to -40. I remember some stretches like this back when I lived here in the 1990's, but I think this is the coldest spell since I returned in 2018. I am thankful not to absolutely have to get out for any appointments or events, and will simply leave the house once or twice a day to fine-tune the sidewalk shoveling job, or walk a block down and back. The rest of each day, I will surely spend my time thanking the Goddess (and my housemate) that I have a safe place to be, and looking out the window at dramatic lake scenes. The water is steaming like crazy...until the other day, it looked unlikely that a large percentage of Lake Superior would freeze over, but after a few nights like this, who knows? In some parts of the world, once you get to February, the worst of winter is over. Not here. Paradoxically -- just as the sun is rising in the sky -- this can be when winter really takes hold.

I just keep remembering that much of nature responds to this cold by hibernating. That this retreat action -- not racing around in cars and buses, trying to keep to human schedules and activities -- is "natural". I feel so privileged to be in a position to do that, and to realize that, in a sense, contemplation and retreat is my norm much of the year. I'll try to use this rich gift of time well, and lightly. 

Goddess Words 16: Creativity

"Creativity" came up as my card yesterday, and I realized that it's on my Goddess list but that I hadn't yet included it in this series of posts. No time like the present.

This is another topic that cannot possibly be covered in a few paragraphs. All life (on the smallest microscopic level out to the growth at the far edges of the universe) is the result of creativity. This creativity is a constant force, a musical sonata of movement, the transmutation of love into form; even form's death and rebirth are a kind of creativity. No matter how we personally define the Creator, powerful natural acts of creation are everywhere we look. 

In this lifetime, I never brought children into this world, so I don't feel I can begin to do justice to this primary form of human creativity. For the moment, I will leave this to others. So I'll touch briefly on the manifestations of creativity that I know: creating art, music, essays, crafts, food and baked goods. To the extent to which I know how to love, I think that most of my creativity has had love at its core...the love of beauty, the process of sharing love, beauty, and wisdom with friends. It's reasonably easy to see love and beauty in the great works of art, the great symphonies and choral pieces, novels, beautiful architecture, furniture, poetry, you name it. In the kinds of economies our human societies have tended to favor, heck, you have to love your creative pursuit because in too many cases, you may never earn money from the activity itself. It is, literally, an act of love. And when love is involved, it is really co-creation with the divine, the Goddess's passion flowing through an open channel.

Recently, I've been agonizing over the fact that human ingenuity and creativity also undergird the making of a host of dangerous products: guns and other weaponry, the negative uses of technology and science, the non-compostable products that are clogging waterways and landfills...Is this the same creativity? Is it as valid? For me, it isn't, if objects or creations are not made in a spirit of love. If they are made in a spirit of fear (or non-love), at the very least, I do not see these forms of creativity as originating in the Goddess. They have a whole different energy, don't they?

I am finding, as I enter what I presume is the final stage of my life, that, with the exception of this blog, I am not quite as compelled as I used to be to create physical creations. It has been a while since I have painted or done any singing, and even the cookie-baking I do as a weekly donation to a local nonprofit isn't quite as enjoyable as it was even a year ago. Is this due to my age? Does it mean that I am not sharing love or beauty with the world? I hope not. I think all of us who "do no harm" and try to elevate our spiritual energies are creating the foundations of future, more love-based societies. Such vibrations may even be visible to some extremely sensitive people. So, if we are temporarily or permanently creating less on the physical plane, I believe that our passions are "creating" on the spiritual plane. We are contributing to one of the biggest rebirths in earth's history. If we are open to the Goddess, Her love is flowing through us and communicating to people in a host of subtle ways. And a great deal of creativity may also be necessary in the simple act of living, moving forward, as we transition to higher harmonic levels.

Gosh, this hasn't done this topic justice, but it is the best I can do today! Thanks for your patience!

The Tangled Skein

Actually, my almost 50-year-old Concise Oxford Dictionary offers -- as the last definition for the noun "skein" -- "tangle" and "confusion". Interesting. So, a "tangled tangle", the definition of that being "confused mass of intertwined threads etc." You get the picture.

This weekend offered me three opportunities to try to further untangle the mess of threads that I keep thinking is fully sorted out, but evidently isn't!  And because this must be the kind of inner work other women are doing as they near the age of 70, I have to talk about it...again. The overarching question? "What passions are genuinely mine, and what are interests or paths that I took in order to adapt to the world of men? Did I even have the skills to potentially make it in the world of the English organist-choirmaster (or choral singer) if it had been open to me?" This is ground I have covered, but obviously not completely put to rest.

On Saturday, an American opera star was interviewed on public radio. I missed part of the conversation, but toward the end, he was asked, if someone has a dream that has gone off-target for any reason, what would you recommend? He said, basically, keep working hard on the relevant skills and alert to opportunities to use them. I spent a good hour trying to figure out if this would have worked in my case. I was a talented organist, hymn accompanier, and choral singer, when I gave it all up in the early 1980's. Even then, I knew I still had a chance of making it as an organist at a mid-level American church, and possibly from there I might have been better placed in the early 2000's to respond effectively to the changes starting to happen in the English church music world. But in the end, playing the organ was not my primary passion; singing choral evensong was. That dream was undercut from the get-go. The emotional toll -- the headwind -- of "you'll never be part of this world" was debilitating. I never got beyond the wave action of "Maybe this work will pay off"/"Maybe this is pointless, I give up". Connection was at my core, perhaps because of being female...I wanted to be part of a community (a "choir", metaphorically or literally), more than I wanted personal success.

Sunday morning on public radio's "Pipe Dreams", Michael Barone featured a "Renaissance man" British organist/choirmaster/composer/improvisor who, at age 60, is clearly (and deservedly) at the top of his game. Of course, he started out as a cathedral chorister, and moved up the ladder from there. For the second time in two days, I was faced with a look into a skewy mirror. The reality is that, at my peak, I never even tried organ improvisation or composed more than a few 70's era atonal college compositions. By the standards of the field, despite having a University of London MMus, I truly am a nobody. It makes me feel slightly better to know that, still, so few women have succeeded in this field. But this rather bruised and battered older American woman needs to make genuine peace with all of this now, if I am to last even a few more years!

Saturday evening, I watched about ten minutes of the Giants-Eagles game. Whether it was the hour, or the absurd number of commercials, or the fact that I had a feeling the Giants would lose (they did, spectacularly!), I didn't last long. Clearly I don't share my dad's passion for the Giants or football, but I think I am free enough now of that particular knotted thread to turn the TV on -- or off.

An oracle card I picked yesterday gave me a wonderful perspective. Basically, it said, look ahead 10,000 years and focus on what you can do to prepare for those times. It helped me realize that what matters most going forward is the woman's wisdom I nurtured as I tried to untangle the patriarchal threads (and bindings) of this era. Reflected in that mirror, I look far less unsuccessful. And it helps me to focus on "wisdom" as my primary talent going forward. It's time to lay down the old standards of achievement and validity that have left me so knotted up, if for no other reason than that they probably won't be valid too much further into the future.

Another Gaping Hole

Last month, I wrote about the "gaping holes" in the Christmas season, no longer being able to listen to Lessons and Carols services or, for that matter, most carols. My inner feminist has simply gone too far over a few lines, I guess.

When you are out exploring the post-Christian, post-capitalist, post-duality wilderness, there simply are a lot of gaping holes. I haven't written too much about the one closest to my heart, but perhaps today is the day to do that. And that is, the gaping hole that is left when you are a single woman with no children, and you have little-to-no contact with your biological family.

Forty years ago, when I was living in New York City and started therapy, I dearly wanted to talk honestly with family members. It quickly became clear that my parents were not going to go along (indeed, I was effectively banished from their house for bringing the subject up!) but I hoped my brothers would at least occasionally want to sit down over coffee or a beer or whatever, just to chat, laugh, compare notes. Kind of, "What a crazy family we have! Let's tell stories!" But that idea, too, was shot down. Until a few years ago, I regularly tried to update the suggestion, but each time, I was further isolated, pushed back. I mean, I'm wise enough to understand that the underlying issue was fear, fear of acknowledging certain truths or having anything to do with the person who is honest, but still, it hurt like crazy and it still does.

When my dad died a few years ago, I wrote to all the members of my immediate family, old-fashioned, hand-written notes of condolence. (There are only nine of us, including me, so this was doable.) I knew I had to be impeccably honest, and not spout platitudes, so I tried hard to find the best way to acknowledge how huge this transition was for all of us, and, if possible, one or two positive memories unique to the person. I apologized that I had somewhat distanced myself from family...that I had to do this for me, but how eagerly I would welcome some future honest communication with other family members. To get in touch any time, kind of thing.

Well, the only member of my family to send me a condolence note was a cousin a little further out of the circle. I didn't receive a response (in any form, notes, emails, texts, calls) to any of my eight handwritten notes. I don't say this out of "poor me!" or bitterness, but just out of deep pain. My dad was my dad, for all of it, and not to have that loss acknowledged in any way by closest family was heartbreaking. I live for the day that one of my five nieces comes to me and says, "Gee, Aunt Liz, talk to me about our family and your experience of it. I care, I want to know your perspective." Until then, I just cannot do superficial relationships that dance around the proverbial elephant in the room.

In a way, this parallels my experience of the world in general. I so rarely find individuals (and still never have found an institution) whose truths align with mine. I keep hoping...and I keep writing. I am trying to remind myself that nature abhors a vacuum, and these gaping holes in my life must already be filled with a greater, more real, form of love, even if I'm only just becoming aware of it. It's like a mist, but it is there.

 

The Giants

Having spoken recently about nonviolence, it may sound quite inconsistent to say that on Sunday, I watched the football game between the New York Giants and the Minnesota Vikings. It is inconsistent, isn't it?!

The fact is, the Giants were a big part of my childhood and my later efforts to create relationship with my dad. I suspect he "loved" the Giants more than he loved me, but not completely understanding how this could be, I thought becoming a fan would help me earn his love. Giants games were a constant thread in a changing life, a highlight of fall and early winter. But since his death, and since I have become increasingly sensitive to violence and conflict, I have watched virtually no football. 

But Sunday's game seemed almost like a Super Bowl to this New Yorker living in Minnesota. I had to watch. And after a long absence, I learned a few things.

Somewhat despite myself, I still like watching football. Not being an athlete myself, I really appreciate the physicality of sports. When a quarterback throws a ball 75 yards and it is caught by a running teammate for a touchdown, it is a beautiful thing! Even I "fist pumped" when the Giants made touchdowns or good plays. I understand why the sport is so popular with athletes and audiences. In this particular game, the teams were really well-matched, and what seemed to make the difference was that the young Giants quarterback himself ran for quite a number of yards. (New York won, and Minnesota is now out of the playoffs, making for a sad state...) It helped me remember a few good moments late in my dad's life, when I watched games with him and one of my brothers.

Here's what I didn't like. The hoopla...the pre-game commentator silliness, the teams running out on the field through smoke and pounding music, the cheerleaders, the graphics glorifying individual players. In the back of my mind, I was adding up the gazillions of dollars that this one game represented. The advertising was for all of "our" American vices -- fast food, fast cars, alcohol, hi-tech gadgetry, etc. It seemed all of a piece, a piece that ultimately I am not part of. What I do/think/write about/care about just isn't part of that world. 

I guess that I will watch this weekend as the Giants try to take that next step to the Super Bowl. I'll avoid the pre-game show, mute the advertising, and just see from game to game how I feel about the experience. If I watch any football games in future, it will be only because I am enjoying it.

Loving around the Edges

This has been a strangely intense start of the year personally, and it would appear, globally. The challenge has been to find the love around the edges of things, where I don't expect to find it.

So, back on October 11 ("The Face in the Mirror") I mentioned the fact that increasingly, when I look at my face in the mirror, I see my dad's face. I may have looked like him all along, but when my hair was short, my bangs (fringe) fell over my forehead. Now that I have such l long hair, much of the time, one or both sides are pulled back, revealing "his" forehead and features more clearly. Yikes. Talk about paradox. I'm going through kind of a rolling series of reactions to this. Initially, horror. Then an attempt at acceptance. Then appreciating for at least a few moments that I look beautiful, before seeing Dad and cringing. And back again. On Sunday, I wrote a letter to him, trying to embrace the ways that he had been a good teacher (even, if kind of "what not to be"!) Yesterday, I was on a video call, and the effect was still particularly strong. I know one thing, which is I need to reach the point where I can love myself and my face in mirrors, photographs, or video calls no matter how much I resemble him. I have to laugh too, at the larger metaphor, of how all of us women see ourselves in large part through the filter of men's opinions and men's eyes...maybe many women look at themselves and see their fathers.

Then, California. I this is really a much bigger event than we realize yet. Clearly, people losing their homes and livelihoods, cities, towns, and the state and federal governments are not going to have the luxury of considering the bigger picture, but I keep coming back to how important that will be for any of us who can. Where is the love in what is happening? Because it is there, around the edges. I truly believe that the only power in the universe is love, and that the Nature's creative urge on earth and throughout the cosmos is love. Gaia's passion to maintain earth's viability is a form of love. And the wild, uninhibitedness of what's happening is love. Seeing love in what looks like sheer chaos is hard for us humans. But my sense is that we are being asked to start doing that, and to look with wonder at these events. Literally, "I wonder what Nature is trying to tell us. I wonder what this will look like when She is done. I wonder if and how I'll fit in, in times to come." Love will certainly come in through the cracks of what has broken up.

I'm remembering that back when I was painting, I might work in oils on a landscape or still life that simply wasn't working. You go as far as you can to try to "fix" it, but when that fails, there's always the option of taking a rag dipped in turpenoid, and literally rubbing away the entire image. What's interesting is that usually, there is a faint ghost image left on the canvas, which I often found helpful to work with in my second attempt, which was usually far more successful. If Nature, the creative artist, needs to start aspects of Her creation over again, or if Earth has outgrown certain realities and is maturing and adapting in powerful ways, we cannot fight it. Or we should not. When most frightened, keep looking for love around the edges. 

The Boomerang

Even as someone fully expecting increasing "climate chaos" events, I find the situation in California particularly stunning. It's not like the state is experiencing one or two weather manifestations -- they are experiencing nearly the whole palette at one time! This is leading to massive amounts of human trauma and loss, and will continue to do as this series of storms hits them, and long after. The level of human pain there and in similar events around the world is high, and most of us are feeling it too (with the exception of those people incapable of any human feeling). Coming decades will require a focus not only on how humanity should proceed, practically, but also spiritually and psychologically. 

I can't help, though, but think of Nature's feelings, Her trauma and loss. At what moment in history did She realize that humanity was plowing ahead with its plans and inventions, with no thought for the needs of the natural world? I mean, at this point, it really doesn't matter that much when or where this took place, or under what government or religious constructs, or what political or economic systems. We don't have time to resolve that question. But there was a moment when humanity started digging mines, and filling in wetlands, and creating harsh weapons -- without a thought for the earth. From that point forward, virtually every single bit of progress (particularly in recent centuries) has been a boomerang into the future, causing pain and trauma to Mother Earth that has finally circled back and is hitting us smack in the face. 

Humans who survive the transition we are in will probably look back in horror at the fact that our earth home was not treated with more respect and honor -- simply as a resource to be exploited. Inventors of the most important and sophisticated tools never turned to Mother Earth in prayerful respect, asking, "How can we do this in such a way as to cause You least harm?" We are clever and inventive -- probably many of our major technologies could have been reasonably safe for the earth, if we had only factored it in. We might still be able to soften some of the blows if we put the earth first, immediately. Unfortunately, our institutions don't seem to be set up for that.

Goddess Words 15: Joy

Since the word "joy" came up in my last post, it is time to extend my Goddess Words list with it. Yes, it appeared on my original list. As with so many of these words, the dictionary definitions seem to be inadequate. Joy, to me, is happiness times ten. It emerges out of your heart and suffuses you from within and -- in the right situations -- goes out from there to bless others.

But first, a confession illustrating how well I was trained in duality thinking. Tuesday's post referred to how I have entered a new phase in my life, where my dedication to the values of the Goddess comes first. I no longer wish to dilute my personal power by shying away from that truth.

So in the intervening 24 hrs, I was aware of an inner warrior, gearing up in front of a rogue's gallery of men (mostly) and institutions, eager to get fighting. "I'll show them!", this childish soldier was saying. I almost wished She would show up in the world as an enormous statue or hot-air balloon, from which these rogues would run for the hills. Emotionally, there's so much satisfaction in gearing up for a fight, isn't there? I am not immune.

But several years ago, I wrote something in my personal journal which I believe to be true and from the part of me that hears "Her words"...: "I will never ask you to fight on my behalf against anyone or anything, or for anyone or anything." Creating a more Goddess-centered world will not happen in a fight. It will happen, as hard as it is to imagine when every day there seem to be more things to fight against, by being in a place of joy and love and beauty and deep truth and harmony. 

Hmm...how to define "joy" in this context? Most of the dictionary definitions seem to refer to outer realities causing joy: people, places, situations that you hoped for, coming to pass. And in a three-dimensional world, it is inevitable that "things" help us define outer and inner realities. But the kind of joy that emerges out of your heart  happens more because of inner alignment with Source. For me, it is less a left-brain, logical construct ("I feel joyful today because I always wanted to achieve such-and-such, and after a lot of work, it has finally happened") and more a right-brain one. Joy comes over you so quickly, thoroughly, and spontaneously, it may take a few seconds to look outward and figure out if there was a trigger event. You find yourself aligned with the divine -- and the joy itself is ultimately more important than whatever situations might have helped bring you to that place. 

Not surprisingly, the times in my life where I have felt overwhelming joy have mostly had to do with England and church music. On the occasions when I sang choral evensong (regularly for nine months each at Royal Holloway chapel and St. John the Divine in New York, and a handful of services at Lincoln Cathedral, St. George's Chapel, Windsor, King's College, Cambridge, and Canterbury Cathedral), I was often in such a state of bliss that I basically forgot to look at the music, which isn't a good thing with music this complex! I could feel my body vibrating like a harp string, and if I wasn't audibly buzzing, I'd be surprised! It was less a function of my brain going, "Good, I'm finally here in this situation and isn't it wonderful!" and more, my body and soul taking over and basically screaming, "You're in the right place! This is where you belong!" Since I am in that situation so seldom, I have found that other joys manifest a little less dramatically, but my body still takes over; my right hand goes up to my heart and pats it. It happens every time I see England or a cathedral on a "Masterpiece Theatre" production, or "Antiques Roadshow UK", or "Antiques Road Trip". It can happen in other beauty-filled scenarios, too, like seeing a baby, or incredible sunrise, or snowflakes on my jacket. And here's the thing about joy -- you may never have reason to communicate it to anyone. If people are near you, they will see or feel it, but you don't need to explain or argue your joy case, or teach a step-by-step process of achieving joy. You certainly will never need to bonk anyone over the head with it. It simply happens when you are fully being you, with nothing in the way of doing and experiencing the things you were put on the planet to do and experience. It is communication between you and the divine (however you picture it!), telling you who you are, and it is helping to create a more harmonious personal and collective future. 

One second of joy, then, is more powerful than any weapon. Truly.

 

A Year Beginning, a New Phase Beginning

In the spring of 1977, I sat at the lunch table with a few other Smith College seniors. We were going around, telling the others what our short and longterm life plans were (I would say, "career plans", only believe it or not, we were still not super career-oriented back then.) A few of these young women were planning to go to graduate school, one or two were going to do a few years of private school teaching before getting married and having a family, that sort of thing. When it was my turn, I said without a moment's hesitation, "I'm going to England, getting married, and having sons who will sing in the Choir of King's College, Cambridge." From a feminist standpoint, this was already a tragedy, because ten years earlier, I told people that I would become the first woman conductor of that very choir. In the intervening years, I guess it had become clear to me that English cathedral and chapel choirs would remain all-male in my lifetime, so the only way to have a significant contribution would be to be, effectively, a "choir mom". This would not turn out to be entirely true, but I didn't know that yet.

If a Ghost of Christmas Future had come to the table at that moment and told me that, not only would I never (at least until at least age 67) permanently live in England, never marry, and never have children (boys or girls); that I would spend the bulk of my life in the U.S., struggling to survive and find ways to make short visits to the UK, I think I might have walked the rather short distance to the Connecticut River and thrown myself in. My life has been so spectacularly not what I wanted or hoped for, that even now, it is mind-boggling.

However, if that same Ghost were -- in 1977 -- to tell me that in my 60's, I would write a journal available for the whole world to read, and that I would increasingly focus on women's spirituality and attempt to speak for the Goddess, I would have stared, incredulous. At that time, I truly would not have understood what that meant.

There is a degree to which, in my over 700 posts, I have still catered to that 45-year-old dream. I've been afraid of coming out, completely, as a woman dedicated to the feminine face of God. I've been afraid of ruining what little hope I might still have of fulfilling some small aspect of the original dream. I know from hard experience how irritating most men and most male institutions have found me (the few exceptions to this, I am so grateful for! They helped me open a few important doors.) Aligning 100% with a Goddess perspective as I understand it puts me permanently "beyond the pale". So at times in my writing, I have been vague, diplomatic, or used metaphors in order to leave myself a little wiggle room. That, of course, has diluted my power.

Starting today, I hope you will find that I no longer self-edit in this way. In the event that I return to England and even the world of the cathedrals and cathedral music, it will be from a place of honoring the divine feminine first, letting the "chips fall where they may". (Egad. How many overused idioms can I fit into one post?!) I have matured beyond the little girl from Schenectady trying to carve out a place in the world of men-and-boys'-choirs. And I have matured beyond the young then middle-aged woman trying to keep her feet on two parallel tracks, "unsuccessful" in both. It's a subtle difference, but I am now an older woman grounded in the Goddess, still embracing her passionate joy in all things English. I can finally see why things had to turn out as they did...

Goddess give me the courage to completely embody this third phase.