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.