Queen for a Day

For years, I have (half-jokingly) called myself the "Queen of the New Paradigm".  I mean, I've known that my "problem" (if it is one) is that I am so far out beyond the cutting edge that functioning in our world as it is poses huge challenges. I figured that there must be a paradigm out there that I represent, and, still having a deep connection with English history and traditions, thinking of myself as a "queen" appealed. Of course, to completely mix metaphors, "that plus a dollar twenty-five will get you a cup of coffee" (or did in NYC in the 1980's!) -- if no one else sees you as the Queen, then it's arguably not of any value whether you are or not.

Well, I have decided that today, July 31, 2024, I will be "Queen for a Day". Despite the fact that I continue to be monumentally lonely, and most of the issues I have discussed recently are still pending, I have decided that it is important to set up this coming month of August with the highest possible level of "queenliness" -- positive energy, leadership, stature, poise, wisdom, beauty, and harmony. I will expect the best things to come my way, and for my influence on others to be good as well. I'm not sure what clothing in my current wardrobe will reflect my status, but at the very least, I'll try to go out into the hot streets of Duluth looking slightly less frumpy than usual!

I pick an oracle card every morning, and today's (from the Rider Tarot deck) was six of wands -- it depicts a horseback rider being celebrated by a crowd of people, and victory wreaths held high on poles. It seems appropriate -- I guess the idea being that, while not at the moment of final success or victory, you are well on your way. All those years in church rather send a pall over this card for me. I can't help but remember that the celebratory Palm Sunday procession led inexorably to the crucifixion. Yet in my own way, I also don't believe in the power of "death", so I'm not super uncomfortable with this celebration partway down the path. If nothing else, aligning to that queenly energy now -- and holding onto it -- is key, no matter what the end of August looks like! 

Sleep-Free Nights

The last two or three nights have been, almost literally, sleepless. (I'm calling it "sleep-free" here because I used "Sleepless Nights" for a previous blog post.) Duluth has finally received a dose of very hot weather, and having a small fan pointing right at me night and day isn't doing the trick. I've taken some random bus rides and gone to the mall just to feel the cool air, and that's philosophically hard for me, but when the wind isn't coming from the east off the cool lake, I guess I'll use the air conditioning being offered in public places.

There were other reasons for not sleeping. What had seemed in June like a "portal" of time to figure out a new living situation, has, of course, morphed into a real Labor Day deadline. I am truly glad I took the time -- and am in a different "place" than a few months ago -- but it's wrenching nonetheless. I also have to see the dentist, something that is challenging, and which I have always hated doing alone. 

The dark night of the soul yielded a few rich nuggets, however. It hit me that the common denominator of everything personal these days is love -- or lack of it. When my dad (I'm quite sure) told me at birth that "You're on your own, kid" -- it sent me on an extraordinary solitary journey, but also left me perpetually mystified by the notion of permanence. What would it be like to be wanted forever by one person or one situation, unconditionally? What would it be like to have someone always accompany you to appointments? (and vice versa!) I see elderly couples taking the bus to the doctor, and actually envy them. Even when it looks like neither of them will successfully walk (or walker) up to the next corner, it touches my heart...perhaps even more so knowing that both people are in pain, barely able to get around. They cherish each other enough to be there with the other. Somewhere deep in my soul, I know such cherishing, perhaps from former lifetimes, but it has yet to really surface in this one.

These first few hours of daylight brought an interesting insight into where I'll be going. I guess all my pleas to the Goddess were heard (!) Of course, I need to sit with it for a few days, and I do have just about that much time. I'll try to keep my "seas" calm, as thunder rattles around the head of the lake.

One in Every Crowd

In so many situations, I've been that "one in every crowd" -- the one who brings up an uncomfortable moral or ethical issue, or stands up for myself or another, or for the environment. Most of this has happened relatively quietly -- I haven't been an activist in crowds...for some reason that terrifies me, and feels too confrontational. But whether one-on-one or by letter or email, I have at times taken difficult or unpopular positions and been firmly rejected.

I've been thinking a lot about the environmental crisis facing us.The crisis arguably began generations ago, when we humans ceased to treat Mother Earth with genuine respect. Even now, it seems like we focus on the negative human experience of climate change and completely neglect the trauma we have routinely caused the natural world. A different route would have been for communities and societies to choose a wise person in their midst who would speak for Nature -- taking the environment into account, earlier societies might have found sustainable new inventions and procedures that would have extended Earth's viability. The primary (first consideration) thread of "earth's needs" would have become woven into the ongoing fabric of our human experience and human progress.

We didn't go that route. At this late date, it may be impossible to change the way natural events are likely to unfold in upcoming years. Still, wouldn't it be neat if there were truly "one in every crowd"? -- a representative of Nature in every governing body at the international level, the national level, and at the local level. Ditto on every school board, on every church vestry, every corporate boardroom, every academic institution. This person's job would be to calmly present environmental concerns regarding proposed courses of action, inventions, new developments or plans.They would be tasked with gently articulating what "loving the Earth and all Earth's beings" would look like in the situation under discussion. These representatives would have to be made of strong stuff, and might be completely ignored. Staying calm and non-confrontational would be part of the job description! But whether ignored or listened to, at least the voice of the Earth would be heard a little more clearly and consistently -- in word form. It might help people realize that we are all part of Nature, and that She needs to be part of nearly every planning discussion moving forward.

 

Pilgrimages

Back in February of this year (the 12th), I wrote a blog called "Pilgrimage", to which I guess you could say this is an unintentional follow-up; what I said about going on pilgrimage to places that light up with love in the present, rather than historic religious sites, definitely still holds.

The word came up for me again yesterday when I was listening to "Pipedreams". Michael Barone played Poulenc's "Litanies a la Vierge Noire", and I was transported back to either 1976 or 1977, when the Smith College Glee Club sang at Harvard's Memorial Church. I played the organ accompaniment to this complex modern choral piece -- listening to it yesterday, I could barely believe that I had reached that skill level, but I must have done. I don't remember making any mistakes (and believe me, I  remember most of the mortifying moments over the years when my playing went off track!!!) What was also surprising is that I remember virtually all of the French text, and this line stuck out: "Notre Dame, dont le pelerinage est enrichi de faveurs specials..." (Our Lady, whose pilgrimage is enriched by special favors). I am not Catholic (although I suspect I was in many previous lifetimes!), but this prayer set my heart racing. 

As I get ready to move, what a different energy there is to the concept of looking at this lifetime as a "pilgrimage" rather than a failed attempt to have a normal life like most other people! Perhaps it truly has been an act of spiritual devotion or search, at each step coming closer and closer to an understanding of the divine feminine, and of my own spiritual center. From such a perspective, getting ready to go on another leg of the pilgrimage offers at least a little more anticipation and excitement. And yes, at each stop on the pilgrimage, I have been enriched by special gifts and favors, more obviously so in England but at other points as well, lovely surprises that seemed to come, ultimately, from the Divine. 

On a hot morning with a sky pink from Western wildfire smoke, this is my prayer: may my next step bring me closer to the Great Mother.

These Times

How are those of us aligned (or aligning) with the re-emerging divine feminine to navigate these times?

It would be very easy to go for a laugh and say, "Very carefully". But there isn't much to laugh about. So...

Find something to love today. Or someone. If (as has been the case with me) you feel lonely and cannot connect with people in the old way, connect with a pet, or a bird in the tree, or a rabbit in the yard.

Don't take the time to try to "forgive" certain people or situations -- simply bless them, accept that they are what they are, and move back to aligning with love.

It took a few weeks, but I'm finally finding a great deal of relief in getting rid of my old journals, where I poured out my journey's frustration and pain. Ditto books that focused on conflict, history, or life as a challenging struggle. It's sort of a case of feeling where your energy is, and if it isn't "there" anymore -- with whatever belongings -- gently (and with gratitude) release them. If they feel old, or dark, or irrelevant, they may well be, in these times.

Love is going to be the only viable path forward. Genuine, post-duality "love is all there is" love. To whatever small or large degree we are capable of feeling and expressing it, our core work is to keep breathing and keep loving. 

   

A Single Girl

I don't know that I will ever be able to find words to express what we are seeing in front of our eyes, so at least for today, I have to fall back on expressing where my life is at. It is all I can articulate right now.

And yes, I know how completely inappropriate it is, in these times, to refer to my adult self as a "girl", although in a bizarre way it reflects how small I feel right at the moment. As so often happens, several steps forward spiritually last week were followed by a major crash this past weekend. 

Basically, what hit me was my essential aloneness. People of so many different stripes seem to be finding each other, which, of course, is the law of attraction at work, but as time goes on, I have fewer and fewer kindred spirits around me. My angst is exacerbated by the fact that a deadline for moving is approaching and I just cannot seem to look outward for a housing solution one more time. All I can do is weed out my belongings and try to become clearer and clearer about who I am, so that the right people or situation will find me...yet that little girl who has had many doors shut in her face is, even now, not fully able to trust the process.

Then came the piece de resistance--having to fill out a form and provide an "emergency contact". I realized, with horror, that I don't have one. Seriously. No one in my life is close enough to me, emotionally, that we could play that role with one another. Friends in my age group either live far away/and/or have husbands-children-grandchildren of their own to worry about or with whom to play that role. Some have major health issues, or are struggling to remain mentally alert. As simple as my life is, the fact that I have lived so differently is confusing, even scary, to my friends I think, and I can't bring myself to add to their loads. The ideal solution would be one of my youngish nieces, but because of the family situation, to approach them would be interpreted as "Aunt Liz needing help", which might send these lovely young women further out into the sunset...perhaps understandably.

Forty years or so ago, being "a single girl" didn't scare me. Heck, I wandered over to England for the first time in 1978, on my own without a care in the world. Even a few years ago, my single state coupled with trying to align with Goddess values of spontaneity and love had at least a component of adventure and magic. But at 68, my deep unacknowledged fear of aloneness seems to have surfaced big time, bigger even than having few resources and no permanent home. I don't really think my married friends are ultimately any more secure...the structures of their lives may be teetering behind the scenes. Looking out at a world that seems to share none of my values adds to the scariness of this moment. But I don't want to live completely alone as these significant events unfold. That's been my whole life, at least existentially. 

What do I do in these terrifying moments? Keep breathing. Keep breathing. Keep breathing. And keep remembering that the longer I can manage to stay alive as a representative of the Goddess, the better it will be for Her efforts to heal this struggling earth. Also to try to appreciate that, even in this, I may have been scouting uncharted territory.

Radio Waves

Whenever there are uncertainties about my future, I tend to write a bit more frequently, I guess because I just do not want to hold back. It always seems as if imminent change forces one to process even more, and because so many people are experiencing this kind of uncertainty (albeit, in many cases, for different reasons), I feel it's important to continue to be as honest as I can.

This process of skimming through my old journals before tossing them has been quite emotional. Yes, it would have been far easier just to chuck them all, unopened, but I still feel compelled to touch base with the contents (and past experiences and emotions) in case there is any material I decide to keep. It has shocked (even shamed) me how similar my topics of 2016, say, are to my topics in 2024. Have I made no progress? But then I remind myself that this isn't a world geared toward a Goddess construct. Just to stay alive has required almost superhuman energy, and it's generally been a spiral path, not a merry-go-round running in circles.

But another realization has been hitting home. Boredom. There are hundreds of weekly events taking place in Duluth, especially in the summer, but I read about them and virtually none of them are of any interest. There is copious volunteer work to be done, but I don't feel passionately drawn to any of it beyond the baking I already do. Our economy tries to lure me with opportunities to spend money (and in small ways, my activities each week are based on the need to purchase food, toiletries, and occasional books or clothing items). But ultimately, that process, too, bores me, as did a great many of my jobs over the years. Walking and hiking don't interest me. With the exception of the two years-plus that I spent in England during this lifetime (focused on church music and Herbert Howells research), I've been essentially bored most of my adult life. Now, does that mean that people or situations were essentially "boring"? No. Does that mean that these activities are wrong for others? No. I think it means that I consistently tried to do things that were right for other people, not me.

In the middle of the night, I had kind of an "aha". Now, I'm sure dozens of spiritual writers have used the metaphor of radio waves to describe the energy each individual puts out into the world. And I'm sure all eight billion of us have a different pattern. By the time I was four years old, I must have recognized that the variation on English church music I was hearing in our Schenectady Episcopal church was a relatively close match to my own inner music. It satisfied my need for extremely high spiritual expression, harmony, beauty, and clarity, and that milieu even nourished my high left-brain IQ. Later visits to England had the same result, which is why, over and over, I've tried to return there. There has never been a place or situation over here with such a close match, which must be why I've experienced so much boredom, even numbness. And even perhaps why I've searched for new experiences to alleviate the boredom.

I'm sure I'll find more to say about this. For the moment, it's not about looking outward for the right match. It's about sending out a completely consistent radio wave, day after day, and not being afraid of my own power or my own "musical"/harmonic voice. When people tune in to my "station", I want them to hear my song clearly, with none of my previous sagging, wobbling or backing off. Matching radio waves may come back to me from an unexpected place. There could be some delightful surprises, a "home" connection that I would never have envisioned. As long as it serves the Goddess, I'm open to it!

Journal Triage

Today has dawned hot and steamy, more like the rest of the country than the previous few weeks. We are also getting a fair amount of smoke from Canadian wildfires.

The latest triage challenge (and process) has been dealing with my handwritten journals. These date mostly from late 2014, covering approximately the same time frame in which I have written this blog. There are about 40 of the books, 3-5 a year. 

My first instinct was to toss them all. They are brutally heavy. They are my thoughts in their most raw form, my spiritual path as oxygen, breath-by-breath. Yet over the 30-plus years I have written journals, I have never once gone back to look at old ones. It is not looking as if some future historian will want to read them for deep insights about me, so it seems ridiculous to hold onto them.

However, what rose up next was fury. It's like, I've been silenced and swept under the carpet my whole life, and I'm once again going to speed the process along by throwing out important evidence of who I am and the process by which I got here? I'm going to throw myself out?? No way!

So I let the pile sit in sight for a few days. Then I put them in roughly chronological order. That took a few minutes, but it was all I could do Monday. Yesterday, I randomly picked up a few journals and flipped through them. Yes, they are helpful in reminding me exactly where I was at any given time (these ten years have seem Montana, England, various parts of the northeast, England again, and Duluth. Confusing). And it's interesting to see that I was almost as Goddess-centered a decade ago as I am now. The only difference is that I was also still holding tightly to the hope that I would get back into English church music in some meaningful way. This double focus caused anguish (lest I ever give the impression that I'm never angry or distraught, that is not the truth)! The journals are also filled with balancing efforts to write "lists of ten" (gratitude), record my oracle card readings, and overall, simply process the process.

What tipped the scales back to my original "instinct to toss" was this: you have noticed that generally, I make few specific blog references to people in my life. I just don't think (with the exception of some family memories and events) that it is right to talk about people without their permission. But this isn't the case in these journals. This is where I tried to make sense of specific people, institutions and events. There are huge, three-inch tall "WTF"s and similar rants. And although I did it rarely, I occasionally seem to have shared things about other people that arguably aren't mine to share -- even with a future historian. So, in the end, that is why I have started the journal-deep-sixing process. I am pulling out occasional entries (to save) and flipping through each book first, so it may take a few weeks. But I'm at peace with the overall decision.

Much easier was the decision to throw away my syllabi and materials for the classes I taught at the Community College of Vermont (Dimensions of Learning, Seminar in Educational Inquiry, Women and Art, Art History, and Two-dimensional Design). I held onto them until now in case I should teach any similar courses elsewhere, but in nearly 15 years, that hasn't happened. Right now, my litmus test seems to be the nature of my new "career" -- representing the Goddess. I'm doing my best to intuit whether specific material will be necessary in that career, and if the answer is "no", it is going out -- with a genuine word of thanks for its help in getting me to where I am now. Same with looking to the future. It's not primarily about looking for a nice place to retire, or to be with or near friends, or whether I can afford it, or whether it will be relatively safe in these times. It is all about, where am I most needed in this new role? Where can I best do this work, whatever it eventually looks like? When that becomes clear and I have pared down to the most essential materials to do the work, the path ahead will open (I believe, as per my last post, with ease!!!)

Goddess Words 30: Ease

It would be so tempting, even for me, to look out at the world and go on a complete tear, critiquing our human constructs which are currently such a (literally!) unholy mess. But Law of Attraction being what it is, I know that my passionate words would simply make the situation worse. In these times, the only path forward is to create a new, holier, calmer paradigm, and in this blog, the best way to do that is to add a new building block, a new Goddess word. 

"Ease" might seem to be a strange one for today, for me personally or for the world. And yet I think a Goddess-centered process and a Goddess-centered world would be a "place" of much more ease. When humankind, in effect, split off from alignment with the Goddess (and respect for the earth), I think we created literal and figurative "dis-ease": wars between people, boundaries between nations, illnesses within our own bodies, unhealthy changes to earth's lands and waters, etc. Of course, this created notions of "victory" and "success" and "salvation", which justified hard work, ever-harder conflicts and the need for ever-more strenuous labor and healing. All of us have been pressed hard to work harder. And somewhere on this planet, millions of people have lives of extreme toil and trauma, to make the lives of millions of other people "easier". But even for all our modern time-and-effort saving inventions, people's lives are still chaotic. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the ads where busy moms, miles from home, ask their eyeglasses or their watches whether they remembered to turn off the stove, or lock the front door. (And I also laugh to think of how completely insane this would have looked even twenty or thirty years ago!)

People might say, well, if the Goddess/Mother Nature herself is intensifying various kinds of weather events to try to balance out all of our human-created imbalances, how is she making our lives easier? People deprived of homes, livelihoods, belongings are having to start from scratch...hardly an easy process. For today, I guess my response to that is that "ease" and "easy" aren't necessarily the same thing. Thousands of years ago, if we had remained aligned with the sovereignty of Nature, our habitation of Earth would have been light, flexible, and respectful of the validity of natural events. We would have moved to safer ground when we could, and not feared death if we couldn't. We would have retained an intuitive understanding of which forms of progress were good for the earth and which were not. Even now, we could choose to look at the "damage and destruction" due to storms less in those terms, and more as Nature painting a new picture, a different picture. We could choose to accept that we don't quite know where this new paradigm is headed, and thus we might radically simplify our lives for the moment until we do understand.

On a personal level, in the old paradigm, I would be scrambling right now. Doing research, making applications, fretting big-time about what my life should be like starting in the fall. But I feel completely at ease, and will try to stay in that place. One of my early influences was Florence Scovel Shinn, and one of her affirmations was, "my ships come in over a calm sea, under grace in perfect ways." It's all about trying to stay in a calm and ease-filled inner place, no matter what the apparent outer chaos. It's about acting from a place of inner ease and calm, not reacting. It's about releasing panic and fear and distaste, and gravitating toward a path that feels loving, joyful and peaceful. Hard, hard, hard, after how we have all been trained, but I truly think it is the "easeway" of the Goddess.

Leaving the Nest

There is a robin's nest under the eaves, and several babies were born about ten days ago.  It appears that they are getting ready to practice flying and fledging, about on schedule from what I see online. I watched for a while this morning, but the most visible baby (perhaps the only one left?) was simply not having any of it. He or she was, at least as of a little while ago, stubbornly staying put. Mom and dad are hovering nearby, probably saying the equivalent of, "Hey, give it a try anyway!" but young'un is still there, flapping wings and moving about but just not ready.

I sure understand. Sounds ridiculous at my age, but as I start the process to leave what may have been one of the safest and most comfortable "nests" of my whole life, there is a little part of me digging in my heels. I am listening to my own "parental chorus" (friends whose well-intentioned ideas hold no joy or relief or love) -- it's like, for this lifetime, I have used up every single iota of energy that would support moving in an unappealing direction (jobs for the sake of minimum wage, shelters rather than homes). I've done it too many times, and it takes ten times more energy than a move that feels "right". At this moment when earth herself is ascending into a higher energy, I know that what is right for me will come silently, unexpectedly, softly. I'll feel the energies outside my nest and inside my body aligning, and that will be the moment to take a leap into the currents of air. Hopefully, not a moment sooner.

Having talked about stories the other day, the thing I am trying to remember is that there is unlikely to be another woman like me anywhere on earth, with the same unique life story. My American friends completely don't get the English church music thing and my ties to that country, and my English friends don't get how I could possibly have had such a hair-raisingly insecure and "unsuccessful" American life. It's not their fault, but people simply can't see the whole picture, or encourage me from a place where that picture is visible. To the extent to which I still deeply want community and affection, I'm reminded that I literally may never find one other person who feels exactly like "family". Somehow, I need to work up the courage to fly when I am ready to fly, and try as much as possible not to wait for approval, encouragement, or a completely secure destination, as much as those things would be preferable. At this moment in human history, the latter is particularly unlikely to exist.

Last night, between the city's fireworks and those being set off in the neighborhood, it sounded like a war zone. Today's reason for helping to birth a Goddess construct is so that I never again have to experience war's sights, sounds and smells as a form of entertainment and celebration.

Triage Trauma

This weekend, I stepped up the process of going through my things with a "fine-tooth comb". It was one thing going through books. None of the books were written by me, and it's fairly easy at this late date to differentiate between the volumes that I haven't ever read, or rarely refer to, and those that I might possibly use in the future. About half of them will go to next year's library sale, local street-side boxes, or (when too heavily notated), the trash. 

It's the personal papers, memorabilia, and journals that are traumatizing. This is the moment when I would give anything for a loving daughter, granddaughter, or younger interested friend or relative. Because it isn't so much the individual objects and collectibles. (Heck, throwing out a few letters I wrote my parents from Smith, or travel brochures from various English cathedrals, isn't hard.) It's the stories behind these objects, the remarkable, remarkable journey I've had, and the fear (yes, it is that!) that I'll die without anyone hearing these stories.

There are so many layers to this onion and I can only peel away one or two today. When I first moved to Duluth in the 1990's, I wanted to start over without the heavy baggage of my East Coast and English influences. I wanted to morph into a more normal American, and I just simply stayed silent. Out here, to this day, references to my experiences at private schools and college, University of London, Time Magazine, etc., seem to just disappear into the mist. If that was what I needed thirty years ago, I guess I have to acknowledge it isn't what I need now.

Yet even among family and some friends, my stories remain untold. When I returned to the US from England in 1981, my parents basically just asked what was next, and showed no interest in my music studies, travel, friends and singing experiences. About ten years ago I took my first trip to England in many years, and there was a family/friend get-together in Helena, supposedly to welcome me back and hear about it. Yet the only question I remember being asked that night was, "How's the food in England these days?" I mean, this was the trip where I unexpectedly sang a choral evensong service at King's College, Cambridge with that college's mixed choir, and had a number of magical experiences in connection with my research into composer Herbert Howells. Conversations came and went, wine and beer flowed, but I remained invisible.

Vignettes of my life keep popping into my head, like the time (described in my October 25, 2016 blog post, "Wheels") my rusty ten-year-old red VW Fastback and I inadvertently led the motorcade bringing Begin and Sadat to Washington to sign the Camp David Accords. I suppose no one would ever believe it, and so many of my life events. Just like I can hardly believe that months ago, I started using the name "Beryl" to identify my highest self/my spiritual ancestress (see April 15 blog), and now a powerful hurricane has been assigned that name! 

I hand-wrote a memoir back in 2018-19, but at that time I didn't own a computer and had to use library computers to start the process of recording the material to thumb drive. However, once COVID came along, I couldn't go to the library anymore and completely lost steam. Five years later, trying to become audible and visible at the moment when our culture most wants older women just to fade away, seems nearly impossible. Trying to find a meaning-and-companion-filled "forever home" when people just seem to see "old and poor" appears almost as impossible on this dreary, rainy day. Yet I ask the Goddess's help with all of it -- organizing, finding inspiration and direction about my future, perhaps younger human hands to help pack, and a clear signal of love to follow into the future. Most of all, dear Goddess, I want to tell more of my stories, and find the people who want to hear! Ultimately, I'd like to think these stories represent Her -- and the complex, important lives of all women.