Hollowed Out

I wasn't going to write today, because along with perhaps many millions of other people, I am feeling hollowed out. It's the realization that what we are watching feels like what I have experienced in so many situations in life, being told you just aren't worth anything, that your life has no value, that your interests and talents are worthless. And no matter how hard I have tried for decades to hold the faith, to know in my heart that I have "worth", what appears to be happening before our eyes is some kind of mondo bizarro truth serum, proving that the construct we live in did not, itself, move forward through history to become more inclusive and welcoming. It simply may not be capable of it. It grew out of a hierarchical world, with certain men at the top and the rest of us below, and a rubber band keeps snapping it back into that place.

So I've been uncharacteristically down, depressed. As much as I actively see and feel the return of the Goddess to our world, I still feel almost as stymied as I did six months ago, before returning east. I cannot intuit exactly where I belong in the midst of this tumult, much less how to get there. Still not quite seeing or meeting my kindred spirits, or feeling the strong, positive certainty that usually leads me to forward movement.

Having said that, there was a really neat moment just now, symbolic of so much. If you had asked me from the ages of 6-50, I would have probably said that I "am" one of the choristers in the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, and that singing choral evensong in those choir stalls represents my home. If you had asked me from 50-65 how that had changed, I might have said that in spirit, I had evolved into more of a member of the Tallis Scholars, singing a wide range of Renaissance and newer music, but outside the actual cathedral milieu. Just now, I realize I have morphed again. "My" choir is Voces8, and the video best representing who I am now is the one where they are singing "The Saddest Noise" in Grand Teton National Park. Never mind whether they did or didn't actually tape the music on the mountainside, it's the juxtaposition that counts...gorgeous, clear, bell-like choral tones in the wilderness. Recently, someone suggested I sing music of evensong to the trees and birds, and I've done it a few times. It feels a little odd, but wonderful. My actual new dream, at 69, is to be part of an elite choir singing choral evensong outside, in the English countryside or in the ruins of an ancient abbey. I want to hear the stones and the whole landscape singing with us.

And if, in this hollowed out world of ours, this is a "worthless" dream, so be it.

PS: Near the end of the pandemic, I heard Voces8 in Duluth, and it was so unbelievably thrilling, I don't have words for it. The entire audience was masked to the hilt, but once the music started, we were free. And if I am not mistaken, they sang "The Saddest Noise".

 

So big

I had drafted a new post but let it sit for a day, as I sometimes do, and by this morning it seemed completely wrong.

Everything that's happening now is so big, and then, taken together with other big things, is even bigger still. It is all completely overwhelming, and completely and hopelessly old paradigm. Unfortunately that means the old paradigm fear-based solutions or responses are also unlikely to work. In an odd way, this is encouraging to me, as it underscores my belief that Goddess and Love energies are in the ascendant, and everything on earth not in alignment with Love is rising to the surface to dissipate into their "native nothingness" (a phrase evidently used in Christian Science (which I have never explored) and Florence Scovel Shinn (whose books I have read and resonate with). But being a witness to current events, hey, living on this planet at all at this time, will be extremely painful for all of us. There will probably be no exceptions to this. I wrote on and off for a long time about "softish landings", and for many of us, that will be the best case scenario...that by focusing on Love and the things we find beautiful and hopeful, we align with what's coming, not what is hurting us now. That may snatch some of us to relative safety from the most potentially painful crash landings.

In a time like this, it's hard to focus on what we want, and yet crucial. What do I really want? Health care, or good health? An end to war, or people actively loving one another? Money, or a rich, beautiful life? A job, or perfect self-expression for someone with my unique gifts?

And what does the Goddess want? What does Mother Earth want? That we gently release the construct that has precipitated all these crises. That we understand we are one with the most brilliant stars in the sky. That we take a Love perspective into account before we do anything new from this point on. At the very least, that this be our intention from the moment we wake up in the morning. I'm "preaching to the converted", I know. The handful of you who read this are probably already doing some of this. And we will have to watch in horror as others go on a completely opposite path. But in the end, Love will be all. Nature will do what She needs to do, and beauty will find its way into the holes and crevices of the dying paradigm. New growth will birth out of the darkness.

Rabbit, rabbit

Years ago, I picked up the habit (when I remember) of saying "rabbit, rabbit" early on the first day of the month. I didn't even really know why it was done -- I see that it's an old superstition to bring good luck. Interestingly, if I recall correctly, in my old Medicine Cards (Carson and Sams), rabbit represented "fear". So maybe we all may need good luck getting through what is ahead, the manifestation of some of our worst possible fears. 

I guess I go back to "the thing speaking for itself", and trusting our guts. Yes, we are seeing what we are seeing. It's that bad, it's that self-evident. The good thing about all diplomacy and convention being stripped away is that you see the truth.

Is what we are seeing "the way of the Goddess"? No. About its 180 degree opposite. I'm going to start new months from now on saying, "Goddess, Goddess", because we need Her now more than we need so-called luck.

Goddess Words 39: Gifting

This seems like a good moment for another Goddess word. For any new readers, I made a list about 20 years ago called "The Words of the Goddess", but did nothing further with it until a few years ago, when I decided to present them one-by-one in this blog. These are not definitive discussions! I'm just mulling over what the words mean to me now, why I associate them with the Goddess, and other tangents. I think of them as building blocks, perhaps helping lay the foundation for a future, more Goddess-centered, culture.

One of the most interesting things is the fact that I used "gift" in verb form...I gather that this is still a point of contention among wordies. But "gifting" seems to be subtly different from "giving" -- to me it indicates a higher level of thought on the part of the giver, and perhaps that the gift is more personal, more intrinsically valuable, more heartfelt.

This word is appropriate in the context of the Goddess because of the biggest gift of all -- our earth home, a gift given to us and the whole universe from a place of love. We are privileged to be living on one of the few livable planets. The air we breathe is a gift. The heating of the sun is a gift. The tides and cycles of the moon are gifts. The land and its resources are gifts. And yet we have exploited so much of it, not used it thoughtfully or thankfully. 

More and more, I think about the "energy" of things, and the energy of gifting starts in the heart of the giver. The best gifts are made by hand, baked from scratch, or bought with the specific interests and passions of the receiver in mind. These gifts are love-generated, not about a good deal. A good gift happens when the giver cares for the receiver. This is true "gifting". When you make a batch of cookies, and you ring a doorbell of a new neighbor, and they open the door, there is a warm, loving connection in both directions. I personally believe that a future economy (if there needs to be such a thing at all) will be based on giving. There is a completely different, openhearted energy to giving than there is to selling, or even bartering...

The Goddess has given us so much -- for free. Nature doesn't engage in buying and selling. If Mother Earth had asked us to "pay" for all Her riches over the years, humans would be even more hopelessly indebted to Her than we already are. 

On a day when many people will be choosing not to spend money, perhaps all of us can instead give one truly generous gift to someone in our life -- we can regift, bake, cook a stew, shovel a sidewalk, or help a senior. At the very least, we can try to be like the Great Mother, and "gift" from our hearts. 

 

 

Res ipsa loquitur, again

Back in May of 2018, I first used this wonderful Latin phrase, and in a slightly different context, but it seems to become more and more relevant with every passing day. It's just that different things are "speaking for themselves". Enough is being said in so many other places, that I guess I will continue to tell odds and ends of my own story, in the theory that my story is all I have to offer the world at this pivotal moment.

In the 1980's when I was living in Manhattan and working at Time Magazine, I studied at Parsons School of Design at night. I had hoped to work toward a degree in graphic design, so that there would be some practical application to my (post-English church music) art career, but it just wasn't in me to deal with advertising and other commercial functions. In the end, I majored in Illustration, and over the years I tried on and off to make at least a little bit of money from a variety of art and art teaching endeavors, but my heart wasn't in it. Life lesson: it usually doesn't work to replace your primary life passion with another less passionate endeavor, and do it wholeheartedly.

In a portraiture class, the teacher had noticed that I was trying too hard to draw my classmate's face in minute detail, and she asked me to take off my glasses. I am so completely nearsighted, I balked at doing this, but she insisted. Of course, even being only about four or five feet away, I could now barely see the other woman's face, just the basic shapes and major areas of darkness and light. Yet this was literally almost a new way of seeing, and helped my sketch look three-dimensional in a way it hadn't been. For the rest of the class, I used my glasses only part of the time, and the resulting drawing was more balanced and satisfying than it would have been otherwise. So I think there is another life lesson in this!

One evening after this, I decided to walk all the way from midtown down to the Village without my glasses on, to see if I could do it, and to see how it changed my experience of being in the city. It was extremely hard. I mean, I was young and not really in danger of tripping, falling on a curb, or walking into people. That part of the journey was navigable. But what was unnerving was the inability to see people's faces clearly, or their body language at a distance. I guess I had become very dependent on scanning the sidewalks to see if I was in any danger...and with that form of radar taken away from me, I was, to say the least, somewhat nervous. I couldn't tell if people looked friendly or not. Once I got to the school, I was relieved to put my glasses back on and go to class -- perhaps never considering (as I have just now as I am reliving the experience) what the day-to-day life of a completely sightless person must be. Once again, my gratitude to my eyes knows no bounds.

This is a time when we will need to rely on, and trust, all our senses. Things may be "speaking" to us in different ways, and we need to "listen".

A Patchwork Quilt

Every once in a while, I marvel that I haven't yet used a particular title for a blog post, and this is one that shocks me somewhat! It's too good not to have used. All our lives are like a patchwork quilt, but mine more than most!

I am not a traditional quilter, using fabric. When the pandemic started, I began to create small knitted "quilts", more like lap robes, to give various friends. I wanted to gift them with a measure of comfort, and in some of these situations I think it did help, and that the blankets are still being used. Some acquaintances started giving me old used balls of cotton, wool, and acrylic yarns, so most of the little blankets have been patchwork even in that regard -- materially "mutts". It's an ongoing project, since I have barely scratched the surface of my list of friends. And inconveniently, I've started to find that knitting bothers one of my shoulders...darn.

This weekend was a life patchwork, including several concerts, a movie (well, actually, five Oscar shorts), and a church service (that in the end wasn't very appealing). I am being pushed -- and pushing myself -- to do some kinds of things that aren't in my wheelhouse, simply because unless I am to end up really out in a shack in the wilderness, I need to see if I can find kindred spirits, somewhere. It's interesting that when you are so spiritual, the obvious answer would be church, and yet I've reached the point I just about cannot stand church services, or worse, the coffee hours afterwards. (I think I could stand attending choral evensong in England, closing my ears to some of the readings, but that's about it.) Just about everything rubs me the wrong way, from lingering traditional God talk, to the new thing of having hymns projected onto screens, to sitting quietly for sermons, readings or meditations, to being talked "to". And in the context of the Goddess, I really don't think that She wants worship, just our attention and respect. At the moment, the only "church" I can tolerate is communing with my hawk, looking at the sunset, writing here in my blog, and things like cooking, baking and yes, knitting. But so far, those things haven't yet gotten me any closer to a permanent home for my old age. 

What a life, and what a time. At least, looking outwards, I can see clearly where not to find kindred spirits.

Becalmed

When it has been outrageously windy for days on end, to wake up to dead calm is quite unsettling. I've grown tired of the constant noise, and yet its disappearance feels like yet another foundation being pulled out from under us. Maybe if the wind is no longer roaring, then "it" has all been a figment of our overheated imaginations and stability (however illusionary, temporary or unsustainable) has returned. It only takes a brief glance at news online to realize that this isn't the case. Still, I welcome the sudden calm.

I guess that's the opening to another story, one that I don't think I've ever told you. I am not entirely sure when this happened, perhaps 50 years ago.

I was out sailing in a small Sunfish with my youngest brother. Lake Champlain had had, for an hour or so, perfect light winds for such a sailboat, and we had gone down to Split Rock and over to Vermont, and were back near the shoreline south of Essex when the wind suddenly died. We were becalmed, a word that should be used more frequently than in a sailing context! I mean, completely becalmed. We didn't have far to go, and it might have been possible to use the tiller to push the rudder back and forth to gain forward momentum, but for a few minutes we just sat in the water. I was looking at the beautiful sunset over the New York shoreline. We may have been chatting about nothing, or looking for faint evidence of wind, as you do.

All of a sudden, some kind of live being rose out of the water, creating an enormous wave. It had a smallish head and an arc-shaped back -- it didn't leave the water entirely, but created a half-moon shaped watery image that was there one minute, gone the next. I guess I shrieked and pointed it out to my brother, who I know at least saw the telltale ripples in the water. At that moment in history, there had been relatively little scuttlebutt about "Champ" (or Champy), Lake Champlain's version of the Loch Ness monster, although I'd heard of sightings. But I had recently seen a TV special about Nessie, and I immediately assumed that a lake monster is what I had just seen. My brother pooh-poohed me, and indeed, several times over the years when I brought up the story, he insisted that I was wrong, either that he hadn't seen anything at all, or perhaps a fish. And of course, at this late date, I can't know for sure what I saw, although I'm in much better company, as in recent decades, sightings have been taken far more seriously, even by scientists.

But I think there are two bigger metaphorical points here. First of all, had it been windy, Champy and his or her "wake" would have been invisible to two young sailors paying all of their attention to the breeze, coming about, and avoiding getting too close to shore. It was the calm of the usually wavy lake that made this being's momentary leap above water visible. The second is the lifelong problem I have had, not being believed about many things I say, from the most seemingly fanciful ("I've just seen a monster") to the most profound ("I've seen the future and I know what is coming"). Yes, it started in my family, but it has continued on into most situations I have been in -- thankfully, not all. While I think it has something to do with being female, I don't think that is the whole story. Humanity has limited itself to only a few ways of knowing, and anyone who breaks free and finds other ways of seeing or sensing may be left unheard. And in that situation, it is hard to continue to believe in oneself. 

Thankfully, I still believe I saw Champy, and I still believe most of my other observations, whether the "lake" is wavy or whether it is becalmed.

Really Happening

Well, I guess it's really happening. 

The key to everything, moving forward, will be to not give in to fear. Whenever possible, not give in to, or act out of, fear. Fear is the energy of this wave, and it is just about the only language we are hearing. It may become ever-harder to represent Love, but hanging onto that core of ourselves is key. 

An interesting thing happened early this morning. I spoke the other day of having realized that my "energy" and that of my year at Royal Holloway had closely matched -- and subsequent experiences here at "home" had changed me so that more recent visits to the UK were unsettled. (Honestly, since then I may never have experienced an energetic match to my surroundings.) Well, this morning I had the first moment of acceptance in my whole life. I could feel who I was 45 years ago -- and completely appreciate her -- but also feel how very different I am now simply from the standpoint of energy. I could feel the overall energy of the life I would have led over there, and ways in which I would have been more constrained. If I made a commitment to the Goddess before this lifetime even began, to learn and grow more in Her model, I finally understand that all along, I made the best decisions I could in order to do that. I was doing my real job in a way that I couldn't have done in most other situations, even ones that might have seemed far more appealing. I think I've said this before, but the realization has grown beyond my intellect and into my bones; this lifetime was exactly what it needed to be to arrive at this moment.

I guess it takes a storm to see the truth clearly, outside and inside oneself.

This morning, hordes of grackles are swooping around, completely oblivious to manmade events and trends. I also just saw my hawk, and communed for two minutes or so, before she flew off. I take comfort in just seeing these birds.

45 Years Ago

45 years ago this coming fall, I flew to London to start my MMus at Royal Holloway College. I think I have spoken of my first sight of the college through the morning mist, and mentioned a few other first impressions. I arrived a good week or so before classes were to begin, and what has been with me these last few days are some of the other "firsts" of that stretch of time. When I realize that I didn't personally know one person, or one thing about how Britain really works, it is a marvel to me now (having become far more cautious with age) that I navigated it all so well. (I speak about several aspects of that fall in my September 3, 2015 blog, "Caving", around the 35th anniversary -- yikes!)

A few of those firsts -- taking a new friend up to Cambridge to hear the King's College choir sing choral evensong (which I had heard the very first time two years previously in my initial visit to the country). My first main meal at Holloway's dining hall, going through the "boog tube" (cafeteria line) for a heavy, meaty plateful and randomly choosing some new friends to sit with, several of whom I still stay in touch with. Walking to downtown Egham to open up an account at the local bank -- I cannot imagine now how I managed that, except that I must have carried over a bank check from my own institution. After doing that, I remember wandering down Egham high street, and stopping in a bakery to grab a sandwich, only to be stunned by their minuscule size. I had most recently been living in Alexandria, Virginia, and there was a local sandwich shop that I still remember...with enormous sandwiches on thick homemade bread. Egham's sandwich was on a small white bread roll called a "bap", split in two, spread with a little butter or oleo, with a small slice of cheddar cheese in the middle. I was much slimmer back then, but still, I realized my American appetite was in for some gastronomic challenges. Paying my bill to the college, my hand shaking so hard that I had to rip up the first check (cheque) and start all over again.

Standing outside the college chapel after morning services for almost a week, begging the choir director to allow me to audition. I eventually was accepted into the mixed men and women's choir; it turned out that there had been concerns about my American accent! Singing daily morning services, regular evensongs and services at cathedrals, would turn out to be the highlight of that year, and by extension, my life. Having new friends say they would "knock me up in the morning" (ie: knock on my door to make sure I was awake for breakfast!)  Meeting the head of the music department, and the scholar who would be my tutor, as well as other music students. Going to the Englefield Green pub some evenings with new friends, feeling far more socially and academically confident than I ever have, before or since.

Why am I thinking about this now, at a moment of things going completely "pear-shaped"? I guess it is to remind myself of how well I navigated those first few days and weeks, despite not knowing a soul before my arrival. Sure, there had been written letters back and forth to the college, but I knew no one. Something tells me that before long, I may be in another situation where I'm a complete newcomer. A post-COVID part of me is far less confident, not up to any new task. Yet if I can remember that I have started completely afresh many, many times, most strikingly, 45 years ago, I hope I will have the courage to do it again.

Wind Chill

It is hard to know what more to say about anything today. The northeast continues to be unusually cold and windy. There has been no January or February thaw to speak of, and while this ex-Duluthian isn't really suffering, it has seemed more like Duluth than I expected for my return to supposedly warmer climes. Other, more metaphoric chills are adding to the sensation no doubt. 

To riff a little more on the raptor theme, when the wind is howling, I try to imagine being a hawk in the wind. In fact, I just found some neat videos of hawks basically staying put -- hovering -- as they face the strong wind and scan the ground for prey. Is this something to emulate as we face these strong winds of change? The ability to allow this extremely strong energy to keep us afloat, not to sink us. I don't know exactly how to do that, and of course, I am not scanning the ground for prey. If anything, for signs of life and love and hope. To ride (and rise!) above what we need to rise above, and follow earthbound paths when we need to as well.

I did a neat visualization yesterday which helped me see one thing clearly. The only time in my life when my personal energy closely matched the energy of where I was in England, was the year of studying for my MMus at Royal Holloway. My serious-academic-nun-in-a-previous-lifetime-lover-of-singing-English-church-music-persona came close to exactly matching the moment and place. But after that, time spent both in the American urban wilderness, and in smaller rural American towns and cities, shifted my personal energy. I learned things that I wouldn't have learned if I had lived in the UK, and I learned them in a manner (like rowing at dawn on Superior Bay, and driving small cars around North America) that wouldn't have been possible anywhere in Europe. My wilder self was unleashed. My own soaring hawk was unleashed. Perhaps that is why my recent visits to the UK have been just sort of energetically a see-saw; I kept expecting my newer self to match older situations, and she didn't. I don't know what that means for the future, except that I can only go forward, wherever, with who I am right now. 

Raptors

I've mentioned having often seen hawks and eagles where I am living at the moment, and this week at the Farmer's Market, there was a table with a hawk, a barred owl, and a raven (to look at, not to touch, and certainly not to buy!) I've gotten rather close to our local hawk in the neighborhood, but at the market, I was only maybe four feet away. These birds (particularly the hawk and the owl) are so spectacular. I'm not sure exactly why at this late stage of my life, I seem to have developed a "thing" about them.

Actually, when I was at Pendle Hill back in 1990 (see my February 12 post), I blindly chose "eagle" from a pack of medicine cards to be my animal totem, and subsequently formed a small eagle from raku clay. After firing, it frankly ended up looking more like a chicken, but the concept of eagle inspired me to "soar" around the country. I watched for bald eagles during that car trip, and over the years, saw more of them in Duluth than I ever have elsewhere. On September 21, 2023, I wrote about the extraordinary experience of having a merlin hover in flight outside my window, and now finding that I have a companion hawk has cemented my interest for good. I have a large intimidating picture of the face of a British red kite (similar to a hawk) next to my bed.

It's interesting that I would be fond of these large raptors (the word comes from the Latin word, to snatch), whose place in the food chain is so dominant, and who, indeed, snatch smaller animals out of the water and land, for food. Clearly, I don't feel the same about people who are rapacious (same root), and steal from or kill weaker people, animals or nature. I suppose it is at least in part because such human behavior seems to me to be a choice, not a necessity. And, it is interesting that the word rapture also comes from the same root, as in being spiritually "taken" or ascendant. Bringing the circle around, I'd say there is a kind of rapture for me in seeing these raptors, whether in flight, on trees, or being shown to the public on a makeshift perch atop a folding table. I honor the sharpness of their vision, and the fact that nothing escapes them. I honor their magnificence and wish to be just as magnificent.

This Beautiful House

The other day, I said it was blustery in more ways than one, and I guess that applies today as well. Since last night, there have been wind gusts certainly up to 50 or 60 mph; I look back to childhood in this part of the world, and while I remember lots of snow, I certainly don't remember this kind of wind at any time of year, particularly in the winter. 

Something hit me very strongly, perhaps in a gust of wind. That is, that in effect, I have been a solo "Goddess community" for years now. In my recent narrative about driving around country, I said I liked driving alone, and I guess truthfully that preference extends to living, even though my financial non-functioning has made living alone in recent years impossible. It is simply that my way of being in the world has been rather unique, and it is sometimes better being alone to really solidify who you are. And the truth is, for me to wait until I find kindred spirits, to "find a Goddess-centered community", may not happen. I need to think of it at the moment as me being the community, and knowing that wherever I land in upcoming months will be the "location" of that community. It's not about rituals, or worship, or protesting against anything. It is just a case of values, and eventually, meeting and living with people who share my values. All along, it has been hard being post-duality, and now it seems nearly impossible...but every day that I'm still alive is another foundational brick, whether I write in this blog or add to my Goddess words, or not. 

What, in short, are the values of my community? That Mother Nature is the only one who "owns" the land. That as a community, we honor primarily Earth's needs, then secondarily, our own human ones. No one person has power over any other, or has the right to hurt or destroy any other person or being. (Indeed, in the larger sense, we simply do not have that power anyway.) The guiding spirit of the community is the Love of the Goddess, and the beauty, unity and harmony of that Love, and we work more in a circular, horizontal way to figure out solutions to problems. We turn to Her before making small or big personal or community changes. Love is the currency, not money. We share, and do things for the love of it, not for a paycheck. We understand we need to roll "with" the way that Earth is physically changing and what Mother Nature needs to do at this moment, not fight it. We need to pull back our human footprint, and do/use less, whenever possible, while encouraging the unique "being-ness" of each individual person. 

Some people may see this as "bluster". Some people may see this as unrealistic. But the reality that was created over so many generations is now waning. I feel pretty certain that I've already experienced the way of living that I just described, and I'd like to welcome people to the door of this beautiful house!

Well, well

This is something else. It's not only the actions that stun, it is the sheer rage and hatred behind them. There is no way for reasonably good people to get into that same head space and react or operate that way. We need to try not to fear. If there are only two things in this world, love and fear (and I would suggest that "fear" is the "fear of love"), then being people of genuine love is really the only option. Just being who we are. I learned in my family that goodness, per se, was simply not welcome. Something like that is happening now on an enormous scale. Maybe it's been under the surface all along...

If I achieve nothing else moving forward, I just want people like me to know they are not alone. I had hoped that I would find more of a physical community of kindred spirits, to be in at this time. That hasn't been the case so far, but I know that we are a string of bright lights around the world, still glowing and still beautiful. Our main job is to remain beautiful, and to try not to focus on or reference other energies. And to my female friends, do the things that women have always done for all of human history: cook, bake, make clothes, care for others, teach, nurture, honor creation, create beauty. Women's work and perspectives are needed now more than ever. The Goddess is with us, appearances notwithstanding.

Valentine's Day 2025

We aren't seeing a lot of love on this Valentine's Day. Lots of pink, lurid pink decorations and boxes of candy in the stores. Surface love.

What keeps me going is knowing that the only thing that will work going forward is real love. Genuine love. In the midst of it all, I'm constantly trying to find evidence of love, in the birds in the sky or the slightly melting ice or the pileated woodpecker's bright red patch, or in other people, like the store clerk's friendly greeting or messages from friends. It's hard to accept how many people seem to be able to function without love, and unfortunately the rest of us may not be able to make up for them. Perhaps we shouldn't try. Each of us is responsible for our own loving, and to try to continue to love through these hard times. 

Sending love to all of you today, yes, really! 

In 1990

More astonishment, more dismay, so more stories. I have a (mostly) hand-written memoir still in storage (yup, in Duluth still!) I hope this story isn't one I've told here in the blog, or at least that it's been a while.

1990 was a pivotal year. I left Time Inc. and New York, and initially went to Pendle Hill, the Quaker study center outside Philadelphia. After almost a decade in the big city, this was a healing balm, so much so that I stayed longer than I originally intended. Part of what I was doing (in the quiet, introspective space) was trying ("once and for all", which really has never happened!) to address the England/church music issue. From what I could see at that pre-internet moment, there were still no girls or women in the good British choirs, and even though this might have been a great moment to visit the UK to explore my options, rightly or wrongly, I still felt defeated and unwelcome. So over the course of several months, I tried to gear myself up to better get to know my own country. In the quiet of Quakerism's silent worship, I was living high church Anglicanism's utter religious opposite -- maybe I could do the same in a life somewhere in America.

So after a brief visit with my parents, I bought a tiny red used car, and set off to see this country. The Quakers had an informal network of potential places to stay, called "Traveling Friends", and I also had actual friends and family scattered about. My original thought had been that I would go all the way to California through the middle of the country, then circle back via the northern route. And if along the way I found a place to live that called to me, so much the better.

One of my brothers had told me that I would hate the center part of the country, that it was too flat to be interesting. And yet, oddly enough, I found that I loved the flattish farming landscapes that I started to find in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas. One striking thing was, every time I saw a barn silo on the horizon, my brain interpreted it as being an English cathedral or church tower. It was the first time I had been that far west, in a place where agriculture was all. I stayed in eastern Kansas with an older couple who were Quakers, but they attended worship meetings that were programmed, that is, more like a conventional church, with hymns and readings. They told me to go out onto their long gravel driveway and look at some of the stones. Sure enough, it was quite astonishing -- virtually every piece of rock held a fossil of either sea life or some other early form of animal life. They explained that Kansas had been long underwater...how did I not know that?

I loved driving alone. I kept an atlas in the front seat, and that's how I navigated, with quick glances down. (At this point, I don't recommend this method!) I stopped every few hours for gas and a snack or bathroom break. And I tried to arrange the next night's shelter the night before, although I think once or twice I was forced to use a motel. The oracle of the license plates started saying "Minnesota" early on...lots of Minnesotans drove by me throughout the trip. My playlist? Old-fashioned cassettes of Loreena McKennitt, Maura O'Connell, Nancy Griffith, REM, and Mary Chapin Carpenter...I stayed with a cousin in Colorado, but I had been gone at least three weeks by then, and I was already beginning to get weary of movement. I also quickly became weary of the Rockies...too imposing and overwhelming. So the idea of heading to California was scrapped. Instead, I wended my way up to Montana to see my brother, and then started back east via Montana's ghost towns (Roundup and Ingomar) and North Dakota. I was disappointed to be heading east again, but nowhere had yet grabbed me as a place to stay and set down roots. 

Silly roadside attractions like the world's largest ball of twine aren't as much fun alone, but I did stop from time to time to see them, just to say I had. I tried not to think of the extreme contrast between these tourist attractions and the ones I had seen over the years in Europe...I had made the best life decision I knew how to make under the circumstances, and for the moment, "that was that".

I would end up attending a Quaker gathering in Wisconsin where I met a woman from Duluth, Minnesota. I was embarrassed not to really know where that was, but once I looked at my map and saw that it was on Lake Superior, I became intrigued. I was invited up for a visit and headed up Interstate 35, not knowing what to expect. When I drove over the crest of the hill and looked down over the city perched at the end of an endless lake, I knew that I had, at the very least, found a place to explore. I had mixed feelings, though -- within the hour, I had also found a small Episcopal church. I pushed open the front door, and, amused to be smelling the typical Episcopal smell, I sat in one of the pews and burst into tears. The rector came and chatted with me, to make sure I was OK. She reassured me that feeling a bit disconcerted was normal after so many changes and travels, yet I found myself asking God (not the Goddess yet!) what on earth was going on. I would end up staying much of that decade in Duluth, although I came and went a few times, and always knew it was more of a spiritual "perch" than a permanent home. And I would return there before COVID for another five years or so. I am enormously grateful for how the city, my friends, and the lake held me safe at times when I needed that.

Thinking back on that trip around the country, I marvel at the fact that I was so free. I had worked hard in the corporate world for almost a decade to pay back my student loans, but, unmarried and with no children, for that short time, I had no major obligations. (Unfortunately, I didn't yet feel any guilt about the use of a gasoline-powered car to wander rather aimlessly.) A hundred years earlier such a solo trip would have been impossible; there were no cars, no interstates, and few women with any autonomy. And sixty-five years from now, it's hard to know what life will be like for anyone, male or female. It seems almost like that year was a blessed moment in time, bringing me an equally blessed measure of freedom. While it didn't bring me the life I might have preferred, it brought me rapid growth as a spiritual woman, and a perspective I might not have gained otherwise.

Goddess Words 38: Vision

Another day leaves me astonished and speechless, so all I can think of to do is to set another building block in place. For whatever it is worth, this is my 950th post. In a sense, all of them have contained "Goddess words", or at least the best I could do being the human I am in this time. Goddess willing, I will reach my thousandth post within a few months. Who would have thunk?

Vision. What did I have in mind twenty years ago when I added "vision" to my list? I am not sure, so I can only riff on what it means to me now.

One gift of the Goddess is literal vision, the capacity to see through one's own physical eyes the real physical view before them. As someone who has been very, very nearsighted for this entire lifetime, the fact that my vision has been correctable to nearly 20-20 has always been a really amazing gift. From reading music to reading books to driving a car to sailing a boat to knowing a place forever as soon as I have seen it once, these beautiful eyes of mine have supported my growth, travel, learning, and, at times, fun. They have supported creating and experiencing beauty. Half a century ago, my prescription required thick "soda bottle" lenses, and that was to some extent demoralizing...forget about appearing beautiful, anyway! But as time and technology went on, the dreaded plastics made possible more attractive, thin-lensed options. Of all the plastic items I'm grateful for, which influence my life for the better every day, my glasses and frames are at the top of the list.

Vision can, of course, be metaphoric. Being clear-seeing can require a lot of courage. Our current moment is a case in point. When your physical eyes work in tandem with your values, and you are willing to see behind and beyond the obvious, you may be on the road to being visionary, to seeing patterns that suggest how the future may pan out. Indeed, the moment may come when you see everything from your visionary core. Things may only become comprehensible from the lens (so to speak) of your spiritual perspective. I think this is about where I operate now, but even that is not, on the cosmic level, "20-20", or anywhere near. So...

What is 20-20 Goddess vision? I can't get myself into Her eyes, except to say that they see so very much more than we do. Her vision is undoubtedly not just "visual"/eye-based, but also intuitive, sensing, feeling, and growth-based. It's more of an energetic thing. On some level or another, the current state of the world may not even be visible to Her in the human sense of the word, since we have left Her original "vision" so far behind. It may be that she is relying much more on feeling the energy we are emitting because what we are manifesting is visually so painful. Yet even those feelings must be causing Her excruciating pain. 

I suspect that She has a very clear vision of how to get earth through this transition, and that Love is the main ingredient. Yikes, I am getting boring, but truly, I'm sure that this is the only path forward as we head into the Age of Aquarius. We aren't called to love things or people we don't love. But what we are called to do, in the worst of the chaos, is to remember what true love is, and what it feels like at the core of one's being. No matter what news you are confronted with early in the day, align with the vision and heart of the Goddess, yourself, your friends, and nature. Stay as calm and strong as you can. 

Witness

There are so many tragic facets to this time we are in. One of the most, for me, is knowing without a doubt that within months, many of the people who were cheering loudly a few months ago will be in a state of horror and shock. They didn't understand the true nature of what they were unleashing...now they must be beginning to. It's a hard way to learn a lesson...but it is a lesson humanity could and should have learned many centuries ago. When the divine feminine is not respected, when the earth and human women aren't respected and honored, life is too lopsided and there can be no sustainability. There can be no happy ending. It's like a car racing down a highway with flat tires on the left side. Sure, a driver may be able to keep the vehicle going for a while on the rims, but eventually there will be a spectacular crash.

The hardest thing I am finding right now is experiencing the massed emotions of hatred, fear, and contempt so very directly. I've always been sensitive to the negativity at the core of most of our institutions and structures, but enough buffers were in place to prevent it from being obvious. Now, the buffers are falling away, and all the outmoded evil has risen to the surface, to eventually dissolve. Being "just a witness" isn't really an option, because sabers of loathing are being thrust into all of us left and right, at every turn. All of our lives will be changed -- there is no safe high bluff from which to watch the so-called battle. In fact, those who assume they are safe, may be the least so.

We all have different roles to play at this time. We all made different agreements on the spiritual plane before coming into this lifetime, when such a huge earth transition would be taking place. One thing I know I need to do is try not to judge the validity of others' responses...I need to put all my energy into maintaining my own hold on Love. Just that "little" task is hard, hard, hard. I've had a cold this week which I think is unshed tears, but I don't seem to be able to cry. I guess it may be because I'm ultimately relieved that this Transition-to-All-Love has clearly started, and that I am still here for one more day, to witness it.

Another Story

I continue to be speechless, so I'll tell another story.

This is a story I briefly referenced back on 10/29/15, but that's almost a decade ago, so I'll tell it again now, and at the end see if there is any relevance to today, a blustery one in all senses of the word.

Back in 1982, a year after earning my MMus degree in London, the degree ceremony (where we would be handed our diplomas) was scheduled for December, and I arranged for time off from my job to go to it. (Originally, part of the draw was that Princess Anne was to preside...I have to be truthful and say I looked forward to at least this brief contact with the royal family!) As it would turn out, the princess was not in attendance. As it also turned out, it would be the only time in my life that I wore the academic gown and hood (that colorful fabric "thingy" hanging down your back) appropriate to my degree. Royal Albert Hall was packed, I had no proud family in attendance, but it was still thrilling and perhaps in ways that I didn't understand yet, the moment representing the highest "old paradigm" goal I would ever achieve.

That evening or the next, I was invited to a celebratory party in a part of London I didn't know very well. I made it to the correct tube stop, then started to walk downhill in what I hoped was the right direction. Out of the blue, I realized that there was a tiny little old lady walking with me on my right side! We greeted one another, and we started to chit chat. I must have told her why I was in London, and where I was from in America. She started to tell me a little about her own life, including the fact that she was very creative, loved to cook and do needlework and paint. I remember very clearly telling her that she reminded me of my own grandmother, who was very dear to me. 

When we reached the bottom of this long downhill road, it ended at a t-junction. I told her that I was going to have to turn right -- could I help her cross, or get to where she was going? She basically said, "No thank you dearie, but it's been lovely talking with you", and started to walk left. I glanced away for a second, but then looked back toward her to make sure she was all right, and she was gone! She had completely disappeared. I looked in every possible direction; no old lady. Within days, I would learn that my grandmother had died, and not only that, she had died that night around the time that I met this old lady. Did I immediately assume that this woman was my grandmother coming to "say goodbye" to me? Yes! Do I still believe it? Yes!

What does this have to do with today's exceptional moment? Superficially, very little. But the kinds of stories I want to pass along have to do with kindness, the Great Mother, and miracles of a positive nature. This might be a good time for all of us to remember our grandmothers, and listen for their messages to us, in our memories, in our hearts, in the trees, in the clouds.  And even I need to be reminded that there are (and will be) meanings behind the meanings, behind the meanings. 

 

Sleet

On this sleety upstate day, I could make a joke about skating on thin ice. I could preach or lecture or predict. I could say, I've seen this coming for ages. But instead, I think I will (with the help of the Goddess) tell a random story about my life. Something you may not have heard before, anyway.

When I was 14, I went on a school trip to France. I had been taking French since fourth grade (yes, the Schenectady public schools began foreign language instruction at that age back then, although by the time my brothers came along, it was no longer the case). I have vivid memories of meeting at my private girls' school near Albany. All of us were in (non-uniform, for once!) skirts, blouses and light spring coats with clunky-heeled 1970-era shoes, and we had been provided with TWA carry-on bags. Our teacher (who was French by birth) and her sister (who taught at another area private school) were our only chaperones, and we must have made our way to JFK by bus. I don't have memories of our flight, although as it was my first time on an airplane, I must have been both excited and a little scared. When we reached Paris, we were met by a small touring bus driven by a friendly guy who spoke little English. 

Our first stop was to have lunch at a cafe west of Paris, and then we headed to Mont St. Michel, which is a stunning small, steeply-pointed island topped by a thousand-year-old abbey. I presume that the moment I saw this, "I knew I wasn't in Schenectady any more"! Oddly enough (considering my interest in cathedrals and cathedral music), I have no real memory of the abbey or the architecture, except for the hard uphill climb on foot.

From there, our tour took us south, through the area of France where our teachers had grown up (Rennes, Nantes, La Rochelle). In fact, at their small actual "hometown", the entire population came out to greet us; an enormous, formal dinner was held complete with speeches in English and French, and bottles of wine on the table, which we were allowed to drink from.

From La Rochelle, we turned north and east towards the chateaux in the Loire Valley. The ones I remember are Blois, Chenonceau and Chambord. What can I say? I loved them. While I can no longer bring myself to respect or appreciate the ways in which people accumulated the wealth to make such extravagance possible, coming from relatively dreary upstate New York, it was a thrill to explore these palatial homes and their formal gardens in early spring. There would be a later connection too -- Royal Holloway's red brick Founder's building was modeled after Chambord. My second floor "dorm" room looked out on turrets, chimneys and pillars that, in effect, I had "seen" a decade earlier at Chambord. And my master's thesis discussed (and transcribed) a medieval piece of chant in Aquitanian neumes (musical notation). In 1970, I don't think we went as far south as Aquitaine, but my early experience in France helped me to feel enough at home so that I could do some of my MMus research at Paris's Bibliotheque Nationale.

We visited Versailles too, of course. It is so over-the-top gaudy that I don't remember being as impressed with it. Then the cathedrals of Chartres and Notre Dame...at that point, I hadn't yet visited an English cathedral, so I couldn't compare except that the music I heard around the edges (choirs practicing, etc.) was distinctly French, so I felt a little out of my element. I wish I had seen these cathedrals again recently...when Notre Dame burned, I felt that I might not want to see its restored version, but if I get back to Europe, perhaps I will. If...

Why this story? Why now? Well, for one thing, visiting Europe so early in life was priceless. Seeing any other country and grasping that people live differently all over the world, was priceless. Using my foreign language skills was priceless. All our lives, and travels, and educations, matter. A horrible, ill-advised curtain is being pulled down and it's possible that soon we will all be discouraged from not only travel, but the "journey" of education and new knowledge. I feel so speechless about current trends -- when words fail me, I'll continue to write of and appreciate some of the blessings I have experienced. I'll be a witness. Suddenly it is feeling like a bygone era. 

Speechless

Somebody who loves writing rarely feels "speechless", but over the last 24 hours, I cannot find words to express anything that we are seeing in front of our eyes. 

Adding to the surreality of it all is the fact that I was away for two days with virtually no access to news, so there was the sense of having perhaps fallen asleep for a long period of time, like Rip van Winkle, and having woken up in a completely strange new world, reflecting values so far from my own that...well, I was about to say "I won't be able to function", but that has been the case for decades, so what else is new? Still, we find ourselves in a whole higher realm of non-sense, that is for sure.

What will keep me going is the fact that there is only one path forward no matter what -- Love. Genuine love. I suppose that I am more convinced of that now than ever.

The other night, I woke up at 3 AM, and decided to read. Believe it or not, I am for the first time reading Women Who Run With the Wolves (Clarissa Pinkola Estes). "Believe it or not" number two? I wasn't two pages further in the book when my ears picked up what initially sounded like distant music, but I realized was the sound of coyotes howling out near the frigid woods. (I just learned that coyotes are also called "brush wolves".) I don't believe in coincidences, and I guess this is the message I take from it: the powers -- superpowers -- that I claimed the other day (loving, having intuition, feeding, nurturing, giving birth, creating music, art and harmony, etc.) are women's "wild" inheritance. Just by being ourselves right now, we are wild. We are wild and authentic, and valid in a way we aren't seeing in the "powers-that-be". I need to be what I want to see.

Power Saturday

What a bizarre, tragic few days in regards to air travel. What a strange, strange time we are in.

One of the thoughts that got me up in the middle of the night is the nature of human power. Growing up in our culture, even I haven't always questioned the predominantly male notions of power (or having power) that, yes, "power" the world. This is largely power over other people, power over the planet, its environment and animals, financial power, power over women and children, acquisition of land and money, the power to hurt, use weapons, or declare war...well, the list goes on. We are seeing it in almost every arena. I've never been able to function well in this equation, and for a long time, I just looked at it as, "this is who I am not". I thus tended to see myself as "having no power". Certainly, that is how it felt, but that self-talk was utterly self-damaging. As you know, I've slowly but surely started to write about the Goddess words that came to me twenty years ago or so, words that express the qualities not only of the Goddess, but of all women. We women do have power, but what is it, really? In the night, I tried to define it more succinctly. I tried hard to feel it. If my woman power is not the above, what is it?

It is my ability to love. It is my ability to give birth, whether to children or ideas or art or music or other expression. It is my ability to feed. It is my ability to feel and empathize. It is my ability to heal. It is my intuition. It is my power of spontaneous understanding. It is my creative problem-solving. It is my connection to Nature. It is my understanding of what Nature is currently going through. It is my desire for harmony and peace. It is my ability to see clearly -- what has been, what is, and what is coming. It is my ability to express these things in words, as best I can.

It is still hard to make the u-turn into feeling powerful, but there is no question that these things are valid forms of power, the power of Love. If the world hasn't seen them as such, perhaps it will now start to, as non-Love stops working. 

On a Friday

There is one disadvantage to writing these posts very early in the day, generally before I have checked, or been exposed to, the news. I cringed yesterday when I realized I had made a comment about flowing with the stream of love not many hours after the horrible crash on the Potomac. I gave passing thought to going back and editing it out, except in the end I decided that this phrase is a pretty accurate reflection of what I think happens when we die. I hope these people are now in a place of all-Love. It is a "place" that definitely exists on the other side of the dotted line we call death...sometimes, even on this side.

My first post-college job was with Time-Life Books in Alexandria, Virginia, so I worked (and for about a year, lived) there, close to that airport and under its flight path. Even then, nearly fifty years ago, it was a little troubling to imagine how the facility had come to be placed there. I tried not to spend much time worrying, but I guess all over the world, people close to airports know, from the constant noise and rumblings, that their situation has unique dangers. I guess it is a blessing of sorts that this crash happened over the water...still, that's no consolation for many families and communities.

Later in the day, trying to focus in on love again, I did something I don't do too often, listened to BBC Radio 3's Choral Evensong. I don't do this as often as people might assume I do, simply because for decades, I found it too painful/bittersweet to listen to recordings or (more recently) online recordings or live events. I just simply wanted to be over there in the cathedral, singing in the choir or standing behind the choir -- living on this side of the Atlantic has often been almost literally soul-destroying. But when I am in a good frame of mind, I can tune in.

Yesterday was a revelation, because most of the main music in the service was written by women composers, none of whom I had ever heard of! It was akin to a moment late in the 1990's, when I was watching PBS and saw a promo for an upcoming Christmas special. There was video of one of the English cathedral choirs, with young girls singing. I was flabbergasted. Turned out that by then, several major cathedrals had developed programs for girl choristers, and I had missed this whole seismic change. Yesterday I felt the same, sort of left out of the loop. I'm not a composer, and this would never have been my "lane" of the highway. Even so, the mix of emotions was profound -- joy, jealousy, excitement -- even disappointment that the music list didn't include any of my old male favorites like Parry or Howells. Music by one of these new composers drew me in enough that I ended up searching for and listening to a number of her other a cappella choral pieces. It was like the music of angels, appropriate for the day.

Thursday ended, watching an episode of "All Rise", a short-running but excellent TV series based at the courthouse in LA. This episode was evidently made early in the COVID pandemic, and was literally pieced together from the characters' video and phone streams. It was an experience of the pandemic completely and utterly different from my own, where I was hunkered down with friends, owned no computer, the library was closed, and basically I only went out about once a week, heavily masked and sanitized, to go to the post office and supermarket. I called and texted friends from time to time, and tried to be the best roommate/dog walker/chef/friend I could be. I read a lot of books. These active fictional young people trying to keep their career worlds going must represent the way many people's lives were that first year...inspiring and also overwhelming, even in retrospect.

On a Friday...looking forward to a day that may or may not be influenced by inclement weather. May we all be safe. May I bring as much love to it as possible...

An All-Love Day

I said yesterday that yesterday would be an all-love day...that I would do everything in my power to see, feel, and hear love. Not too surprisingly, this didn't end up being completely feasible, although I did my best (!)

In Duluth, it was relatively rare to see semi-trucks. Where I lived, and in my normal round of city bus trips to supermarkets or on errands, they constituted a small percentage of the traffic around town. But here in the Capital District, they seem to be omnipresent almost everywhere. Duluth was the "end of the road" (literally, the interstate ends there!) whereas this part of the world is the hub of a wheel of highways -- toward Boston, New York, Binghamton, Buffalo, and Montreal. So trucks large and small are everywhere. I feel kind of cut off from the kind of consumerism that drives such traffic, and then, in addition, I sense (rightly or wrongly) that the truck drivers and I are coming from polar opposite ways of thinking about most things. Yesterday, the wind was wailing up to 60 mph, at times pushing heavy snow squalls. It would have been a snap to focus on the easier things to love -- the birds, the small animal life, the powerful sound of the wind, or classical music on my radio. But I found that, even though I couldn't exactly feel "loving" toward trucks or their drivers, I could feel compassion. These people are working hard in exceptionally difficult weather conditions, and I genuinely hope that they reach their destinations safely. Most days, it's even harder to "love" in the context of larger world and national events. So much is energetically the opposite of love that I just can't seem to reach a place of compassion. The best I can do is a form of acceptance, that certain people are what they are, given the skills and inclinations they were born with, and the roles they are destined to play at this moment in history. 

One thing I am finding, is that I LOVE writing here almost every day (four or five days a week rather than one or two) so I'll keep doing this for the foreseeable future, whenever possible. Flowing with the stream of love...

Italics

Dear ones:

As one astonishing, jaw-dropping event follows another, please remember this. There are other ways of creating, above and beyond the fear-based ways that have been used traditionally and the even more fearful solutions that may be offered in upcoming weeks. 

When Love is the currency, there are ways of feeding, housing, healing, supporting, educating, and otherwise embracing ourselves, the earth, and our families and communities. But it will look very different than anything we have seen before.Try to see through the eyes of Love today, and imagine what Love would look like in the errand you run, and the food you cook, and at your job, and getting a book out of the library, and driving on the highway. Feel what Love feels like, and try to get used to the feeling. Hear what Love sounds like, and listen for its unique melody.

A day of snow, a five-inch or so blanket covering everything. Birds scrambling and scraping their claws to wipe the snow off their bird seed, noisy plows going by, semi trucks honking their horns, crows cawing. Very strong winds due soon, which may create white-out conditions. Challenge for today, can I feel love for loud vehicles? Can I wish for safety for the drivers? Can I love the wind when I'm on a walk and feel it coming through my coat? Can Love be my reality for a full day?

Plastic

So many things about our modern life are an affront to the Goddess and Her creation, our earth home, that it can be impossible to know where to start. But the issue that keeps sending me into a swoon is the ever-increasing volume of plastic waste. I've written about this a few times...I'm not sure if what I say will add anything new, but here goes.

Last night as I was making supper, I fixated for a few minutes on the little red plastic top to a small glass bottle of hot sauce. Many times recently in grocery stores or pharmacies, I have started to feel faint or woozy looking at aisle after aisle of plastic, but this was the first time a tiny piece of the stuff made me feel sick outside a store. Because it isn't just the large plastic items that are dangerous to our human health and that of the earth, it is all the tiny ones...the bottle caps, the little pull-tabs on the top of olive oils and such, the transparent plastic covers under the main cover of tubs of butter. The pens, pen tops, tooth brushes, tooth paste tube tops, dental floss containers, tape dispensers...hundreds upon hundreds of common food, toiletry, and household items and itty-bitty bits of packaging that cannot be recycled. (This doesn't even address the issue of how much of the plastic that we conscientiously place in recycling bins is actually being recycled.)

While I am a relatively low consumer of plastic overall, I'm sure most days I must throw out between ten and twenty of these small items, the kinds of things that we'd all like to think are too small to matter. (I accept my responsibility for this, even though I don't know how I can pare back a whole lot further on any aspect of my life and still be on this planet.) But think about it...there are 8 billion people on earth. Even if the whole world were as non-consumerist as I am, this would mean somewhere between 80 and 160 billion pieces of plastic are being disposed of daily. Daily! And I assume that worldwide, many people have occasion to throw out more like fifty or one hundred pieces of plastic. The owners and directors of companies that produce and promote the widespread use of these items have a whole different level of responsibility for this mess. It would easily be doable to search for more precise statistics, but for today, it's enough for me just to say, we have clogged Mother Earth's arteries with this noxious material and in a bizarre parallel we are now clogging our own arteries as well, as plastic makes its inevitable way into everything we consume. 

I continue to feel strongly that Nature is ultimately stronger than plastic. However, on the other side of the major reboot that must be coming, I doubt that humans will ever again consider using the material. We may finally understand, after the fact, how dangerous and foolhardy it was, that all these "conveniences" simply weren't worth it.

More Hawks

In the nearly a week since I wrote about my encounter with a hawk, I have seen that hawk (or its friends and family) nearly every day. I'm pretty sure it is a red-tailed hawk. For the sake of consistency, and because it feels right, I'm going think of it as a single bird, and to refer to her as female. Spiritually, hawks represent messages from the divine plane, power, and foresight...it's possible that last week's elementary efforts (by me) to communicate with her have led her to be more visible around here -- or perhaps it is complete coincidence. I'm thinking of her as "my hawk", for the moment, anyway. In my situation, adding a pet to my life has never been an option, so the longing for animal companionship and guidance needs to be filled in other ways...

Has it only been a week? Really? The million-ton week, falling like a boulder into the lake sending shock waves in all directions. None of us will be left untouched, no matter how spiritually high we fly...the important thing will be to keep our angel wings on, no matter what. To continue to represent the Love of the Goddess, no matter what. And to thank the hawks and squirrels and deer and woodpeckers that wander into our lives, reminding us that these beings are literally our sisters and brothers. 

Mom

I don't know whether outward events are helping me look at (and understand) specific events in my life, or vice versa, but speaking yesterday about my Dad's inability to react to or discuss important topics brought my mother into sharp focus. If it was devastating to me to have a father who could not communicate and had no heart, late yesterday the enormity hit me of how this affected my mother -- married to him day-in-and-day-out for nearly half-a-century. If I have touched on some of this before, please forgive me.

Throughout my childhood (and until all three of us left home), my parents had a habit of closing the kitchen door during their "cocktail hour", from 5 to 6 pm. We kids had to play, or do homework, or (me) practice piano, or whatever, until the door opened at 6 and it was dinner time. It provided structure, that's for sure, and most of the time I had no awareness of tensions between them. By about my junior year, though, I became aware of my mom desperately posing questions, and dead silence on his part. I wasn't a fly on the wall, only hearing muffled voices through the door, and I can only look back now from my own experience with him to draw some conclusions. I suspect that when the topic of their discussion was something relatively impersonal -- the news (no shortage of that during the '60's and early-to-mid '70's!), events at church, their children's good grades, local politics -- their nightly check-ins were reasonably civil. But it was probably when my mother asked the sorts of personal questions that a true partner would have deserved an answer to that Dad clammed up. "How can we afford that?" "Have you gone into debt?" "Why are you borrowing money from your own teenage children?" Later, after he left the corporate world, I had gone off to college, and they were living in the Adirondacks, I assume her anguish must have been nearly constant: "Why aren't you looking for work?" "Why are we living in a barely winterized cabin?" "When I drove Liz back to college, they almost kicked us off the campus. Why didn't you tell me that you hadn't paid her tuition?" "Why don't you care enough to provide for us?" I think they had only one car during this time, and were miles from stores or conveniences. In a different era, she would have been the one working and functioning in the world -- she would have taken the car and driven an hour or so every day each way, leaving him reading his newspaper in the wilderness. But I grasp now that she was afraid of him. She was a woman of her era, and couldn't take over his provider role for him, even though he wasn't providing. After a few teary questions, she, too, would clam up, for her own safety.

When I would come back for visits, I was so confused by their reality, I didn't know what to do. I'd "lend" Dad what small funds I had earned at a campus job or my first job out in the world, and try to be helpful in other ways, but Mom was (of course) a good actor. This was some kind of bizarre new normal going on, and at times they both seemed so much like they always had that trying to understand not only went nowhere, but sometimes seemed unnecessary. Mom coped in the way many women of that era did -- she smoked heavily (which is what killed her in her 70's), took to drinking almost as much as my dad, and disappeared into their room to read early in the evening. I'd go and sit on the edge of her bed and try to talk with her, but she, too, was silent in the face of hard questions. She couldn't explain what was going on, why the two of them (not hardy outdoors people) were living in the woods with barely a roof over their heads. During that stretch, she was crucial to the survival of their tiny Episcopal church as a lay reader and leader between rectors, but I think overall, it was a dozen years of hell. When she finally inherited enough money for them to move to a small college town, she returned to "life", getting involved in the local Episcopal church, working in an art shop, helping in community projects, taking alumni college classes. Those hard years had disappeared into the past...

Or had they? Of course, probably not. Her life's meaning had come mostly from outside her, not from within or from her relationship with my dad. Even toward the end, she was unable to talk with me about the black hole she had had to operate around, and to my shame, I still at that point didn't understand it enough to sympathize or communicate effectively. Overall, she preferred the company of my brothers, who presumably never probed, and their children...my introspection and sensitivity had always been, well, awkward, not welcome. And yet...with me around, she didn't die as quickly as expected in 1999. The eighteen month-or-so reprieve was a blessing for both of us, time that wasn't as "deep" as I might have preferred, but it was broad. For the first time, both of us were in a close relationship that became comfortable and reasonably honest. Warm. We were a team in trying to keep her going. I can't explain it exactly. All I can say is that I am eternally grateful that I chose to be with her during that time, to have that closer connection. It may have been the start of my genuinely understanding the energy of the Great Mother, within myself and her. I love you, Mom. If I didn't tell you often enough when you were alive, please know it to be true, still.

Bankruptcy

A number of years ago, I went through bankruptcy. (I guess that's all I'll say about that at the moment.) The process itself was grueling, but what weighed on me heaviest through that year or so was what might happen when I told my Dad. Never mind that I was pretty sure that he had also gone through it himself, right before I graduated from high school. When we left Schenectady for summer in the Adirondacks, it turned out to be "for good" -- a huge moving van rolled into our driveway, and a day or so later most of the family belongings were stored in a large north country closet, and our summer proceeded as normal, even though nothing was "normal", nor would it ever be. (I don't think I have ever recovered from either bankruptcy.)

In any case, I never told my Dad or brothers about my bankruptcy as it was unfolding, and rather few of my friends. It wasn't shame, really, just the need to go through it on my own terms without other people's energy dragging me down. In a lifetime of loneliness, though, this was a low point. Trying to keep my own spirits up (even with a considerable amount of support from my spirit guides, no doubt!) was hard, hard work.

But several years later when I went out west, I finally built up the nerve to tell my father what had happened. Even though he had always been emotionally distant, I guess my worst fear was that this would be the moment when emotion would break through the surface, and he would yell and scream and call me an irresponsible idiot. (On the other side of the coin, I longed for him to finally apologize for all the financial upheaval 35 years earlier. I longed for him to hug me and say, "Oh honey, I'm so sorry you had to go through such a thing!") 

After bracing myself, I told him in the simplest terms what had happened. There was no reaction whatsoever in his blank eyes, and they returned down to his newspaper or book, and that was that. No response whatsoever. Nothing. And just about the same thing happened with one of my brothers. I'm not sure I ever bothered to tell my other brother, rightly or wrongly believing that another blank stare was in the offing.

It is almost impossible to believe that it would take several more years (including the bag-of-stale-candy event that I spoke of in both September of 2018 and January of 2022) before I cut off relations with my father almost completely, having finally come to understand his utter incapacity to feel human feelings. Despite his beatific smile and his ability to navigate some larger social situations, there was nothing inside. I had spent 60 years believing this to be impossible, and I kept trying desperately to crack open his heart. How could a father not love his children? Not love a beautiful, intelligent, loving daughter? Not try to protect them, make their life easier, or express affection, even in adulthood? This went against almost everything I could possibly imagine about being a parent, even though (in this lifetime) I hadn't been one. 

There are different kinds of bankruptcy, but complete emptiness of the heart may be the most devastating to everyone in these people's lives. When my dad gifted me with a ten-year old bag of stale candy, my eyes were finally, excruciatingly opened to reality. The one person in my world whose job it was to love me, didn't, never had, and never could have. 

Goddess Words 37: Aquarius

Back on January 12 of 2017, I wrote a post about Aquarius which said most of what I might have been tempted to say today. So you might wish to go back and read that essay. Interestingly enough, that was written eight years ago plus about ten days, at a roughly parallel moment in history. Why would this astrological sign have seemed so important then -- and now? And why (back in the early 2000's) did I consider "Aquarius" to be a Goddess word? 

I sense we have been transitioning to the Age of Aquarius for some time now, perhaps even since the 1960's and the memorable song. The exact dates are irrelevant, however. Basically, it is about the transition from a more duality-driven human experience to a more unified, love-driven one. Actual love, not simply lip service. As shocking, horrifying, as the events in front of us may be, they are what I've expected for a long time, people incapable of genuine love "wigging out" in front of our very eyes. We must stay calm and fearless. Love will not protect us from harm or even so-called death, but there is no death in the divine mind and Love will live on. Earth's future will be more unified and Love-filled...in time.

Perhaps it is no accident that most of the most spiritual women I have known (spiritual in a new age or Goddess-centered way) were born under the sun sign of Aquarius, as I was, or had Aquarius moon or rising signs. People born of this sign seem to have an unusual ability to see beyond actuality, and into the realm of divine potential. Does that mean that we "are" the Goddess, or that we are special, or need to be revered? No. Just that we have gifts that may be crucial in upcoming years; many of us have a valuable capacity for alignment with the Divine Feminine. There are so many of us worldwide -- the return of the Goddess is the wave of many, many human women reaching their spiritual potentials. It won't be an individual woman's astrological sign that is important, but the energetic nature of the new age of "harmony and understanding". It is about all of us fully allowing ourselves to be that energy.

Deep Freeze

Upstate New York is in a deep freeze. An almost Duluthian sort of deep freeze. It seems to mirror the humanitarian deep freeze that we are entering...except that there are countless spectacular, warm, loving, exceptional beings in evidence at the same time. May many of us be beautiful exceptions, every day if we can...

I'm truly grateful to be in a warm place. It's so interesting to consider the exquisite perfection of earth as a habitat for us humans. Temperatures in the 60's-70's seem to be the ideal for functioning, indoors or out. Much hotter or very much colder, it becomes impossible. If I were under a roof of an unheated home, and it had been -10 F overnight, I would probably have fallen asleep and never woken up. It was natural that humanity has always tried to stay warm in the winter...what was arguably unnatural was the notion of spreading out in individual structures all over the landscape, using resources so un-communally. I try to imagine my ideal early community of humans, approaching the wisest among them with a question for the Goddess, "How can we best warm, house, feed and clothe ourselves without causing you (or earth, or our fellow human and animal beings) undue pain?" The Goddess representative would probably have provided an answer which would look very different from the solutions being used and proposed these days.

While all of these things surface and swirl around us, may I never forget that I am protected and warm, this minute. May I stay in the present. May I never take anything for granted.

A Hawk

Yesterday was just a shocking day, even without going out of my way to hear or see any news. 

And I wasn't artistic, in the end, so no illustrations to show you.

So the highlight of the day was walking out the driveway, and finding that there was a hawk straight ahead of me on the telephone/power lines. When I crossed the street, and was standing just beneath, I couldn't have been more than ten feet from him (or her?), probably the closest I have ever been to one of these beautiful birds. He didn't move, and I couldn't help myself, as I looked into this striking face, I spoke lovingly and encouraging to him or her. Then, remarkably, beyond the hawk, an eagle flew by! 

I have a feeling that one of the only things that may get me through this coming time is awe and wonder at -- and communication with -- nature.

An Inception

I have pretty much dreaded this day for several months, but now that we have reached it, I guess it's time to stand up straight and operate from a place of joy. For me, this isn't the beginning of what many people are celebrating, or of the fight to overturn anything. Anything. My focus today must be entirely on the Goddess, and Her values. For me, that is what is beginning. (Or perhaps, has never ended...)

Eight years ago, I went on a three-day silent retreat around this time, and today's retreat may be more like three hours, but still, I hope it will be valuable. There is a small illustration I would like to work on (and if I am successful and I can figure out how to share it with you in future days, I will!). I will quietly read, publish this post, have a simple lunch, and perhaps walk a dog. No television, no "news", no purchases, nothing major of an external nature. 

For years, as I have mentioned from time to time, I have picked a daily oracle card as a meditative tool. It has started me off on the right foot every morning. Today, though, I've picked five cards to leave on my side table for the foreseeable future: in a sense, they are the only cards (for now) that I need or want. They are from the Motherpeace deck, and I present them in the order in which I found them: Empress, Strength, Priestess of Swords, Tower, and High Priestess. Between all of them, there are wonderful images of the female figure, animals, the moon, a dim wintery sun, snow, and spring plant life. I should mention that the Priestess of Swords is not "about" violence, but wisdom in a cold climate. She is surrounded by snow and ice, and a white owl plies the skies overhead. Her "sword" is her intellect. And the crumbling tower doesn't have to indicate destruction, but rather it can be seen to illustrate opening the way to a new cycle of growth. 

Today can be a spiritual inception, if we wish it to be. In the midst of it all, do something that makes you uniquely "you" today. 

Goddess Words 36: Open Door

Since I spoke in my last post about doors "ajar", I figured it was time to look at another of my Goddess words/phrases, "open door". It's interesting that back twenty years ago, I included this in my list, rather close to the top too. Perhaps this was because of my having experienced so many closed doors in my life? That I had to assume that a Goddess-centered world would do things differently? That I would be welcome, not pushed away? That the Goddess would embrace me with love, not reject and slam the door in my face?

In the last few days, a number of related references have come to my attention, including (in Kim Chernin's Reinventing Eve) the notion of Eve as a "gateway" to knowledge, wisdom, self-creation. And having spoken not long ago about open channels, I've been thinking more and more about this. I mean, in a conflict-driven construct, we're all taught to fight. The assumption may be that all doors are initially closed, and that we need to pound, pry, and smash doors in. And once we do, then we can proudly boast that we fought and won, that we succeeded, were victorious, and perhaps saved ourselves and others by bringing the doors down.

But this doesn't seem to me to be Goddess energy on any level. What if Her doors are open to all? What if the door to Her completely loving world is never shut? Why would so many people resist the opportunity to enter Her doors?

It's been my experience that, when you come right down to it, people capable only of the lowest level of Love energy simply cannot stand Love. It is intolerable to them. They may be exposed to Love every day, and yet still be incapable of walking through that door. And even those of us who are more loving may find it uncomfortable to imagine being exposed to too much Love, to imagine being genuinely welcomed. When genuine Love hasn't been a large part of our experience, as much as we might intellectually crave this environment, our hearts may still be too traumatized to bear the enormity of All Love.

Having said that, when you've spent too much time in the purgatorial empty door-lined hallway, when you cannot take the harsh light and the locked doors and the surreal energy one more minute, the rare open door cannot help but beckon. It may seem like a figment of your imagination (or as my brother used to say, a "filament of your imagination"), or a joke. But just to feel that slight "give" when you take the handle, to grasp that after dozens of closed doors, one is cracked open, is a moment for understanding the potential of warm welcome. The potential of belonging. The potential of a real home. A real home is open to you, through an open door.

A sort of funny postscript to this is that yesterday, where I am currently living, a squirrel was literally leaping up near the outside handle of the deck door. It truly seemed like this squirrel understood that the handle was the key to getting in to a warm environment. I hated to be on the other side of the glass door, to be the one keeping the door locked, keeping the wild animal energy out.  

A door ajar

Someday, I'll probably look back at the last 24 hours as a major turning point, a mid-January, ides of winter 2025 turning point. Now, I've said this kind of thing before (I shudder to think of all the pivot points I've reported to my readers in ten years!), but I suspect this one will stand out. No, I didn't win the Nobel Peace Prize. It was all very small -- one thoughtful phone conversation, and then potential links to other people at least basically "like me". But for me, this is huge. Huge. For six months, it has felt like I was in a long empty hall with a succession of locked doors...now, to find one door ajar, one door swinging open slightly with the promise of continued growth beyond it -- well, I can barely breathe at the moment.

Oddly enough, these promising communications were punctuated by going to the movies, something I rarely do. I had to avert my eyes throughout the opening trailers (I've reached the point where I cannot tolerate even the slightest amount of violence or conflict). My issue with the feature movie ("Wicked") wasn't so much violence as it was the duality message. From citizens cheering the death of the "wicked witch" to the (perhaps telling, but still absurd) final loud, colorful, and dramatic good-becoming-"wicked" and "wicked"-becoming-good moment...(with the promise of more to come in a sequel). I was shocked once again by how it seems to be almost impossible to create "entertainment" that isn't centered on this essential assumption of dueling polarities. The split in the human psyche cannot be healed by so-called victory, or by such entertainment. And, yes, another layer of complexity was added to the experience, knowing that many people who worked on this movie must surely be affected by the fires. Surreality, again.

So I return to what is real for me, since that is all I can do. The door ajar. May I have the courage to go through it a step at a time, to feel my way forward through love, beauty and growth.