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. 

Surreality

For decades, I guess I have had a home, the "state" of surreality.  Having seen on the horizon much of what is starting to happen, I wasn't able to function normally, but since so many people continued to do just that, I knew that I was in (perhaps?) a minority of only a few. Now, the fires in California seem like such an enormous wake-up call, even bigger than COVID, that I just can't believe that in certain respects, American life is simply going on as usual. It feels surreal.

Perhaps I should clarify -- I cannot even imagine the horror of what people are going through -- every facet of this prolonged event, from the apocalyptic nature of the fires themselves, to firefighters risking their lives, to families letting go of possessions, pets, and friends, to the widespread toxicity, to the challenge of moving forward. If and when I experience a major climate event, it will leave me as scarred as others are being traumatized and scarred. But I just think we need to remember that Mother Nature has been deeply traumatized and scarred by us. Her tears have been ongoing for centuries. I imagine She hoped and hoped and hoped we'd finally realize the damage we were doing, but it never happened. So it is Her time now, when She gets to do what She needs to do for the earth's survival. 

I'm finding myself -- in the midst of surreality -- continuing to feel immense joy at Her re-emergence. Paradoxically, I finally feel safe. I'm better able to stay in the present than ever, and am clearer and clearer about Her priorities and values moving forward. And as it is Her time, it is my time, and the time for women all over the world to blossom more than they ever have.

Trans-formation

This is clearly a time of trans-formation. A change of shape and energy. A change of landscape, of human assumptions, and of (literally) what life on earth will look like, be like, feel like. We are crossing a chasm into a new form, into higher-level ways of being. I personally think this is happening across the entire universe, and that the human-created horrors we are seeing are, in effect, last gasps opening the way to more Divine Love. The loveless energy that appears to be on the ascendant simply cannot, in the long term, overwhelm Love. It isn't possible. We've all heard of "teaching moments", and for humans this is the teaching moment of all teaching moments.

That's why, as strange as it is, I feel more joyful every day, because I know that the old paradigm will simply fall away as the power of the Goddess is re-membered. We see clearly the nature of everything (is it love or is it fear?) and from now on, only love matters. Now, in the mid-2020's, our vision is sharper and less clouded. This is also a 9 year in numerology, potentially the end of a cycle and the prelude to the beginning of another one, so if we can possibly do it, let us focus only on love, only on living in harmony with the Goddess, only on the ways in which the emerging paradigm will be entirely different from this one. Let us look at the ashes as a blank slate for a different form of creativity. Not to react or "fight" goes against every old paradigm instinct that we have; but there is only one thing to do -- to simply "be" love. To fill out the mold of love. To re-form our personal selves to the shape of love. To vow to take part only in acts of love and beauty. I spoke of being thrilled the other day, and yes, overall I find this to be a time of thrilling, beautiful possibilities.

(I didn't know whether to call this "channelled" or not, but it certainly felt different writing it.) 

 

Fire

Yesterday early, when I wrote, I had not yet heard or seen the news of Los Angeles. Sometimes I must seem pretty clueless, but I don't spend much time online, and/or watching news reports. It wasn't until last night's old fashioned dinner hour TV network news that I saw the hellish, flame-filled pictures.

It's hard to know what to say. Of course this is only the beginning. When humans for thousands of years fail to take Nature's needs into account, the moment had to come where "She" would put the longterm survival of the planet itself ahead of human goals. We never asked Her, "Should we build here?" "Should we build with these materials?" "Is it wise for us to make this choice or that choice?" "Will the planet be resilient if we take this path?" Etc. These climate events aren't about payback. They are not aimed at certain people or situations, although there will be moments (like today) when catastrophes could seem to reflect a certain irony. But really, we don't have time to assess blame. All we have time to do is to say, every morning, "Great Mother, do what you need to do today to keep Earth viable for some forms of life." And at least inwardly, accept that major changes are coming.

The Capital District has had at least a week of extremely strong winds...not Santa Ana winds of nearly 100 mph -- perhaps half that. Still, the relentlessness of it is odd for this part of the world in winter, and here (unlike the Tug Hill Plateau) we've had very little snow. Even with temperatures in the teens, the ground is unusually dry. So this area isn't "safe" from climate change right now. We are all connected. Whether we live or die, or maintain housing or lose it, everything is happening to everyone.

I have seen a hawk or an eagle an average of once every other day recently, and someone also gave me a dramatic picture of a British "red kite". Now, I am dreaming hawks. One flew over my right shoulder and went and picked up a small white dog, finally dropping it because the dog was too heavy. I woke up as I was trying to find the dog's owner. There must be tons of dream interpretation meaning in this, but until I figure it out, I guess I'll just try to stay in the wonder of it all. 

Mary's Words

What I am being led to write about today (much earlier in the morning than I generally write) is a thought that I have tried to swat away like a fly, but it keeps coming back.

The centerpiece of every choral evensong service is the singing of two canticles, the "Magnificat" and the "Nunc Dimittis". The Magnificat presents the words of Mary, the mother of Jesus, from the gospel of Luke, when she visits with her older cousin Elizabeth, who is also pregnant -- with John the Baptist. This is one Bible story that I have always loved because the image of the two pregnant women embracing then chatting together is so poignant and yet so normal and real. No matter the future importance of their boys, at that moment they are simply pregnant women, uncomfortable, anxious, yet probably also filled with wonder. 

Mary's words as reported in Luke ("My soul doth magnify the Lord...") are sung every late afternoon all across the UK, in cathedrals, abbeys, school and college chapels, royal chapels, and churches. (The musical settings may differ, but the16th century text is the same.) They are sung (perhaps less regularly) in evensong services across the globe, and sung or said in countless other churches and monasteries of other denominations. So, for somewhere between five and seven minutes every evening, choirs worldwide are singing (or priests and congregations are intoning) the words of a woman. And through the long generations that women were excluded from these choirs, the men and boys were singing the words of a woman. Mary's words. 

This thrills me no end. 

Maybe I'll finally do it

Maybe I'll finally do it. "It" being, write four or five days a week rather than two. I've headed in that direction several times, but kept reverting backwards for some reason. I think in large part it was in order to spare my readers my intensity. But, hey, no one is being forced to read, and now that I will be sharing my channelled material with you, at least periodically, it is no longer necessary to split my journalling life between handwritten and typed. That may still happen from time to time, but not as often...

I am in the midst of reading an extraordinary book, Reinventing Eve, by Kim Chernin (1987, Perennial). Yet again, I'm humbled (even a little embarrassed) that there were fabulous women way ahead of me on this Goddess road...this is one of those books that expresses the spirit of my journey so perfectly, I cannot believe the author wasn't on my shoulder the whole time. Of course, her journey was unique to her...with completely different specifics. She has brought an insight to Eve that I literally never considered -- pride, almost, that Eve was disobedient. Eve thought for herself. She wanted knowledge and understanding, and literally just reached for it.

Reading it and the dozen or so other books from the '80's that have meant so much to me, it's almost impossible to imagine that during that decade, I had barely consciously begun my own path to myself, and was completely unaware of the rich material being generated by other women. I was living in New York City, working in the corporate world, studying illustration at Parsons School of Design at night (as well as singing in a choral group), paying back my college loans, and still trying like crazy to find a viable path through our modern construct. I had "given up" on the world of English church music, and hadn't yet recognized that it could be well nigh impossible to transfer one's passions willy-nilly, from music to studio art. Yes, I did some spiritual exploration (yoga, Buddhism, metaphysics) but never seriously considered aiming toward the north star of the Goddess. I had been immersed in journalism and academia; until well into the '90's I was uncomfortable that a focus on the divine feminine might be unfairly slanted against men. Intellectually, I still feel that way...but the imperative of trying to fill in the gaps in our spiritual world (and my heart) is much stronger. I've been silenced, other women have been silenced, and the Goddess continues to be silenced. I'm thankful for the tatty used books that keep coming my way, representing hope and the clear pure voice of love and wisdom.

 

Channelling 1

The following is what I hand wrote in my journal at around 6 this morning. Apart from a few crossings-out and real time additions, it is just as I penned it:

Today is the day that I share my "channelling" in my blog. I do it with a little continued hesitation, and yet with the world having begun to go completely crazy, perhaps it is the sanest thing I can do. Here it is, the first real work day of the new year, and I am sitting under the covers of a bed in yet another spare room, one whose owners I love and to whom I am very grateful. It is a situation that has helped me feel more grounding than perhaps I ever felt in Duluth, if the truth be known. My "groundedness" out near Lake Superior, and also up on Lake Champlain, was in a large body of water -- in, you might say, the womb of the Mother. The water was ever-moving, ever-changing. It matched my life, I guess! But by age 68, that stopped being a comfort. In these times, that watery restlessness stopped being a comfort.

So as I huddle here trying to keep warm (even in a well-insulated house, this winter's cold winds seem endless!) I'm back to square one. Why would I -- with a Goddess/England/English church music triumvirate of passions -- have not figured out a way to live my life in the logical place? I know I have mulled over this countless times...In the modern world, it seems like it could and should have been easy, or at least easier. Why am I still -- seven decades on -- still "perched" rather than rooted? Temporary rather than permanent? Ever waiting for Act One of my real play to begin? Goddess, Beryl, Guides, Great Mother, please help me.

Liz, dear one. First of all, please know that this cold morning, you are surrounded by countless warm, loving guides who are your "home" in the best possible sense. We know how scary and disheartening this entire lifetime has been, and how little it helps to be reminded of the agreements you made on the spiritual plane before your birth in 1956! The primary one was to intuit how the Goddess would operate in the world, and you discovered that this path is almost the polar opposite to the way the world currently works, inspired, as it is, by the masculine face of the divine. As you yourself have said a few times, there is no genuine "home" for the Goddess in this paradigm. Her home continues to be less a place than it is an energetic center in many thousands of women worldwide.

Perhaps under the surface of your question is the plea, "Please, please let 2025 be the year I go home!" And as ever dear one, we cannot tell you details about the future. But we will say this: a friend of yours once said a beautiful thing to you -- that she had never known anyone who loved anyone or anything as much as you love the Goddess, England and English church music. She's right. Your channel (!) to these three things is wide open. There is a direct line from the dot in your heart landscape where the three overlap to the dot on the physical soil where the three overlap. Picture those maps with a linear arc crossing the Atlantic! While it may not happen as magically as clicking your heels like Dorothy, remember that all the blockages were manmade (literally), and be open to aligning more fully with home "the Goddess way", starting in 2025!

At Peace

I start this new year of 2025 strangely at peace -- with myself and the world, as it spins into a major reboot. 

I'm finally at peace with just about every aspect of who I am, after a lifetime of self-questioning. Even now, having moved back to the area I grew up in, I haven't yet found anyone who fully "gets" my things about England and English church music, or my particular way of being aligned with the Goddess. On a very basic level, I still haven't found my tribe or tribes, although I do have one slim lead as the new year gets started. And perhaps because of my age or the trajectory of my experience, I feel like I have crossed over to "the other side", where most days this no longer bothers me. I don't have to wait for "me" to be validated by anyone else's understanding or approval. If I ever had time for that, I don't now, as I near 70. I love who I have become.

And I'm as much at peace as one can be with the absolute insanity of the world. Perhaps this is because I can look at myself ever more honestly and recognize that I would be incapable of murder, much less mass murder or genocide. I would be incapable of creating or owning weapons, or of stealing from people, or of ownership of "property" on Mother Earth. I have no impulse for power over other people, animal beings or the Earth. Etc. The fact that other people feel comfortable with these activities is something I really don't believe I can control much less change, any more than others have been capable of changing me. It is not a perfect peace, but it is peace.

Lastly, I'm at peace with the increased amount of "channeling" I am likely to be presenting in this blog moving forward. I am at peace with whatever derision it may bring my way. It's probably the last major truth about myself that I will reveal here, and it is time. I've been channelling in my personal journal for over thirty years -- asking questions and receiving answers. From whom? Ultimately, I don't know, but I'm ready to present the material that comes to me as a form of living in the questions.

So here's to a year of being "at peace", and trying to hold onto that no matter what happens! May you experience the same thing in 2025.