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.