Weaving the Threads Back In

As I get older, I can see so many things, not the least of which is how I used to conceive of time in the standard, old paradigm/left-brained way. Life was kind of like an extended school experience. First you learned lesson A, then went on to lesson B, and so forth. Once you were done with one phase of life, you moved linearly to the next, then to the next. I dearly wanted to move beyond my passion for England/English church music -- to, in effect, graduate from that school -- so that I could cleanly move into a new phase. I couldn't focus on choral evensong and the Goddess, or English history and the emerging Aquarian age. I couldn't both move beyond my family/early life story/education and remain connected to them. Heck, even with Duluth, it was so tempting over this last week to wipe my hands clean and say, "Wow, what a relief, I finally finished that phase. I can move forward now." And certainly the journey out to Minnesota was energetically powerful, necessary, and reminded me that there are new things on the horizon.

But nothing is ever "over". I haven't left anything behind, either in this lifetime or in my many lifetimes. They are all with me, a blanket of energies and colors and warm threads woven around me. We are constantly weaving, pulling new threads and colors in, or finding old ones that got lost, and bringing them back into the blanket. The Duluth trip forced me to release some constrictions around my heart, and I have been able to re-weave family and Smith College in, in small but rich ways. And I will never "release" Duluth completely -- I don't do "home" in a traditional American way, but it was more home on a deeper level on and off during the 1990's and 2020's than many places I have lived. That little city at the head of Lake Superior (and my friends there) are in my heart and they always will be.

And this also has to do with the process of ever-refining one's gift to the world. Once again, last week, I found myself chafing against some of the material I was listening to online, finding it a little too "old paradigm" -- I can't put a finger on it exactly. And I was doing my own old thing of comparing myself: "these experts (in astrology/physics/metaphysics) are right, and in order to become an expert too, I need to acquire their skills." And of course, that's ridiculous (unless I passionately wish to acquire a specific new skill). At 69, I know who I am. I am a Goddess-centered visionary and mystic, woven of threads of a specific family, place, and time in history -- and England, choral evensong, music of Herbert Howells, my awesome (private school, Smith College, Royal Holloway/U. of London, and Parsons School of Design) education, writing as a letters correspondent at Time Inc., living or working at Pendle Hill and other retreat centers, traveling around the country in a little red car, living in Minnesota, Montana, and various home bases back east, painting, taking care of my dying mother, teaching at a community college, writing my blog and, increasingly, being focused on the Goddess -- these are all unique colors of wool. They are my magic blanket. In painting terms, they are my palette. They are my training, and what makes me, me. They are my superpowers, what I bring to my unique role moving forward. 

Similarly, while I think we are entering a powerful, defining moment in history, and things will "never be the same again", I'm trying to release some of the linear thinking that I am hearing. What is true of me, I assume, must be true of humanity at large. We will be bringing our threads of experience forward (and those who don't survive into the new era will still be part of the blanket of energy enfolding us). We will still need to keep weaving all of our colorful threads into the narrative of the human story and keep making sense of them, perhaps more than ever.

Goddess Words 46: Heat

It is hard, at this moment when high temperatures and extreme weather phenomena are daily news headlines, to go back about twenty years and try to imagine why I put the word "heat" on my list, "The Words of the Goddess." Around that time, I had already begun to envision enormous earth and societal changes in our future, but I don't think my reference was, per se, to global warming/climate change. So what was my thinking?

It may have been something like this -- that the Goddess represents the heat of passion. Sure, sexual passion, but more than that, the passion for life. For creating. For aligning with Love. For doing what you love and are best at. Warmth toward other people, life, and the planet/universe. Traditional images of God to me seem cool, aloof, at a distance. "He" communicates with us from above, from afar, and I never felt I could see or feel him. The Goddess, by comparison, feels immanent, rooted within us. When we feel our feelings, we sense Her presence. The warmth within us, our spark of life, is Her heat, Her nonverbal voice communicating the clearest and most joy-filled path. (This remains a valid path, even in these times.)

Still, in 2025, it is hard not to recognize some of earth's current tribulations, including heat, as almost literal medical symptoms. She is overheated, feverish, and inhabited by large populations of angry and combative people who spread this sickness far and wide. Her arteries are blocked and swollen, Her skin blemished, dug out, bombed, built into, burned. She can barely breathe smoke- and pollution-filled air, and Her beautiful animal species are disappearing or dying. (I have not seen one Monarch butterfly this summer! Not in the Northeast or in my recent trip to Duluth. This is horrifying.) How can we fully embrace the more positive aspects of "Heat" when we are literally melting?

I guess the only way to do it is to completely trust Her, and know that whatever melts may become more malleable, accepting of change. Whatever She is doing, in her earth healing and ascension, She must do. Seen from Her eyes, and from Her perspective as one whose physical body is evolving and whose own passion is to remain habitable for life, the weather phenomena we are seeing are not surprising. The paradox for us is to try to remain "cool" enough to function, but hot enough in our passion for serving Her that we in-spire the world. Breathe in, alchemize, and breathe out the new reality. Let the heat change us. Become more gloriously passionate, in a positive way. Move with the process. Let go of what we cannot hold onto.

Inverse proportion

I don't typically spend a whole lot of time watching television, but in the wake of a hard ten-day stretch of travel, work, and sleeplessness, and in fairly typical summer heat, I didn't have the energy the last few days to do much else. 

Of course, the most striking visuals came from news reports of the Texas flooding (and, to a lesser degree, the flooding in Pennsylvania and the southern tier of New York). This mass movement of water is awe-inspiring (admittedly, more easy to appreciate when seen from a distance). There are few human constructs that can withstand such an onslaught and, yes, I find that a relief. Nature is ever so much more powerful than we are. 

The other striking visuals, and the ones that seemed almost surreal in light of the floods, wildfires, and other weather extremes, came from advertising. Having narrowed most of my meager belongings down to seven small boxes, it was remarkable that the ads I saw over the weekend were primarily for some of the largest purchases that individuals or families can possibly make -- enormous SUVs, RVs, motor boats and pontoon/party boats, decks/patios/porches, in-ground pools and spas, roofing...you get the picture. Admittedly, it's that time of year. If these things haven't sold yet, I suppose retailers need to make last-ditch sales pitches. But I tried to imagine my seven boxes, tucked up on the back seat of an SUV, or in a built-in closet in an RV. In a corner of the patio under the eaves of that new roof. Belowdecks (and getting a bit damp) in a cabin cruiser. 

There's a certain manic quality about these ads, a certain distracting "everything's fine and will be better once you own this heavy, grounding item". My life has always been in inverse proportion to the American dream, so I guess it makes sense that as I let go of pounds, the rest of the country is being urged to accumulate more tons. But it does make you wonder, will the moment ever come when the entertainment and advertising industries shift gears, when our whole society shifts gears? When will we understand that our whole set of expectations must be turned upside down, and that we need to do it from within (not wait for forces outside of us)? This is a moment both terrifying and truly exciting. As ever, I think that looking directly at it is preferable to peering through a screen of belongings. But blessings to all of us, wherever we are on that curve. This summer will force us to grow, whether we are ready or not.

More Letting Go

Just a few more notes about these last two weeks.  Then I will, ahem, let it go for now, although I suspect that there's a whole lot more to unpack, at least figuratively.

I did not watch or read hardly any news while I was gone, so it was true time off in that respect. It was hard to see the footage of the floods in west Texas, and I was reminded of another thing to be thankful for. I had time to do the grueling sorting and decision-making work and some of the emotional re-stabilizing. Most people in a flood or wildfire or hurricane or tornado situation have no time to grab anything but (if they are lucky) their purse or wallet or briefcase. Forget the agonizing questions about, "Should I keep this?" and "Should I give away that?" Everything else blows away in the wind, or floats downriver, or burns up, toxic or not, important or not, in one big stew. I am thankful that I could do this chore before it was done for me by the elements, never mind that my boxes would have fit into one modest-sized closet.

A little more on something I said yesterday. It may be the fact that I have received so little recognition or praise or acknowledgment in this lifetime that I have occasionally needed to go through my things (even just to pack them up again) to help me define myself. In America, telling people you have a passion for English church music was akin to speaking Greek -- it usually elicited sort of a sad, pathetic, "what on earth is she talking about?"-type response. I think I held onto programs from English cathedrals, and articles about the recent entrance of girls and women into that world, and maps, and memorabilia of my trips, in order to prove that my life was real, that it had importance, that I meant something. Getting rid of much of this doesn't mean that I have changed my mind -- it means that I know in my core that I am important, and now (in this transition of the ages) I don't need to carry around the heavy proof. But I've done so much of my own spiritual work over the decades -- this morning, I feel particularly for the women who survive these events and haven't had time to process things as thoroughly. The loss of their mother's sewing box or their grandmother's tea set or their childhood memorabilia may be far more devastating on a deep level than we can see. The questions about "Who am I without these things?" may be even more deeply wrenching, and I hold them in the light.

One last thing today, and this may sound a little weird. About the third day into this process, I started to think of myself as my own daughter, or granddaughter, or niece, or family friend. I pretended that I (Liz) had passed away, and I was keeping just those things that -- from that slight distance -- seemed truly important. Some of the things that I held onto earlier in the week, I let go of by Monday. I haven't died (and even if I had, we are eternal beings who take our soul realities into our next incarnations!) but looking at the physical materials from the standpoint of a loving younger version of myself made it easier to do the work. I kept reminding myself, we are heading into such a completely different reality that traveling light will finally be an asset, not a peculiar oddity.

Today started with torrential rains, even here. Blessing to all of you, in whatever manifestation of "letting go" you are living!

Letting Go, 2025-style, con't

A little more on the intense process I just went through.

When I first opened my storage space, I had one of the first panic attacks of my life. I mean, the absurdity of it all. The schlepping of boxes from storage space to storage space, from basement to attic, from state to state. I burst into tears, said, "I cannot own any of this any more," and would gladly have called some kind of hauler to bring it all to a dump. But then a friend arrived to help me, I pulled myself together, and started triage on the books. In a sense, they are the easiest, and libraries have book sales. Then the clothes that are literally not worth shipping, so you are glad to give them to people who can use them. That's where I started.

I spent every afternoon except the Fourth of July and Sunday at the storage space, and then brought all the papers and memorabilia to a friend's house, where I sorted (yes!) from about 3:30 to 8:30 every morning. The papers are the worst, aren't they? The letters accepting me into a private kindergarten, St. Agnes School and Smith College. My official SAT scores. My scribblings of Herbert Howells research, and memorabilia from my trips to England and my efforts to enter the world of English church music. Notes from friends through the years. All, now, recycled. I mean, even in the unlikely event that someone might ask me to continue on with a study of Howells, it probably isn't close enough to my current focus on the Goddess that I would say yes. I did the best that I could to add constructively to the field that I still have an immense passion for, but at 69, it is not my future. 

OMG. My mother's 1960's-era sewing box. Mind you, my mother hated sewing (because her mother loved it, perhaps). It is a gold mine of threads, darning wool, needles, buttons, iron-on patches, you name it. But I've only barely ever used it myself, or had it open to the air and in my space. It has now gone to a situation where someone will be thrilled by the bounty. Ditto, music CD's of English church music and obscure cookbooks. Some choral music scores, new age books and oracle cards. A few family things were sent to family.

Because this "letting go" wasn't just of the physical things. It was the letting go of several dreams. Of course, that I would get to England and change the world of cathedral music. That I would someday live in a big old house and have a huge studio/library space in which to paint, write, and listen to (or eventually compose?) music. That someday someone would want to write about me or use the bits and bobs of my life in their own creative way. If these haven't happened by the time I am 69, either they won't happen at all, or they will happen in a way that is literally beyond my ken, and/or in a manner that does not allow me to carry much. And to the extent that I found comfort in looking at my things and "getting" who I am, I need to start "getting it" without props!

I will probably continue with this blog, but going forward my purpose will be less about "creativity" (making beauty in various forms) and more about "embodiment". How do I embody the Goddess? Think like Her? Express what I think She might want to express if She were in my situation? I can do these things without researching in books, painting oil paintings, or putting CD's into obsolete CD players.

My most precious belongings from the past, plus a few that might help me in the future, made the "cut". Gosh, I don't even like that word! Let's say, made it through the re-birth canal. I was so proud that seven carefully-packed small boxes actually made it easily into a friend's car, and thence to the post office. What had been unmanageable became manageable, over the course of a grueling week. I couldn't have done it without friends, in a city and bus system I didn't know, or perhaps a few years from now. It was the right time to do this.

I'm still recovering from my over 24-hour bus and train journey back east, and will probably need several more days of extra sleep, and several more posts in which to "let go" of this experience and move forward!

 

Letting Go, 2025-style

Hi again. I know a few of you might have been wondering, why the uncharacteristic almost two-week silence? If you worried just a little bit, thanks (!) -- but somehow or other, I keep going, don't I? 

OK, so last fall when I left Duluth, I left about 24 boxes in storage. Some of this is stuff that has basically been in storage most of my life, and had about a year earlier been sent out to me. Some of it was summer clothing, winter boots, etc. And some of it (of course) was books, mostly on women's spirituality, some on England and English church music, my favorite romance novels, etc. Frankly, perched back on the east coast, I couldn't even remember what all there was.

At the time, here was the concept -- that once I found my (more) permanent home, I'd either pay to have all the boxes shipped to me, or I'd make the trip to deal with them. But of course, this is my life we are talking about! I haven't yet found a permanent home and, indeed, have felt profoundly stuck. I woke up one morning about three weeks ago and thought, I need to go out immediately to deal with this stuff. So I made train and bus reservations, and did it. I just returned to Schenectady yesterday.

There is so much to say, and I am so profoundly exhausted by this experience, that I won't try to talk about it today. Maybe tomorrow or the next day. But suffice it to say, seven small boxes are en route back to me. Seven. I let go, big time. In a nutshell, absolutely every item, piece of paper, book, etc. went through the triage of only one question: do I need this going forward to do the Goddess's work? If not, the item found a new home.

Clearly I needed to get rid of this weight (and there are still several boxes here that need the same treatment) before I can possibly move on, and I am grateful that I had the courage to do this, the help from friends, and the strength to face this task. 

After two weeks of not sleeping on trains and spending half the night each night sorting through stuff, I slept nine hours last night, and am still too bleary to write any more. But letting go, 2025-style, was an important event. Yup, it was.

Summer Miscellany

There are days like this when I'm just going to throw a few thoughts out there.  I've used the title "Miscellany" a few times over this decade, but not with the word "summer", so I guess it's OK to re-use it.

Miscellany #1: The other day, after our brutal 3-day heat wave, I took several walks, and noticed a lot of dead earthworms on the sidewalks. It took a while for this to sink in, but once it did, this was my unscientific observation: that these poor worms were boiling hot, and somehow thought that if they crossed to the other side of the walk, it would be cooler, but instead they burnt to a crisp. Goddess bless them. Goddess bless us.

Miscellany #2: During the last few weeks, I have noticed a lot of synchronicities. OK, not the big ones, where you think, "wouldn't it be nice to have an extra thousand dollars" and you receive a check in the mail. More like small synchronicities. For instance, someone says something unusual to me then the same word or phrase shows up in a crossword clue. Or there is a surprise mention in a TV show of a place I once visited and hadn't thought of in years. Or I finally see some of the themes I've written about in this blog being talked about by other people. I think that in these times we are entering, where there may be less and less of a "normal" to rely on, it may be important to at least practice noticing synchronicities, serendipities, and gut feelings. And when we can, acting on them, or seeing them as guideposts.

Miscellany #3: While I haven't read too many details, I think it is fascinating how dozens of interesting and odd earth events are surprising even scientists -- a new emerging ocean in Africa, pulsing noises and sensations coming from Antarctica, and  extraordinary new information and images from outer space. New love energy is immersing all of creation, and I am not surprised, really, that the landscape and starscape are changing before our very eyes. Yes, it's a little freaky, a little scary, but I just keep reminding myself, if the earth's crust opens up under my feet and I disappear forever, I'll essentially be honored to have been part of the process. I will thank the Goddess that my earthly cells became part of the new picture.

Miscellany #4: This coming week will bring with it a mixture of the old and the new, loosening some old ties, and making some new connections. I'll check in when I can. Keep breathing, all! 

A Hot Day

This is a very hot day, in more ways than one. I don't have to tell most of you that. My cool image of a glass vase of water balancing on the middle seat of a rowboat on a placid lake is more than inner guidance right now, it's also inner refreshment.

In terms of all the other events happening right now, I keep trying to remind myself that virtually none of these things will exist once the Aquarian age takes hold. I mean, it's not just that they "won't" take place, but that it will be energetically impossible for them to take place. Does this mean that I am not concerned, or that I am paying no attention? No. I am heartbroken every time humans kill other humans for any reason, or cause the slightest bit of damage to the earth. I don't understand any of it.

But I guess what I am finally doing is not taking ownership of things I have never done or would never do, and not fighting things I would never do. I'm trying not to get hot under the collar, or add to the planet's heat. To the extent I can do it, I am keeping my focus on the world as it will exist in perhaps as little as a few decades, when planetary and human ascension will have taken hold, and there will be a world in front of us that, from present-day eyes, we will barely recognize. We now have the chance to go forward on a different sort of path, and hopefully, based on the experience of these times, we will do that!

A Vessel within a Vessel

A few weeks ago, I wrote about feeling like a vessel within a vessel, bobbing on the water. It seemed like I was in a fragile, but blessed, state of balance. This led to my using markers and colored pencils to "paint" a number of postcards to send to friends. The cards picture a glass vase filled with water, perched on the center seat of an old rowboat which is floating out on the middle of a lake. No people, no oars. To get through this upcoming time, this is the quality I think we will all need...almost superhuman balance, balance within balance within balance. The ability to hold still within and without no matter how much shaking is going on around us in the natural world and in society.

I would take a photo of one of these images to share with you, but my flip phone (which takes surprisingly good pictures) doesn't communicate with my computer, so you'll just have to imagine this in your mind's eye. Or feel it in your core.

Happy solstice!

Goddess Words 45: Cradle

It is interesting that this particular word would jump out at me this morning, from my original handwritten list. Interesting too that, like so many of my other Goddess words, it can be both a noun and a verb. 

As my readers know, in this lifetime I wasn't a mother. And I have a hunch that in many of my lifetimes I was a more solitary soul -- a nun, priest, shaman, queen, even a hermit. In most of these cases, my memories aren't clear, more like impressions. However, I do have pretty clear memories of one lifetime when I shared my life with an extraordinary man, and had two children. I remember the experience of holding the babies, protecting them, making sure they were well fed and clothed. I remember them sleeping peacefully in a handmade wooden cradle. I remember them at my breast, and then, in time, my anxious moments as they started to walk and become independent. I also remember with a great deal of fondness how their father cradled them in his arms, giving them a different solid experience of protection and love. 

When I expand this notion out, I find myself believing that earth was originally meant by the Goddess to be a cradle for humanity and all life. A place of nurturing, love, safety, and generous amounts of food and clean water. We were meant to rock gently on the landscape, to find comfort in protected spaces out of the wind, to nest at the base of trees and in caves and simple homes made of stone and wood. This was meant to be the framework for a life lived in constant awareness of the holiness of all creation. Despite experiences frequently being harsh or difficult, our connection with the Great Mother would have been a daily comfort, a constant embracing reminder of our oneness with every corner of the vast universe.

So when and why did we, effectively, dump the baby out of the cradle? Why have we filled this precious little vessel with toxins, and used it as a backdrop for unspeakable horrors? Many of us must be so traumatized right now that we cannot possibly really imagine being cradled gently, lovingly, protectively. On this rainy day in June, such a notion seems particularly hard to visualize, doesn't it? And yet maybe if some of us take just one minute today to cradle something -- an animal, a loved one, a stuffed toy, a beloved blanket or item of clothing, a tree or boulder -- perhaps ancient memories will kick in. (Alternatively, cradle yourself in a hammock or blanket.) Let us allow ourselves to cradle or be cradled. Perhaps it will help us remember a mother instinct that is sorely needed right now. 

In Love

Over the last few days, I've been in the greater Boston area, seeing old friends, and enjoying several musical and artistic events. It was hot out, yes, but that wasn't why I was glowing. I was glowing because I was in love, not in the romantic sense, but in the sense of doing things "in love", from a place of love. I was reminded anew of how different that energy feels from other ones. 

At this extraordinary moment, even I need the reminder -- if I can do something from a place of love, great. "If in doubt, call it out," as we used to say playing tennis. But all of us need to follow our own hearts and consciences. 

At the very least, let's find love around the edges. Let's find beauty among the edges. Let's find community around the edges. It is real, and it is here in our midst. 

Snakes

The other morning, I interrupted a snake lying in the sun on the front steps. It slithered off and disappeared under the house, but I realized that it was the first snake I had seen in a very, very long time. Snakes (not surprisingly) represent the life cycle, birth, death, the shedding of skin, transmuting poisons, transformation -- even the process of writing. I suppose any animal's powers can be applicable everyday, but still, I find it helpful to notice the timing of encountering this "medicine". Without (I hope) misappropriating or misusing the terminology of indigenous cultures, in my own way I find these animal encounters as healing and as meaningful as what we in the West consider medicine. Having so infrequently had medical insurance, medical care or been prescribed (or used) modern medications, I'm open to a really, really broad definition of healing these days. And as a culture, we are shedding our limiting skins, aren't we? For the most part, I'll leave the analysis of it all to others, today, at least.

Two bits of news here -- I seem to have a renewed impulse to do artwork, and have been creating personal post cards to send to friends. Secondly, I'm having another small travel adventure in a few days. When I think of the much larger ones I had over the years, it's almost embarrassing how challenging it is to plan a mere four days or so away. But this is another era, I'm another gazillion years older, and it "is what it is". Perhaps I, too, will shed a little skin along the way.

Arrival -- my One Thousandth

Yes. Somewhere in the last few months, I arrived home. No, not necessarily physically (although clearly returning to upstate New York has been the right thing), but spiritually. I have finally arrived at a complete understanding and acceptance of my Goddess perspective on everything, and how it has been at the core of just about my whole life. This perspective is my "home", in the way that other people's religions are their homes, although I don't see it as a religion per se (with creeds, rituals, and holy books). I guess the best I can do is to say that the Goddess is my spiritual focus, my way of seeing, my truth, the core of my being. I see only through the lens of the Divine Feminine.

Could I have said this ten years ago, when I started this blog? Not yet. I still needed more time to make a sense of my passion for English church music, and England itself. Taking part in that tradition directed some of my spiritual energy to the beliefs and rituals I was brought up in (and have probably experienced for many lifetimes). It was an inherent duality within me, my primary reason for not committing sooner and more whole-heartedly to the Goddess. Mind you, I would still go back to England in a heartbeat -- not to sing choral evensong or make my mark in that world, but in a bigger role of representing Her there, if that is what I should feel called to do.

A few days ago, I heard a great expression -- "AFGO" (Another F* Growth Opportunity)! All of us have unique growth opportunities/challenges over the courses of our lives. My contemporaries who have been married for long stretches (or all) of their adulthoods, and/or had children and grandchildren, and/or had only one or two jobs or careers or homes, have experienced growth opportunities that I never did. Staying single, being called to move all over the map, I've kept adjusting and growing in a unique way, one that kept forcing me to learn that I wasn't going to find my true home outside of myself. I wasn't going to find my true home in the outer world's expectations. It took literally a lifetime, but I finally found my truth within. (And these extraordinary times seem like some kind of a bizarre final exam!)

If this blog serves as a record of how one random American woman reached her enlightenment, a measure of her mystic potential, then I will be happy. In fact, it has occurred to me that I could stop here, at one thousand. However, it is hard to see how I could do that. Writing is my breathing, my life. If we ever lose power permanently, I'll be scribbling daily in every notebook or legal pad that I can get my hands on. Writing is my personal thread through the forest to the future, the little path of light directing me forward within the Goddess to that "place" of all-Love. So I suspect that there will be a thousand-and-one-th post! I hold my dear readers in a warm embrace on this special day.

In Appreciation

This may seem to be an odd post, even contradictory to a few things I have written recently. But this weekend gave me a few opportunities to feel genuine appreciation for the old paradigm, even as we are leaving it and I feel such eager anticipation for the new one.

It was the first time since returning to the Capital District that I experienced multiple synchronicities and memories involving my childhood. I guess having come back on the cusp of winter, and not having a car, I just wasn't out and about much until now. On Saturday, I was driven right by the house I grew up in from birth to age eight -- a small, 1930's era cottage on what was then a country road, and is now a rather major suburban artery. When my parents owned it, it was painted white and seemed delicate, and far from the road, but I think the road gained a lane in the intervening 70 years, and the house is currently painted brown, so the whole thing looks (and feels) quite different, heavy and crammed close to the road. I went to an estate sale in a home filled to the gills with early American antiques, the kind that would be unlikely to show up in Duluth. The house was literally steeped in history, and oddly stifling, made worse by the torrential rains outside. It was literally (and figuratively) an atmosphere I couldn't wait to leave after purchasing a box of colored pencils and an old fabric change purse. In true Liz style, I had also eyed a beautiful circle pin with white and blue stones which I assumed was costume jewelry (given the fact that it had no price tag on it)...but it ended up being the real deal, and many hundreds of dollars. Yes, I had to pass it up. There are moments when I wish just once in this unusual lifetime of mine I could own a "real deal", and wear it in that beautiful Sargent-esque oil portrait I also dream of! (The old paradigm isn't done with me yet!)

Then, as the weekend progressed, I serendipitously bumped into one old friend, and was on an online call with some others. I feel more appreciative than I have for a long time of my life up through college, while at the same time, embracing how different my subsequent life has been from those of most of my acquaintances. Finally, I can say with certainty that I wouldn't have wanted anyone else's life. 

One more appreciation this morning. I was listening to classical public radio, and a piece by Edward Elgar was followed by one by Gustav Holst. Even when these pieces aren't identified, I know they are the music at the core of me, and a wave of appreciation swept over me for just the phenomenon I said the other day that I have moved beyond: history as a succession of great men. It's almost as if my body could see and feel the tide that started with Thomas Tallis, and moved on to Byrd, Gibbons, Purcell, Parry, Stanford, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Holst, Howells, Britten...a wave of incredible beauty, passion, and expressiveness. How to embrace the fact that a paradigm capable of wars, violence and hatred can also create such immense beauty? It's a hard one. How does one almost literally say good-bye to an entire thousands-of-years-old era knowing that so much beauty may be lost -- or utterly transformed? 

I guess that's the key, to listen to certain music and imagine music ten times more melodious, omnipresent and nurturing. To look at natural beauty and imagine even more astonishing beauty emerging from the chaos. To look with the eyes of an artist at all the events happening in our world. To imagine more love-filled institutions emerging from our current reality. 

Appreciation of the best parts of the old paradigm may make the coming Transition gentler and more navigable. But no matter what, when I am in appreciation, it's good to fully feel it.

It's Different...

OK, so the other week, I spoke of how reading a book about mysticism had forced me to consider how thinking of the Divine as "The Beloved" does (or does not) resonate for me. This is a brief update about that.

It's becoming clear that this terminology simply doesn't quite reflect where I am, spiritually. As for why, I am not entirely sure. The factors I brought up last time probably enter into it. The implied duality of the concept is part of it, as is the issue of how hard it is to think of the feminine face of the Divine being my lover, or the object of passion. It's all just a little strange. 

Of course, me being me, my first thoughts were, "I am doing it wrong." "I am not a mystic after all." "This author knows much more about all this than I do" (which is true!). "Maybe if I tried harder, I could do it right." 

Almost upon thinking them, I realized these thoughts reflected my old way of being, my tendency to join with the world in making myself wrong. So in case I haven't done it before, I'd like to try to articulate what my relationship to the Divine actually is. My way of being a mystic right now may simply be a little different.

Even though ultimately I think of the creative force of the universe as beyond gender, perhaps far beyond Love as we know it, at this moment, I can only use my best human senses, and with those senses, I see absolutely every drop of energy in the Universe as the physical outpicturing of the body of the Great Mother. This is the only way I can describe it at this moment in time. I see myself as one small facet of that woman's body, one fractal, one iota, one cell as it were. I guess you would say that instead of loving Her, being passionate about Her, seeing Her as a beloved outside of me, it's more that I love being part of Her. I love the privilege of being integral to Her at this time as She is going through a rebirth. I love the parallels between Her life and mine, and, yes, sometimes I see no separation between them...not in a narcissistic way I hope, but in the fractal sense of all being one. It's less a case of spending my days yearning to be part of Her, and more a case of yearning to grow and blossom where I am, already within Her.

There are moments when my efforts to articulate these things come uncomfortably close to the language of the scriptures I grew up hearing (and singing) -- well, such is life. Despite decades of trying to find unique new words for a new age, the language hasn't changed as quickly as some of us have. So we do our best. I guess I tell this story by way of giving all of us permission to try to find the words for who we are, and what we believe -- despite conformational forces out in the collective. If our "way of being" is different, it's different. And that's OK. On this Saturday of torrential rain, it's OK.

Nearing One Thousand

As I come close to reaching my one thousandth post, which will presumably come well before my ten year anniversary on August 8 (we cannot assume much of anything these days, can we?), I feel a great deal of satisfaction -- despite the fact that I have so few readers. Perhaps because I have so few readers! Whoever you are, you are beautiful and very precious to me, like family.

There's not much more I can say today. To some extent, things are a muddle. One or two things I was completely clear about a few days ago have become utterly unclear. The anxiety I feel to "move on" and start anew is balanced out today with an equal dose of complete emptiness within. But not in a negative way. It's just like Monday's powerful new moon stripped me of everything both limiting and lifesaving, and I am just a vessel, in the two senses of the word -- a container (like a vase) and a boat. I'm both filled with water, and bobbing on the water, the powerful amniotic waters of the Goddess, and for this one wonderful moment, the waters within me and outside of me are utterly balanced. I am where I am. I am who I am. It is OK. It is enough. If it took nine hundred and ninety-some-odd posts to get to this point, I am thankful. And if along the way, even a few other people resonated with the themes of this blog, I'm even more thankful.

My very first post (in 2015) was called "Transition", and I've already used the title "Home", so my one thousandth will be called, "Arrival". 

Memorial Day Miscellany

On Memorial Day, I didn't do what we are supposed to do, honor those who have died fighting in wars. I completely honor veterans, but not war itself, so this weekend is always a hard one, as are most of our national and religious holidays for various reasons. Actually, in a sense, the long weekend ended up being more about "memories" than "memorials" for several reasons, including having watched about an hour of a friend's old family pictures from the 50's through 70's. This was not my family, but a family from this area, with c.1960 birthday parties, and grandmothers wearing the same kinds of dresses as my grandmother, and teenage brothers with similar bushy hair as my brothers, and a similar station wagon, and summer trips to woody areas, and hippie granny dresses, and old fashioned sneakers. Perhaps some of you have experienced this, where someone else's pictures almost seem to be pictures of your own family, but they are not -- quite! I've reached the blessed point where it's not as painful as it used to be to think about my family...perhaps this slightly arm's length approach to "getting out the old family photos" was perfect in that respect.

Miscellany number two: I've been listening to some fascinating talks online about astrology, earth changes, and related topics, and am finding something even more fascinating: many of these people are speaking of some of the transitional kinds of events and trends that I have envisioned for decades. I mean, if I was alone back then in predicting such changes (and I am sure it only felt that way...), I no longer am. We are clearly in what I used to call the Transition (with a capital T) and there is much more to come.

I guess what I never really foresaw was exactly how violent things would become, that some humans (are they really?) would actually appear to increase their cruelty towards others. This isn't where we are headed in the long term, but tragically, it does seem as if the birth pangs of the new paradigm may be even more painful than I expected. Still, most days I feel more encouraged and upbeat than ever. Such vile forces may be able to do many things, but they cannot kill our inner peace or Love. Those of us who have worked hard in recent decades to align to the divine within have shifted the spiritual and energetic landscape; some of us may closely match the aura of the emerging Aquarian age. In an odd way, holding that energy is suddenly getting easier.

Old, in a new way

This week, I did something old, but in a new way. For the moment, I'm not going to say much more about it because I have a lot to process. I recognize that on occasion, I have promised my readers that I'll update them soon, only to forget or move on to other things, possibly driving you crazy! I apologize. I don't think this will be one of those situations, but I'm someone who has to give ideas time to completely formulate before telling friends or readers. To go back to a recent blog metaphor, I need to keep the cake in the oven until it is completely baked.

Suffice it to say that at this moment when "going back to when things were better" is such a thing, it is really crucial in my personal path to discern the difference between "going back" in a new way, and thinking old thoughts or simply re-walking old ground. There is a difference between taking action to enrich your life and world, and taking action focused on going backward to heal old personal pain (as important as such healing is). There is also a difference between simple nostalgia, and connecting with roots for the purpose of greater stability growing upwards. Particularly as my identity as an "anchoress for the Goddess" becomes clearer and stronger, I find I am less interested in outward opportunities and more interested in that energetic tether connecting me downwards to the earth's core, and upwards to the outer edges of our universe and beyond. Where will such grounding happen most efficiently and effectively?

The northeast is cold and rainy, and there has even been snow in the mountains. There's such a strange contrast between the lush greenery of trees, fields, lawns and shrubs, and the need to put on a turtleneck and a winter jacket. Mother Nature is doing what She needs to do, probably thwarting a lot of people's beginning-of-summer long weekend plans. It is another reminder (lest we still need one) that we are not in charge.

Geniuses

Yesterday, I went to a movie about Michelangelo, the Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, and all-around creative genius. It was a good movie, appealing to my scholarly and artistic sides, and showing minute details of sculptures that must be impossible for most museum/church visitors to see. Putting genius aside, it was the first time in my life that I understood the gruelingly hard work of sculpting from stone. How he created human figures of such extraordinary realism in such an unforgiving medium goes beyond human understanding, not to mention the sheer number of works. It's almost a genius beyond genius.

And the film interviewed a significant number of women scholars and artists, which might not have happened a few decades ago. There was a bit of balance, even though all the other masters named in the film were male.

Still, I found myself squirming in my seat at times. I think what it is, is that I'm just tired of the focus on male genius. Back "in the day", I was immersed in the Victorian concept of history being a succession of great men, and I think I was at least passively comfortable with it, incredibly so in retrospect. At least I accepted that, historically, this was the way things had been. But clearly I have been shifting in a significant way. It's not that I can't see the genius of Michelangelo, DaVinci, Van Gogh, Picasso...or hear the genius of Palestrina, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms -- and my beloved Howells. The greats in all these forms of art were geniuses, and deserve the lavish (sometimes even slavish!) praise. And it's not just the pain of thinking about all the opportunities talented girls or women didn't get, or even my own genius never quite getting off the ground (except perhaps in this blog). More and more women of genius have had their work recognized recently, and it's clear that "we" have been there all along, even if largely invisible. As we emerge into the light, it shifts the whole picture, doesn't it?

So I guess I just cannot "do" it anymore, in effect worship the great men of history, much less those of this day, or their grand ideas, their ways to technologize human society, their savior impulses. I'm tired. I'm done. This isn't where I can put my energies any more. For the rest of this lifetime, I intend to focus largely on the creations of women. I intend to focus largely on honoring Earth, Love, and the greatest "genius" of all, this extraordinary universe's creator and/or creatrix. (I understand that this creative impulse exceeds all human conceptualization, but for now, I will look primarily through a Goddess lens. She is my model for genius.)

Goddess Words 44: Bake

This is a hard morning to approach Goddess words, because so many of the terms on my list are on a high spiritual energy wavelength, and overall, this morning, I am not. I couldn't get to sleep last night for hours (a more "usual" problem for me is falling asleep immediately, but waking up in the middle of the night and not getting back to sleep). There's always bounceback from my deep epiphanies, and I guess after my "step forward" post the other day, a "step backward" could have been expected -- plus, this week I am spending a few days doing something old in a new way (see my last post). I think part of what kept me up in the night is trying to envision acting from a higher, purer place. It sounds great on paper, but the logistics and reality are another story!

So this morning, when I scanned over my original list of words, most of them (whether I have already written about them or not) seemed completely insurmountable. Too much to deal with, much as I wish to add to the foundations of a more Goddess-centered world...until I came to the simple word, "bake". Aha, I thought. A word I might be able to face today.

Some background. I don't quite remember when baking became important to me. My Schenectady grandmother was quite a good baker, although her daughter, my mother, was not, or at least she had zero interest in it. When Mom baked, it was from a mix. But on and off over the years, I've baked pies, especially in the fall, when I could use fresh local apples. That experience was catalyzed when a Duluth friend shared her pie crust recipe with me, using equal parts shortening and butter. I finally became a confident pie baker. (You may wish to go back to my December 8, 2017 post, "Baking Required".) I'm one of those people who sees a piece of fruit and thinks, great, what kind of pie, or bread, or crumble can I make from that?! (Or, can I paint a still life in oils?!) From 2021 to 2024, I added cookies to my repertoire in a serious way, making weekly batches which I hand-delivered to two Duluth shelters. Since coming back east, baking has become a bit more hit-or-miss again, but fresh ingredients still draw me -- yesterday, I made a crumble with fresh rhubarb, fresh frozen raspberries, and a leftover apple. Pretty tart, but yummy. I guess it is no surprise that I love to watch the "Great British Baking Show".

So what is the association with the Goddess? When I wrote this list, what was I thinking? Well, part of it must literally run deep. Almost all definitions of "baking" refer to cooking in the heat of an oven. And even though I never became pregnant in this lifetime, I am still very aware that all of us women are, in effect, ovens, potentially the place where new life "bakes". Earth herself is an oven, hot at her core, baking things that we have never seen and perhaps never will. And even though many modern ovens have glass windows in the front, there is always a bit of a mystery to the process, especially when you bake bread, Yorkshire pudding, or another item that might sink if the door opens. There is that hint of suspense -- how will it turn out? Is it baking properly? Is it rising?

Baking is an activity that virtually every woman alive has taken part in, and most women through history. (The only exception I can think of are the very rich, who are cooked and baked for, and I feel sorry for their loss!) It is creation. It is nourishment. It is love. It is for the good of the world. Apart from every other way in which stripping women of homes, food supplies, and kitchens is immoral, is depriving them of a place to cook and bake. I've experienced this in a relatively minor, nonviolent way in my vagabond life, but still, I know the frustration of not having your own cooking space, your own spice rack, your own bowls and spoons and cake pans easily at hand. Being uprooted deprives us of one of our most powerful ways of rooting, creating food for loved ones. I believe the Goddess cares about this, and is saddened by all the myriad ways that we have been lured away from doing our own baking and cooking from scratch, in community and for community.

I can only ever guess at the importance of my Goddess words to the Goddess herself, but I am proud to add them here as a definition of me. Right up there with "I am devoted to the Goddess", "I am a mystic", "I am a musician", "I am a thinker", "I am a lover", "I am a writer", "I am an artist", "I am an Aquarius", is -- "I am a baker". I think a new paradigm is currently in the oven; I smell its lovely aroma and see it rising. It won't be long now until it is born, sprung from the oven.

A Whole New Story

Well, the last few days have indeed been intensely hard. Really feeling the pain of a lifetime of blocked passions, rather than primarily analyzing it, hit me hard. Hard, hard.

And yet...

There has been a lifting of that old energy off my shoulders. It's almost as if the Goddess is telling me, "Dear one, you did your best. You would have found a more traditional path toward using your gifts if it had existed, but basically at this moment in history, it didn't. We found a way for you to learn in unexpected ways, in Duluth rather than London, rowing rather than singing, waitressing and retail rather than serving as an archivist, professor of music or religion, artist, or lawyer. You learned how to stay healthy on your own, to follow a path of love and friendship rather than money, and you saw me (and the condition of Mother Earth) sooner and more clearly than you might have otherwise. Your life was exactly as it had to be for the role you will play in the times to come. We needed you to take this kind of path. Thank you for being so steadfast."

So I do feel lighter, and more thankful! After several years of talking about rebirth, I think it has actually happened (thank you for putting up with me, my dear, patient readers!) The lingering darkness and bittersweetness is lifting. I can tell that I am open to a whole new story, entirely new kinds of possibilities. I'm listening to more and more talks online about astrology, metaphysics, and the intersection of spirituality and nature. I'm exploring some old things in new ways, genuinely no longer an energetic match to old things in old ways. It is unnerving, trying to get out of the habit of using old experiences to help anticipate ways of navigating in the world, but I realize I must start each day with a completely new slate, and to try to do something, anything in a different way, even if it is only the direction I head out on my daily walks. 

And if the evidence of my eyes and ears is correct, this is corresponding with a "whole new story" for earth itself. It is hard to draw away from the darkness that seems so out of control, and it is extremely painful, unbelievable. But it makes it all the clearer that the only viable path to the future is Love. Earth's new story is infused primarily with love, beauty, compassion, and joy. When that is the case, the old details and the old disappointments no longer matter so much.

It's a relief, actually

In my last post, I wrote about being hit hard by what I guess you could call the extreme contrast between my life and the new pope's. It was a hard piece to write, and to be honest, I hit an energetic wall all day yesterday. 

But it is a relief, actually. I don't think I ever completely understood how "wiped off the map" I was by the age of 17, just about the time when society as a whole was telling us young women, "for the first time in history, you can do or be anything you want." If that was true for other American women (and I know that it wasn't necessarily, but at least if it was theoretically true in first world countries by about 1973), then it was not true for me. I wasn't enough of a believer to become, literally, a Christian saint or nun, and I wasn't male enough to enter highest expression of the Episcopal/C of E church choral music tradition. My greatest gifts and passions seemed to be complete non-starters. I remember myself at that age, pale, sapped of life energy, just kind of going through the academic and personal motions. The fact that my family went from upper crust WASP to extremely impoverished almost overnight around that time probably wasn't the cause of this distress, but it certainly added to the confusion. I think the entire time I was at Smith (and frankly, most of the time since then), I was in a bit of a fog, earnestly trying to get good grades or do a good job at whatever I was doing, earnestly trying to fit in somewhere, yet feeling like I was marching through peanut butter. Because I tried so hard to stay on top of the spiritual growth piece of the puzzle, I usually managed to avoid feeling the actual trauma of my life energy and passion consistently hitting the wall, and being pushed back in my face.

And in ways, I've been the lucky one. The pushback I received was not, for the most part, physical abuse. I have never been raped. I have never been beaten. I have never been in a war zone. The rejection has been verbal, metaphorical, financial, and often quite subtle. Perhaps that is why it took so long to really understand how painful it has all been. Perhaps that is why it took the appearance in the news of a male spiritual leader of my exact age and nationality to realize how my balloon was deflated from the get-go while his was allowed to rise. It is heartbreaking, and this may be the first time I completely feel the heartbreak.

Ultimately, this isn't about the rather unusual specifics of my life. It is about the fact that the vast majority of the world's women have never truly had the opportunity to self-actualize. It is about the current paradigm almost completely wasting our true talents; the mess humanity is in shouldn't be surprising. If I seem to be fixated on the paradigm shift we are currently going through, it is because a Love-based paradigm is the only path I can see towards women's true empowerment and fulfillment. The cracks of my broken heart are letting in the light of this fresh beam of Love.

PS: My thoughts are with the area near Duluth, this morning, where several wildfires are raging. How unprecedented must that be, in May?

Another "What If..."

What if I had been a boy?

This whole new (American) 69-year old Pope thing has really hit me surprisingly hard. He is just a few months older than I am. According to all the stories I have read, early in life he knew he had a calling to be a priest. He rose up the ranks in the Church, and now he will have what is surely one of the hardest, most delicate jobs in the world, but he will also live in relative luxury, surrounded by the most glorious art, architecture, music and sculpture ever created. He will be supported in everything he does, waited on, venerated by over a billion people, and listened to respectfully by world leaders, clergy and ordinary Catholics. Clearly his family, and Chicagoans generally, are proud of him.

This little American girl also knew her calling early. I knew by 6 or 7 that I wished to be a nun or a saint. (If I told my parents this, I suspect they just rolled their eyes over their cocktails or said, "That's nice, dear.") By 8 or 9 (you've heard this story), I announced to my mother that I loved the Episcopal church and its music and liturgy, and that I was a good Episcopalian but I was actually pretty sure I was not a Christian. She was driving me down to choir rehearsal, and she almost drove right off Nott Street into a telephone pole, and through clenched teeth told me never, ever, to say such a thing ever again! Within a few more years, by 11 or 12, I had thrown out my strictly spiritual dream and focused on English church music, wanting to become the first woman conductor of the men-and-boys Choir of King's College, Cambridge. And yet, by the time I graduated from high school at 17, I understood that even this would never happen. Without fully understanding that I was effectively in exile -- as a post-Christian feminist American woman beyond the structures of the patriarchy -- I sensed that fulfilling any of my original dreams was hopeless and impossible. Now at 69, forget palaces and cathedrals, I have never had a permanent home or any real security outside the love and concern of friends and occasionally strangers. I am painfully separated from family (this is partly my choice). And, darn it, I still cannot find a decent, wearable pair of summer sandals, so I continue to use a very worn pair of hiking boots in the late spring heat. 

In the end, I could live without the glorious trappings of spiritual "power". Yet what would it be like to be heard, to be respected? To be embraced and lifted up? I cannot know whether, if I had been a boy, my path would have taken me to the top of the religious, church music, or spiritual world. But at least there would have been a better chance of not being invisible. I am grateful at least that I currently see such vivid signs of the birth of a completely new paradigm, one where women will play a prominent role!

I doubt I will ever have the opportunity to speak to the new pope. But if I do, these are the questions I would ask him: What if you had been born female back in 1955? Or what if hierarchies back then were all-female? What if when as a young boy you played "priest", your family chided you to remember that only women could be priests in your religion? What if, instead of encouragement, you had received only pushback? What if you were told over and over that only women had power in the religious aspect of society as well as all others? How would you have re-channeled all your spiritual passion? What kind of work would you have ended up doing? Where (literally and figuratively) would you be now? 

The Mother's Tears

The other evening, there was a brief hour or so of bright sun late in the afternoon. Needless to say, it was welcome, and quite spectacular, the sun being lowish in the sky and casting a rather orange glow on a suddenly brilliant green world. The "brief hour" was preceded and followed by an intermediary hour or so of waffling back and forth between grey/showery and partly sunny -- and then by about 7, we had returned to rain, quite torrential as I was going to sleep.

I've mentioned that I have discovered some wonderful New Age figures online who share my long-term enthusiasm for the future of the earth, and humanity itself. Their take on the spiritual leap we are in the midst of is very similar to mine. I cannot tell you what it means to finally find some kindred spirits after the long journey I've been on. 

Yet there is usually one significant difference -- as ever, I seem to fall between some cracks. For the most part, these folks speak of Source Energy, Infinite Intelligence, etc. For years, I also tried to use such neutral terms, but they were too detached for me. There are writers in the post-monotheistic world who still speak of God in the traditional way.  And then there are certainly Goddess-centered women who focus on connecting with Her through healing, Nature, clothing, rituals, etc. I love the immanency of this, and yet there isn't always the broader vision, the discussion of future trends that my intellect needs.

For me, the Age of Aquarius is the Age of the Goddess and Her values. I specifically see myself as one of Her representatives. Ultimately, do I think that the Creator can be limited by any human understandings of gender? Of course not. But although I was never a mother in this lifetime, I am a woman. I have felt the pain and rejection of the female experience and the Earth experience in my own body for over 70 years. I can't seem to completely slough off that pain, dismissing it as simple growing pains/birth pains in our spiritual leap upwards. I'm personally not the most "feeling" person in the world (thinking is my home base) -- but I do feel, and I believe the feminine face of the Divine has been feeling all along, the pain of war, "man's inhumanity to man", torture, the thoughtless use of the Earth, and the cruel shedding of the blood of humans and animals. She has cried often, and still does. Once the Aquarian age is fully established, there will be fewer occasions for literal tears, but tears right now are valid. (And can any of us imagine hundreds of female spiritual leaders gathering to choose a leader, with most of the world intensively following the event? Can we imagine female spiritual figures being that influential? I cannot.) I rarely cry, but today the mother's tears have caught up with me, for all these reasons.

It's Raining

Perhaps it is because I've most recently been living in the upper Midwest -- I am not used to day after day of rain (something that was rare in Duluth). Indeed, until a week or so ago, upstate New York seemed to be abnormally dry. Turning a corner as quickly as other factors in our life, the weather has made a sharp turn. The trees are covered with a layer of green lichen, and excessive rain has also caused the disappearance of my beloved raptors and other birds; a quick search just told me that wet feathers make it hard for them to fly. Yes, flowers are coming up like crazy, seemingly early. It's beautiful, but I'm finding it hard to fully appreciate the beauty, and not because of the rain, per se. Unprecedented changes are making me physically (and hopefully temporarily) soggy and logy. My own body is changing within me. Such intense energetic changes could hardly be taking place in the environment and in society around us, without their taking place within our actual physical selves. As with everything else, I expect enormous change, but need to stay as calm as possible, and connected to the Goddess, when everything is in transformation. 

If what I've been saying all along is true, Nature is doing what She needs to do to bring earth back into some semblance of balance. And at the risk of over-anthropomorphizing the Goddess (which clearly I am doing here), I often experience rain as Her tears. With all the forms of information all of us have access to, I can still only see or feel the tip of the iceberg of the myriad tragedies unfolding on the earth, but She experiences it all. She has been at the receiving end of most of it. She grieves. She knows how joltingly hard human life has always been for too many, and will continue to be during this transition upward. For the moment, in the Capital District, rain is a minor inconvenience, making it hard to get outdoor exercise (or even from a house to a car) without getting soaked. But around the country and the world, water is reshaping the physical landscape in a major way. The only way to make the process slightly less humanly painful will be to allow this reconfiguration to happen, not to blindly "rebuild" or return to our earlier vision. 

Referencing/Reverencing

Back on March 7 of last year, I wrote a piece on this subject ("Reference/Reverence") and I will try not to repeat myself. But here it is, a year later, and this subject is even more resonant. There is so much in the news that is horrifying and repugnant, so much (more than ever) that is the polar opposite of what I believe in, and it is almost impossible not to rise up, internally or externally. Even putting aside the decision about whether or not to enter into this societal conflict, there is the issue of how one is seen by people outside oneself. When you don't stand up on one side or another, you can be perceived as apathetic, spineless, supportive of the status quo...and all sorts of things that you aren't. Trying to explain that you are "post-duality" doesn't necessarily communicate anything but pompousness. I haven't yet dared to tell anyone I've already lived through this time and understand what will work and what will not -- that even makes me feel pompous! 

But ultimately, here's the thing: to respond to the evil that anyone outside me chooses to do forces me to spend my own (ever-shortening) life-time referencing that evil. I am focusing on it, making it more alive by my energy, and all that attention brings me closer than I'd like to "reverencing" it. At this moment of my life, if I have any passion at all (and I recently spoke of how that emotion has been hard for me to access outside English church music), I intend to focus it only on the Goddess and her values. I must "spend" my Love currency on Beauty, Mother Earth, Community, and this extraordinary galaxy-wide spiritual transition upwards. Love can be my only reference and reverence, the only use of my time.

I've been wearing a silver/amethyst ring that when purchased, I called my Goddess ring, and I was wearing it on the third finger of my right hand because I couldn't quite bring myself to wear it on the left. But yesterday, I switched it over, the symbolism being that I am now (and perhaps have always been and always will be) wedded to Her. An anchoress for the Goddess, whether I live next to a cathedral, a tree, a lake, or a river. And in a way that I don't think I've completely understood, I woke up this morning really, really understanding that the Aquarian age has started, and Love is the only path forward, for me or for the world. The time I have been expecting and anticipating isn't in the future, it is now. It is here. 

Serendipities 2

Ten years ago, less than two weeks after starting this blog, I wrote a piece called "Serendipities 1". It's astonishing that I haven't written another essay on this topic since then, isn't it? But here I am, exploring serendipities at another life moment, about a completely different kind of incident. But not that much different...I keep spiraling around the same mystic tornado, just moving up or over or around the intense spiritual energies in updated ways.

This last month has given me opportunities to redefine my life focus. It isn't a case that I have moved beyond England and English church music -- there is still something so potent there that they will never not be part of my system. However, through some chance online discoveries about two months ago, I have become increasingly inclined in my more New Age direction. If you go back to "Digging Down on the Weekend" (March 31), you'll see some of this unfolding. In a single month, my "intersection" seems to have evolved to something more like Goddess-Quantum Astrology-Earth Changes. What I understand about astrology I can fit on the head of a pin (I am starting the process of at least learning a few basics), but what I have discovered is that there is a community of people out there as interested as I am in the coming earth and human spiritual transformation (way ahead of me, actually, in gaining expertise and exposure). It was always hard for me to fully embrace this futuristic aspect of myself, possibly because the other side of me was holding back in an effort to make my church music mark. Now, as a civilization, it seems we've crossed some kind of line and I can make this leap.

Still, the church music I love is not irrelevant in this regard. I believe it has a beauty and energy signature fully consistent with the coming age, and that it may play a key role in how all this unfolds, for me anyway. Similarly, my deep connection with English soil and the stone cathedrals continues to resonate. The music of the spheres needs grounding for us on earth, and all of this seems to be truly "of a one".

So, the serendipity is that yesterday, I listened to a remarkable interview, and within about an hour, I had found my way at least five miles to my favorite used bookstore, and bought three relevant books, two by one of the people I had just heard speak. This wasn't serendipity completely out-of-the-blue, it was serendipity following a hunch. My gut told me I'd find some books that I needed, and I went for it. I am thankful. And if I needed reminding, these are the kinds of serendipities that will characterize the Aquarian era.

My Beloved...Animals

I am reading Mirabai Starr's wonderful Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics (Sounds True, 2019).  Every time I read the words "women mystics", or find that aspect of myself validated through processes like studying my astrological chart, I feel I've finally come home. The woman that I am is an actual "thing". It isn't that it pushes aside my second-to-second concerns about whether I will ever have a permanent roof over my head, but it does remind me, once again, of how metaphoric my whole life has been! Where the "home" I've been seeking actually is.

However, the book is making me think (although I'm only on chapter 2) that there may be a piece missing in my mystical journey, one thread that ties mystics of many traditions together: an intense longing for a connection to the Divine, for union for what is sometimes called "The Beloved". This is too complex of a topic to really unpack here, but it is complicated, isn't it, by changing images of the Divine, and the movement from duality into post-duality...and it can be hard to think of your Mother as "the Beloved".

Still, Starr's discussion of this forces me to look at the fact that I have never really felt the kind of passion she describes, whether on the human plane or towards the Divine. (The closest exception may be how strongly I feel about England and English church music.) I've had very few moments of dazzling joy and intense longing for spiritual union. My spiritual journey has at times actually felt rather plodding, a step-by-step path away from today's spiritual and societal models, a long time in the murky middle where I wanted to avoid locking God into gender norms -- and more recently, regular steps out toward the other side, embracing the feminine aspect of the Divine, the Goddess. My "passion" (in true Aquarian style) may be more intellectual, clicking in place perspectives on how the Goddess might see certain situations or react to them. I feel passionate in my alignment with Her overall, but the word "yearning" doesn't resonate at the moment, perhaps because I don't feel quite far enough away to yearn for Her. Complicated...and perhaps by the end of the book some of this will be resolved or make more sense.

While I was "grappling" with this (my new favorite word!), an eagle flew by. A bald eagle. And as it (he/she?) soared, I did feel longing, to be one with it, to soar above it all, to be one with that kind of magnificence and freedom. The day had started with three wild turkeys in the yard (abundance, gratitude, life in community), and Saturday, while a friend was driving me around on some errands, a coyote (trickster, playfulness) crossed the road in front of us. I had never actually seen a coyote before. I've heard them, of course, but never seen one. I realize that increasingly I do feel a genuine yearning to see and experience these animal emanations of the Divine, these wild creatures, regularly and up close. Who knows whether all of us or all of them will survive the changes to come, but today anyway, they are the focus of my love and longing. They are my Beloveds.

No Going Back

One of the things I believe about this time is that it will be an unprecedented leap forward/upwards. This is putting aside all political, economic, and technological considerations. When you are a mystic, those factors are on the sidelines, and what is at the center is spiritual. Ultimately, I think spiritual considerations are driving all the others, that the influx of Love is rattling all the constructs not made of Love.

And yet even being more conscious of this than most people, I find it hard to cast my eyes consistently forward. In trying to move forward, I literally moved "back" six months ago (to the part of the country I know the best) and at times I still find myself trying to figure out my future by trying to decide how to reincorporate my past places or belongings. How can I pull it all together? Will I ever close this expansive circle? And let's face it, you cannot move much further back than your birthplace -- except to the womb (!) Perhaps in an odd way, that is what I am doing!

Yet seriously, what if all I have to work with from this moment on is the full person I have become in seventy years, plus the proverbial roller bag and over-the-shoulder tote bag? What if I won't have the privilege of having what my own maternal grandmother had toward the end of her life, a nice Victorian-era apartment with room for her creative tools and art books and cookware and paintings? What if I finally let go of most of the boxes of books, diplomas, family memorabilia, my academic and post-academic research (chant and Herbert Howells), and decorative tchotchkes? I've held on, carrying within me a decidedly old paradigm conceit -- that I will finally be valued in some setting or other, and somebody will want to know more about my background, my tastes, what was of value to me, how I got where I landed. That someone will want to write about me, or paint a John Singer Sargent-like portrait of me. In an odd way, I have kept this material as much or more for others' sake as for my own, proof to the world that I actually existed...But the Goddess knows who I am. What if the coming changes are so major that my relatively small array of possessions won't even matter? If my hunches are correct, old paradigm qualifications, proof of "worth", and written material will almost instantaneously lose their merit over the next few years. If I am truly a being of the new paradigm, as I have sensed for years, then this material may be, at best, an unnecessary weight, at worst, a complete impediment on the path ahead.

While I feel some urgency around this, I'm certainly not planning to do anything this weekend other than to sit with these thoughts. I'll just try to stay in the present (with the rocks and the birds and the budding dandelions and flowering trees) -- not moving backwards or forwards. It's a harder challenge than it seems, even for me!

Goddess Words 43: Action that's Fun

Yes, "action that's fun" is not only more than one word (joining a few on my list), but it also seems to be a strange one to focus on at this time. I mean, I agree. Fun. Yikes. What has been "fun" about 2025?

And why did I add it to my list in the first place? In a Goddess context, what is "fun"? I can't quite go back and remember my c. 2005 thoughts, but I suspect that I was trying to validate the kinds of things a mystic such as myself considers "fun" -- not attending night clubs, or heavy spending, or drinking, or competitive sports, or sunning on a Caribbean beach, or driving fast cars or boats. Even placing aside my singular idea of "fun" (attending or singing a choral evensong service), other "fun" things in my book are also more introverted -- reading, baking, watching hawks and eagles, visiting with friends, writing in my journal or blog, knitting, watching baking shows...

I suppose all of these have as their aim, "being pleasurable". Everyone on the planet finds pleasure in different activities, but certain activities are so quiet, so non-commercial, so peaceful that they are effectively invisible. The Goddess is used to invisibility, as are most of us women -- yet our fun, loving, beautiful activities are the glue holding societies together.

Yesterday, I did something fun that might seem unexpected for me -- I clambered around on some rocks. Now, I love rocks. Perhaps having often been resident on a lakeshore explains this. Like a "lizard" (my college nickname!), I like to sit on warm rocks. But as I get older, my poor bunioned feet cause me to be increasingly cautious. My toes head in directions other than forward -- I can only wear most shoes for short periods of time, and as a result, my ankles aren't as strong as they used to be. So I've been afraid of attempting to navigate uneven rocks and boulders. But yesterday, I threw caution to the wind, put on my sun hat, and went for it. And when I sat on one rock looking at other rocks (which more and more experts agree are sentient beings), I felt like I was among friends. I smiled. I was a wild woman in the wild, in a wilderness cathedral. The sounds were not "Preces and Responses", true -- they were the calls of birds and distant traffic and the wind in the trees. My response was to smile. I had acted. It was a perfect, fun, beautiful action for this moment in time. It was valid. It added, I hope, a healthy energy to the world.

 

Earth Days

There have been millions of earth days since the beginning of time. Even since the dawn of recorded human history, there have been well over a million days when earth's specific needs could have been prioritized, but for whatever reasons, they rarely have been. We're certainly at a pivotal moment, having brought the planet to the edge of non-viability. Calling one day a year "Earth Day" hardly makes a dent, does it? I've struggled a bit the last few days, looking backwards at what humanity has done, at ways in which women, many populations, and the earth have been undervalued. Yes, even I do what comes so naturally to us humans, even though I tend to do it inwardly -- I fight with myself and with a world of events that seem completely out of balance. I grapple.

And yet...once I chill out a bit, I remember this: we are in the midst of such an energetic and spiritual leap upwards that, in a few decades, our world may be almost unrecognizable. This isn't just that natural forces will re-form much of the landscape and the constructions that we thought would stand the test of time. It is that new, more brilliant life forms will start to become visible, especially to those with the eyes of Love who are able to see them. Viability for planet earth may not be about returning to a pre-Industrial Age reality (although some of the lush wildness of earth's life in the past may return. In this transitional moment, we may circle around and help to breathe new life into some life forms that have been lost or have been put at risk.) But ultimately we are circling upwards, so there will be new shapes, colors, and life forms. Mother Nature is the ultimate creative artist, and our limited sight may simply not be capable (right now) of envisioning how Earth's future will look. Fortunately, it is within our power to take appreciative note of the new phenomena we see, like the vivid rainbow I spoke of last week. And hey, Nature (even at Her most seemingly "destructive") gives us something awesome and beautiful to focus on in the midst of societal changes that are so shocking and profoundly troubling. 

A Double Rainbow

Yesterday, I saw what might have been the most beautiful, most vivid rainbow I have ever seen. It was late afternoon, and the slanting sun suddenly came out from behind extremely dark, rainy skies, yielding two brilliant arcs (although admittedly one was far clearer than the other). The end of the rainbow appeared to be about a tenth of a mile away (although I suppose if you were to walk to that spot, the actual rainbow would be further away still...), and what I noticed most of all was the brilliance of the purple, or violet. My phone's camera couldn't do it justice. And often, with my eyes, I cannot see the purple spectrum at all.

Then, to add to the thrill, there are hawks and eagles in the vicinity in this morning's strong, snowy winds. And when I took a walk, the snowflakes falling on my black jacket retained their unique, distinctive shapes just long enough for me to be reminded of their beauty and wonder.

When I say, if I survive these times, it will be because of Nature, it is not hyperbole. The works of man have become so grotesque that it is almost unbearable. I guess the blessing is that things in the news are so very clearly "what they are"... one doesn't have to wonder, or unravel ambiguities. The only joy I regularly find is in knowing that Nature will last, these other things won't. We are seeing the birth pains of the age of Aquarius. So inwardly, I align with rainbow, and eagle, and ladybug, and the grass greening in the snowfall, and the howling wind, and I stay expectant. What new natural marvel will show itself later today?

I'm doing something that breaks my heart, and sounds a little melodramatic...I am writing old-fashioned notes to many of my British friends, basically saying "adieu", because I sense that if there was a window of opportunity to get back there for a visit, that window may have closed, at least in the old paradigm sense of the word. I remain curious about whether all the things I love will be easier in the new paradigm...and I'll hold onto the memory of that brilliant double rainbow for the rest of this dear lifetime. 

A Portal Day

Informally, I consider the eleventh of any month to be a portal day...the two "ones" seem like a gate to be walked through. And I try to remember, early these specific mornings, to ask the Goddess for guidance. Getting through any day has always been a challenge, although I cannot remember a moment in my lifetime when things were so fraught with uncertainty, potential conflict, and rage. If I spoke in the past about love being the only path through these times, I'm being tested myself right now -- do I have enough love in me to get through one day unscathed, much less indefinitely into the future?

Yesterday was going to require a bit of interesting choreography...a ride to the local library, making photocopies at the library, walking half a mile or so to the convenience store, perhaps purchasing an ice cream cone to eat while waiting for a bus, taking the bus to a place I needed to hand in some paperwork, then a taxi back to where I am staying. For over a decade, I've been reliant on public transportation, walking, and the occasional friendly ride, but still, I never have quite relaxed into believing all will go well. Ultimately, when you have your own car, you have the power of your own timing, and that's not the case when you're dependent on others.

In the end, it was a curiously satisfying day. The ladies who run the library were friendly and complimentary. The woman who served me ice cream was equally friendly and helpful. As I sat and ate my coffee and oreo scoops, a man came up to me and said, "Happy Easter!" and pressed a scratch-off lottery ticket into my hand! I had never seen him before, and I just had time to thank him before he walked away. (I never have any luck with lottery tickets of any kind, but I'm going to save this for Easter morning just for the fun of dreaming.) At my final destination, the young woman who waited on me was extremely personable, and complimented me on my owl earrings! Last but not least, all the transportation, including taxi, went fine. They were modest destinations (interesting that my last post was on "travel"!) but I was beaming ear-to-ear, even knowing that every successive day's news seems to make foreign or long distance U.S. travel less and less likely or enjoyable. I'm still not ruling out wider horizons, but henceforth, every day of the month (including portal days) may need to be dealt with individually, in the present, and with more gratitude for a safe return than has been the norm, even for me. It reminds me that this should have been my way of operating all along; every day is a portal, after all.

An unusually grey, cold and rainy/snowy morning for mid-April. Will we get to see tonight's pink full moon?

Goddess Words 42: Travel

As I looked at my old hand-written Goddess words list this morning, I was surprised to see that the word "Travel" showed up twice. Several other words do too -- this list (on cardboard) was penned quickly and spontaneously, and a handful (like "Love") show up toward the top and then toward the bottom as well. But "travel" is interesting, and is a little more nuanced for me now than it was twenty years ago. Not to mention a bit surreal at this moment in time.

I suspect I put it on the original list because it represents freedom, especially for women, our freedom to live and move about as we wish. Perhaps in an earlier era, or in most other countries of the world, I could never even have conceptualized the kind of travel that I did on and off throughout my life, whether by airplane to Europe or in a little car (or bus or train) around the U.S. The freedom to wake up in the morning and think, "Where will I head today?" -- in a sense it has been mine most of my life, having stayed single, childless, and "homeless". With the current threats to our freedoms, I find myself wishing that I had traveled a bit more extravagantly, and seen more cultures that were truly foreign to me. (I realize with a little embarrassment that virtually all my travel has been to countries -- Canada, Britain, France, the Netherlands -- that represent my heritage. Hmm....)

The piece that feels more bittersweet now is the awareness that in my lifetime, it was necessary to use fuel to power the forms of transportation I used. This kind of exploration was hard on Mother Nature, hard on the earth. We didn't think about it that much twenty, thirty, forty years ago. I don't regret having undertaken such travel, but if I have the opportunity in future to visit new places, I suspect it will be done very deliberately, with an even clearer sense of purpose and focus than before.

In a more Goddess-centered culture, how would travel be different? The first thing that comes to mind is that there would be few, if any, "boundaries", so there wouldn't be the same sense of being a foreigner or a stranger. All places on earth would be "home", at least in the metaphorical sense of the word. It may end up being harder in the near future to physically travel, for a host of reasons, but this may eventually be replaced by people developing new skills like teleportation, time travel, etc. Aligning with love, new pathways (literally!) may open to us all. It will take courage to navigate these pathways, but travel (especially solo travel) has always required a certain amount of courage, hasn't it? 

I don't think the Goddess has to travel. She is everywhere. So we don't need to travel to find her, except maybe within...

She Says

Well, I am still trying to process the material that I channelled over a week ago, as well as a little more yesterday. This happens in my personal handwritten journal -- I've been doing it for years, only for the most part it used to be personal guidance, sort of an internal cheering section. "Hang in there, you're doing fine" kind of thing. During the pandemic, I did some more "pointed" channelling, about humanity's response to the pandemic, but I didn't own a computer and had no access to one -- and those entries are gone now. Last year, I had to throw out about 30 pounds of journals simply because I had to pare way back and put as little into storage as possible. 

So now, new channelling. Who am I channelling? My inner self? My ancestress Beryl? The Goddess? Mother Earth? All of the above? I'm not completely sure, although Mother Nature seems to identify Herself. I'm re-reading the paragraphs from the lens of anger, and realizing, yes, they contain a fair amount of that. I'm pretty sure the Goddess has those moments (those jokes about God coming back, and "she's pissed"!), and I'm comfortable up to a point with my own anger, now that I've been pretty honest about it. It's not really a case of, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. But I do believe things are moving so fast that we need to focus primarily on the warm-hearted path through these hard times, and be as loving as possible. At the very least, be aware of when we are operating lovingly and when we are not.

So, for the moment, I'm only sharing a short portion of what came to me last Sunday, but as it has to do with earth changes, I think it's relevant, and it's more visionary than critical. Perhaps Mother Earth is speaking for all of us women!

...It's about all the insults, the disrespect, the ghosting. The indignities, small and large. All stuffed down into my belly, hidden from sight. All my power, stuffed down, year after year. And now it's bursting forth...I see a world far beneath the surface, far beneath the trees' roots and the mines and the oceans, a world of fires that will themselves melt the toxins and create new landscapes and forge new paths. We will be changed. Nature will be changed. It won't feel like love, but it is the force of love and creative self-expression and I get to do this because I am Mother Earth and this is my body, and if I wish to re-form Her now, old woman that I am, I get to re-form Her because I have that agency. I have that sovereignty.