Conflict-free stories

This is what I wrote yesterday, before the Archbishop's installation.

I spoke last week about wanting to write a conflict-free story, one that doesn't have the traditional conflict climax arc-cum-denouement. But it has been an intense week in my own story (and the world's too) and the best I could manage yesterday was a few travel stories from earlier in my life.

Yet I woke up this morning realizing that in a way, these travel stories are examples of exactly what I am talking about! Somehow, even thirty, forty or fifty years ago, I knew I wanted beautiful, positive travel adventures, and when I was free enough, that was what I managed to create. I have to laugh! If Hollywood were to commit these adventures to film, they would be considered far too boring as is! Up on the big screen, the Scottish ferry would have sunk, I would have been attacked by both people and chickens on the train to Madrid, my northbound English train would have smashed into another train, and my car would have broken down on a lonely stretch of North Dakota highway in the middle of the night. My life story would have to be dramatized, sexed-up, violenced-up, and the final scenes would only have been satisfying because I survived one near-disaster after another -- not because I had had a beautiful, conflict-free trip.

It may be unfair of me, but I keep going back to how my brothers told me I had done nothing worthwhile with my life. At the time, it hurt, of course, but ultimately that's the message I got all along from our now-dissolving, out-of-balance construct. What was "worthwhile" was the macho struggle, the "fighting the dragon", the "killing the dragon", reaching the top, and having it all. Goodness, aren't we seeing this paradigm in its most grotesque manifestation in our outer world right now?

Yet I believe our emerging paradigm will be all about journeys -- story arcs, if you will -- that are only about going from point A to point B as peacefully and lovingly as possible. Only about encountering the best of humanity and nature, and embracing the privilege of being alive. Yes, a lot of my journeys required courage, but not a "gird your loins and get ready to fight" courage. More the courage to face the echoes of other peoples' fears, other peoples' judgments, and the courage of living every day, knowing I might have to face an unexpected accident or even death all alone. I've needed that courage every day of my life, as all of us do.

Where I tried to enter the male construct, and operate within it or by it, and where I tried to embody its expectations, yes, it's been a constant struggle, and I have "achieved" little that is considered lasting, worthwhile, or concrete. Heck, most people consider me an abject failure. But perhaps as a model for a new kind of story, a new kind of journey, it's all been quietly worthwhile after all. What if all of us dropped violence from our personal stories altogether? What if we were to discontinue consuming stories of conflict, in all forms? The world might change overnight. 

Installation

This is a first for my blog. I wrote a post this morning, but it is still in editing phase, so not published yet. Maybe tomorrow or Friday. However, I'm writing this second one, and will publish it immediately because I think it is important in ways I don't quite understand yet.

For the last two hours, I have been watching the live stream of the installation service at Canterbury Cathedral for the first woman Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally. 

It was a warm and inspiring service for so many reasons, including the inclusion of African music and readings, girls joining the boys in the choir, prominent roles played by other female clergy, and music by a woman composer to words of medieval mystic Julian of Norwich. Less superficially, the whole scene (a major British cathedral, the pomp and ceremony, the robes, music, processions, rites) remains my core home on a level that just never goes away. I mean, that truth is still with me on this boat of mine, even though old assumptions about how to connect with that milieu seem to have disappeared into the wake behind the boat.

At one point, I think it was as the Archbishop was making her commitment to serve the church, I burst into tears, and sobbed for a good five minutes. This is the first time in a few years I have cried that hard. It wasn't that I wanted to physically be at the cathedral, or even in England, per se. It wasn't that I wished that I were in her position, because I don't, if for no other reason than that I know I am not a Christian and could never operate that far out of my integrity. It wasn't really anger or frustration at being too old to have been able to be a girl chorister. 

I think it was this: as she said her "vows", I did too, only changing the wording. I mean, in my sloppy pink sweatshirt in a living room overlooking the Mohawk River in Upstate New York, I said aloud, "Goddess, I commit myself to Your service." And implicit in that statement is the notion of leadership. Higher leadership. Energetically, the scene on the screen vibrates almost at my wavelength except for one crucial point, my beliefs. After all these years, I cannot wrap my head around how to bridge that divide, except by being me. I've laid down the burden of most of the effort, and most of the "shoulds" or potential steps. Now I have a feeling that the lighter path opening up is one I could never have envisioned in a million years. Just as I'm sure, earlier in her life, the Archbishop could never have envisioned this day.

As I see the path opening up, may I say "yes", and "yes" again, and again...may I have more courage than I feel like I have!

A Story or Two/Travel courage

Another morning when I quite literally have no idea what I am about to talk about! I continue to be in a big lull. Saturday night I slept perhaps too soundly, for at least nine hours straight. I was still in a bit of a daze all day yesterday. The combination of my unburdening, these powerful energies surging in the universe, plus the news, adds to this odd feeling of dislocation. 

So just seconds ago, I decided I would tell a few stories about my solo travels over the years, even though you may have heard some of them. I guess I am doing this to try to remind myself that at least, back then, I was a courageous young woman. (The thought of even entering an airport today seems completely beyond my abilities! Talk about travel courage!) In 1978, I flew to England to see the country that had already figured so large in my life. As I related first in "Choral Evensong" (blog of 10/8/2015), I went directly from the airport to Cambridge, and was in line to hear the church service at King's College probably before I even looked for a bed and breakfast. I have never gotten over the thrill of sitting across a narrow aisle from the famous choir whose sound was already anchored in my heart. Surprisingly, I would only stay in that city one night, hopping on a train again (BritRail Passes were wonderful for making spontaneous travel decisions) to head north toward Scotland. In those days, I had almost as strong of a pull toward the Scottish side of my heritage as I did for England. But as the train drew near the Scottish border, clouds rolled in, rain started, and it would rain the entire time I was there. Between that and the daunting, wild landscape, I never took to Scotland, although I have fond memories of a bed and breakfast dinner table being set chock-a-block full of food just for me, and a ferry ride down the western side of the country. I was relieved to return to somewhat sunnier England.

I'll skip over my year of study at Royal Holloway, although that was certainly an adventure requiring enormous pluck. However, during the university Christmas break, I went by train to Spain to meet my brother, who was going to be spending the spring there. On the train south from Paris, I was in a small compartment with about eight men from Morocco, and then on the train from the Spanish border to Madrid, in a compartment with women carrying baskets of chickens! I still marvel that in those pre-cell phone years, one could actually successfully meet someone on schedule, as I did my brother at the airport.  

But on a later trip to the UK, I was supposed to do some traveling with a British friend, only to find that plans had suddenly changed. When I went to the train station the next morning, I first asked about trains heading south, and then about trains heading north. The bemused stationmaster said to me, "Young lady, if you don't know where you are going, I cannot help you!" Well, I headed north, although I regret now having not taken the opportunity to see Cornwall. 

My solo traveling in the '90's and early 2000's was mostly by car, through the US. Considering that I never had a new car, much money, or on several occasions, a real home to go back to, I marvel at this freedom and, again, my courage. I took a rather mystical approach to the whole thing, sometimes following an eagle, or picking destinations based on passing license plates or bumper stickers. I didn't spend much time doing dangerous things for single women (no bars or solo hikes in the woods), and overall I rarely felt threatened. But looking back from today's vantage point, it seems like it was a whole different, safer, world. I need to plan some small adventure pretty soon, or I may run out of courage entirely. 

These stories aren't quite the "non-conflict" stories I promised you. They're a little more in the nature of "older lady looking back on her life"...Thanks for bearing with me...

Not Surprisingly...

Not surprisingly, after Wednesday's powerful spiritual release and writing yesterday's account of it, I have been a bit like a deer in the headlights. In a daze. A lifelong struggle takes your attention every single day, even when you "fight back" by saying, "my life will not be about this any more" and you search and search for other passions and foci. The energy of struggle gets into your bones, into your cells and organs, and saps your joy...dropping my burden into the metaphorical water has, I think, really happened, and at least temporarily my physical energy level has dropped substantially. I didn't sleep particularly well last night, and the news gets ever more dire, adding to the sense of being drained. 

I don't, yet, see the sparkle on the water, or feel its energetic equivalent in my heart. Nothing could possibly happen that instantaneously, I guess! The harmonic imprint of "my" music lifted me quite high in childhood, and I suspect my soul's unique radio wave hasn't fallen because of dropping my burden. What was shifting all those years was expectations about how, where or whether to express that radio wave. What was a "burden" was not finding a permanent way to harmonize these sounds in a manner that would satisfy me and perhaps help humanity. It was never finding a workable role. It feels very strange to release that intention. But it is also relief. I'm tired. In a time of such enormous change, perhaps the Goddess needs something else from me. Perhaps I've outgrown something, and it's time for something bigger. I don't know yet.

So for a few days, I need to let myself be in this lull. I need to try not to look for the replacement for the burden I've let go of. If any of you are going through a similar process, please know that you are not alone. There has to be a quiet pivot point for mystics undergoing change, even if, not surprisingly, the outside world doesn't work that way!

Into the Wake

I had promised readers a story with no conflict, but I need to ask for a rain check. My bigger promise is to record the path of a modern female mystic, so on this New Moon there is something more timely and more significant to report.

Several of the astrologers and channelers I listen to online have been saying, in effect, "this is the time to lay down that thing you have been fighting for your whole life." February, March and April of 2026 is such a brand new beginning that we cannot carry old baggage forward. Even without this outside feedback, as you know, I have been more fully consolidating and weeding out my few belongings, metaphorically carrying them onto a motor boat which is now speeding down the lake into the future.

And yet...

As you also know, I had not completely released my history with, and passion for, the English cathedral music tradition. In fact, it is only recently that I have fully embraced how much those harmonies have meant to me, and grieved the emptiness of a lifetime largely separated from that world. Somehow -- surely -- I am responsible to bridge the gap between these choral evensong services and the Goddess, for the very reason that I have never found anyone else in that same "intersection". Surely, that has to be at least part of my role going forward. Since this year started, I have thrown a few relevant "Hail Mary" passes, trying to find new ways of embodying this bridging energy, and trying to find the right people to engage with. Nothing has hit the mark.

Yesterday, something happened that I guess you could say is much bigger than me. It wasn't something I specifically did, or intended, or said, or ideated. And I don't think it was directly catalyzed by talks I have heard. It's like, there was this "thud", and something dropped into the water behind me, into the wake of the boat. It wasn't the exquisite beauty of Tallis or Byrd or Howells or Stanford...these are etched on my heart forever, part of my permanent energy transmission. But I think it was the burden of the responsibility to do something about it. I think it was the burden of fighting to make something happen for myself and for all women. I think it might also have been the burden of carrying too small of a notion of what my life is going to be about going forward.

More than anything, I think it was the burden of struggle. This has been a lifetime of struggle on all fronts, from trying to break into an all-male choral tradition, to the struggle to find a workable Plan B, to the struggle to find community and acceptance, to -- eventually -- the struggle simply to survive. I've blathered on about post-duality and unity and "all-Love", but my own life has had conflict and struggle at its core! Damn, damn, damn. I won't apologize, because until now I couldn't see it in that light, but it's certainly mortifying. 

And yet, that reality may well be over. I am pretty sure the burden of that struggle has just dropped into the wake, and floated into the past.

One thing about being out on the water -- when the sun is out, you see the sparkle dancing on the surface. All I know today (literally, all I know today!) is that the energy of sparkle will help me see where I am going...where we are all going. If it doesn't sparkle, it may be too heavy with history, conflict, misery, and responsibility to carry forward into this new age. It may literally be a burden. And if we don't actively lay it down, it may simply jump out of our boat of its own accord!

Conditional

The condition I am referring to here is actually becoming less and less rare...waking up in the morning feeling the distinct calling to write, but not having a specific topic in mind. I feel such an inner sense of the larger energies moving -- in both positive and negative ways -- and writing is the closest thing I do to breathing, so I absolutely need to do it, perhaps now more than ever. So I guess some days I'll just "speak to my own condition", to paraphrase the Quakers. Just start writing and see what happens.

I did not watch the Oscars last night. I have not for many years. These days, I don't see enough movies to make it at all relevant to my life. But this morning, I did hear a few clips from the much-anticipated awards show, and once again mulled over what it might be like to go up onto a stage, speak, and be applauded. This is one of my small jealousies, knowing that on some level I am worthy of positive renown yet am still way on its periphery. I have been patient for decades. But I finally "get" that the ovations I may eventually receive could not have happened in an old paradigm context. I've been invisible because, yes, I have been invisible. I have been inaudible because, yes, I have been inaudible...at my age, I don't think I want acclaim from a place of a bruised ego so much as I do because I so fully believe in what I have been saying for many years!

Interestingly enough, during last night's broadcast, I was actually in a movie theatre, watching an animated film that, for me, was entirely too violent and duality-driven for adults, much less children. (There weren't too many of either in the house, as it turned out.) Yes, the animation was astonishing (and judging from the voluminous credits, the film must have employed many hundreds of people!) Again, some jealousy. When the creative output is about conflict (even conflict towards more "peaceful" ends), it seems to attract at least some viewers and dollars. When it is about a post-conflict world of all-Love, perhaps there is less for most people to grab onto. How all our constructs will soon change, even our models for good written and visual art! Conflict has always been the engine of fiction, non-fiction and even essays. Even for me, it is hard to imagine a book with absolutely no conflict, a film with no conflict, a life with no conflict. But soon that will be our reality. Those of us who can must now gently guide ourselves away from a life referencing duality and war. 

I'm going to give myself a homework assignment. In my next post, I'm going to tell a story with no conflict. I'm going to try to imagine such a thing, at least -- no tension arc reaching up to a climax, no relieving final denouement. No dramatic "saving of the day" or "winning of the race". Simply humans engaging with each other and nature quietly and connectedly. Choirs singing in harmony. Waves of action that are beautiful, even full of contrast, but not "life or death". That speaks fo my condition...

Goddess Words 59: Children

This may be one of the harder Goddess Words pieces I've yet written. I mean, I looked at my list over and over, hoping that another word would jump out at me, but no. Please don't expect too much. It will have taken me several days to work on it, and it still isn't quite right, but I've done my best.

In this lifetime, I never had children. It wasn't a conscious choice, but somehow the early effort to get into the field of English church music, then the subsequent spiritual journey of trying to find my place (and peace) in a world without that harmony at its center, took me far from the traditional mother role. I actually feel quite alienated from the world of children and from the role of mother. Sometimes I think I would have been a pretty good mother -- I would have modeled solid values overall, I'm a reasonably good cook and basic housekeeper, and I think I would have had a lot of love to spare. I would have had fun, especially with babies and very young children. On the other hand, I would definitely have been a feminist challenge to a husband or sons, and I know I would have been overly nervous about trying to keep my children safe in the small picture (trying to prevent them from running into the street, or getting hurt falling off their bike, or worrying every time they used the toaster that they might get burned). Unfortunately, I would still have struggled trying to function within our capitalist system, or worse still, teaching them how to function within it. If for whatever reason I had ended up a single mother, my children might not have experienced the bigger-picture security or normality they would have deserved. Overall, I am relieved that I didn't hurt any young ones that way. My strange existence outside the norm has, for the most part, "hurt" only me. But I won't lie -- it is, well, strange to be a childless woman in our culture. I don't think I am up to the task of explaining this better today, with a mind distracted by war and madness, but it is hard to feel entirely feminine -- or to feel true companionship with other women -- when you don't have this key experience of birthing and nurturing in a given lifetime. It is also hard to fully represent the divine feminine, knowing that motherhood is so key to any notion of the Goddess. And it is hard at my age not to have grandchildren to love and to show off!

Having said this, the Goddess exists not only to birth children and nurture them. She is "mother" not only to human children, but to everything that exists throughout the Universe. The "children" of the Goddess include all of earth's physical bodily landscape, all animals, plants, waters, the stars above, the planets, comets, and even whatever sentient beings may exist throughout all furthermost galaxies. The comfortable image of a nurturing mother surrounded by happy human children is far too small, whether for Her, or for any of us women. 

And in the new paradigm, individual women will give birth to children, of course, but from that point forward, a child's life will not be limited by a small individual family. It also won't be "communal" in a top-down way. Wise members of the community will engage with children from early in their lives, discovering their strongest gifts, and guiding them to the kind of education and early direction suitable to the individual child. Young people will eventually study for and pursue adult lives that they are passionate about; in a world whose currency is love, not money, there won't be institutions or corporations at the top of the pyramid dictating society's overall direction. People, from childhood, will always be encouraged to "be themselves". They will also engage intimately with Nature. "Education" will be more about a child becoming part of his or her natural world, and less about learning about human history and institutions. It will be more about one's inner Nature (one's innate psychic, healing and spiritual abilities) than about outward human-constructed religions, medicine, and politics. And children won't ever un-learn how to love. Duality and conflict won't enter their education or their lives.

Children are important to the Goddess. In the emerging age, young people will be naturals at actively modeling Her values (love, beauty, right brain synchronicity, awe, inner power, etc.)  They will simply be less and less interested in taking the kinds of career paths we "old people" felt limited to and struggled with. The paradigm is completely shifting in this regard. And the Love of the Goddess is so profound, I don't know if any of us can yet grasp how different the world will be when it is fully unleashed throughout the galaxy. How different children will be, almost from the moment of their birth. Their wisdom and love light will shine almost unbearably brightly from day one...undoubtedly they will be our teachers before too long! 

Trauma

Part of my strategy for getting through these unprecedented times has come as a surprise to me -- regularly watching old episodes of "West Wing". I watched several seasons of this back when it originally aired, but now it has such an almost tender quality, like, look at all these highly intelligent (although at times very fallible) characters literally trying their best, responding to events with a kind of integrity that I recognize. 

Last night's episode from the second season is the one where Josh must confront the psychological trauma he experienced when he was injured in an attack on the President's entourage. He is diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and will receive treatment for it. During the entire show, my mind couldn't get away from the trauma endured by both combatants and civilians in war. Even if the current conflict were to stop tomorrow, how many thousands of people in many countries have already experienced serious trauma, without the means or opportunity to access healing therapies? How many of us sensitive ones, all over the world but perhaps for the moment not literally in the line of fire, are being traumatized (if less so) as well?

I really believe this -- the moment will come when not one human being will ever feel the need to traumatize another human being, for any reason. It will be a case of, "hurting and traumatizing others" -- as a concept -- will simply not compute. To reference my topic the other day, we have just about outgrown it.

The Unlikeliest Outcome

I feel the need to write as often as possible right now, not quite "as if there is no tomorrow" (although that quality has never felt more real), but simply because things are moving so quickly, without and within. Yes, I am on retreat, but I have listened to the news once or twice a day, and understand the nature of events in the collective. Things are being turned completely topsy-turvy. 

So far, there has been one major takeaway from these three days. On many occasions, I have noticed (and expressed here) that my life has been almost literally the polar opposite to the one I would have liked, in just about every area. The paradigm we have been living in has seemed like a mile-high brick wall, blocking every well-meaning step to a female mystic's self-actualization. Making my kind of dreams come true has seemed at best, unlikely, usually, impossible.

Yet with everything shifting, bricks seem to be falling out of the wall. The imposing barrier feels mutable. I'm not quite at the point of believing that I can finally, easily, create my reality, but I think I will walk away tomorrow believing that the unlikeliest life outcomes could possibly happen now. I think I will walk away with a softer heart, believing that in the Age of Aquarius, new kinds of paths will open. I don't have a laundry list of demands, just sort of a warm-hearted "what if"? I have a smile, not a determined grimace, on my face.

And I am convinced that some of these unlikely outcomes could manifest on the bigger stage as well. It's easy to let one's brain leap to certain conclusions. Yes, the reality of what is happening "is what it is". But what today's truth will lead to, we don't know yet. What would be the best outcome for Mother Earth? This moment's scenario seems far from that, and yet we cannot see beyond the falling bricks. Perhaps She is beginning, Herself, to sense an opening for Her unlikeliest outcomes to materialize!

Outgrown

The only thing keeping me going this week is the belief that a large percentage of humanity has already outgrown the paradigm that we are seeing play out in front of our eyes (and for many people, literally on their streets). Too many humans are way beyond that manner of thinking, much less acting. And Gaia Herself is so "done" with it. Those of us not on board with conflict and domination have to make our own decisions about how to grow the new paradigm, and express the Aquarian values that are the cornerstone of coming centuries. Watching the old paradigm play out and die out is excruciating; hanging onto the core of Love within ourselves is key to moving forward.

The harder part is realizing how much one is outgrowing on a personal level as all this is taking place. Even one of the positive developments I experienced a few days ago now seems like something from a previous century. I think I've been ahead of the curve my whole life, but I managed to ground myself in certain places and with certain people just enough to keep from completely falling between the cracks. Now, in my old cabin cruiser speeding down the lake with my few bags of belongings, watching the foamy wake disappear behind me, I feel some of the wrenching tears on a personal level. When "they" talk of going through the eye of the needle of spiritual growth, it's for real. All that will fit through this passageway is you, your dear heart, a few belongings, and open arms. I've essentially been a solitary New Age nun most of my life, no matter what setting I was living in, and I am actually tired of being alone. It terrifies me that this portal must be travelled solo, much as I seem made for it. As soon as I step through, I trust with all my heart that there will be kindred spirits on the other side/in the new cove of the lake/whatever metaphor you like. People for whom war, conflict, and resistance simply do not compute. People who have also put "all their eggs" in the Love basket.

I'm on retreat this weekend, and in light of the above, it is both the best and the hardest place to be. Wherever you are, blessings. Keep breathing. Keep being yourself.

Eclipsed

The last few days have been so astonishing, I really don't know where to start. 

Events have illustrated one thing more clearly than any of the other times I have said it: it doesn't matter how long one has anticipated certain kinds of developments or trends, how many significant astrological signs seem to point to shifts and changes, or how much you feel energies within yourself coming to a head. The fact is that the reality of the current world scene must be about ten times worse than I could possibly have imagined. My head may be saying, "this is much as I might have expected, at around the time I expected it." But my heart is breaking at the scope of the spreading inhumanity, and the knowledge that this is just the beginning of a long process. I simply cannot completely disengage my heart, nor should I, even as I search out ahead of the curve for the harbor in which to help build the more loving new paradigm. 

Yesterday, I woke up before 4 AM and walked to the side of the house facing the moon. There it was, crisp and full outside the window, perhaps just barely beginning to be eclipsed by earth. Yet half-an-hour later, when I went again to see if there had been any progress, clouds had rolled in and the orb was completely obscured. The eclipse itself had been eclipsed, and before long it started to snow, so in our part of the world, no blood moon. 

Yet the energies of the significant portal remained strong, and the most amazing development for me was two big "yeses" in one day. This lifetime has been littered with rejection -- job applications, great creative ideas, auditions, you name it.  A few notable exceptions keep me from completely expecting the worse, but my prevailing energy toward life has been -- despite this being completely against my spiritual leanings! -- "struggle against", "things I want most won't happen longterm", "this paradigm hasn't worked with or for me". (What sad self-talk!) Yet suddenly, on a day representing a clear change of astrological direction, I received two positive responses to things I had initiated but had been on hold. It's like all my life, I have been a moon in shadow, and finally the objects blocking the light are orbiting off. Their time has come -- and gone. I need to get used to the idea that it is a "yes"-based universe, not just in theory, but even for me!

To get back to the horrors unfolding, even they are being subtly eclipsed by all of us "light workers". Those of us who are luminous have long been eclipsed by the energy of non-Love, but no longer. If we can stay focused on the beauty and power of natural phenomena, the everlasting nature of all life, and belief in a more Love-based future, Earth (and its inhabitants) may still have a softish landing. A visible, hope-filled landing.

The Biggest Tragedy

This may be the first time in my entire ten years of writing this blog that I have started to write my next post apparently before anyone at all has read my previous post.  Given the significance and enormity of this weekend's events, given the personal and philosophical nature of my writing, and given the powerful energy of this current shift upwards, I guess I am not surprised. Too much is happening. Tomorrow's full moon/eclipse is yet another portal, and all of us are, in one way or another, "hanging on for dear life". 

Still, I continue to watch these events as if through clouded glasses. When you arrive at 70 realizing that you are completely "post-duality", the utter absurdity of the concept of war becomes the most unbearable thing, not the pain of knowing that people are being killed and all life on earth disrupted. The biggest tragedy is philosophical, the outmoded belief that anyone can ever win a conflict, the belief that any side will ever be victorious, or prevail, or gain anything longterm from war. 

Originally, I had planned to write today about volcanoes. I've started to do something that I might previously have considered a waste of time, but at the moment feels calming -- filling in "adult" coloring books. Oddly enough, the first image I chose to color was of an erupting volcano. It resonated with me. Even putting aside the events in the news, Mother Earth is clearly undergoing profound shifts of her own. My hunch is, She's probably just about had it with having the surface of Her skin cratered by bombs, Her people pointlessly killed, Her air and rivers poisoned by weaponry and toxins. Her consciousness is expanding just as ours is, and what was trapped within is pouring outward and will do so at an ever-increasing rate. Some might say that the consequences of natural disasters are as tragic as manmade events, but I don't see it that way, especially at this moment in history. I guess my bias slants firmly in the direction of the Goddess, and the survival of Earth itself. Whether it remains habitable for life, any form of life, is Her first priority, and because we don't seem to be able to put Her safety first. She may end up acting quite radically to do it Herself. Nature is ultimately in charge here. It is too bad our leaders and generals don't seem to understand that.

This Morning

This morning around 8 AM, I did hear news on the radio before starting to write. I had actually woken up at about 2:30 AM and never got back to sleep. I don't think it is too fanciful to imagine that I had an idea that something major was going on somewhere, that the unsettling energies were the portent of something extremely significant. As indeed is the case.

I guess the only thing to be said is that I'm relieved that I've understood for a number of decades what kinds of major shifts would happen in the 2020's, and I am not just now waking up to the intertwined realities. As hard as it has been, at least I've had time to slowly readjust my expectations, and embrace positive future probabilities. At least I've reached the point of racing down the lake, with white, frothy wake (history) rippling out behind me. May I soon bring my boat into another safe harbor where it is possible to greet others, which feels like my natural role in the emerging paradigm.  

There may be hard months, years, ahead for those more personally engaged in the old paradigm. Even I feel moments of fear. But whenever possible, we can influence events for the better by staying calm and fearless. Yes, entire constructs are collapsing, but they cannot tolerate the energy of Love. Let them go. A lot of beautiful new life is also being birthed, on the Love wavelength. May we focus on that. And although I have a friend who hates when I say this, I'll say it anyway -- "keep breathing!"

PS...

A number of times over the years, it has been strange to realize that something I have written about in the morning has taken on extra meaning in the news later in the day (I generally write early, often before having heard or seen any news). Yeah, those times when I have referred to a metaphorical tsunami, and there has been a tsunami somewhere in the news, or an earthquake, and there has been an earthquake somewhere in the world. That kind of thing. Recent news was one of the reasons I had changed from "speedboat" to "motorboat" in the metaphor referred to in the last few blog posts, but still, the fact that such boats also figured in another world arena yesterday was a bit weird.

Still, I think it is really important that we don't allow our joy to be snatched away, by anyone! If the image inspiring me at the moment involves me in an old-fashioned motorboat wailing down Lake Champlain, joyfully feeling the sun in my face and the wind and water in my hair, I do not have to go down the rabbit hole of projecting fear onto the imagery. I don't need to find another metaphor. I don't need to resist or react in any way. This week, if I can access joy in any way, shape, or form that hurts no one else, I need to do that. It may be that a different metaphor will begin to speak to me in upcoming weeks, and if that happens, you know you will hear about it! (Smile!)

The Motorboat

I wanted to follow through on what I brought up last time...and my continued amusement at the fact that the metaphor of the motorboat is continuing to resonate, rather than, say, a galloping horse. This is the year of the fire horse, after all!  And most of my life, I have opted for non-motorized sailboating or rowing or kayaking. But for some reason, I can picture myself in an old-fashioned '60's-'70's era motorboat more than on a horse, although I've only experienced either of them a handful of times. (I have reverted to "motorboat" rather than "speedboat" "just because"...I think it is the kind of motion on the kind of lake that I'm used to -- straight north or south on Lake Champlain, for instance -- and it works best as my metaphor.)

So here's the thing. I'm out on the water on a sunny summer day, and someone else is driving the boat. I'm like this queen -- all I have had to do is step on the boat with what little remains of my belongings, and all my experiences and passions closest to my heart, and once the boat starts, I sit near the front with the wind whipping through my hair and droplets of water splashing on my face, and feel the exhilaration of moving fast, without, myself, having to move. This is not a case of leaving my destination in someone else's hands -- perhaps the driver is my higher self. But it is a case of, I don't personally need to make any of the small decisions, or steer the boat physically. In this present moment where life is moving with unprecedented rapidity, I'm finally in a vehicle that matches the speed of change. The v-shaped wake is disappearing behind me, and for the first time ever, I feel just about no sense of sadness or fear or nostalgia. I'm being taken where I need to go to unpack my few belongings and really, really shine. If it ends up being somewhere that I really didn't expect, I'll just get out of the boat and do my best to catch up with myself, as I always have!

The only illustration I could find that fully resonates with this feeling (because I think "feeling" is all, right at the moment) is an old oracle card of a woman riding a unicorn, her arms flown back like wings, and her face ecstatic in the sun. I guess that's the image I see of me in the boat -- in an embodiment of joy. The moments when I can feel this as lived reality are in the middle of the night. Perhaps those early hours are when I feel most "me", flying through the universal waters, under the stars. Sometimes it is terrifying, but when it isn't, it is exhilarating.

We all have different inner eyes and different metaphors, but find one where you can see yourself through the eyes of joy and excitement and bliss. Maybe on a rollercoaster, or paragliding, or on a train. This may seem like the hardest moment in history to do this, but more than one person has said recently that joy is perhaps the only response to what's happening! The only way to model and embody the new paradigm. The only way to be what so many things are not.

Well here we are

Well, here we are. We have made it beyond my 70th birthday, and the February 20 date that loomed so large on the astrological horizon. Saturn was conjunct Neptune at 0 degrees Aries....which I really don't understand, except that it was apparently the first time this has happened in 6,000 years. Saturn refers to boundaries, structures, containers, limitations (etc.) while Neptune is, in a way, the opposite -- eternity, expansiveness, the mystic, the deep. And all this at an important beginning point or portal. For months I had taken note of this date, and read and listened to a number of analyses of what it all might mean, trying to find a balance between reading too much into it and not enough. And also trying to notice whether this might affect all of us more on a personal level, or whether this "new start" and new point of balance would also have meaning out in the world.

As ever, I'll leave most of the analysis of world events to the zillions of other people engaged in such analysis. And I know astrologers were warning against assuming that major changes would happen in one's individual life overnight -- that this is like an ignition point. But I need to report that I feel a major shift in me literally over the last two to three days. As you know, it comes on the heels of a number of weeks of renewed "lightening of my physical load" of belongings (as few as they are). And then, a feeling of having entered a strange void where many of my old activities feel boring or unengaging. As of last week, I still felt fairly clear about the passions closest to my heart, and I could feel the general Love energy clearly right there at "dead center". I was proud of finally having fully embraced them, and allowed myself (within myself) to be fully who I am.

Yet yesterday was a very unnerving day, and it felt as if even those few certainties were swimming away behind me, like the wake behind a speedboat. This wasn't like how earlier in my life, I tried to stop liking certain things or being a certain kind of person. I kept trying to find a Plan B. It is more a case of, having fully accepted all the facets of who I have been (in this lifetime and, I'm sure, many, many, before it), I have hopped onto a speedboat (hmm...representing Saturn?) carrying it all with me, and am racing through Neptune's waters at the warp speed of these times, and am going through some kind of sound barrier into -- literally -- uncharted waters. The world that we see in front of us had already started to feel like "history", but today, I see the boat's wake receding into the distance.

This is an imperfect metaphor. I doubt the Goddess would set foot in a "motorboat" under any circumstances. But I have to use the imagery that comes to mind, this woman who has so often lived near big waters. This morning, unlike coastal Mid-Atlantic and New England areas, we in the Capital District were spared most of the snow. Many of you may have a lot of basics on your mind. But if by any chance, you, too, are feeling abnormally "surreal", I guess I wanted to reach out and say, I am too. Here we are. Uncharted waters.

Goddess Words 58: Pierced to the Core

The last sentence or two of my most recent post ("The Lull") reminded me that my Goddess list includes the words, "Pierced to the Core," so this appears to be the day to address this concept. It's interesting, I really haven't read too much written material about (or by) early saints and mystics. I just know from what little I have read that female saints, particularly, reached intense points of ecstasy, and experienced stigmata and other physical woundings in their contemplation of God. These haven't been my experiences -- moments of happiness, joy, even bliss, perhaps, but no ecstasy or physical signs (yet!) 

So it is notable that two decades ago, I would have included "pierced to the core" in my list of Goddess words. And why did I speak the other day of waiting for an arrow of Love to pierce my heart? I mean, being such a nonviolent person, these are both rather strange, painful concepts to attribute to the Goddess, and in writing today, perhaps I'm trying to do some reframing.

I think what is going on is an attempt to describe, in metaphor, the clear, powerful, beautiful energy of the Divine (Feminine), and how -- perhaps -- all lesser energies are easily swept aside by it. Maybe a better metaphor might be of a warm butter knife cutting through butter -- yet still, a knife is potentially dangerous! Hmm...this is so interesting and frustrating. Our world of duality seems to express everything in terms of violence, darn it. In recent visualizations, I have heard guides referring to beams of light cutting through to the heart, and ditto with angelic energies. (When these energies are purportedly a figure traditionally thought of as male, I confess I find the whole thing rather uncomfortable and creepy!) In the end, perhaps all of us are simply trying to find some way to express what happens at that moment when all of our defenses, shrouds, onion layers, and excuses are no match for the Love power of the Divine. A pathway opens to the heart, and Love spills over and out.

I'm reminded, too, that this imagery conforms to the old paradigm model that divinity is something up there, out there, outside of us, separate from us. That to connect with this energy requires outside intervention of some sort...either we have to reach out (in prayer, meditation, or whatever), or the Divine figure needs to reach (or bore their way) in. In a metaphor consistent with the truly contrasting vision of the Divine Feminine, our core is "piercing" outward, the pathway is from the heart not towards it; the energy is working completely in the opposite direction. We are simply unblocking the Love channels already deep within us.

So to revise what I said last time, if I am waiting for anything, perhaps it isn't for an arrow of love to pierce through me to the heart, but rather for the amount of Love in my heart to spill over to the point where it has no choice but to spurt out into the world in a new way. 

Being a New Age nun requires doing a lot of "re-visioning", doesn't it?!

The Lull

It's not surprising to me that this week is supposed to be one of the most powerful ones ever, according to astrologers. That it is happening right on the other side of my 70th birthday is also not surprising. 

Here is how it is manifesting for me. It's like a complete lull, more empty than any other I remember experiencing. I have thrown away or recycled so much stuff (I found another small "mother lode" the other day that was emotional to go through) and this coming weekend, I'm emptying all the rest of the boxes (only about six now) and making sure things are actually organized within them. I struggled to find something to write about today...that has never been a problem!  My usual books don't thrill me, and I cannot get excited over crosswords or other word puzzles. I watched "Jeopardy" the other day for the first time in months, and it was so based on "old paradigm" facts that I couldn't bear it. As for everything in the news, it, too, feels like "history" -- it's over. And even the peeps I've been listening to online for thoughts about where we are headed aren't giving me much information that I don't already know. I guess I am as prepared for what is to come as I'll ever be...

The challenge going through one of these lulls, especially at a time like this, is really, really believing that one's true destiny is on the other side. We humans want to fit into an existing pattern, don't we? We want to know what the pattern is, or is going to be, and at least try to conform to it, but in this case, I think the changes are of such a magnitude that we cannot visualize, or plan, or make lists, or any of the classic left brain things we have been taught. We cannot use our life up until now to imagine the future. That's the whole point. This shift is monumental, and right-brained. The pattern will flow out from within us. What may help is aligning with feelings, or very basic inner centering, and Love. I still know what I love -- the real center of the bull's eye -- so all I can do is be in that bull's eye and be pierced by Love and immersed in it. I think this lull is about waiting for the arrow to come my way...at least, today, that's the only way I can describe it! Perhaps I sound like one of those medieval nuns, and if so, it makes this New Age nun smile!

Goddess Words 57: Worshipped (off the list)

Well, this is a first. I'm presenting a word that I originally put on the list, but have just crossed off it! 

Twenty years ago or so, as I began to more fully embrace the power and values of the Divine Feminine, it was natural to try to define things as a mirror image to the religious construct of my upbringing. Instead of worshipping a traditional notion of God, I would worship the deity's feminine face. Never mind that I was never drawn to any rituals in that regard, somehow I thought She would want, or expect, "worship" in some new permutation. Eventually, I might find a way to honor Her in some regular way.

And yet, as of now, this hasn't happened. I've sung songs like "We all come from the Goddess" in song circles. Years ago, I used to join a few women on solstice and equinox. As you know, I occasionally draw an oracle or Tarot card (although even this has become rather infrequent). But overall, I don't feel called to worship the Goddess, per se. Odd from a woman whose other passion is the music of choral evensong!

I think part of it is, if I were the Goddess at this moment in history, I wouldn't want humans taking the time to worship me! This is such a major energy shift, such a sudden movement upward, that people need every ounce of energy to evolve and grow in more love, for each other, for all beings, for the earth, and (yes) for Her. I think we are called to love Her, to respect Her, to honor Her, and even to sing Her praises. But does She expect regular "services" or prayers or rituals? Maybe a few generations down the road when the Aquarian age is more fully established...although even then, I don't think She will want us to engage in the kind of energetic imbalance that "worship" usually represents. And my hunch is that She would feel more comfortable with spontaneity than rigid protocol. Perhaps the best events in the future (and even now, when we can squeeze them in) will be "celebrations". Celebrations of the truth, of love, of beauty, and of Her values. Personally aligning with these values day-to-day going forward is "worship", in a higher, freer, form.

Threescore Years and Ten

For days, I've been trying to articulate what it means to reach 70, what it feels like to reach 70, and other related thoughts. The drafting process has been much harder than I expected. On the one hand, if the span of a life was "threescore years and ten" back in biblical days (Psalm 90), then reaching this milestone in our era should theoretically be "easy-peasy". If 70 is the new 50 (or 40, or whatever), then this should only be a minor blip. And yet...and yet...so many people never make it this far, for a host of reasons, both natural and unnatural. One of my own brothers only lived to 55. Having lived such an uncertain, change-dotted, and unconventional life, I am still amazed that I am here.

It is strange...the last few weeks I have been fearful that something would happen to prevent me from reaching this watershed. This negativity is very unlike me...but I became fixated on the thought that I didn't wish to die in my sixties. So a wave of relief has washed over me this morning. Somehow, despite a whole lot of odds, I have made it this far. It is an immense privilege. I even feel little peeks (and peaks) of joy.

Twenty years ago this summer, I hosted a large 50th birthday party event -- for myself. Having never married or had children, it was the equivalent of a wedding, baby shower, and big birthday bash rolled into one. I lived in a small town, so there were dozens of local people, plus some dear friends from further afield. My dad even came across country for it. It was a Big Deal, and I am proud of having had the nerve to go through with it! And yet my recent review of old photos makes me aware of having been quite a different person back then. I was still uneasy with my true passions (although a friend did make a Goddess-themed cake!), and it was a moment when I still hoped to "make it", somehow, in a more conventional sense. It was fun being the center of attention, but did anyone really understand who I was at my core, even me?!

The energy of today is really, really different. The image I am getting is of a low bar, like a limbo game at a party. I just want to sneak under the bar and get to the other side in one piece, with maybe a low-key lunch out with friends or a big piece of chocolate cake with chocolate icing. No singing, no presents, no big deal. 

In an unrelated aside, I need to say this. I truly, truly do not understand the cruelty we are all seeing right now. I mean, completely do not understand or resonate with it at all. It is horrifying and sickening. Even the slightest iota of pain to any living thing is hard to bear. Yesterday, when I took a shower, I suddenly realized that a large daddy longlegs was struggling near the drain. I am so nearsighted, by the time I tried to "help" him, my efforts basically sealed the deal. He (and some of my hair) had to go into the trash. I was nearly in tears...to inadvertently kill anything so close to my birthday almost did me in. 

I try to remind myself that, ultimately, "there is no death in the divine mind" -- for me, for you, for your pets, for any being. Life is eternal. Before "birth" and after "death" we are eternally part of the great stream of life and love passion surging through the universe. As I move through a quiet anniversary, here is my intention for upcoming weeks and months: "This is the chapter of the story where I soar on love's winds -- and love's wings! May this quiet portal bring me to my most powerful 'place', where I am more help to people, the earth, and the Goddess than I have ever been." 

More thoughts on forgiveness

I last wrote about forgiveness about two years ago, but this is a somewhat different approach.

This weekend, in the lull after yet another round of paring back on belongings, several ways that I continue to hold onto some negative inner baggage popped to the surface, perhaps not surprisingly. During the course of this latest process, I was pretty fastidious about blessing the photographs that I chose to throw out, thanking  people for the roles they had played in my life. I wasn't as generous-hearted about paperwork. Lets face it, many of the old papers represented institutions and business entities, and I have never felt any alignment with that world. A few weeks ago, it was simply a basic feeling of, "Wow, I'll feel lighter when I recycle this old stuff." But of course, the bad feelings weren't necessarily situated in those brown storage boxes or on the sheets of paper themselves. They were still lingering deep inside of me, my heart, my body, my psyche. Fortunately, the revolving door moves so quickly these days that it didn't take long to realize that I needed to do a little serious healing work, at least around a handful of memories. I'll say a little more about my process below.

What emerged from this was really facing my complicated feelings about nearly 30 years without health insurance (and, usually, health care within our current construct). Back then, I realized that I was going to be on a unique path, and would have to learn unprecedented self-reliance in terms of my physical health. I knew, increasingly, that I was readying myself to operate in the new paradigm. And yet, I also must have been "swallowing" a measure of resentment over the hoops people need to go through to "earn" basic medical attention. I scanned my body for signs of these negative emotions, and focused a lot of love on them, but also felt amazement and gratitude that I'm still here, as ever.

Inevitably, my thoughts took me beyond my own personal experiences. In the current tumultuous moment, what is the bigger picture? How are we who are mystics and healers to respond to widespread cruelty and inhumanity? For those of us not called to protest or push back -- if our role is to embody the new paradigm -- where (if at all) does forgiveness fit in?

In an older dictionary I still consult, the financial and legal roots of the word "forgiveness" are highlighted, but in our modern era, it's more about the psychological release that comes from the decision to no longer hate or resent someone who has harmed us. It's a complicated notion, no matter what perspective you look at it from, isn't it? I have been blocked all these years by the fact that the people and institutions that have caused me the most trauma have not had the capacity to ask for my forgiveness. In that situation, I find it impossible to think or say, "I forgive you." But if I get stuck in my own unforgiveness (duality again!), I cannot be an effective light worker.

So what is the new paradigm path in these situations? I can only speak for myself here, and present my path. 1) I acknowledge the reality of my memories and the hard emotions they bring up (or the reality of a current personal situation or event in the news). Really look at it and feel the pain. 2) (This step is "where I am coming from" and may not work for others.) I go back as far as I can, historically, often acknowledging that the core pain may come from really big, long-arc movements like patriarchy and duality. I cannot adequately explain the historical necessity for these trends in the human experience, but I remind myself that everything I have experienced in this lifetime was birthed in these old models that are now shifting. 3) Then, in that context, I try, if possible, to feel compassion for any person who represents the old paradigm. (Better still, if I can possibly feel genuine, positive gratitude for that person or situation -- for their role in helping me learn new truths -- that's great.) But if I cannot feel either gratitude or compassion -- if an institution or person has simply been too unrepentantly cruel -- then all I can do is say, "I do not speak this old, inhumane language and it is time to turn around and move forward to create a more love-centered world." "Forgiveness" is another concept that will not last long in the new paradigm, because it references not-love. As we move forward, fewer people will knowingly hurt other people, so forgiveness will gradually become unnecessary. 

With every passing day...

With every passing day, I become more convinced that the enormous missing piece in our world is "respect for the Divine Feminine"... that this is evident in virtually every event, conflict, and crisis in the news. At this pivotal moment, I can't see how any single change ("stopping" this, that, or the other thing) could possibly bring long term stability or peace. Only an enormous spiritual leap upwards, bringing with it an embrace of the Goddess and the power of Love, has that potential.

I'm reading an amazing book: The Serpent and the Goddess by Mary Condren. Like so many feminist classics that I discovered in recent years, it was published in the late 1980's. I have only finished the first chapter-and-a-half, but even if I returned the book to the library now, it has been grounding and vindicating, a reminder that there is a reason trying to self-actualize as a woman has been consistently challenging, nearly impossible sometimes. That I may finally have done it (at least within myself) feels miraculous, especially in the context of everything we are seeing right now. Of course, perhaps this painful (and sometimes absurd) "contrast" is helping to push some of us upward into the new paradigm. 

Overall, having largely embraced the whole scope of my journey, I now rarely feel "regret" per se, but a little of it rises up when I think to myself, what if I had discovered this (and perhaps a dozen other books) back in the mid-eighties to the mid-nineties? What if my journey had taken me on the path, say, of becoming a feminist scholar? Might I not potentially have had at least a more stable existence, and a "tribe"? It is certainly possible...intellectually, that route would have been far more satisfying than jobs in retail, restaurants, and lower-echelon teaching. But I'm not sure in those days I could have pivoted completely, given that I still secretly hoped someday to enter into the field of English church music. Recently, I've been able to "marry" the Goddess and choral evensong, but it was just too much of a stretch 35 years ago, when there wasn't one woman in the field. I didn't dare reveal my feminism...as if it wasn't evident already, huh???! And I might never have reached the same point of integration. 

I feel strangely light and optimistic today, but it goes back to "when you have nothing, you have nothing to lose"... I'm so ready for the new paradigm, and I am beginning to feel the energies of it in daily life. Little moments of wonder and joy. Every day of this lifetime was undoubtedly the appropriate training for where I am headed, wherever that may be. With every passing day, I begin to understand the patterns and events that brought me here, and I bless this present moment in time as "perfectly as it must be", a threshold to something quite fresh. Using the same ingredients, but creating something bigger, more brilliant.

On the Threshold of 70

Some of my online peeps are speaking of -- or modeling -- going through a death process (metaphorically, not literally). Just as our old paradigm institutions are crumbling and can't move forward into a higher, love-based manifestation, we personally won't be able to move forward without letting old parts of ourselves die. Well, as ever, I don't really need classes or rituals for such things. That is my life, with all the changes I have regularly made. Most recently, there is nothing like weeding through a lifetime's worth of old photographs to mirror the expression, "having your life flash before your eyes." Even the pictures from before I was born -- my grandmother in a slim long skirt and broad hat in 1915, my mother standing near Arthur's Market in Schenectady's Stockade area before her marriage, my parents on their honeymoon in Quebec --  are part of my story. I'm holding onto most of these historic snapshots, plus ten or twelve from each phase of this lifetime. 

And yet, this lifetime feels over. Absolutely done and dusted, as they say over the pond. I don't say this from despair at the collapse of our larger paradigm. Quite the contrary. For someone like me, the American experience was never fertile soil. A female mystic and English church musician? As someone I once knew used to say, I felt as welcome as a hair in a biscuit. The pressure to try to be anyone else, with any other core identity and passion, was so strong it nearly erased me over and over and over again. I see these snapshots -- the bemused looking "working girl" at Time Magazine, the overwhelming view out my window of Lake Superior making me feel miniscule, a heavier version of me caretaking my dying mom and later trying to stave off bankruptcy by selling my artwork. I hold my baby nieces, terrified that I will drop them, represent a small-town art association in a fourth of July parade, smile with friends at their Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts. I used to laugh at the fact that I had several "para" jobs -- paralegal, paraprofessional. But my whole life was trying to be "like" a normal American, and yet I operated literally alongside everyone, not genuinely fitting into any of these pictures. So It feels good to pare this collection way back, just to the number that I could show a future friend "who I was from 1 to 70".

Two major things have changed over the last few weeks. If you have been reading this blog, you know that I not-so-secretly and passionately love England and its cathedral choral music tradition. Over the years, it has been like a love affair, only unrequited, waves of love energy going out constantly, seemingly into the void. Part of my shame was the fact that with a few important exceptions, I felt no reciprocation. It became part of my knee-jerk reaction to assume that I never would.

But the other week, these incredible words came to me: "What you love, loves you in return." This may not always be true of people or institutions, but in my case, I suddenly felt that yes, there is an entire landscape, an entire soul of place, that loves me. For the first time ever, I have started to be able to watch videos and movies about the UK, and feel almost 100% warm, delighted, engaged and included. I'm no longer staring across an abyss -- I am in the picture. And in tandem, another related step forward. Yesterday I was on my own, and I turned on Parry's "I Was Glad" and Harris's "Faire is the Heaven" at full volume. I sang with total, loud, joyful abandon. No shame, no longing, no bittersweetness, no crying, no expectations. Just sheer joy, harmony, and unity. My landscape and my music love me back, and it is super powerful. 

If this isn't a rebirth on the threshold of 70, I don't know what is.

Goddess Words 56: Warmth

It seems appropriate on a frigid day like today to speak of warmth, both the physical sensation of being not-cold, and the personal quality of friendliness. I am one of the fortunate Americans who is under a warm roof this morning, many thousands in the south still being without power. Upstate New York (like my previous temporary homes in the northern tier of states) is used to cold winters, although Winter '25-'26 has been particularly brutal. But it will be unforgettable for generations to come in many normally-warmer states.

I think that when I added this to my list of Goddess words, I was referring to the human emotion of warmth, although it is possible that in a more Goddess-centered world, the earth might not experience its current extremes of cold and hot temperature. That's something we cannot know right now. But human warmth is something we have a bit more control over, or at least some of us do! I think the most shocking aspect of recent events has been to watch the deliberate cruelty towards other people, the complete and utter absence of warmth, empathy, or kindness. In the past, when I read about historical events characterized by this same brutality, I think even I lulled myself into thinking that humanity is slowly improving...that such vile treatment of other people surely must be going the way of the dinosaur. Now it is becoming clear that is not the case.

Looking at the religious tradition that I grew up in, I realize that there wasn't much in the way of warmth. Majesty, yes, drama, yes, a beautiful prayer book and musical tradition, and fine words about love and caring for others. (In the church context, I never felt held, embraced, cared for, or noticed in a motherly way, and in turn, in some areas of my own life, I have kept a rather cool interpersonal energy, I am sorry to say.) Even exhortations to care for the sick and feed the hungry came across as kind of "arm's length" -- in my church experience, after the Gospel reading was finished, I don't think we were literally expected to look struggling people in the eye, and to walk with them and hear their stories. And, of course, because of the underlying duality of the paradigm (good vs. evil), the energy I felt so often around the theology I was exposed to was militaristic and combative. I once did a collage using clippings from an old hymnal -- all of them about marching off to war, and victory over evil, etc. It was horrifying, the high percentage of hymns containing such expressions!

One of the things I keep reminding myself is that, even before these current horrors, our entire system was far from "warm". There may be nothing "colder" than a financial construct whose only consideration is how much profit you make. Forcing people to "earn a living" is cold. Competitive systems in health care, education, housing, and so many other areas of our world are cold. Many of us who couldn't navigate such coldness were encouraged even by the most well-meaning people to at least try to function -- "it is the only system we have, Liz." But there's the problem, we adapted and adapted and adapted to this chronic coldness, and can only see its deficiencies clearly as it reaches its final, crumbling stages. 

I don't believe that a person can be warm and compassionate and still own or use weapons, but urging people to change may not work. We have entered the Age of Aquarius (and the return of the Goddess), and from this point forward, conflict will gradually, "simply", stop working. Human coldness -- as much as it seems to be spreading right now -- is on its last legs. This is a monumental shift, and it is happening as we speak. From now on, if we have the choice, acting from a place of compassion and warmth will always work better than pushback and fighting. Warmth toward others is a core value in the emerging paradigm. It will be there in the future, but the coldness won't be. We need to keep holding on to that truth if we can, like a warm cup of tea.

Old Photographs

On this extremely cold and snowy day (at least for this part of the world), I have been doing two things -- shoveling snow, and going through and weeding out old photographs. No, it is not lost on me that over the last week, our nation seems to have gone over a cliff. Perhaps it is because of this that I feel so strongly called to address my blue box of snapshots, and reduce all my remaining belongings as far as possible

I think I have had this box for at least 30 years. Some of the pictures in it were in scrapbooks "back in the day", but I came to realize that the books were too heavy to keep moving around, so -- ta da! -- the pics (and hundreds of subsequent ones) were piled into this box in no particular order, although I did manage to keep them stored vertically. There are a few from junior high school and high school, family events, summers on Lake Champlain, some more from Smith, my year at Royal Holloway, my almost-decade in New York City (I took a photography course at Parsons, so some of these are in moody black-and-white), Pendle Hill, Duluth (my first incarnation there), the Champlain Valley years, and many dozens of my nieces. I don't have many from the last 15 years or so, through the digital age, since I took fewer pictures and they didn't often get printed out.

But if any of you have gone through this process, you know it is an emotional one. As with some of my memorabilia, I've held onto photographs not only to remind myself of the places and people in my varied and unusual journey, but as proof to show others, or as talking points. I've held onto this notion that a granddaughter figure might befriend me before I die, and I could sit with her and go through my pictures, telling her about people, places and situations. As I near 70, the notion that I will have such a person -- or that we will have the leisure to pore over memorabilia -- seems to fade. And these events and people seem almost literally like they are from another lifetime.

(I almost forgot to mention an important thing when I first published a few hours ago. Each picture that I have decided to release to the "no" pile, I have touched, and thanked that person or place for their role in my life. I hated throwing them out on a symbolic level, but when these photos are piled together, they are just too heavy to keep!)

One other comment -- it's been a bit unnerving seeing dozens of photos of my dad, smiling in nearly all of them, looking like the sweetest guy in the world and not quite as I have described him. For the millionth time, I've questioned my own experience, and yet deep down, I trust myself. It's a reminder that things can be -- uh -- complicated.

Tomorrow's chore is to go through the "keep" pile one more time, both to put the pictures in some sort of order, and to further weed out duplicates and others. This isn't serving to put the unconscionable cruelty of this moment out of mind, but it does ready me to be agile enough to serve the Goddess and the spirit of Love, moving forward.

Tornados of Fire

This is an essay I wrote just before I started this blog, in June of 2015. I just found the handwritten draft among my things, and although I think I have told you about this dream before, and this piece looks back more critically and perhaps negatively than I would today, I still feel that it is worth sharing, slightly edited:

Very few dreams have stayed with me through the years, but one vividly symbolic one is never far from my mind.

I was about four when I had this dream. In it, I was taking a walk up our road, a country-suburban "lane" near Schenectady. I looked to my right, and realized with horror that an enormous tornado of fire was burning its way through the field adjacent to our property and heading straight for our little white house. I turned around and, as fast as my little legs would carry me, I raced to the house to warn my family. I ran up the steps, opened the door, and wanted to shout out a warning, only nothing came out. I was so afraid that my voice had stopped working. So I ran all over the house looking for my mom, dad, and two brothers, but no one was there. It was only when I returned to the dining room -- the center of the house -- that I realized that all the furniture had been removed, and I had been abandoned. I stood frozen in place, waiting for the tornado to hit, when I awoke.

I was never actually abandoned as a child, of course. In their own way, my parents did a courageous job of trying to "do" the 50's American suburban model, given the highly dysfunctional Depression-era families they had come from themselves. My World War II veteran father worked for General Electric, and came home each night to sip a succession of cocktails. My uncomfortable-in-the-domestic-skin mother chain-smoked and sipped coffee at 5 AM each morning to carve out some time to herself. The tiny white kitchen was classic 50's, books like Rachel Carson's Silent Spring lined the living room bookshelf, and a shoebox-sized and shaped black-and-white television (with probably an 8x8 inch screen) was our window to everything from the local "Freddy Freihofer" show to the nightly news. Our house was surrounded by fields and had a blue wading pool and swing set in the yard. 

Yet clearly that dream reflected the emotional landscape I felt I was living in. For whatever reason, I felt utterly alone in the world, left, yes, to face even the most dire threats on my own. When I looked at my parents, I evidently did not see love, concern, or recognition mirrored back to me.

So it's interesting that it must be around this time that I was first taken with Mom and Dad to church, one of the services at our historic Episcopal church that featured its then-thriving men and boys' choir. The minute I heard the sound of this choir, I was enthralled. Utterly enthralled. The clear boys' voices and the men's voice combined to create magic. I wanted to sing in the choir. Period. This music was me. At the age of four, I knew this, and I was ready to start singing. However, my mother returned a few days later from a chat with the choirmaster with the news that I would have to wait a full two years before I could join the choir. Two years! I couldn't bear to wait, and nearly counted the days!

So it was, that sometime after my sixth birthday in 1962, my mother drove me down to my first choir rehearsal. I was almost beside myself in eager anticipation. Yet when we arrived at the choir room and walked in, I went into shock. This was the wrong choir! Around me, several young girls, several teenage girls, and some older women were collecting music and hymnals, and preparing for the rehearsal. I was introduced around, and I dutifully sat down and joined in the warm-up and rehearsal. No one could see that, for all intents and purposes, I had just died. 

It wasn't a case of gender confusion. I didn't want to be a boy. It's just that I had fallen in love with a sound, and a repertoire of music, that I would never experience in the St. Cecilia Choir ("the girls' choir"). If I didn't know by that first rehearsal, I would soon learn the full extent of the inequalities between our choir and the men and boys'. First and foremost is the fact that the men and boys' choir was respected. Almost every Sunday, the rector would find a way (in his hearty, faux-English accent) to praise the other choir. If we received the odd mention, it was with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. The men and boys' choir members were paid and considered professional. They worked hard, there is no doubt about it, and so did the mothers. My mom eventually ferried my brothers back and forth to three rehearsals a week, in addition to a Sunday service. My brothers came home once a month with a small pay envelope, and early on learned about the link between effort and financial reward. We girls knew without having to be told that we were inferior, that we were not worth training more comprehensively, and that females were simply not part of this grand, glorious English men and boys' choir tradition. And like virtually all women in the church in that era, we were volunteers to boot.

I came close to dying that year, psychically at least. As the months progressed the rest of that school year -- first grade -- I responded to the shock by developing nearsightedness and a habit of pulling out my hair that alarmed my teachers and parents. I went from being a vivacious, pink-cheeked, blonde-haired Shirley Temple to a serious, dark-haired, glasses-wearing little girl, almost overnight. Once I managed to accept the choir status quo, I determined to become the best girl chorister of the bunch, and started to rack up gold bars on my red "Royal School of Church Music" medallion ribbon with almost savage pride. I began to collect recordings of the great English choirs (King's College, Cambridge; St. John's College, Cambridge; Westminster Abbey...) and taught myself to sing Anglican chant and many classics of the English cathedral repertoire, not at choir rehearsal, but holed up in my room listening to my record player. By the time I was 12 or 13, I determined that my life's goal was to be the first woman conductor of the choir of King's College, Cambridge. To say that this set me apart from my contemporaries is an understatement! None of my friends, classmates, or teachers had a clue what I was talking about. By the time I got to college, however, this dream had devolved into wanting to move to England, get married and have boys who would sing at King's. I would live vicariously through men.

There were apparently a few other American women on a similar path. Honor Moore's memoir, The Bishop's Daughter, speaks of trying to train herself to sing with the pure sound of a boy soprano, as I did. Yet for almost fifty years I felt alone, and carried with me the toxic weight of rage and blame. What was wrong with my family that I should be so invisible in their midst? What was wrong with men, the church, even God, that they should exclude women, rendering them invisible? Inaudible? Voiceless? I had (and continue to have) a feminist fire in my belly, an almost insatiable desire to burst out of this involuntary "solitary confinement" and sing with the choir, be out there, singing and speaking and being respected for my skills. They had ripped my heart out in the early '60's, and I wouldn't rest until I could find it again and place it back in my chest.

It is only since the singular events of the last few years that I have finally come to fully accept an important truth. I think the Goddess and I sat down before this incarnation, and She said, "I have a great assignment for you. How would you like to be one of the first women to try to break into the English men and boys' choir tradition?" (In that context, it makes perfect sense that I chose my parents, and the girls' choir at a high church "Church of England-style" American place of worship. It also makes sense that my dad's mother had been a pioneering Canadian woman lawyer, giving me that feisty piece.) In this scenario, I was perhaps less likely to accept the rejection than young British girls of the period.

And with the early disappointment came a singularly strong "rocket of desire", to use a term coined by Abraham Hicks. This passion has stayed with me through thick and thin -- mostly thin. And what I for so long interpreted as my "lost years" were basically me biding my time until other girls and women began to enter the field, and there was a critical mass.

In this light, I can find an intriguing new interpretation of the dream. What if the tornado of fire represents not terror, but passion? What if, alone in my family and musical tradition, I was the only one with the courage to stand up and face -- even embrace -- my passion in life? That tornado of fire has, at times, sent me and my life flying through the air, and yet from my current vantage point, I am proud to have weathered the storm.

There are many interesting things about this essay, but for the most part I'll leave it alone, except to say that, of course, I did have about nine months of singing daily services at Royal Holloway College in 1980-81, and the same time period singing weekly services at New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine fifteen years ago. I'm not sure why I didn't mention this when I wrote this, but I do so now. Even now, when I watch choral evensong services streamed online, I do so with kind of a bittersweetness that hasn't completely gone away. If my tornado of fire could take me today to the perfect situation, it would be as an "anchoress of the Goddess", home near an English cathedral or college choir, where the services would be available for me to attend every day.

The Spiral

The process of going through my boxes yet again has been painful but absolutely necessary. Whether I go forward with eight or nine boxes of belongings or three or four isn't really the issue. The issue, in these extraordinary times, is my intention to carry forward only the materials that support my life on behalf of the Goddess. Even now, I'm stunned to find a handful of negative things I held onto to prove what kinds of roadblocks I experienced in my life...such as a few pages of medical records from when I fell and fractured my elbow, and the hospital wouldn't operate because they insisted I had broken it previously (I had not. I assume this was because I had no insurance. My elbow eventually healed, but I'm sorry to say that I think I have held onto an inner desire to shame the people involved.) On the other side of the coin, I have saved (and still will for the moment) mementos of higher moments (a piece of my personalized Time Magazine stationery, flyers from organ recitals and art shows). Yeah, my inner historian/biographer is slowly exiting stage left. I'm sure she wanted documented proof of a life almost too strange to have been true, but as of the last few months, I feel less and less inclined to go back over old ground in that way. We're leaving that paradigm. If I end up being anyone's heroine, I hope it won't be because I survived the old paradigm, but because I take a welcoming and teaching role in the new one.

Even one slip of unnecessary paper has become "too much", too weighty. Here's an example. I've held onto a few things from the Smith College Chamber Singers tour of Spain in 1976, one of which I had assumed was a small itinerary. Upon actually opening it up, it turned out to be a menu from a meal we ate there. Fascinating, something to celebrate as part of a rich and unique life, but not worth taking forward from here. More recycling!

However, one thing stopped me dead in my tracks yesterday, and it initially brought up some of the feelings of shame, fury, hate, and helplessness that I spoke of last time, leading me to realize that I still have active healing work to do! It is a notebook that I bought in 2015, on the short trip I took to the UK to audition for the choir of Gloucester Cathedral, and then extended for a few months. I had happened upon a workshop about connecting with your true calling, and took it (and found kindred spirits there) and kept a journal of the class.

What made me tearful was a drawing (2-page spread) which I guess you could say was both illustrative of my inner landscape, plus where I literally was at that moment, plus the dream I have essentially had since childhood. In the foreground, I pictured myself on top of a rocky hill, overlooking the English countryside. There's a house in the middle distance, and a cathedral city in the background, and scattered around me are the tools of two of my creative gifts -- a journal and pen, and an easel and paints. In the center, a simple spiral. Overhead, an eagle soars in the sunny sky.

At that exact moment in the English west country, I initially felt hopeful that finally, I would physically live this dream. The spiral was like a grounding point, and it is a drawing full of light. Yet only a few pages later, I faced the hard truth that I couldn't believe my dream would ever permanently come true. I didn't feel I had the power within me. My entries in this notebook vacillated up and down for a few more weeks, before petering out as I got ready to return "home".

I'm thankful that I held onto this booklet through several purges -- how easy it would have been to deep-six it in frustration. How many sleepless nights over the intervening years have I questioned God and the Goddess over not being able to "figure out" getting back to England? Yes, I've returned for a few visits, but I haven't yet alchemized living a permanent calling there. I finally understand that the effort to figure out/find action steps etc. was the whole problem...since I am, at my core, a right-brained, creative Goddess. Perhaps I have felt stuck for a decade or more, but it took more years to spiral further up the dream, to spiral up into loving my own genuine self, to spiral up into self-acceptance, to spiral up in welcoming my life's strange paradoxes, and to spiral up in increasing love and compassion.

Today, I'm going to spend a long time gazing at this picture, because it is like a series of oracle cards. When I drew it, I probably resonated the most with the cathedral spires, perhaps the homey structure, but now it is the eagle. At my age, I have spiraled up through countless gusty air currents, metaphorically. Being the soaring eagle and looking down from above, as I spread out my wings like an embrace, I realize that the whole image is me, and has been for this whole lifetime, from the moment I first heard the men-and-boys' choir at our church, to the year of singing and studying at Royal Holloway College, and through all my various incarnations here in the States. My higher, floating self knows why things had to be the way they have been, and has kept the vision, and still does. There is no cause for sadness here.

As I continue to spiral upward, I intend to hold onto this notebook and the pivotal sketch, at least for a little longer. I think it serves the Goddess to continue to have it in my possession, and to reference it. Talk about getting to a really intense moment in one's discernment process. Literally, piece of paper by piece of paper.

The Great Misunderstanding

This moment is excruciating. I don't have to tell you that. I've largely powered my way through the madness by focusing on my own spiritual and physical health, but of course that's only serving to heighten the contrast with the in-sanity without. This might be the right time to reference the physical ailment I dealt with late in the fall/early winter. Let's face it, in our outer world, things were in full swing by then, and perhaps it was inevitable that my body would eventually succumb to dis-ease. I had to seek medical attention, and I am glad I did. And yet even from the first moment of using the prescription meant to fight the condition, I knew that my inner "non-violence" would be an issue, as it has been for years. And sure enough, medicine got the healing process started, but didn't seem to finish it.

So I literally had to dig deep, and address everything within me that was at war with the outside world, every last iota of fury, fear, feminist cynicism, and resentment eating away at me. I had to address the ways that I have hated the world's violence and greed, hated myself, hated my body, hated the frustrations of my journey (and how I have constantly felt exiled), and hated feeling so alone and homeless. For a so-called peaceful person, I had an awful lot of hatred within me that I could no longer hide from. As I went through the process step-by-step, I knew perfectly well that this was all a well-timed metaphor, a final exam of sorts forcing me to do a complete detox heading into this all-important year of 2026. Until I completely healed myself of The Great Misunderstanding (a belief that unwanted conditions are caused by outer factors that can be "fought"), I would be powerless to operate effectively in the all-Love post-duality new paradigm that we have entered,

I think I have basically passed that exam, although this week's excessive congestion reminds me that being a physician and regularly healing myself will continue to be a daily necessity. Other processes may have worked a millennium ago, or a century ago, or a decade ago, or even a year ago, but not today. Full physical healing can only come from Love, not just medical intervention. Safety can only come from emanating inner Love into the outside world and being loved in return -- not from warfare, or scaring people, or amassing land, power, and wealth. Real nourishment can only come from loving the food we consume and the beautiful planet that provided it -- not from ever-more-complex processed food concoctions and addictions. And wisdom will only come from the journey within -- not from an outward accumulation of educational experiences, information, data, and facts.

The way forward is simple. Hard, but not complex. Do the inner work. Do the inner healing. Love yourself, your journey, and your body. Don't try to fix anyone or anything but yourself. This morning, it doesn't make our outward scenario any less painful, but I can finally be reasonably sure I am not adding to the world's suffering, even unwittingly. And I can step forward, at peace with "what is".