Night Life

Today's post has nothing to do with the deep dive inwards that I have been doing this week, except to the degree that it is a result of a certain amount of looking back. 

These days, I am generally asleep by 9 or 9:30 PM. I will only go out in the evening to something that is a "hell yes" (usually a musical event). I was wondering if this is me becoming an old fuddy-duddy. But the fact is that, essentially, I've always been "early to bed, early to rise" in a boring kind of way, by most people's standards. Whether it was at Smith, or when I lived in DC, or my decade in New York City, my idea of a night out on the town was to take part in a choir rehearsal, or take an art or yoga class, or eat dinner out with a friend or go to an early movie. I mean, I never, ever, went to bars, or discos, or night clubs, or swank restaurants. I attended a rather formal dance at The Plaza once, but it was with relatives, not a date. The year I studied in England, I'd go with friends to a pub once or twice a week and have a cider or a glass of wine, but my memory is that last call was 10 or 10:30 pm. In places like Duluth and Helena, night life was usually me reading or watching TV for an hour after supper and going to sleep. 

Now, even today, if the opportunity presented itself to dress up and go out to dinner at an awesome restaurant and have a really top-notch gin and tonic, I would -- and I would do anything in my power to stay awake past nine! But that hasn't been my life most of the time, and clearly if that kind of entertainment had been a priority for me, I would have lived a very different life.

Last night, I chose not to attend something that wasn't quite in my wheelhouse, so I stayed at the house and read an old Ellis Peters Brother Cadfael mystery. Yup. England, monasticism, medieval life, and the option of throwing a bookmark onto any page and take it up again tomorrow. When you are a contemplative nun at heart, that is "night life". That is your "wheelhouse". In the old days, I subtly judged myself for being so dull. What is lovely now is my ability to fully accept and love myself exactly as I am...

Today's "Station"

Over the course of seven decades, it has been, of course, impossible not to engage with the news of the world. The first major letter I ever wrote, at seven or eight years old, was to President Johnson, begging him to stop the nuclear arms race. In school and at the bachelor's and master's level, I studied many aspects of history (most of which involved wars and violence at least to some extent), and of course at Time, my daily focus as a letters correspondent was the news of the world. I've been privileged to be mostly an observer of these kinds of events, and to have the luxury of considering them from an intellectual, spiritual, ethical, even feminist standpoint. More recently, as my heart has opened up, it has become easier to feel the subtler violence I have experienced, and what it would be like to be at the receiving end of it more directly. I have felt grief that I think I had previously buried.

I hadn't planned necessarily to write again until next week, but something new happened to me yesterday as I was listening to a news report on the radio. I reached a new inner bus station. I strained to actively imagine being the perpetrator of violence, whether in war or any other setting. I was trying to "feel" what it would be like to be a person forcing people out of their homes, or using a weapon, or attacking other people, animals, or the earth in any way, and I simply could not get there. If anything, attempting to experience the emotions that cause such violence took me further from understanding it. We are all told that this is the human condition, that all of us could act this way under certain circumstances, and perhaps some day I will be proven wrong. But I am a human being, and as far as I can tell, this is not "my condition". And more importantly, I do not believe it is the condition of (or a given in) the Age of Aquarius paradigm we are entering. Violence does not match this new energy in any way. It may seem fanciful to say, but I truly believe that in the near future, people who are about to act violently will find that their arms literally collapse, their weapons de-materialize. They may shout in frustration, but nothing will come out of their mouths. 

Zig-Zag

This has definitely been a zig-zag week. To use the metaphor from a few days ago, each day I take the "bus" down and in to another "station", and find some new layer of meaning, or pain, or enlightenment -- only to spin into a bit of a whirlwind before regaining a bit of composure. (In honor of my youngest brother, perhaps this "zig-zag" is actually like a sailboat tacking...) Each morning, I "buy" my ticket toward a destination a little further within. Interestingly, a possible future option has opened up that could be both liberating and limiting. So heading inwards did in fact bring the outside world to me, but not in a clear or unambiguous way. That is the kind of moment we are in! I am trying to keep calm, curious, and open. I understand enough about this upcoming era to know that most of us, right now, are in no position to predict exactly how it will unfold. We may feel its energies, and understand intellectually how utterly different it will be from the present, but at least speaking for myself, I cannot foresee the exact timeline, or what our outer physical world will look like in, say, a decade. And so I cannot visualize (creatively or not!) the path that will lead me to where I would be of best use to a world i cannot see. My left brain is floundering big time. I have to go purely on love and instinct.

I'm not speaking as directly and specifically as I would like about this inward journey, for which I apologize. Early next week (after that rare blue moon on Sunday) I will assess it all. I just wanted to check in. Also to express appreciation to the Goddess for the privilege of this journey. It has been so unique, and even when I'm scared, I treasure that!

Reawakening

I'll report regularly on my "bus trip" down and in (!) this pivotal week. I mean, even if I had never watched any astrological videos, I could tell that big things are currently happening just from what my body is telling me.

So, yesterday was sort of a classic "Liz" day from the standpoint of experiencing an early high point, and then the bottom dropping out. I have to believe that this kind of thing may be why, for many people, a life rich in mysticism is hard to sustain.

Early in the morning, I wrote the following in my personal handwritten journal (I love this short piece for many reasons, not the least of which is that it shows that, deep down, I am following my path on behalf of all women. Even I worry that this isn't the case, sometimes...) (With the exception of deleting two repetitive words, I'm presenting this as written.)

I am imagining -- not just me -- but every woman alive, reawakening from the inside out. Becoming her inner Queen, be it of the place she loves, or the people she loves, or animals, or stars...some facet of this world. Every ache within her is a growing pain as the trauma or invisibility or pain deep in her bones turns over, awakens from hibernation. Every iota of fatigue, of numbness, of listlessness, is flipping over into life. Even women who somehow managed to thrive or lead or "play the game" are sensing a big energy shift where they are losing interest in what worked in the past, and they are waking up and looking at the stars and realizing, there's a bigger, more beautiful world out there that we women are intricately connected with (and intimately!) and we don't really have to do anything except let our cells flip over and let Gaia's cells flip over -- and watch what happens!!!

I love this, and am very excited by it. Not that it's saying something new, really, but I love how I am increasingly channelling material like this quickly and spontaneously (usually in handwritten form). It's hard for me not to edit and proofread, and work it over (which it probably needs) but for the moment, it is what it is. Of course, what happened a little while later in the day was a deep, dark, dive. Inner critics, imagined outer critics, and that energy that always seems to swing me like a pendulum took me to a really hard place. How dare I? How dare I express what is coming from my deepest place? That's always what it boils down to.

Late in the day and early this morning, I was pondering power, and the difficulty of defining what that power looks like for me (and perhaps other women) as we leave the old paradigm's "power over" focus. That may have to be another post for another day, but for today, power is defined by me daring to express what I find in my deepest place. Yes, I dare. And we'll see what deeper inner destination the bus takes me to today!

 

The Inner Landscape

About 18 months ago, when I made the decision to return to this part of the east coast, I did it, in part, because it represents possibilities. Duluth, which I still love and miss in many, many ways, is almost literally the "end of the road". It is at the north end of Interstate 35. It is also at the western end of the Great Lakes and that key shipping route. Whenever I see Duluth's Aerial Lift Bridge, I feel I have come home, and there is a strong pull to nest there forever. But in 2024, I realized that because of my income, I might end up living well out of town with no car, on one of the very minor city bus routes. I suffer from a form of claustrophobia in that regard, a fear of being trapped, and somehow instinctively I knew that this wasn't a great "energy" for me at age 70.

New York's Capital District is the opposite to this in so many ways. It is the hub in a wheel of highways heading south to New York City, east to Boston, north to the Adirondacks and Montreal, west to Buffalo, Chicago and beyond, and southwest to Binghamton/Scranton. When you don't have a car, buses and trains make a lot of destinations doable. Even the area city bus takes you remarkably far. I have done some of this travel, when I have known exactly what I want to do.

And therein lies the problem. For several months, I have been about as antsy as it is possible to be, and I was sure that by now I would have moved on, found more permanent housing, or at the very least, set off on a temporary adventure. I cannot tell you how many times I have just wanted to leap up, stick a pin in a map, buy a train ticket, and head off with only one roller bag. Yet with the exception of England, my old destinations do not call me -- and England no longer calls me in the same way. I don't feel particularly curious about new places either. It's like I have travelled over an event horizon into a dense black hole. This hole isn't scary, really, and from what astrologers are saying about this time period, what I am experiencing may be about the huge transformations happening in the stars. I may be on some kind of spiritual elevator, and need to be patient until the bell rings and the doors open. Whatever the metaphor, my instinct to go out and explore the outer landscape is being completely neutralized at the moment.

Which leaves the inner landscape. Now, I'm the kind of person who will never balk at introspection (as you have no doubt noticed!), but I think what I am being asked to do this last week of May is some deep digging the likes of which even I have never seen before. The word "power" keeps coming to me...this is not about the power to travel to see some new part of the world, or to see wonders created by powerful people, or about the power of the modes of transportation themselves. This is not about seeing new destinations outside of myself, and having the power to experience them. This is about the power within me. This is about peeling off yet more layers, and finding the power plant at my core, the passionate landscape within me, because the energy of that landscape will magnetize my new experiences. 

Various teachers are suggesting that all of us figure out what new skills or directions we wish to follow at this pivotal time. I see it not so much about taking on something new, but rather uncovering the power of what I already am. Even here in this blog, I'd like to to open up my connectedness to the Goddess, and speak ever more clearly and more forcefully. To be, at times, less tactful and more courageous. To remove blocks to my leadership ability, and be more willing to validate my own preferences. To truly, fully, embrace beauty, love, and this new age we are entering. Today, may I buy a bus ticket as far into my inner landscape as I can manage, just to see what I find!

Housing Solutions

We're hearing a lot about finding solutions for "the housing problem". One of the ones I hear the most is, to build more housing, affordable and otherwise.

Oh, brother. The hardest part about becoming so Goddess-centered (and also so Gaia-centered) is reaching the point where I simply can see no solutions to society's problems within the mindset that created our current paradigm. The issue of housing seems to illustrate this so poignantly. 

From a Gaia standpoint, this is what building tons of new housing does: it further degrades earth's landscape, and uses increasing amounts of toxins, plastics, and diminishing resources (water, wood, metals). It further spreads out neighborhoods, requiring more cars, more use of petroleum, more reliance on energy. It underscores the notion that individuals and small families need separate houses, separate spaces -- and the larger and fancier, the better. That all of us need to then furnish our spaces with more and more consumer items, more high-tech gadgetry, more "things" of all kinds. Solving the housing problem this way causes infinitely more problems for Mother Earth.

And speaking for myself, I do not wish to find a solution to my housing problem. My challenge has always been finding a home, a place where I (with my very specific passions of English church music and women's spirituality) would be completely welcome, no matter how much money I do or do not have. Finding a place where people speak one or both of my languages, so I feel like I am in my element. (How privileged I am to even be able to consider such factors!) And I don't think we can even envision exactly what housing will look like, say, 25 years from now. Because of environmental, spiritual, and societal changes, we will be living so utterly differently that -- at the very least -- pouring money into contemporary living solutions that may be going extinct within a decade is counterproductive. Goddess communities will be built on love and deep belonging. They will be predicated on taking into account the needs of the earth before one shovelful of dirt is moved. Honoring the earth and one another, wanting people to find places where they will be loved and accepted, finding ways to live healthily and lightly on the earth, gradually phasing out all concepts of money and profit -- that is ultimately the only way to find longterm human (and humane) housing solutions.

Bringing Stories out into the Light

Several times in recent months, I have heard or seen the quote from the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas to the effect that if you bring out the treasure that is within you, it will save you, but if you do not, you will be destroyed. Actually, when I first read this years ago, it sent rather a frisson through me, although at that time, I wasn't sure why. Even then, I didn't like the dualism of the thinking or its expression, of course! Like there are two lanes of this life highway, and either we are going to experience salvation or damnation. And there is a certain fear-mongering in, in effect, threatening people to "get with it" and find their true treasure before it is too late. Ugh.

So I guess the first thing to do is really, really analyze the statement and express it from a more Goddess perspective. I agree that we all have, deep within us, a key gift or insight, or perhaps an action that we were meant to do in this lifetime. Some spiritual gem of truth that -- if we can find it -- only we have the ideal capacity to articulate or act on. If I had a young person in my life, I might definitely suggest that their main purpose, early on, be to find this treasure, and uncover it. And then if they came to me a few years later and said, gosh, I've discovered what my true gift is, but I'm kind of freaked out about acting on it, I'd want to sit down with them for a few deep conversations about what is blocking them. 

More often than not, I suspect it would be fear -- the fear of feeling strange, the fear of being attacked for an unconventional view or condition, the fear of criticism or failure. And yet the answer to that fear isn't to mirror back the fear, and force people to give birth to their treasure "or else"! In a more Goddess-centered construct, the person would be gently walked through a process of facing their fears, envisioning possible scenarios if they bring out the best that is within them, and finding a way to commit 100 percent to their inner worth. An advisor would try to help them get to a place where they were ready to shine.

However imperfectly presented, this teaching did affect me deeply. I've known for years that there was something deep within me that had to be brought out into the light. I knew that I was fearful of my own power, and perhaps by continuing to sweep it under the rug, I was burying myself down there too, in effect "destroying" myself, continuing a cycle of homelessness and invisibility. In this blog, I've tried, post after post, to dig further and further down and in.

Several posts ago, I referred to the fact that I have three hand-written stories that I've been sitting on, kind of stuck. And then the other day, I wrote about my three rabbits, which might represent my three greatest fears. I did some journaling about those rabbits, describing and analyzing three general fears I have and even making a color drawing of them! And yet it wasn't until this very moment that I realized -- my three greatest fears are the three stories, and the prospect of bringing them out into light! One of them, particularly, scares the heck out of me with its potential power. 

That's about as far as I can go with this today. But it just goes to show that the realizations are coming faster and faster...

Two Rabbits. Make that three...

This morning, when I went outside to start my walk, there were two rabbits in the driveway. They were standing stock-still, facing each other. I have rarely, if ever, seen two rabbits at a time, and I tried to speak with them softly and comfortingly, sort of, "Hi sweethearts, don't be scared. I am a friend." And as long as I continued to be still, they didn't move. But the minute I started to walk out toward the road, they bolted. A little while later in a different spot, I saw another one!

I still keep several "bibles" by my bed, one of which is the classic 1988 Medicine Cards book, by Jamie Sams and David Carson. The powers and medicines of 44 birds and animals are beautifully and succinctly described...when I purchased the book and cards in 1990, I used them in a loosely divinatory manner, but these days I basically just consult the book when I have an encounter with an animal or bird. Here, Rabbit's medicine is "fear", or a tendency to call one's fears to oneself. Seeing those rabbits run this morning was a reminder -- you could see them shaking, terrified, even though I had tried to reassure them. There are a number of other spiritual meanings for bunnies, from intuition to renewal. But being given the opportunity to address fear -- to see where it is working in my life -- always seems to be rabbit's message for me.

Where is fear showing up in my life today? I mean, there are so many fearful, out-of-control things happening in the world that if I felt fully engaged with them (and the need for human solutions to them all), I would be almost catatonic. I may be saved from that by the fact that I've seen so much of this coming for so long, I would have felt even more fearful if they hadn't happened! Still, I know my own personal life is on the verge of changing again, and no matter how often it happens, I never really face it calmly. By now I should, but I don't (!) This time, though, there is an energetic difference. I know that we are shifting into the all-love Age of Aquarius, that the divine feminine is re-emerging, and that increasingly, after a lifetime of being out of my element, I'm going to be in my element. I know and believe that without a shadow of a doubt. 

Nevertheless, it is important to face the fears. It's sometimes so tempting to slide through them, or talk myself out of them. But three rabbits appeared, so in my personal journaling I'll address the three biggest fears that come up. Write about them, talk with them, embrace them, maybe even draw them. Try not to run away...

Goddess Words 62: Money

Talk about Goddess list words that I have been avoiding! When I glanced at my chart this morning, one word popped out: Money. For four years, I have been putting it off and putting it off in the context of this list (although I have certainly spoken of it frequently in other posts) so today seems to be the day. Just for the record, I have not gone back to look at past essays, so I suspect I may repeat some of the things I have said before. My apologies to regular readers.

And I guess I should also tell you that I came "this close" to removing "Money" from my Goddess list entirely, as I recently did with "Worshipped". This is because nowadays, I don't think that money will exist in any form in a future Goddess- or Love-centered paradigm. Even twenty years ago, I'm pretty sure I was already at that "place", so I am not quite sure what I was thinking -- perhaps I still saw money as a way of expressing the potential for bounty. Perhaps I was hoping I would still find some way to earn or attract a good income...I'm not sure. Today, I think we have a few years left with money systems in place. It might be premature to completely discount it as a building block to the new paradigm. Might.

Almost thirty years ago, I attended kind of a free-for-all workshop where attendees could offer talking circles on any topic they wanted. It still stuns me that I had the courage to do this, but I did: I called my circle something like "The Future of Money"-- and a bunch of people showed up. Basically, I spoke for about ten minutes about how I thought money's future was limited, and my reasons why -- and what ensued was a completely fascinating discussion! I mean, right down my alley, non-"partisan" and visionary, people trying to imagine a world entirely without money. 

Because, apart from any other issues I've had with our specific financial system, here is my core problem: not understanding why something that (in my view) really doesn't exist is so central to our world view, our politics, and virtually every aspect of human life. Every definition is essentially the same, that money is a medium of exchange. It's a ghostly ether between two tangible things or beings.

There's me. There's a dozen eggs. If I want those eggs, I need to pay money. I need to exchange some dollars for eggs. Yet I've never really "gotten" this. Why even have this strange, insubstantial middle ground? I mean, all right. It's part of the old ownership paradigm. The farmer's eggs belong to him or her, and in our current construct, giving the eggs away will lessen that person's personal worth. So if I (the buyer) do not have some other object or service to offer the farmer that is the rough equivalent of a dozen eggs, something that the farmer needs, say, a skein of wool or a small toy, then I need to use the common currency.

Let's back up to the moment before the very first use of money in the modern sense -- no matter how many thousands of years ago that might have been -- and imagine a completely clean slate. There is no sense of human ownership of land, animals, plants, or other people. Let us say it is commonly accepted that such ownership is impossible, as is human ownership of Gaia or The Goddess. Everyone and everything is of equal value as part of Her, a reflection of Her. If everything is done from a place of Love, and that Love is all-existent and all-replenishing, then nothing I give away will leave me diminished. There needs to be no medium of exchange, monetary or otherwise. If everything on this planet is an expression of Love, my actions are done lovingly and freely. Love draws to all of us a modest roof over our heads, and meal on the table. Love draws to humanity the best that the earth has to offer, for free. But individuals in the new paradigm don't seek to take too much for themselves. People in the new paradigm are far more community oriented than now.

In a sense, this lifetime has been a practice run for me and the new paradigm, whether or not I ever "live to see the day". I am living proof (and I am sure there are others like me!): you can survive with little money, occasionally even thrive, although you may be seen as using people or being a bloody idiot. And I couldn't have let this experiment go on for so long if I had been responsible for children. I am thankful that I remained relatively free, and that I gained at least the feeling place of what will be the norm not too long from now: Love as "currency". The construct of "earning a living" has gone by the wayside. Ownership has gone by the wayside. "Money" -- in whatever form or system -- will be in museums, if we even have those in the future! For the moment, I'll leave it on the list, but not for long!

Middle of the Night

Recently, the middle of the night seems to be the time when I am able to access a place of bliss, love, connectedness with joy, and belonging to the great, deep scheme of things, (In the past, it could be the opposite, feeling completely adrift in the dark!) If I wake up and I find myself happy, then I stretch it out absolutely as long as possible, as tempting as it might be to fall back asleep!  Back on April 18 ("Too Big for the Small Boxes"), I spoke of having been in a blissful state for an hour. Two nights ago, not to become competitive with myself!, I stayed at a pretty high energy for over two hours, literally, again, smiling from ear-to-ear. I don't try to do or create anything, although sometimes I do a crossword puzzle simply to keep my left brain occupied.

Actually, it has seemed important not to create or plan in this state. In previous years, a positive state of mind seemed like a good time to try all that marvelous "creative visualization" I was reading about. I would envision a beautiful house (who wouldn't when you've never had a permanent home?), a nice car, a job that would both engage and pay me well. I visualized getting to the UK permanently, attracting acclaim as a Howells expert, even marrying and having children or stepchildren. I was singularly unsuccessful at these visualizations. It is a good thing that I didn't spend much money on gurus or courses, because I would have had to go back over and over again! I now get it that the problem wasn't that I wasn't visualizing or focusing properly, or even that I wasn't coming at the visualization from a high enough energy. My theory now is that these goals were too old paradigm for me, energetically representing a system that is currently passing away. They were the manifestations of a now-crumbling foundation. My energy at its highest was not resonating with the energies of these goals.

Even if I wanted to use these current middle of the night moments to create, it's complicated by not really knowing what a 5D, love-based world will look like, function like, or feel like in its solidity. Perhaps it is a good thing that I don't know, that we don't know. It forces us to lead from the heart, not follow our brains to as many external goals. If I say anything in the middle of the night, it is to my heart: "Simply guide me." May the love spilling over be my path forward, my exhilarating boat ride down the river. May we feel which lights on shore are beckoning us, where the love shines brightest. 

Thank You, Mom

Another post that's coming as a surprise to me.  

Yesterday, I somehow managed to get beyond all my awkward feelings around Mother's Day, not being a mother, whether I have ever really felt mothered, and so forth, and found my attention being drawn to my mother simply as a person. I never got to know her well. I hear friends in long telephone conversations with their daughters or mothers, and find it amazing. Mom and I certainly became closer when I accompanied her through the last eighteen months or so of her life, but we were so, so different. I wrote about her back on February 6, 2016 ("My Mom"), and if some of today's stories have also appeared in subsequent posts I apologize. I need whatever part of her is surfacing today.

She was a spunky young girl, based on photos of her in a childhood spent just north of New York City. She had a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. She and her 10-to-12-year-old friends had a club, "The Naughty Eight", and they'd smoke cigarettes behind someone's garage. She refused to learn any of her mother's creative or cooking skills, and remained adamantly outside that circle all her life, except for a few tentative forays into watercolor painting. She was extremely smart, but not "intellectual" -- during World War II, she studied for two years at a junior college before eventually following her brother to Schenectady, where she worked briefly at Union College, then met and married my father.

Mom was full of contradictions. Spunky, yes. Organized. Potentially she could have been a leader or a modern-day career woman, yet her actual self-esteem could be abysmally low. With us, and apparently even in other settings later in life, she often apologized before giving her opinion ("This may be a stupid idea, but...") She claimed not to be a feminist, and was clearly uncomfortable with that language and terminology -- yet the day I scared off some Mormon missionaries by saying I was a "post-Christian feminist", she told me that if she had more time ahead of her, she'd be a post-Christian feminist too! She had always stood up for women in leadership positions in the church, and even all-but-ran a small church between rectors, and she briefly considered the Episcopal priesthood. But not long before she died, her original Catholicism came back, along with core fears and memories. Never mind, her memorial service reflected the best of the Anglican tradition, just as she had directed many months earlier.

She had had to very deeply bury all.her emotions when she married my dad, I think, and I (their eldest child) terrified her with my introspection, my creativity, my need to analyze. From early on, I was doing the kind of inner work that she couldn't bear. I think she was scared for me too -- she knew I would never skirt the surface of things, and that life would be hard for me to navigate. My brothers were just easier -- funnier, more successful, better at "playing the game".

There's so much more, but not today. However, with all my talk of my old life flying off the back of my boat into the frothy wake, what little nugget of my mom do I want to carry forward with me, close to my heart?

She had a wonderful, almost theatrical, speaking voice. She wasn't into holding, hugging, or touching (I come by this naturally, it seems!), but I have memories of her sitting on the bed with three-year-old me, almost cuddling, and reading A.A. Milne ("Christopher Robin had wheezles and sneezles, they bundled him into his bed...") and Dr. Seuss. These rhymes poured out of her like honey. Like music. No hesitation, no fear, a river of confident, beautiful sound that is still in my ears to this day. More than anything, this is what stays in my deepest center. Thank you, Mom. 

There is a Moment

I wasn't planning to write again this weekend, but here goes.

There is a moment where you finally get it -- that all the pushback you have received over the years is proof that you've been on the right track, not the wrong one! That all along, you were aligned with future realities that were in the process of forming...and of course, they seemed absurd in reference to the reality in front of us. Much easier for "thee and me" (as my mother used to say, and, no, she wasn't a Quaker) to be labelled as strange and weird and nonfunctional and ditsy, if not worse. I shouldn't have survived long enough to reach 70, but now that I have, I rejoice looking out at the world because it is so clear. So clear! Without the balancing spiritual, intellectual, and physical energies of the feminine being respected, humanity can only go down the tubes. This isn't an indictment of the masculine, just of complete imbalance going on for far too long.

I guess that is what I didn't grasp back when I was 15 or so, when we girls were suddenly being encouraged to dream, to find out what we wanted to do, to pursue careers. Forget about the fact that my preferred life was still completely closed to girls and women. I was too young to understand the overall history and institutional rigidity. Somehow I optimistically thought the gate had opened and the voices and perspectives of women would change the world overnight. Over the years, day after day, year after year, I just couldn't understand why this wasn't happening.

I am trying really hard not to push back against the pushback. (If you are serious about "Do unto others", how can you cause any conflict?) But I am aware that, just as the world has been speaking a language I don't understand, I speak a language the world doesn't understand. These languages are so completely unrelated that it may be necessary to release old hopes or expectations of a middle ground. As this rapid ascension process moves forward, there will probably be not only a third way, but a third language, which comes from the heart. I personally cannot quite grasp how that will work, but there is a moment when you know it will work, because it must.

Quite the Week

I don't have to tell you. This has been quite the week. And, strangely enough, I awoke this morning hearing these words in my head: "This is your day, Liz." Hmm...this isn't my birthday or any anniversary that I know of. I haven't heard or seen any news that might reflect significantly on my present or my future. Heck, a rainy weekend looms, and Sunday is Mother's Day, and I am not a mother! I have been writing every day this week, and I am not entirely sure how this experiment went. Next week, I will probably return to my usual two-to-three times a week. But I feel the weight of most of the world's women on my shoulders -- so many have no freedom to speak their truth at all, much less to write it. So however articulately or awkwardly, I plow ahead.

Perhaps connected with the above, another phrase came to me as I was out on my walk: "I know where I belong." This may not seem radical, but it is. In any given moment, I have rarely felt I was where I really belonged. Even now, if I use my logical brain to define such an ideal place or situation, I stumble. But something in my heart broke through this morning, reminding me how it would feel. My knowing is in my heart. That's a start. Maybe that's what is meant by "my day". And maybe Sunday will be the day of the Great Mother!

Try to stay grounded, all, amid the swirling cruelty and hatred out there. An old era is passing.This is our time, hard as it may be to believe most mornings!

Looking Without

Interesting. I'm glad for my archaic old dictionary, which has my intended "without" definition first -- without, as in "outside". Interesting, too, that the only other time I used this phrase was in April of last year ("Oracles") when I spoke of all the different ways (outside of me and within) I was accessing spiritual information.

Since then, I have moved to where I don't seem to be engaging too well at all with the "outside world", even as it pertains to some of the wise folks online who have saved my sanity over the last few years. How fortunate I've been to discover people as new paradigm as I am, as aligned with (and curious about) the Age of Aquarius! But unlike some of them, I don't seem to be interested in galactic energies, or archangels, or light codes, or crystals, or even (now) oracle cards. These colorful "patches" are definitely an integral part of the new age quilt we are all sewing, and the right paths for some. But right now, they are too much for me...too extraneous, too distracting, too "other". It is all I can do to align with myself. I continue to be somewhat haunted by the fact that I come from such a narcissistic background, but I get a bit of a chuckle out of it too. I suppose it comes in handy in terms of looking within -- who does it better?!

It's like, me, my writing, and the Goddess. That's all, right now.

There's a surprisingly cold wind here in the northeast. The sun is high in the sky, but it is crisp and cool, almost fall-like. I'll take these conditions over 100 degree temperatures any day. The first lilacs are coming out. I'm trying to stay as grounded as possible in nature. Trying to notice and celebrate Mother Earth's fidelity to her process, and be inspired to stay faithful to mine.

Two Rainbows

Yesterday's most remarkable event was the fact that the day started with a rainbow, and ended with one as well. The early morning one came almost immediately after a rather strange 6AM sunrise, orange in color (not red). The heavens opened, and yet the low-hanging sun remained clear of clouds, leading to a rather faint rainbow to the southwest, amidst the raindrops. And the reverse situation happened about an hour before sunset, this time producing a much sharper rainbow with two visible "ends". It's always exciting, even at my age, to see the end of the rainbow!

I look back this morning, wondering what this particular portal signified, and I'm not sure. I wrote a blog post yesterday (for those of you keeping up with this temporary daily schedule, thanks!), agonized a bit about my future (very old paradigm!) and then saw the movie "The Devil Wears Prada 2". It, too, was very old paradigm, at least for me. Not only were there scenes near the old Time and Life Building on 6th Avenue, where I worked in the '80's, but I found the characters' pursuit of wealth and power actively off-putting (where in the past I might just have found it mystifying). It's hard for me to deal with scheming and manipulation, and overall, I couldn't find it funny or interesting. When Meryl Streep's character says words to the effect that she loves her work, I'm glad for her, but I know that I never would have loved a career like that. And that is OK. It's all so glamorous and so fragile. I still grapple with shame at not having "succeeded" in a small or big way, but at this point I have very few regrets. Ah well, the film provided a few moments of humor, and a short vacation to the Big Apple and Milan!

Today will be rainy, morning to night. Probably not one peek of rainbow-creating sunshine, so I'll have to find the light within. Blessings, friends.  

A Purer Form

I am thinking and writing about so much right now that it is hard for me to keep up, probably much less you! But I think I stumbled on something the other day (in "May I?", May 2) that I need to unravel a bit more.

Recently, several of my online astrological and spiritual folks have talked about humanity's evolution away from being so head- and throat-based to being more heart-centered. Love will increasingly become our way of connecting, our way of speaking, our currency, and our source of information. It's been satisfying to hear this, since it resonates with what I have often tried to articulate too.

It dawned on me yesterday that linking this observation to my England and English church music shift, it's like so many of the thoughts I used to have (about only being able to be happy over there or sing that kind of music) -- and the limited words and music I was willing to say/sing with my throat -- are the factors flying away in the wind. What is staying in my heart is a purer form of that lifetime of love, a purer sense of "home", and a purer sense of "harmony". My passion has gotten both smaller and more condensed, and bigger and more expansive. To go back to my metaphor of the banquet table, this may be the moment where many of us bless the bigger spread, and then just grab our absolutely favorite, essential elements (and perhaps some new ingredients) to create a mini-masterpiece, a purer form of our passion. That smaller but more powerful nugget of passion will go through to the new paradigm, and become its foundation.

Peace

This week, I have decided to write every day, Monday through Friday. It just seems like the kind of time where this is necessary. And the first word that met my eye when I made that decision was "Peace". Strangely enough, it not only appears as if I have never used that title for any of my thousand-plus posts, but it is not on my list of Goddess words. How is that possible??!

Being this spontaneous means that I cannot hope to do more than scratch the surface...so that's liberating. I have increasingly written as freely as I can (early on, I almost always drafted my essays on paper first), but with a day or so between posts, I usually do some mental pre-planning. That may not happen this week!

So...peace. My old dictionary definitely presents the word within a duality context -- "freedom from or cessation of war...freedom from civil disorder..." And a number of modern online definitions start there as well. It has always troubled me that peace prizes always seemed to go to people who stopped wars, or who "fought" against conflict. Even before I really understood the post-duality world we are entering, it began to be clear energetically that fighting was fighting, and that if peace could only be defined in relationship to war, then there could never really be lasting peace. The world doesn't seem to have gotten there yet, overall, although I think more and more individuals have. 

What would bring about a peaceful world in this Aquarian Age that we are entering? It is all about the landscape within us. Peace will come when more and more people go to their cores, and face their personal pain, traumas, and disappointments. This is hard work, but when you do it, inner healing is possible. When more people create a state of peace within themselves, they will attract other genuinely peaceful people. This is completely bottom-up peace process, doing almost all the work within and valuing that work because we understand it will eventually resonate outward, locally then globally. 

For about three hours yesterday, I felt utterly at peace -- joyful, calm, happy. I won't say it was strange (although it was, a little!), and I haven't quite been able to keep it going, but I know that even when I can string together a few minutes of such a state, it may be "worth" any and all outward actions. 

May I?

Back on May 24, 2023, I wrote a post called, "Mother, May I?" and looking at it, I see that it is kind of a bookend to the moment I am in now...it was a tipping point, where I finally said that my highest life priority was Goddess values, period, full stop. That England, church music, and anything else had to come second. And yet in the subsequent few years, I still kept those other balls in the air. They were, I guess you could say, still in play, if weighted a bit differently. I assumed somehow they would play a secondary role in my life going forward.

As you may have read, this has changed in the last month or so. It has been quite unnerving, to say the least. To no longer "default" to the idea of England being home, or of wanting to live where I can hear choral evensong, has left a gaping chasm. It's like all those years in Duluth, or out in Montana, England was still the stuffing keeping me together. It was my inner glue, the factor or "truth" filling up the porous holes within me. It was something I could count on. Suddenly, while they are still in my heart, England and church music (as things to be acted upon) have flown out the back of my boat. If an opportunity to do my best work for the Goddess opened up in the UK, sure, I'd grab it in a heartbeat. But thanks to all the transformation of the last few months, I'll grab such an opportunity just about anywhere -- if it is clearly right for me. England, for its own sake, is no longer drawing or limiting me. (Absurdly, the thing I miss the most right now is fish and chips!) And of course, I think our world is changing so radically that the place's former magnetism for me is now, literally,  "history". 

Compared with my post three years ago, I think I've also outgrown a "Mother, May I?" approach to the Goddess. It's hard to erase the imprint of old fashioned ideas of praying to God, asking for blessings, permission or direction.  Adding "-dess" only changes the paradigm when you really change the paradigm! Sure, it's fun to play around with the name of that old children's game at the beginning of the month of May, but nowadays I feel too powerless when I ask divine permission, even jokingly. If the Goddess is within me and I am an embodiment or fractal representation of Her, then there are no more pleas, just intentions. "I intend from henceforth only to do the loving work of the Goddess." "I intend from henceforth to live in the place where I can best do the work of the Goddess." "I intend to draw to me the people and resources that make it easiest to use my best skills, and co-create a loving new paradigm." 

On a related topic, I need to report that in the last two or three months, I have written two stories, both of which I guess you could call "fantasy". In both cases, I've written fast, in almost a channeled manner, and by hand. In both cases, the heroine is a young woman who is deeply spiritual and independent, with a special role to play in the world. (Another somewhat similar story, which I wrote about 20 years ago and also never made the light of day, is languishing in one of my boxes.) Why am I mentioning this? Well, because in all three case, fear has blocked me from moving forward. Slightly different fears in each case, but definitely fear. Yet two short stories in about two months is somewhat like a bat hitting me over the head -- clearly, in those pages I am saying something that I cannot say in my personal blog posts, and am being asked to pay attention. 

In this situation, I've graduated beyond "May I?" and have segued to "I Must". In what format, and when, are still TBD.