As I've mentioned in the past, there are days when I feel like writing, but I don't know what it will be about. Today is one of those days. Rather than try to be left-brained, I think I'll write a poem. This has never been my forte, but heck, something new at sixty-two.
Today
I'm thankful
For a little dog to walk
As the sun comes up over the
Big lake.
Otherwise, it's silent.
The light is slanted low.
I'm trying to make big decisions but I'm only a
Newborn.
Doggie understands me.
His tail is wagging.
There are apples in the fridge.
Maybe I'll make
Applesauce
Today.
Thursday, August 30, 2018
Monday, August 27, 2018
Harmony II
As might have been expected, musing about my need for harmony and beauty seemed to elicit, over the weekend, kind of a "this is your life" inner video of a number of places and situations that haven't been harmonious and beautiful to me in the past. But it may also have helped me open to new forms of beauty. I was walking on a sidewalk and looked down to see what I initially thought was a dead butterfly, only it turned out to be a strange, filigreed piece of bark with a large "eye" on it. I picked it up and will keep it. This natural relic is hauntingly beautiful, and I might not have noticed it in the past.
But thinking about harmony also elicited a new metaphor. I haven't been very metaphorical in the last month or so, since my re-birth/move, so here goes: What if we thought of humanity as a huge choir? We are all sending out a song, that is for sure. To make the image more manageable, I thought, why not whittle down seven billion people to seventy, a large choir of all backgrounds, ages, genders, religions and musical abilities. I'm not sure what song would be sung in that circumstance, but let's say a brilliant conductor has brought everyone together and we know our parts, which are simple and beautiful. Despite everyone's best intentions, you can perhaps imagine a situation where some of the singers might get into a disagreement, even a violent fight. Others might join the melee. Some singers might stop singing to try to pull apart the combatants, others might help people who get hurt, others might lecture those who had resorted to violence. Some might protest the disruption or try to stop the rehearsal, others might pull out their cell phones to photograph or communicate the situation to the outside world, and others might simply walk out.
Is there one "correct" response to violence? Maybe not. And conflict may not be eradicated for generations to come. But I know myself well enough to know what role I would play as this rehearsal started to spiral out of control: I'd keep singing. I'd try to keep the music going. I'd try to keep my voice in harmony with at least a few other people, as long as the conductor was still up there conducting. On the days when I feel overwhelmed by our world's chaotic vocalizations, I try to remind myself, just keep singing your part, Liz. Just keep singing your part.
But thinking about harmony also elicited a new metaphor. I haven't been very metaphorical in the last month or so, since my re-birth/move, so here goes: What if we thought of humanity as a huge choir? We are all sending out a song, that is for sure. To make the image more manageable, I thought, why not whittle down seven billion people to seventy, a large choir of all backgrounds, ages, genders, religions and musical abilities. I'm not sure what song would be sung in that circumstance, but let's say a brilliant conductor has brought everyone together and we know our parts, which are simple and beautiful. Despite everyone's best intentions, you can perhaps imagine a situation where some of the singers might get into a disagreement, even a violent fight. Others might join the melee. Some singers might stop singing to try to pull apart the combatants, others might help people who get hurt, others might lecture those who had resorted to violence. Some might protest the disruption or try to stop the rehearsal, others might pull out their cell phones to photograph or communicate the situation to the outside world, and others might simply walk out.
Is there one "correct" response to violence? Maybe not. And conflict may not be eradicated for generations to come. But I know myself well enough to know what role I would play as this rehearsal started to spiral out of control: I'd keep singing. I'd try to keep the music going. I'd try to keep my voice in harmony with at least a few other people, as long as the conductor was still up there conducting. On the days when I feel overwhelmed by our world's chaotic vocalizations, I try to remind myself, just keep singing your part, Liz. Just keep singing your part.
Friday, August 24, 2018
Harmony
Yesterday, I had one of those "aha" moments that was really almost closer to a "duh!" moment. I don't really like that expression, but it's perfect for when something hits home that possibly should have years ago, and you feel a bit stupid not to have gotten it sooner. And this isn't much different than some of the conclusions I've drawn in previous blogs, just from a new perspective.
When you are a musician, an artist, and a writer, you are always conscious of harmony. Different factors can be made to work together -- whether musical lines, varied colors, or a string of words -- to create a coherent and pleasing whole. In English church music, the decani and cantoris don't fight one another across the center aisle, they respond to each other or sing together. In a piece of sacred music by Gabrieli, the brass or choral choirs in the balconies don't fight one another, they echo or complement each other. Even atonal musical works have an inner harmony. Painters strive for exquisite balance and harmony even in modern, less figurative works. Writers, poets, dancers...creative people of all stripes seek harmony. It is our bread and butter.
It suddenly hit me that it's a simple truth that I just do not function in situations that are not beautiful or that lack harmony. If there is a "vs." or "anti-" or fighting or fearful or competitive energy in the vicinity, I all but shut down. This isn't necessarily good, and certainly isn't practical. Many creative people have found ways to incorporate inharmonious or discordant realities into their lives and still do their thing. I don't seem to be able to do that. I am tuned to beauty. Period. It's a relief to embrace this, not as justification but rather as understanding. It's like having perfect pitch (which I don't quite have, but close) -- you feel in the core of your being the minute you are out of harmony, and staying "out of tune" is just simply excruciating. For me, trying to function in or focus on systems or situations that are competitive/inharmonious/ugly is excruciating. My natural instinct is to get back into tune with what feels harmonious, but I have too often ignored my own instincts in an effort to fit in at least a little to the culture at large. Heck, that hasn't worked, has it? So harmony it is, at least for this weekend. Have a good one, everyone.
When you are a musician, an artist, and a writer, you are always conscious of harmony. Different factors can be made to work together -- whether musical lines, varied colors, or a string of words -- to create a coherent and pleasing whole. In English church music, the decani and cantoris don't fight one another across the center aisle, they respond to each other or sing together. In a piece of sacred music by Gabrieli, the brass or choral choirs in the balconies don't fight one another, they echo or complement each other. Even atonal musical works have an inner harmony. Painters strive for exquisite balance and harmony even in modern, less figurative works. Writers, poets, dancers...creative people of all stripes seek harmony. It is our bread and butter.
It suddenly hit me that it's a simple truth that I just do not function in situations that are not beautiful or that lack harmony. If there is a "vs." or "anti-" or fighting or fearful or competitive energy in the vicinity, I all but shut down. This isn't necessarily good, and certainly isn't practical. Many creative people have found ways to incorporate inharmonious or discordant realities into their lives and still do their thing. I don't seem to be able to do that. I am tuned to beauty. Period. It's a relief to embrace this, not as justification but rather as understanding. It's like having perfect pitch (which I don't quite have, but close) -- you feel in the core of your being the minute you are out of harmony, and staying "out of tune" is just simply excruciating. For me, trying to function in or focus on systems or situations that are competitive/inharmonious/ugly is excruciating. My natural instinct is to get back into tune with what feels harmonious, but I have too often ignored my own instincts in an effort to fit in at least a little to the culture at large. Heck, that hasn't worked, has it? So harmony it is, at least for this weekend. Have a good one, everyone.
Tuesday, August 21, 2018
The vanguard
Yes, this space and time is as liminal as they come. I seem to specialize in such moments, when one foot is on one side of the gate and one on the other. It's an awkward place, but it's my nearly constant reality so I've gotten used to it.
So these times seem to nurture calm (see last blog), clarity and even an iota of courage. And today seems to be a good day to throw out a few more thoughts about money, ones that my readers may or may not thank me for. But when you have just moved or are moving, you are more aware than ever of what you have or don't have, financially, whether you can "afford" what you want to do or where you want to be, and, in my case, you simply come face to face with your deepest truths, yet again.
Despite the fact that I have almost the perfect storm for not succeeding financially (much of which I have already spoken of, so I won't here), I've been aware for a long time that the truth for me went much deeper than clichés about starving artists or limiting beliefs. I haven't really had the nerve to explore it, but here goes. The core of my issue is that I simply do not understand why humans use money in the first place.
I often try to go back in my mind to that first person who used money. Of course, I don't know who it was. But let's say it was an early farmer who had a bumper crop of corn. Perhaps his neighbor had had setbacks and needed corn, so the farmer said, "Here, take a pile of corn and give me something in return, or give me an IOU. When you have a surplus, you can give me crops that I need." From our modern perspective, this all seems quite logical, and we can see the progression from the ancient beginnings of trade to our modern complexities. Yet in that simple exchange, I sense fear, fear of the future, the farmer's fear that the future would not be so bright (and in farming that is not an unfounded fear).
But I have thought a lot about money, and I just cannot seem to get away from the sense that its use is essentially a "fear" function. I am not talking specifically about the world's two main economic systems here. But just the basic thought that money, or any kind of barter or trade, is necessary at all doesn't seem to be love-based. I don't get breaking everything up into units of worth and units of payment. I see all my gifts as coming from the heart of the divine, so I just don't understand thinking of them as "mine" and then charging money for them. I don't understand anyone looking at the natural resources of mother earth as "theirs" and charging money for them. In a post-dualistic worldview, if everything is part of one stream, the stream of love, then all we need to do is give freely, and what we need will come freely. And if it doesn't come freely, maybe we don't need it.
I haven't seen others talking about this yet, although I am sure it's out there, like everything else. I'm sure now that I've started to talk about it, I won't stop. But part of it is that I need to shout-out to all the artists, creative people, mystics, and all those currently in "poverty" for any reason whatsoever. It may be that the energy of trying to work in a fear-based system has worn us out. It may be that many of us are trying in our own way to do something right, to live in alignment with fearlessness and love. On the surface, our lives may look unsuccessful, but perhaps we are in the vanguard. The key may not be to "help" us or "fix" us, but to listen to us and learn from us.
So these times seem to nurture calm (see last blog), clarity and even an iota of courage. And today seems to be a good day to throw out a few more thoughts about money, ones that my readers may or may not thank me for. But when you have just moved or are moving, you are more aware than ever of what you have or don't have, financially, whether you can "afford" what you want to do or where you want to be, and, in my case, you simply come face to face with your deepest truths, yet again.
Despite the fact that I have almost the perfect storm for not succeeding financially (much of which I have already spoken of, so I won't here), I've been aware for a long time that the truth for me went much deeper than clichés about starving artists or limiting beliefs. I haven't really had the nerve to explore it, but here goes. The core of my issue is that I simply do not understand why humans use money in the first place.
I often try to go back in my mind to that first person who used money. Of course, I don't know who it was. But let's say it was an early farmer who had a bumper crop of corn. Perhaps his neighbor had had setbacks and needed corn, so the farmer said, "Here, take a pile of corn and give me something in return, or give me an IOU. When you have a surplus, you can give me crops that I need." From our modern perspective, this all seems quite logical, and we can see the progression from the ancient beginnings of trade to our modern complexities. Yet in that simple exchange, I sense fear, fear of the future, the farmer's fear that the future would not be so bright (and in farming that is not an unfounded fear).
But I have thought a lot about money, and I just cannot seem to get away from the sense that its use is essentially a "fear" function. I am not talking specifically about the world's two main economic systems here. But just the basic thought that money, or any kind of barter or trade, is necessary at all doesn't seem to be love-based. I don't get breaking everything up into units of worth and units of payment. I see all my gifts as coming from the heart of the divine, so I just don't understand thinking of them as "mine" and then charging money for them. I don't understand anyone looking at the natural resources of mother earth as "theirs" and charging money for them. In a post-dualistic worldview, if everything is part of one stream, the stream of love, then all we need to do is give freely, and what we need will come freely. And if it doesn't come freely, maybe we don't need it.
I haven't seen others talking about this yet, although I am sure it's out there, like everything else. I'm sure now that I've started to talk about it, I won't stop. But part of it is that I need to shout-out to all the artists, creative people, mystics, and all those currently in "poverty" for any reason whatsoever. It may be that the energy of trying to work in a fear-based system has worn us out. It may be that many of us are trying in our own way to do something right, to live in alignment with fearlessness and love. On the surface, our lives may look unsuccessful, but perhaps we are in the vanguard. The key may not be to "help" us or "fix" us, but to listen to us and learn from us.
Friday, August 17, 2018
Still point
Someday, when I look back, I will probably think of this last week or so as a still point. After the almost unbelievable highs and lows of the last nineteen years, and the inner turmoil of last winter, this may be the first time I have truly been able to take a deep breath and be in the moment. Last weekend's morning on the beach may have been more visually dramatic, but yesterday I experienced an hour or two of the deepest calm and inner happiness that I can remember. It wasn't "about" anything specific. I don't know how to explain it, except to say that it was a deepening feeling of being in the present, feeling the ground underfoot, walking a little dog, smelling the late summer flowers, seeing hummingbirds, and, at 62, realizing that perhaps if this isn't all that matters, an inner place like this must be the building block for all that matters. Without this solid, peaceful energy within, life careens really up and down, like a ride at the state fair. I wouldn't trade these last two decades for anything, but now I wouldn't trade a sense of calm for anything either. Whatever comes in the future, I hope it will grow out of that calm. (I experienced a little inner pushback, but not too much.)
This Midwest summer has not been the kind of cool, unsettled one I remember from the 90's. It, too, has been a still point, hot, quiet and very dry. The sun continues to be like a Necco wafer in the sky, light orange or pink from the fires further west. I'm trying to remind myself that within a matter of months, this will be the coldest place in the country, but for now, just soak it in, soak it in.
This Midwest summer has not been the kind of cool, unsettled one I remember from the 90's. It, too, has been a still point, hot, quiet and very dry. The sun continues to be like a Necco wafer in the sky, light orange or pink from the fires further west. I'm trying to remind myself that within a matter of months, this will be the coldest place in the country, but for now, just soak it in, soak it in.
Tuesday, August 14, 2018
Artificial Intelligence
As regular readers know, I rarely post two days in a row, but I don't know, things are so far beyond insane out there...and I'm reaching that age where it's, like, if I don't say it now, will I get to say it tomorrow? So bear with me as the rhythm and content of this blog undergoes a little growth.
So I read Dan Brown's book Origin yesterday. I hadn't intended to. I've reached the point where I can tolerate very few forms of entertainment, especially when they involve intrigue, fear, violence, etc. Unless it's really tongue-in-cheek ("Midsomer Murders," say) or set way in the past, like some medieval mysteries, I'd rather sleep than read, watch TV or go to a movie. But when I read the book jacket's reference to a person having solved the two basic questions of human existence, I figured I had to proceed. Spoiler alert, I'm going to be very general, but I may give something away in the next paragraph.
Because, yes, what emerges is the prediction that artificial intelligence will merge with, even subsume, human intelligence within a few decades. This is nothing new. Ten years ago or more, I assigned my community college students some reading about "the singularity" as described by Ray Kurzweil and others. In Brown's book, the futurist making the prediction is an avowed atheist, setting up conflict with religious institutions. It's "religion vs. science."
Am I the only woman in the world who feels like there is something wrong with this picture? I don't feel like humanity has even begun to take women's intelligence seriously, and yet we are well on our way to becoming human search engines? What about my intelligence, creativity, intuition, wisdom? What about the changes that could take place in the world if every woman's intellectual and spiritual talents were fully used and embraced? My intelligence isn't artificial, it's very real. It is powerful. And as a total package, it has been almost completely ignored. We are skipping a step in human evolution if women's power continues to be sidelined in the race to create "artificial" intellectual power.
This isn't a critique of this book. Heck, conflict is what most of our entertainment is all about. But once you leave duality-land behind, it's literally painful to hear words like "fight," "versus," "against," "conflict," "war," etc. Energetically, you just cannot be part of it at all. There isn't much to ground a person out in post-duality land, and life out here is many things. But at least it isn't "artificial." I can testify to that.
Monday, August 13, 2018
Wailing PS
Yes, on Saturday I did my ritual at the lake.
Not surprisingly (for this east coast WASP woman who has held virtually everything inside), the hardest part was actually allowing myself to wail. I came up with every excuse in the book. There were houses and people in the vicinity who might hear me. Sound would carry because the wind was calm. I didn't want to hurt my voice. I was feeling lulled into calmness after five or ten minutes of gratitude (and in truth, I think perhaps when I do this again, I'll do the wailing first!) But in the end, I was constricted by old tapes telling me that nothing I have experienced was really all that bad, and even if it was, "people like us" don't shriek or wail under any circumstances. Never mind that the people who consider themselves "people like us" wouldn't claim me as part of their tribe in a million years. My grandparents and great aunts were regularly in the society pages in New York City back in the early 1900's, and such a heritage dies hard.
I realized something important on Saturday, however. I love Lake Superior, and more than that, I am a creature of the water's edge. I must literally live on the water, whatever that might be (even a small brook or pond). I have missed that squishy place where my bare feet simultaneously experience water and sand/rocks. I have missed the light on the water, and the wind over it. I have missed the sound of the waves. I grieved that I ever left, although I know why I had to.
For the third part of my ritual, I threw three pieces of driftwood into the water. The first was my recognition that, in this lifetime, I will never have a child. But I sent out with it the prayer that I give birth to whatever I am meant to in this time remaining to me. The second piece of driftwood was for "home" -- I threw into the arms of the Goddess how hard that concept has been, and sent with it a prayer that I soon find a home that sustains, in some long-term way, me and my sensitive spirit. Lastly, I threw out a piece of wood representing England and church music. I just said, Divine one, help me know how to use this passion from this point forward. Where does it fit in my life?
What was so fascinating is this; it was calm enough that these three pieces of wood ended up literally in relationship with each other, bobbing near one another (indeed, the "home" and "England" pieces almost seemed in dialogue, but not quite touching, which seems somehow apt). I watched as they made subtle moves in the water, from almost a straight line, to a clump, eventually to an equilateral triangle.
After the sun came up, I took a number of photographs, and I'm going to try something here that I haven't done before...share a photo with you. By this time, the only thing "wailing" was the power and beauty of the sun.
Not surprisingly (for this east coast WASP woman who has held virtually everything inside), the hardest part was actually allowing myself to wail. I came up with every excuse in the book. There were houses and people in the vicinity who might hear me. Sound would carry because the wind was calm. I didn't want to hurt my voice. I was feeling lulled into calmness after five or ten minutes of gratitude (and in truth, I think perhaps when I do this again, I'll do the wailing first!) But in the end, I was constricted by old tapes telling me that nothing I have experienced was really all that bad, and even if it was, "people like us" don't shriek or wail under any circumstances. Never mind that the people who consider themselves "people like us" wouldn't claim me as part of their tribe in a million years. My grandparents and great aunts were regularly in the society pages in New York City back in the early 1900's, and such a heritage dies hard.
I realized something important on Saturday, however. I love Lake Superior, and more than that, I am a creature of the water's edge. I must literally live on the water, whatever that might be (even a small brook or pond). I have missed that squishy place where my bare feet simultaneously experience water and sand/rocks. I have missed the light on the water, and the wind over it. I have missed the sound of the waves. I grieved that I ever left, although I know why I had to.
For the third part of my ritual, I threw three pieces of driftwood into the water. The first was my recognition that, in this lifetime, I will never have a child. But I sent out with it the prayer that I give birth to whatever I am meant to in this time remaining to me. The second piece of driftwood was for "home" -- I threw into the arms of the Goddess how hard that concept has been, and sent with it a prayer that I soon find a home that sustains, in some long-term way, me and my sensitive spirit. Lastly, I threw out a piece of wood representing England and church music. I just said, Divine one, help me know how to use this passion from this point forward. Where does it fit in my life?
What was so fascinating is this; it was calm enough that these three pieces of wood ended up literally in relationship with each other, bobbing near one another (indeed, the "home" and "England" pieces almost seemed in dialogue, but not quite touching, which seems somehow apt). I watched as they made subtle moves in the water, from almost a straight line, to a clump, eventually to an equilateral triangle.
After the sun came up, I took a number of photographs, and I'm going to try something here that I haven't done before...share a photo with you. By this time, the only thing "wailing" was the power and beauty of the sun.
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