Three Signs

The first thing I did this morning was to pick a card called "Vulnerability". You might say that it was the first "sign" of the day. It was all about not being afraid to be quietly out in the open, completely yourself, and having no fear of others' reactions to that self. I needed that reminder. Returning to one's old territory without sliding backwards into one's old self is quite a challenge. I am teetering a little on that edge, after just over two weeks back east.

The second sign I experienced this morning was to look out the window and see an eagle in the sky. Eagle was the totem animal I picked over 30 years ago when I was at Pendle Hill, the Quaker study center, and on and off through the years eagles have flown overhead at significant moments. I feel a lot of gratitude that they are no longer as endangered as they were...for me, they symbolize magnificence, the majestic, and the bigger picture.

I had hoped that by today, lightning would have struck, and the "perfect" forward path would present itself! And yet the only point of clarity that has emerged is small...I think it is highly unlikely that I will return to Minnesota to live. Since leaving, I've kept that door ajar, thinking it would be easier to go back through it than to face the unknown. But as overwhelmed as I feel, I just don't see "life" back there, for me. So it is like having entered a long hallway, and closed the door you came through, and knowing the only way forward is forward...and yet at first glance, not seeing doors on the other side of the hall that look open either. It's terrifying...will I be stuck in this neither-here-nor-there hallway for long? Do people know that I'm here? Yet the most important "person" of all knows exactly where I am, and which door I will be going through -- the Goddess. Really, after all this time, if I didn't believe that, I'd be seriously up a creek.

The third of the three signs actually came last night, or "first". I spoke back in April about how "Beryl" had been with me for several years as the name of my higher self/ancestress -- or perhaps even like the modern notion of an avatar. I continue to think of myself, when I am at my most articulate, as speaking with "The Voice of Beryl". I just remembered that ast night, when I was working on a crossword, the clue was "emerald or aquamarine", and of course, the minute I saw it had five letters, I knew it was Beryl. And it was smack in the middle of the puzzle to boot.

So, I guess these three signs tie together quite neatly. I'm being asked to continue to speak ever more honestly, with the voice of my highest self. I need to continue to have the courage to do that, even when it (and my whole life process) leaves me feeling awkward, vulnerable, and alone. And I need to soar like an eagle, to try to see the biggest possible picture from above. Somewhere recently, I saw a reference to the "oracle" of normal life...and life is full of roadsigns, if we pay attention. Engaging this way with life is giving me some much-needed courage.

Nine Hundredth

This is my nine hundredth post, coming toward the end of my ninth year of writing. I have to laugh -- I remember early on talking about transition, and about having been in transition almost constantly, and here I am such a long time later -- in transition. I don't like the word "deadline", but I am promising myself that by the end of this long weekend, I will have some idea of how to proceed (perhaps I will call it a "lifeline"!) I don't miss the city of Duluth itself. I do miss my friends, and the relative ease of travel by city bus. As tired of that mode of travel as I am, I realize that travel by city bus around the Capital District area would be far harder -- and (of course) in any part of small-town America, you must own or have access to a car. I've had a few wake-up calls in terms of not quickly and easily finding evidence of a "tribe" -- it doesn't look like the Goddess is big here after all. (An interesting thing is that it seems to be becoming a phenomenon in the U.K., and in the U.S., Portland, OR may be the place to be). Sure, if a windfall came my way, England would still be my goal (these days, more because of the Goddess than English church music), but I'm so dizzy from years of moving around that even that mightn't happen without an enormous amount of help. So I am praying for some timely guidance, what the Quakers call "clearness". I feel potentially more powerful here in the east, and potentially more visible, and somewhat more rooted to the land. And through some miracle, I'm still alive. So there's much to be grateful for, and to think about.

Of course, in the midst of it all, the world. Many years ago, I sensed that around now we would begin the transition to the New Paradigm. At the dawn of 2020, I wrote that this would be a decade of clarity, of "20-20 vision". But even I could not have anticipated how much COVID would change all our lives within months. Four years later, there is so much happening that is extremely shocking (I haven't spoken much of the war in the Middle East, in part because I simply cannot find the words). And there is greater and greater momentum of environmental change. The only consolation may be that these events are brilliant teachers. What has been hidden is being revealed. We are being forced to learn hard lessons, and to start letting go of assumptions. The fate of one little Aquarian mystic actually may not mean much in the bigger picture, although I keep writing because I continue to have the relative luxury of doing so, which many women around the world do not. 

In the end, my path has never really been about finding a "nice" place to live. While to some extent, I always assumed that I'd be happier in the UK, it wasn't about "nice" and "happy" and "happily ever after". It was -- and still is -- about feeling a divine calling, something I was already sensing as a child. It has been about reaching higher levels of beauty and spiritual understanding, a greater ability to contribute to society using my best gifts, and helping us all move beyond the torture of duality. In ways, as unsettled as my life has been, I think the Goddess has sent me on the perfect journey to achieve much of this! Being loved and in community with people I love would be ideal, although I've changed so much, my old contacts aren't as close a fit as they once were. 

What I would love this weekend would be for the Goddess to surprise me (!) I still have a hunch that there is something happening here that I cannot see, and once I see it, I'll know. May that be so! Send me, Great Mother, in the direction of love, and in the direction of the greatest service to you. 

Saying my piece(s)

Yesterday, I had a foray out into the horrors of a suburban retail wasteland...store after store after car dealership after motel after restaurant...you know the scene. I was not driving, and, having driven so little over the last half-a-dozen years, I'm not sure I could have managed it. Nothing in the experience made me wish to. Yes, the intensity of the development has changed in 50 years, but I remember taking the school bus from Schenectady to Albany Academy for Girls back then, already being turned off by the growing "strips" on both Albany-Schenectady Rd. and Troy Rd. Different signage, different building designs (although some holdout buildings from the 1950's and 60's remain), but same concept. "Come in. Spend your money. Visit our establishment, not the one next door." I didn't resonate with retail back then, and I still don't. But in those days, the biggest consideration may have been that I didn't find these strips "beautiful" -- I hadn't even (consciously) begun to walk down the road to the Goddess.

Driving around yesterday, I was aware that the landscape of western Florida is probably not too dissimilar to what was before my eyes, and I had that curious feeling of seeing the picture as it would be post-hurricane, or tornado, or earthquake. It's not active "wishing to see destruction", but simply, seeing these human constructs as not a product of love -- for people, wildlife, or the environment. So much building and construction has been done to pursue values that probably wouldn't exist in a Goddess-centered community. If I sometimes seem detached from the human element of what is happening, I'm really not. I feel the pain of human lives being totally upended -- but I also feel it before the storm, gazing out at intact malls and parking lots and medical centers that seem soul-destroying. The upending happens as soon as we place our focus on anything other than love, and our trust in anything fleeting.

There are so many things that will change in the wake of these storms...one I cannot help but wonder about is the concept of private property. What happens when, say, you "own" an acre of land, and it is washed away in a storm? I mean, if it literally no longer exists?

Last night I watched some hurricane coverage on television, and was awed anew by that phenomenon of the calm in the eye of the storm (yes, I was thankful for those split-screen shots!) In an interesting coincidence, a brief but violent storm came up locally, and sheets of horizontal rain were wailing at the front windows. It made the coverage very real.

Limbo

I was surprised to see that I have never yet used "limbo" as an essay title. Virtually my whole recent life has been a state of limbo, which has a number of interestingly intertwined definitions. Essentially, of course, a state of being where things are unresolved, unsettled, unclear. 

There are definitely ways in which returning to the east coast has been grounding. On a very superficial level, there is the fact that by and large, when hearing a place name, I know where the town (or mountain range, or lake) is (which never became the case in Northern Minnesota). One morning this weekend, I opened the deck door to smell my first whiff of an "autumn in New England/northeast" smell. It is an odor that I have never quite encountered anywhere else, and I guess is unique to the types of leaves on the ground, the level of moisture, and the specific air temperature. When I was at Smith, the chapel bells would ring on a beautiful early October day, signifying that it was "Mountain Day", a day off from classes when we were encouraged to get out and take a hike, or at the very least, take a day off from studying. Of course, in those days, only second semester seniors were allowed to have cars, so it was nearly impossible to get up into the mountains, although one year I seem to remember going with friends to climb one of the hills overlooking the Connecticut River. Anyway, that smell, the view of mountains in the distance, and the familiarity of landscape have "hit home", not in a nostalgic way really, just an acknowledgment that these things were my first autumn landscape of this lifetime. I suspect I have always been subtly disappointed with how this time of year manifests elsewhere.

And yes, I've now used real live local McIntosh apples twice to make what my mom called "apple crumble" (basically, the Joy of Cooking "apple crisp" recipe). Apples, brown sugar, flour, butter and cinnamon, with a squeeze of lemon or orange juice. Generally speaking, you cannot find fresh, local McIntosh apples outside the eastern U.S. and Canada.

Yet ten or eleven days into this trip, I haven't got any better clue of where I might find an eastern home base (temporary or permanent). Being out in a more rural area was both more inviting and more disturbing. Visually, not a whole lot has changed "in the countryside" since I was young. But on Sunday afternoon, when the landscape was at its most beautiful, and within a short time of seeing a hawk circling overhead, gunshots started to pierce the peace. This was, like, one shot every ten to twenty seconds for at least two hours! There must have been a shooting range nearby, but how unsettling it was for me cannot be overstated. And even on country roads, cars seem to drive by at exceptionally high speeds these days. It's jarring, nonsensical.

Finding a perfect home shouldn't be my goal -- the extent to which my mind ends up obsessing about that illustrates how easily one can be distracted from one's real goals, in my case, speaking for the Goddess. My home is in Her, so other experiences will flow from that. But I remind myself, she has no trouble speaking for herself (!) The next hurricane is testament to that! It will be so interesting to see when the tipping point will finally come, when people really start to grasp the power of Nature, and to understand the hubris of our traditional assumptions of human permanence, planning, and "power over". 

...and Shorter

Today, I have the opportunity to go further out into the countryside, away from cities. Somehow, with everything happening in the world, this seems like the only thing to do.

Will looking at the night stars bring answers and perspective? Will open fields and small forests bring a sense of spaciousness and belonging? Hard to know, but I feel fortunate and privileged to have a further change of pace. May we all have moments of clarity and calm this weekend, in the midst of it all!

A Short One

It's interesting. I didn't think I would be writing today, but a message kept nudging at me.

It is basically to say, we don't even begin to know or have the capacity to comprehend the magnitude of the Goddess's love for us, for all life on earth, for the planet itself. It is literally the size of the universe. As She struggles to bring Her earth body back into balance, we need to try to remember that life is eternal. Love is eternal. In the bigger picture, I do not "die", you do not "die", and life on this planet will not completely "die". It is being transformed, and will be a very different, more love-filled place, within only a few generations. If we can try to hold the hope of that within us, perhaps this period of time will feel slightly less traumatizing.

Intense Days

These have been intense days, on every level. 

Hurricane Helene has been unbelievably deadly and destructive. Those of us not in its path ought not turn our heads away, or feel any relief, because the next natural disaster could happen anywhere.

Having said that, I still find myself troubled by reporting of these events. Whether directly or indirectly, I hear an implication that Nature is at war with human endeavors...that the primary "disaster" is the destruction of homes, businesses, infrastructures, and lives. And yes, millions of lives have been turned upside down. But as someone who feels physical pain every time I see a bulldozer at work, and who is so distressed by plastic that I can barely spend more than ten minutes in any grocery store or pharmacy, I suggest, once again, that the disaster is working both ways. For hundreds, thousands, of years, we have not honored the needs of the natural world. We have not sensibly prioritized the health of the natural world. We have used and overused the natural world. We have, I guess, thought that we were "in charge", when in fact, Nature is in charge.

In my own mind, I find myself marveling that people aren't turning in droves towards honoring the Goddess, but then reality hits me in the face. I had hoped, while I'm back east for whatever period of time it should turn out to be, to speak to several groups (who know me) about my journey to the Goddess. So far, there has been no interest in that. I had been excited to see that there was a local Goddess-themed retail shop, and I couldn't wait to visit it and see if it might lead me to other kindred spirits. But when I showed up at the front door, it was locked and blocked -- clearly out-of-business. Ultimately, I know that I am a leader and that the time has come to magnetize -- not seek out -- friends and helpers. It's hard to feel like a powerful magnet when you keep moving and moving, but I have to believe something is happening here which I don't yet see clearly.

One last note about these intense days. It is my impression that since I was last in this area about six years ago, the amount of car and truck traffic has doubled, and that people's driving speed has almost doubled as well. As was the case in Northern Minnesota, the amount of new construction and development is noteworthy, almost overwhelming. There is a frenzy to it all that goes way beyond the desire to finish up by snowfall. Maybe we are subconsciously trying to build up new infrastructures in Place A to replace those lost to floods or fires in Places B or C...

In the midst of the intensity, a calm feeling comes over me when I look at it all through the eyes of the Goddess. She knows how all this will unfold. Higher dimensions of love and beauty will dot the new landscapes before our eyes...but rebirth is intense, and will continue to be.