Rainy day check-in

This has been a doozy of a pivot point for me, but I understand from a few online spiritual resources that I am not alone, that purely from an astrological standpoint, this is one of the most intensive periods "ever" (or at least, from what we can see with our limited sight). Fittingly, I left my normal environs Tuesday in order to house-sit. Here, I have been doing some binge TV watching that would seem pretty surprising given my recent posts about non-violence...old early-to-mid-90's "Law and Order"s, the original one. Those shows are so beautifully acted and choreographed. They take place in a New York City that I had just left in 1990, so the setting is as familiar as can be. Yes, there can be some violence, but generally, after the dead body is found in the opening scene, the search procedure is the thing, followed (in the "Order" half) by ethical considerations and legal strategies. And most of the time, by the end of the show, the truth comes out. For this granddaughter of a nineteen-teens-era pioneering woman lawyer, it may have been just what I needed to ground in this frenzied moment, even though I'm more conscious than ever that this entertainment represents a conflict-driven paradigm that is, in effect, already over.

Watching the news is well-nigh unbearable, but I just try to remember that people simply don't understand; moving forward, the enterprises with the greatest chance of success will be those catalyzed by love. Genuine love. Love will be the future "currency" (yay, I see other people are using this expression now too!) Flowing with love will make life simply go more smoothly. (There will be fewer crimes to solve.)

It's 35 degrees, pouring rain, and I don't know if it's ironic or paradoxical that I am temporarily using "Law and Order" to anchor my boat in a small cove. Even those of us who have spent a lifetime ahead of the curve need brief overlaps with the old certainties...if only to take a deep breath before speeding down the lake again, toward the new paradigm.

An Important Saturday

I think this was a very important Saturday. For a sense of community, and for the opportunity to express some things that I might want to say, I wish, wish, wish I could take part in these kinds of events. But I have never been able to. At my age, I guess the best way of saying it is that overall, they are not aligned with my energy. So much of our current scene is already in the wake of my boat...goodness, perhaps it has always been. So I spent the day doing the most peaceful things I could think of, taking part in musical and "new age" things online, making homemade soup, walking outside (despite snow squalls!), and generally staying as aligned as I could to things on a comfortable harmonic wavelength. But all of us have a different role to play in this enormous shift of consciousness, and it will be interesting to see how things unfold from this weekend. 

A "Goddess Words" post is overdue, but I feel quite drained, so I'll ask for your patience. Take care, all.

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!