Memory

This is a case of, I woke up feeling that I wanted to share a memory of an event in my life, but initially nothing came to mind (that I haven't already written about, anyway!). Once this particular memory popped to the surface, I tried mightily to push it back down, but in the spirit of cleaning out the crevices (July 22), I'll forge ahead, although it terrifies me.

Yup, several key memories of my attempts to enter the world of English church music remain quite close to my chest. Why? Well, for a long time I kept hoping that I might still make a name for myself in that field and I didn't want to burn any bridges. A second reason was that I felt a deep sense of shame at having been so unsuccessful. It's absurd, of course. There simply were no girls or women in the field during my formative years of the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, and just trickles by the 90's. By the early 2000's, it was changing in the UK, but virtually not in the US. A few British women of my generation made a little headway around the edges during that 50-year stretch, but my early intention to become the first woman conductor of the Choir of King's College, Cambridge and devote my entire life to this singular musical genre could never have happened, no matter what Herculean efforts I might have made. The fact that I still feel ashamed about my lack of success is almost as heartbreaking as the fact that I lived a life so far removed from that world. It's all heartbreaking, it still is, every day.

So here's a memory that I've been trying to bury to spare myself just a little of that heartbreak. It illustrates the incredible strangeness and paradox of my whole life.

My two years in Helena, Montana were, in most respects, among the hardest ever, even though I was near family. For much of the time, I lived at the YWCA, and I struggled to get any kind of work, much less anything that would have had meaning for me. Singing in two choral groups helped save me, as did starting to do research about my favorite composer, Herbert Howells. My first article about him was accomplished simply by sending emails and letters to some of his former students. My laptop was perched on my lap on my rather saggy twin bed in my nun's cell of a room at the Y, and I was surrounded by scribbled notes and drafts. If I remember correctly, my computer died at some point in the process, so the bulk of my work (emails, research, article drafts) ended up being done at Helena's public library. (I mean it when I stress the centrality of public libraries to my journey!) "Herbert Howells, the Teacher" was first published by the British Music Society News in January of 2013, then reprinted by The American Organist later that year.

Around that time, I was invited to teach a class about Howells at Helena's Episcopal Cathedral. Inevitably I discussed, and played a recording of, the motet "Take Him, Earth, For Cherishing", purportedly sung at John F. Kennedy's funeral. I had always thought this to be a dubious story, and several students in the class pointedly asked how (and why) on earth a piece by a British composer would have been sung at the funeral three days after the president's completely unexpected death. Why wouldn't an American composer have been chosen? More to the point, we all wondered how, in the early 1960's before the era of faxes and email attachments, a piece of music could have made it from Britain to Washington in that time frame. There was something clearly wrong with the story, and I promised attendees that I would look into it.

I started to dig. It was slow going at first, but I stumbled upon the name of a former organist-choirmaster who would help me "crack the case". On a hot summer afternoon, I was walking through the Y's living room towards the staircase up to my room, when my cell phone rang. It was the organist, happy to tell me what he knew. I grabbed a pen and a piece of paper with some open space to write on, and at first sat in a comfortable chair, trying to scribble down notes and ask him questions. Eventually, the loud sounds of TV ("Law and Order: SVU") and general conversational hubbub forced me out onto the porch, where I continued the interview. Even as I spoke with him, I thought, if this organist knew the conditions under which I was doing my research, he might never have called me!

(Please, don't misunderstand...moving into the Y was by far the hardest thing I had ever done. Slowly but surely, the place became a safe haven, and a place of growth and solidarity with other women. Sometime soon, I'll write more about the experience, for which I am profoundly grateful.)

"To make a long story short", my second article "'Take Him, Earth' Revisited" was published by The American Organist in September 2014. Howells's motet was, in fact, first sung in Washington a year after Kennedy's death by a Canadian men-and-boys' choir. This update by no means diminishes an extraordinary piece of music, but it was a big revelation which should have met with a fair amount of hoopla in the music world. To my knowledge, this never happened. 

I'm full of trite sayings today: "What came first, the chicken or the egg"? Is it the fact that I was female (not male), Smith- and Royal Holloway-educated (not Oxbridge), and ahead of my time that led to my gaining no life traction at all and ending up living and working in the most inappropriate circumstances for my goals? Or is it because I started in the proverbial wilderness (as far as this tradition is concerned) and kept ending up there, that I couldn't eventually gain a little deserved respect or attention? Perhaps both. At this moment when all these traditional constructs are beginning to collapse, perhaps it doesn't matter.

But remembering this story has stirred up some long-hidden anger, humiliation, and frustration. It is hard to imagine a human being with my level of intellectual, spiritual, musical and artistic skills being more thoroughly swept aside -- except, of course, there have probably been hundreds of thousands over the centuries, women and men of the wrong background, or gender, or educational accomplishment, or religion, left "homeless" and invisible. And for a woman in a patriarchal construct, nothing was in place to support my actual thriving or success. I guess what keeps me going even today is remembering that I've never been as alone in this silencing as I have felt. Every day that I am still alive is an accomplishment, hopefully not just for me, but for so many others. 

Yes, today's memory is bringing up a lot of negative emotion, but I hope bringing that to light will lead to eventual healing. That's all I can say today.

Rabbit, Rabbit...

Yes, after all these years, those are usually the first two words out of my mouth at the beginning of a month. I don't really believe in "luck", but for some reason the tradition sticks.

And yes, there has been a small uptick in the presence of animal and bird life. At this moment, I hear crickets or peepers of some kind and the occasional bird call, and I saw one squirrel on my walk earlier. Yet it remains creepily, eerily quiet overall. I believe enough in the intelligence of all life on earth to know that this means something, even if I cannot personally interpret it. Some message may have come to animals on the surface from the inner planes, or the outer galactic ones, which undoubtedly we could interpret if we were more alert.

I went somewhere yesterday guaranteed to keep us less alert -- a mall. People wonder, why would I go there, when I basically hate them, don't like shopping, and find the "energy" to be overwhelming? Well, I guess in a nutshell, it involves having no car and (at the moment) little freedom of movement. When I have the chance to take the city bus on a small adventure, this is one thing I do. I eat the same food every time, wander the air conditioned spaces the same way, go to the big bookstore to find a crossword puzzle book and sometimes sit and sip iced coffee, and once in a blue moon make a small purchase of the kinds of clothing or footwear that I can't buy used. People talk about being in a bubble -- the mall is the ultimate bubble. One is essentially unaware of everything outside, from weather conditions to animals to local news to national and international events, to, heck, your friends or family and what they may be going through. It's all about "shopping". Distraction. I'm actually stunned that malls still exist, although this specific place seemed remarkably crowded. There are cities where the local mall has closed, but the structure remains, an eyesore and a nuisance.

Malls aside, human activity aside, it just feels as if the Goddess is taking a deep breath. A calm before many storms. The Capital District area discovered the other day that it is not immune to climate chaos...but two days later, people seemed to have moved on. I guess if I didn't have some spiritual understanding of the path we are on, I'd "move on" too. Gosh, I might have better "moved on" thirty years ago! But for this weekend, I'll join the Goddess in a deep breath. Breathing, love, and connecting with animal life if they find you. That's all one can do. 

It is Already Friday

Between the fact that time is supposed to go faster as you get older, and the fact that we are evidently entering an era when we will experience time differently, and the fact that parts of this week were so unprecedented, weather-wise, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it is already Friday, but I am. (On top of that, I am waiting for a bit of personal news that is slow to arrive -- a watched pot, I guess.) Today's post will be a true catch-all.

Birds and animals seem to be slowly returning to the area. In the last 24 hours, I have heard a Carolina wren multiple times, and seen one squirrel and one rabbit. A strange black bug landed on my book yesterday, and, of course, mosquitos never really left. It's not the norm, but it is something. I have tried not to be fearful about this apparent wildlife disappearance...trying to use the old curiosity solution. Where have they gone? Do they have some kind of underground meeting place? Did they just travel a few miles away to avoid an energetic glitch due to solar flares or wildflower smoke? Or is there an even more metaphysical explanation -- can animals change form entirely, at will? I don't know any of those answers. All I know is, in upcoming weeks I'll be more relieved than I have ever been to see any bird, insect or animal.

I'm still trying to internally acclimate to the notion of being a person "in partnership" -- still not knowing who with, or where, or when it might happen. I realize that this wouldn't have even happened if I had not reached a point (at 70!) of self-acceptance. Of finally realizing the immense value of my journey down and in to the heart of the Goddess, to find my worth outside of the norms of the construct in place, to find a "place" of being worthy of nourishment, protection, cherishing. I finally want to nourish, protect, and cherish myself! It's the first time I've ever seriously thought that it might be possible for someone to find my pioneering efforts in the world of English church music endlessly interesting and discussion-worthy, even if they personally know nothing about it! It's the first time I've been able to envision talking with someone about every possible aspect of my life -- and theirs -- from a high enough spiritual perspective to keep it interesting for me. (I realize, in effect, how bored I have been much of my life, not able to function at the level that is right for me.) None of this would have happened without finally accepting exactly who I am...and according to some of my online astrologers, none of this might have happened before now anyway, given the unusually powerful moment we are in. It is allowing all of us the chance to transform.

So this partnership thing is still mostly a case of, imagining what it would be like to share this present moment or this spiritual insight with another person. Imagining what they might be experiencing at any given moment. Trying to imagine what it would be like to grow spiritually in tandem with another. Curiosity. It's hard to do, given this singular lifetime, and yet I know I surely must remember previous lifetimes on a deep, unconscious level. I can draw on this wisdom even when it seems buried. July was a month of unearthing a lot of buried treasure. Now, on to August, which they say will be even more transformational. Blessings, readers.

What a Difference a Few Days Make...

On Monday, I was seriously concerned that our area might be the next one to experience wildfires. By Tuesday evening it had started to rain, and as some of you may have seen on the national news, Wednesday brought a full day of torrential downpours. I awoke to a blaring alarm on my phone, urging people not to go out. In the end, we had over five inches, but some local areas had as much as a foot. Things came to a screeching halt, with flooded roads, cars, and houses, and delays, detours and stoppages on public transportation. Rivers overflowed their banks. It's strange to be locked indoors in midsummer, much as if it's a winter blizzard or stretch of -20 degree weather...

On the animal front, I still hear next to no bird calls, but of course part of that today may be due to the deluge. I finally saw a woodchuck yesterday, and a little moth landed on me indoors. Perhaps because I'm seeing so little "fauna", each small encounter is more meaningful to me now! If nothing else, I realize how completely blind I have been in my lifetime to the natural world...I cannot possibly make up for it, and it's a hard way to learn a lesson, but at least I'm one little person readjusting her perspective.

And whether it is due to yesterday's powerful full moon, or the changing nodes, or just my life path at 70, but I have had another huge inner shift. (I alluded to its preliminary whispers last week.) I seem to have moved from the self-image of being a contemplative nun/hermit/wandering solitary mystic to the self-image of being in partnership. Something in me has broken through my inner shell and I can at least imagine the potential of connecting with a kindred spirit, and, in the future, walking the path ahead together. Truly, this is the most radical transformation that I could possibly ever experience, far bigger than finding a permanent home, or a new way of using my creativity, or a new form of leadership. And I know this isn't something I can orchestrate. It's more about, tending to the feeling of partnership within me, nurturing it, facing my fears about it, and just watching what unfolds...Yikes.

What a difference a few days make...

Animal Update

Good morning. I have a quick update to yesterday's post about the disappearance of animal life. Since writing it, I've had three surprising encounters or sightings.

First, I was sitting outside and there was a loud "klunk" next to me -- it was a stubby caterpillar, brownish-green, maybe about 4 inches long, that evidently fell off the tree above me and missed me by about two inches. I'm not 100% certain what kind of moth or butterfly it will eventually turn into (he was re-placed on a bush, hopefully to survive) but I've never had a caterpillar nearly fall on me before.

Then, another first. I went swimming in the rapidly-drying Mohawk River, and kept feeling like I was being tickled. When I finally stood up and looked down under the water, darned if there weren't one or two dozen 3- or 4-inch minnows nipping away at my legs! It was so comical that I burst out laughing, although not quite knowing if I would receive actual "bites" I hurried out of the water. Again, a totally new experience. I remember tiny minnows up on Lake Champlain when I was young, but not these teenage ones.

Lastly, there is a glut of one kind of birdlife in the area -- seagulls, and they are congregating on sandbars being created by the lowering of the river level. It seems odd, so far from "sea" -- but hey, they follow ships and boats up the Hudson, and west on the Erie Canal, no doubt. 

I realized this morning that I haven't seen (or heard) a crow in weeks. In the summer, no matter where I have lived, they usually congregate and create quite the racket. It is absurdly quiet. 

I guess it is emblematic of this time that when I am having encounters with wildlife, they are novel, strange, not the norm.

Where are They?

This is going to be a very short one. 

Early in the summer, things seemed relatively "normal" in this area of NYS vis a vis animal life, bird life, etc. Squirrels, chipmunks and rabbits abounded, as did woodchucks. I wasn't seeing as many raptors as last summer, but there were a lot of smaller birds, I saw an early hummingbird, and there was a fairly good showing of early moths and butterflies. But in the last two-to-three weeks or so -- certainly since the bad wildfire smoke in mid-month -- it is as if animal life has all but disappeared completely. Yes, I saw a hawk killing a rabbit from a little ways away a week ago -- and if I sounded a little dispassionate about that, it's because I am trying to remember not to place a human ethical construct on top of such an event. Inwardly I was heartbroken for the little bunny! Other than that, I have seen the odd moth, one monarch, and a few chipmunks. 

This morning, I was awake entirely too early, and realized that not only was there not a "dawn chorus" at the appropriate time, with the exception of one bird chirping for about ten seconds, there wasn't even a trio or duet. The whole early morning sunrise time from 4 to 6 am was dead silent. At other times of the day, it is similar -- only a few individual bird calls here and there. It is positively creepy.

Where are they? What has happened? Do they know something we do not know?

Off the Top of my Head: Fires

This is one of those mornings when I feel called to write, despite having no idea what about. It's like, I still have this freedom, so I must use it. This is coming out of me as I type it. 

The smoke condition that was so hard and extreme last week (much more so in northern Minnesota than here in this part of upstate New York) seems to have dissipated for the moment, but from what I can see, the Canadian and Minnesota fires themselves continue to burn, in addition to ones in the Western U.S. and around the world. There is so much being said, from the sensible to the absurd, that part of me hesitates to comment, but...

Fire is literally a force of nature, and for generations and generations it made life on earth possible for human beings. So I think it is really important, above all, to honor fire. To respect it. To understand its role in all senses, even metaphorically. I've often told the story of my childhood dream of the tornado of fire, and how I've begun to see that tornado not as a fearful event, but as an expression of passion. Unfortunately, when human passion turns ugly, we "ready-aim-fire" on other humans, drop bombs that start fires, and otherwise use fire to attack and kill. "Fire" became an essential part of the war vocabulary. Ugh.

As Earth heats up, it is inevitable that there will be more and more fires. I don't believe that this is a case of Gaia attacking us, although undoubtedly some people will see it this way. She is beyond that kind of duality. No matter how fires start or how they are "fought", it will be a hard journey for human civilization, just as floods, earthquakes, and volcanos have always been and will increasingly be. As ever, though, I have to put the Goddess first. Her passion, if you will, is Her own body, and maintaining its safety, sovereignty and livability. We humans have generally not put Her first, so She must do that now Herself. For those of us who can rise above duality, it means embracing the phenomenon, not fighting it or the paradigm that created it. I mentioned the word curiosity the other day, and perhaps curiosity would be good here -- just kind of an open-hearted wondering. In future, how will we need to live, to power our lives, to feed ourselves? What are the fires burning away? What new passions will emerge out of the ashes of the old? Can we grasp that the world is being completely changed right now and that we cannot envision exactly what it will look like and operate like? What role are the fires (and their smoke events) playing in effecting change? How are they changing us, as people? Can we sometimes just observe, be a witness?

I have been keeping a "fake" plastic candle alight next to my workspace these last few days, just to remind myself that somewhere in all this, there is something good going on. Light and passion and power can be good things, things we want in our lives. And somehow, it's necessary to try to stay as unreactive to real fires as we are to little decorative ones -- even if we are fleeing a conflagration. I mean, to try to take one second to honor the fire's power, even as we throw a few belongings into a car. Fire is a potent reality, and in the bigger picture, long down the road, all will be well. The Earth that emerges in coming years will be the Earth that needs to be.