The Boat, from Above

First of all, may I say what a cool day this is? My 1,111th post! I mean, I am not a numerologist, per se, but when I see a succession of ones (such as on a digital clock), I always think it's just a little special, perhaps a sign of new beginnings. And that's what I am alluding to today...

My most recent metaphor about my journey, as you know, is that I'm on a motorboat (perhaps a 1950's era wooden one) racing down a lake, and that the various things I no longer need in my life are flying with the wind into the boat's wake, into the past. This last year -- with my return to the east coast, arrival at 70 years old, the astrological changes we are all going through, and the world and national situation -- has seemed like a distinct turning point, one that can only be navigated "light". I have kept adding to the list of things flying out into my boat's wake, and as I sat outside yesterday listening to the calls of dozens of starlings, an image came to me of my boat from above, which I've drawn into a sketchbook. A bird's eye view, so to speak. Rather than try to figure out how to share the sketch itself, just imagine...

...the shape of a boat from above, with the lake or river's shoreline on each side. In front of the boat, the water is calm and blue, but behind it, the waves and whitecaps fan out, delineating the boat's progress. Scattered in the choppy wake are all the various things that I have let go of recently, really tried to let go of, under the assumption that from this point forward, they will be of much less, if not "no", use to me. Here is a list of them, in no particular order of importance:

• Fears
• Conflict
• Looking outward for solutions
• Expectations for a 70-year old American woman
• Duality
• Old housing solutions
• Living as the Old Paradigm sees me
• Needing to fit into someone else's construct
• Assuming that my life needs to be limited by lack of money
• Considering myself pathetic
• Considering myself worthless
• Expectations of society, friends, family
• Expectations because of my excellent education
• Old constructs of community
• Needing "success" as a musician, writer or artist
• Holding myself back
• Dampening my own joy
• Assuming that I will always essentially be alone
• Assuming that I will always be single
• Assuming that "home" can only be England
• If it is not England, assuming that "home" can only be somewhere I have lived before
• Assuming that the only music I love and am willing to sing is English church music

I wrote something important in my "label" for the items in the wake, which is that from this point forward they are "limitations" -- I still embrace all these experiences as having been valid parts of my journey, spiritual lessons of great significance. I bring all of them "with me" in the sense that they are part of my makeup. However, it is no longer appropriate for me to limit my own joy or visibility. In the case of English church music, for instance, I still love the tradition with all my being, despite all my angst over the words! And my single-minded passion helped me to make the few breakthroughs I did. But at my age, I need to loosen up my own heart, and stay open to singing new genres of music in other settings and situations. (In other words, if other music brings me any joy, may I sing it!) Similarly, it is exceedingly hard to imagine a life partner at this late stage of the game. I am really at peace with being a solitary mystic. But I'm throwing into the wake the assumption that this is my only option. Right now, limitations feel like a "no" in a yes-based universe. It is freeing to let go.

My label for the boat (and the little circle representing me) is "Me, the Goddess, Leadership, Harmony". I carry everything that brought me to this point as lightly and thankfully as possible, but these four things are closest to my heart. Non-negotiable. My little sketch seems to illustrate smoother sailing ahead, and may it be so.

What does your little boat look like? Are you the skipper? In these windy times, what is flying into your "wake"? Are you setting aside any aspect of your load? No matter what your picture looks like today, I send a warm embrace. We all need it.

Goddess Words 60: The Queen

In the wake of yesterday's post, I figure while I'm feeling courageous, I'll keep pressing forward. I drafted most of this essay by hand a few weeks ago, but didn't manage to get any further with it.

Glancing through my old list of Goddess words, I see that there are two "categories" of words that I have been putting off tackling, perhaps because they hit me close to home, and are potentially uncomfortable. At least for me. Here is one word from one of the categories.

"The Queen" is one of three or four words that are rather "aristocratic" in nature, and therefore pretty un-PC in this "No Kings" era. I mean, the fact is that I'm not averse to some notions of "royalty" if the figure is female and "New Age"! I think of the Goddess as sort of an updated "Queen of Heaven", a leader with all the qualities I resonate with -- love, wisdom, compassion, protectiveness, "power"-sharing, beauty, sense of community, inclusion...this is a "horizontal" definition of royalty, literally "big tent", circular. It's not an old paradigm model of entitlement with one person at the top -- no palaces or moated castles, or wearing five gowns a day. No "off with their heads" (of course!) or dictatorship.

For years, I called myself the "Queen of the New Paradigm" and I confess that I still feel a zing or sparkle around that. If I were to take this seriously, I might wear a uniform of sorts (clothing that was of a certain color or style) and a glittery tiara -- but I wouldn't care if the little crown was formed of actual jewels or glass. I'd probably live in the same tiny kind of room I have almost always lived in, and because this role would be about "enlightened leadership" and not "power over", the queenly role would likely be passed along to another person in a matter of months or years. Each  community would create a process whereby interested women and men would have the opportunity to experience evolved leadership, and then, themselves, pass the power along. 

I know that my ability to even appreciate this dated construct or think within it is the result of my own heritage's handful of long-ago English "aristocrats". I understand that this slant or way of presenting leadership might not resonate with many people. But in the end, I don't think the issue is "no kings" or "no queens" -- kings or queens may well make it into the new paradigm, but only if they are wise, kind, generous, harmony-and peace-loving, and willing to share their power. It is a new kind of leadership that we are sensing our way into, as we speak. Our hearts can feel the path. It's a leadership with the potential to make us smile with genuine warmth, no matter what role we play.

The Day of Resurrection

Yesterday was so hard, and I say that knowing how very fortunate I am, not at the receiving end of bombs or other weaponry, in a safe space, with enough food and water, and in the company of a lovely, personable cat.

But of course it was Easter. Easter hymns were flooding my consciousness, even though I didn't attend church. I have stripped away layer after layer of the onion over the decades in so many different phases: turning from the church in anger at not being given opportunities to get involved in, what was then, the men-and-boys' choir tradition; tip-toeing back long enough to play some organ or choral role (usually staying silent during the Creed and Confession); then leaving again, only to slip in a side door to sing a few choral evensong services or research the life of Herbert Howells. A month or two ago, I even considered taking one last trip back to England to attend an intensive "binge" of Lenten, Holy Week, and Easter services. In the end, airport chaos wasn't the only thing stopping me. I realized that, while I don't find the music unbearable (quite the contrary), the words of this particular season are unbearable. I can still tolerate Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Annunciation, Ascension, Pentecost -- even Trinity...but not the "energy" or lyrics of this pre-Easter and Easter period.

It is at Easter that the duality becomes most acute and, to me, most painful -- death and resurrection, violence and victory, pain and joy, earth and sky. The language can be at its most warlike, with joy coming, in effect, from winning the war, and embracing Jesus' triumph over death. Ugh. It is conditional joy, arguably happening to us thirdhand because of this external "victory". Ugh again.

Over sixty years ago, I told my mother I was a good Episcopalian but not a Christian. She hissed at me never to say such a thing again, and for years I didn't, but walking this tightrope has been spiritually challenging. As you know, I watched the Archbishop of Canterbury's installation the other week (taking my own unconventional personal set of vows), but at least I could sing the words of the hymns that were chosen. "Come Down, O Love Divine", for instance. For this former choirgirl, the hymns and psalms remain important and compelling, when I can resonate with the verbal as well as musical expression.

Yesterday, however, I had no desire to sing Easter hymns, or to hear Easter anthems, and wouldn't even if they had been accompanied by the most glorious organ music and trumpets. The violence of Good Friday doesn't transform for me into Easter joy...it is a saga that reinforces the need for, and addiction to, conflict. At its heart, it is a "good vs. evil" story with way too much violence. Had I made it to church, I wouldn't have made it more than a few bars into "Jesus Christ is Risen Today" before running for the hills..."suffer to redeem our loss"? What does this even mean? Ugh again. 

So yesterday, yet more parts of that tradition flew off my little boat into the wind, into the wake. I had to hang on for dear life. Even "Law and Order" was failing to keep me nailed down. Lordy.

 

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!