Goddess Words 61: Touch -- 1

The other week, I commented that there were two "categories" of words on my old handwritten Goddess list that I hadn't yet tackled here in my blog. Number one is words associated with royalty and aristocracy; I broke the ice on that last time by talking about "The Queen". Well, the other category that I seem to have deliberately skirted around is words that can relate to sexuality or sensuality. I often laugh -- the phrase, "sex, drugs, and rock and roll" may have been coined during my generation, but it never, ever resonated with me. Sex has played a really small role in my life, drugs have played no role in my life, and while I remember just about every rock song ever having played on the radio (I have that kind of retentive brain!), I only ever attended one outdoor rock concert (The Band), listening from several blocks away. My passion, drug, and music were records of Howells, Byrd, Tallis, and so forth. (Grammar?! Struggling with that today!)

So I guess the best word for easing into this arena seems to be "touch". Even plain old touch hasn't factored much into my life, although in the end, it's not a plain old word. Its noun and verb forms take up 3/4 of a page in my old Concise Oxford Dictionary!

Yikes. There is a reason I have tried to ignore some of these words. I'm already nearly in tears. I'll do my best.

"Touch" can actually be a fairly innocuous concept, really. When two things make direct physical contact, they touch. My book is "touching" the edge of the bookshelf. Modern racing sailboats barely "touch" the water. That kind of thing. 

Where the concept seems to get nuanced is when humans do the touching. May I first say this: at least in my concept of the Goddess, all Her touch is loving, appropriate, kind, and compassionate. Without exception. In a sense, adding a word like "touch" to my list twenty years ago may have been me trying to convince myself that human touch can be kind, can be thoughtful and appropriate. I have no memory of having been abused in this lifetime, so my cringing somewhat at the thought of touch may be from not having been touched very often as a child, or past lifetime memories, or an empathetic reaction to the violence all around us, or perhaps just having had a particularly solitary journey. 

And of course, the religious and spiritual constructs we are all heir to have focused on divinity "out there", not within us or touching us -- God up in the heavens, at a distance, transcendent. Heck, even in Michelangelo's "Creation of Adam", God's and Adam's fingers don't actually touch! Such an image makes no sense whatsoever from a Goddess perspective -- humans are enclosed, touched, protected by a mother's body for nine full months before birth. Actually, touch is what starts the creation of humans, and nourishes us, even after birth and throughout our lifetimes, even though our culture seems to try to paint a different picture, to keep us mostly apart.

Hmm...this is so emotional that I think I will need a second go at it before long. How undernourished one is when there is too little loving touch. I'm talking about a toddler running to mom and holding onto her legs, or dad holding a child on his shoulders, or a cat on a lap, or just experiencing a spontaneous pat on the shoulder to say, "you're appreciated", or "you've done good!" or "Wow, I'm glad you are here!" The active divinity in lovingly touching the soil and planting a flower, or taking healthy ingredients, mixing them with a spoon, and making a delicious meal. The divinity of enjoying the feel of wool, or velvet, or moss. The divinity of simple touch. For the moment, that's about as far as I can go in breaking into this aspect of the love of the Goddess...

It's Surprising...

Well, just about everything right now is surprising on some level, and completely understandable on another. But here's the specific thing on my mind this morning...

I'm surprised by how many of the folks in the New Age world are finding it hard to hold onto (understandably fragile!) threads of unity consciousness. I'm seeing a lot out there about "how to protect yourself" (from negative energies), the existence of dark entities, and other topics that feel very, very old paradigm and dualistic to me. This isn't a criticism, just an observation. We were all trained so effectively weren't we? When there is a problem in the world, we need to fight it. We need to find an outward cause, and fix it. We need to buy this and do that and change what's happening from the outside...and I think all of us fall into that trap, especially now. 

But the only real "protection" (and that is a completely outmoded word) is to glow with joy, love, beauty and truth from within...old-fashioned "dark" entities (human or otherwise) cannot stand goodness, and won't willingly approach it. I suppose the hard trick is that these good qualities have to be completely genuine and spontaneous, not put on like a protective cloak.

For many of us, these times can feel like an exam, although even that old paradigm lingo is inadequate. Can we remain genuinely joy-filled and love-filled when the world seems to be falling apart? Some days I can, some days I cannot...I get a different grade every day! We don't have the luxury of studying a subject for three months or so, then taking a test. The "testing" is coming just about every other minute.

Organ-Playing Power

It sort of surprised me yesterday when I said I miss playing the organ -- I let it stand and figured my statement would percolate. Well, it only took about the amount of time it takes a pot of coffee to percolate to reach an "aha".

Sure, there is a very small degree to which I miss the satisfaction of playing, say, a great hymn or a Bach Prelude and Fugue. (Despite having radically pared back on my belongings, I still hold onto two volumes of Bach organ music and a 1940 Hymnal! Whether my feet or hands would remember how to play today, I don't know.)

But it hit me. The main thing I miss about the organ is the feeling of power. The fact that you can be playing softly, and then, within one or two seconds, pull out "all the stops" (often via a general piston) and create what must potentially be the loudest musical sound in the world. It is breathtaking to be in that position! And then if you happen to be in a church or cathedral with excellent, resonant acoustics, the whole building becomes your instrument.

Back in my childhood when the only church roles for women were Sunday School teacher and Altar Guild (my mother even declined to play either part!), my handful of times playing a hymn during a service arguably gave me power beyond that of all the women in the building, combined. I was good at playing hymns majestically and singably (I guess this isn't a real word...) I would have made an amazing cathedral organist/choirmaster...if, if, if, right? 

Feeling from the heart, I realize that I have never (in the subsequent 45-50 years) felt as powerful. Whoa. And I've never, yet anyway, felt the same ability to lead. I've never felt as "heard". This isn't about going backwards or having regrets. It's just the first time appreciating that I know what those things feel like, from an early experience that I didn't associate with power, leadership and "being heard" (perhaps in the larger sense). Whoa, again.

 

Church music and so forth

Last night, I listened online to an organ recital given by a friend. It reminded me of my own history as an organist, which I haven't spoken about much, but perhaps I did best in "Fugue" (August 12, 2015). 

Basically, I turned to the organ as a teenager, arguably as a substitute for singing in the English men-and-boys' choir tradition. With expertise playing the organ, perhaps down the road I could enter that world through the proverbial back door; shorter term, there was the immediate gratification of being a powerful woman making a loud noise! However, I knew even then that the organ wasn't my passion. The high point of my career, at 21, was my Smith College senior organ recital, after which the whole thing petered out. For a time I blamed it on a poorly-set broken little finger (which genuinely made impossible the playing of really fast passages), but in fact it was disinterest. Once I returned from the UK in 1981 realizing that the entry of women into "my" milieu was decades away (and, hey, to this day there has never been a female conductor of the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, which was my specific dream), I simply dropped organ playing completely. But watching a superior organist from time to time is a thrill, and my hands and feet try to play along. It is an amazing instrument. On some level, I miss it like crazy.

I am grieving another aspect of church music, which I suspect factors into my finally having dropped choral evensong almost completely from my life. I guess I'll say this short and sweet, without too much explanation. It gets back to the words again, not the music and the harmonies...given what is currently happening in the Middle East, I find the singing of psalms (to my beloved Anglican chant) utterly unbearable. That is all I will say.

I guess it goes to show (going back to the boxes "thing") that to live with total inner integrity, it is impossible to keep shuffling your boxes around, to keep thinking "I can continue to do A as long as I box up B and never look at it." (And given the fact that I have really never had a home and my belongings have literally almost always been in boxes, this is serious food for thought!) Becoming truly honest with oneself requires opening all the boxes. All of them. And looking at the contents thoughtfully, and really being honest about one's past, present and future.

None of this changes what feels like a serious break in my old patterns, hopes, dreams, and disappointments around church music (this moment feels like a whole new era!), but some of the old threads are still dangling, and need to be either unravelled, cut, or re-woven. And metaphorically at least, any boxes that go forward with me will stay wide, wide open! Perhaps they will be made of plexiglass so I can always see the contents and gauge whether they continue to bring me joy. I simply haven't got the energy to carry anything heavy or joyless. Anything. 

Too Big for the Small Boxes

Well, I hadn't intended to write again this weekend, but in the interests of chronicling the process of being a modern American woman mystic, I need to report on something that happened in the middle of the night last night. I mean, I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. I was rather anxiety-ridden for a number of reasons. Yet suddenly, harkening back to my post (and picture) about the parts of my life falling into the wake of my boat, something hit me. Not only are most of these departing things simply "limitations". A case could be made that I've grown way beyond them, become literally too big for them. Heck, perhaps I was beyond some of them in 1956! All along, I haven't been able to fit into the small boxes. I couldn't fit into the small career boxes, or still-small expectations of and roles for women, or the rigidities of most of our constructs. I couldn't fit into the box of using money, not love, as human currency. And now, having been through the process I have been through, I know I couldn't go back to aspiring only to sing in a particular choir, or even to live anywhere (England or elsewhere) simply for the sake of being in a beautiful place. Between my own inner expansion and the process that our whole world is going through right now, I am just simply "too big" for who I was even a year ago (and this is hard to say, being somewhat overweight!)

What happened next is that I spent a good hour or more feeling complete and utter joy. Expansive joy. Perhaps it was bliss! I mean, I'm not completely sure how to describe it. I was smiling ear-to-ear, and felt like my head was literally in the clouds. For that hour, all my anxiety about where I belong (or what I should or should not do next) completely disappeared...perhaps in part because more fully understanding this reality about myself brought peace. Of course so many aspects of our world have been uninteresting, irrelevant, like trying to understand a foreign language. I may not be a "5D" person yet, but I've been energetically on such a different wavelength from the culture at large that it has been constantly grating. As we enter the Aquarian Age, perhaps just enough of the global energy has shifted that hours (not just minutes) of bliss are possible. And online, I'm hearing and seeing other people walk through processes that I recognize. It is clear that we are in a new era, and if I felt alone before, at least I know now that I am not. (I'm still not sure I feel it yet!)

So many metaphors, so little time...boxes, boats, what will I think of next? I guess I'll just leave it at that for now...

Hodgepodge

Over the years, I've never used "hodgepodge" to title a blog post of miscellaneous observations. (It looks like "miscellany" has been my go-to.) It is not a very beautiful-sounding term, so I hate to use it at this moment, but on the other hand, it makes me smile. Smiles are rare right now.

So, in no particular order, my hodgepodge...

Today is a powerful new moon. New beginnings...

My recent "thing" about England and its church music having seemingly dropped out of my energy field continues to be true. In a sense, this may be a case of "be careful what you wish for" -- perhaps under the surface I always wished to be set free from this narrowly-defined dream, but now it is unnerving that it may have actually happened. I want a little certainty back! (If I knew nothing else about myself, it was that I loved England!) And perhaps it isn't permanent. Yet so far it seems to mark a real energetic break. My hunch is that in their old forms, these two intertwined passions would potentially hold me back from playing the role the Goddess needs from me in this new era.

I went up to Saratoga yesterday. For the price of a city bus, it's a little like going to an upscale metropolitan neighborhood. In a mere four days or so, the foothills of the Adirondacks went from cold, grey, and barren, to summer. (Everything is speeding up, I guess, even the change of seasons.) People were out, eating in sidewalk cafes, carrying shopping bags from posh stores, wearing actual summer clothing, and sitting down to rest and rehydrate. The greens and yellows on grass and in gardens blossomed almost literally in front of my eyes.

I had another "aha moment" up there, actually, as I was in the public library, escaping the heat. I listened to the seniors who were volunteering in the library's book shop, talking about things that didn't interest me, just as I had taken in clips of such conversations on the bus and on the street, just as I have done with conversations around me all my life. I acutely felt the omnipresent split of being in a world that, in effect, doesn't interest me -- heck, I almost passed out at how uncomfortable it felt. But then it hit me, that's it! I need to be surrounded with people who talk about the same things that interest me! I cannot split myself in two any more, clearly. Sure, the old paradigm is still in place, but the time has come to be surrounded by others creating the new paradigm, honoring the Goddess, and living as far into the future as apparently I have always been. The time has come, within me more than anything, to validate the new paradigm and attract such places and people. That will truly be "home".

As I walked around, I was also struck by how immensely privileged and fortunate I was to be in such a place for the day, not dealing with (at least superficially) the issues that much of the world (and the country) are dealing with. I sent out waves of gratitude.

I am thankful, too, that the astronauts got back safely. Their comments this week were touching and inspiring. But as I must have said at least once before, there is a problem with our further exploration of space, just as there is with our activities here on earth. We don't seem to have ever asked Earth for Her permission and guidance interacting with Her, and we don't seem to have consulted with the Moon either. Does She welcome human exploration and settlement? Why have we never had constructs in place to put Earth's (or Moon's) needs first, before human progress? (If we did, it was in "pre-history"...) 

OK, that's it. Normally, when I'm not super pleased with the perfection of one of my posts, I hold off, but this doesn't seem to be an era in which to do that. Particularly not on the new moon. So, take care, all. Keep breathing this weekend, and let in the new.

Symptoms

After listening to one of my peeps online yesterday, I gather that another "symptom" of the ascension process is having, in effect, moments from your life flashing before your eyes, at least metaphorically. Last Saturday, this happened to me quite intensively. It's happened once or twice over the last few years, but this was different...almost like a strange, daylong, surreal movie. Part of what is odd is that the scenes were largely of my life in smaller-town America, not my time in the UK, or in New York City or DC. Things like interviewing for a waitressing job in Duluth, and being hired because I had "personality plus". Taking the small bus from where I was living in Helena, Montana (the YWCA) to Walmart to shop...the bus did a constant loop, but that was basically the only place on the route to get food or clothing. Driving from Essex, New York to Middlebury, Vermont (or back again) by a certain barn that stuck out on the horizon. Back to Duluth, practicing with the rowing club on the bay early in the morning, when the moon was setting and the sun was rising...and so forth. Saturday was literally a stream of these kinds of random, unremarkable memories, not the momentous ones. Sometimes I still wish that my life had been filled with dreams come true, regular opportunities to sing choral evensong in the UK, visits to top museums and restaurants, and a normal home, husband and children, lovely clothing...a lot of stars would have to have aligned for this to happen, including my being more in sync with our capitalist system! These lowkey memories may be the ones I feel most bittersweet about, too, even though I now understand that, as a mystic, it might have been impossible for me to have a "normal" life anywhere. In a movie of my life, perhaps they would be the quiet segue scenes. Given what I have been writing about the last few times, I guess the best way to approach these vignettes is with curiosity. "I wonder why I am remembering these events and moments right now?"

Another symptom? After a lifetime of passion for English church music and England generally, on this second or third day of passion's disappearance, I am struggling to find a thread of enthusiasm for any aspect of my life at all...it's not depression exactly. Not yet. But it's like the floor has dropped out of my world. I mean, I know that this is what many of us are going through, a complete re-assessment of everything, less of a willingness to accept lower energies that have dragged us down, or the aspects of our life that will not be useful in the future. This is a lull in the action, a pivot point, and we need to keep breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Updated ways of expressing my inner life passion are near, but not here yet. And because so much is shifting, I cannot "look for a new way of being" with my left brain logic. I need to stay focused within, and feel when that little curlicue of excitement breaks through my consciousness. (When, not if!)

The strange thing is, I am antsy as heck, and feel ready to go, but with no idea where or to do what! So I'll keep breathing, and be where I am until I know.