The Banquet that is 70

Me and metaphors. I should spare my readers, but this one is gnawing away, so here goes.

It occurred to me this morning that reaching 70 is like this: all your life you have been preparing for a big banquet. Early on, you look through cookbooks and recipes, trying to find delicious-looking appetizers, entrees, salads and desserts. You want to see what other chefs before you have done. Then you go around to the market, and buy all the ingredients you need (and possibly some of the food comes from your own garden). You get going with the initial prep work, chopping, dicing, deciding on herbs and spices. You find the appropriate baking dishes and sauce pans, and start putting each dish together. You boil the pasta and simmer the sauces. Some of the dishes may need to roast or bake in the oven for a number of hours. Meat or fish may go in the refrigerator to marinate, salads may be mixed then chilled as well, and depending on the dessert, you may be able to prepare ahead or throw together last minute. 

70 feels like the moment when you know that people are about to walk in the door, and the results of all your hard work are going out on the table. It's the moment when you finally see all the fruits of your hard work as one big picture. You see the success (or not) of all your decisions. You even see that, wow, if I were to plan this banquet today, I might choose a whole different set of dishes! This meal doesn't really represent me! Forget about whether I cooked it well or poorly, it just isn't my taste in food anymore at all!

Now, this whole metaphor is probably skewed in the sense that I suspect that few successful men would use a cooking metaphor to begin with! It comes naturally to me after a lifetime of enjoying cooking and baking, and perhaps many lifetimes of stirring stews over open fires. And of course, many women's "ingredients" have been far different from mine. The menu they hoped to prepare might be a completely different meal. Yet as women, I think we have all effectively had to "cook" at times without a working stove, or adequate refrigeration, or even light. The system wasn't in place to help us get this huge banquet on the table. The fact that anything is on the table at all may feel like a miracle.

Today, it feels like too much of my meal is made up of bread, like many of my actions were, in effect, "kneading" in the hopes of my bread eventually rising. Preparatory work, scientific in nature, to create an eventual bloom...and yet, some of my bread rose, and a lot of it did not. All my loaves and other dishes -- successful and not -- are on the table. I mean, I embrace the whole array with love. I did the best I could, and I know there was very little encouragement along the way ("You go, girl, shake up that world of English church music!" "Yay, finally someone questioning our capitalist system and trying to live and work outside it!" "The world needs your Goddess perspective!") Somehow, I thought by now it would all add up to a brilliant banquet that hundreds would line up to eat, and instead, I watch as potential diners take a cursory glance at what I have to offer before wandering along to the next booth, the next dining table...or so it feels...

It is, I'm sure, part of our rapid spiritual evolution that the months leading to my turning 70 (and the two since then) have added to this energetic mis-match. We were preparing our banquet in one world, and are putting it out on the table in another world, almost literally. Hmm...I guess what I am trying to say to my fellow 70-something women friends is, we "cooked" as best we could, and now, with whatever energy we may have left, we are free to take new ingredients and prepare an entirely different meal -- heck, speaking for myself, I may only have the energy to create one or two decent dishes, not a banquet table full. I'll probably contribute my food to a community potluck, not even try to present a solo culinary show. The energy is no longer right for that.

Goddess Words 61: Touch -- 2

Well, I'll give this a continued "go". 

Astrologically, I gather that most of my major influences are water and air. I have little to ground me. From that perspective, I probably would have been better suited to a traditional religious construct, yet it was my left-brain intellectual mind that started the process away from male paradigms, toward the feminine. The catalyst was the realization that I simply could not function in our created culture -- I didn't originally have a major affinity for Nature. So I've been slowly learning (over the last thirty years or so) how to be a physical person, how to walk around on earth, how to relate to the ground, how to relate to plants and animals. Even now, it is a novelty. The other day, a woodchuck lifted his head above some plants near me, and I (as surprised as he was!) exclaimed, "Hi there, sweetheart!", and he turned and ran! As you know, I watch for the big birds, but this spring's small birdsong has fascinated me too, and seems louder and more raucous than I remember. I'm still not used to being back in the northeast with its unique sounds, sights, and smells. 

The word "touch" has, of course, shown up almost everywhere over the last few days, even crossword puzzles. I'm not making a concerted effort to analyze what it means to me, or why it might be a Goddess word, I'll just continue to follow the trail, wherever it leads.

Yesterday, I was reading in a fiction book about the encounter between an abused horse and a woman. Her effort to connect with this horse resonated profoundly with me, and for about the fifteenth time in the last few weeks, I was close to tears. It reminded me of a horse moment in my own life. I had never had any encounters with horses (above and beyond being led around a rink on a pony as a child) until about 20 years ago, when, volunteering at a CSA, I was given the opportunity to brush the huge draft horses one morning a week. I knew I should either refuse to do it, or be extremely scared, but I was surprisingly calm. I was careful and vigilant (especially about their hooves), but from the first moment (whether this was true or not) I sensed that they trusted me, and I trusted them. Most important, they let me touch them, and gently brush their manes, tails, and bodies. I mean, they would undoubtedly have been as patient with any reasonably competent volunteer, but the experience meant the world to me. Even though I have never owned a pet, I still feel potentially more comfortable touching animals, and being touched by them, than people. Yet this life journey may be far from over, and it could be that I'm entering a new phase of allowing touch, when it is loving, trusting and compassionate on both sides.

My horse experience only lasted a few weeks...another chore more appropriate to my skills came along...but I treasure those hours, which I had almost completely forgotten. 

That's all I can say today, but without necessarily continuing to do so in the context of Goddess words, I may pick up this "touch" theme regularly over upcoming weeks. I think I have stumbled across the "mother lode", literally and figuratively. There is a tangled mess within that needs light, and patient attention.

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...