Into the Stream

During COVID time, there were two things I missed more than anything. One place (and form of music) I don't need to identify yet again...regular readers must pretty much have "had it up to here" with my off-the-scale anglophilia! The other thing I craved was the opportunity to visit a major art museum, almost any major art museum. I just simply wanted to stand and look in person at something beautiful created by an inspired human being. 

Now that I am at least temporarily in a big city, I had my opportunity yesterday. A good friend picked me up, and we drove into the stream of highway traffic and emerged out the other side at the museum. This was a museum of modern art, roughly 1950 to the present, and I was left with a jumble of impressions. Most of the work felt quite dated, and there was the inevitable realization that pieces from before the eighties or nineties are quite dated. They reflect concerns and experiments that were cutting edge at the time, but seem passe or even silly right now. Is it because my own artistic impulses never ran to the abstract or conceptual, or because everything in life just seems strange in the wake of COVID? I'm not sure. I was pleased at the percentage of women artists represented in the gallery, and two or three pieces stood out and have stayed with me. All in all, though, it felt like a walk through the distant past. I think I resonate more with artwork of the "real" distant past, and will search that out next time. I am exhausted today. Fifteen months in hermitage mode has made jumping into the stream of modern American life hard. A little goes a long way.

In my last blog, I spoke of how strange and unnerving it is to see (on videos) the changes churches and cathedrals in the UK had to institute to choral evensong, in order to follow COVID guidelines. It occurred to me later what I didn't mention; there is a choreography to the traditional service up in the choir stalls, a linear regularity to the processions and sitting/standing/facing forward for the creed. Choral evensong is a church service, not a concert, so I think what is most disconcerting is seeing it sung in modified concert layout. Still, with everything that has happened, it is quite amazing that music programs have been able to start up again in any form. 

I gather that the U.K. has jumped back into the stream with what I assume must be a pretty controversial removal of most pandemic restrictions. Today is literally a new day over there, even though cases of the disease are trending upwards. What this will mean for music and potential travel -- and for all aspects of life there and around the world -- remains to be seen. 

Weekend Miscellany

Hi all. "Hot town, summer in the city..."

It has been a good week. I know that might be harder to say if I had paid attention to world and international news recently, but I haven't. (What a confession to make for a former Time Magazine letters correspondent whose focus was replying to reader letters on world and international events!) The benefits of staying on top of the news are way outweighed by the benefits of holding as high an "energy" as possible. Energetically, if not specifically, I know what kinds of news is inevitable right now. It's going to happen; my role, when it is humanly possible, is not to "stop" the events or trends in the world. It is ever to scout out the more loving path, and to try to hear/see/sense/speak the kinds of things the Goddess would say to us, whenever such messages come to me directly or indirectly. It's the only way I seem to be able to create an all-love and -joy and -beauty model. 

During the fifteen-month COVID retreat (it really was that in many ways), not having a computer or access to the library meant virtually never playing any Choral Evensong music. I could have played some old CD's, or borrowed my friends' laptop, but I found I just simply couldn't do it. The fact that most of the English cathedrals closed completely for so many months, for the first time in history, was just so shocking. It didn't seem appropriate, somehow, to fill the void, and emotionally I was grieving what felt like a death.

So yesterday, I went online and did some searching, and realized that literally, the "landscape" of the service has changed, whether it turns out to be temporarily or permanently. In some cases, choirs are spread out somewhere in the nave, or arrayed on the steps before the choir screen. They are not singing up in the Choir, closely spaced in rows facing the center aisle, as is traditional for that service. More importantly for me, having in recent years almost always been a member of the congregation, this eliminates the option of sitting up in the seats directly behind and around the choir. That option may well return, but I found the re-placement jarring and its own kind of death. At times, I have told friends that my home is in an English cathedral's choir stalls, so this new layer of exile was painful. Still, it was a joy to hear the music again, and sing along to it. I've decided that most late afternoons, I will play some of this music, reinforcing the anchoress model I spoke of the other week. I will open the door of my heart and "attend" a service virtually. It's remarkable that this is possible, and I am thankful. I will try not to see it as a Plan B, but rather the best Plan A I can do right this minute.

Are you noticing the subtle daily changes to the light outside? I don't remember a year when I've been as aware of diminishing sunlight within weeks of the solstice. It must be something about the garden behind the house where I am staying, and the shade cast by the enormous tree in the corner. I'm also seeing fewer birds than I did in Duluth, but that's in large part because of no bird feeders. My own landscape has changed again, quite literally. And for the moment, it's OK. When a wandering mystic can feel even the slightest rootedness, it is a very good thing. 

Clear Panes

A small break in the action due to the need for some technical support. A young person who looked barely 12 or 14 (but was undoubtedly at least 20) helped me, and I am very thankful. There is no question that young people's brains are wired differently than those of us born in the '50s or '60s, and they take naturally to technology. There's a part of me still hoping that some of my odd skills (using a dial phone, reading a clock with hands, and, as a retail clerk, making change the old fashioned way) will continue to serve me and the world...perhaps only as brain exercise, or "what to do in a power outage". Yet we've gotten rid of so many of those lower-tech objects, that even in a power outage we'd be up a creek.

But I digress! As usual!

Way back on January 7 of 2020 (the day after Epiphany), before I had really heard of what would become the pandemic, I made a comment here in my blog that I had a hunch it would be the year when we would see a lot of things more clearly. Yes, this was a riff on "20-20" vision. But in addition to that, the year had been in the back of my mind since the early 2000's, when I happened to write an essay (never published) that took the form of my being interviewed in 2050 by a young person, asking how humanity had gotten through "The Transition" that started in around 2020. Even twenty years ago, I had an intuitive hunch that the 2020 decade would be, well, unusually important and life-changing. It certainly has been so far.

In my new living situation, we spent a few hours the other morning cleaning windows and screens. While it can be a challenging chore, especially if you have to get up and down ladders, there are few things more satisfying than looking out of a really clear, clean window. Literally, it is like looking at life in a new way, with 20-20 vision. And it changed the quality of light (I actually almost wrote "life"!) coming into the house, and lighting its interior. 

I learned one metaphorical and two practical lessons. One: I prefer household chores that involve cleaning with water, just as the only sports I really like involve water (sailing, rowing, kayaking, canoeing, swimming). Two: If you take screens out of the windows to hose down outside (it is hardly worth cleaning the windows if the screens remain dirty!), spray "into" the inside side of the screen so the water pushes out the milkweed and other wildflower fluff that has clogged up the outside of the screen. Spraying the outside of the screen first only pushes the fluff further into the screen. Also, don't leave screen B on the grass right next to where you are spraying screen A, because all the fluff from screen A just lands on screen B. 

And Three: at the end of the day, a squeeze of dish detergent and a capful of vinegar in a small bucket of warm water work just as well to clean glass as fancy cleaning products, especially if you use a really smooth lint-free cloth instead of paper toweling. 

There are many forms of seeing clearly, and I guess we need all of them right now.

A New Week

This new week begins with me very thankful to have taken the leap to try out this intentional living situation. For years, when I would tell people I was something of a nun at heart, they would remind me that there are Episcopal orders. But even decades ago, I knew I could "sing" Christianity, but not live it in the sense of the verbal prayers I would need to say, and beliefs I would need to have. That paradox again. 

My current situation involves only a few overtly spiritual factors (quiet mornings, 8:30 meditation five days a week, and dinner together about five days a week, preceded by a short reading). But the household is evolving under the assumption that members look at life through the lens of the spirit, and approach life in the house and in the world from that standpoint. To finally experience this in a living setting rather than only when I "go on retreat" is deeply satisfying. I'm kind of kicking myself. It's that old either/or thing, the assumption that because I am out there in the "post- traditional world religion" wilderness, there were no religious orders that would have me. Sure, strictly speaking, that is probably true. And this home and I are still in "discernment", so it is not entirely clear where this experience is headed. But the little seed that is me has finally distinctly felt what it is like to land in the kind of soil that encourages my growth. I can feel the seed covering cracking just slightly, and green impulses jostling to get out and root, and thrive.

It's good that a serious life like mine always provides you with comic relief, or at least a dose of non-spiritual weirdness. I had been told that for 65 and older, the city buses are a dollar. So the other morning, I confidently placed a dollar in the slot and asked the driver if I could please have a transfer. He looked at me and said, "Say, what kind of game are you trying to play with me, lady? There's no way you are 65." (Even though about 1/3 of my hair is white, the mirror tells me that my hair still looks brown, and I suppose I have fewer wrinkles than many women my age.) So I said, yes, I am. So he told me he needed to see some ID. Not having expected to access my wallet again, I struggled to get it out of my zippered pocketbook and open. Meanwhile, this poor kid behind me who had told me at the bus stop that he was late for work, deftly put a second dollar bill in the slot so that we could move along, and I thanked him profusely. The driver still grumbled about wanting to see proof, and next time he'd need to see my Medicare card. I sat down feeling quite ridiculous and inept. In the end, though, I felt sorrier for the driver (who probably encounters dozens of people each day who are trying to fake age or disability in order to pay less), and for the people who do make concerted efforts to scam the system, because it must ultimately turn around and hurt them. It was the kind of experience that you don't get when you are "on retreat" in some lovely rural setting, and I blessed being in a place with the reality of hard edges. I have no doubt that this new week will bring both inner and outer growth. Hope yours does too!

Dedication

What's the expression? "In for a dime, in for a dollar"? If I am going to interpret oracle cards once, perhaps having broken the ice, I can do it again. In this case, I think it's an important illustration of a moment in a person's spiritual process.

This morning, I woke up remembering snippets of two dreams. Over the last year or two, this virtually never happened. So I sat up and quickly wrote them down in my journal, and mulled over whether living in a more spiritually-intentional space was helping in this regard, or whether my having broken some new ground in yesterday's  blog had made me more receptive to dream messages. 

Either way, I like feeling gradually more and more tuned in to my own inner promptings, and the visual and natural symbols that are increasingly coming to me, so I said a little prayer dedicating myself to paying ever more attention to them, and communicating what I learn (through writing, art, music, etc.)

A few minutes later, I shuffled my decks of cards (referenced yesterday) and chose:

• The Moon (Rider)
• Nine of Arrows/Dedication (Wildwood)

Now, the Moon card is often interpreted negatively, the "dark night of the soul" kind of thing. Indeed, the booklet accompanying the Rider deck speaks of "hidden enemies, danger, darkness, terror..." And yet to me, nothing in the image on the card begins to suggest those interpretations, and knowing that the moon is so often viewed as representing the feminine, it's almost laughable that an image of the moon would create such a fear-filled response.

My interpretation is that the Moon card represents the landscape of the divine feminine, her milieu, as it were. Yes, the light is reflected, and is not as direct as the sun, but it creates a striking illuminating clarity -- in Smith's illustration, none of the objects cast a shadow, for instance. It is a portal card, in that there is a golden path right through the center, following from the nearby water (yes, representing the deep unconscious) to a mountain far in the distance. On each side is a baying dog or wolf, and a standing stone, and in the center, a lobster (of all things) crawling out of the unconscious, about to make the slow journey to a higher plane. This card is certainly suggestive of dream imagery, and celebrates awareness of all kinds of subtle symbols on the spiritual and physical plane.

Can you imagine? I dedicate myself to noticing and communicating these kinds of phenomena, only to blindly pick a card minutes later called "dedication"! By now, I should no longer be astonished by such serendipities, but they still fill me with awe. The artwork shows a young woman playing her bow and arrow as if it were a violin, dedicating herself, you might say, to her spiritual "music", which truly seems to come from within. 

There are times when these cards feel like they are in dialogue with you, and this morning, what I heard was a big cosmic "yes". 

 

It's All in the Cards

I realized this morning that this would have been my dad's ninety-somethingth birthday. He read my very first blog nearly six years ago, and announced that he didn't understand it, and I don't think he read any more. Dad was purported to have a genius IQ, so I think the issue was more that he was deeply uncomfortable with introspection and spirituality. At the time, it was a journey in itself to continue to write in the face of patriarchal disapproval or discomfort. 

Each new post has pushed me further and further past that barrier, and today's may take the cake. Almost every day, I hear an inner Greek chorus singing, "So-and-so won't like you saying that", and nearly every time I still print "publish" anyway. The chorus has started singing already, and I have barely started!

At least once over the years, I've referred to using Tarot and other oracle cards. I'm sure I hoped that no one would really notice. But this time, I hope you do. For the last few years, part of my morning ritual has been to draw one or two cards, and meditate on what they mean to me, then, often, to write in my physical journal about what I learn. I had been given the Rider-Waite-Smith cards years ago and, like many people, found them initially rather strange or scary, but quickly fell in love with the symbolism and the visual storytelling. Recently, I purchased The Wildwood Tarot (published by Sterling Ethos, New York). The traditional cards have medieval-inspired imagery, and the latter are more Celtic-British woodland-inspired. Recent mornings, after shuffling, I have blindly picked one from each deck.

Today's cards were powerful: 5 of Pentacles (Rider--the image of two poor, sick people walking barefoot through the snow next to a brightly lit cathedral or church), and The Guardian (Wildwood--image of a bear skeleton guarding the entrance to a dark cave, this deck's equivalent of The Devil). I was mulling over what this combination might mean, when I wrote the date in my journal and realized it was my dad's birthday, and immediately it became clear. I'm going to quote partially from my journal entry:

In terms of the devil, "the books talk about addictions, our darkest side, etc. But for someone with [a father with little to no ability to love, help others, or empathize], it's more (or less) than that. A complete black hole.The Void. The constant reminder that you came from nothing, and that you are nothing, and that no matter how hard you try, you will never be 'anything' -- that the 'church' is all lit up and people are going about their business, but you will always be the poor crippled child walking by on the snowy street, seeing no door into the action of life."

Phew. Of course, it may be just an odd coincidence that the Church figured so heavily in my life, and being the wrong gender and on the wrong continent to fully share my musical gifts. But every time I choose 5 of Pentacles, I resonate so very strongly with the poor, shoeless travelers. And the church here isn't just the Church, it is all of the institutions in our current paradigm, all the potential jobs out there in the world. Very early, I managed to slip in the door of corporate America, and served it well. But the minute I left, became clearer about who I really was and what my values were, and started to knock on the doors and windows again, they stopped opening and, indeed, disappeared entirely. There has been a wall between me and thriving, me and the brightly lit inner circle of people doing well.

And the image of The Guardian, the bear skeleton at the door of the dark cave/black hole, looks so comically like my dad in his easy chair that I have to laugh. If I had seen this picture thirty years ago or more, perhaps it would have taken me far less time to understand what was sapping my strength.

I believe we choose our parents, and other factors in the place and time of our birth, so on this July 7, I celebrate that my father (ahem!) "facilitated" such a thorough and difficult life journey. For reasons that are still hard to fathom, I must have had to be the  outsider, the "nothing", in this mostly male construct. People may wonder, why all this Goddess stuff? Simply, She represents a construct that is life-giving, and where I am warmly embraced at Her core, no matter what. I am "something" to Her.

As a postscript, it is interesting to realize that in a divine feminine model, quite a few of these cards would literally not be necessary! No one would be out in the snow. And fearful figures wouldn't resonate with most of us anymore.

Fireworks

I knew I had changed realities when, on the Fourth of July, I discovered myself in a neighborhood of fireworks enthusiasts. I mean, I'm not talking about the odd crash and boom a few blocks away. I'm talking, every home in the neighborhood (except mine) setting off loud fireworks and explosions nonstop from about 8:30 to 12:30 on the Fourth itself, and also for a few hours on the 2nd, 3rd and 5th. I had vowed to stay outside and enjoy the colors and excitement, but I'm afraid I lasted a mere few minutes. It felt to me like being in a war zone. And while going inside and cowering under the blankets didn't make me feel "safe", not when the weather has been so dry, at least I felt safer.

One of those paradoxes of life, isn't it?, to have come to a living situation that is about a certain monastic intentionality and contemplation, only to be literally engulfed in, not "sound", but violent noise! My life always being paradoxical, it didn't surprise me.

But I did find myself thinking about how odd it is that we celebrate this holiday by  symbolically recreating war. Yes, the "rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air" may symbolize that "our flag [is] still there" -- but as with everything, it all seems so old paradigm, so much a part of a conflict way of life. What would celebrations in a new paradigm consist of? Perhaps meals, singing, music, dancing, and lanterns to light the dark. But no traumatizing explosions. Please, no traumatizing explosions.

The morning of the 5th, thanks to insights from Sharon Blackie's book The Enchanted Life, I went out to the garden and acknowledged to the plants and trees that it had been a hard night, and I hoped they were OK. I guess I needed the nature around me to know that I was with them.