Wednesday

This is a Wednesday that I surely will look back on, as a doorway, a portal. Dates that are elevens and twenty-twos always seem that way to me anyway (today is August 11) but I had a major realization in the middle of the night. I won't go into the details yet because I'm still making sense of it.

But in a more general way, it all has to do with fully accepting myself. And oddly, it's never been about coming to terms with having done something wildly negative (physically hurting someone, killing someone, cheating, stealing, or so forth). The parts of me that I have not wanted to "own" have been my strengths and positive attributes, what our culture now calls "my superpowers" (I love the term). I have collaborated in my own silencing and my own being made invisible, on an almost epic level. I have reached a new level of understanding on that score, and am really stunned. Perhaps it's a good thing (to use yesterday's card reading and metaphor) that someone else is steering the boat right now, and that I am in the position to simply be a passenger. I'm fairly sure my arm would be shaking at the tiller, and that the boat would be going all over the water.

The gift of this particular Wednesday is true acceptance, the realization that I cannot possibly move backwards and do anything differently. I can only walk through the portal of August 11, 2021 and, with new insight, experience where the path leads me now. I am a different person than I was even a week ago.

In the River

Like a tide ebbing and flowing, I guess this blog is going to go back and forth between the personal and the universal. Maybe they are essentially the same thing? Especially for someone trying to graduate out of duality!

The other day, I made a reference to becoming one with the river of life, but this morning's cards brought me back into the boat, so to speak.

The Six of Swords is one of the most powerful images in the Rider pack, I think. It is the one with the river man poling a flat-bottomed ferry down the stream. In front of him sits what appears to be a shawl-covered woman and child, and at the bow of the boat, seeming to cut off the passengers' view, are six enormous vertical swords, point down, like a cage. It's a card that suggests the quiet sound of lapping waters but the figures themselves are silently lost in their own thoughts. The traditional reading of the card is journeying, transition, or moving on after a loss; it fits my mood today because yes, after having rejoiced that mystic me had finally found the kind potential longer-term home she's long sought, it turns out that it isn't to be after all. For a few days, I have been in mourning mode; Rachel Pollack's Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom phrases it so beautifully as a "long sorrow". It's hard to remember any time in this lifetime when staying in a place that felt like home has been an option. Once again, my vision is obscured, but I am relieved that someone else is propelling the boat. And there are several beautiful harbors on shore. Today, anyway, I must leave it to the ferry man to decide when to head to dry land. 

Then, from the Wild Wood pack, Queen of Stones, "Bear". This is a powerful image of a huge cave bear, waking up from hibernation and standing at the cave opening, looking out over a huge valley. The sun is coming up over a beautiful, snaking blue river. For this card, I'm relying on my own interpretation. She is the Goddess, Mother Earth, coming out of her deep sleep and surveying the current world situation. She looks ferocious but loving. There is work to be done. She sees the river from above.

I need this time of mourning, of quiet, thoughtful transition to a new stretch of the river. My human soul and body could never have stood so much change without honoring the need for retreat, for leaving the active poling of the boat to others. 

Bear represents the bigger picture. Working as a representative of the divine feminine has been so different than working for "the man"; it helps to remind me that I chose, arguably, a harder path that was almost guaranteed to have fewer lasting physical comforts. At any point in time, I have been where the Goddess needed me to be, doing Her work. It simply must be that by early September, based on her reading of the bigger picture, I need to be elsewhere. 

Note to self: keep breathing.

How?

So how do we do it? If the Goddess is saying something to the world like, "I'll never ask you to fight", where do we start? How do we live a completely conflict-free life?

In the middle of the night, it hit me that one of the tragedies of the duality paradigm is the fact that we are trained to fight in almost every major human situation. Fighting against "enemies" or "evil" comes as no surprise, but the more subtle message all of us have internalized is that we need to fight for the things we love, often to protect them from harm. Parents understandably stand ready to fight for their children or grandchildren. People who love their country may choose to fight to protect it from an enemy. If a neighbor is oppressed or mistreated, we may wish to stand up with them to fight for their rights. We may fight to keep a job that helps us afford the house we love, or fight the cancer that the doctor has diagnosed, or fight to protect a local natural habitat. Suddenly it becomes confusing. Am I fighting for or against? Is fighting my only option? Will the fighting never end?

This is a transitional time. Superficially, there are enemies aplenty out there, maybe more than ever. I'm not saying that things are fine and dandy -- clearly, they are not. But it's about really using x-ray eyes to get beneath the surface of things and consider the possibility that, at its core, creation is one single, powerful stream of manifested love. Would a loving creator (whatever form that energy took) mold a second, destructive entity? I just have never been able to see the logic in that. Contrast, sure, but a polar opposite energy field forcing human beings into nonstop conflict? I just don't see it. 

It takes a leap in belief, at first simply trying to imagine "What if?" What if this earth were love-immersed and there was no room for so-called "evil" or the fight against it? Maybe for one day, a person could step away from the fighting. When that letter comes in the mail soliciting a donation on behalf of an "anti"-something organization, simply put it aside for 24 hours. When your child comes in crying because another child was cruel, envelop them in your arms and say, "I love you." Don't promise -- at least for today -- to fight back. If you read about a political group or organization opposed to your values and you start to feel yourself frothing at the mouth, set those feelings aside for a day. Just one day. If friends invite you to the latest movie thriller, say "no thanks" and stay home and read or watch something else. Or knit, or cook dinner from scratch, or walk in the nearby park, or observe the birds at the feeder.

This day might feel really strange. We are so used to constant struggle that it might feel pointless, or silly, or frustrating or inactive. It might feel anti-social or boring. And yet on such a day, a person's energy has not been drawn downward into conflict, it has been drawn upward into intentional personal and planetary healing. Even if a tiny percentage of the human population were to try this experiment tomorrow, only for one day, I think we might see or sense immediate changes for the good.

She said

Today, I'm just going to quote from my channelled journal of a little over a year ago, July 11, 2020. Next time I will go further with this theme:

A construct that asks you to fight anything is, by its very nature, NOT OF ME. I will never ask you to fight for or against anything.  

The First Thing

It looks like my life is going to go topsy-turvy again over the next month or so, but that stalwart presence within me that I identify with the Goddess is basically saying, "Keep Calm and Carry on Blogging". There is stuff that needs to be said now, while I am still in the kind of setting that is so conducive to meditative expression. And at a moment when perhaps a few people, in the dog days of August, might listen. At times, I may repeat some material from earlier blogs, but I just need to let that be, with apologies to regular readers. The spiral ever moving upwards, things may be phrased differently or in a different context than before.

So I've been trying to figure out, what is the most important thing to say first? And I guess it is this.

I believe we are entering the time in history when duality (the model we have all grown up with of good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, and all the major opposing qualities) is transforming into a unified field. It probably was essentially unified all along, but because the early human experience involved so much struggle for survival, we got into the fearful habit of believing in the power of the "other". The sun vs. the moon, man vs. nature, this tribe vs. that tribe, etc. These divisions became codified, and unfortunately they underlie virtually all our institutions and assumptions. They are the cause of all our conflicts.

Our relationship with our earth home is a case in point. "She" was the "other", and could be used and abused with impunity, because we really weren't connected with her. We could dig into her, throw trash into her, foul her air and water, create unnatural products and substances -- thoughtlessly. And somehow, it would all be OK in the end, because we would invent something equally unnatural to fix the problem. If the last few years have shown us nothing else, it is that this paradigm has led to near disaster. Mother Nature is struggling to do the most important job she needs to do, which is to maintain the viability of life on earth. Our role in this crisis moment? To emerge from the hell of duality and quickly make the philosophical (and practical) leap into a consciousness of unity. We are all connected. We are all one with each other and the planet and every creation in the universe. There are no "battle lines" or sides that must be taken or wars for or against anything.

So, you might think, Liz, this seems like a strange time to embrace the Goddess. "Feminine vs. masculine" is just one more duality, right? Yes, it is. When we arrive at a more unified human construct, gendered concepts of the divine will have become outmoded...or we will at least embrace both facets of divinity. "Versus" will be replaced by "and". But we are not there yet. The masculine face of God has been in the ascendent for thousands of years, and as a woman, I have felt left out not only of spiritual institutions but of virtually every human endeavor. Forget about whether I have a roof over my head at any given moment...it has literally never seemed like "my world" or "my home" in any sense. So for my own healing, to understand and honor my own preferences, and to understand the crisis facing the earth -- so long seen as feminine -- I (perhaps temporarily!) choose to see the unified stream of life, love, beauty and power as feminine. And I can no longer just gaze at its beauty from the shore, or glide down the river of life in a boat looking for a harbor, I must dive into the stream and becoming one of its life-love-beauty-power water molecules. Embodying the qualities of the divine stream, each in our own unique way, is our primary job in this scary moment.

 

Influences

One more post with a little background. There are so many ways in which my life almost guaranteed that I would ultimately have an affinity to a Goddess construct of the divine. After about a month of drought, it just seems easier this morning to forego a proper narrative, and simply make a list...

Yes, my early wish to sing with the men and boys' choir, and heartbreak at the impossibility of that...perhaps taking issue with God from that point on (!)...questioning why God didn't have a daughter too...having one grandmother who taught me to create art and crafts, and another who had been a pioneering early woman lawyer...attending six years of all girls' college preparatory schools...four years at Smith College...an excellent education in critical thinking...why...why...why...

My University of London master's degree work focused on a saint who was killed by her Roman fiancé when she converted to Christianity...she went to heaven in a ball of flame...the process of recreating myself once I returned to America, and my studio art studies, where I was the creator...if I couldn't sing the music I loved, no one could stop me from creating art...being drawn to the metaphysical writings of Florence Scovel Shinn and, later, Esther Hicks ("Abraham-Hicks")...

At Pendle Hill, the Quaker study center, my Episcopal/Church of England roots were turned upside down...in the silence, once I stopped hearing hymns and organ preludes, I heard my own inner voice and started increasingly to trust it...following those inner leadings to Duluth, Minnesota, and living merely feet from the lake that felt like a living Goddess...immersing myself in that power...

I explored graduate programs in women's spirituality, but the only real possibilities I found at the time were in California, and my inner bungee cord still tying me to England just didn't stretch that far...I returned east to accompany my mom on the last eighteen months or so of her life...a moment I will never forget was when I told some missionaries at the front door that I was a post-Christian feminist, so I was sorry that I was unlikely to convert to their religion. When I told Mom what I had said, she said, "I think if I was going to be around a little longer, I'd be a post-Christian feminist too"...

Most recently, the decade of allowing English church music back into my life, trying to re-connect with that world and make sense of the paradox of a non-believing passion for the music. If you have time, go back to my blog post of November 6, 2017 ("Finally"), where I finally articulated what this is all about...a tumultuous decade, a rich/poor decade, a homeless decade, a decade where I finally accepted that the core of me is uniquely unsuited for the world as it is at this time, and that the closer I get to aligning with the divine feminine, the further I get from traditional security of any kind...utterly terrifying, day in and day out... 

So whether some of the things I write about in upcoming months come from some deep Goddess source or from just the constantly-uncertain constantly-questioning path of Liz in this lifetime, I'll leave you to assess. I'll just keep doing my best to express the ineffable. That, of course, is what we are not supposed to do, but I always do everything "wrong"!

My Path to the Goddess III

I write as a tentative orange-pinkish sun is breaking through clouds and smoky haze. We sure are living in "interesting times".

The COVID year-plus solidified my path to the Goddess, and the only challenge is to try to explain how. On the surface, my experience of March '20-May '21 was easier than that of so many people, for which I will always be grateful. I was with friends, and we largely self-quarantined due to their health issues. Outside forces dictated a way of life which, I soon learned, was actually right for me. I didn't miss shopping, or dining out, or movies, or work or volunteer activities. I walked the dog multiple times a day, read, knitted little blankets for friends, read some more, and -- every other night -- made dinner. Not having a working computer and the library being closed, I hand-wrote my journal and letters, but that was it. I was glad to be with other people, but I didn't seem to need social events or a lot of TV or extraneous external "noise". 

For about an hour each evening, the exception to this was nightly local and national news on TV. The news seemed to get worse by the day, but what was most disheartening to me (having effectively moved to a spiritual "place" beyond conflict) was the war-related lingo. Everything was "the fight against COVID" and "heroes on the front lines" and "beating the disease"...well, you know. You heard and lived it too. I just couldn't see the growing pandemic in these terms, but the "battle lines had been drawn" and little old me with no computer or smart phone basically had only two choices -- watch the news, or not.

One day in late June last year, I think right after having watched the latest broadcast, I went back to my room and suddenly felt I had to write something. I grabbed a sheet of lined paper and a pen, and what came out was the first of several dozen "channelled" what? Messages? Letters? The experience reminded me of back when I was at Pendle Hill. It had been explained to me that if someone speaks out of the silence in a meeting for worship, the best case scenario is when they are doing it spontaneously, when they have literally felt Spirit "quaking" within them (thus the term Quakers!) and they just must stand up and speak. I actually had that experience a few times in that spring of 1990, and you could always tell when someone at the worship service was speaking from this deep place and not from their ego. Well, grabbing my pen and starting to write a year ago was very similar. What came out of my pen wasn't as smooth or polished as my normal writing, and it was energetically attention-getting and insistent. I mean, much of it was actually similar to things I had already been thinking, in some cases for years, but the pandemic was lending urgency to the messages and they came to me in the third person. It felt as if the Goddess was dictating to me. Needless to say, I can never prove that, and in true Liz style, the whole thing was all too easy to try to sweep under the carpet.

However, as the summer progressed, and more of this material was coming through me, I started to consider getting back online somehow. I wasn't in a position to buy a new computer yet (that would come after the stimulus checks!) and I wasn't even sure but that I wouldn't rather write a short book or e-book. I hemmed and hawed. Considering how our activities were limited, the days flew by; the build-up to the election, the truncated, cheerless holidays, the events in Washington in January, and, of course, the arrival of the vaccine and the process of making appointments for them all took their toll. I knew I had (and was receiving) an alternative vision of all these events that should be seen and heard, but like most people, I was also exhausted and traumatized. On my 65th birthday, I felt a little like I was turning 85.

In early May, as things were starting to open up again, I realized that I needed to make some decisions about housing/staying in Duluth/life moving forward in a changed world. I spent several nights at one of the hotels that looks straight out at the lake, and as the dawn broke at about 5:45 on May 7th, I faced that familiar horizon and basically just told myself (and all the spiritual powers-that-be) that from this point forward, I am working for the Goddess. My "employer" is the feminine face of the divine, however She needs to use me. I was in tears, tired, feeling both relieved that I could never again squash the source of my spiritual energy, but terrified and still feeling vulnerable and uncertain. Within several weeks, I had bought a computer and returned to this blog, but I realize I haven't effectively used it yet to express some of the material waiting just under the surface. With no stable home and chronic "homesickness" for England, just getting from Day A to Day B is such a challenge, never mind breaking new spiritual ground in public. (Or at least my version of new spiritual ground.) Yikes. 

But it's time. I'm doing the best I can, dear readers, and in the next few posts I'll communicate some of the material that has been coming to me.