The Spider

The other morning, as I was getting ready to take a shower, there was a rather significant-looking spider in the tub. Not a daddy longlegs or a baby something-or-other. One that looked like it could bite. And yet no matter how dangerous it might or might not have been, I couldn't bring myself either to kill it or to let it go down the drain. I did the whole "glass and sheet of cardboard" thing, and took it outside and let it drop into the yard.

I say this not to congratulate myself on my nonviolence. (One of my brothers would call me "holier-than-thou", but what he didn't understand was that I was just being me.) But this morning after hearing the news, I started to cry like a baby, because I simply don't understand. Why kill anyone, anything, larger than, say, a mosquito or fly? How does anyone believe that any being on this earth doesn't deserve to be here? Much less dozens or hundreds or thousands? And yet clearly our construct is actively based on that belief. This is not about today, or yesterday, or two decades ago, or two hundred years ago. It is about virtually all of human recorded history, people (most often men it seems) killing other people in all kinds of contexts. In school, I tried to understand. Like a good student, I memorized dates of wars, names of generals, political movements. I tried to accept that such-and-such an outcome had been good and another was bad, and I tried to accept that even though I might not be a warlike person, this was humanity being humanity, and that I was the odd one out. I was the one "not facing reality". I finally do not believe this anymore. It took almost 70 years and untold numbers of world wars and national and international tragedies to get to this point.

And at long last, I'm thinking as much or more about the rights of the animal and nature kingdoms. Up until recently, I have never been a vegetarian for long. I felt I needed meat and fish for protein, and honestly relied entirely too much on so-called "cheap" fast food because of my limited income. I think that the rise in fast food prices during the pandemic started to wean me off of such meals. And now, most recently, I am living with people who are vegetarian. For the first time in my life, I have had at most one meal of fish or meat a week (on top of a weekly tuna salad sandwich, which I'm still rather addicted to.) I had already started to cook less meat from scratch, but I am increasingly finding I don't crave it at all, or can only eat a small amount when I do eat it. If I ever return to a situation where I can completely make my own dietary choices, I'm certain I will continue to eat a mostly vegetarian diet, only eating meat from a source that takes great loving care with the animals. At this point, I see too close a correspondence between our cavalier attitudes toward the lives of animals and the lives of other humans. And of course this extends to the land, the water, and the air.

In terms of the spider-in-the-tub, there is no way that its life was less valuable than my perceived comfort. I hope I let it loose into a place and situation where it had a better chance to fully live its lifespan. 

Synchronicities

It has been an interesting week or so, because I've experienced several very small synchronicities. Not large, stunning synchronicities (happening upon someone who says, "I have the perfect longterm housing for you, nearly free for the rest of your life!" ) but the kind that gets your attention. Two-and-a-half years ago, I included "synchronicity" in my list of Goddess words...clearly synchronicity is a right-brain quality that is a beautiful way of receiving communication from the Divine. It is a lens to seeing things differently, a way of learning quickly, not slowly and step-by-step.

About a week ago, I took part in a game of Scrabble. Someone wasn't sure if the word "dint" was really a word, and I assured them that it was (and of course, a quick check online confirmed this). But it wasn't a word I had heard or read often in the past. So, what a surprise -- "dint" has shown up in two different fiction books I've read in the last few days! (In both cases, a character was able to do something "by dint of" some qualification or experience.) I didn't really take a deeper meaning or message from this synchronicity, but it caught my attention.

Peter Tremayne's Bloodmoon, one of the Sister Fidelma mysteries, was on this same reading list. I took the book out of the library before I found out about this morning's blood moon (total lunar eclipse turning the moon a coppery red during its totality). Blood moons have often been seen as symbols of change and renewal; having the image show up in life in two different ways was noteworthy. I'm sorry to say that I didn't wake up at 2:30 this morning to see the remarkable phenomenon in person, but yesterday felt like a watershed to me in certain other respects, so I add it to my belief that we are in the midst of a time of rebirth. All of us are potentially being reborn.

Synchronicity three. For the last week or so, I was surprised that, after a period of seeing hawks and eagles at least every other day, these raptors seemed to have disappeared. Yesterday, literally seconds after I was mulling this over, a bird flew by the house. At first I wasn't sure what it was, because it was smaller than the hawks I have been seeing. But after a close look at my bird book, I identified it as a "sharp-shinned" hawk. They are smaller than the more common red-tailed hawk, their chests are rust-colored, and their tails (from the side or below) seem longer and squarer, not fanned out in a semi-circle. Again, perhaps there is no deep meaning behind the timing of this moment, except that it gave me the chance to learn more about hawks -- and, hey, it is satisfying to think, "I'm not seeing as many hawks", then a hawk flies by. It gives you the feeling that the Universe is on your side, that somehow you are a part of a big, inclusive net, the Love of the Universe.

Goddess Words 40: Leadership

I've talked about leadership around the edges, and even probably said that I feel like a leader who has never led. Certainly I have the capacity to lead, only the big issue is you need someone to follow you, and up until now, that hasn't happened (!) Maybe someday...But the Goddess Herself is a leader, so it doesn't surprise me that I added this word to the list all those years ago.

Because we are experiencing such interesting life lessons on this topic right now, I want to envision something totally different...just, if you will, for the fun of it.

Leadership in the coming paradigm will have a circular, horizontal quality. Individual communities will have "leaders", yes, but the power will be shared with the whole community in a way that is hard to describe or imagine right now. Because people will no longer be brought up with the concept of "power over", that kind of power won't even be seen as desirable. People will literally understand to the core of their beings the old fashioned "golden rule" -- "if I hold power over another person or other people, then other people will try to exert power over me, and I don't want that." Enlightened self-interest will guide a warmer, more embracing kind of power by those community members who embody wisdom and understand the values of the Goddess. And "power" will move easily, spontaneously and frequently from one person to another. People won't fight for power, or start wars for power, or punish for power, or hold hostages for power. Such actions will be unthinkable. Conflict will be unthinkable, because we will understand that we are all one. We will remember the early 2000's, and not want to return to this time.

There will be little tension between people and groups about ownership of earth's places and regions, simply because it will be understood that Earth owns herself. We will embrace a less human-centered form of stewardship, turning to the wisest ones when making plans for land use, and only using the land in such a way that growth is sustainable environmentally. The new paradigm priority will not be human "progress" such as we've experienced in our current paradigm -- it will be to facilitate the healing of Earth and all beings living on earth who have experienced so much trauma. This healing alone may take many, many generations. Economic forms such as money, stocks, trade, real estate, even bartering will probably not exist in the way we know them. Love will be the currency. I know this sounds ridiculous to most people, but I'm certain that is the direction we are heading in. The only way that human culture can live sustainably on the earth moving forward is by dealing directly, and lovingly, with one another, other life forms, and the planet itself. 

Leaders won't always be women, but we women will start to understand how to use our unique qualities, strengths and perspectives, and find that they are more highly respected and honored as valid. In a less competitive world, the nuances and intuitive nature of our wisdom will be seen to "work" in a way that conflict no longer does. We will embrace completely new ways of problem-solving. Leaders (whoever they may be) will be centered in love, beauty and wisdom. They will be connected with the Goddess, and adept at bringing diverse people together in harmony.

I think women make natural leaders, but not in the old paradigm construct that is ebbing. This isn't about a woman becoming president. This is about women leading in the paradigm on the horizon, beyond presidents. 

So Poignant

This weekend, I've had the privilege (and fun) of cat-sitting, in a neighborhood not too far from where I grew up. I'm finding the whole experience to be almost unbearably poignant. So many of these houses remind me of our house, fifty-plus years ago, and the houses of my family's friends. I feel like I am in some strange time warp; except for the cars going by, it could be about 1970. And yet all I have to do is turn on the TV, and see news, ads, and shows that would have been unthinkable back then. There's a part of me that wants to run out into the street, and start yelling, "Don't you people understand what is in the process of happening right now?", but I know perfectly well that no one would listen.

I guess moving frequently has had one effect that I never really considered -- the passage of time is "about" a whole different thing when you move from place to place. Had I stayed in the Schenectady area all along, I would have measured time in other ways, perhaps the timing of jobs, or relationships, or (if I had had children) their ages. Instead, I'm completely unsuccessful at remembering when I lived where...it is all becoming a blur.

In my next post, I'm going to talk again about leadership in the new, upcoming, paradigm. It's not adequate to say, it will be the utter opposite of what we are seeing...(smile)

The temperature has jumped about 40 degrees in one day. We've raced completely through late winter and into summer. This adds to the poignancy...trying to remember what spring used to be like in the "olden days"...

Hollowed Out

I wasn't going to write today, because along with perhaps many millions of other people, I am feeling hollowed out. It's the realization that what we are watching feels like what I have experienced in so many situations in life, being told you just aren't worth anything, that your life has no value, that your interests and talents are worthless. And no matter how hard I have tried for decades to hold the faith, to know in my heart that I have "worth", what appears to be happening before our eyes is some kind of mondo bizarro truth serum, proving that the construct we live in did not, itself, move forward through history to become more inclusive and welcoming. It simply may not be capable of it. It grew out of a hierarchical world, with certain men at the top and the rest of us below, and a rubber band keeps snapping it back into that place.

So I've been uncharacteristically down, depressed. As much as I actively see and feel the return of the Goddess to our world, I still feel almost as stymied as I did six months ago, before returning east. I cannot intuit exactly where I belong in the midst of this tumult, much less how to get there. Still not quite seeing or meeting my kindred spirits, or feeling the strong, positive certainty that usually leads me to forward movement.

Having said that, there was a really neat moment just now, symbolic of so much. If you had asked me from the ages of 6-50, I would have probably said that I "am" one of the choristers in the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, and that singing choral evensong in those choir stalls represents my home. If you had asked me from 50-65 how that had changed, I might have said that in spirit, I had evolved into more of a member of the Tallis Scholars, singing a wide range of Renaissance and newer music, but outside the actual cathedral milieu. Just now, I realize I have morphed again. "My" choir is Voces8, and the video best representing who I am now is the one where they are singing "The Saddest Noise" in Grand Teton National Park. Never mind whether they did or didn't actually tape the music on the mountainside, it's the juxtaposition that counts...gorgeous, clear, bell-like choral tones in the wilderness. Recently, someone suggested I sing music of evensong to the trees and birds, and I've done it a few times. It feels a little odd, but wonderful. My actual new dream, at 69, is to be part of an elite choir singing choral evensong outside, in the English countryside or in the ruins of an ancient abbey. I want to hear the stones and the whole landscape singing with us.

And if, in this hollowed out world of ours, this is a "worthless" dream, so be it.

PS: Near the end of the pandemic, I heard Voces8 in Duluth, and it was so unbelievably thrilling, I don't have words for it. The entire audience was masked to the hilt, but once the music started, we were free. And if I am not mistaken, they sang "The Saddest Noise".

 

So big

I had drafted a new post but let it sit for a day, as I sometimes do, and by this morning it seemed completely wrong.

Everything that's happening now is so big, and then, taken together with other big things, is even bigger still. It is all completely overwhelming, and completely and hopelessly old paradigm. Unfortunately that means the old paradigm fear-based solutions or responses are also unlikely to work. In an odd way, this is encouraging to me, as it underscores my belief that Goddess and Love energies are in the ascendant, and everything on earth not in alignment with Love is rising to the surface to dissipate into their "native nothingness" (a phrase evidently used in Christian Science (which I have never explored) and Florence Scovel Shinn (whose books I have read and resonate with). But being a witness to current events, hey, living on this planet at all at this time, will be extremely painful for all of us. There will probably be no exceptions to this. I wrote on and off for a long time about "softish landings", and for many of us, that will be the best case scenario...that by focusing on Love and the things we find beautiful and hopeful, we align with what's coming, not what is hurting us now. That may snatch some of us to relative safety from the most potentially painful crash landings.

In a time like this, it's hard to focus on what we want, and yet crucial. What do I really want? Health care, or good health? An end to war, or people actively loving one another? Money, or a rich, beautiful life? A job, or perfect self-expression for someone with my unique gifts?

And what does the Goddess want? What does Mother Earth want? That we gently release the construct that has precipitated all these crises. That we understand we are one with the most brilliant stars in the sky. That we take a Love perspective into account before we do anything new from this point on. At the very least, that this be our intention from the moment we wake up in the morning. I'm "preaching to the converted", I know. The handful of you who read this are probably already doing some of this. And we will have to watch in horror as others go on a completely opposite path. But in the end, Love will be all. Nature will do what She needs to do, and beauty will find its way into the holes and crevices of the dying paradigm. New growth will birth out of the darkness.

Rabbit, rabbit

Years ago, I picked up the habit (when I remember) of saying "rabbit, rabbit" early on the first day of the month. I didn't even really know why it was done -- I see that it's an old superstition to bring good luck. Interestingly, if I recall correctly, in my old Medicine Cards (Carson and Sams), rabbit represented "fear". So maybe we all may need good luck getting through what is ahead, the manifestation of some of our worst possible fears. 

I guess I go back to "the thing speaking for itself", and trusting our guts. Yes, we are seeing what we are seeing. It's that bad, it's that self-evident. The good thing about all diplomacy and convention being stripped away is that you see the truth.

Is what we are seeing "the way of the Goddess"? No. About its 180 degree opposite. I'm going to start new months from now on saying, "Goddess, Goddess", because we need Her now more than we need so-called luck.