Nine Lives

I don’t know about anyone else, but when I go on “retreat” (or whatever the better name is that I’m searching for), I often go into it asking – no, begging – the Universe for clarity on the next step forward. And yet, that isn’t always what I get. This time I’ve been on a surprising “this is your life” journey, leading to feeling something I have too rarely felt, overwhelming compassion for myself and all my 60-something women friends.

Let’s face it, the America we were born into, the America we saw as we toddled around and took our first baby steps, was a gleaming mid-1950’s, self-assured one filled with white enameled appliances and extraordinary cars. Our mothers did wear aprons – it’s not just a “Leave it to Beaver” joke. Our dads worked “at the office.” The shoebox-shaped black-and-white TV with its 9- or 10-inch screen advertised cleaning products, cars, shampoo and cigarettes. My very earliest impressions must have been that my life would be an updated instant replay of my mother’s. And yet by the time I was in first grade, I heard my parents talking in hushed tones about how Schenectady would be the first to “go” if the Russians bombed the US, and no number of school “duck and cover” air raid drills made us feel safe from a fireball in the sky. By the age of 7 or 8, I was writing to the President, asking him to ban nuclear weapons, and yet within another year or two, America seemed to be on fire from within, with Vietnam and assassinations and social upheaval. By then, Schenectady, far from being in the bull’s eye, was a distant outlying province of the real action. I was too young to protest or go to Woodstock, but listening to songs like “The Age of Aquarius” on my tiny transistor radio, I felt some reassurance that despite appearances, we were heading into an era of “harmony and understanding.” Harmony was the key word for musical me. I guess my generation was the last to major in what we loved in college. The word “career” was never mentioned, as in, what was I going to do with a music major?  I actually knew what I was going to do…go to England, marry an Englishman, and have sons who would sing English cathedral music since it was not then an option for women.

I went to England in 1980, but I didn’t meet Mr. Right, and returned with an M.Mus in historical musicology and huge student loans, and was thrust out into the world of Reaganomics and kill-or-be-killed capitalism. I hung on as long as I could, but eventually jumped off the merry-go-round once my loans were paid off, around 1990. By then, most of my friends were married with children, but it was hardly the gleaming 50’s version of our memories. Single, I explored all sorts of places and options. The twin influences of personal computers and New Age/New Thought spirituality seemed to promise a belated nirvana, and yet 2001 brought Orwell instead. What's funny is, I can’t even find words to characterize the era we are in now. It is indescribable.  Brilliant and bizarre.

As I scan the lives of friends, it is hard to say whether anyone has achieved quite what they expected or wanted, yet clearly we are privileged compared to many women in the world. I have one friend who made it in the business world and I am sure is comfortably off, but it was a hard struggle for her as a woman.  A few are exploring new careers in holistic health or self-actualization. Some broke early ground for women in law or the church, but landed eventually in more traditional careers as teachers or nurses, and have exhaustedly reached or are reaching retirement, as are their husbands.  Many are grappling with illnesses (in self or family) that are less lethal than 60 years ago but also more ambiguous. Some of my friends are experiencing voluntary or involuntary housing uncertainty and are not entirely sure where they will be living a year from now. And a few of my friends are extremely well off, and yet their lives aren’t any less nuanced and messy.

I guess what I am saying is, although my life (and my lifelong effort to be in England and sing cathedral music) reflects a very unique and surprising plot line for a little girl from Schenectady, it’s a plot line that has been propelled by a ferocious zig-zag of national, world, social and health upheavals and changing expectations for women. Almost everyone I know has already had “nine lives,” and we’re all rather exhausted. It has been quite a journey. Much of the time I am hard on myself for not having done it “right.” So it came as a surprise to me yesterday to feel (almost literally) the hands of the Divine mother clasp me tight. What I inwardly heard was this: ”Dear one, you have done a remarkable job of living in this unprecedented moment in history. All of your friends have.  You have changed the world, you have changed with the world, and you are all loved.  Love yourselves.  And love as much as you can about the world around you.  Everyone is doing their best.  Love is the only step forward.” Simplistic, but it made me cry.

Maybe the Age of Aquarius is dawning after all, just in time for lifetime ten.

Retreats

I’m looking upon this weekend as a retreat weekend.  A spiritual and writing retreat.  I guess the boat is moving well enough on its own that I can take the hand off the tiller for a few days.

Back in 1990, after nearly a decade working in New York City, I spent several rich months at Pendle Hill, the Quaker Study Center outside Philadelphia.  Ever since then, at pivotal moments, I have tended to grab retreat time (be it a few days or longer) or even to find work at retreat or conference centers, so that I can just be in that kind of contemplative environment.  I think I mentioned in a previous blog that I’ve begun to understand that there is a reason for this – in fact I am gravitating to the kind of situation that works best for my creative needs as a writer, mystic, musician and artist. 

This morning I was thinking about the very term, “retreat.” Obviously it has a military connotation: the definitions I saw online speak of armies retreating after defeat in battle, and withdrawal in the face of superior power or criticism.  Even in the more general sense, the word seems to have a potentially negative meaning.  There can be, it seems to me, the implication that there is a “norm” – “the real world” – and that someone going on retreat may be weak or unsuccessful in the “battle of life.” I know I have always felt a bit of shame around my need for a lot of quiet time, and it is magnified in the sense that my whole life since 1990 could be seen as a retreat from the corporate, conventional paradigm.  

The joy of having been so unconventional, though, is that one can turn things on their head rather easily, and so this morning, I was playing with this idea.  What if our visible 21^st century world -- of business, profit and loss, political extremes, big cities, big egos, military, legal and personal confrontations, consumerism, fast food chains, traffic jams, high stress expectations, environmental degradation, 24-hour-a-day media and social media – what if this is a retreat? What if this is a distraction?  Can a case be made that the real “business” of living as a human being on this planet is done when one is alone in front of “that of God within,” when one is alone with that power that many religions decline to even name?  For some people, the profound silence is their workplace.  It's not an easy one.  It can be terrifying to listen for divine guidance, and possibly receive a call you’d rather not get.  Facing “the Void” with an empty writing pad in front of you, or an empty canvas, or the beginnings of a musical theme in your head, may be just as courageous as running a corporation or going into battle.  Climbing a mountain alone or sailing solo around the world or running a marathon, not to win, but to understand yourself, your inner power, and your connection to the Universe, may be equally courageous. 

In the end, we’re all functioning where we function best. I'm not fond of the military terminology, but we are all “fighting” different battles, and need different forms of balance to rejuvenate.  Heck, introspective people periodically “retreat” into the world for a jolt of energy.  My perfect percentage would be about 60% contemplative/writing/art work and 40% work/choral singing/engagement with other people in the world.  Everyone has their own percentage.  Not one of the 7 billion people alive on the planet has “retreated.”  We are all just working in different places. So there must be a better word for this weekend’s process.  Until I find it, perhaps I’ll just skew things enough to say that I am retreating “to” my inspiring connection with Source, not, I hope, “from” anything. 

Instinct to Nest

I’ll have to say this for the process of turning downstream.  It’s hard to get used to at first.  Terrifying.  Old waves of resistance are still making themselves known.  The boat may be flowing freely, but when your hand has been on the tiller heading upstream against the current, when you have spent most of your life trying to “tie up” to various buoys and rocks in the stream to keep from running free, it’s strange, even alarming, to feel the boat moving so quickly in the other direction.  And it’s a challenge to stop focusing on the landscape that I’ve left and start to imagine the landscape I’m headed for.

But even more challenging is getting all those seemingly irreconcilable parts of oneself to even acknowledge each other, much less get along.  I’ve been blessed with an almost unheard of spectrum of intellectual, creative, spiritual, intuitive, even organizational gifts, and unique aspects and interests.  To further this boat metaphor, they have been my “crew.”  And yet over the years, when I tied up to any given mooring, buoy or rock in the stream – be it family, friendships, institutions or jobs – I usually trotted only one or two crewmembers out onto the deck for inspection, leaving most of my skills, sullen and rejected, below decks.  When I arrived at a different setting, I’d switch to another skill.  I believed that I had to limit myself in order to fit in anywhere.

So the most interesting aspect of this last week or so of floating more freely on the river of life is just letting go of that belief.  I’ve brought my whole crew out onto the deck.  Heck, they need the air, the sun, and the companionship.  They have started the tentative process of getting to know one another, of working together, even loving one another.  All hands are literally on deck.  As captain, I have to say I like it.  And after even a week, it is hard to imagine returning to the paradigm of closing the hatch on any of them, even though they are a paradoxical lot.  From this point forward, I intend that any income I draw to me will be because of the full crew.  I intend that any home I land in will be safe and comfortable for all of me.

One good sign, I think, is that after years of getting rid of books, I have started to accumulate some new ones.  When you have nowhere to put them, books are a horror.  They are too heavy.  But something in me is stubbornly saying, the corner will be turned here.  I want this book and I will keep it.  The friend I am staying with said, “Hmm, getting the instinct to nest?”  Yes, I think I am.  Not right here in the middle of the stream, but I’m preparing for the day when my boat enters that safe harbor, and I have a house.  I will have a bookshelf.  It will be filled with a colorful patchwork of books reflecting all my interests.  And I cannot tell you how good that feels.

Hurtling along

Yesterday, I had occasion to see with my own eyes the metaphor I wrote about several blogs ago.  I was with a friend, having a picnic lunch by a rushing river and, yes, there were several green, slimy, slippery rocks in the middle.  In my mind's eye, I saw myself holding on to one of them and then letting go, only to rush along down the center of this stream, still bumping into other rocks and in and out of calm shallows, but moving quickly and unimpeded.

So when you and your little boat are hurtling along in the center of a mighty river, and you know you may not be able to grab onto any more anchoring rocks for the near future, you may latch onto some smaller passing hint that might give you some information about who you are in this new incarnation, where you are headed, and how on earth you are meant to function with things moving so rapidly.  Over the years, I have used Medicine Cards, or, more recently, Sacred Geometry Cards to give me a daily focus for my day, but at the moment I really have no idea what box they are in, in which basement.  So I splurged the other day and bought Earth Magic Oracle Cards (by Steven D. Farmer, Hay House.) I liked the simplicity and beauty of the illustrations.  And this morning, after just asking the question, "please, tell me what gift I am to bring the world moving forward," this answer came: Meadow/Vulnerability.  In effect, do not fear letting people know who you really are.  "Share your authentic self with the world."

This has been the journey of the last year, and continues to be easier said than done with a mix like mine.  My veins are filled with "blue blood" and yet I have often been homeless and penniless.  I am a visual artist and musician, but also a writer with a legal and ultra-well-educated mind.  I am an American whose spiritual home is England.  My preferred place in all the world is the choir stalls of an English cathedral, but I use oracle cards.  I'm a mystic who wants to be grounded.  I'm a feminist, but there's nothing I like more in the world than to cook dinner and take care of people.

I've spent most of my life trying to keep side A from seeing side B.  I have spent most of my life trying to keep the people in side A from seeing my side B.  I haven't functioned well exclusively on either side of any of these fences.  I guess the message of that card today is, this entire muddle is me.  And all of it is crouched in my little boat, hurtling along on the river until I reach the next safe haven.  And you know what?  All of these diverse facets of myself need to get to know one another, and get along.  Because the powerful meeting place of these contrasts is my authentic self.  It is my home.

Birdsong

It is reassuring, isn't it, that almost no matter where you are in the world, no matter what is happening in your life, you will probably wake up to the sound of birds.  The songs and chirps may be different, but their reassuring presence would be missed, as it is in northern New York/New England in winter. 

This last year seems to have been a particularly challenging one for everyone I know, and people say it has been hard for everyone they know.  It seems like people are not only dealing with one major life event (move, illness, operation, death, divorce, accident...) but multiple ones at once.  I don't know whether this is a hallmark of "60-something" or a speeding up of the pace of life right now.  When I was out in Montana, I asked my favorite 90-plus friend, one of the wisest, most beautiful women I've ever met, whether she remembered this phenomenon around the age of 60, and she shook her head "no." She would have been my age around 1980, and it was a different world back then, and perhaps life paced itself in a more manageable way. It was, after all, pre-internet.  What more needs to be said?

All of us are trying to find a way to keep a calm center in the midst of what sometimes seems like near frenzy.  If we can't "keep calm and go to evensong," perhaps quietly listening to the birds' "dawn chorus" every morning will keep us going equally well...it certainly helps me remember to welcome the dawn, not just stumble through it en route to the shower.

Letting Go

As a daughter, a daughter who already helped care for a dying mother, it is painfully hard not to take the lead in the life of my elderly, struggling dad.  But mom was at home; dad is being cared for by dozens of nurses, doctors, physical therapists, cooks, and cleaning staff -- not to mention my very competent brother. I am grateful to have gone to Montana, as I think we all experienced growth and healing (the Liz yardstick.) Even a little fun. But in the end, I am not needed.  Dad only needs to push a button, and someone else will appear to assist him.  Humbling, but true.

The Abraham-Hicks metaphor of our lives as a rushing river seems apt here.  There is a rock in that river that I have held onto almost for dear life, through thick and thin.  It may have kept me from fully releasing myself into the flow of my river, but it was my choice to latch onto something that seemed secure.  Over time, my fingers have struggled to hold on, and the rock has gotten slipperier and slipperier.  I just think that moment came when the rock could no longer hold me, nor I it.  I've said a slightly teary "so long" and a few personal things to the only two men in my life, and released my grip. I flew back east in kind of a fog and slept most of the day yesterday.  It is possible that today is the first time in my life that I have had the potential to flow unimpeded "downstream."

I have a good sense of where I am headed, but clueless as to how, so it's rather scary.  But it's only 8 AM.  I guess I need to cut myself a little slack, and just start to get used to a different relationship with the stream. 

Occupational Therapy

Modern medicine can prolong life, and yet there is this interesting limbo into which the elderly can be thrust.  My Dad is in rehabilitation in order to regain enough strength, in theory, to return to living independently.  However, at the moment it is hard to see if that is possible.  Every day, he is walked by physical or occupational therapists to a nearby exercise room, and does rounds of very simple arm and leg exercises.  They give him a lot of time between repetitions, because it exhausts him.  Somehow, your life flashes in front of your eyes, and you see a six-foot tall blond father at the wheel of the old Comet station wagon, or teaching one of us to ride a bicycle, or reaching to hit a lob on the tennis court.  Blink again, and God bless him, here's this tiny figure struggling to make the smallest move.  My Mom lived a year and a half after an aneurism that was supposed to kill her, and she became the Queen of the living room chair, calling in courtiers and politely enduring respiratory therapists.  Yet toward the end, chewing was exhausting.  Breathing was exhausting.

It is humbling, this whole process.  Most of us will go through some variation of it, and being with an elderly parent at age 60 is a mirror of what could well be in future.  Every emotion in the book has threatened to swamp my little boat this week, as things I'd suppressed after my mother's and brother's deaths surfaced.  I'm doing my best to try to remember my own divine self, and deal as much as possible with my Dad's, brother's, and the caretakers' divine selves  too-- that holy energy around them, not the shrunken, stressed or overworked bodies we are in. I guess in this kind of situation, that's the only "occupational therapy" there is.