The Beguine thing

Just now, I did a quick internet search for the word "beguine". It reminded me that perhaps I am a modern-day beguine. In the Middle Ages, some women who had previously been married, or lived secular lives, made the choice to commit to their spiritual journeys, and wandered from place to place speaking of their beliefs. Because they were not formally committed to holy orders or sponsored by the Church, and because they were single and declined to lead a conventional life, they were often feared. Ultimately, most of these women joined others like them to live and work in small communities.

A friend of mine recently called me a "gypsy mystic", a variation on the same theme. As you saw in my previous post, in my heart I am really not a "gypsy" or a "wanderer" at all. In my heart I am firmly anchored, and if in this lifetime I ever return to an English cathedral milieu, I hope all the pieces will finally be in place to allow permanent rooting. 

Having said that, I also have to hope that my lifetime of rootlessness has benefitted the Goddess, drawing attention to Her "homelessness" in the world, and to the precarious lives of many single women. It is one of the few things keeping me going as I sort my belongings yet again, getting them ready to store or move. Today, too, I think of the extreme, sudden uprootedness and deaths of the people in the Florida apartment building, people seeking shelter in West Coast cooling shelters, and the plight of refugees all over the world. This may be a time to embody the brave spirit of the beguines, however rooted or uprooted we happen to be right this second.

Independence Week

I'm back, both to the blog and Duluth, but for the latter, only temporarily. I went to The Cities (Minnesota-speak for Minneapolis-St. Paul) for two days, and will return there by the end of the week for further discernment about a living situation that has the potential for enormous growth. For some reason, the days leading up to the Fourth of July are often catalytic.

Although I have been a city girl (DC, New York City, London), city energy is now actually a bit challenging after nearly a year-and-a-half of COVID restrictions. Small amounts of crowd stimulation tire me. Ultimately, I'm not returning to a city for the sake of the usual qualities of excitement and opportunity. It is to live more intentionally in a small community, to find a higher independence/cooperation balance.

A few weeks ago, I articulated for myself the "perfect" living situation. I am an anchoress living in a small apartment attached to one of the English cathedrals. It would not be sealed up; there would be a door into the cathedral so that I could attend choral evensong every single afternoon. The balance of the day, I would explore in writing and art the path from our current world and the religious/musical construct I grew up in (Episcopalianism/Church of England) to the future. I would often sit outside in the cathedral close, and welcome the opportunity to chat with visitors about their spiritual questions and concerns. It's hard to imagine church officials saying yes to this American goddess-centered anchoress, but in a time so completely fluid and surprising, perhaps it is not completely out of the question...(!)

In any event, my potential new home reminds me qualitatively of this model, which is why it draws me. What also draws me is remaining independent, while feeling less alone. Human independence is really such a mirage, isn't it? In coming months, may I become more appreciative of the intricate interconnected web of life that I am a part of. May I never close the doors and hide behind them.

Leaping Lizzards

Yes, I spelled that intentionally. 

Back when I was at Smith, my nickname of "Liz" morphed into "Lizzard", "Blizzard" and "Gizzard". My housemates used these names endearingly, and indeed I was greeted that way at two or three class reunions. I wasn't too fond of the variants, but I was nowhere near as distressed by them as was my mom. She couldn't believe that she and my dad had named me such a magnificent name, Elizabeth, only to have it left in the dust. I actually like "Lizzie" best of all, but "Liz" is fine too.

So, today this Lizzard is taking a leap, an exploratory leap, to see whether a potential next step is really a go. In the wake of COVID year, it seems absolutely crucial that I do my best to really live, not tread water slowly into old age, especially given continuing overseas travel uncertainties. In a few days, I should know whether the option in front of me is the best way to do that. I am not bringing my computer with me, so, once again, a short break in the blog action. Three or four days, not, I trust, another fifteen months! Have a lovely weekend, all.

Grrr...

There will be times when it takes two days to create a blog...my goal of a post a day every day except Sunday may occasionally not be met...

OK, so yesterday I heard the tail end of a radio ad for an association or company whose goal is a reduction in plastic waste, solving the "problem" of plastic waste, or words to that effect. Please understand, whoever they are (I didn't hear the full ad), I'm not critical of them. Heck, I am glad that someone understands that this is an issue.

But, grrr....anyway.

Several years ago, I wrote that I wish I could have been a fly on the wall during the early corporate meetings where plastic was discussed, no doubt as the miracle of the twentieth century. Someone, even a mere secretary or low-echelon executive, must have coughed politely and said, "Excuse me, but how will this material be disposed of? Given that it is not compostable, it will soon fill our landfills and bodies of water." No doubt this naysayer was quickly silenced, and industry went full steam ahead, thrilled with the millions of uses for plastic and the potential for profit. Fast forward sixty years or so, and it is literally everywhere, clogging land and sea, cramming our homes and stores. It is even inside the bodies of people who have had knee replacements and other medical intervention, and to some extent, in all of us through our drinking water and consumption of food that has been wrapped in plastic.

Compared with many people, I am already almost off the map. I don't own a house or car, don't have small children (thus I rarely buy toys), and don't use anything but a few over-the-counter pharmaceuticals and toiletries. I don't produce plastic, or work for a company distributing plastic products or products sold in plastic. I use just about as little of the substance as is humanly possible, much of it making it into appropriate recycling. Yet that is still too much, too much, too much. There are so many unrecyclable little plastic doohickeys; the little square things that close plastic bread bags, many dental floss containers, old toothbrushes and ballpoint pens...

The point has come where I become so anxious looking at store shelves, I can barely get out of the place without tears. The amount of plastic in one store alone can be seen as an affront to Mother Nature, and is a "problem" with no solution. As I walk through the aisles, my mind then multiplies one store by millions of others around the globe, and the countless plastic bags, containers, and objects going out the door and into our natural environment in some form or another. It is completely overwhelming.

The "solution" to the problem of plastic waste would probably have had to come at the birth of the plastic era. Wiser heads would have chosen to proceed cautiously, knowing that disposal issues needed to be dealt with at the outset. A truly wise system doesn't deliberately create problems that then must be solved in future years with great save-the-day fanfare. 

Talk about not being able to breathe...earth, increasingly, cannot breathe. I genuinely hope for the miracle of a brilliant manmade "solution". But I also hope those pursuing the goal are being honest with themselves about the scope and urgency of the task. I hope they are being honest with themselves that our plastic-fueled "normal" is not sustainable. (Plastic, of course, is not the only pollutant...)

In a future post, I'll talk about this more from the standpoint of all of us, the consumers. There will be an excruciatingly hard moment when most people will recognize the imperative of making different purchasing/investment/usage choices; there will be a moment where we make the choice between facing our individual responsibility, and burying our discomfort yet again. Life as we know it will change regardless. And in the midst of it all, no matter how much or little we have depended on plastic and how small or large a muck-up we have made of it all, Mother Nature loves us unconditionally. That, I know.

 

Rain, Rain

Yesterday's summer solstice/day of rain synchronicity got me thinking about rainy summer days on Lake Champlain in the late1960's. A complete day of rain seems so rare now (indeed, some parts of our country would give anything for such an event), but my memory is that it was not uncommon to experience three or four days of rain in a row. In our little summer community, rambunctious young children would go from camp (cabin) to camp, getting under parents' feet, playing endless games of cards and Monopoly in front of the fireplace, snacking, and eventually moving on to the next dry home. On day two of rain, my mom would put my brothers and me into the station wagon along with loads of laundry, and we'd go to Keeseville, Elizabethtown, or Westport to go to the laundromat. Ugh. Boring. This was usually coupled with a foray into an IGA supermarket, which was marginally more interesting, and I am sure we tortured my Mom with requests for candy bars or potato chips, even though selections of junk food were much more limited in those days.

If we awoke to a third day of rain on the roof of the camp, then a real treat was in store. We'd leave the wilderness of upstate New York and head, by ferry or bridge, across the lake to more civilized Vermont. In Burlington, we might get an ice cream cone at the original site of Ben and Jerry's, or walk up and down Church Street, not yet a pedestrian mall. If we headed to Middlebury, we'd shop in their wonderful five and dime store, and then perhaps have lunch at the hamburger place where your food was brought out to the car. Either way, Mom would buy herself a treat -- something small for the kitchen, or some clothing for herself. I think she needed to reward herself for putting up with three small children, camp or car, rain or shine.

After a stretch of hot, sunny weather, afternoon thunderstorms were common, which inevitably seemed to come from the north. We would be swimming down at the dock, when ominous black clouds would advance down the lake from Quebec. Mothers started to flutter as thunder started to rumble, and they gathered up children, picnic baskets and beach towels, trying to shepherd everyone up the long flight of cement stairs before the storm struck. But inevitably some of us would stay on the dock, playing chicken with the breathtaking storm. When we finally raced up and away from the water, and huddled in the covered deck near the road, we were protected from the storm's fury, which inevitably lasted only a few minutes. Peeks of sun would start to show in the northwest, and we'd run back down the stairs and into the water as soon as thunder was no longer audible.

In those days, the wind (and thus the waves) seemed to come only from the north or the south, down the lake or up it. Sailboat race courses were set up based on whether it was a north wind or a south wind. In recent years, however, when I have visited and crewed on a boat, winds could come from north, south, east, or west, or all of them at the same time, a small but noticeable indication of climate change.

What a privilege to experience such summers! In 1973, the bottom fell out of our family's financial situation, and my parents would eventually live year-round in the camp, lending a rather hard and desperate edge to the place and the lake experience. And as an adult, there has been no "normal" in my life. Summers have seen me in places as varied as DC and Manhattan, the outer fringes of London and the outer fringes of the Rockies. Yes, both Lake Superior and Lake Champlain have figured prominently. There is no doubt that in 1990, I was drawn to Duluth for a reason. The early, positive, imprint of "summers on the lake" is still with me; yesterday's daylong rain brought back sounds, smells, and memories.

Listening

It may be a measure of how much I have been aligning with (and channelling) my best understanding of the divine feminine, that I don't feel particularly freaked out by all the extreme environmental phenomena around us. It's like, I'm rooting Mother Nature on, wanting her to do what She needs to do to restore balance to this beautiful earth. I know She doesn't want people to suffer, or to lose homes or livelihoods. But I can almost literally hear her voice saying, "Please, people, are you listening? Can you hear me? Do you understand how close you are to losing your real home?"

I'm listening to some early morning birds. I agree with a friend of mine that if we humans all disappeared today, the birds would still sing tomorrow. Passionate life energy would continue, growing up through the cracks in the sidewalk and the parking lots, blowing through the trees, chirping to the sun.

I guess all I can do today is tell her, "I am listening". If you are listening too, let her know.

Wondrous

I guess the truth is that there may be the odd weekday when I don't write, after all. Yesterday, my writing focus was elsewhere...

This morning, I opened Florence Scovel Shinn's The Game of Life and How to Play It, deciding to meditate on the first statement that passed in front of my eyes. It's one of those books that lends itself to this activity really well.

At the end of the chapter, "Casting the Burden", she says: "'In the twinkling of an eye,' man's release will come when he realizes there is no power in evil [her italics]. The material world will fade away, and the fourth-dimensional world, the 'World of the Wondrous', will swing into manifestation."

I agree with her that "there is no power in evil", that it is not a power or force in and of itself. If there is only one creative force in the universe, whatever you wish to call it, and it is made up of love, passion, truth, creativity, life and joy, it simply makes no sense that there would be an "opposing" -- second -- force. However, our belief in that opposing force has created much of the world as we know it. I don't know what would happen if every human released that belief tonight; would the material world fade away? Much of our human-created part might, but let's face it, it is unlikely to happen that fast.

But nearly one hundred years after Shinn wrote this, we may well be entering a time when nature itself is evolving upwards into a higher dimension, and we, as part of nature, are essentially being asked to make the same upward spiritual leap ourselves. These next few decades will probably be marked by unprecedented growing pains, but yes, what will gradually emerge is a world (and a human experience) more wondrous than we can imagine. Hang in there, folks.