Queen for a Day

For years, I have (half-jokingly) called myself the "Queen of the New Paradigm".  I mean, I've known that my "problem" (if it is one) is that I am so far out beyond the cutting edge that functioning in our world as it is poses huge challenges. I figured that there must be a paradigm out there that I represent, and, still having a deep connection with English history and traditions, thinking of myself as a "queen" appealed. Of course, to completely mix metaphors, "that plus a dollar twenty-five will get you a cup of coffee" (or did in NYC in the 1980's!) -- if no one else sees you as the Queen, then it's arguably not of any value whether you are or not.

Well, I have decided that today, July 31, 2024, I will be "Queen for a Day". Despite the fact that I continue to be monumentally lonely, and most of the issues I have discussed recently are still pending, I have decided that it is important to set up this coming month of August with the highest possible level of "queenliness" -- positive energy, leadership, stature, poise, wisdom, beauty, and harmony. I will expect the best things to come my way, and for my influence on others to be good as well. I'm not sure what clothing in my current wardrobe will reflect my status, but at the very least, I'll try to go out into the hot streets of Duluth looking slightly less frumpy than usual!

I pick an oracle card every morning, and today's (from the Rider Tarot deck) was six of wands -- it depicts a horseback rider being celebrated by a crowd of people, and victory wreaths held high on poles. It seems appropriate -- I guess the idea being that, while not at the moment of final success or victory, you are well on your way. All those years in church rather send a pall over this card for me. I can't help but remember that the celebratory Palm Sunday procession led inexorably to the crucifixion. Yet in my own way, I also don't believe in the power of "death", so I'm not super uncomfortable with this celebration partway down the path. If nothing else, aligning to that queenly energy now -- and holding onto it -- is key, no matter what the end of August looks like! 

Sleep-Free Nights

The last two or three nights have been, almost literally, sleepless. (I'm calling it "sleep-free" here because I used "Sleepless Nights" for a previous blog post.) Duluth has finally received a dose of very hot weather, and having a small fan pointing right at me night and day isn't doing the trick. I've taken some random bus rides and gone to the mall just to feel the cool air, and that's philosophically hard for me, but when the wind isn't coming from the east off the cool lake, I guess I'll use the air conditioning being offered in public places.

There were other reasons for not sleeping. What had seemed in June like a "portal" of time to figure out a new living situation, has, of course, morphed into a real Labor Day deadline. I am truly glad I took the time -- and am in a different "place" than a few months ago -- but it's wrenching nonetheless. I also have to see the dentist, something that is challenging, and which I have always hated doing alone. 

The dark night of the soul yielded a few rich nuggets, however. It hit me that the common denominator of everything personal these days is love -- or lack of it. When my dad (I'm quite sure) told me at birth that "You're on your own, kid" -- it sent me on an extraordinary solitary journey, but also left me perpetually mystified by the notion of permanence. What would it be like to be wanted forever by one person or one situation, unconditionally? What would it be like to have someone always accompany you to appointments? (and vice versa!) I see elderly couples taking the bus to the doctor, and actually envy them. Even when it looks like neither of them will successfully walk (or walker) up to the next corner, it touches my heart...perhaps even more so knowing that both people are in pain, barely able to get around. They cherish each other enough to be there with the other. Somewhere deep in my soul, I know such cherishing, perhaps from former lifetimes, but it has yet to really surface in this one.

These first few hours of daylight brought an interesting insight into where I'll be going. I guess all my pleas to the Goddess were heard (!) Of course, I need to sit with it for a few days, and I do have just about that much time. I'll try to keep my "seas" calm, as thunder rattles around the head of the lake.

One in Every Crowd

In so many situations, I've been that "one in every crowd" -- the one who brings up an uncomfortable moral or ethical issue, or stands up for myself or another, or for the environment. Most of this has happened relatively quietly -- I haven't been an activist in crowds...for some reason that terrifies me, and feels too confrontational. But whether one-on-one or by letter or email, I have at times taken difficult or unpopular positions and been firmly rejected.

I've been thinking a lot about the environmental crisis facing us.The crisis arguably began generations ago, when we humans ceased to treat Mother Earth with genuine respect. Even now, it seems like we focus on the negative human experience of climate change and completely neglect the trauma we have routinely caused the natural world. A different route would have been for communities and societies to choose a wise person in their midst who would speak for Nature -- taking the environment into account, earlier societies might have found sustainable new inventions and procedures that would have extended Earth's viability. The primary (first consideration) thread of "earth's needs" would have become woven into the ongoing fabric of our human experience and human progress.

We didn't go that route. At this late date, it may be impossible to change the way natural events are likely to unfold in upcoming years. Still, wouldn't it be neat if there were truly "one in every crowd"? -- a representative of Nature in every governing body at the international level, the national level, and at the local level. Ditto on every school board, on every church vestry, every corporate boardroom, every academic institution. This person's job would be to calmly present environmental concerns regarding proposed courses of action, inventions, new developments or plans.They would be tasked with gently articulating what "loving the Earth and all Earth's beings" would look like in the situation under discussion. These representatives would have to be made of strong stuff, and might be completely ignored. Staying calm and non-confrontational would be part of the job description! But whether ignored or listened to, at least the voice of the Earth would be heard a little more clearly and consistently -- in word form. It might help people realize that we are all part of Nature, and that She needs to be part of nearly every planning discussion moving forward.

 

Pilgrimages

Back in February of this year (the 12th), I wrote a blog called "Pilgrimage", to which I guess you could say this is an unintentional follow-up; what I said about going on pilgrimage to places that light up with love in the present, rather than historic religious sites, definitely still holds.

The word came up for me again yesterday when I was listening to "Pipedreams". Michael Barone played Poulenc's "Litanies a la Vierge Noire", and I was transported back to either 1976 or 1977, when the Smith College Glee Club sang at Harvard's Memorial Church. I played the organ accompaniment to this complex modern choral piece -- listening to it yesterday, I could barely believe that I had reached that skill level, but I must have done. I don't remember making any mistakes (and believe me, I  remember most of the mortifying moments over the years when my playing went off track!!!) What was also surprising is that I remember virtually all of the French text, and this line stuck out: "Notre Dame, dont le pelerinage est enrichi de faveurs specials..." (Our Lady, whose pilgrimage is enriched by special favors). I am not Catholic (although I suspect I was in many previous lifetimes!), but this prayer set my heart racing. 

As I get ready to move, what a different energy there is to the concept of looking at this lifetime as a "pilgrimage" rather than a failed attempt to have a normal life like most other people! Perhaps it truly has been an act of spiritual devotion or search, at each step coming closer and closer to an understanding of the divine feminine, and of my own spiritual center. From such a perspective, getting ready to go on another leg of the pilgrimage offers at least a little more anticipation and excitement. And yes, at each stop on the pilgrimage, I have been enriched by special gifts and favors, more obviously so in England but at other points as well, lovely surprises that seemed to come, ultimately, from the Divine. 

On a hot morning with a sky pink from Western wildfire smoke, this is my prayer: may my next step bring me closer to the Great Mother.

These Times

How are those of us aligned (or aligning) with the re-emerging divine feminine to navigate these times?

It would be very easy to go for a laugh and say, "Very carefully". But there isn't much to laugh about. So...

Find something to love today. Or someone. If (as has been the case with me) you feel lonely and cannot connect with people in the old way, connect with a pet, or a bird in the tree, or a rabbit in the yard.

Don't take the time to try to "forgive" certain people or situations -- simply bless them, accept that they are what they are, and move back to aligning with love.

It took a few weeks, but I'm finally finding a great deal of relief in getting rid of my old journals, where I poured out my journey's frustration and pain. Ditto books that focused on conflict, history, or life as a challenging struggle. It's sort of a case of feeling where your energy is, and if it isn't "there" anymore -- with whatever belongings -- gently (and with gratitude) release them. If they feel old, or dark, or irrelevant, they may well be, in these times.

Love is going to be the only viable path forward. Genuine, post-duality "love is all there is" love. To whatever small or large degree we are capable of feeling and expressing it, our core work is to keep breathing and keep loving. 

   

A Single Girl

I don't know that I will ever be able to find words to express what we are seeing in front of our eyes, so at least for today, I have to fall back on expressing where my life is at. It is all I can articulate right now.

And yes, I know how completely inappropriate it is, in these times, to refer to my adult self as a "girl", although in a bizarre way it reflects how small I feel right at the moment. As so often happens, several steps forward spiritually last week were followed by a major crash this past weekend. 

Basically, what hit me was my essential aloneness. People of so many different stripes seem to be finding each other, which, of course, is the law of attraction at work, but as time goes on, I have fewer and fewer kindred spirits around me. My angst is exacerbated by the fact that a deadline for moving is approaching and I just cannot seem to look outward for a housing solution one more time. All I can do is weed out my belongings and try to become clearer and clearer about who I am, so that the right people or situation will find me...yet that little girl who has had many doors shut in her face is, even now, not fully able to trust the process.

Then came the piece de resistance--having to fill out a form and provide an "emergency contact". I realized, with horror, that I don't have one. Seriously. No one in my life is close enough to me, emotionally, that we could play that role with one another. Friends in my age group either live far away/and/or have husbands-children-grandchildren of their own to worry about or with whom to play that role. Some have major health issues, or are struggling to remain mentally alert. As simple as my life is, the fact that I have lived so differently is confusing, even scary, to my friends I think, and I can't bring myself to add to their loads. The ideal solution would be one of my youngish nieces, but because of the family situation, to approach them would be interpreted as "Aunt Liz needing help", which might send these lovely young women further out into the sunset...perhaps understandably.

Forty years or so ago, being "a single girl" didn't scare me. Heck, I wandered over to England for the first time in 1978, on my own without a care in the world. Even a few years ago, my single state coupled with trying to align with Goddess values of spontaneity and love had at least a component of adventure and magic. But at 68, my deep unacknowledged fear of aloneness seems to have surfaced big time, bigger even than having few resources and no permanent home. I don't really think my married friends are ultimately any more secure...the structures of their lives may be teetering behind the scenes. Looking out at a world that seems to share none of my values adds to the scariness of this moment. But I don't want to live completely alone as these significant events unfold. That's been my whole life, at least existentially. 

What do I do in these terrifying moments? Keep breathing. Keep breathing. Keep breathing. And keep remembering that the longer I can manage to stay alive as a representative of the Goddess, the better it will be for Her efforts to heal this struggling earth. Also to try to appreciate that, even in this, I may have been scouting uncharted territory.

Radio Waves

Whenever there are uncertainties about my future, I tend to write a bit more frequently, I guess because I just do not want to hold back. It always seems as if imminent change forces one to process even more, and because so many people are experiencing this kind of uncertainty (albeit, in many cases, for different reasons), I feel it's important to continue to be as honest as I can.

This process of skimming through my old journals before tossing them has been quite emotional. Yes, it would have been far easier just to chuck them all, unopened, but I still feel compelled to touch base with the contents (and past experiences and emotions) in case there is any material I decide to keep. It has shocked (even shamed) me how similar my topics of 2016, say, are to my topics in 2024. Have I made no progress? But then I remind myself that this isn't a world geared toward a Goddess construct. Just to stay alive has required almost superhuman energy, and it's generally been a spiral path, not a merry-go-round running in circles.

But another realization has been hitting home. Boredom. There are hundreds of weekly events taking place in Duluth, especially in the summer, but I read about them and virtually none of them are of any interest. There is copious volunteer work to be done, but I don't feel passionately drawn to any of it beyond the baking I already do. Our economy tries to lure me with opportunities to spend money (and in small ways, my activities each week are based on the need to purchase food, toiletries, and occasional books or clothing items). But ultimately, that process, too, bores me, as did a great many of my jobs over the years. Walking and hiking don't interest me. With the exception of the two years-plus that I spent in England during this lifetime (focused on church music and Herbert Howells research), I've been essentially bored most of my adult life. Now, does that mean that people or situations were essentially "boring"? No. Does that mean that these activities are wrong for others? No. I think it means that I consistently tried to do things that were right for other people, not me.

In the middle of the night, I had kind of an "aha". Now, I'm sure dozens of spiritual writers have used the metaphor of radio waves to describe the energy each individual puts out into the world. And I'm sure all eight billion of us have a different pattern. By the time I was four years old, I must have recognized that the variation on English church music I was hearing in our Schenectady Episcopal church was a relatively close match to my own inner music. It satisfied my need for extremely high spiritual expression, harmony, beauty, and clarity, and that milieu even nourished my high left-brain IQ. Later visits to England had the same result, which is why, over and over, I've tried to return there. There has never been a place or situation over here with such a close match, which must be why I've experienced so much boredom, even numbness. And even perhaps why I've searched for new experiences to alleviate the boredom.

I'm sure I'll find more to say about this. For the moment, it's not about looking outward for the right match. It's about sending out a completely consistent radio wave, day after day, and not being afraid of my own power or my own "musical"/harmonic voice. When people tune in to my "station", I want them to hear my song clearly, with none of my previous sagging, wobbling or backing off. Matching radio waves may come back to me from an unexpected place. There could be some delightful surprises, a "home" connection that I would never have envisioned. As long as it serves the Goddess, I'm open to it!