October 18, 2011

“Sometimes I have to make a simple, straightforward effort to do [the small thing I can do] so I will feel less like a screen door banging in a hurricane.” Barbara Kingsolver—Small Wonder

Too often these days I feel like “a screen door banging in a hurricane”. Some days that storm is raging across the pages in my email as one news source after another reports in on the ways we are tearing apart the world. My eyes, blurry with tears, I look out at the peaceful neighborhood where my house stands and don’t know what I can do. What I am willing to do. What I can afford to do. A screen door banging in the hurricane.

Sucked open by the black and furious winds—slammed back against the wall—leaving the room inside unprotected from the ripping rain and wind. Slammed shut again, trying to stand between that seething rage and the still inside. Blown back again against the wall—slapped and slammed—shaken insensible, of no use to anyone.

How many of us have been shaken insensible by the onslaught of information alerting us to the consequences now upon us of our ignorance and apathy, our self-absorption and our greed. We feel like so many little sticks being carried downstream in a river running wild. Helpless, powerless. Only now is the truth dawning on us that when enough of those small sticks collect in the same place, they create a dam that can hold back even the river.

Others of us cannot take it in, this stark and terrible truth of the crimes of our own government and the destruction of our planet—not just a small corner of it, the whole damn thing—by the insatiable corporate machine. Our filmmakers and writers try desperately to wake us up—but some cannot wake up—it is too frightening a prospect. And so they view these prophecies as interesting entertainment and go like lambs to slaughter, accusing those who would try to wrench them from the wolf’s jaws of being in league with devils.

Others of us are wide awake indeed, but afraid and confused and uncertain how to help. Some of us don’t know how to help—or feel we cannot because our time and energy are consumed trying to just keep the roof over our children’s heads and food on the table. Some of us are so rooted in the lifestyle that contributes to all the destruction, we have no idea how to change things.

Today the storm rages through the life of my child, stripping her of everything she’s hoped and worked for. Relentless, the storm has caught up to her; she can no longer hide from or outrun all that she has feared. She is being called out—to step right into the center and stand firmly in the Truth that she knows. The furious storm will not be denied or it will devour her.

As a mother I can see the lesson playing out in her life. But standing by, just watching, nodding my encouragement—I feel like the screen door banging in the hurricane. Yet, I am comforted by knowing that sometimes the most important contribution we can make to save our child, and the world, is to do our own work first—to do whatever we need to do in order to allow ourselves to show up with hearts and minds filled with love and with joy and with hope and with light. And from this vantage point, we will know what next to do, and we will build the road while walking.

September 30, 2011

“I now affirm that only the feelings I consciously act on express who I am.”

Who I Really Am…

Emerges from the illusions I believed to be true; ceases to re-create experiences that render Life without power, without flavor, without color, unappealing, unappetizing.

If Joy is the natural state of Being in the Universe, and it takes tremendous energy to close oneself off from it—why do I?

Payoff. I have to give up the “payoff”. I developed the erroneous notion that I could get attention and admiration, acceptance and love by being a victim—if not the victim of others ill-treatment, than the victim of Difficulty. When my friend says she admires me because I work harder than most to succeed—against challenges of health and circumstance, I feel “heroic”. It cuts the shame and gives me something to be proud of. But really, I don’t work harder than most. She said once that I have more strength in my little finger than the “girlfriends” put together. That’s not true either. That I have had to contend with fatigue and migraines through out my adult life—and “fight against” the debilitating affects of Shame and Fear may look heroic and brave. The sad joke is that I chose it, I created it in the first place. I didn’t know I did. They didn’t know I did. But now I know I did. And do. Everything we experience we create.

I chose to experience the world this way. Perhaps in ignorance. Perhaps by contract with my Soul as part of this incarnation’s journey; taste the dark and learn to emerge from it. In that sense, I deserve some thumbs up for choosing to find my way out of that tangled wood, for not giving in, not giving up. I knew deep down there was a greater reason for my struggles than just that I’d been dealt those cards, as it were. I wanted to know why, and I wanted to move past it into a place of healing and joy, of productive creativity and love. So if I am to be commended, it is for wanting this, choosing this, for making the journey.

I found the way out. I found the answers and the reasons. I know the truth now. So now Who am I without the “struggle” against depression and fatigue and headaches and paralyzing fear? Without the endless fixation on “healing”…and “facing the fearful demons”? My friend also said to me one time, “Geez, you’ve done more inner work than anyone I know—you’d think you’d be healed by now!” Well spoken my good friend. Especially when I don’t have a tragic, broken past. What I have are a pack of false beliefs that I framed and protected. They were the gateway for fear and shame and negativity; for fatigue and headaches and stress induced irritability. For rage and judgment.

The curtain has been raised and the illusion exposed. I no longer have the excuse of ignorance or helplessness for my allowance of the old patterns. There is absolutely no reason for Joy to be shut out while Fear sits at table waited upon hand and foot. I am fully Master of my Life, Creator of my Experience. I know this now.

So why would I trade my freedom and all its beauty and joy and love and success and rewarding work for a tiny dank cell filled with tormentors. (J.K. Rowling had it spot-on when she invented the Dementors—hellish beings who feed on all the beauty and light in our soul.) Why indeed!

It is a lie that it takes a lot of work to burst the bubble of the illusion. It is a lie that it takes a lot of energy to pivot a negative attitude, or negative energy or negative emotions to the Light. It is simply a choice. The lie makes it seem that it has powerful energy and will require the same or more from me to overcome it. It’s just a lie. If I stretch out my hand and pull back the curtain, all that’s there is a little old curmudgeon with a stinky cigar clenched between her toothless gums pulling a lot of strings and flipping a bunch of switches to create the hologram she wants me to believe is the reality of my life.

I’m not buying it anymore.

2011-08-26

It was the frantic fluttering that caught my attention. I couldn’t hear the terrified cheeps because I was listening to Beethoven’s Ninth as I thinned out the wintergreen mint that had taken over the edge of the garden. Two tiny wrens were caught in my invisible fence. A third had escaped over the top.

I lifted the fine mesh fencing from the ground which allowed one of the little birds to escape. The other had tangled his claws and neck in his effort to break free.

“Shhhhhh…it’s okay Little One. Shhhhhhhh…” I said quietly.

Gently I slid my hand over his wings, holding him softly. He quieted. I slipped the mesh off his head and unwound it from his foot. In one flash he powerfully thrust himself out of my hand, backwinging to my left, only to fly into the mesh on that side of the garden. He began what could only be a birdie scream. From the tree on the boulevard loud cheeping erupted.

“You blundering idiot! You have got to fly over the thing! I showed you! I showed both of you! Come on now, pull back, then fly up!

“I’m trying, Papa! I’m trying! What is this thing? It is like a wall with teeth and claws!”

“Calm down, son. Calm down. It is called a net. Hush! The Big One is coming again. She will help you!”

“I don’t want her help! I don’t want her to touch me again!”

“She’s lifting the net. Wait for it. You can fly under it like I showed you.”

“Noooo!”

Wondering what was being said in the furious exchange of cheeps and trills and twitters, I followed the Little One to where he was beating against the mesh again. As I began to lift the mesh from the ground, he erupted into a loud rush of cheeping, and abruptly flew back from the fence, and then up, oops…up some more…oops…and over!

They were gone quickly. All was silent again except for the rustle of leaves in the tree, the buzz of bees in my mint patch and the whining of mosquitoes.

LET ME BE A FISH
June 18, 2011

Today I am a Fish swimming in the One Who sustains my life. I am surrounded by Him. I breathe Him. I am in Him and He is in me. If He were not, I would no more be alive than a Fish stranded on a sandy beach under the fiery gaze of the Sun.

But this morning I walked around, panting for a breath of God, as though I had indeed been cast mercilessly upon some alien shore. My heart begged for some sign of Love, some sign that I had not been abandoned.

How many signs must I be given? The lilacs are sending their sweet scent upon the wind. In the gardens up and down the block iris, purple and white, are unfurling their silken robes while the poppies and the lilies are preparing to burst forth in a Halleluia Chorus! Everywhere I rest my gaze beauty and life are exploding into being.

This afternoon I walk the railroad track that runs along the hillside above my house. Two streams are tumbling down from the folds of these hills that climb up from the Lake. As the track bends around the woods to the trestle, I catch a glimpse of the harbor below me. I stand and breathe the chilly wind and the lilacs for a space of time in which I am lost. I leave my fear and my wounded pride and my desperate pleas for Love there, in the pile of taconite next to the track. I turn for home, walking the six blocks on the rail, one foot carefully set before the other, and then the next, and then again…

I am absorbed in the moment, in this simple act of walking gracefully balanced on the narrow rail. I only fall off once. My heart is light again. I am awake and I am breathing God—as the Fish breathes Him in the water. I have been all the while—even when my head was bowed in such deep agony of imagined loss and abandonment.

I am well. I am whole. I am strong and beautiful and healthy and filled with vibrant energy and vitality. I carry light and knowledge. These are not silly affirmations to trick myself into believing happy lies. This is truth. The lies are the insidious beliefs that find footing in my mind and send roots running deep into my heart—the way the Snow on the Mountain sends it’s tangled roots running all over my garden. It is the Lie that croons a lullaby that pulls me into unconsciousness—into the nightmares where I forget who I am and from where I come. Truth casts away the anchor and I spread my wings and fly—I take the sky—I live, breathing the breath of God.

How is it that I so often exchange this Truth for the Lie, this freedom for the nightmares that wound and bruise, rip and tear until there is no beauty left? Indeed, what foolishness to exchange goodness and grace for suffering and hate.

Today, let me be a Fish swimming in the One Who sustains my life. And tomorrow, and tomorrow and again the tomorrow after that.

TWO FRIENDS WALKING A STRANGE ROAD TOGETHER
June 10, 2011

Last night I heard you with my second ears.
No, I think they were my third ears;
the ears that can hear what the
heart speaks softly under the stuttering speech
of the mind.

I heard your sorrow for your inability to merge your life with another.
It wasn’t about “me”, you said. You have never partnered well, you said.

I heard your admission that you ignored Wisdom
when you promised whatever was necessary
to convince me to be your bride—
things you knew you couldn’t do, or didn’t want to do, or be.
I heard your grief for hurting me
because you deceived me in order to get what you wanted—
at the expense of what I wanted—
eventually at the expense of what you wanted.

I heard your longing to be released
to live your life as you need to live it.
I heard your desire not to hurt me,
even though you know it is impossible for this not to hurt me.

I heard Love whispering when you told me
I am the best friend you’ve ever had—
the only one ever to have breached the walls.
I heard your silent plea that I not withdraw this friendship.

We were two friends walking a strange road together.
There was a sign that said DETOUR.
Your instincts said this sign was not meant for you.
Your path led straight ahead.
You ignored the small print and took the detour.
I read the small print and saw that the detour did not include me.
My path led another direction.
I didn’t believe the sign; I took the detour with you.

Here we are, many miles later, full circle back to where we began;
where our paths diverge.

We are two friends who have walked a strange road together.
You gave me a time and a place to heal; to come back to my Self.
I challenged you to find who you truly are.
We are learning to see through the Eyes of Love.

I release you to follow the path that is set before you.
You extend your hand in friendship.
And Love flows through us—cleansing away the debris
Left from the wild tantrums of our Egos.

We are two friends walking a strange road together.

May 18, 2011

WHEN LOVE SHOWS UP

You walk through the door into my life.
You walk into this world that I have been creating for these hours since you left,
Bringing your world with you.
Perhaps we should learn to knock first, before entering the world of the other.
Sometimes I do not want to open that door.
Some days you may be closed: all roads under construction.
Yet we barge in, thinking we have this right because we are married.

Really, the only free pass available is when Love shows up, passing them around.
Otherwise, there is an admission fee.

I hear you knocking.
I peek through the curtain.
Who are you who desires to enter my world and share it with me?
Do you want to share it with me,
or do you just want to camp out and mess things around a bit.
Do you know?

I glimpse strange and fascinating places
In the world you create.
If I knock, will you admit me?
Do I want to share it with you,
Or do I just want to camp out and tidy up a bit?
Do I know?

Strangely, when Love shows up and hands out Her free passes,
I discover that when I cross the threshold into
You, it is another world altogether.
It is not my world, or your world.
It is a world we have created
From the treasures we hold sacred in our own.
In this space, I see You.
I know You.
I breathe You.
We are One.

April 29, 2011

I hate criticism. I mean the small niggling, fussy-mussy criticism, which thinks it can improve people by telling them where they are wrong, and results only in putting them in strait-jackets of hesitancy and self-consciousness, and wizening all vision and bravery. I hate it because of the potentially shining, gentle, gifted people of all ages that it snuffs out every year. – Brenda Ueland –

I am guilty of living and breathing just this sort of criticism. It was my nourishment growing up – it is what has held me in just such a strait-jacket of fear and doubt and self-loathing all my life. And because it is in the very cells of my body, it naturally is what I speak and breathe into my environment and into the people I love most. For this I am grieved and sorry. For understanding this, now, I am grateful. For becoming free, I am hopeful.

It seems that for all of us, great pressure is coming to bear on those areas in our lives that do not serve us in a healthy or loving way. I feel the Light shining on me…and I have the choice each day, to respond or to hide. When the Light shines on chaos and dysfunction and mucky yucky swampy stinking stagnant debris inside of me, I can choose to celebrate and get out the tools necessary to clean it up and clean it out so that Love can flow. Or, I can choose to succumb to my feelings of shame and despair at my despicable self and run and hide in my Cave in my personal swamp.

I’ve been doing this dance between the Light and the Cave for nearly 20 years now (well, really, my whole life…but…). The dance has become boring. I want freedom and healing. I want to spread my wings and soar into the skies, filled with Joy, riding the waves of Light, able to Love from that deep place inside me.

The lessons have come ’round again. This time I choose to persevere. This time I choose to finish the course. This time, I am spreading my wings and taking the skies. Watch me fly!

April 4, 2011
My thoughts as I contemplate the destruction our own divisiveness is creating in the world…

“Wide and easy is the road to destruction, but narrow is the path that leads to eternal life.”

Not a hell of eternal burning of the flesh in a lake of fire without the ability to die. Not a heaven of harps and angels and banquet halls.

The destruction is of our own making. The suffering is caused by our own choices, here and now, and stretching into our future—our own future and that of the Earth and other beings, human, animal and plant; perhaps even other beings we know yet not of. We destroy our air, our water, our earth, our food. We destroy health. We destroy lives. We destroy gateways that would have led to incredible opportunities for ourselves and others to learn, to enjoy the abundance of life, to create, to discover. We make rubble of beauty and garbage pits where there might have been paradise. We create hell. And when we die? Do we really “escape” it all? Or, as some believe, do we return to continue to experience whatever we created before? Are we given one life-time after another to continue to destroy, or to repair the harm we caused in previous lives and create a place for life to thrive?

The path that leads to eternal life? Narrow and difficult? Has it not always been easier to knock down the tower than to build it? To trample the garden than to plant it? To dump our garbage out of sight than to invent a way to put it to good use? To strike down our opponent than to sit in counsel and find a way to peace?

When we choose the narrow path that leads to Life, it is not for a heaven that we cannot see that will come to us when our body is dead. It is for the life we experience every day that we choose to walk this path. It is in the harmony lived with one another. It is in the sweet victory of making peace, rather than war. It is in the sight of a clean river and ripening fields and music and paintings. It is in knowing those in authority have the best interests of the people as their call to service. It is in knowing we have enough food for the children. It is in the smile on the faces of the people walking down the street without fear.

Life is eternal. It goes on and on. There is no death. Only transformation. Destroy the living vessel in which life is held, the spirit yet lives on. Destroy that which nurtures life, and there will be a void. But the energy of what was, remains, somewhere, somewhere in the Universe.

Man came to this Earth to be the gardeners of this planet. To be the Guardians of Her resources, to be Wisdom Keepers. But wide and easy is the road to destruction; narrow is the path that leads to eternal life. The experiment in Free Will is not yet completed. I have a choice. What do I want to experience and what do I want to weave into the Net of the Universe: Life or Destruction? Love or Fear? Joy or Sickness? Peace or Hatred?

I suspect that each moment, each decision, is affecting the whole of the Universe through Time and No-Time in ways my limited brain has absolutely no idea of. But the call to choose Life has been coming to us throughout history. The warnings of the unimaginable suffering created by our violence, our hatred, our unchecked greed—even our apathy have also been sounded throughout history. Whether we understand how it all works or not, we have this at least.

“This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.”

deuteronomy 30:19

April 3, 2011

REVELATION

Holding back the storm building inside, I walk the Lakeshore. Mist curls off the water, weaving through the pines and birch. In a scooped out hollow in the rock I hunker down.

My face is wet with mist and tears.

My Soul wanders away.

Suddenly I’m standing before an intricately carved door of dark wood. I brush its smooth surface and it silently swings open. Hesitantly, I pass through. The hush of an ancient Forest surrounds me. A Centaur watches from the trees. He smiles and walks toward me. I’ve said nothing, yet he hears my amazement, throws back his head and laughs—scales played on a bass fiddle.

“Come Little One,” he says. “I was sent to escort you to The Cavern.”

“Me?”

He helps me onto his back. Didn’t I read somewhere that Centaurs do not allow anyone to ride on their backs?

We are climbing, and though still wrapped in the stillness of the trees, I realize we are on the side of a mountain. He stops before the entrance to a cave. “I will wait for you. Go,” he says.

Inside I find a passage that takes me deeper into the mountain. Torches set in the walls light the way. I take one, hoping it won’t go out. After winding about, the passage opens into a cavern so large I cannot see the top or the other side. The air has the rich, loamy smell of damp earth. I breathe it deeply, exhaling all the tension that has collected in my shoulders. Suddenly I hear a thousand exhales weaving in and out of one another.

“What was that,” I ask out-loud?

A thousand voices repeat, “What was that? What was that? What was that?” My skin prickles.

What is this place? I feel the air nibble upon my skin, gently.

My mind begins to run wildly about the cave while the cavern somehow causes every thought to manifest upon my body. The more fearful and impatient I become, the more the pricks begin to sting and the nibbles become bites.

The ground beneath my feet tilts. As I recover my balance I see another “me” about ten paces away. Her face is a dark thunderhead about to unleash its fury. Hot bile boils in my own stomach. The lightening strikes and I see words leaving her lips. Shooting into the air they coil there, forming a whip of words. With an explosion of energy, the whip cracks, striking her Beloved. Welts rise on my neck, my arms, my back. Again and again my Other Self wields this Whip of Words.

Finally, empty of pain and fury, my Other stops. The whip has become thick and corded. It breaks free and flies into the darkness. In the distance I hear cries of pain; whimpers. I feel them in the welts and cuts on my own body.

My Other has slumped to the floor, covered in the blood of her own violence. Around her head a dark fog is gathering. In it I hear her whispered anguish. She loathes what she does; despises what she is. Each whisper is sharp as a razor. Is there no compassion in me for this woman so filled with the rage of confusion and despair? Do I hate myself so much?

The ground beneath my feet tilts. The cavern walls begin to fade until I am once again suspended in silent darkness.

Clutching my torch, I return to the passageway. Faintly I hear water running, like a stream dancing over rock. My heart floods with joy and I realize that I am feeling the thoughts of the water!

The passage opens into another large cavern through which an underground river is pouring itself out through a crevice into the outside world beyond. There is no other way out of the cavern; only the running river. Suddenly I know—this is the River of Life and I am in the womb of my Mother, the Earth. Understanding breaks upon me like the dawn against the dark. I, too, hold within me a womb from which this River flows—whether I am male or female in my Earth body does not matter. Within me are the Springs of Joy and the River of Life. They are held deep underground, waiting release, waiting to flow out from me into the world.

Excitedly I run into the River. It burns like acid on my skin. Desperately trying to retreat, I lose my footing and plunge headfirst into the current of the River. My blood is Fire. I cannot breathe. I cannot see for my eyes have been burned away. I thrash and flail as I am carried in the current, my flesh falling from my bones. My lungs screaming for air, I instinctively draw breath and the waters fill me.

It tastes sweet. I am filling up with Light. Peace-filled, a bubble of pure Joy begins to ascend from my toes. When it reaches my throat I open my mouth and laugh—and am shot through the crevice and find myself sitting in a pool of sweet water, surrounded by the forest.

The Centaur is waiting on the mossy bank, but I do not want to leave; not yet. I swim in the pool. My skin is new and glowing. My eyes see rainbows of energy filling and surrounding everything around me. Faintly, a chorus of notes harmonizes on the edge of hearing—heard but not heard. The water is sweet—I want to drink the entire pool, to become the water itself. The Earth’s scent—soil and wood, pine and blossom, fruit and heat and snow and fire fill me, and my scalp prickles in delight.

Finally I am ready. I go to the Centaur who sets me on his back. We ride the wind.

We are at the Door. The Centaur bows slightly. “Remember this place. Remember what you have learned,” he says.

I step through the Door.

My Soul is riding a wave of water that breaks upon the rocks where I am huddled, hidden in the mist. Filled with Love and Light she crashes into me. The storm dissolves.

April 1, 2011

“Figure out the Route you take that brings you repeatedly to this place you don’t want to return to. Then, once you become conscious of it, create a new Route—one that will take you to where you wish to go!”

Dr. Jean Houston

That was her challenge. The idea intrigued me. Well-known sayings came to mind such as, “I can get there blind-folded!” and “I’m stuck in this same old rut.” “I’m going in circles,” “Caught in a loop…”

I do indeed know the way to depression and to discouragement so well I can get there blindfolded. Certainly I know the cycle of anger and rage, whether or not I let them out—Button X gets triggered, Responses Y & Z erupt. I do go in circles sometimes—looping through the same lessons, stuck in familiar ruts. My heart is leaning toward the Light like plants lean into the sun. But still the webs of my own darkness cling to me.

***********

Maybe it isn’t about the road or the ruts in the road. Maybe it is simply about waking up.

I am watching the Earth wake up these several weeks now. The snow and ice are shrinking, leaving behind a sludge of dirt and debris. The world that was grey and white and sometimes sparkled under blue skies has given way to a world that is brown and dirty; colorless and lifeless.

But, the other day I found tulips peeking above the ground, wondering if it was safe to come out yet. (It wasn’t. The deer had them for salad.) There are buds on the azaleas. The pussy-willow tips are soft. Everything alive is waking up, however slowly. A few weeks from now the world around me will have transformed itself into a pageant of color and scent. We will put the seed into the ground for the summer harvests of beans and tomatoes, corn and zucchini.

Maybe the more I wake up, the less inclined I will be to keep retracing the ruts I’ve worn sleepwalking the paths of my life’s journey. Surely I have cycled through many figurative winters and springs, summers and autumns. There has been planting, growth, harvest and retreat many times before. My life is not the same and the paths are not the same that I once walked. I have had seasons of being awake, my spirit as alive and alert as the rest of me.

But yet, always it seems I come back to these particular familiar roads that are rutted and in disrepair. It seems the same monsters come out of the same terrible tangled woods in which I am once again lost; I fall back asleep and I am caught again in the same bad dreams.

But I must come here. For it is here, in this place, that the secret of my freedom lives and breathes.

Always when my journeys bring me back to this place, I can go no further. The way is closed to me. But I have always known that it is only here that I will find the way through. Here that I will set myself free. It is here that the Light will transform this dark and tangled part of my Heartscape, here the Healing will flow through the pathways of my mind. And finally, finally it is here that Love will fully bloom and the River of Life will be released from deep within me.

If I could just find the courage to stay awake, here in this place of monsters and darkness.

Perhaps the monsters are really of my own making. Perhaps the only one not allowing me to pass further on, is myself. Perhaps it is easier to follow the same rutted roads and just talk about the Light, than it is to build a new road and live in the Light.

If I could just find the courage to stay awake.

***********

A long time ago I made a decision to get well. I said that I would find my way no matter how long it would take and no one would stop me, not even God. Funny declaration that; why would God try to stop me from getting well? I have often wondered what was rising up inside me that day, as though shaking the bars of some prison cell, a cage perhaps. Why in that moment did it seem that God might try to stop me? Why did I feel like it would be me against the world just to try to get well?

I believe I changed the course of my journey that day; like a river will shift and cut a new path for its flowing to the Sea.

************

One thing I have learned on this journey of mine, there are no true shortcuts. Those who promise such things have not actually traveled the routes themselves and have no idea where you will end up.