Sinking back on my heels for a moment and pulling away from the task that had me breaking a sweat, I became aware of the constant but variable cool breeze coming through the window. Mid December, now, was unseasonably, unreasonably warm, even for this subsiding area on the south side of Houston. As the wind currents stirred about inside this storage container where I was emptying Natalie’s toys and books, it occurred to me that this part of town from which I'd moved away when I was seven, was close enough to the gulf to get that steady, comforting breeze that consistently blew in on summer afternoons along the coast of Texas.
This realization immediately spurred a recollection of afternoon naps in my mother’s room in the house just a few blocks away from here. Her bed in that room had been shoved up against the open window facing south, and the stiff breeze activated by the daily pressure shifts on the coast would blow across the bed and wake me from my sweaty slumber with its cool relief every afternoon. Immersing myself in the memory and drifting in its rich sensory flow, I acknowledged the security I felt in its dependability. It occurred to me that during my youth nearby the coast, I had actually learned to tell time by it. Laughing silently to myself, I thought about how most often in those years, it had signalled release from the daily afternoon nap-time incarceration imposed upon us by my mother .
I hadn’t been in this declining area of town for many years, but being here now, I reacognized it as a place of high impact for me in early childhood years. Many of the old houses and stores had already been torn down or had fallen down, perhaps even vandalized or set on fire for the insurance money. John had recently purchased two lots in this broken-down part of town, trusting the investors who believed this area would be the next big attraction for urban reclamation. He was moving his and Natalie's things into storage here while finalizing plans for the studio he would build on the property, a place where he would begin his life again following the divorce from Natalie's mother.
Now, looking out the window of the large storage container placed here just last week, the hazy patch of sky visible within its frame appeared broken and torn by the gnarly black branches of the old oak tree left standing in the yard after the clearing. Empty of its leaves on this balmy winter day, it remained as a landmark to some young couple in the fifties who had planted it as an attribute to their new suburban home. Today, the ambient temperature had brought sweat to my brow, and now, a breaking wetness under my arms and between my legs began to evaporate as I sat back and allowed the stillness in my spread-eagle posture and the motion of the breeze combine to cool me.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Mama -- A Day in the Life
I stared at the faded green aloe vera plant, long and twisted as it reached for the highly filtered light coming through the sliding glass door of my grandmother’s breakfast room. The backyard beyond the door's algae spotted base, though lovingly landscaped with azaleas and ligustrums, was shady and dense beneath the canopy of east Texas piney woods. The sunlight and bright blue sky found only pinholes for entry through its canopy.
The overgrown plant crowded the big yellow pot where it had grown for what must be twenty years or more. (Does an aloe vera even live that long I wonder as I write the words?) The jelly filled cactus plant had been a necessary component of every kitchen my grandmother ever established. Good for minor burns, she always said, and surely enough, her granddaughter’s first kitchen, and those that came after, also required the spikey horned plant with its soothing balm to be growing in the kitchen window.
My grandmother now sat on her perch, her face between the folds of her newspaper with her long, thin Benson and Hedges cigarette placed neatly into the corner ridges of the gamboge-colored ashtray whose angles were wedged between the sections of the morning newspaper. The ashtray was an accessory made to match the ultra-modern look of the chartreuse wrought-iron framed furniture standing boldly aslant in trapezoid shapes throughout her custom-built kitchen and dining area. A soft thin stream of smoke was slowly curling and flowing up from the tray's cool ceramic base to find its spot in the yellowing ceiling.
How ironic, I thought it was that my grandmother, born in 1901 before even the invention of the automobile, refused to be associated with antiques of the past, choosing to surround herself, instead, with this ultra-modern look of the early sixties. How many times had I sat like this in her breakfast room, my forearms cooling on the smoked glass table, taking in this very same scene? It must in these twenty-five years or so of repetition, by now, be impressed upon the ethers.
Mama, the name she invented for her grandchildren to call her, had been a maid of the twenties—the Roaring Twenties. She was the oldest of five Cox children living outside a saw-mill town where farm yard pigs often wallowed or slept underneath the pinewood planks of their kitchen floor. She loved to tell the story about the time she baited her younger brothers and sister into bad trouble with their tight-minded Baptist father by finding just the moment when her mother had vacated the kitchen leaving the pears cooking down to syrup for the preserves she was making.
Seizing the moment of opportunity, she enticed her sibs into the kitchen with the promise of a fun and daring adventure then showed them how to use the big ladling spoon to hold the boiling syrup over a knothole in the pine floor and call the pigs. The pigs, greedy for table scraps would come grunting and snorting, expecting gifts from heaven to be dropped to them through the holes in the floor. Then Mama would coach her little tribe to pour the sticky hot syrup through the knotholes onto their eager, hungry faces, sending the poor creatures squealing and scrambling out from under the kitchen, shaking the house as they tumbled over each other. The kids, of course, would fall all over each other laughing and rolling in the kitchen floor and never notice she had sneaked out of the kitchen long before. The tale ends with the other four being caught and promptly punished for their cruel play with whacks from their father’s razor strap while my grandmother went scot-free.
Mama was quite the story teller. I guess it came from her Irish background—it ran in the family, so it seems. She loved being the center of attention, so she would tell a story, always with herself as the central character, the one who cleverly made the joke fall on someone else. Though there were times she would tell the story on herself if it made a better story, she was the chief instigator and the main benefactor of every tale. The telling was always rolling-in-the-floor funny at the time, but later it surfaced to me as a cruel style of humor, maybe a bit like the "Uncle Remus" or "Peter Rabbit" series.
She married an older man with an income at age sixteen, she said, to get away from the restraints of her strict “papa” who made dating and dancing forbidden, and straight on, began to live the high-life. She was a looker—blue violet eyes and thick dark hair with olive colored skin—she told us she came from “the black Irish”. She loved to dress in the styles of the movie stars and always told me it was just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor one.
It wasn’t long before her husband became jealous and overly possessive. The stories she told me about his drunken fits of jealousy were a dramatic shift from those she used to entertain us at family gatherings. They separated during the Depression when my mother was five and though they made several attempts to reunite, when he died of a sudden heart attack seven years later, he left a widow. She had already found work for supporting herself and my mother as a secretary at one of the companies growing fast on the oil boom in a cow-town-become-oil-town in Texas. Here she met my wild-at-heart step-grandfather—the only one I ever knew—16 years younger than her.
My great aunt, her sister, used to say, “here comes the White Roach!” when he was coming up the walk to the front door. He’d made his first appearance "calling" on Mama in a white, Havana style suit which hung loosely over his tall, thin frame. His pasty white skin and slicked-back platinum blonde hair added to the ghostly insect illusion Aunt Mil was spinning. By the time I heard the story after a decade or more of family tellings, Mama (or even my grandfather) had managed to make it sound like he was an awkward albino boy coming to court my more refined and socially established grandmother. Their war-time marriage might have alienated her from her daughter except for the fact that my mother was fused fast to her mother’s hip, then, and for years to come.
Mama in her eighties was still a striking woman--though the deep blue violet eyes had faded, they still commanded attention when their icy blue focus was fixed to those of her listener. Her long thick black hair had thinned and was now covered with hair salon color that was befitting of her age—a warm, chestnut like color with tinges of gray, it was now short and permed to add back the body that the years had taken away. Though her once smooth olive skin now displayed a variety of moles, the regal way she held herself insisted they were marks of beauty.
Her five foot two and a half inch frame (which always seemed larger in the aura of her presence) was now rounded and her pear-shaped hips mimicked the jodhpurs she wore in pictures I’d seen of her as a young woman. Her belly was full like her breasts which hung braced against it when she hunched over in her reading posture, thin cigarette to her once full and red-lipsticked mouth. It was still easy to see the flare of her powerful appeal in the flash of her flirtatious smile.
Now peering over her newspaper at me, her eyes weary and jaw slack, she continued our earlier argument, once more trying to win me over through the force of her will (a willfulness for which she’d long been known, but which was today, clearly waning). Her tired words formed an ugly reality with which I was all too familiar, a reality born out of her own life and its long and painful relationship history. She wasn’t admitting what was clearly visible in the weakness of her posture and the tremulousness of her voice, and I wasn’t either. Perhaps registering the condition of this aging family matriarch was just too painful for us both to acknowledge.
In keeping with my own stubborn stance, I responded to the words themselves rather than acknowledging the gestalt from which they were spoken, making it easy for me to refute her rather weak argument. Instead of hearing the wisdom of her warning and trusting in the earnestness of her appeal above and beyond her history of attempts (with some success) at controlling and directing my life to her satisfaction, I chose to use my prime of life advantage to her advanced years in standing her down. She had no room to talk, I told myself--I could continue in this charade without shame.
The overgrown plant crowded the big yellow pot where it had grown for what must be twenty years or more. (Does an aloe vera even live that long I wonder as I write the words?) The jelly filled cactus plant had been a necessary component of every kitchen my grandmother ever established. Good for minor burns, she always said, and surely enough, her granddaughter’s first kitchen, and those that came after, also required the spikey horned plant with its soothing balm to be growing in the kitchen window.
My grandmother now sat on her perch, her face between the folds of her newspaper with her long, thin Benson and Hedges cigarette placed neatly into the corner ridges of the gamboge-colored ashtray whose angles were wedged between the sections of the morning newspaper. The ashtray was an accessory made to match the ultra-modern look of the chartreuse wrought-iron framed furniture standing boldly aslant in trapezoid shapes throughout her custom-built kitchen and dining area. A soft thin stream of smoke was slowly curling and flowing up from the tray's cool ceramic base to find its spot in the yellowing ceiling.
How ironic, I thought it was that my grandmother, born in 1901 before even the invention of the automobile, refused to be associated with antiques of the past, choosing to surround herself, instead, with this ultra-modern look of the early sixties. How many times had I sat like this in her breakfast room, my forearms cooling on the smoked glass table, taking in this very same scene? It must in these twenty-five years or so of repetition, by now, be impressed upon the ethers.
Mama, the name she invented for her grandchildren to call her, had been a maid of the twenties—the Roaring Twenties. She was the oldest of five Cox children living outside a saw-mill town where farm yard pigs often wallowed or slept underneath the pinewood planks of their kitchen floor. She loved to tell the story about the time she baited her younger brothers and sister into bad trouble with their tight-minded Baptist father by finding just the moment when her mother had vacated the kitchen leaving the pears cooking down to syrup for the preserves she was making.
Seizing the moment of opportunity, she enticed her sibs into the kitchen with the promise of a fun and daring adventure then showed them how to use the big ladling spoon to hold the boiling syrup over a knothole in the pine floor and call the pigs. The pigs, greedy for table scraps would come grunting and snorting, expecting gifts from heaven to be dropped to them through the holes in the floor. Then Mama would coach her little tribe to pour the sticky hot syrup through the knotholes onto their eager, hungry faces, sending the poor creatures squealing and scrambling out from under the kitchen, shaking the house as they tumbled over each other. The kids, of course, would fall all over each other laughing and rolling in the kitchen floor and never notice she had sneaked out of the kitchen long before. The tale ends with the other four being caught and promptly punished for their cruel play with whacks from their father’s razor strap while my grandmother went scot-free.
Mama was quite the story teller. I guess it came from her Irish background—it ran in the family, so it seems. She loved being the center of attention, so she would tell a story, always with herself as the central character, the one who cleverly made the joke fall on someone else. Though there were times she would tell the story on herself if it made a better story, she was the chief instigator and the main benefactor of every tale. The telling was always rolling-in-the-floor funny at the time, but later it surfaced to me as a cruel style of humor, maybe a bit like the "Uncle Remus" or "Peter Rabbit" series.
She married an older man with an income at age sixteen, she said, to get away from the restraints of her strict “papa” who made dating and dancing forbidden, and straight on, began to live the high-life. She was a looker—blue violet eyes and thick dark hair with olive colored skin—she told us she came from “the black Irish”. She loved to dress in the styles of the movie stars and always told me it was just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor one.
It wasn’t long before her husband became jealous and overly possessive. The stories she told me about his drunken fits of jealousy were a dramatic shift from those she used to entertain us at family gatherings. They separated during the Depression when my mother was five and though they made several attempts to reunite, when he died of a sudden heart attack seven years later, he left a widow. She had already found work for supporting herself and my mother as a secretary at one of the companies growing fast on the oil boom in a cow-town-become-oil-town in Texas. Here she met my wild-at-heart step-grandfather—the only one I ever knew—16 years younger than her.
My great aunt, her sister, used to say, “here comes the White Roach!” when he was coming up the walk to the front door. He’d made his first appearance "calling" on Mama in a white, Havana style suit which hung loosely over his tall, thin frame. His pasty white skin and slicked-back platinum blonde hair added to the ghostly insect illusion Aunt Mil was spinning. By the time I heard the story after a decade or more of family tellings, Mama (or even my grandfather) had managed to make it sound like he was an awkward albino boy coming to court my more refined and socially established grandmother. Their war-time marriage might have alienated her from her daughter except for the fact that my mother was fused fast to her mother’s hip, then, and for years to come.
Mama in her eighties was still a striking woman--though the deep blue violet eyes had faded, they still commanded attention when their icy blue focus was fixed to those of her listener. Her long thick black hair had thinned and was now covered with hair salon color that was befitting of her age—a warm, chestnut like color with tinges of gray, it was now short and permed to add back the body that the years had taken away. Though her once smooth olive skin now displayed a variety of moles, the regal way she held herself insisted they were marks of beauty.
Her five foot two and a half inch frame (which always seemed larger in the aura of her presence) was now rounded and her pear-shaped hips mimicked the jodhpurs she wore in pictures I’d seen of her as a young woman. Her belly was full like her breasts which hung braced against it when she hunched over in her reading posture, thin cigarette to her once full and red-lipsticked mouth. It was still easy to see the flare of her powerful appeal in the flash of her flirtatious smile.
Now peering over her newspaper at me, her eyes weary and jaw slack, she continued our earlier argument, once more trying to win me over through the force of her will (a willfulness for which she’d long been known, but which was today, clearly waning). Her tired words formed an ugly reality with which I was all too familiar, a reality born out of her own life and its long and painful relationship history. She wasn’t admitting what was clearly visible in the weakness of her posture and the tremulousness of her voice, and I wasn’t either. Perhaps registering the condition of this aging family matriarch was just too painful for us both to acknowledge.
In keeping with my own stubborn stance, I responded to the words themselves rather than acknowledging the gestalt from which they were spoken, making it easy for me to refute her rather weak argument. Instead of hearing the wisdom of her warning and trusting in the earnestness of her appeal above and beyond her history of attempts (with some success) at controlling and directing my life to her satisfaction, I chose to use my prime of life advantage to her advanced years in standing her down. She had no room to talk, I told myself--I could continue in this charade without shame.
Monday, September 17, 2007
The Storm
As the rain poured out of the cool mist and spattered in the parking lot she exhaled the smoke of her unfiltered Camel and looked sideways at her mother who was bracing herself weakly against the rough cedar wall, looking plaintively into her daughter’s face. “Are you just going to give up the rest of your life—all you’ve worked for, all you’ve struggled and sacrificed for—all you’ve ever said you wanted since you were just a little girl,” now choking on her tears, “all you fucking DESERVE—to take care of him and his self-centered demands? Is he going to be your child? Because you won’t be able to have one of your own, you know—he’ll be jealous!”
Her daughter shifted her weight forward and flicked ashes from her cigarette into the rain wishing she could as easily cast away the tension that had grown unbearable during the harrowing drive down from the summit of the mountain on whose midway shelf this small town stood. The rain had beat down on them unmercifully as she had driven, hands clinched upon the steering wheel, winding down the steep, unpaved road, barely more than a hiking trail, occasionally sliding towards the edge in the slippery clay and gravel. Her body had been frozen, spine incredibly straight as she leaned forward, eyes fixed on the road ahead. Her mother had been oblivious to the extent of her tension with the drive itself as their intense conversation had continued uninterrupted, and apparently, she’d been impervious as well to the percussion of the storm enveloping them, and their precarious position in it because of the heightened storm that had been going on inside them both.
“You deserve more than this,” the words came from a deep place in her she’d never touched into with her daughter before, maybe never touched into at all. They tore through a carefully grown membrane of separation strengthened through years of loving detachment into this intimate and painful place of empathy with the terrible dilemma in which her daughter struggled, a dilemma with which she was all too familiar. Recognizing this, she felt a pang of guilt in knowing her daughter had been a first hand witness to her own crippling ambivalence in a situation unarguably similar. Still, the mothering place that had opened up in her forced her with a fierceness to continue to engage in her daughter’s defense; as if, this time she might save them both from the ominous, inevitable outcome.
“It breaks my heart to see this happen to you. You know I’ve never tried to tell you what to do—I’ve always been able to depend on you for making good decisions. But this is something that is going to affect you for the rest of your life—it’s going to change the course of your life—and our relationship forever! I have to say this now to you, or I’ll never be able to forgive myself in the future. I would be remiss in my responsibility towards you as a mother and as someone who has loved you more than anyone could,” she choked back the tears, “if I didn’t entreat you to give to this decision all that incredible intelligence you have, Caitlin!” She had given her first daughter a name that came from the Irish roots she would carry in her bearing alongside the more dominant Italian ones expressed in her usually warm brown eyes, now looking bleached and tired.
The rainwater splashed up from the pavement onto their heavy hiking boots as they huddled for shelter under the eave of the roadside coffee house where they remained even as the temperature dropped so that the younger woman could continue to draw nicotine from the sweet smelling Camel to medicate the outbreak of anxiety she was no longer able to conceal. Her already pale face becoming thin and angular, the ridge of her jaw prominent, she turned to look at her mother with a plea for understanding in her eyes, “Mom, I’m trying to consider everything we’ve been through in the last year that could be a factor in the way he’s acting. I know I can’t go on with things the way they are, but I also feel like I need to give it a chance.”
“Oh, my god,” the mother said, as she thought of her own twisted experience so long ago and how it must have impressed upon her daughter the potential of repeating the same wounded response. With a gravity she hadn’t felt in years, she bore out the words that burdened her chest and burned as they pressed through her throat, while shaking her head in deep recognition of accountability, “I’m so sorry, Caitlyn—I can’t help but feel my relationship with Bill, and your being made so aware of it must have set you up for this!”
“Oh, Mom, let’s don’t go there please—I can’t talk about this anymore today!” She flicked the remains of her Camel from between her first two fingers using the cleanly clipped thumbnail that in her youth had been kept long and sharply pointed for digging into her sister’s arm when all else failed. These agile, quick fingers with cleanly clipped nails were joined to rosy, rough-skinned hands scrubbed frequently—hands of a surgeon which had gained strength and precision, her mother knew, and confidence in working with daily situations of life and death. The thirty hour days of intense demand for perfection in performance without food or sleep during her residency had conditioned her for living in this current turbulence. But how long could she continue at this pace? “Let’s go, said Caitlyn, it’s getting cold, and we need to get back.”
The older woman, feeling the weight of her sixty years in this moment, peeled herself from the cedar wall where her twenty year old Gortex rain jacket had adhered under pressure, pulled the hood over her head and stepped out into the rain. Her daughter pressed the lock release, got into her small, sporty Saab, and reached for the button to unlock the passenger door. They were quiet now, as it seemed there was no more they could say. The rain had slacked up and the state highway they pulled onto was smooth and well banked. The way ahead was clear, and around the curve bordered on the left by towering layers of rock, they could see Denver in the plain below.
Her daughter shifted her weight forward and flicked ashes from her cigarette into the rain wishing she could as easily cast away the tension that had grown unbearable during the harrowing drive down from the summit of the mountain on whose midway shelf this small town stood. The rain had beat down on them unmercifully as she had driven, hands clinched upon the steering wheel, winding down the steep, unpaved road, barely more than a hiking trail, occasionally sliding towards the edge in the slippery clay and gravel. Her body had been frozen, spine incredibly straight as she leaned forward, eyes fixed on the road ahead. Her mother had been oblivious to the extent of her tension with the drive itself as their intense conversation had continued uninterrupted, and apparently, she’d been impervious as well to the percussion of the storm enveloping them, and their precarious position in it because of the heightened storm that had been going on inside them both.
“You deserve more than this,” the words came from a deep place in her she’d never touched into with her daughter before, maybe never touched into at all. They tore through a carefully grown membrane of separation strengthened through years of loving detachment into this intimate and painful place of empathy with the terrible dilemma in which her daughter struggled, a dilemma with which she was all too familiar. Recognizing this, she felt a pang of guilt in knowing her daughter had been a first hand witness to her own crippling ambivalence in a situation unarguably similar. Still, the mothering place that had opened up in her forced her with a fierceness to continue to engage in her daughter’s defense; as if, this time she might save them both from the ominous, inevitable outcome.
“It breaks my heart to see this happen to you. You know I’ve never tried to tell you what to do—I’ve always been able to depend on you for making good decisions. But this is something that is going to affect you for the rest of your life—it’s going to change the course of your life—and our relationship forever! I have to say this now to you, or I’ll never be able to forgive myself in the future. I would be remiss in my responsibility towards you as a mother and as someone who has loved you more than anyone could,” she choked back the tears, “if I didn’t entreat you to give to this decision all that incredible intelligence you have, Caitlin!” She had given her first daughter a name that came from the Irish roots she would carry in her bearing alongside the more dominant Italian ones expressed in her usually warm brown eyes, now looking bleached and tired.
The rainwater splashed up from the pavement onto their heavy hiking boots as they huddled for shelter under the eave of the roadside coffee house where they remained even as the temperature dropped so that the younger woman could continue to draw nicotine from the sweet smelling Camel to medicate the outbreak of anxiety she was no longer able to conceal. Her already pale face becoming thin and angular, the ridge of her jaw prominent, she turned to look at her mother with a plea for understanding in her eyes, “Mom, I’m trying to consider everything we’ve been through in the last year that could be a factor in the way he’s acting. I know I can’t go on with things the way they are, but I also feel like I need to give it a chance.”
“Oh, my god,” the mother said, as she thought of her own twisted experience so long ago and how it must have impressed upon her daughter the potential of repeating the same wounded response. With a gravity she hadn’t felt in years, she bore out the words that burdened her chest and burned as they pressed through her throat, while shaking her head in deep recognition of accountability, “I’m so sorry, Caitlyn—I can’t help but feel my relationship with Bill, and your being made so aware of it must have set you up for this!”
“Oh, Mom, let’s don’t go there please—I can’t talk about this anymore today!” She flicked the remains of her Camel from between her first two fingers using the cleanly clipped thumbnail that in her youth had been kept long and sharply pointed for digging into her sister’s arm when all else failed. These agile, quick fingers with cleanly clipped nails were joined to rosy, rough-skinned hands scrubbed frequently—hands of a surgeon which had gained strength and precision, her mother knew, and confidence in working with daily situations of life and death. The thirty hour days of intense demand for perfection in performance without food or sleep during her residency had conditioned her for living in this current turbulence. But how long could she continue at this pace? “Let’s go, said Caitlyn, it’s getting cold, and we need to get back.”
The older woman, feeling the weight of her sixty years in this moment, peeled herself from the cedar wall where her twenty year old Gortex rain jacket had adhered under pressure, pulled the hood over her head and stepped out into the rain. Her daughter pressed the lock release, got into her small, sporty Saab, and reached for the button to unlock the passenger door. They were quiet now, as it seemed there was no more they could say. The rain had slacked up and the state highway they pulled onto was smooth and well banked. The way ahead was clear, and around the curve bordered on the left by towering layers of rock, they could see Denver in the plain below.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
To an Urban Sister
Lately, I have been stepping away from the principle of "keeping myself peaceable" about things in my personal/political life, though I continue to maintain that "multi-partial" position as a therapist. I believe I've done the latter so long that I've compromised myself as an individual. Funny how something you value about yourself can just slip away while you're busy developing a career and attending to the responsibilities of life.
Part of my feeling stuck has been a frustration with the requirement of keeping parts of myself I value from being expressed in an atmosphere where they are unacceptable. There are issues of social justice for myself, my clients and others that I have surrendered into my spiritual presence recognizing I, alone, have no way to influence change (other than through prayer/alchemy)--at least none without the support of a large part of the collective whole. I have practiced patience in awaiting the time of a shift I have felt--"known"--was coming for such a long time.
And now, it is time. I have moved into an action phase, determined to carve out a place in the world for the whole of who I am. I have begun to make the call for that shift in my writings and in my personal interactions. I've made the call to others to join together and envision a system transformed. I have become political -- eco-political. I have been exploring new concepts of local economies and have been meeting with a progressive group out this way.
This has given me an outlet at least, if not yet an outcome, for relieving the tension I feel of limitation, of bondage to a system that doesn't serve me--my "marriage", as you say to an "unholy" partner. Some release, some hope, some movement that allows me to "stay the course" (not my favorite phrase b/c it's from "the shrub") until I can enact my new role--my new role in a new economy, one that is ecologically based. I am allowing my emotions, powerful as they may be, speak for the truth I am and the form I choose to build.
As far as "splitting" on your good paycheck--I believe the day will come when you will have to choose--and then that security will fall away from you. It doesn't have to go all at once, but it's important to begin building your cushion or safety net--that which will hold you through the final change, but you are going to have to think outside the box in preparing that net. I don't believe we can count on the world or the economy ever being the same--in the very near future.
My "safety net" is building an eco-community or eco-village with a currency or means of exchange that will allow us to continue to live locally no matter what is going on globally in the economy or geo-political system. (That is, as long as we can keep the nukes out of it!) I have been thinking about how my profession, my talents translate into this new local economic base (one that is clearly more equitable than what we have now).
I can imagine what my role would be in a primitive society/tribe and I can envision where I would fit in a future, high tech local economy. Maybe still as a therapist, consultant, advisor about what I know of social psychology. Yup, I am seeing enormous change ahead, and the work of manifesting it is encouraging and energizing! What about you?
Part of my feeling stuck has been a frustration with the requirement of keeping parts of myself I value from being expressed in an atmosphere where they are unacceptable. There are issues of social justice for myself, my clients and others that I have surrendered into my spiritual presence recognizing I, alone, have no way to influence change (other than through prayer/alchemy)--at least none without the support of a large part of the collective whole. I have practiced patience in awaiting the time of a shift I have felt--"known"--was coming for such a long time.
And now, it is time. I have moved into an action phase, determined to carve out a place in the world for the whole of who I am. I have begun to make the call for that shift in my writings and in my personal interactions. I've made the call to others to join together and envision a system transformed. I have become political -- eco-political. I have been exploring new concepts of local economies and have been meeting with a progressive group out this way.
This has given me an outlet at least, if not yet an outcome, for relieving the tension I feel of limitation, of bondage to a system that doesn't serve me--my "marriage", as you say to an "unholy" partner. Some release, some hope, some movement that allows me to "stay the course" (not my favorite phrase b/c it's from "the shrub") until I can enact my new role--my new role in a new economy, one that is ecologically based. I am allowing my emotions, powerful as they may be, speak for the truth I am and the form I choose to build.
As far as "splitting" on your good paycheck--I believe the day will come when you will have to choose--and then that security will fall away from you. It doesn't have to go all at once, but it's important to begin building your cushion or safety net--that which will hold you through the final change, but you are going to have to think outside the box in preparing that net. I don't believe we can count on the world or the economy ever being the same--in the very near future.
My "safety net" is building an eco-community or eco-village with a currency or means of exchange that will allow us to continue to live locally no matter what is going on globally in the economy or geo-political system. (That is, as long as we can keep the nukes out of it!) I have been thinking about how my profession, my talents translate into this new local economic base (one that is clearly more equitable than what we have now).
I can imagine what my role would be in a primitive society/tribe and I can envision where I would fit in a future, high tech local economy. Maybe still as a therapist, consultant, advisor about what I know of social psychology. Yup, I am seeing enormous change ahead, and the work of manifesting it is encouraging and energizing! What about you?
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Oh, Brave New World
Well, it's been a while now since I've posted. The break I've taken turns out to be a matter of reorienting . A prime mover within me seems to be shifting towards a new focus, yet its image is elusive to my radar. The source of attraction seems to be moving, itself , as if seeking its own true North. The tension is vaguely felt on an unconscious level, but there is no visibility--I'm in the dark. These two are making a blind approach to their potential alignment. Will they come face to face? It's hard to say, although I keep getting glimpses of possible futures.
So much adjustment, so much patience required. Clarity awaits--it is an event in process, not wholly predictable, but at least, known for what it is--a change in the tides. It always makes me feel just a little better being able to acknowledge that big picture. Gives me just the smallest sense of control in this mighty process of sea change. "Oh, brave new world, who has such...in it."
So much adjustment, so much patience required. Clarity awaits--it is an event in process, not wholly predictable, but at least, known for what it is--a change in the tides. It always makes me feel just a little better being able to acknowledge that big picture. Gives me just the smallest sense of control in this mighty process of sea change. "Oh, brave new world, who has such...in it."
Friday, August 10, 2007
Dark Moon Mama
At this point in my blogger enterprise, readers, I'm feeling conflicted. I don't know if this is typically what happens to a person after the first few weeks of writing in these pages, or if this is just something going on with me right now--just because I am who I am and have my own patterns of inner conflict. I know I'm not having writer's block, or any lack of ideas--in fact I feel overrun with ideas.
There's been a great flurry of activity in the group process of our "progressive" interest community and I know my energies have been pulled towards facilitation in that direction--and this has led me to doing more political reading than writing. I know I'm also struggling to stay focused on my original intent for creating this blog--to give a home for, a structure for my own creative process. It's easy to get distracted by the currents and flow of other writers here and to get caught up in the activity of current events rather than using their impact as prompts for tapping into my my own intuitive reserves.
It's also difficult to keep a clear image of who my readership is. When I write to my newsletter group, I know who they are--I can picture their faces, their potential responses to my message. I have diverse interests and diverse groups of people connected to those various areas of my own study or entertainment. Each time I write to one, I feel I'm leaving another out--disappointing someone or group. It's clear I'm going to have to let this go, because I know it's not good on anyone's account for me to write a homogenized version of a topic, one that can fit into the framework of any mindset. I'm afraid I've already done that a few times and it really dumbs down the quality of a piece.
I'm feeling the need right now to have some private space--some little corner in these pages just for me to have my own process. Perhaps I'm missing my journal--that's a real possibility. At the same time, we are deep into the balsamic phase of the moon. This is the traditional time to release into the dark void all the remains of the day. It is like the quiet and empty time after the celebration of the harvest. The time for the fields to be fallow and the people to to enter into the sabbath--to rest and renew their energies. Perhaps that can explain how I'm feeling now and why I have no inspiration or energy for holding the form--for staying the course. It's time for change and renewal.
The balsamic or dark moon period is definitely a time for release and regeneration of our energies, a time for regrouping, and as the phase of the moon becomes new (as it does this Sunday the 12th at 6:02 CDT here in Houston), we are offered an opening to connection with our deeper store of consciousness. Here we have the opportunity for sorting through all that is and scrying for what is our next best focus for manifestation. This is the time for the insemination of a new plan, one that can be developed over the next month's moon cycle . It is the time of new beginnings.
Be patient and rest, my child, says Old Mother Moon. Be at peace, for we will begin anew when the time is right. Then we will have all the insight we need for developing the new form, one that will serve us well in the days to come.
There's been a great flurry of activity in the group process of our "progressive" interest community and I know my energies have been pulled towards facilitation in that direction--and this has led me to doing more political reading than writing. I know I'm also struggling to stay focused on my original intent for creating this blog--to give a home for, a structure for my own creative process. It's easy to get distracted by the currents and flow of other writers here and to get caught up in the activity of current events rather than using their impact as prompts for tapping into my my own intuitive reserves.
It's also difficult to keep a clear image of who my readership is. When I write to my newsletter group, I know who they are--I can picture their faces, their potential responses to my message. I have diverse interests and diverse groups of people connected to those various areas of my own study or entertainment. Each time I write to one, I feel I'm leaving another out--disappointing someone or group. It's clear I'm going to have to let this go, because I know it's not good on anyone's account for me to write a homogenized version of a topic, one that can fit into the framework of any mindset. I'm afraid I've already done that a few times and it really dumbs down the quality of a piece.
I'm feeling the need right now to have some private space--some little corner in these pages just for me to have my own process. Perhaps I'm missing my journal--that's a real possibility. At the same time, we are deep into the balsamic phase of the moon. This is the traditional time to release into the dark void all the remains of the day. It is like the quiet and empty time after the celebration of the harvest. The time for the fields to be fallow and the people to to enter into the sabbath--to rest and renew their energies. Perhaps that can explain how I'm feeling now and why I have no inspiration or energy for holding the form--for staying the course. It's time for change and renewal.
The balsamic or dark moon period is definitely a time for release and regeneration of our energies, a time for regrouping, and as the phase of the moon becomes new (as it does this Sunday the 12th at 6:02 CDT here in Houston), we are offered an opening to connection with our deeper store of consciousness. Here we have the opportunity for sorting through all that is and scrying for what is our next best focus for manifestation. This is the time for the insemination of a new plan, one that can be developed over the next month's moon cycle . It is the time of new beginnings.
Be patient and rest, my child, says Old Mother Moon. Be at peace, for we will begin anew when the time is right. Then we will have all the insight we need for developing the new form, one that will serve us well in the days to come.
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
A Shared Political Perspective
I have pasted to the blog, "Finding your own Voice" the post "Care and Repair--the Collapse of our Infrastructure" because it drew comments that are more appropriate for the focus of that blog--for the opportunity of "finding your own voice" for speaking (and writing) responsibly and intelligently (with "emotional intelligence") about our deepest core values and our most passionate hopes and dreams for the future of our country and for the future of the world--from a shared political perspective. A shared political perspective may not mean that we all agree, but that we share similar values, hopes, and dreams--and even perhaps a shared greater vision for a safe, peaceful and prosperous world.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Emotional Intelligence and Politics
Bloggers--be aware I have started another blog called "Finding your own Voice" where I will focus more on progressive political commentary and self-discovery in terms of finding and learning to speak your own truth--especially in areas where others' viewpoints may be in conflict with yours. I have a piece posted there now, but thought I would include it here to help make the transition from here to there for this subject.
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Last night I attended what was, essentially, the first meeting of a group of people in the greater Houston area who are progressive in their thinking and feeling a lot of passion about how our country is (or is not) operating at this time. The group was first called together in response to a moveon.org gathering of people for viewing the Live Earth concert and listening to current democratic candidates respond to questions about how they would manage the problem of pollution and the resultant crisis of global warming.
Some of us at that “party” agreed we’d like to get together again just to have the comfort and support of like-minded people—to have the opportunity to converse about our views and share our feelings about living and working in a community where conservative thought dominates. Many of us confessed we have felt like it was necessary to hide our progressive thinking and suppress our true feelings in fear of social ostracization or worse! Being black-balled, losing our reputations, business connections—our jobs. Isn’t that what our Constitution’s supposed to protect us from? Geez!
Our host for the meeting suggested we read George Lakoff’s book, "Thinking Points" in preparation for the meeting. Lakoff is part of a progressive think tank called the Rockridge Institute. Rockridge (and Lakoff) have analyzed the success of the conservative or neo-con constituency to engage with the populace and influence the majority to their way of defining or “framing” reality (or truth) and have found that this feat has been accomplished through the conservatives’ ability to stir people at a subconscious and emotional level and activate “deep frames” of reference (or, from a Jungian perspective, major archetypes) that are so significant to the security of the target audience’s basic identity, that many would find it hard to resist.
He makes the point that many progressive thinking people (like our group) have been left stuttering and sputtering in response to hearing judgments and decisions being made based on a frame of reasoning that is so removed from our own system of values and beliefs as to offend or to outright defy our commonly held sense of decency. “Moral indignation” is the name given this feeling reaction in the field of social psychology. It often catches a person so off-guard that s/he is speechless in the face of it and finds herself with no ability to gather her wits and make a sensible response. Sound familiar?
Because we haven’t examined and learned to verbalize our own cognitive frames and the deep emotionally charged beliefs and experiences supporting them, we are at a loss for words when it comes to defending our most heart-felt truths. In order to better express ourselves, our own feelings and beliefs, it is necessary first to examine them at depth and get clear on just what they are—then it is important to learn how best to express them in a way we can be “heard” by others who may be coming from a different point of view--a different "deep frame" of reference. This way of processing emotionally informed material and learning to express it in a constructive manner is a significant component of emotional intelligence. I'm going to call this process of political personal growth work—“finding your own voice”!
More on that later!
Other books by Lakoff are "Moral Politics", "Metaphor, Morality, and Politics", "Don't Think Like an Elephant", and more.
_____________________________________________
Last night I attended what was, essentially, the first meeting of a group of people in the greater Houston area who are progressive in their thinking and feeling a lot of passion about how our country is (or is not) operating at this time. The group was first called together in response to a moveon.org gathering of people for viewing the Live Earth concert and listening to current democratic candidates respond to questions about how they would manage the problem of pollution and the resultant crisis of global warming.
Some of us at that “party” agreed we’d like to get together again just to have the comfort and support of like-minded people—to have the opportunity to converse about our views and share our feelings about living and working in a community where conservative thought dominates. Many of us confessed we have felt like it was necessary to hide our progressive thinking and suppress our true feelings in fear of social ostracization or worse! Being black-balled, losing our reputations, business connections—our jobs. Isn’t that what our Constitution’s supposed to protect us from? Geez!
Our host for the meeting suggested we read George Lakoff’s book, "Thinking Points" in preparation for the meeting. Lakoff is part of a progressive think tank called the Rockridge Institute. Rockridge (and Lakoff) have analyzed the success of the conservative or neo-con constituency to engage with the populace and influence the majority to their way of defining or “framing” reality (or truth) and have found that this feat has been accomplished through the conservatives’ ability to stir people at a subconscious and emotional level and activate “deep frames” of reference (or, from a Jungian perspective, major archetypes) that are so significant to the security of the target audience’s basic identity, that many would find it hard to resist.
He makes the point that many progressive thinking people (like our group) have been left stuttering and sputtering in response to hearing judgments and decisions being made based on a frame of reasoning that is so removed from our own system of values and beliefs as to offend or to outright defy our commonly held sense of decency. “Moral indignation” is the name given this feeling reaction in the field of social psychology. It often catches a person so off-guard that s/he is speechless in the face of it and finds herself with no ability to gather her wits and make a sensible response. Sound familiar?
Because we haven’t examined and learned to verbalize our own cognitive frames and the deep emotionally charged beliefs and experiences supporting them, we are at a loss for words when it comes to defending our most heart-felt truths. In order to better express ourselves, our own feelings and beliefs, it is necessary first to examine them at depth and get clear on just what they are—then it is important to learn how best to express them in a way we can be “heard” by others who may be coming from a different point of view--a different "deep frame" of reference. This way of processing emotionally informed material and learning to express it in a constructive manner is a significant component of emotional intelligence. I'm going to call this process of political personal growth work—“finding your own voice”!
More on that later!
Other books by Lakoff are "Moral Politics", "Metaphor, Morality, and Politics", "Don't Think Like an Elephant", and more.
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Hairspray and My Name in Lights
Not much to say today to the World of Blog. I played with googling keywords that brought up my blog--hehe, it was like seeing my name in lights! I always did think it would be fun to be on Broadway, and actually did musicals in community theater for a time. And speaking of musicals, I saw Hairspray tonight--crazy to see such electricity between Travolta and Christopher Walken in their dance routine! Whew! It appeared several times when they were boldly (audaciously) flirting with each other, almost daring one another in their "come-ons", that one or both might really break out laughing in total and unabashed amusement at the other. Also crazy to see that guy who's danced his way from Saturday Night Fever through Pulp Fiction in all kinds of wild and sexy ways being so motherly and knees together demure! Very upbeat and uplifting for a movie about such painful realities of the past--a past that still has its threads winding through the fabric of today.
Friday, August 3, 2007
Emotional Self Awareness and Mastery
Well, Moonwalkers,
In the last few days, we have been moving through the disseminating phase of the moon. At this time, we are re-orienting from exposure to the potency of the full moon's radiance and beginning to make meaning of what came through that portal. The illumination taken in has been too much for us to assimilate and integrate all at once. We have been pulsed with power so much greater than our body minds can withstand and still remain the same. We must have a mechanism that catches that radiance before entering into our fields, a holding pool of sorts, and a system in place for gearing that high level information down to a level that it can be received without harm--without overload to the system of self.
And so this period between the full moon portal of enlightenment and the last quarter moon activity of harvesting and putting to use its benefits, is the phase where we are beginning to realize just what kind of unique fish we have pulled up from this sea of consciousness. And sometimes, Moonwalkers, it can be a bizarre and scary fish. I will never forget the first time I pulled up from the mouth of the Pascagoula River just where it was spilling into the Mississippi Sound, a long and wriggly eel whose most prominent feature was a mouth full of sharp, pointy teeth!
Yes, sometimes the lessons we are exposed to in the process of our personal growth are ugly and threatening to the safety and familiarity of the self image we had going into the experience. New self awareness can be emboldening--empowering, yes, it’s true, but only once we've been able to assimilate it into our personal economy and integrate its function in a way that brings us a new and valuable advantage. Additional knowledge about our relationship with the world around us brings us an advantage—right?
You might remember that my walk was for potency, passion, respect—resulting in an increase of joy in my life. Well, encountering the potency of such a grander light than my being has ever known fills me with a surge of intensity that must be reckoned with and channeled, does it not, Moonwalkers? All that fullness of experience with which I am having a great love affair can make me a little obsessive. Maybe I become a little unbearable in my personal expansiveness and others have to put me in my place! That is, until I get it under management. So this is where we are in the cycle of this month’s moon.
I had an image today of my Self as a golden retriever puppy full of friendly, energetic curiosity just spilling over beyond my ability to contain myself in my need and desire to fearlessly seek attention from all the passersby on the trail—straining at the leash of my master, and possibly peeing on myself with excitement as I receive an acknowledging pet here or a rebuke there. While another part of my Self, the “master” on the other end of that leash was trying to restrain puppy-self from offending my human peers on our walk with her puppy eagerness to love and connect and “know”.
And yet, at the same time as the master self restrains her frisky and naïve charge to prevent her from annoying others and calling rebuke and rejection down upon the whole self—that master self would be incensed if anyone met on the trail were truly, unconscionably rude, crude, or downright “mean” to her innocent’s unfamiliarity with appropriate boundaries. I’ve definitely seen this scenario played out while walking with my daughter and her goldens (who continue to act like puppies, only with a full year of growth and weight on them) in their neighborhood park in Denver.
Though she works tirelessly to hold them to the boundaries of the trail by the lake and discipline them to their leashes, if someone along the way fails to think they are just precious in their attention seeking behavior and should dare to chastise or ignore them, then she is incensed, and might even have something to say to the “offender”. So it is not hard to understand and accept that master part of me in those same circumstances will be hurt, seriously offended—fiercely protective as a mama lion, when my puppy self who is only seeking new knowledge and experience is slapped on the nose with a paper for putting that nose where perhaps it is not wanted.
And this is enlightenment, you ask? Seems elementary, you might say. Sometimes the simplest lessons are the hardest. Maybe where we have resisted looking closely at our feelings and behavior patterns, we miss these most obvious things. The question is – what do we do with these realizations? How do we learn to soothe our master-puppy combination in such a way as we can control the impulse of the mother-master to maim the s-o-b on the trail that didn’t love her puppy-child and at the same time teach the puppy to have the boundaries and etiquette required by the social environment in which she must learn to navigate?
Do you find, Moonwalkers, that sometimes just knowing and understanding why you are feeling a certain way can be the beginning of self soothing—and of restoring the balance that has been disturbed within you? Taking corrective action to prevent having to confront this same scenario again is also restorative of the order within. Being compassionate with both your puppy and your master self is a way of respecting and honoring yourself, unconditionally, and opening you to a greater experience of joy. You see how we’re touching on those qualities I chose to receive as gifts of my experience in this portion of my life-walk, Moonwalkers?
Yes, potency, passion, respect—all qualities that lead to a greater experience of joy in life. And I am disseminating to you now the meaning I have made from my encounter with that “greater consciousness” to which I willingly opened myself in the adventure of my solitary walk. This dissemination of meaningful information that can bring benefit to others is the final task of the disseminating moon phase. Now, onward to reaping those benefits and putting them to good use!
In the last few days, we have been moving through the disseminating phase of the moon. At this time, we are re-orienting from exposure to the potency of the full moon's radiance and beginning to make meaning of what came through that portal. The illumination taken in has been too much for us to assimilate and integrate all at once. We have been pulsed with power so much greater than our body minds can withstand and still remain the same. We must have a mechanism that catches that radiance before entering into our fields, a holding pool of sorts, and a system in place for gearing that high level information down to a level that it can be received without harm--without overload to the system of self.
And so this period between the full moon portal of enlightenment and the last quarter moon activity of harvesting and putting to use its benefits, is the phase where we are beginning to realize just what kind of unique fish we have pulled up from this sea of consciousness. And sometimes, Moonwalkers, it can be a bizarre and scary fish. I will never forget the first time I pulled up from the mouth of the Pascagoula River just where it was spilling into the Mississippi Sound, a long and wriggly eel whose most prominent feature was a mouth full of sharp, pointy teeth!
Yes, sometimes the lessons we are exposed to in the process of our personal growth are ugly and threatening to the safety and familiarity of the self image we had going into the experience. New self awareness can be emboldening--empowering, yes, it’s true, but only once we've been able to assimilate it into our personal economy and integrate its function in a way that brings us a new and valuable advantage. Additional knowledge about our relationship with the world around us brings us an advantage—right?
You might remember that my walk was for potency, passion, respect—resulting in an increase of joy in my life. Well, encountering the potency of such a grander light than my being has ever known fills me with a surge of intensity that must be reckoned with and channeled, does it not, Moonwalkers? All that fullness of experience with which I am having a great love affair can make me a little obsessive. Maybe I become a little unbearable in my personal expansiveness and others have to put me in my place! That is, until I get it under management. So this is where we are in the cycle of this month’s moon.
I had an image today of my Self as a golden retriever puppy full of friendly, energetic curiosity just spilling over beyond my ability to contain myself in my need and desire to fearlessly seek attention from all the passersby on the trail—straining at the leash of my master, and possibly peeing on myself with excitement as I receive an acknowledging pet here or a rebuke there. While another part of my Self, the “master” on the other end of that leash was trying to restrain puppy-self from offending my human peers on our walk with her puppy eagerness to love and connect and “know”.
And yet, at the same time as the master self restrains her frisky and naïve charge to prevent her from annoying others and calling rebuke and rejection down upon the whole self—that master self would be incensed if anyone met on the trail were truly, unconscionably rude, crude, or downright “mean” to her innocent’s unfamiliarity with appropriate boundaries. I’ve definitely seen this scenario played out while walking with my daughter and her goldens (who continue to act like puppies, only with a full year of growth and weight on them) in their neighborhood park in Denver.
Though she works tirelessly to hold them to the boundaries of the trail by the lake and discipline them to their leashes, if someone along the way fails to think they are just precious in their attention seeking behavior and should dare to chastise or ignore them, then she is incensed, and might even have something to say to the “offender”. So it is not hard to understand and accept that master part of me in those same circumstances will be hurt, seriously offended—fiercely protective as a mama lion, when my puppy self who is only seeking new knowledge and experience is slapped on the nose with a paper for putting that nose where perhaps it is not wanted.
And this is enlightenment, you ask? Seems elementary, you might say. Sometimes the simplest lessons are the hardest. Maybe where we have resisted looking closely at our feelings and behavior patterns, we miss these most obvious things. The question is – what do we do with these realizations? How do we learn to soothe our master-puppy combination in such a way as we can control the impulse of the mother-master to maim the s-o-b on the trail that didn’t love her puppy-child and at the same time teach the puppy to have the boundaries and etiquette required by the social environment in which she must learn to navigate?
Do you find, Moonwalkers, that sometimes just knowing and understanding why you are feeling a certain way can be the beginning of self soothing—and of restoring the balance that has been disturbed within you? Taking corrective action to prevent having to confront this same scenario again is also restorative of the order within. Being compassionate with both your puppy and your master self is a way of respecting and honoring yourself, unconditionally, and opening you to a greater experience of joy. You see how we’re touching on those qualities I chose to receive as gifts of my experience in this portion of my life-walk, Moonwalkers?
Yes, potency, passion, respect—all qualities that lead to a greater experience of joy in life. And I am disseminating to you now the meaning I have made from my encounter with that “greater consciousness” to which I willingly opened myself in the adventure of my solitary walk. This dissemination of meaningful information that can bring benefit to others is the final task of the disseminating moon phase. Now, onward to reaping those benefits and putting them to good use!
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Care and Repair--the Collapse of our Infrastructure
What a shock this morning to open up the New York Times and see an interstate span over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis had collapsed. And then to proceed to CNN’s Breaking News to see and hear the live reports. I begin to see all over again the World Trade Towers coming down, though obviously, this bridge span collapse has less impact on us as a nation and less loss of life associated.
After somewhat assimilating the human drama being enacted before my eyes this morning and observing my mind and body jump to scenes of unlikely to unreal occurrences in recent movies such as Live Free and Die Hard and X-Men, The Last Stand where landmark bridges such as the Golden Gate and major interstate freeway exchange spans were collapsing while amazing feats of survival were being accomplished, I returned to intuitive hits I’ve had in the recent past. These flashes of insight I've had more and more often have involved a realization that our “great society” goal of the sixties--that of building roads, bridges, and rockets into “new frontiers” for mankind may have been somewhat lofty.
And that the roads, bridges, rockets (and planes) that were built during the sixties—that time of great expansion (and perhaps overly grandiose confidence in our ability to master human physical limitations), were now suffering the stress and fatigue of forty years of use. I recognized that I and many others of my generation (baby-boomers) have labored under an illusion that these miracles of modern engineering and technology were here to stay, impenetrable—everlasting. Surely these were monumental enterprises which would be standing long after mine and my progeny’s need for them. Certainly they were better designed for long term use than historical buildings such as the famed cathedrals of Europe, et al, which must have been built with inferior and antiquated engineering and architectural design. Right?
At one point, as discussions of our nation’s deficient and deteriorating electrical grid brought to light the precariousness of our current system’s dependability, and I recognized the fragility of our economic structure just in terms of a major loss of computerized data (Y2K), I begin to digest the realization that our blatant inattention to the requirements of sustaining what was built in those early years of our “going where no [one] has gone before, had placed us on the brink of disaster. The seemingly unrelated horror of 9-11 sealed that awful knowledge in a heart-binding kind of cognitive restructuring, but the true heart-break was in the events following.
I’m talking about the immediate use of our shock and overwhelm to insert an egregious program that placed us on a steady course to war in Iraq. It has been downhill from there, people! We find our infrastructure collapsing all around us—roads, bridges, buildings, levees—and our leadership concentrating on its own agenda of avarice and greed for power. Empire building? Well, Nero fiddled while Rome and its empire burned, so they say. I am unfalteringly focused in concern for our well-being, my fellow Americans—my fellow members of the human race!
It is certainly time that we as individuals take on the personal responsibility of stepping up to the plate and seeing that the true needs of our society are acknowledged and given the care and attention they need. It is time that we each begin to be true adults and not latch-key children dependent on slightly older adolescent siblings for our care and feeding. Yes, sorry to say, it appears our leader-caretakers are no more capable or responsible than slightly older siblings left in charge—older adolescents with obvious issues of entitlement, whose attention to their own grandiose agendas far outweighs that given to our needs for sustenance. It is time that we grow up and face the deterioration and damage to our society’s infrastructure and use our own ingenuity for resolving these most pressing needs for care and repair.
After somewhat assimilating the human drama being enacted before my eyes this morning and observing my mind and body jump to scenes of unlikely to unreal occurrences in recent movies such as Live Free and Die Hard and X-Men, The Last Stand where landmark bridges such as the Golden Gate and major interstate freeway exchange spans were collapsing while amazing feats of survival were being accomplished, I returned to intuitive hits I’ve had in the recent past. These flashes of insight I've had more and more often have involved a realization that our “great society” goal of the sixties--that of building roads, bridges, and rockets into “new frontiers” for mankind may have been somewhat lofty.
And that the roads, bridges, rockets (and planes) that were built during the sixties—that time of great expansion (and perhaps overly grandiose confidence in our ability to master human physical limitations), were now suffering the stress and fatigue of forty years of use. I recognized that I and many others of my generation (baby-boomers) have labored under an illusion that these miracles of modern engineering and technology were here to stay, impenetrable—everlasting. Surely these were monumental enterprises which would be standing long after mine and my progeny’s need for them. Certainly they were better designed for long term use than historical buildings such as the famed cathedrals of Europe, et al, which must have been built with inferior and antiquated engineering and architectural design. Right?
At one point, as discussions of our nation’s deficient and deteriorating electrical grid brought to light the precariousness of our current system’s dependability, and I recognized the fragility of our economic structure just in terms of a major loss of computerized data (Y2K), I begin to digest the realization that our blatant inattention to the requirements of sustaining what was built in those early years of our “going where no [one] has gone before, had placed us on the brink of disaster. The seemingly unrelated horror of 9-11 sealed that awful knowledge in a heart-binding kind of cognitive restructuring, but the true heart-break was in the events following.
I’m talking about the immediate use of our shock and overwhelm to insert an egregious program that placed us on a steady course to war in Iraq. It has been downhill from there, people! We find our infrastructure collapsing all around us—roads, bridges, buildings, levees—and our leadership concentrating on its own agenda of avarice and greed for power. Empire building? Well, Nero fiddled while Rome and its empire burned, so they say. I am unfalteringly focused in concern for our well-being, my fellow Americans—my fellow members of the human race!
It is certainly time that we as individuals take on the personal responsibility of stepping up to the plate and seeing that the true needs of our society are acknowledged and given the care and attention they need. It is time that we each begin to be true adults and not latch-key children dependent on slightly older adolescent siblings for our care and feeding. Yes, sorry to say, it appears our leader-caretakers are no more capable or responsible than slightly older siblings left in charge—older adolescents with obvious issues of entitlement, whose attention to their own grandiose agendas far outweighs that given to our needs for sustenance. It is time that we grow up and face the deterioration and damage to our society’s infrastructure and use our own ingenuity for resolving these most pressing needs for care and repair.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Blog Housekeeping--Topic Areas
Well I’m beginning to settle in and make myself at home here—I’ve learned to navigate around pretty well and to make the tools work for me. I’ve definitely seen more artistic looking sites, but I’ll get around to blog décor as time goes on. I have been focused, in these beginning days, on getting some of my writing out there (or in here) and on developing a daily writing practice.
I’m some days torn between keeping up a conversation with the various people I’ve met so far--and pursuing my own writing ideas. I’ll probably do a little of both, so if you come here hungry for interaction, not necessarily with me, but with others who may be commenting, and you see one of my prose pieces on top, I invite you to scroll down. You may find just one or two entries down, a piece that is more light weight or to your interest.
There are many subjects I’d like to introduce here and elaborate upon, perhaps drawing others into thinking and talking about, but I don’t want to have such a diverse spread of topics that it begins to seem chaotic. Apparently it works well in building a group of readers when you have a theme that can be counted upon. People do like the comfortable feeling of familiarity and predictability. Right?
So maybe if I just list the various subjects or areas I’d like to develop here, then you who come could depend on finding at least one of those topics to be the subject or the material of that day’s post. Does that sound like a deal?
____________________________________________________________________________________
OK, so the topic areas will be current events with links of interest (which may just be those in my life, or it may be my take on something going on “out there”); the emotional and sexual side of relationships (attitudes about Love, Sex, and Money); how to manifest your desires using the moon phases for your guide (which will incorporate some of the current astrological aspects, giving you a head’s up about the climate surrounding the success of your project); my own personal life exploration, hopefully written in a way that might be helpful to you for your own personal evolution; then, not to neglect my enjoyment of poetic release, an area of poetry or poetic prose.
____________________________________________________________________________________
How’s that for a little organization?
I’m some days torn between keeping up a conversation with the various people I’ve met so far--and pursuing my own writing ideas. I’ll probably do a little of both, so if you come here hungry for interaction, not necessarily with me, but with others who may be commenting, and you see one of my prose pieces on top, I invite you to scroll down. You may find just one or two entries down, a piece that is more light weight or to your interest.
There are many subjects I’d like to introduce here and elaborate upon, perhaps drawing others into thinking and talking about, but I don’t want to have such a diverse spread of topics that it begins to seem chaotic. Apparently it works well in building a group of readers when you have a theme that can be counted upon. People do like the comfortable feeling of familiarity and predictability. Right?
So maybe if I just list the various subjects or areas I’d like to develop here, then you who come could depend on finding at least one of those topics to be the subject or the material of that day’s post. Does that sound like a deal?
____________________________________________________________________________________
OK, so the topic areas will be current events with links of interest (which may just be those in my life, or it may be my take on something going on “out there”); the emotional and sexual side of relationships (attitudes about Love, Sex, and Money); how to manifest your desires using the moon phases for your guide (which will incorporate some of the current astrological aspects, giving you a head’s up about the climate surrounding the success of your project); my own personal life exploration, hopefully written in a way that might be helpful to you for your own personal evolution; then, not to neglect my enjoyment of poetic release, an area of poetry or poetic prose.
____________________________________________________________________________________
How’s that for a little organization?
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
miscellaneous things and movies
Not much to say today, blogmates. I've spent a lot of time (my extra time, that is) visiting blogsites, getting registered here and there. Got some great info at Dave's site in a comment from a guy in London (go figure!)--David at cheesycom. Check it out--you can go to this site and find the way to get through the automated phone system of many companies you may be dealing with (and having to jump through all the hoops for, to finally get to a "real person"!)
I'm going to see "Evening" with my daughter tonite who lives "inside the loop" in Houston. I know, I've waited so long to see it now that there will be nothing new for me to say about it, except how it was for me and her to see it together. We don't get to do stuff together too often, so it's always a special treat when we can make connections. I'm guessing this will be a good flick for mother-daughter viewing. I'll let you know...
I'm going to see "Evening" with my daughter tonite who lives "inside the loop" in Houston. I know, I've waited so long to see it now that there will be nothing new for me to say about it, except how it was for me and her to see it together. We don't get to do stuff together too often, so it's always a special treat when we can make connections. I'm guessing this will be a good flick for mother-daughter viewing. I'll let you know...
Monday, July 30, 2007
Passions out of Sync? - Venus and the Full Moon
How about that full moon last night, bloggers? Grand and pulsingly radiant was that golden orb on the horizon as it rose in a cracking clear sky (at last) here in Houston. Quite potent in the reflection of that Leo Sun, I’d say. So much so that I was somewhat intoxicated on my lone walk last night through the dark tree shadows along my thick woodsy trail. There was no fellow walker’s conversation or foot-falls to distract me or diminish the power of its attraction on me in any way.
I walked last night for my increase in potency, passion, pleasure, and respect—for joy, as I committed to you that I would at the time of the new moon. Actually I affirmed that on the crescent moon with all of you who focused in meditation during the Fire the Grid endeavor to fill the global consciousness grids with the flame of joyful purpose. And so I am not surprised at the quality of this Aquarian moon’s energetic presence—it was almost difficult to look upon without feeling quite overwhelmed.
As I told you in my “Summertime” post where I revealed the off-beat passions present both in my back yard and in the national news, I haven’t been sure whether to attribute these quirky mating rituals to climate change or Venus going retrograde the day before in Virgo, a few degrees from the cusp of Leo. And that remains unclear to me at this juncture. I must consider that Saturn and Neptune, at the same time, continue their oppositional dance flanked aggressively by Mars, demonstrating some of his own brand of sensuality.
But, certainly, Mercury trine quirky Uranus, having picked up some momentum in slogging through Cancer’s emotional seas is adding to the overall psychic atmosphere of these phenomena. In addition, I have to say, the bride thing just seems so Virgo to me! (Actually, Virgo does represent the Bride, Bridget/Brigid, before she surrenders her sovereignty into the marriage bond in Libra.) *sigh*
Nevertheless, the retrograde period of Venus from now until September the 8th should bring us some time for clear reflection upon our passions of the past, though I don’t expect they will all be recollections of quirky, out-of-time, sad, or aggressive relationships. Do, however, recognize, my friends, that they are reflections of relationships you are no longer “in”! It’s a good time to both honor those relationships, foul or fair, and recall what their consequences have been for you. You may now commit to live with those results, using them to plan for a more pleasurable and potent relationship future.
This recognition will become clearer as Venus retrogrades back into Leo and forms a conjunction with Saturn (August 13th). It may also be a good time for you to reflect upon how your relationship with your opposite sex parent (or both parents) has affected your sense of personal attractiveness in terms of your potential for pleasure with intimate partners. I know a well-loved daughter, the apple of her father’s eye and the chest busting out pride of her mother who exudes self-confidence in her beauty and worth, and attracts men like flies. So, you see what I mean, bloggers?
As we go into the waning phase of this moon cycle, let us make meaning of what we have received in the experience of this full moon, enjoy and revel in its gift, and disseminate its joy to all our relations! In short time we will be gathering up the harvest (last quarter moon, August 5th at 4:19 pm CDT), storing what needs storing, and setting aside in good faith what will be used in the next cycle of manifestation.
I walked last night for my increase in potency, passion, pleasure, and respect—for joy, as I committed to you that I would at the time of the new moon. Actually I affirmed that on the crescent moon with all of you who focused in meditation during the Fire the Grid endeavor to fill the global consciousness grids with the flame of joyful purpose. And so I am not surprised at the quality of this Aquarian moon’s energetic presence—it was almost difficult to look upon without feeling quite overwhelmed.
As I told you in my “Summertime” post where I revealed the off-beat passions present both in my back yard and in the national news, I haven’t been sure whether to attribute these quirky mating rituals to climate change or Venus going retrograde the day before in Virgo, a few degrees from the cusp of Leo. And that remains unclear to me at this juncture. I must consider that Saturn and Neptune, at the same time, continue their oppositional dance flanked aggressively by Mars, demonstrating some of his own brand of sensuality.
But, certainly, Mercury trine quirky Uranus, having picked up some momentum in slogging through Cancer’s emotional seas is adding to the overall psychic atmosphere of these phenomena. In addition, I have to say, the bride thing just seems so Virgo to me! (Actually, Virgo does represent the Bride, Bridget/Brigid, before she surrenders her sovereignty into the marriage bond in Libra.) *sigh*
Nevertheless, the retrograde period of Venus from now until September the 8th should bring us some time for clear reflection upon our passions of the past, though I don’t expect they will all be recollections of quirky, out-of-time, sad, or aggressive relationships. Do, however, recognize, my friends, that they are reflections of relationships you are no longer “in”! It’s a good time to both honor those relationships, foul or fair, and recall what their consequences have been for you. You may now commit to live with those results, using them to plan for a more pleasurable and potent relationship future.
This recognition will become clearer as Venus retrogrades back into Leo and forms a conjunction with Saturn (August 13th). It may also be a good time for you to reflect upon how your relationship with your opposite sex parent (or both parents) has affected your sense of personal attractiveness in terms of your potential for pleasure with intimate partners. I know a well-loved daughter, the apple of her father’s eye and the chest busting out pride of her mother who exudes self-confidence in her beauty and worth, and attracts men like flies. So, you see what I mean, bloggers?
As we go into the waning phase of this moon cycle, let us make meaning of what we have received in the experience of this full moon, enjoy and revel in its gift, and disseminate its joy to all our relations! In short time we will be gathering up the harvest (last quarter moon, August 5th at 4:19 pm CDT), storing what needs storing, and setting aside in good faith what will be used in the next cycle of manifestation.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Boulder
It is dark now looking out my window, and still my keyboard warms my thighs. I close my eyes and breathe myself into the ripples that float me back to Boulder where I began my day watching the light play on the folding currents of the creek—some winding round and some sliding over rocks that break them into voice and song. The air is dry and cool here though the summer sun at peak presses on me persistently, ignoring any pale resistance raised by the atmosphere of thin blue sky. It heats my insides—burns my indoor skin.
I pull my plastic bottle from its pouch and gratefully suck down into my dry throat the water still cool from the air-conditioned car I left parked in a shaded space on the visitors’ lot. I climb back up to the trail, slipping once on the rocky slope, and as I step onto the rough edged concrete, I feel the sun’s reflected heat jump up at me—and yet the air I draw into my cramping chest is cool. Am I a visitor here, I wonder as I look over to my car in the lot, or could this place of such paradoxical ambience be my home?
Several yards away from the rushing tumble of the water, the voice of the creek changes its quality and tone. Further up the hill and across the road in the shady yard of a yoga center, the creek’s presence below is a well kept secret—here, its voice imitates the sounds of freeway traffic during rush hour. But on the trail, where I am walking now, it lilts and tosses the currents of sound softly across the drums of my ears in pleasant percussion.
I look for another break in the trees where a navigable bank might offer an additional view, one from an angle that looks down the tangled ribbon flow for a distance, revealing secret shiny satin billows everywhere the shimmering light breaks through. I never bring a camera, always relying upon the pictures my eyes press precisely into memory. I seal them safely into sensory pockets laced with glistening light, crispy smells of earth, water, and cool sun-burned air. I store the stance of my body which is feeling the pull of the slope towards the cool wet air rising off the shady shallows. I capture a wave of sound and bottle it to carry with me for my soothing in another life far away from here.
Back up on the trail, I walk a while, musing about my situation. I had made this trip with such enthusiasm and anticipation of what potential for a new life I might have here in this part of the country that had always invoked in me such awe and inspiration. A part of me seemed to have always felt at home here, as if these majestic mountains conceived me and birthed me through a spring source in their headlands, freeing me to explore the lands below, walk among those of my kind.
But a cloak of heavy darkness had been weighing on me ever since the blow that had shaken my senses loose and taken my breath away on my third day in Denver. I sigh deeply seeking to recover my lungs’ capacity for capturing air and drawing its life support into my blood and body. I tune into my body’s center and reassure myself of its connection to the larger economy of life surrounding me, pulling, as best I can, my remaining scattered senses into the sustaining medium of that holy essence.
By now, I’ve made the circle back around to the creek again and I begin to formulate a deal with the damaged part of me fearing the 1100 mile move. Actually this part of me was bordering on, or already pushed over the edge, into full-fledged panic. I was in the early stages of shock and denial—frozen in my fear and pain so that my sensory acuity was dull, my awareness, dim. All the wealth of nature’s beauty surrounding me was massively dumbed down, experienced as if I were encased in the padded armor of a deep-sea diver— sealed tightly away from the pressures of a life-threatening condition.
I tell myself that I will sit in the magnificent presence of the living waters before me and move into the stillness of deep meditation, asking my most loving source of wisdom for a sign that will give me resolution. I tentatively agree with this more faithful part of myself and settle into a pose of inquiry on a flat rock that appears to promise temporary accommodation.
I breathe deeply into my center and surrender into the great presence of all I am in that passionate essence and release into it all my fears and doubts. I release my pain as I am able to know it in this moment and ask for the great one who loves me most and wants all the best for me to give me a sign if I should choose to make a major move at this time of my life—if I will be safe and secure here, blessed with the joy and pleasure I seek.
I take another deep breath, knowing my prayer has been delivered as I have felt the energy of it leave through my hands and move into the medium of which I am a holy part. I hold a knowing in my gut that an answer will be forthcoming. When I open my eyes, they come into focus in the center of the stream on the hovering of a hummingbird—I see nothing else but its crystal clear form and color—all else fades into shades of gray.
I am not surprised that I am not surprised, and yet I am astonished at the magic of this manifestation. Can it be real, I ask? How unexpected, how defiant of practical experience is this reality I am clearly witnessing, my senses fully intact. How such a tiny and fragile creature could even reach midstream over what must be torrential currents of air thrown from the tossing, breaking waters, stuns my sensibilities, and yet his little body hangs, seemingly suspended—the natural ability of his wings hold him steady far away from any safety of landing for rest or respite.
Only my inner spirit knows that hummingbird is my secret symbol for “yes”. He is, for my inner child, the ultimate symbol for joy and passion, for love and harmony, and yet he is being displayed for me in the outer expression of the natural landscape, in the reality of my physical experience. How much more vivid, how much more affirming could a message be? And yet there remains a nagging pull in my stomach from the fearful one. I am ashamed of her doubting and quickly ask the universe for her forgiveness lest its gift be taken back from me.
It could be a trick, she whispers to me—you know how energies sometimes conspire in a strange place to trick you into choosing wrongly and leading you into great danger. It could just be the power of your wishful fantasies creating for you what you wanted to see so that you can be supported in making an irresponsible choice—so that you can run away from the difficult life you have created for yourself far away from here. After all, wasn’t the disruptive experience in Denver an attempt at demolition of the dream?
Then I wonder if this may be the voice or reason rather than the voice of fear. How ever am I going to KNOW? Is there some form of meta-knowing I may tap into? Should I believe my eyes and my sensory experience, or my inner voice of caution? Which has served me best in my past, I ask—then answer myself saying these days in which I’m living now are outside the range of my normal experience. Otherwise I wouldn’t be having such difficulty making a decision. I never have before.
I’ve gotten up by now from my sitting rock and am standing back up on the trail. Frustrated with myself now for letting the magic of this moment be disrupted by doubt, I am still unable to quell the queasiness in my stomach. I curse myself for this split state of being and, throwing up my hands, ask the sky what I may do to have peace in me! Clearly some force at work in me is trying to sabotage my peace and happiness. How could I tempt and torture myself so?
Was the shotgun-like blow to my gut in Denver another of my projections into real life—this one of self-criticism, ridicule, humiliation? How cruel could I be to myself to ferret out, find my most secret self-doubt, my most well-protected secret shame, and blast myself with it at the most unexpected moment? A moment of being completely open and trusting in just the place I would expect safety and support on this journey of discovery—a place for acclimatizing, like the base camp at Mt. Everest—the shelter of my oldest daughter’s home?
I pull my plastic bottle from its pouch and gratefully suck down into my dry throat the water still cool from the air-conditioned car I left parked in a shaded space on the visitors’ lot. I climb back up to the trail, slipping once on the rocky slope, and as I step onto the rough edged concrete, I feel the sun’s reflected heat jump up at me—and yet the air I draw into my cramping chest is cool. Am I a visitor here, I wonder as I look over to my car in the lot, or could this place of such paradoxical ambience be my home?
Several yards away from the rushing tumble of the water, the voice of the creek changes its quality and tone. Further up the hill and across the road in the shady yard of a yoga center, the creek’s presence below is a well kept secret—here, its voice imitates the sounds of freeway traffic during rush hour. But on the trail, where I am walking now, it lilts and tosses the currents of sound softly across the drums of my ears in pleasant percussion.
I look for another break in the trees where a navigable bank might offer an additional view, one from an angle that looks down the tangled ribbon flow for a distance, revealing secret shiny satin billows everywhere the shimmering light breaks through. I never bring a camera, always relying upon the pictures my eyes press precisely into memory. I seal them safely into sensory pockets laced with glistening light, crispy smells of earth, water, and cool sun-burned air. I store the stance of my body which is feeling the pull of the slope towards the cool wet air rising off the shady shallows. I capture a wave of sound and bottle it to carry with me for my soothing in another life far away from here.
Back up on the trail, I walk a while, musing about my situation. I had made this trip with such enthusiasm and anticipation of what potential for a new life I might have here in this part of the country that had always invoked in me such awe and inspiration. A part of me seemed to have always felt at home here, as if these majestic mountains conceived me and birthed me through a spring source in their headlands, freeing me to explore the lands below, walk among those of my kind.
But a cloak of heavy darkness had been weighing on me ever since the blow that had shaken my senses loose and taken my breath away on my third day in Denver. I sigh deeply seeking to recover my lungs’ capacity for capturing air and drawing its life support into my blood and body. I tune into my body’s center and reassure myself of its connection to the larger economy of life surrounding me, pulling, as best I can, my remaining scattered senses into the sustaining medium of that holy essence.
By now, I’ve made the circle back around to the creek again and I begin to formulate a deal with the damaged part of me fearing the 1100 mile move. Actually this part of me was bordering on, or already pushed over the edge, into full-fledged panic. I was in the early stages of shock and denial—frozen in my fear and pain so that my sensory acuity was dull, my awareness, dim. All the wealth of nature’s beauty surrounding me was massively dumbed down, experienced as if I were encased in the padded armor of a deep-sea diver— sealed tightly away from the pressures of a life-threatening condition.
I tell myself that I will sit in the magnificent presence of the living waters before me and move into the stillness of deep meditation, asking my most loving source of wisdom for a sign that will give me resolution. I tentatively agree with this more faithful part of myself and settle into a pose of inquiry on a flat rock that appears to promise temporary accommodation.
I breathe deeply into my center and surrender into the great presence of all I am in that passionate essence and release into it all my fears and doubts. I release my pain as I am able to know it in this moment and ask for the great one who loves me most and wants all the best for me to give me a sign if I should choose to make a major move at this time of my life—if I will be safe and secure here, blessed with the joy and pleasure I seek.
I take another deep breath, knowing my prayer has been delivered as I have felt the energy of it leave through my hands and move into the medium of which I am a holy part. I hold a knowing in my gut that an answer will be forthcoming. When I open my eyes, they come into focus in the center of the stream on the hovering of a hummingbird—I see nothing else but its crystal clear form and color—all else fades into shades of gray.
I am not surprised that I am not surprised, and yet I am astonished at the magic of this manifestation. Can it be real, I ask? How unexpected, how defiant of practical experience is this reality I am clearly witnessing, my senses fully intact. How such a tiny and fragile creature could even reach midstream over what must be torrential currents of air thrown from the tossing, breaking waters, stuns my sensibilities, and yet his little body hangs, seemingly suspended—the natural ability of his wings hold him steady far away from any safety of landing for rest or respite.
Only my inner spirit knows that hummingbird is my secret symbol for “yes”. He is, for my inner child, the ultimate symbol for joy and passion, for love and harmony, and yet he is being displayed for me in the outer expression of the natural landscape, in the reality of my physical experience. How much more vivid, how much more affirming could a message be? And yet there remains a nagging pull in my stomach from the fearful one. I am ashamed of her doubting and quickly ask the universe for her forgiveness lest its gift be taken back from me.
It could be a trick, she whispers to me—you know how energies sometimes conspire in a strange place to trick you into choosing wrongly and leading you into great danger. It could just be the power of your wishful fantasies creating for you what you wanted to see so that you can be supported in making an irresponsible choice—so that you can run away from the difficult life you have created for yourself far away from here. After all, wasn’t the disruptive experience in Denver an attempt at demolition of the dream?
Then I wonder if this may be the voice or reason rather than the voice of fear. How ever am I going to KNOW? Is there some form of meta-knowing I may tap into? Should I believe my eyes and my sensory experience, or my inner voice of caution? Which has served me best in my past, I ask—then answer myself saying these days in which I’m living now are outside the range of my normal experience. Otherwise I wouldn’t be having such difficulty making a decision. I never have before.
I’ve gotten up by now from my sitting rock and am standing back up on the trail. Frustrated with myself now for letting the magic of this moment be disrupted by doubt, I am still unable to quell the queasiness in my stomach. I curse myself for this split state of being and, throwing up my hands, ask the sky what I may do to have peace in me! Clearly some force at work in me is trying to sabotage my peace and happiness. How could I tempt and torture myself so?
Was the shotgun-like blow to my gut in Denver another of my projections into real life—this one of self-criticism, ridicule, humiliation? How cruel could I be to myself to ferret out, find my most secret self-doubt, my most well-protected secret shame, and blast myself with it at the most unexpected moment? A moment of being completely open and trusting in just the place I would expect safety and support on this journey of discovery—a place for acclimatizing, like the base camp at Mt. Everest—the shelter of my oldest daughter’s home?
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Summertime
“Summertime,
And the livin’ is easy,
Fish are jumpin’
And the cotton is high—
Your daddy’s rich,
And your mama’s good lookin’,
So hush, little baby,
Don’t you cry.”
Yes, bloggers, summer is high, and de-e-p [sotto voce gone bass and drawn out hypnotically] at this time in the seasonal cycle. Sitting out by my lily pond today at high noon, I couldn’t get a better take on that. Though it’s much cooler than usual at this time of year here in Houston because of the unusual amount of rain we’ve been having, the sun came out strong to bear down on my shade-friendly white shoulders (not that I’m a southern magnolia flowah, but I do have that indoor skin more familiar with the monitor light of my ‘puter), and pull my attention to all the high-life going on before me.
The first thing I noted is my only remaining gold goldfish (since the debacle some of you may remember), who is also the smallest, and clearly now, the only female, was being battered about by my two feisty and richly winged inky-black males. (Actually one of them has a gold mouth and will probably become all gold during his lifetime, as I have seen others do, born inky and invisible in the darker waters.) Anyway, earlier in the day on my tour of the pond, I had seen her, the gold one, lying close to the surface in the shallow watery embrace of a lily pad—quiet, still, and seemingly close to death.
At that time, I left her to her fate, but later, seeing commotion on the pond’s surface from my living room window, I went back outside, and that’s when I became apprised of the chasing and battering. She first would be batted sideways, exposing shiny scales and one eye to the sky, then, as she looped wildly in a dive, would be hit again one way, then another by the two larger males flanking her. The attempted escapes would take her skittering clear across the pond’s surface like a skipping rock, where she would suddenly arrive as if she’d slipped through a worm-hole, but her pursuers would be right upon her before I could catch my breath.
Now, as I sat lazily in the sun, pond-side, I realized (because I’d earlier examined her for any damage) that they were doing their very aggressive mating dance, even though spring’s long gone, and the cooler days of fall have not yet arrived. Then, in grand redundance, I noticed two enormous iridescent blue-bodied dragonflies stuck together as they are when mating, one’s tail inserted at the back of the other’s head, while the latter dips her tail agilely into the water dotting the surface near the lily pads. I began to wonder if the life stream in my back yard had been fooled into re-gearing their bio-rhythms for responding as if the year were further along than it truly is.
Other mating anomalies I noticed this morning were in my morning news feed. A bride in Brooklyn decked in full wedding regalia was found sleeping on the ledge above the door of a Park Slope brownstone (first reported in the July 21st “Brooklyn Paper”. She was awakened and removed by police called to the scene by worried residents, but was speechless except for her “squeal” when officers tried to separate her from her teddy bear purse containing the Tiffany wedding ring. Maybe she had also misjudged the timing?
Whether to attribute these quirky mating rituals to climate change or Venus going retrograde yesterday in Virgo near the cusp of Leo (while Saturn and Neptune continue on the other side of their oppositional dance and are flanked by Mars showing his own sensual and aggressive mating behaviour), remains unclear to me at this juncture. But I won’t bore you bloggers with astrological details you don’t comprehend. I’ll save that for another post that goes to the astrologically acclimated.
Nevertheless, the retrograde period of Venus from now until September the 8th should bring us some time for clear reflection upon our passions of the past, though I don’t expect they will all be recollections of quirky, out-of-time, sad, or aggressive relationships. But do recognize, my friends, they are relationships you are no longer in! And I have to say, the bride-thing just seems so Virgo to me, anyway! (Actually, Virgo does represent the Bride, Bridget/Brigid , before she surrenders her sovereignty into the marriage bond in Libra.) *sigh*
A poem from several years ago seems to fit in here, so I'll insert it:
In the Garden
I am the girl who likes to play
The game of love how e’re I may
There are no rules in love and war
No limits there, no holds to bar
I claim my freedom and my youth
My Victory, my Self, my Truth
In the garden of my Father’s world
I am a carefree, nascent girl
The boy next door whose strong young arms
And body make me feel so warm
Stealthily stretches tight his bow
I watch his muscles roll and flow
And breathlessly I fall in bond
Though he may be of me but fond
While swimming in the waters deep
It’s hard for me my heart to keep
The sparkling bass flash, colors fly,
The sky reflected in my eyes
Has blinded me from deep blue cold
In piercing eyes that are so bold
Oh, Mars and Venus, you are still young
Your Soul’s sweet song has not been sung
In your Mother’s forest play
Grow up to Love another day
December 5, 2004
And the livin’ is easy,
Fish are jumpin’
And the cotton is high—
Your daddy’s rich,
And your mama’s good lookin’,
So hush, little baby,
Don’t you cry.”
Yes, bloggers, summer is high, and de-e-p [sotto voce gone bass and drawn out hypnotically] at this time in the seasonal cycle. Sitting out by my lily pond today at high noon, I couldn’t get a better take on that. Though it’s much cooler than usual at this time of year here in Houston because of the unusual amount of rain we’ve been having, the sun came out strong to bear down on my shade-friendly white shoulders (not that I’m a southern magnolia flowah, but I do have that indoor skin more familiar with the monitor light of my ‘puter), and pull my attention to all the high-life going on before me.
The first thing I noted is my only remaining gold goldfish (since the debacle some of you may remember), who is also the smallest, and clearly now, the only female, was being battered about by my two feisty and richly winged inky-black males. (Actually one of them has a gold mouth and will probably become all gold during his lifetime, as I have seen others do, born inky and invisible in the darker waters.) Anyway, earlier in the day on my tour of the pond, I had seen her, the gold one, lying close to the surface in the shallow watery embrace of a lily pad—quiet, still, and seemingly close to death.
At that time, I left her to her fate, but later, seeing commotion on the pond’s surface from my living room window, I went back outside, and that’s when I became apprised of the chasing and battering. She first would be batted sideways, exposing shiny scales and one eye to the sky, then, as she looped wildly in a dive, would be hit again one way, then another by the two larger males flanking her. The attempted escapes would take her skittering clear across the pond’s surface like a skipping rock, where she would suddenly arrive as if she’d slipped through a worm-hole, but her pursuers would be right upon her before I could catch my breath.
Now, as I sat lazily in the sun, pond-side, I realized (because I’d earlier examined her for any damage) that they were doing their very aggressive mating dance, even though spring’s long gone, and the cooler days of fall have not yet arrived. Then, in grand redundance, I noticed two enormous iridescent blue-bodied dragonflies stuck together as they are when mating, one’s tail inserted at the back of the other’s head, while the latter dips her tail agilely into the water dotting the surface near the lily pads. I began to wonder if the life stream in my back yard had been fooled into re-gearing their bio-rhythms for responding as if the year were further along than it truly is.
Other mating anomalies I noticed this morning were in my morning news feed. A bride in Brooklyn decked in full wedding regalia was found sleeping on the ledge above the door of a Park Slope brownstone (first reported in the July 21st “Brooklyn Paper”. She was awakened and removed by police called to the scene by worried residents, but was speechless except for her “squeal” when officers tried to separate her from her teddy bear purse containing the Tiffany wedding ring. Maybe she had also misjudged the timing?
Whether to attribute these quirky mating rituals to climate change or Venus going retrograde yesterday in Virgo near the cusp of Leo (while Saturn and Neptune continue on the other side of their oppositional dance and are flanked by Mars showing his own sensual and aggressive mating behaviour), remains unclear to me at this juncture. But I won’t bore you bloggers with astrological details you don’t comprehend. I’ll save that for another post that goes to the astrologically acclimated.
Nevertheless, the retrograde period of Venus from now until September the 8th should bring us some time for clear reflection upon our passions of the past, though I don’t expect they will all be recollections of quirky, out-of-time, sad, or aggressive relationships. But do recognize, my friends, they are relationships you are no longer in! And I have to say, the bride-thing just seems so Virgo to me, anyway! (Actually, Virgo does represent the Bride, Bridget/Brigid , before she surrenders her sovereignty into the marriage bond in Libra.) *sigh*
A poem from several years ago seems to fit in here, so I'll insert it:
In the Garden
I am the girl who likes to play
The game of love how e’re I may
There are no rules in love and war
No limits there, no holds to bar
I claim my freedom and my youth
My Victory, my Self, my Truth
In the garden of my Father’s world
I am a carefree, nascent girl
The boy next door whose strong young arms
And body make me feel so warm
Stealthily stretches tight his bow
I watch his muscles roll and flow
And breathlessly I fall in bond
Though he may be of me but fond
While swimming in the waters deep
It’s hard for me my heart to keep
The sparkling bass flash, colors fly,
The sky reflected in my eyes
Has blinded me from deep blue cold
In piercing eyes that are so bold
Oh, Mars and Venus, you are still young
Your Soul’s sweet song has not been sung
In your Mother’s forest play
Grow up to Love another day
December 5, 2004
Friday, July 27, 2007
Staying Alive
Some of you have asked about my references to Fire the Grid in my last post. "Staying Alive" gives you some of its history and a little more insight into me. I appreciate any honest and interested feedback--
No, this is not a recap of the John Travolta movie, though that was a lively fantasy, and wasn’t he hot back then? This is, instead, a stream of consciousness flowing from a source located in a writers’ blogspot. It begins with a blog from a girl floating down Boulder Creek in cool currents of gurgling waters rippling over me in Houston—while I sit, looking beyond my window, interconnected intimately with the shades and shimmers of the day passing before me in a moving stillness that is co-conscious with my own thoughts as they play through my fingers on the keyboard and then magically appear before me, manifesting in black on blank white pages.
And in that flow that ripples easily beyond time and space connecting us, there was talk of death—a death dry as choking on a cracker, a wet death mired in muggy mold, or drowning in the drench sweat—the death of a mate, the death of an old mother. And yet all those writers nationwide are choosing to stay alive. And it is my choice, also—staying alive. WHY, is the question flowing within this universal stream along my computer banks and spilling out onto my monitor. WHY—the word echoes off the banks of Boulder Creek from each weaving current that ribbons and curls its way through the sunlight playing with my mind’s eye. What beauty, what joy, what pleasure or passion—what pain is it that keeps us choosing to stay alive?
For one man, 89 and living in a senior center far removed from family and community, it was the passion of betting with a buddy what image would be on the next state quarter to be released. It was around 2003 when this was reported and his desire was to stay alive until the last quarter was released. He was from Wyoming and worried it would be Old Faithful chosen for representing the spirit of that state. He proclaimed a cowboy should be the symbol for a state wild as Wyoming and vowed to stay alive until 2007 to see his wish come true.
CNN reports that widows in India flock to Vrindavan to die as is customary in their rural Hindu communities, but they stay alive for years on the streets begging just for food enough to continue on. These widows are shunned from society when their husbands die, not for religious reasons, but because of tradition -- and because they've become a financial drain on their families. They can’t remarry; they must shave their heads and wear white, and remain alone. No-one speaks to them--even their shadows are considered bad luck. They stay alive hunched over in pain and sorrow, choosing, all 15,000 of them, to crouch in this city until death comes to take them from life, never to have to be born again into its suffering. Dying in Vrindavan is believed to release them forever from the wheel of karma.
Some in Vrindavan, through the caring of a benefactor, are now living in a home where each has a daily meal and a small room for a pallet where she can keep her minimal belongings (usually what can be tied up in a piece of cloth). These are struggling to make the transition from living in isolation to living in community after as many as 50 years living on the streets alone—and some don’t make the adjustment. Are they staying alive in Vindravan to be complete with the passion of their suffering?
My mother is a widow living alone, like me. She was once an active and athletic woman who was a part of many clubs and community projects. I remember her smiling eyes, in one moment dancing rhythmically in friendly conversation, and in another, becoming deadly focused in piercing blue upon her pupil who better know her words are Law, but in either case, the deliverance was punctuated by her hands moving musically to coordinate her body with her meaning.
She has always been a lover of music. She played the piano—taught lessons to the children of the neighborhood—sang in the church choir, brought the symphony to the small town schools, played records and danced with us when we were children. She loves to sing and dance as do we all in our family. She made our lives very active with her social engagement in the communities where we lived. My mother had the energy and motion of a flirtatious filly on the one hand, and the insistence and will, on the other, of a bull ram.
Today her arthritic hands still fly in smiling conversation when she can find someone who will listen, she can no longer play the piano (but Katrina’s theft of that treasured box so full of her essence was grievous to us all), her voice has gone so low and raspy with her years of cigarette smoking that she is no longer welcome in the choir. But though she is often thwarted with word loss in her memory, she can still deliver the law when the spirit of it is called up in her. Maybe that is why she stays alive.
When left behind in the loneliness and isolation that follow the storms and suffering of life, what is it that makes us choose to continue staying alive? I think whatever that particular passion or purpose is, it is a very individual thing—and may not even be conscious, though a much more meaningful experience of life would most likely come from knowing it. But if we were to truly pursue awareness, we might awake a mighty beast within us. It is perhaps a fearing part of us who keeps it hidden.
Sometimes in my loneliness and seeming widowhood, I see myself becoming my mother, all bent over with arthritic hands, poorly functioning bowels, and faulty memory—shunned from brighter company and ridiculed behind my back. I sit in my window looking out upon the world I only experience in my daydreams and half-written stories. I draw into me the essence of life from the bountiful store in the trees grown tall and thick in my yard and along the trails nearby—from the flowers, birds, bees, and butterflies busily buzzing alongside the dragonflies dipping into my lily pond while gold and ink-colored fish bring me my only entertainment.
And I realize—in my loneliness and isolation I have become rich in new life, with company I never knew before—at least not so intimately as now. I am filled with a new song that gladly uses me as an instrument for its playing and I am more alive than I’ve ever been. It is this purpose I see that has become the reason for my staying alive.
You may be aware, reader, that a young woman who had a near-death experience a few years ago has been inviting us (along with many others who have joined in her purpose) to “fire the grid” of human consciousness—for reviving the life force in humanity and in the living body of the earth. She’s asking that we prepare ourselves for an hour of meditation on July 17th by imaging just what it is we love about life on earth, what gives us the greatest joy and pleasure, what fills our hearts with love, what gets our juices going. In this realization and its strengthening in us through the practice of experiencing it, we build a repository for, or activate a core radiance of that beautiful and loving energy within us, and can, by intention, focus it just as we choose.
She and a growing force of others are asking us to join with them in this focus for manifesting a new life frequency of joy on earth at 11:11 GMT on July 17th. (That’s 6:11 am here in Houston, readers.) If you feel called like many others do, to “fire the grid” in this activation of passionate purpose, you must ask yourself that question—why do I choose each and every day to keep staying alive? It is both an easy and a difficult question to answer, is it not?
No, this is not a recap of the John Travolta movie, though that was a lively fantasy, and wasn’t he hot back then? This is, instead, a stream of consciousness flowing from a source located in a writers’ blogspot. It begins with a blog from a girl floating down Boulder Creek in cool currents of gurgling waters rippling over me in Houston—while I sit, looking beyond my window, interconnected intimately with the shades and shimmers of the day passing before me in a moving stillness that is co-conscious with my own thoughts as they play through my fingers on the keyboard and then magically appear before me, manifesting in black on blank white pages.
And in that flow that ripples easily beyond time and space connecting us, there was talk of death—a death dry as choking on a cracker, a wet death mired in muggy mold, or drowning in the drench sweat—the death of a mate, the death of an old mother. And yet all those writers nationwide are choosing to stay alive. And it is my choice, also—staying alive. WHY, is the question flowing within this universal stream along my computer banks and spilling out onto my monitor. WHY—the word echoes off the banks of Boulder Creek from each weaving current that ribbons and curls its way through the sunlight playing with my mind’s eye. What beauty, what joy, what pleasure or passion—what pain is it that keeps us choosing to stay alive?
For one man, 89 and living in a senior center far removed from family and community, it was the passion of betting with a buddy what image would be on the next state quarter to be released. It was around 2003 when this was reported and his desire was to stay alive until the last quarter was released. He was from Wyoming and worried it would be Old Faithful chosen for representing the spirit of that state. He proclaimed a cowboy should be the symbol for a state wild as Wyoming and vowed to stay alive until 2007 to see his wish come true.
CNN reports that widows in India flock to Vrindavan to die as is customary in their rural Hindu communities, but they stay alive for years on the streets begging just for food enough to continue on. These widows are shunned from society when their husbands die, not for religious reasons, but because of tradition -- and because they've become a financial drain on their families. They can’t remarry; they must shave their heads and wear white, and remain alone. No-one speaks to them--even their shadows are considered bad luck. They stay alive hunched over in pain and sorrow, choosing, all 15,000 of them, to crouch in this city until death comes to take them from life, never to have to be born again into its suffering. Dying in Vrindavan is believed to release them forever from the wheel of karma.
Some in Vrindavan, through the caring of a benefactor, are now living in a home where each has a daily meal and a small room for a pallet where she can keep her minimal belongings (usually what can be tied up in a piece of cloth). These are struggling to make the transition from living in isolation to living in community after as many as 50 years living on the streets alone—and some don’t make the adjustment. Are they staying alive in Vindravan to be complete with the passion of their suffering?
My mother is a widow living alone, like me. She was once an active and athletic woman who was a part of many clubs and community projects. I remember her smiling eyes, in one moment dancing rhythmically in friendly conversation, and in another, becoming deadly focused in piercing blue upon her pupil who better know her words are Law, but in either case, the deliverance was punctuated by her hands moving musically to coordinate her body with her meaning.
She has always been a lover of music. She played the piano—taught lessons to the children of the neighborhood—sang in the church choir, brought the symphony to the small town schools, played records and danced with us when we were children. She loves to sing and dance as do we all in our family. She made our lives very active with her social engagement in the communities where we lived. My mother had the energy and motion of a flirtatious filly on the one hand, and the insistence and will, on the other, of a bull ram.
Today her arthritic hands still fly in smiling conversation when she can find someone who will listen, she can no longer play the piano (but Katrina’s theft of that treasured box so full of her essence was grievous to us all), her voice has gone so low and raspy with her years of cigarette smoking that she is no longer welcome in the choir. But though she is often thwarted with word loss in her memory, she can still deliver the law when the spirit of it is called up in her. Maybe that is why she stays alive.
When left behind in the loneliness and isolation that follow the storms and suffering of life, what is it that makes us choose to continue staying alive? I think whatever that particular passion or purpose is, it is a very individual thing—and may not even be conscious, though a much more meaningful experience of life would most likely come from knowing it. But if we were to truly pursue awareness, we might awake a mighty beast within us. It is perhaps a fearing part of us who keeps it hidden.
Sometimes in my loneliness and seeming widowhood, I see myself becoming my mother, all bent over with arthritic hands, poorly functioning bowels, and faulty memory—shunned from brighter company and ridiculed behind my back. I sit in my window looking out upon the world I only experience in my daydreams and half-written stories. I draw into me the essence of life from the bountiful store in the trees grown tall and thick in my yard and along the trails nearby—from the flowers, birds, bees, and butterflies busily buzzing alongside the dragonflies dipping into my lily pond while gold and ink-colored fish bring me my only entertainment.
And I realize—in my loneliness and isolation I have become rich in new life, with company I never knew before—at least not so intimately as now. I am filled with a new song that gladly uses me as an instrument for its playing and I am more alive than I’ve ever been. It is this purpose I see that has become the reason for my staying alive.
You may be aware, reader, that a young woman who had a near-death experience a few years ago has been inviting us (along with many others who have joined in her purpose) to “fire the grid” of human consciousness—for reviving the life force in humanity and in the living body of the earth. She’s asking that we prepare ourselves for an hour of meditation on July 17th by imaging just what it is we love about life on earth, what gives us the greatest joy and pleasure, what fills our hearts with love, what gets our juices going. In this realization and its strengthening in us through the practice of experiencing it, we build a repository for, or activate a core radiance of that beautiful and loving energy within us, and can, by intention, focus it just as we choose.
She and a growing force of others are asking us to join with them in this focus for manifesting a new life frequency of joy on earth at 11:11 GMT on July 17th. (That’s 6:11 am here in Houston, readers.) If you feel called like many others do, to “fire the grid” in this activation of passionate purpose, you must ask yourself that question—why do I choose each and every day to keep staying alive? It is both an easy and a difficult question to answer, is it not?
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Firing the Grid
Morning Bloggers, this piece is from my “Manifesting with the Moon” series. I am referring in this writing to the recent surge in the stream of consciousness initiated by Shelley Yates and her Fire the Grid (firethegrid dot org; Shelley Yates at youtube) and to my following of the moon’s phases in doing my creative work:
MotherSource Speaks – The World of Blog
Waxing Gibbous Moon – July 26, 2007
Moonwalkers, how did you “fire the grid” after our last communication, the one just before the new moon? The morning of that world-wide meditation, July 17th coincided with the crescent moon – an excellent time to be beginning or “firing” up a new project or a new phase/commitment in your life. I can tell you I didn’t feel any fireworks, even though I actively participated in the process. I made an altar and flanked my meditation circle with standing candles -- I burned patchouli incense for instilling the atmosphere with passion and joy and played the peaceful music from the “fire the grid” website for insuring the frequency for firing.
But though I felt no greater energetic presence or vibration than usual (and maybe not as powerful as I’ve felt on other occasions), I had a strong sense that something very good was happening. Just the awareness that so many people from many different persuasions were participating was uplifting. The thing is, this “happening” was happening while I was in the midst of a ten day summer writers’ bootcamp where I was committed to writing a thousand words a day! Phew!
So I used the fire in my grids for that project, and it has already been fruitful, even though the moon is not yet full—so there is WHAT?? Yes, that’s right, Moonwalkers, MORE TO COME!! And already more has come. From my writing program, I have been guided towards setting up a blog on blogspot dot com, a Google managed blogging program. What FUN! In just the last few days, I have launched my new blog, and have been writing a post each day. I am identified there as “In her own Voice”.
I’d love to have you stop by—however, if you choose to leave a comment there for me, it will be necessary for you to take three minutes or so and open a google account. There’s no way to post your comment without applying your google ID. It’s actually quite a world to explore. Already I have found the most interesting and readable sites with subjects of all kinds—layers and layers in which to muse, amuse, peruse and just be delighted with the variety of human talent and experience!
Some of you know, I’ve had on the table for some time, setting up a website, and I actually had someone beginning that work for me, but that began to get bogged down with various and asundry obstacles. This blog site has been the perfect answer to my needs for now and it offers so many tools for learning and practicing all the skills needed for actually managing my own website someday. (Which is what I have really wanted rather than having a webmaster to manage for me.) That will come later when my creation has grown too large and unwieldy for me to handle.
So you see, Moonwalkers, even though I felt no special surge of energy while “firing the grid” in the dawn time of July 17th, I did soon after pick up on what I had put out there for myself. In other words, I seeded the future with the energetic charge, and then it was there for me when the alignments were most favorable! And so it can be for you!
By the way, the Noetic Sciences’ Global Consciousness Project measured the consciousness in the way they have designed and found that there was a significant difference in their readings during that hour designated to our group meditation. If you’d like to check out their data, let me know. I am going to try Caffeinated Librarian’s instructions for putting in a link here, but not sure yet if I will be able to pull that off!
Anyway, Moonwalkers, the moon here in Houston will be full on July 29 at 7:48 pm. I will be walking in more and more of this lovely passionate and creative energy! How about you?
MotherSource Speaks – The World of Blog
Waxing Gibbous Moon – July 26, 2007
Moonwalkers, how did you “fire the grid” after our last communication, the one just before the new moon? The morning of that world-wide meditation, July 17th coincided with the crescent moon – an excellent time to be beginning or “firing” up a new project or a new phase/commitment in your life. I can tell you I didn’t feel any fireworks, even though I actively participated in the process. I made an altar and flanked my meditation circle with standing candles -- I burned patchouli incense for instilling the atmosphere with passion and joy and played the peaceful music from the “fire the grid” website for insuring the frequency for firing.
But though I felt no greater energetic presence or vibration than usual (and maybe not as powerful as I’ve felt on other occasions), I had a strong sense that something very good was happening. Just the awareness that so many people from many different persuasions were participating was uplifting. The thing is, this “happening” was happening while I was in the midst of a ten day summer writers’ bootcamp where I was committed to writing a thousand words a day! Phew!
So I used the fire in my grids for that project, and it has already been fruitful, even though the moon is not yet full—so there is WHAT?? Yes, that’s right, Moonwalkers, MORE TO COME!! And already more has come. From my writing program, I have been guided towards setting up a blog on blogspot dot com, a Google managed blogging program. What FUN! In just the last few days, I have launched my new blog, and have been writing a post each day. I am identified there as “In her own Voice”.
I’d love to have you stop by—however, if you choose to leave a comment there for me, it will be necessary for you to take three minutes or so and open a google account. There’s no way to post your comment without applying your google ID. It’s actually quite a world to explore. Already I have found the most interesting and readable sites with subjects of all kinds—layers and layers in which to muse, amuse, peruse and just be delighted with the variety of human talent and experience!
Some of you know, I’ve had on the table for some time, setting up a website, and I actually had someone beginning that work for me, but that began to get bogged down with various and asundry obstacles. This blog site has been the perfect answer to my needs for now and it offers so many tools for learning and practicing all the skills needed for actually managing my own website someday. (Which is what I have really wanted rather than having a webmaster to manage for me.) That will come later when my creation has grown too large and unwieldy for me to handle.
So you see, Moonwalkers, even though I felt no special surge of energy while “firing the grid” in the dawn time of July 17th, I did soon after pick up on what I had put out there for myself. In other words, I seeded the future with the energetic charge, and then it was there for me when the alignments were most favorable! And so it can be for you!
By the way, the Noetic Sciences’ Global Consciousness Project measured the consciousness in the way they have designed and found that there was a significant difference in their readings during that hour designated to our group meditation. If you’d like to check out their data, let me know. I am going to try Caffeinated Librarian’s instructions for putting in a link here, but not sure yet if I will be able to pull that off!
Anyway, Moonwalkers, the moon here in Houston will be full on July 29 at 7:48 pm. I will be walking in more and more of this lovely passionate and creative energy! How about you?
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Getting Started
Good Morning Bloggers,
I’m back on the floor again sitting comfortably on my purple prop chair and drawing in my morning tea. Yes, I like Starbucks too, but earl grey is my staple for making mornings come alive. I’ve committed to writing at least a little each day, here – not the thousand words a day of summer writers’ bootcamp, and maybe not the three hundred Max suggested, but enough to keep my writing mind agile and my lap warm :-).
It’s really been fun and exciting to meet the bloggers who’ve dropped by since I opened the door yesterday. I’ve been doing a little tracking around myself and have been very pleased (and amazed) at what I’ve seen so far. Puzzled, too, I might add – some sites out there have appeared anomalous on first glance, but they, soon, may become more familiar to me. As you may have gathered from my first blog, I like traveling to places unknown and hostelling there until I have full grokking.
But then, I have to be honest – or at least, realistic – I will never come to the place of fully grokking nations such as N.E.R.D., one of the blogs on the board of note. *sigh* Isn’t that the distress, though, that figures on the other side of pleasure’s coin for those of us who are first scouts on an uncharted course, and then messengers delivering the goods back at the campfire? Always a little twinge of pain that comes from the withholding of what we cannot understand or verbalize when the time comes to report back—comprenez?
Well, I’ve given a preliminary (and really short) summary to my family and a few friends I think might venture into this territory to witness my effort here. (Who knows, they may also find they’re pulled to explore beyond my pages! – or even begin their own – great gawd!) I think I’m going to like this, so I’ll have to be sure and thank Max for recommending it. This is both a venue for self-expression and an opportunity for nesting on small eggs of creativity, at the same time as meeting, greeting, and warming to others having a similar experience. Much more fruitful than just journaling…
Have a good day, my new fellow travelers!
I’m back on the floor again sitting comfortably on my purple prop chair and drawing in my morning tea. Yes, I like Starbucks too, but earl grey is my staple for making mornings come alive. I’ve committed to writing at least a little each day, here – not the thousand words a day of summer writers’ bootcamp, and maybe not the three hundred Max suggested, but enough to keep my writing mind agile and my lap warm :-).
It’s really been fun and exciting to meet the bloggers who’ve dropped by since I opened the door yesterday. I’ve been doing a little tracking around myself and have been very pleased (and amazed) at what I’ve seen so far. Puzzled, too, I might add – some sites out there have appeared anomalous on first glance, but they, soon, may become more familiar to me. As you may have gathered from my first blog, I like traveling to places unknown and hostelling there until I have full grokking.
But then, I have to be honest – or at least, realistic – I will never come to the place of fully grokking nations such as N.E.R.D., one of the blogs on the board of note. *sigh* Isn’t that the distress, though, that figures on the other side of pleasure’s coin for those of us who are first scouts on an uncharted course, and then messengers delivering the goods back at the campfire? Always a little twinge of pain that comes from the withholding of what we cannot understand or verbalize when the time comes to report back—comprenez?
Well, I’ve given a preliminary (and really short) summary to my family and a few friends I think might venture into this territory to witness my effort here. (Who knows, they may also find they’re pulled to explore beyond my pages! – or even begin their own – great gawd!) I think I’m going to like this, so I’ll have to be sure and thank Max for recommending it. This is both a venue for self-expression and an opportunity for nesting on small eggs of creativity, at the same time as meeting, greeting, and warming to others having a similar experience. Much more fruitful than just journaling…
Have a good day, my new fellow travelers!
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Feeling Very Virgin
Oh Famous Moon, I am yours!
Look down upon me,
See only yourself.
--Rumi
Hello Bloggers,
I'm feeling very virgin today sitting down here to write my first blog ever! I'm really even new to reading here, having just spent yesterday afternoon exploring the site. Some very talented peeps here! I already feel I'm among good company, though after absorbing the atmosphere through the senses of some other bloggers, I can tell there will be surprising new scenes ahead.
I got here by way of a summer writers' bootcamp -- a thousand words a day! Phew! That was intense -- and a wonderful experience! What a commitment I made to myself -- and I accomplished it! A thousand words a day for ten days! Not bragging, just kind of elated over the whole thing. This was the site used for writer relief--the participants could "talk amongst themselves" here, and, believe me, towards the end I did some sweating and wringing of hands in our blog space. So you can see how, during my ten day intro to this site, I kept entirely to that small, contained, and "known" space--it was my comfort zone!
Had my conference with our "mentor" yesterday and he suggested opening up a blog here--you know, to keep the momentum going and to further explore and expand on some of the topics I introduced in my ten day writing spree (all first draft stuff, of course). So here I am, blogging away and not saying much of anything at all! Aaah, *sigh*, had to change positions--that chair was getting hard on my sit-bones. I'm on the floor now, sitting on my purple meditation prop chair with my 'puter warming my lap. *sigh* again.
Oh, about the Rumi poem... Well, actually a lot of references to that-- Should I have a countdown, or just cut to the chase? Well, today, I'm into cutting to the chase. I obviously have plenty of time and space to elaborate as we go forward. OK, even though Rumi was, here, as the mystical poet, describing that tantric union with the divine, my take ("in her own voice") for now is that the power of greater knowing and greater experience is mine for looking upon it, feeling into it, sensing it deeply. And so I relish in these lines that feeling of awe in claiming for myself the opening to self-love and self-empowerment--the gifts rather than the limitations of narcissism.
Besides further exploring myself here and encouraging my readers to do the same, I expect to be making social commentary--observations about current trends and their future ramifications. I may do so from time to time with references to psychological, astrological/cosmological cycles, past and future history (yes, I may go slip-streaming for our info--I'm a sci-fi/fantasy-phile)--annnd, I am a therapist (and yes, I've already seen it split into two words and have spam-blockers set all around me for bouncing it right back at ya!) I'm into personal and planetary transformation and I tend towards chaos theory (or evolutionary systems theory) as a social change model.
I also have my Moonwalk Mission which is all about manifesting the good things of life (inner and outer). I write and send by group email short essays with the phases of the moon, using those as a guide for creating projects, making life transitions, achieving personal goals. I call it MotherSource Speaks. My essays are self-referent, hopefully giving my readers some insight and inside knowledge into how the method can work for them along with a charge of inspiration and encouragement. I may decide to post some of that writing here, but it is time sensitive and seasonal, so must be read in the moment to gain most from its "wisdom".
The transit zones of birth, life peaks, death and dying are areas of interest, exploration, and lucid witnessing for me, as are the more non-ordinary experiences. Periods of both pain and pleasure are intensely and intimately associated with all these experiences, the more extreme being traumatic or at least very discombobulating. I work with those who've experienced trauma and other non-ordinary experiences, such as NDE's and psi. So you see the "dark" side and the "other side" are territories familiar to me. Some things I write, especially my poetry (oh, yeah, there'll most probably be a poetry section in here once I figure out how to set up this site in at least a beginning version of what you more sophisticated bloggers have created here for yourselves)...will be reflective of those other zones of awareness.
The metaphor of myth I find very helpful in making meaning of these altered states into which we are thrown when we meet with the unknown. So I will make reference in many of my essays to myth and to Jungian thought, which just naturally takes us into the deeper mysteries of life and death. But bloggers, I am not all about the deep and mysterious. In fact there can be a very playful impishness about me and the way in which I like to interact with you.
I like the way the Caffeinated Librarian made names and categories for her family, friends, and reading public. I am going to work on devising a similar kind of code and order. Hopefully I'll figure out how to get these postings divided up into categories where the peeps I know can pick and choose according to their interests. B/c I am a traveler, an adventurer and a scout within and beyond the realms of knowledge and awareness. I took on the Star Trek mission for my own at an early age--"to go where no [one] has gone before" (and maybe where many care not to go!) I want to know and be known (and the latter may be the more difficult of the two to achieve!)
But here is to my beginning, blogmates! (Geez, I hope there are no initiation rites -- *looking timid and a'feared*) Let's see, do you sign these things? hmm, "in her own voice" -- how will I be called? IHOV? In her? Voice? MoonWoman? hmmn, we'll see what develops.
Look down upon me,
See only yourself.
--Rumi
Hello Bloggers,
I'm feeling very virgin today sitting down here to write my first blog ever! I'm really even new to reading here, having just spent yesterday afternoon exploring the site. Some very talented peeps here! I already feel I'm among good company, though after absorbing the atmosphere through the senses of some other bloggers, I can tell there will be surprising new scenes ahead.
I got here by way of a summer writers' bootcamp -- a thousand words a day! Phew! That was intense -- and a wonderful experience! What a commitment I made to myself -- and I accomplished it! A thousand words a day for ten days! Not bragging, just kind of elated over the whole thing. This was the site used for writer relief--the participants could "talk amongst themselves" here, and, believe me, towards the end I did some sweating and wringing of hands in our blog space. So you can see how, during my ten day intro to this site, I kept entirely to that small, contained, and "known" space--it was my comfort zone!
Had my conference with our "mentor" yesterday and he suggested opening up a blog here--you know, to keep the momentum going and to further explore and expand on some of the topics I introduced in my ten day writing spree (all first draft stuff, of course). So here I am, blogging away and not saying much of anything at all! Aaah, *sigh*, had to change positions--that chair was getting hard on my sit-bones. I'm on the floor now, sitting on my purple meditation prop chair with my 'puter warming my lap. *sigh* again.
Oh, about the Rumi poem... Well, actually a lot of references to that-- Should I have a countdown, or just cut to the chase? Well, today, I'm into cutting to the chase. I obviously have plenty of time and space to elaborate as we go forward. OK, even though Rumi was, here, as the mystical poet, describing that tantric union with the divine, my take ("in her own voice") for now is that the power of greater knowing and greater experience is mine for looking upon it, feeling into it, sensing it deeply. And so I relish in these lines that feeling of awe in claiming for myself the opening to self-love and self-empowerment--the gifts rather than the limitations of narcissism.
Besides further exploring myself here and encouraging my readers to do the same, I expect to be making social commentary--observations about current trends and their future ramifications. I may do so from time to time with references to psychological, astrological/cosmological cycles, past and future history (yes, I may go slip-streaming for our info--I'm a sci-fi/fantasy-phile)--annnd, I am a therapist (and yes, I've already seen it split into two words and have spam-blockers set all around me for bouncing it right back at ya!) I'm into personal and planetary transformation and I tend towards chaos theory (or evolutionary systems theory) as a social change model.
I also have my Moonwalk Mission which is all about manifesting the good things of life (inner and outer). I write and send by group email short essays with the phases of the moon, using those as a guide for creating projects, making life transitions, achieving personal goals. I call it MotherSource Speaks. My essays are self-referent, hopefully giving my readers some insight and inside knowledge into how the method can work for them along with a charge of inspiration and encouragement. I may decide to post some of that writing here, but it is time sensitive and seasonal, so must be read in the moment to gain most from its "wisdom".
The transit zones of birth, life peaks, death and dying are areas of interest, exploration, and lucid witnessing for me, as are the more non-ordinary experiences. Periods of both pain and pleasure are intensely and intimately associated with all these experiences, the more extreme being traumatic or at least very discombobulating. I work with those who've experienced trauma and other non-ordinary experiences, such as NDE's and psi. So you see the "dark" side and the "other side" are territories familiar to me. Some things I write, especially my poetry (oh, yeah, there'll most probably be a poetry section in here once I figure out how to set up this site in at least a beginning version of what you more sophisticated bloggers have created here for yourselves)...will be reflective of those other zones of awareness.
The metaphor of myth I find very helpful in making meaning of these altered states into which we are thrown when we meet with the unknown. So I will make reference in many of my essays to myth and to Jungian thought, which just naturally takes us into the deeper mysteries of life and death. But bloggers, I am not all about the deep and mysterious. In fact there can be a very playful impishness about me and the way in which I like to interact with you.
I like the way the Caffeinated Librarian made names and categories for her family, friends, and reading public. I am going to work on devising a similar kind of code and order. Hopefully I'll figure out how to get these postings divided up into categories where the peeps I know can pick and choose according to their interests. B/c I am a traveler, an adventurer and a scout within and beyond the realms of knowledge and awareness. I took on the Star Trek mission for my own at an early age--"to go where no [one] has gone before" (and maybe where many care not to go!) I want to know and be known (and the latter may be the more difficult of the two to achieve!)
But here is to my beginning, blogmates! (Geez, I hope there are no initiation rites -- *looking timid and a'feared*) Let's see, do you sign these things? hmm, "in her own voice" -- how will I be called? IHOV? In her? Voice? MoonWoman? hmmn, we'll see what develops.
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