Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Everything I do, I do it for You

May 18, 2012

I have just spent my second night in my new apartment in Asheville. My mountain home is still home, but is on the market and so I make this transition in merciful stages. After the roar of quiet out there – only wind, rain, stars and forest creatures to talk with, this move feels huge for me. I hear people walking from room to room upstairs, turning on the sink, coming and going, street noise, yard equipment, sirens. But I love the fact that there are bird songs here that I don’t hear up on the mountain, different varieties, new tunes.

After my buddies from the mountain who helped me move had left two days ago, with boxes, bags of things, misplaced furniture everywhere, I laid down on a mat on the floor, body out of gas. As my spinning mind started to settle, the first clear thought was, “How do I say thank you? How do I thank You – my Lover, my ‘Friend’” (Hafiz’s name for the one who loves and moves us)? This thought got me off the floor. Build an altar. Take a walk, put up a fresh flower, light some candles, give my heart, be sure to say clearly that I do this for You. Everything I do, I do it for You.

When Easter rolled around this year I was as sick as I have been in years, had had some big blows in plans I had been making, repressed anxiety from earlier big blows in life got out of the cage with the new anxieties, darkness rising. I felt my heart trapped in a cage, on lock down, afraid to come out and risk being hurt again. And I was very aware of a part in me who was ready to give it up, give in, live only half a life or no life. The part who has had courage and has undauntedly embraced risk all my life hadn’t been heard from in a while. She was in trouble, banished. “Shut up; go away, you’re a fool anyway.”

And so I decided to do a 40-day ritual starting on Easter Sunday. Usually the 40-day observances are for the days leading up to Easter, but this seemed good to me. Each day for those 40 I would open my rib cage, lean back, shoulders back, and offer my heart to the universe; tell the protector around my heart that we’re going to come out now. The hiding away inside this iron cage (which I could see in my mind’s eye) has run its course. And, along with this, I visualized the sad, weak and failing part of myself as a band of energy, and the courageous and trusting and strong part of myself as another band of energy, and would intend that the two of them weave together like DNA strands around my spine – each holding the other up and informing one another.

This meditation I did faithfully for 40 days. The first day when I pushed my shoulders back and opened my heart, I heard the crack physically, I’ll never forget it. My chest was full of mucus from the illness I was suffering so that the crackling in my ears was loud. And meaningful. The last day of the 40 days, certainly completely unbeknownst to me at the time I began, ended up being the first night I slept in my new apartment, May 17th. I realized this as I was lying on the floor after my moving friends had left.

And here is the kicker. A miracle. Some magic. When moving things down from Weaverville I put just the few things I knew I would want to find immediately in one little bag – things I keep on my night stand, glasses and such. In the midst of the chaos of boxes, I set a little table right next to my pad on the floor (no bed here yet), and placed those night stand things on it, along with a lamp. It was just a few, very specific items, nothing random.

When I went into the room later in the evening, folded up on that little table under my glasses was a piece of paper with writing on it. What is this? I knew I hadn’t put it there and it looked very deliberately placed. I opened it and nearly fainted. It was a letter that I had written to the Universe maybe a year ago – prayers,  hopes, visions, dreams I had wanted to articulate clearly. I do not know where it had been all of this time, I’d forgotten. But I do know that I didn’t put it on that little table. In the mass of chaos, the one clearly deliberate thing I had done was set up that table. And that I did well after my friends had left – they had just dropped boxes and furniture anyway, didn’t touch a thing otherwise.

During my 40-day ritual I made a drawing of my heart, just spontaneously. Growing out if it were huge vines, emerging from that soft red organ like Jack in the Beanstalks vines bursting through earth. The drawing surprised me. After this little magic of finding the note on the table, I felt so strongly the love in whatever force had orchestrated that surprise; and I felt the vines of love coming out of my heart to meet it. Pull the love out of me, You Who I Love. Let it grow like a strong vine into the world.

The cards say what I know, that this transition does not promise to be an easy one. But I’m going to pour my heart into it. And I will always say thank You.

Say to the sun and moon,
Say to our dear Friend,

“I will take You up now, Beloved,
On that wonderful Dance You promised.”

~ Hafiz ~

Mom

May 13, 2012

Mother, what can I do for you on Mother’s Day? When Mom was in the body, I couldn’t be there to pamper her on this day usually, but – after a person passes over is there something we can do specifically for them? Do we have better access? It has long been known that the dead need the assistance of the living, I want to learn more about what we can do for them. Certainly love and prayers flow from me to my Mother’s sweet spirit.

A segment on the news last night spontaneously triggered vivid memories of the stories that each of my daughter’s told at my Mother’s wake last June. Arlene recounted that she had been telling Mama about rugby, the sport Arlene played all through college. Mama, 89 at the time, weak lungs and heart, said, “I would like to learn to play rugby!” She said it with an innocence, not a delusional or confused forgetting of her actual age and state of health, but more just speaking from the heart, from the place that is not confined by physical circumstances at all. Sometime in her 70’s she had been with me in Los Angeles helping a friend of mine find a new apartment. Mama similarly said, “I think I’d like to do this!” Similarly spontaneous and innocent. There really wasn’t any way she was going to be able to start a whole new life like that, but she wasn’t speaking from the place of impossibles.

Josi spoke of my Mother’s fierce love, like a lioness protecting her cubs. Mom had demonstrated to her powerfully that love is not only soft and tender, but is a huge force to be reckoned with when coming from a Mother. I was in awe of Josi’s heart as she expressed this profound recognition.

I’m going to brag a minute as a Mother since it is Mother’s Day. Arlene is in Guatemala competing in weightlifting on behalf of our country at the Pan American’s. Tuesday she lifts. May she be in the ZONE. And Josi leaves on Tuesday to do a month of research, funded by a grant she applied for and was awarded. How could I be more proud of my girls? I move into my apartment in Asheville on Tuesday. The three of us are connected in such a mysterious way, big movement in our lives all on the very same day. Surely this tells a story of the unfathomable connection in mother/child bonds.

May each of you feel a surge of strength and beauty flowing through that bond. God bless Mothers everywhere, always.

Journeying Through

May 12, 2012

Since beginning this blog more than 2 years ago, having written something every day for much of that time, I have not taken so long a break from writing as I have these past weeks. There are reasons for this, which I may write more about soon. I have been abducted into an Underworld Journey for some time which, though I am no stranger to such states, took me rather by surprise and by storm. I thought I had been to the worst neighborhoods of that realm, but I had not. It seems they can get infinitely more chilling and devastating. This has been quite a discovery for me.

You don’t write letters from hell. I have stayed purposely still. Just last week I began to compose some thoughts, but am taking it slowly.

Now, though, to break the silence, in desire to get back into communication, I want to write about one of the most exquisite nights of my life which took place just last night. A couple of weeks ago I saw an ad on TV showing highlights from Cirque du Soleil’s current show Michael Jackson, The Immortal World Tour. In one instant I knew I wanted to take Hannah, my little 5-year-old neighbor who I adore, and her mother Torey, who I also adore, to see this show inGreenville,SC, not too far a drive for us. If I had given myself 5 minutes to consider I might have restrained myself, but I didn’t. I was on-line and had purchased tickets within minutes.

And so we went. On the drive there Hannah said, “I am feeling really GOOD today! Any day that I am going to the circus is a GOOD day, any day that I’m not going to the circus is a bad day.”

I just knew it would be a combo not to be missed, the immense, extravagant talent and artistry that goes into any Cirque du Soleil event, and Michael Jackson’s extreme creativity, heart, vision and flair. Oh…   my…. God…  I wish everyone in the world could experience this show.

Take one of Michael Jackson’s concerts, such as the Live inBucharest, Dangerous Tour one which I own on DVD which completely floors me every time I see it, and magnify that by 1000 and you start to imagine what we saw last night. The show is all MJ’s voice singing his songs, with an extensive live orchestra and back up singers, troupes of too-talented-to-be-believed dancers doing his choreography, with Michael’s style, deeply profound messages and inimitable brand of heart-stopping coolness, with strobe lights, multi-tiered sets, acrobats, costumes and props I couldn’t possibly describe the effect of, explosive energy, with maybe 10,000 people smiling broadly, moving but riveted to the core.

Hannah has grown up on the mountain. Lions, tigers and bears would probably not daunt her much. But this!? She sat on my lap, hugged my neck tight (what can be compared to a 5-year-old angel holding tight to your neck for long stretches?), kept her eyes as wide as saucers and clapped, clapped, clapped – to the beat and then just with awed joy.

Michael’s revolutionary vision in songs like They Don’t Care About Us and his Planet Earth/Earth Song were profoundly imparted in this show. His heartbreaking lyrics in Childhood – “Has anybody seen my childhood?” – bared his soul. There was a two story high image of little 5 year old Michael singing “I’ll be there, I’ll be there, just call my name, I’ll be there.” Man, this event was calling his name and he WAS there. It felt stunningly poignant. The crescendo built to final, AWESOME, joy-filled presentations of “It Don’t Matter if You’re Black or White” (and I’d like to add ‘gay or straight’ to the meaning and message as I know he would), and finally “Man in the Mirror.” “If you want to make the world a better place, just look in the mirror and make that change.”

What a good human. What a night. I want to send as much of the love and meaning and beauty to you as I can by telling this story.


Elephants in Rooms

March 31, 2012

The process of enculturation –  by parents, through classroom education and in peer groups – trains a person in rules regarding what is acceptable to speak about, and what is not. The information we receive is sometimes imparted openly, but I believe most of what we learn comes tacitly. Vibrations of approval, discomfort or annoyance register in our subtle bodies. Thus we learn. Most families, groups and individuals have variants in the rules, so we adjust as we go. When we say something that hits the force field of a rule barrier, this can feel like crossing one of those invisible fences used for animals. Zap; ouch. Note to self: avoid that territory. A lot of this occurs unconsciously.

I used to teach a Dialogue method developed utilizing theories articulated by physicist David Bohm. One of the exercises we employed to help move a group into authentic voicing and deeper listening was to have people draw a line down the center of a page, dividing it into a Left-Hand Column and a Right-Hand Column. Think of a recent conversation that contained some level of significance. On the right side of the page write down to the best of your memory what was actually spoken during the conversation. On the left, write about what was in your mind but remained unspoken for whatever reason; and then write what you imagine might have been in the other persons mind that remained unspoken. This is not to be presumptuous, as if we could actually know what is in the other’s mind. It is an exercise to help broaden attention to include what is unspoken in any given conversation, and sometimes to realize that much of what is “said” is not said aloud.

In practicing dialogue in a group, we encourage participants to speak a little more from what would normally remain in their left hand column. Those gathered learn to hold the tension and to suspend assumptions, judgments and opinions related to one’s “training” and listen more deeply into self and other.

In Jungian psychology this Right-Hand, Left-Hand Column technique is not articulated in the same terms, but I think psychoanalysis might be described as a safe place to empty out the Left-Hand column, to think out loud about what in other circumstances remains unspoken, and then to work with it. Psychoanalysis and dream work also help identify that much of what remains unsaid due to long years of training falls into the unconscious. We lose awareness that these thoughts, feelings or impressions were ever there. A person learns to focus on what is “appropriate,” what can be said, and too often forgets about the rest.

Two images come to me to describe the material that has fallen into the unconscious in such ways. One is that it becomes like the ghostly coachman, the one who is driving your chariot but who cannot be seen or related to. People are afraid of psychoanalysis in the same way as they are afraid of ghosts. But, these ghosts are there. Not talking about them doesn’t make them go away. We deny them to our detriment.

The other image that recently occurred to me regarding this material is that it is like what we call “the elephant in the room.”  Musing on this idea, a deep respect came over me for what an elephant is, and what it represents. They are ancient beings, it seems to me. Sacred. They hold wisdom and intelligence of the pre-verbal and pre-rational mind, as well as knowledge of this world. They are relational creatures, loyal, family and community oriented.

To regard the elephant in the room is to turn attention to what is ancient, wise and sacred. We tend to use this term with judgment, meaning that avoiding the elephant is due to dishonesty and being in denial. But what if, instead, we turn to the elephant in the room with interest, trust, respect, hope, curiosity, love, and with an open heart inquire into it? Who is it, and what does it want to tell us? Humans often have an instinctive skittishness and distrust when faced with what is unknown among us – like what is not known mostly will hurt or overwhelm us. But what if that big body just wants to love us, help us, heal us, play with us?

The “elephant in the room” can be among people or even inside someone, an internal, individual phenomenon – whatever is there that we avoid bringing to consciousness. What if we turn our attention to the elephants in our rooms?

I want now to commit to regarding the elephants newly. I want my teacher to be the elephant, to learn to regard the metaphorical elephant the way incarnated elephants regard us. With stillness. Alertness. Power. Tenderness. With those big eyes and long eyelashes. With beauty and apparent sweetness.

The week coming up is Holy Week in the Christian calendar. It commemorates events around the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. He was (and is) certainly an elephant in the room of traditional powers; what if He were regarded differently? This may be a good week to begin the elephant meditation.

The Issue of the Bison

March 23, 2012

Last night I saw the piece on NBC Nightly News that tells the story of pure bred bison that have just been released in Montana. The purity of this species has been compromised by cross breeding with cattle, threatening the original species with extinction. I was so moved to see that the bison were set onto the land at night as Sioux played drums to welcome them and celebrate their reintroduction. Bison are huge pieces of their cultural history, having been a source of clothing, food, medicine and certainly of a kind of consciousness these native people long to have returned to them for their survival as a culture and as a people; they are the “people of the buffalo.” How we invaded and eradicated their way of life is a tragic loss not only to them, but to everyone, everywhere I believe.

I was talking to some friends the other night who were just in a country where dogs are not domesticated, but are wild. They were describing the vast difference between those animals and the species we know of as dogs, cuddly creatures dependent upon us for their survival. What popped out of my mouth surprised me a little. I said, “That’s what happened to women when the trend toward domestication of women occurred. We lost our wildness and  became dependent.”

I can’t say how I would think or feel if I were the cattle rancher in Montana whose livelihood depends upon keeping borders and “managing” the bison rather than letting them roam wild and become more populous. I only know what I feel in my bones and in my gut – that we, as a species and as a planet, need that reintroduction of wildness. “Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam” – aren’t those lyrics in one of our most beloved national songs?

Domestication – of plants, animals, people and everything – “managing” everything – has gone too far. We’re weakening ourselves, making ourselves dependent. The house of domestication is burning down. Let it burn.

Just two nights ago I had a dream that the house I was sleeping in was burning down. I could feel the consuming flames and the heat all around me. The one and only thing I could think to grab before I left the room hoping to save my life was my dream journal. I stood there a second trying to think of what else to grab and not one other thing came to mind.

This dream is personal, but I think it is also collective. The house we are sleeping in is burning down. Let’s grab our dreamtime consciousness and run.

Word Paintings

March 20, 2012

Sometimes just a few words together compose such a vision of life and universe that I experience them as literally life-saving. I do not mean that they save my physical life, though I don’t know, maybe they do. I mean that when life loses meaning, or luster or power – which can feel like a fate worse than death – these little pieces of something have the ability to give all of that back in an instant. I find it miraculous. I have needed such miracles lately.

This one came into my inbox last night. I was not unfamiliar with it, but its quiet potency felt like a much-needed blood transfusion.

Let yourself be silently drawn
by the strange pull of what you really love.
It will not lead you astray.
~ Rumi ~

I copied it and opened my word document file where I keep such jewels. There that quote was, the first one in that long document that I have been adding to for years. This made me smile. Then I read down the page a little and a few more hit me like jolts, restoring energy and power. I could only handle a few such jolts, so I quit reading after about a half a page. Here are some more. (You can tell that Rilke is a favorite muse.)

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any minute.
~ Marcus Aurelius ~

The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

The only journey is the one within.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

Then this morning I turned the page on my Page-a-Day Zen calendar, and this one gave me life again. I hope that sharing these passes along some of the power and blessing I experience from them. I pray that you find such magic when you need it as well.

We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness, which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we must come at last to regard the world.
~ Marcel Proust ~

 

The Real in real estate

March 16, 2012

I just got back inside after sitting on my porch during a lightning storm, then watching the stars come out. I went from rain beating across my lap, to the quiet of stars burning through night sky.

I am in the earliest stages of figuring out how to list my mountain property for sale. To put a house on the market, Real Estate brokers of course need pictures. And we will have to find appropriate numbers.

Suddenly I have to look at my house as a commodity. I have never thought of my home on this mountain as a house, ever, only as a way of life.

To send pictures for a Real Estate folder I have to decide, would people rather see photos of bathroom fixtures or of the apples on the apple tree in June? Would they rather see the frame of the front porch, or frost covering the majestic trees in February? Will the blueprint of the house help you to understand that from here you have front row seats to watch magnificent lightning storms over the mountains, as well as access to sounds of wind and rain breaking through the austerity of silence that can only be encountered on raw pieces of land like this?

What is real in real estate? I honor the people who work in this field and help others find their way through it. I feel like a novice, though I am not.

 

Living by the Dream

March 10, 2012

My favorite time of any day is the hour or so after waking when I stumble, with coffee in hand, to my spot on the couch, often lighting candles and burning a little sage or Paulo Santo, and sit down to write out my dreams and morning thoughts. This is the in-between hour, the place where dreamtime and waking time are woven together. The rest of the day moves from there. That is the source water, the rest of my energy flows in tributaries that go in a thousand directions from that place.

Morning thoughts are as important as the dream in their own way. Even though very often they do not resemble the dream overtly – the dream is talking about one thing, the morning thoughts often seem to be other issues or plans illuminating – yet I know that these impressions flow from the dreaming. The dream lines things up so that the thought energy can move through.

My life is an experiment, an experiment with the dreaming. I have lived like this since the age of 24 when my spiritual teacher taught me about the importance of dreams. I have given immense focus, love, trust and commitment to this life project, through every twist and wild ride of the last decades. Sometimes I wonder if I should leave this emphasis, if I’m not being practical, if this method for living is leading to nowhere and nothing in particular, if other more stabilizing options in life are passing me by as I do this. But, this is what I do. This is who I am. That is all I know for now.

On another note, part of my waking thought this morning is to make more conscious a visual piece of my environment that has been affecting and guiding me more than I have realized until today. My oldest daughter, Josi, captured my heart the second I laid eyes on her; until then I hadn’t known there could be such a love as that in this world. She has been a guiding angel ever since. She is my confidante and foremost adviser in every important matter of life. A sidewalk artist in Paris rendered a sweet portrait of her on the occasion of her 16th birthday. It hangs in one of the bedrooms in my house and just happens to peak out on the rest of the house, especially visible from the very spot on my couch where I sit to do my dream recording, telephone sessions, news and tv watching, eating of many meals. The power and guiding force of that visage to impact my thoughts, heart, intentions and impressions never really struck me until today. Now I see it as clearly as if a mountain appeared out of the mist – now I know the mountain is there and has been all along. The spirit of a thing guides through images of it, we know that from the many iconic images humans place in their environments to help direct their focus. This daughter is an angel. She mentioned to me recently, “You’re the only person in my life who calls me angel.” I didn’t hardly realize I call her that until she said it. It is just so. Here’s the picture I am speaking of. May your angels become more evident to you as well.

Holding Each Other

March 1, 2012

I recently experienced a powerful little event that informed my body and psyche about the power of physically holding someone. It was metaphoric, but I got the message keenly.

The joint at the base of my right thumb went out somehow and the pain was unbelievable. All up my arm and straight into my brain pain shot like fire and needles, relentlessly. I gently tried to adjust, rub, push, wait, figure out how to resolve it. Finally after a horrible night and hours of relentless pain, I remembered there was a little hand brace in a bottom drawer, something from years ago. I put it on my hand, holding the thumb in place. The tightness and the pressure instantly soothed and helped the situation. I wondered if I would have to wear the brace for days, or weeks, or months, or forever. A few hours later I needed to remove it to wash dishes. The pain was gone, and has been gone since then. Some initial tenderness remained for awhile, but even that is gone.

It made me think again, as I often do, about the incalculable power of touch and holding. We are phobic in this culture about that, sternly maintaining what I believe is a warped idea of the necessity for personal space and physical distances. I believe that the shadow of this ridiculous idea creates the ubiquitous abuses of intimacy, cravings for it that then become satisfied through perversions. As Rilke says, “A repressed angel becomes a demon.” We need more holding to heal these problems, not more distance – holding in organic and natural ways among humans. I’m not referring to sexuality.

When I visited the villages in Kenya back in the 90’s one of the images that stood out the most to me when I came home was that of watching the people there walk and sit together in little piles, like puppies, touching everywhere. When the women helped me with anything their bodies were all crushed against mine. It felt so right and so good, not invasive in the least. On the contrary, I experienced it as joyful, loving and completely natural.

After returning I was teaching in a classroom situation and asked everyone to sit on the floor. They did, with probably 2-4 feet distance between each body. That really hit me. I thought – in Africa this would never happen! They would be all crushed together. There’s something so right about that! There are healing, healthy chemicals released into our cells and brains from the simple act of touch. The deprivation of those chemicals creates illness at every level, I completely believe this.

Mothers – hold your babies! You can never hold them enough! Forget about the idea of spoiling in such ways, it will all be over soon enough. Continue to hold, hold, hold and touch your children in loving ways as often as possible, all their lives.

Lovers, hold each other. Friends, hug each other. People – touch each other!

One of the sweetest love songs I have ever heard is Paul McCartney’s Calico Skies. It contains these lyrics: “I will hold you, for as long as you like I’ll hold you, for the rest of my, for the rest of my, for the rest of my life.”

When we can’t hold each other physically, we can do so spiritually. This weekend a group of ten people are coming to my house to conduct a sweat lodge for the sole purpose of holding a dear friend who is undergoing aggressive treatment for pancreatic cancer. He won’t be with us physically, but I strongly feel that the energy of our effort together will do something for him like that brace did for my thumb – hold him tightly in our love so that healing energy can flow through.

A dear friend of mine, author and professor of depth psychology Lionel Corbett once said these words to me that I have never forgotten: “Caring, just the act of caring, is very psychotropic.” So often we are too distracted, or too absorbed in other things, or too… whatever… to really care, care, care for each other, and notify each other about that care. Caring is holding, spiritually holding. Aloofness, not caring, has become cool, culturally. Caring makes you vulnerable, and vulnerability surely is not considered cool.

To be vulnerable is to be human, and to live in the dignity of our humanity. We, as individuals and as a culture, have some re-thinking to do, some serious adjustments to make in these ways.

I feel an urgency to say this now, not exactly sure why. Want to scream it. Care. Hold. Care. Hold. Care. Hold. Hold each other. Care about each other. Hold. Care.

Freeing What Waits Within

February 27, 2012

One of my favorite poems of Rainer Maria Rilke’s is this one from Rilke’s Book of Hours:

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for

may for once spring clear
without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
These deepening tides moving out, returning,

I will sing you as no one ever has,
streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.

The image keeps swelling in my chest of freeing what waits within me. Too much has been latent. Too many doubts and restraints. Maybe too many wounds to heal, or uncertainties created by a big move across country into another world that had yet to be figured out. The time is getting closer now to open more channels of expression.

As humans we have to make alignments in order to let the streams of energy flow, I see that now. The currents just swell, or divert, or go underground until they have moved long enough and strongly enough to create a viable river bed that will hold and move the waters. Making such alignment takes lots of paying attention, listening, making intentions and sticking to them.

Things are lining up now, I feel it. I want to free what waits within. What a concept.