Trees and Dreams and Frames

Reflections on songs and trees, dreams and frames …

I love this phrase in one of Carrie Newcomer’s songs: “I am the fool whose life’s been spent // between what’s said and what is meant.” I find it honest and humbling; that as a writer (or even simply in my vocal communications with others) I am seeking to convey the authentic me and, through that process of honesty, to recognize the other and honor their journey as well as my own. Whether the Other is human or more-than-human matters not; all are equal, vital, precious, for we all rely upon each other for  creating a vibrant — or tarnished — whole. The words can be perceived either as real reference or as metaphor, speaking of people or spirit, of Muse or Divine; they and we are interchangeable, depending upon each moment. A dream or a real moment?

When Newcomer sings the line, “There is a tree beyond this world // in whose ancient roots a song is curled,” I’m captivated by a deep knowing of this tree and song/story as both tangible and etheric. From the mythic Tree of Life beyond this world to the multiplicity of forest and woods harboring trees of mystery and diverse magnificence, that each tree has the potential to become ancient within its lifetime and containing the generational wisdom of all those who grew before it. When I next walk among the trees, will I see all the songs/stories nestled among the roots? Will they be whispering to me of what they’ve witnessed and experienced, the conversations they’ve heard of secrets because no one thought anyone was listening? Imagine if our world does exist upon an energetic template and that the “other world” is here in every moment? Imagine the energy flowing sweetly into feet, spine, heart as we hear the song of the universe?

Old dreams may not be meant to come true — perhaps they fulfilled their purpose by being unmet. Clinging to old dreams — the past is passed — doesn’t allow new ones to manifest. I write about old dreams, setting them free through stories, and thereby further my healing through knowing them on a deeper, higher level. People change; we all do, even if we resist seeing our change, because nothing remains the same. That’s a gift of hindsight. The one who desired the old dream is gone. Who is she now? Maybe parts of the dream remain the same, just as the innate nature of the person remains, but the composition has grown richer. It is a powerful experience to observe this, albeit scary at times.

The sand has shifted beneath us and as we rub the grit from the corners of our eyes, waking to the new day, our vision clears and our song is a fraction different, the breeze dances upon our skin with a fresh rhythm, and the taste of the orange peeking over the horizon is sweet again.

I slow down, ease up in chasing both day-dreams and night-dreams, opening instead like a flower that trusts this moment, knowing the dreams will reveal themselves to me when I cup my hands invitingly to catch them when they fall like mist-become-dew on delicate petals.

Being present does not necessarily mean one is to ignore the past or future but to be grateful for special days of remembrance and trust in plans for tomorrow. In another song of Newcomer’s, she sings to “frame my life by before and after.” Yet the frame is permeable and can be replaced or changed by the healing of our hearts so that what was tarnished is gleaming, what was chipped is mended, what was burnt is sanded and painted, what was deeply damaged is replaced with a new fragment from the gift of gratitude and forgiveness. We gather what has been scattered and create a charming, unique frame that shows our jagged journey to authenticity, love and wholeness … being a personal testimony to anyone who has been ashamed of their own raggedy, crooked frame.

The joy that is the background of my spiritual presence becomes more solid at the same time it is slipping away in the passage of this life, pouring through fingers that celebrate the river’s flow for what it is. The background of joy is the container for compassion and pleasure while holding just as much reverence for melancholy and death. This is the Divine within and surrounding me, holding my sadness and grief, transforming them when relevant into peace, happiness, and a little game of hopscotch being played by butterflies among the cosmos.

Three Dreams

I’m relatively new to actually making the time to consider what my dreams may mean to me, though I’ve recorded them sporadically for over a decade. Because I found last night’s dreams particularly compelling, I thought I would share them here. Perhaps they may encourage someone else to … follow their dreams.

I recalled and recorded three distinct dreams through the night; the first and third dreams were of me rescuing/helping a small young boy (one boy appeared as my younger brother, the other boy became a little dog), and the other, the middle dream, was of me ending up alone on a couples cruise.

The Two Boys

            Dream One: a young boy who looked like my younger brother was having seizures – the symptoms were being viewed as signs of “possession” by the doctors – I was trying to help heal him with energy and natural remedies

Dream Three: It was night, and I was on the other side of a park, near a building, when I saw bad men break several life-size glass reindeer that shattered into hundreds of pieces large and small – the men saw me and started chasing me and a little boy (who was clothed in pale blue pajamas with ‘feet’) across the grass as we ran toward my house – as we ran, the boy transformed into a little dog that I scooped up into my arms while running – I reached my home, which was well-lit, before the bad men could get us – we were safe inside and the bad men didn’t try to enter

Were these two dreams pointing to my need to make peace with the young masculine principle I carry within that was destroyed by patriarchy? To find a way to recover that innocent masculine principle, to resurrect its power for love?

It is interesting that these two dreams of young boys – very rare for me to see boys in my dreams – came on Christmas Eve. I don’t identify as Christian anymore (I’m a spiritual eclectic with a Pagan foundation) though I do believe the story of Jesus is a powerful and potentially healing one when heard from the feminine principle perspective instead of through the lens of patriarchy. And, as it happens, the birth of the baby Jesus is honored tomorrow, while the seeds of solstice have already been sown. Is the spark of the masculine principle joining the seed of the feminine principle?

I have always felt maternal and/or nurturing toward my younger brother, and perhaps I feel it even more now that he is challenged by physical illness. Plus, I have always had a strong desire to protect and help the young, which is extended to both genders and to all innocent life. Maybe these two dreams came to inspire faith … faith that we can succeed in protecting the innocent and resurrecting the masculine principle to its original pattern, before it became the domination power principle of patriarchy?

In the third dream, the bad men shatter and destroy the beautiful glass reindeer in the dark of night, in the realm of the feminine principle. What else do the reindeer represent? This glass is clear, cold, smooth and appears solid but can be easily broken. The reindeer represent the myth of Santa Claus, a story created for children/innocence. The bad men perhaps represent patriarchy shattering the innocence of our stories and dreams, shattering the bond between masculine principle and feminine principle? Santa Claus is also linked, however, to whether we are “good” or “bad” and, thus, whether we will receive any “reward.” So shattering those symbols which pull/carry the patriarchal father-figure could mean that Santa Claus has no effect anymore?

Also in the third dream, the boy transforming into a little dog is perhaps a personal motif for me (because of my passionate devotion to dogs) to be able to visualize the innocence that remains inside the masculine principle? That it can be rescued and taken into hearth and home? It would be easier for me to let a dog into my safe space, rather than a male, even when that male is a boy.

A Couples Cruise

Dream Two in the Middle: My husband and I were on a cruise ship – we got off because we were thinking about incorporating an overland drive for part of the vacation – while we were considering the option, he drove home to check on things – we decided not to do the drive but he was too far away to make it back to the ship before it sailed – I got on alone and finished the second part of the journey by myself, a single on a Couples Cruise

The third dream, that fell in the middle of the other two, was uncomfortable – which is odd because it wasn’t as overtly traumatic as the other two dreams. The two aspects that feel most important are that of cruise (water, sailing, travel) and that, because of a joint decision, I ended up alone/single in a group of couples. I could unravel this dream in many directions, because it feels like there are a lot of threads. It feels scary to even write about this dream, like it was an omen or premonition. Maybe that’s because I fear the separation could be permanent? But it wouldn’t be, because it was a cruise ship – a temporary journey space. Cruises are not life but rather a liminal space as are most vacations, pilgrimages, and travels. I feel better already, having consciously realized that.

In some ways, the dream mirrors what he and I have already discussed: my solo travels while he stays at home to take care of things. The fact that it is a “couples cruise” is odd, but perhaps that merely represents metaphorically the need for me to write both sides of myself, to witness and “marry” by masculine principle to my feminine principle?

Perhaps this dream is bookended by the other two for that specific purpose, in which case they become a series to build the whole?

Viewing All Three Dreams in Sequence

In the first dream, the young boy has seizures – a violent dis-ease that shakes everything up and makes one vulnerable, unable to resist or escape anything that might happen to him. Patriarchy dominates men as well as women, and, in a way, it is a debilitating cultural disease. However, in the second dream, by “marrying” masculine principle and feminine principle in love, and honoring that commitment to be joined yet honoring individuality also. Later, in the third dream, the feminine principle is able to rescue/help the masculine principle and carry it to safety and home.

These three dreams, that at first glance seem so disparate, come closer and closer together the more I reflect upon them. And I will continue working with them.

Currently, as an over-arching theme, all three seem to be pointing toward ways in which I can re-envision and thus heal my sense of the masculine principle within me and, thus, see it differently in the world as well, possibly supporting a personal faith that we can also heal our global culture.

We can return to Peace on Earth.

depaceminterris.org

 

Flourishing Transplants

[the following is a rough-draft excerpt from my nearly completed manuscript titled “Desert Fire”] One of several Desert Gifts is nearly year ‘round Bougainvillea blossoms! Is there any important difference between the gifts received by being in the desert and those gifts that are indigenous to the desert? The Bougainvillea is not indigenous to the Sonoran Desert (also referred to as Sonora) — it is a South American native though it has become naturalized here — yet its blooming provides great joy through color, profusion, vibrant energy … a transplant that has found a home here and relishes the arid climate, the heat as well as the cooler temperatures of winter’s onset. I am a transplant, too, and my infused creative energy can be mirrored to some extent by that of the Bougainvillea. I can’t remain for long in direct sunlight — unlike the Bougainvillea — but the autumn shifting brings forth a bounty of energy from me likened to the fresh, clean, bright, heather-weight bracts that laugh mischievously among their chaotic community. My recent research has helped me see Sonora through a softer, more accepting lens, to admire her and her Beings of all forms for their ability to thrive and dance! To acknowledge that she isn’t “out to get me” like a bandit who wants to rob me of my juiciness. Instead, she encourages me toward recognition of the need for self-nurture and self-realization of what I need so that I can flourish. Sonora was willing to play the devil’s advocate, to portray herself as the villain, until I could see that the true villain was inside me … my fears and insecurities and lack of self-awareness in certain qualities. She helped me see the wisdom of being able to live anywhere because to thrive comes from inside myself, not from external situations per se. Those without self-reflection can be destroyed whether they live in the blistering heat of the desert or on a tropical island ignoring the lava flowing straight towards them or in the north woods ignoring a tree that is crashing down. So, maybe it’s okay that the Bougainvillea bring me joy in them, myself, and the ability of Sonora to cause them to thrive. Which brings me full circle to my desire for travel, to wisely intuit when I need to go away to absorb the emotional and psychological nutrients I don’t have around me — just as the Archaic hunter-gatherers moved around. Finding my inner Wise Woman, she who guides me not to blame Sonora — or any other external factor — but to listen to how our frequencies sing together at different times. Are we discordant or harmonizing? When not in accord, do we need a little time away from each other? I had been resisting planting Bougainvillea in the courtyard because I didn’t want to encourage bees to be so close by … but does the joy of the visual flowering splendor outweigh the fear of the bees? I still retain a fear of bees though it’s nowhere near as intense as it used to be. Bees — fire, intensity, inflammation, heat, swelling, pain. Again, the fear of these things can constrict my breathing — my prana — more than anaphylactic shock would. A childhood wasp sting — and my bad reaction to it — seems to have elevated this fear of being stung, of having venom pumped throughout my system without my permission or any control over it. In turn, this also translates to my fear of scorpions, a separate desert topic in and of itself. Even mosquitos cause large red, itchy welts to rise up on my skin and stay a long time. My body and mind do not react well to fire … easy and frequent sunburns, severe headaches, photophobia, nausea from any kind of over-heating. That kind of fiery intensity easily overwhelms me. Combine this susceptibility with the hot flashes and night sweats of menopause and what happens? Ash results. However, Sonora reminds me to be self-aware, to either remove myself from exposure at its height or be sure to know the remedial scenarios to dissipate the heat, whether that is silence during an argument, drinking water in the shade, or simply remaining in my home-cave.  During the most intense fires of life, it does not do me — or anyone else — any good to go up in flames and disappear into the vastness of the desert, my bleached bones to be found later tossed around by coyote pups at play in the mirage of life. The key to all of this is knowing, accepting, embracing myself as a non-native of Sonora and reducing my expectations that I can be someone I’m not. Here, I’m a transplant, and my purpose requires a different approach, a different amount of fire — only a small amount of fire that is held gently, cradled close to my heart like a stone warmed to a sweet, moderate temperature that soothes and creates sparks in imagination and spinal fluid so that body and mind flow within the subterranean streams feeding all life in the desert. I say Grace … thank you, Sonora. How do each of us handle the Fire in our lives? Are we comfortable with intensity? Do we, in fact, relish the heat? Or do we shy away from the flames?

Words Fly Free

Fields of Forever beckon but I look away from those Fields to the garden of Home and breathe in Love. Blessings push up through the compacted soil, the sweat of my beloved’s effort sweetens and amends, filtering out the stark barren expanse so that green is unearthed and new life sprung through hair-like roots, see them wriggling? Three rows of agave curve around a corner, softening the drama and edge of sharpened perception. Little green plants poke up tall, finally in a place to spread their feet wide, spread arms out long and far away. One tree in, two to go, three in a row, all around they fall in line along the wall, to share color, texture, air — breathe in and out, we share life. I stay sane, they grow safely; we are protected and encouraged.

I no longer pretend to be someone I’m not, no longer hide the shadow that is part of my skin, but neither do I let it rule and make all the decisions. Time leans into place and I know an urgency building; I keep at my work, my efforts. It’s not “hard” or “easy” — it has become purpose and something I am meant to do. I don’t know why, I just am. Perhaps it is as simple as keeping me “here on earth,” to love and be loved, to care and be cared for, to provide the arc for someone else’s rainbow purpose and journey.

E.D. #613 (randomly selected) ~ Emily Dickinson Poetry as Portals

They shut me up in Prose — 

As when a little Girl

They put me in the Closet — 

Because they liked me “still” — 

Still! Could themself have peeped

And seen my Brain — go round

They might as wise have lodged a Bird

For Treason — in the Pound

Himself has but to will

And easy as a Star

Abolish his Captivity

And laugh — No more have I 

I, too, grew up with the hobble-phrase “children should be seen, not heard” though home was more often a boisterous household of chatter that by its very noisy nature held my tongue silent and my mind vocal, conversing with the people in books.

The prose of story set me free, though, it didn’t restrict; stories were the adventure into which I happily shut myself, a diversity of experience without needing to leave my closet at all! A joyous adventure through words and worlds, where poetry was the puzzle, the mystery, where I didn’t fit. And now I welcome the freedom to write however I wish to, without limitation – ignoring “do not enter” – because the expectations are nearly invisible. I don’t care if I should write like so-and-so says, because I write like me. I could do the structure well if I chose … sometimes I do … I’d rather flow and when structure leans in the window frame, allow it to set a panel or hang a margin or plant a verb.

Me and my shadow enjoy the closet, the comfort of walls all around that allow few visitors. But prose is not a closet but a castle in the forest that tells me secrets and holds mine in its roots; my closet keeps me “still” but I like the stillness when mind expands and all the birds fly free!

When I am out, walking, connecting with the world, the voices are listening, gathering petals, leaves, acorns, twigs. I am not a captive; to be so is delusion and weakness — my open eyes see possibility to choose a path. The only captivity is imposed by Self — my mind is always free. And so I write. And even set my writing free … in blog, in book. There was a time when I wouldn’t have been able to let the letters fly; no more.

I honor the women who have been part of creating a world, a society I am blessed to live in, where my words can be let out and about. I honor, too, the women whose words are still confined to mind … by writing mine down.

And like these free words, I will travel for as long as I can — another freedom that has been hard for women to own as their right; not to be doled out like a long leash, but to sever the leather strap, the chains. My beloved partner understands that setting me free is the way to love … and why I return to him with love.

My independent spirit, though often terrified and insecure, nevertheless gets up and walks, travels, writes. I have to — when I haven’t, I felt dead. I am nothing yet everything because I am not the outer result but the inner growth that comes from earthing true in manifestation. I know myself in all my fear, pain, sorrow, insecurity, and I breathe in the courage to step into my Self. I breathe in the courage from all those women who lived before me, doing their best to live true. Little steps that might transform into courage. I keep on, believing. The stories I hear and see in my mind and heart, the ones written and unwritten, are powerful ways toward courage — encouragement.

For those of us who live in the caves, or at the edge of the valley where sunlight is scarce and shadow abundant, for us to know our nature as worthy and beautiful and powerful — this is a blessing. Not to be taught and restricted to be someone we aren’t but to instead harness our own ability and gifts, darkly elegant, often sensed and felt rather than seen through bright floodlight. We are the night, our actions held forth at dawn and dusk: gray, pastel, deep, soft, slow, quiet.

We are hard to picture, difficult to photograph or identify clearly…

Eternal night is a welcome friend that we hold at arm’s length, touching often, yearning for that kiss but knowing the sweetness of divine union must wait a little longer — for now, there is one more word, one more walk, one more loving embrace by an understanding physical partner. We live fully present, each moment a choice to be here now.

Hummingbird

From Ms. Emily ~ a Poetry Portal …

I taste a liquor never brewed — 

From Tankards scooped in Pearl — 

Not all the Vats upon the Rhine

Yield such an Alcohol!

 

Inebriate of Air — am I — 

And Debauchee of Dew — 

Reeling — thro endless summer days — 

From inns of Molten Blue —

 

When “Landlords” turn the drunken Bee

Out of the Foxglove’s door — 

When Butterflies — renounce their “drams” — 

I shall but drink the more!

 

Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats — 

And Saints — to windows run — 

To see the little Tippler

Leaning against the — Sun —  

 

~ Emily Dickinson (#214 Johnson)

 

——————-and here is where I’m led …

Amber

Amber : goddess, resin, animal ?

She is the fiery sap that has cooled yet retains a fluid vibration. Saraswati. Her colors are white and yellow-gold: the yellow of saffron, of golden rays, of creative spark, and, to me, she is the energy of amber’s golden flow that has paused to be seen and held like the flow of thoughts and soul into words that can be held and shared. She is Goddess of knowledge, learning, and creativity, and much more. Through her birthing waters, She is also Goddess of intuition, which combined with knowledge emerges as wisdom. She is the ultimate Creatrix releasing visionary flow into our world of form through our souls and yet the emanation is in all directions at the same instant. She is the wisdom-in-presence that is our taproot and branches at the same time.

It is no wonder that tales say Saraswati became Word; She is the Gayatri Mantra. She also moves through and beyond us by virtue of language, lyrics, our expressions of thriving. We are not meant to hoard what we have learned, but to share it with all who seek, and Saraswati reveals that Her wisdom is in us no matter what age or circumstance. We assimilate knowledge from the moment we enter the world (or even in our mothers’ watery wombs!) and we also carry in our cells the intuition of knowing, therefore we are all potentially wise and have opportunities to share this with others in our own unique ways, subtle or overt. Yes, Saraswati is Goddess of knowledge and learning — I’ve experienced first-hand Her power to help me during my final test at KSA — and I love learning for the pure joy of learning. But if and when I want to share what I’ve learned, I intend to say grace and honor Saraswati’s influence in sharing knowledge entwined with intuition to emerge as wisdom.

I don’t know if there is any ancient relationship between amber resin and Saraswati, but my intuition whispers that there is a deep vibrational connection. My logical brain first made the connection through “color” when I was wondering what gems are associated with Saraswati. And when I saw the glow of my amber resin, it was as if I just knew they were resonant — at least they are for me and, after all, isn’t that part of opening to intuition? Making our own connections? Realizing our own unique truths and not relying exclusively upon external sources of what is true for someone else? Saraswati touches me with physical intimacy when I wear amber, and this is Her reminder to open to intuition, the instinct of the soul.

I first met Saraswati, though, not through amber resin or Her Goddess archetype, but by the grace of the gentle soul that was my Amber-in-Collie-form, named, as it happens, Amber Dream. Together, we learned obedience exercises, but from many years of love and mistakes, Amber also tried to teach me the wisdom of seeing and knowing her nature as well as my own. We often struggled in classes because we were both naturally “soft” yet all the teachers I met took a very “hard,” disciplined, and unyielding approach to training. Nearly three decades ago, I lacked confidence, and I didn’t know myself well enough at that time to stand firm in my nature and in Amber’s nature. We endured the hardened phase of amber without treasuring the pliable, flowing phase at the beginning of amber’s creation. There is wisdom, however, in realizing — before she passed — the journey of both union and individuation that she and I had experienced together. Thank you, my dear sweet Amber.

We are blessed in the magnificent diversity bestowed upon us, the diversity that allows us to experience the Divine in such a variety of forms.

Elemental Tapestry

Dreamstime Free Image

Elemental tapestry …

As the images of Divine Feminine on my altar sway their hips and hearts and minds in alternating prismic patterns of rainbow energy to support me during each moment of the day, so do the lands of Mother Earth weave a blanket upon which to lay and a rug upon which to play into Her love.

Opening, I welcome the threads familiar and also unseen for all create the tapestry of me…and all of us.

Sweeping crumbs from the corners of the rooms, dusting off the old relics and donating them to the cauldron of creativity.

The threads of my tapestry are naked limbs in winter and deep roots in the spring, and the eggs of all that will be designed and decorated with a green twig of neem and mesquite and pine.

Giddy! Giggly, wiggly, water sloshing in the air from rainfall!

What I perceived as a single experience of pilgrimage to Crete was in reality a precious thread that is the ethereal blue story of my opalescent life exhibited specifically within the entire transition to the southwestern desert where heat is transforming me; I am being fired until I bubble inside a kiln made in a marriage of opposites where I was shown that the masculine within me can be kind and generous while also protective and stalwart.

Shown that I can clean the house and also create new worlds of dreams and imagination where we all can venture forth to discover ourselves among the hills and valleys of multiple dimensions falling into someone else’s world as it becomes temporarily our reality to learn, grow, stretch our wings, and sink our roots.

A journey has no beginning or ending though we may at times perceive the garnet stepping stones as life’s blood dripping away as we climb the emerald tower or descend into the diamond cave of ancestors who died before the dinosaurs were born.

We limit ourselves when we isolate the journey, and try to follow what might have been true as a child but has become as false as a wounded soldier upon the ravaged fields coming home to sweep away the debris from the corners where they, the pesky particulates of what once was, have been hiding themselves building ant hills and tunnels for termites undermining our foundations.

We sweep them into the center of the floor and, look, there’s the button missing for years that held me carefully together, and the back of an earring that let me hear the song of great-great-aunt Dora’s jewelry box overflowing with remnant memories of a wild heyday in the roaring twenties of flappers and booze and slinky dresses.

My journey of Being began long before Becoming, long before the rolling wheels of wagons led bare, bone-tired feet along tattered and torn trails of tears … and yet I taste tears in my mouth and feel the ache in the arch of my foot when I pause to sink into the well-spring of diverse paths, pause to hold the healing waters of ocean pilgrimage that left itself inside me, that seeped into my body through skin and nose and ears ringing with priestess song.

The loops of this tapestry bind and release, breaking then mending, and started long before I breathed my first gasp in emergence. Was that yesterday?

The intricate pattern is rolled up in the rug and stood on end so that I can sweep up the bits of colored thread fallen away, fallen into the cracks or blown into the corners now swept clean.

My life in an imaginary room that is the very image of the world I’ve lived and breathed and journeyed a million times carrying within me the stardust that is all of us.

We are the tapestry and the very unseen of existence that tickles and swims through the air invisible to the eye yet felt in our souls as the union of opposites never to be separate except in our personal limitations of mind.

Vibrant hues and pastel winkings fan themselves across my skin from tongues of dog kisses, and the freedom of place, and the love everywhere that is a handsome man’s face, the broad-spreading canopy of thirsty trees, the eternal blossoms of life.

We are the journey, all of us are the journey.

We are the movement and the stillness.

We are One within billions and billions of expressions in multi-colored threads of liminal, infinite tapestry.

Leaf on the Wind

The dry leaf scrapes across the sandstone reflecting the approaching death that frees us to fly more easily in the air. We release the weight of excess earth and water, and we are lifted by the slightest breeze or thought to soar and gain a different perspective from that which we knew much earlier.

Dangers faced by the dry leaf are going too high so that it disconnects forever, or alternatively, catching fire from the tiniest spark and being incinerated instantly to the ash of invisibility without leaving a trace behind except cellular memory to feed the next life, which is fine if that was the purpose—there is no shame in being the nutrients for another life’s expression. Just know and be aware of what is happening; don’t be asleep to possibility and who you are ensouled to be.

Fly and land, fly and land, sometimes skipping across the surface of where others have walked or grown; sometimes flying above for the broad perspective and distant travel to a land in a forest where none of the other leaves look like you and they are heavy, wet, as they contentedly decay into the thick humus of the forest floor and invite you to join them, all glumpied together until it becomes impossible to see where one ends and another begins in the “communion of subjects”*—is this your purpose? To be one with them? Look at all the good that they do! All the nourishment they provide for community diversity! Or will you thank them and lift a brittle edge to fling yourself upon the next zephyr and fly out of the forest to see the next land and spread the word of the previous community? Off you go…wheeeeee!

What’s that vast expanse of blue below? A mirror of the sky and your slender soaring form? A fish leaps out of the smooth surface and as soon as it disappears a bird dives after it to emerge an instant later swallowing the fish. The bird calls out to you a warning not to land on the liquid mirror unless you are ready to stop traveling, for the water will quickly saturate you, and you will sink to the muddy bottom to become food for the lake creatures. Are you ready? Or is there more to see and share?

Your edges are getting ragged and torn; you even have a few holes in your cloak punching through the veins of your fragile skeleton. But, no, not quite ready and so you call to the wind for a ride and climb once more…high, higher.

There is a snow-capped peak of a mauve mountain that beckons with its swirling mist of white flakes and its song serenades you like the sirens of old on oceans of past lives. There!That’s it. That’s where your purpose lies. To fall apart in bits and scatter yourself upon the edge between forest and alpine tundra, there at the timberline edge where you can see both sides and rest in the unknowing of self, at peace. Your bits will continue to scatter themselves over the entire mountain and beyond so that you are disbursed invisibly, only the most minuscule bit disintegrating and then integrating here and there.

Your essence scattered, nothing intact, gone from sight yet everywhere, back to mingle with the stardust of your origin that wasn’t one at all for there is no beginning or end, only transformation.

________________

*Thomas Berry

Herstory

Scarves of silk shimmying off shelves, we are the women who love ourselves and each other through coming and going in cycles of wisdom, knowing each other’s dreams and sorrows, available for tomorrow’s group hugs, touching skin and holding hands, we each bring love to where we stand and beyond the circle we spiral out and know that we are more than one among the world.

Lisa

We touched our souls once upon a time and felt the pulse of kindred souls sublime; a heartbeat there with falling tears and shaking frame that’s wracked with fears, or gentle morning light that filtered into eyes of peace and, calmly wise, serenity within a nod in passing. A cluttered space at end and beginning where friends were made and smiles were warming us into each other’s hearts.

The threads were woven and they are firm, cannot unravel or fade away for they have become the glistening dewy web, the lake of unified vision where all saw and were seen and held gently in the space between lives that were outside the moments of community. There is a fragrance that joins us there of chai and scones within the air, of rolling hills through every season where we’ve held heart and pondered reason, understanding flowing words and what’s behind them…love.

Jannie

Streaming ink across the page allows free flow of form and age and circumstances broadly spun, where one has started, one more begun, another parted, altered into forks that divide and join again in the milky way and lunar cycles and forests deep we all know together among the world. We may not speak, our lives are drawn across the planet’s belly and brow, but all it takes is one small pause and I recall our group of women in a space of sacred connection where the energy was no longer several but one. We were joined by chance and a tapestry was begun to create a winsome pattern that was beyond space and time. What was the reason, what the rhyme, that brought us there in graceful dance? Scattered clothes that touched and met in different hands yet does resonance remain? I touch a scarf and see faces, forms…love.

The spaces are threads within my heart even though we are gone, departed, and separated. While the mist is thick for now, I feel through conscious pause the joy that rests within the moments we shared, within our breathing each other in and out while sleeping, within our routines that were intermingled with gifts of love and laughter and tears and struggle. Night after night, our breathing carried our essences into each other, and now there are cells made of your molecules within me always, womb to womb, heart to heart.

Initially, I wasn’t sure what my strange dream of scarves and bright colors and warm close energies meant, but then I realized as I began to write that I had been visited and comforted by the essence of the experiences I shared with you who were my roommates at KSA. I know that it is of no concern whether we speak again or drift apart to touch only in dreams. The moments of herstory are indelibly printed as patterns upon my memory, and stronger than the experience it is the essence of our time together that holds me in a loving embrace. You are a blessing when I pause to recall a moment here or there, of whispers and chocolate and tears and oil; of hair and walks and wisdom talks; of nature and classes and books and transmissions from honored teachers that I heard in gratitude with my sisters on the journey. The threads are silver, blue and green, we are connected though unseen.

Sisters, you are always in my heart as dreams in the night and memories in daylight and in the elements at play; the fire, the water, the air, and the earth brought you into my soul where you remain. Each of us worthy, a gift, a precious soul, and in this moment of reflection I see you and I thank you. Namaste.

__________

Lynne, Erin, and Kate, I’m sorry that I don’t have any pictures of you in our “nest!”

Sound and Silence and Flowering

Sound of silence and the wisdom of the seers are one and the same for among the forests and caves dwell continual pauses of sound, the staccato rhythm that is woodpecker and heartbeat of the ancient tree who spreads her roots and cries her tears of renewal silently replenishing the foundation of existence while her fingers spread wide in a canopy of green velvet healing.

I rose this morning knowing the optimistic joy of childhood before it became unfamiliar and chaotic, before it was filled with so much movement and noise, back when it was simple to feel the sound of silence within.

Sitting meditation outside earlier, the breeze cool, the shadow sweet, the songs were clear and could drown the cultural chaos of voices, car doors, engines, and garbage trucks. Here among the cloud-free sky of infinite blue though I know it is black beyond, here where sun is bright yet ebony curtain will fall upon the stage in a few hours, here is the language that is wanting to emerge but not quite ready…

The flowering of life-wisdom has little to do with toil and struggle yet more to do with the allowing we give to the earth as a container in which seeds can grow their sacred song into the world, where water droplets of morning dew shall quench the thirst of blossom-to-bee, and the metamorphosis of birth happens almost overnight where its essence rises and broadens into pink and green, and rainbows offer a slide for fairies to use as they gather us all up in bunches of colors, we the flowering spirits inhabiting form where forgotten memories pulse in our cells like limpid pools of blissful bubbles.

Can we feel the gap between sound and silence where flowering happens by magic? Where a petal is an arm and the pistil the body and all is reversed according to a non-size where shape doesn’t control because illusion holds the key and the flower swallows it whole? Where does the energy carry us? Where do we allow our flowering to happen? Is it on the outside with action or inside with reality of sound that is not the noise but the resonance of creation?

I walk mindfully upon the gravel where sometimes a footstep merges with the rock and the sharp edges fall away as if there is no it and me, no rock and skin and flesh but only the space between our forms and that is the cushion where illusion disappears if only for an instant. The moment when we exist entirely present as One without separation. And yet the absolute thrill of experiencing form and its diversity. Is it diverse, really, or do I create the impression of difference in my mind so that all I can do is follow along the breadcrumbs of matter spread before me as a buffet? I love the buffet! And to realize that I can wonder in the graceful expression of what energy manifests as well as pause and flower in the gap is truly amazing.

The flowering of life-wisdom is not only the plant but the Goddess within me, within all of us. She is the flower and presents realization with a flourish to say that duality is fun, and filled with choice. We can choose to be led or to lead or to follow our own path no matter what that may be. Form is marvelous but it is not “all.” And while every element is sacred evolving out from Infinite imagination, we are dying, too, and that is an amazing process as well.

I have a fascination with death because it is the very presence of death that allows us to see life before and after, not that we often remember the after while we are in the before. We are one stage, one painting of the Divine — hanging on a wall or set up on a table, just as we see the possibility of microscopic worlds as only the tip of the iceberg. We know so little that we grasp and cling to what we think we know. Even the seers, those who were and are the vision beyond form, they are only barely seeing and hearing for the Infinite is impossible to comprehend.

I can’t create a flower but I can encourage it to grow.