Gifts in the death of my cousin...

He turns me to face myself

And see

I am a crone

Wise

Able to grieve deeply

Fully

And turn to

Embrace joy

In the same day.

Each one inhabited cleanly, clearly.

Accepting I am no

Longer a young woman

I still have all the wisdom of those times I have lived.

Holding now, like the flood tides of a river,

All that has been learned in the silent service of (at this moment, exact moment, my daughter pushes the care of her son into my lap causing me to abandon this writing)

Nurturing others.

This nurturing work is not work that gets celebrated as goals accomplished. Few write creative scenes wishing to do their invisible work well. Few are able to grow the humility, the deep grounded sense of selflessness necessary to truly put aside who they are and everything they might hope to accomplish in order to care for others long term. To see life from this place of invisibility is a rare gift. The edge, the challenge, is how to speak, write, share, the depth of all that is understood and learned in the years dedicated to this particular form of service. I’ve long thought that this nurturing work is actually the work of priestesses in the temple to all that is holy. Is there anything more important than nurturing others bringing to bear all the awareness and love one can possibly presence? But once the work of the priestesses is complete…a Crone is born.

The death of my cousin, a man who could be called nothing less than a saint in the truest meaning of the word, issues a call to me. And honestly one thing that is coming along with grief and joy is a desire to roar. This is not a blind roar, not the roar of a mad woman lost in unawareness. It is a desire to roar borne out of all the ways in which the wisdom of the crone is ignored, dismissed, diminished, belittled and appropriated by those who are not and never will be a crone.  And beyond, far beyond, the desire to roar is this deep desire to presence the wisdom. The paradox is how to take something largely nonverbal, embedded in the cells, and give words to it in ways that, even though they carry huge power, that they are not sourced from rage but rather from the ferocity born of deeply practiced nurturing. Finding words that offer nourishing, necessary and needed wisdom for the rebalancing of masculine and feminine. But make no mistake, it is only when Crones roar and others listen that it will be possible to truly balance masculine and feminine. I invite Crones to roar from the place of fierce love and truth. I invite those who will never be Crones to be quiet and listen.

Who will listen for the Crones? Only those who are able to pry their eyes and ears from the youth orientation of our culture. The trick is for those who are listening for the roaring Crones to learn that the voice of the Crone does not have to be loud or harsh. The Crone does not call in ways our celebrity youth loving culture has taught us to listen for. The challenge is that the humility of the Crone will be overlooked and Crones will continue to be asked to serve invisibly, their worth missed because of the ease with which they have learned to inhabit selflessness.

Return of the Red Wing Blackbird

I went to the river with my children yesterday. We went to watch the high tide. “I think of tides as belonging to the ocean,” a friend commented. Ocean tides move in response to the moon. River tides move in response to precipitation.  Flood tides on a river happen with heavy rainfall and can be accentuated when warm rain melts any snow pack to add to the flow. This winter we have no snow pack so the river is running full on the rains of a warm storm.

Our favorite swimming holes from summer often have large jumping rocks. We climb the twenty feet to balance for a moment on the top before leaping into the cool pools resting at the base. In a flood tide the top of these rocks are barely visible and sometimes visible only as a bump of water which suggests something underneath. In these flood tides giant trees bob down the river as if they are toothpicks.

It is a great thrill to watch water move this way. Living in the wilderness these flood times are the ‘superbowls’. They are not scheduled. After decades of life lived largely without a human dominated landscape these special times can be felt. This comes as the “drop everything and go out and see it now” call of the wild.

The exhilaration, inspiration, vitality and raw power of these times feed my soul and well being. Returning home afterwards I stepped out of the car. The first sound that greeted me was the call of the Red Wing Black bird. The seasonal dwelling of these beings near my home is one of my great pleasures. Their call is not quite melodic, the way they chase of larger birds is astonishing. The flash of red as they fly across the pond stimulates my eye. And this was the first call of the new season. “We’re back!” My heart swells to be present to the first day they have returned, to that first call, to welcome guests back after a long absence. Combined with the flood tide….I am so very grateful!

Competition and Knowledge

I’ve been in deep inquiry around cultural patterns that affect my personal thinking and belief systems. Family of origin patterns, lineage patterns, cultural lineage patterns and investigation of the belief systems and patterns of north America.

Two of the most insidious places I find patterns erupting in my own being have to do with competition and knowledge. These are strongly valued traits in western culture. They are, in my opinion, two of the most difficult patterns to presence in seeking the rebalancing of masculine and feminine.

The paradox of the feminine wisdom, which most serves rebalancing, is a quality of invisibility. This particular wisdom does not boast, does not call attention to itself in a ‘look at me’ way, rather, it is held as a stone that drops deeply into a pool and understand life from the resting place, the depths. Those that do not know these depths can not compete to know. This wisdom can not be ‘read’ or learned from a teacher. It is the gift of a lifetime of putting aside oneself in silent service and the immersion into observation and quiet belonging.

It is the wisdom of the Crone. Another part of the paradox is that a male bodied person will not be a Crone. The rebalance asks a male bodied person to give value to something he will not embody. When this wisdom is given a place at the table the importance will be understood. But this wisdom must come from the true carriers of it. Women of maturity. For when they speak you can feel the rippling of the waters in your own being as it resonates through your cellular memory. After all, each of us were in fact carried in the bodies of own grandmothers in the eggs that the fetus of our mother held from those times. When grandmother speaks, we ‘know’ that truth.

Call of the Wild...Frogs

I have dear friends who travel the world meeting different spiritual communities and joining them to learn from wisdom teachings. Occasionally I join in. It’s a big world with many delicious teachings to encourage awareness.

Today I was walking a trail through the forest, a trail I’ve walked countless times. Over the 17 years of living in one place, a place in the literal wilderness, I am struck by what it is possible to learn by staying in one place with a conscious intention to slow down and be quiet.

My friends and I go into other communities and join in meditations, vision quests, rituals, ceremonies, yoga and other pursuits. But just this moment as I write these words there is an orchestra of frog song just outside my door with such volume as to drown out all else. It crescendos at night with small practice sessions throughout the day. Living for 17 years with a two month cycle of frog song each winter is one of the richest rituals of all.

It is a song to life. A song to the ultimate possibility of more life yet to come. And year after year this incredible song continues. I have heard it said that frogs are an indicator species. When an environment is polluted the frogs, being ever so sensitive, are among the first creatures to die. I am grateful to live in a healthy place where there are few songs of human made origin and this amphibious ode to joy, this ode to the incredible immediacy of sensuous life in the making, and live in the meditation of the forest itself.

All told a modest count indicates that I have listened approximately 23,040 hours to the frogs. Their music actually vibrates my body. That vibration, in the numbers that are outside my door, is significant. There are tens of thousands of frogs singing. Imagine being vibrated for two months each year in the ecstasy of pure living!

Changing the energetics of patterned behaviors.

What are patterns? In human interactions patterns are those behaviors that are done over and over again. Waking up in the morning and kissing your sweetie is a pattern. Patterns can be simple or complex. Productive or frustrating. Patterns can move us in the directions of our dreams or they can be the recurring themes that thwart our progress to that we dream about.

The recognition of patterns takes intention. Having the desire to focus and concentrate on the melody of emotions as they play through the chapters of your life will greatly increase your chance of noticing patterns. It does take some work to unearth, uncover and notice patterns. The good news is that life is the playground to do this work if you desire. Why bother? To the extent that you know your patterns you are able to begin to be present in your life right now. Free. Make new choices unencumbered by the past.

Dare to take charge of your life rather than let autopilot programs run the show. A teacher of mine, Martin Prechtel, says ‘make as many mistakes as fast as possible’. I love this. It is only by doing something badly that we can ever get to find a better way. A wonderful book called the Practicing Mind, by Thomas M. Sterner, echoes this idea. We can’t get to new behaviors without learning. Watch a baby if you’d like a primer on how to do this.

Each pattern carries an emotional and energetic signature. Your key to make changes lies in noticing the feeling states, sitting with them, remaining curious and neutral, then letting yourself settle in to what lies beneath. Breathe.

There are many techniques to creating a new emotional state in yourself. Some people self medicate. Others use meditation or yoga. Tapping is exceptional in releasing the places where emotions are stored in the body. Dance!

A third eye exercise helps to rewire the circuitry. When you notice the emotions surfacing form a recognized pattern you have investigated and identified and are ready to release use this technique. Put your hands in a fist with the thumbs out. Press the thumbs into the small indent on your temple. Put your arms out to the side. Hum and think satanama vibrating your head. Imagine white light coming down into your head and going out of the spot between your eyebrows, the third eye. Imagine this going around in a circle. Do this for 5-7 minutes as often as your find yourself returning to patterned emotions.

Intergeneration movement towards rebalancing masculine and feminine.

“This has to stop, whatever this is. You’re a wife and mother and that has to come first.”

I was watching a television show based in the 1950’s and a man said this to his wife. In the generation of my mother the general culture believed and lived with the quote above. Oh the tension of the brilliant woman with so many gifts to offer the world. The priorities of an entire culture supported the idea that being a mother was work of merit. Now I’m not saying that women were given ultimate respect or accord for this, which is at least part of why feminism arose. Women wanted more, at least some women. And the ways in which feminism cracked open the opportunities for women of my generation were phenomenal. I was able to work in a field in which very few women ever went, allowing me to enter a world of brilliant minds accomplishing amazing things.

The challenge came, for me, when I had children. The birthing of my daughter dilated not only my cervix but also my entire way of understanding what might be possible in being a mother. The labor pains exercised anatomy that had never undergone such a rigorous workout. Having a child began the slow incessant exercise of a way of showing up for another human being.

And having a child also gave presence to a difficulty in my marriage. In this new feminist culture motherhood was not offered the same ‘protected’ status as a worthy ‘career’ choice. It was one more thing to do along with being a superstar at work. The Second Shift is an interesting read about that time period in which women were in the position of being expected to work and be the main parent in charge of taking care of the household.

Making a choice to be a full time mother was not easy. I was graced with the financial ability to not have to work. I was able to live out my belief that my children were more important than any of the projects I ever worked on. I am grateful that I was able to be a full time mother during a time in which there was lip service but not real respect given to the value of that work. Honestly, I missed the feedback about how important my other work had been and the difference was noticeable and big. I entered an invisible class.

I’m watching my daughter as a new mother and I see she and her partner and many of their friends finding ways to balance all of the richness of life with some skill sets I did not have available. I see the re-growth of the value of the place of mother in society. I see this including more value of father through shared parenting.  Livelihood questions are more conscious and inclusive of the value of parenting. I see all of this as the slow pacing towards the balancing of masculine and feminine.

Meditations on Rumi’s field…

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.” Rumi

This poem has been a meditation for over a year now. I return to this quote again and again when I encounter others whose behaviors trigger responses in myself. I’ve been learning to get curious about those responses and rather than point at the other, look inside and stay present to what I am feeling and what is revealed. Surrendering the need to make myself or others right or wrong and just being with what is. Releasing judgment of myself and others.

The release of judgment opens me up to finding the center of what is true for myself, the possibility of having loving relationships with other people and being in connections to others in freedom rather than a hostage situation.

I will meet people who live in many different places with many different value systems…it is endlessly fascinating to me how others live life, what they value, how they do it. Non-judgment allows for the possibility of peace rather than war. AND…non-judgment of how people choose to live is very different than having to live as they live… I can be in Rumis’ field but this does not mean I have to live as another. Nor does anyone else have to believe and live as I do.