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Monday, June 23rd, 2008 This begins to be
more of a monthly journal than a blog; my own form dependent on inspiration
and time. Life has been full but not overburdened and summer in my garden is
a delight. The plants have taken a
liking to their home on the mountain and fairies and unseen creatures, having
discovered their joy, cavort with them in the evenings. When I go out in the morning, the
particular spot where they’ve spent time still holds the memory of their
presence; they leave behind a different quality of light – a gleam. Nothing could so assure me that my efforts
are accepted by nature as in this evidence of obvious approval. For the time being
I’ve set aside the marketing of “Time and Transformation” and returned to
complete the long novel of the Minoans. The Minoan story is told to a young
girl growing up on Crete in the home of an archaeologist, by her Cretan
nanny. It will be two books for it’s far too long for one which gives me the
liberty to fill out the girl, Gloria’s side of the story as she struggles to
overcome the debilitating effects of a dark mother. The Minoan story is already
complete. As much as I enjoyed living
among the ancient Maya and bringing Balamka’s adventure to life, the Minoans
are the people of my heart and the characters who lived in their time are my
very soul. The first sentence I ever
wrote was devoted to them, many many years ago when I went looking for a
culture in which to place a story of healing caves; ancient places of
psychological birth. On Crete I found the birth place of Zeus in the Dictaen
Caves and so began a sojourn that became three different versions of their
story. I would put it aside, go back and start again, and again. I know that
I must finish but I will never leave them, nor they me for nothing that ever
was can not be, and everything loved is forever held in the soul. Wednesday, May 28, 2008 I’ve put the latest
Yucatan article up on the site in the articles section titled,”Travels in the
Yucatan.” Preparing for the
next workshop June 1st on feminine archetypes, we’ll be focusing
on the dark side of the Great Goddess. Not a favorite subject but an important
one, and one that personal experience has taught me, had best be attended to
or She will demand attention and that is NEVER a good thing, as Sleeping
Beauty and other heroines and heroes have learned. She goes by many names through time and
space, essentially representing loss of consciousness, whether that means
physical death or ego death. If truth
be told, no matter what story we may tell ourselves about either of those
options, it is truly terrifying or so She has the power to frighten us. There
is NOTHING maternal about her. She is
not ambivalent but entirely horrible. The Indian goddess Kali best represents
Her in modern time when, in western culture she’s been sent back to the
unconscious. As I mentioned earlier, that is not a good idea. One can wonder
if our current world crises may have something to do with our denial of
death. Wednesday. May 14th, 2008 The series of
non-fiction articles I’ve been writing for the magazine Ancient American has
been great fun; an opportunity to speak directly about the classic Maya. The
latest edition Vol 12 Number 78, just came out and is available on the
newsstands at Borders, Barnes and Noble, etc. In that issue the second
article in the series of six further explores the Mayan’s spiritual beliefs
and the way they were woven into daily life.
There are several color photographs of the region of Sayil and Kabah;
ruin sites on the western end of the Yucatan peninsula. The next article will be about Uxmal, also
in the western region, but much larger and more well known than Kabah and
Sayil. All are wonderful and well worth a visit. I hope to get the article up
on this site soon but in the meantime please pick up a copy of the magazine
if you’re interested. Sunday May 11th 2008 I must revise my
previous statement about best moments for I now have a new favorite “best”
moment. Or I should say best hours. Last night’s book launch at Book Passages
was more than I could have hoped for.
The eager faces of many friends and family members was like looking
into a sea of love and with that support, telling the story of writing Time & Transformation and reading
excerpts from it, was a pure delight. Thank you, thank
you all so very much. The years of
sitting alone struggling to bring the story into a coherent form are now totally
worth it. There are times that I love being alone but I must admit to having
felt a bit deprived of human contact these last years. I’m encouraged and
inspired to pursue the promotion of the book and to have many more best
moments and hours sharing the work with the world. For those of you
who get nervous when someone gets too bubbly, never fear, I was trained by a
mother who was always on the lookout for too much happiness and would squish
it like a bug when she saw it appear. I know better than to be too happy. But
I am going to indulge in it for a little while before coming back to the
ground and the day-to-dayness of life. Pure happiness is so rare. The next reading
for the book is Saturday, May 17TH at the Orinda Bookstore at 1PM.
For directions go to Orindabooks.com. Friday, May 9th, 2008 The marketing and
promotion for the publication of Time
& Transformation has eaten up my time for the last two months, and
happily, I’m now able to come back to other things; to smelling the roses and
writing for myself and friends. The book launch party is tomorrow night and
beyond that, who knows where it will go, but once launched the book will have
to travel of its own volition. The writing and caring for it have been a
great joy, and at one level I’m sorry to leave the world of the Maya and my
dear heroine Balamka, but there are other things to do; other lands to
explore and characters to discover. At home Joie the
dog and Sophie the cat are doing as well as a brother and sister of another
species might. They have moments of play and others where they’re not so sure
of one another, but how different is that than any relationship? The gardens
around the property are becoming truly magical thanks to the joint efforts of
myself and Heather and Mike. My favorite moment
this spring was late in the day after hard work planting, when I sat in my
newly developed grotto garden hemming a dress while Heather and Mike
continued down below putting in a new yellow rose bush. The sound of their
conversation and laughter mixed with the sweetness of bird’s songs in the
otherwise silent world of the mountain.
The sun was low in the sky with no wind and now and again Sophie would
dart by with her huge bushy tail held high. Joie would not be far
behind. Such a moment seems to imprint
on the soul in such a way that it is eternal. I don’t know why one moment is
so and the other millions of moments are not, but it seems true. Since then,
I often remember the experience and am grateful for it as well as awed by how
simple the truly important things in life actually are. I suppose we must do
those other things but frankly if I could choose whether to write a book and
go to stores and do readings, or go to a party, or travel to a distant land,
or sit once again hemming my dress with family and garden around me, I know
what I would choose. Wednesday, February 27, 2008 Trust, essential to
so many other things; with it we feel safe and when safe we feel confidant and
free to move and play, create and connect with the world around us. It is as
if, trust creates the space within which all good things come into existence.
Like a playground with a fence around it that lets the children know they are
safe to play within it with no interference from outside forces. We are after
all, baby gods and the world is our playground, our place to learn and
interact. Without trust, we
contract and are afraid, shrinking the space into a denser and denser
concentration of energy like a neutron star that will eventually blow itself
up. At the very least it will not have room for play and pleasure, creativity
and open communication with the world at large. Granted then, trust
is a good thing, but if it’s so important to our well-being, why is it so
rare? Why are most of us, most of the time, living without it? Part of the
human experience is to continually have the rug pulled out from under us; to
have our hopes disappointed, or unpleasant things happen that we’re not
expecting; love lost, job lost, rejection in a myriad of forms. When this happens most people contract, as
if it is a blow. And what this perceived blow hits is our trust! We then say,
I can’t trust life; life is not safe; only fools trust, I’ll get hurt if I
trust. Fundamentally because life is
unpredictable, which it most definitely is, it is not safe to trust. There is a certain
logic to this, but it is a flawed argument for if we know that life is
unpredictable, we “trust” that it is, why argue with it whenever it proves to
be true? Why demand that life give us what we want when we want it in order
to trust? Why not trust that life is as it is and that what comes will come
and that we can trust that? So we keep our trust intact, freeing ourselves to
enjoy the play. A favorite book/movie title comes to mind, “At Play in the Fields of the Lord.” This is an area where the ego is still
childlike; so unsure of itself that it needs constant assurance that it’s
valuable and loved, and – it’s never enough. Monday, February 25th I’ve booked the
first reading for the novel after publication on May 10th at the
Orinda Book store. Look for details in the schedule section. And the next workshop which will be on
Aphrodite is set for April 13th.
Now if it will only stop raining for long enough to get my roof
repaired I will feel that things are truly moving forward after this long
sloggy sloppy mushy period. Some call it Mercury retrograde, I call it mud. A friend came to me
with a dilemma today. The gist of it was how does one know the difference
between what is wrong to do and what is painful to do? The two get pretty
tangled and when it is painful it often feels wrong for that reason when it
isn’t actually morally incorrect, just hard.
In this case, is it morally wrong to put an animal down when it is
unable to adjust to life indoors with people? The Human Society says it is
not wrong. My friend’s heart is pained
but she cannot live with this animal’s behavior – she’s done everything known
to man to change it. And no one else will
either – she’s searched all avenues for a home. This is an
ambiguous moral dilemma. Thoughts about it anyone? Tuesday, February 19th I adore Hestia,
preparing for next Sunday’s workshop where we’ll be looking at what she
represents archtypally, I am in love with her all over again. I see that she
has been part of my foundation always and that even when I’m unaware of her
influence, true to her nature -- moving between the seen and unseen world
--she’s always at work weaving her web of connection. She is the one that
makes the unconscious conscious that gives depth to our perceptions that
would otherwise see only the surface of physical reality. It is she who’s at
work when we gain a deeper understanding.
It is also she who frightens us with dark possibilities, with
eruptions from the depths that can cause havoc in our otherwise orderly
lives. She is not always a friend to the ego that wants to believe it’s in
control over things it is most definitely not. Her symbol is the moon and
it’s madness—not popular with today’s high value on tidiness to the point of
an obsessive/compulsive kind of disorder!! The line between
what we are meant to at least try to control, and all the rest that we
cannot, is a moving target. I’ve yet to find it stable and predictable and
even when I think I’ve finally understood, oops, dear Hestia pulls the rug
out from beneath my feet and shows me once again that the truth I thought I’d
found is false and that if it takes that to bring me to my knees, which is
the position she prefers that we be in, so be it. I surrender, and frankly,
once I get down there where I can rest my head on the ground and smell the
sweet earth, I am glad beyond measure to give in; it is the place of peace
and of true connection where I’m returned to the larger truth that I am one
indivisible cell in the body of the universe; that my experience of
separation is an illusion and I’m returned home, which I never left. This life of
separateness is so hard and so sad and confusing—and it’s that way only
because of the illusion -- that I can’t help wondering why we must do
this. Some days I feel punished, on
others I accept it without question ( that because I’ve spent so many years
questioning to no avail; as this is obviously the situation my questioning
has become an empty exercise and loss of energy) and do my best to get
through it with some grace and care for all the rest of us who are suffering
the same fate. It’s raining today,
and new leaks have sprung open in my living room adding to the growing number
in my sweet redwood house. It is now more outdoors than most, but dear to me
none the less. Friday, February 15th What a wonderfully
insane week this has been. Part of what has made it so, is that Ancient American
asked me to do a rush to help them out and get an article in to them for this
month’s magazine. So, look for it probably in two weeks at the bigger
bookstores, Border’s, etc. Also, the book has gone to print and can be
pre-ordered at http://www.wheatmark.com/bookstore. If anyone has contacts in the public world
that might have interest in my novel, please pass them on to me as it’s time
to really get the marketing in gear for the book. I’m working this week on talking to
bookstores about readings and when I have a schedule I’ll post it in the
Schedule section of my website. The magazine “What
is Enlightenment” has an interesting article this month regarding the Divine
Feminine. I was delighted to read Ms. Diebold’s premise that a return of
feminine values is not the answer to inequality of any kind, not just
spiritual, so then what is? The thesis of my novel looks at that issue, so I
was happy to discover like-minds questioning it as well. Maybe it’s because I started out in life as
what is referred to as “a father’s daughter,” a typical Athena character that
supports men, but, it’s not just that, but more an awareness that: 1. Our
essential nature is not gendered. 2. The feminine and the masculine are
equally valuable.3. Too much of either one creates an imbalance. We can see the balance when we look at the
natural world which has always been the best guidance when our intellects get
lost down a rabbit hole of thought that takes us too far from the simple
truth. From that perspective any
enquiry becomes simple and obvious. Ask any simple person; a village mother,
a farmer, a fisherman. They’ll look at
you like you’re daft to even bother with such questions. But for those of us who are burdened with
a desire to question, whose minds are not naturally simple, the answers can
still be best found in the simple and obvious. Saturday, February 9th Once a month does
not a blog make, but now that the website is up-to -speed and the marketing
for my novel, Time &
Transformation, scheduled for publication May 1st, is underway, I will devote more time
to this venue. I’m very excited to
announce that I’ll be writing a long series of articles for the magazine “Ancient
American” beginning in the April issue. I’ll be able to use photographs from
the ruins and explore some of their fascinating concepts in depth. It’s a
great opportunity and I look forward to sharing it with everyone. Tuesday, January 8th I
live on a mountain side from where I look out at the contour of the mountain
and a valley full of trees of many varieties.
When I sit and look at this gorgeous vista, I know in my mind it is
beautiful but it seldom catches my breath as it does when the mist is playing
hide and seek with me. All
day today the storm has brought layers of clouds and mist. In this season of mist everything
moves in and out of existence, now
here, now disappeared. Each
reemergence a delight; a friend recalled.
I think we are very bad at appreciating what is too present; too
constant. I no longer see the art on
my walls that once had the power to move me to heights of passion. It is in my nature to delight at existence
however, it needs to catch my attention and familiarity does, sorrowfully,
breed discontent. Here is another of
life’s brilliant ideas; we all know that the one thing we can depend on in
life is change, right? So life makes human nature fickle, which forces us to
be awake to the next moment for as soon as we fall asleep - fall into any
form of complacency- we lose life, in other words we experience varying
degrees of depression. To be fully
alive we must be fully awake; we must be able to see the tree anew each
moment. This is where the mist is a
great gift for it tricks us into thinking the tree is gone so that when it
appears again, Voila, we actually SEE it.
I
have spent a lifetime studying and practicing different prescriptions for
awakening. Nothing works as well as
mist. Monday, January 7th A great deal depends on the manner in
which a thing begins – refer to first entry on September 15th –
for one thing, it is a reference point that can always be referred to in
order to find our way back no matter how far we may wander from that source,
for another it sets an intention that energetically supports movement – the
further we get from the source/beginning the less energy is available for
movement; entropy sets in over time.
Thus the necessity to regularly begin again. Each day is a possible new start, or
not if we choose not to use it that way, but I believe that this is one of
the more brilliant ideas of the creation for with the new dawn we’re rested
and full of renewed energy and if we follow this natural design we can truly
start again; realigning intention and tone, remembering what it is that we
most truly desire to fulfill in our lives.
It is a daily prayer, if you will, or an affirmation, if that is your
language; it is hope that does spring eternal, but not if we’re not paying
attention and attention is the key word.
There is so much that we cannot control in life, so much outside
awareness, but our own awareness is always available; a resource gifted to us
by life. Which raises another of the
creation’s brilliant ideas; an expanding consciousness in an aging body. This combination solves what would
otherwise be a serious problem. In a
young body we have all the energy we need to keep moving for years with
little necessity to return to the beginning for the renewal of energy—it’s
built into youth. So we blithely move believing it is forever no matter what
evidence we see in older beings.
Depending on the individual the first shock occurs around 30, but most
certainly by 40 when we start to feel tired in some fashion, limited by a
body that no longer energizes unconsciously.
It might occur when an hour of tennis sends us home for a nap when
before we could play all day, but however the first shock occurs it is
devastating to our naďve view and kick starts consciousness into a fuller
participation; we must participate in our own growth which is no longer
running on unconscious drives. Someone - sorry I seldom quote
correctly - once said that before 40 our looks are a gift of genetics, after
40 we’re responsible for how we look. Let’s call this the before and after
40 syndrome; before, unconscious processes refuel body, mind, and soul,
after, consciousness is required for continued growth. An aging body serves to remind us that we
are the creators of our lives and so must decide what and how we will live,
learning to be the creators is the gift that age gives us as a natural
process. Another piece of this design
is that as we age and are becoming more conscious and more responsible we’re
motivated by the now very real fact that we don’t have all the time in the
world; that each day is precious and this is a powerful source of renewed
energy!! Sunday, January 6th I’ve just added an excerpt from the
novel “Time and Transformation” to the Novel Notes section of the website if
anyone would like to get a preview. It
looks like the publication date will be mid-April 2008. I won’t believe it until I hold it in my
hands. The wait has been forever. Saturday, December 29th Another old adage; “if at
first you don’t succeed, try try again.
In the space between difficulties;
moments of adoration. This day is so
beautiful, so beyond beautiful everything in me, every cell it seems, wraps
itself around the wonder devouring it; unable to give enough say enough
breath enough; an orgasm of the entire being, body and soul; the drive to
merge all with the all, to go so far into the wonder of the day that I no
longer exist. As soon as I put words to the
experience, I appear again as separate from that that I wish to become. Yet, the need to express is as great as is
the need to merge. Individual and
relationship locked in their eternal dance; lovely and so different from one
another; not better but ‘other’. It is
another way of experiencing the Tao, the eternal dance of opposites. Kabir’s “Held
by the cords of love, the swing of the Ocean of Joy sways to and fro; and a
mighty sound breaks forth in song. Mingle the double currents of love and
detachment.” And in this case;
the individual and the all. Friday, December 21st Voila! It worked once, will it work
twice? What a rush of freedom when I was able to put in the last blog entry
myself. I do seem to move from one
problem to another however. Life; one problem following quickly on the heals
of another? Joy and sorrow mingling.
The moments of ease pass quickly into difficulty again. No need to list the new difficulties, just
know it is so. I’m going to go see if
this works. Wednesday, December 19th I may or may not have solved my blog
entry difficulty. Closer but, as the old adage goes “no cigar.” Where did
that one come from I wonder. Does anyone know? Speaking of old, I find myself
irresistibly drawn to the past, not mine but all of our pasts; to human
history. There was a time in my own
history when I couldn’t get enough of our ancient stories, but lately the
draw is much closer to home; to the world wars in Europe and to my country’s
roots in Europe. I wonder why the change in interest; I wonder why the
interest at all. Do I look for
something that isn’t in my world? Is it a compensation, and if so, what am I
reaching for? A simpler time, a time of higher values, of working together
for a cause, of families close to one another throughout their lives, not
separated by hundreds or thousands of miles, for the sake of ambition;
ambition for success in the world, for money, for things. Have we traded all
that is truly valuable in life for things of far less value? I am becoming
like my grandmother who, in the last 20 years of her life was famous for her
stories of her parents and grandparents; of how they lived and the changes
she’d seen in the 70 years she’d been alive. However, she didn’t complain
about what the world had become, she accepted it, but she did keep the past
alive for us and for that I’m grateful.
I will try not to complain, but rather remember that nothing is ever
lost but only needs to be ‘re-called’ to be drawn back into the light. What would I re-call? Community
working together, families in and out of one another’s lives, if not daily,
then at least more often than the requisite yearly visit, most of all that
our connections to one another are recognized as more important than anything
else. I think that is the key one that
I would recall. I remember years ago my eyes welling up as I watched families
interacting in India with an ease and naturalness that I’d never experienced
myself. How I longed to be known and to know others in such an intimate way
where there was no thought as one reached an arm around another as to whether
they would welcome it or if it was correct. Thoughtless intimacy is learned
in infancy if it is learned at all. Key word; intimacy. Recall intimacy please; that ease of
connection that arises naturally. A
friend once said “all infants deserve love.”
A human right? No, I believe it is more a life right. All animals have it, what happened to the
animal that we are? Tuesday, December 11th Saturday December 1st It appears that the clouds are not through with us, settling in for a longer visit, unusual for this early in the season, but not unwelcome. When nature is doing her washing like Tom Bombadil’s lady skipping beside the River Withywindle, I find myself collecting treasures to bring inside; mossy branches, dried leaves, pinecones I close the drapes early, light candles, put on music and gather art supplies around the fireplace, pour a glass of wine and light the fire, ready for the guest to arrive. Rumi says, “Stars burn clear all night till dawn. Do that yourself, and a spring will rise in the dark with water your deepest thirst is for.” We’ll see. Thursday – November 29th The clouds have come and gone, sprinkling the mountainside with the inevitable scent of things to come. Like squirrels gathering nuts the sounds of carpenters and gardeners, stonemasons and roofers echo across the canyon walls. I must remember to call for firewood and clean the gutters. But the sun is shining beguiling me to reflect, to sit and stare, seeing only the beauty of trees and sky, the graceful curves of beloved Mt. Tamalpais that fill my windows. I really should wash them, but not today. Today is sweet and quiet even with all the sound and activity. Driven inside by the morning rain, it is me that is quiet, perception is everything. Joie, my Cavalier King Charles – dog—has stolen a chewy from his best friend Mojo, a shorthair pointer three times Joie’s size who lives in the house below with my daughter Heather and her husband Mike. Mojo watched him carry the chewy away without taking it from him. He must not be hungry. But when Joie tried to bury it on the side of the hill, Mojo stole it back. My dear Joie hasn’t yet noticed his treasure is gone, he continues to dig his hole for the burial ceremony. But this is a line of thought I would rather not follow. We have yet to bury Anna and I choose to stay quiet inside. Maybe crying for the week is the source of my internal peace. I don’t feel empty though, just sweet and under that, sad. We had all looked forward with innocent hope to my daughter’s daughter’s arrival. I did say I wasn’t going to follow that line that goes down to the bottom of things. In an earlier conversation today we imagined that at the bottom of the bay live all the cell phones and computers and assorted technological objects that people have thrown in exasperation when they weren’t able to get them to work. That’s a better line to follow. But I see that if I continue I’ll get caught again so let this be enough for today. Wednesday – November 21st Beginning; dawn, start, new leaf, creation, the big bang, how does one draw the first line? Just do it, put your fingers on the keyboard and go. Easy and yet, a beginning defines the end; like a note of music, the tone will persevere and resonance gives the felt sense to a piece. The sense I long for is like the mystic poet Kabir’s; “Held by the cords of love, the swing of the Ocean of Joy sways to and fro; and a mighty sound breaks forth in song. Mingle the double currents of love and detachment, like the mingling of the streams of Ganges and Jumna. Do you know how the moments perform their adoration? Waving its row of lamps, the universe sings in worship day and night.” I had thought to begin with the experience of love and sorrow in my family this last month. It is still so close I believed that sharing it would be good. But on second thought, having not yet put fingers to keyboard, it was too close and the swing between love and sorrow too extreme for any music one would choose to listen to. So let us begin with mystic poetry, that refinement of feeling that heals the heart. For all broken hearts heal in the resonance of compassion. And sorrow, wherever it arises in a life, is universal; breaks us open, and freed from the constraints of daily life’s struggle for survival, we remember. What? Remember what? Open your heart and answer the question. It’s only waiting for us to ask. At a reading given by Jacob Needleman, a philosopher I admire, he raised a question in the title of his new book; “Why can’t we be good?” By the end of his talk he’d not answered the question, so I asked him. He seemed delighted that I’d been emboldened to ask for an answer to what he himself was asking, giving him the opportunity to remind us of a fundamental philosophical truth; the question is the point, not the answer. As I thought more on the subject I realized the question takes us on a journey of discovery that is unique to our individual consciousness. So I propose that the tone for this piece be both personal and poetic, that it be an exploration of the relationship between the mundane and the profound; the swing between love and detachment which has us know we are one and we are all, and it is only a matter of where we are on the swing as to which we momentarily identify with.
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