For Shelter, the World

Winter's a-coming

It snowed yesterday morning in my little town in the bend of the Columbia River. Yep, not even the middle of October yet, and it was cold enough to snow for two hours, putting half an inch of the white stuff on the ground. During the afternoon, the temperature rose into the lower 40s Fahrenheit, and by the end of the day the snow had melted. We've had several days of extremely windy and unseasonably cold weather, although a warming trend (into the upper 50s during the daytime) is supposedly on its way.

Last Sunday, in advance of the predicted cold snap, it was time for the final harvest in my plot at the community garden. The three tomato plants that turned out to be so prolific were still covered with several dozen green fruits. I pulled the plants up, roots and all, along with an habanero that bore a couple of immature peppers. They're now hanging on a wire rack in my garage, continuing to ripen. The summer squash and the eggplant had attempted a last burst of activity, but I suspect that with yesterday's snow, they've bitten the dust. The only thing remaining are the Candy onions, which seem to be happy with the colder weather.

Weekend before last, a flock of crows (hmm, isn't that supposed to be a murder of crows?) was feasting on the Italian plum trees in my front yard. Now the purple plums are gone and the slow-ripening apples are turning red. The redwing blackbirds and gray banded-tail pigeons and chickadees are still enjoying the bird feeders I installed last spring. This afternoon I noticed an unfamiliar brown bird perched on the big feeder by the deck. This will be my first winter feeding the wild birds, and I'm very curious to see who will show up.

Much has happened since the plum trees in my yard began leafing out early last April. It seems like an entire lifetime ago, in context of what I've let go of and what I've come to realize about life in general, and my life in particular. I feel as though I've woken up at the age of 55 (56, by the end of the year), which is a good thing -- being awake is a good and empowering thing -- but it also presents one with the need for acceptance of one's previous miscreations and missteps. Being awake means that there's no place left to hide. The veils of denial and delusion are gone, and you see what you're looking at.

Part of me looks at the past with a dismay that sometimes borders on horror, and another part knows that it all had to be exactly as it was. I feel very solid inside of myself, with a clarity about things, in ways that I have never been before, and yet I wake up most mornings now with a feeling of panic and anxiety, that all has been lost and there's no time left to get it back. On one level, I'm excited about the possibility of future self re-invention; on another level, I simply feel worn out.

What's that quote about mid-life from Dante Alighieri? In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood, where the straight way was lost. Except, what if what I thought was the "straight way" wasn't, and what I've woken up to is actually the true path? A path I've always been on, but did not recognize clearly for what it was.

As I was uprooting tomato plants right before sunset last Sunday, at the end of a blustery, gray and chilly autumn day, I could hear the haunting skirl of a lone bagpipe from somewhere in the distance across the creek; a fitting herald of this bittersweet season.

What I did on my summer vacation

It's the last day of August, and already brown and gold leaves are beginning to appear on the trees here in the Gorge. What a short, hot and productive summer it's been.

I spent 17 hours of it in the dentist's chair, beginning the process of what's known as a full mouth reconstruction. Because the work is so extensive, requiring lengthy sessions (the first one took almost 7 hours), I've chosen to have it done under sedation; that's conscious sedation, not general anesthesia, using pharmaceuticals such as diazepam (tradename Valium) and triazolam (Halcyon). Since if at all possible I avoid using drugs, even aspirin, I didn't know what the effects of those substances would be, and to say I was apprehensive is an understatement.

The experience, especially of the first dental session, was like jumping off a cliff into the unknown. That's a perfect analogy, because going into this, I had the sense that it was akin to an initiation -- spiritual, emotional and physical. Getting my teeth fixed is essential in order for me to move forward with my life. Given the longevity genes on both sides of my family, I could live another 40 years. I'd like to enjoy that time, in good health, and not being self-conscious about the appearance of my mouth. More than that, in order to have complete integrity, you've got to "walk your talk", and having a mouthful of teeth in bad shape that you're not attending to is not consonant with that.

Besides, I love food. I love to cook, and I love to eat.

Anyway, the first round, which involved therapeutic work, root canals and such, is over. I have a couple of months off before I start the next round. After it's all said and done, almost every tooth in my mouth will be crowned, including a couple of permanent bridges, and my bite will be different. As someone I was describing the process to said, this is almost like having orthodontic braces, in terms of the ultimate effect. It's an apt allusion, since the main reason my dental health got into this shape is because of the "quack" orthodonture that I was unwillingly subjected to as a teenager. I've been having dental problems my entire adult life. Taking care of it now is helping me heal emotionally as well as physically, and that includes letting go of the past and stepping freely into the future ... which seems to be the work we're all doing right now, in one way or another.

I haven't yet written about this summer's dental work in my blog, because it felt important for me to experience it "live" and let it act on me, without my analyzing it for public consumption. I've had a lot of realizations, which I'll be sharing here later. Suffice it to say, this summer of eclipses has been a turning point.

Making the leap

GLOUCESTER:

There is a cliff whose high and bending head
Looks fearfully in the confined deep:
Bring me but to the very brim of it,
And I'll repair the misery thou dost bear
With something rich about me: from that place
I shall no leading need.

-- King Lear, Act 4, Scene 1

Googling this phrase brings up an article from the UK newspaper "The Independent", written in 1993 on the occasion of Shakespeare's 429th birthday, which synopsizes the scene as follows:

Poor Tom, Gloucester's estranged son Edgar in disguise, leads his father part-way up the 'horrible steep', and convinces him that he stands on the brink ('The fishermen that walk upon the beach / Appear like mice'). Renouncing the world, and begging forgiveness from his son, the blind man throws himself forward to certain death. But Edgar has deceived him: Gloucester falls only on the grass. Returning in the guise of a local peasant, Edgar persuades his father that he has plummeted the height of 10 masts ('Thy life's a miracle'). The mental ordeal purges the old man of his despair. His imaginary fall restores us to solid ground.

And so it is.

Paradoxically, peace

For June, a random chapter of the Tao Te Ching, from "The Feminine Tao" website ...

35

The world is drawn to one
with understanding of the Tao.

The sage journeys in secure, safe, calm peace.

Initially, passersby may stop,
seeking food and music.

Then, from the lips of such a sage,
they will learn of the Tao.

Seeking to taste of it,
they will find no taste.

Seeking to see it,
they will find no sights.

Seeking to hear it,
they will find no sound.

For it is in using its teachings,
that one attains understanding
of its eternal value.

-- as translated by Holly Roberts

What reassuring words to read at a time when I've been sensing so much chaos and anxiety and upset in the world; when it's difficult to know what to believe and whom to trust, and when not much seems to make sense.

I remember the afternoon a week ago when I left Dallas, sitting in the airport waiting for my flight back to Portland and being amazed at how stirred up people seemed to be, in a way they hadn't been the previous weekend. They couldn't sit still, couldn't stop talking.

It's as if a fire had been lit underneath us, or as if we were zapped with a lightning bolt. (The astrologers among us will appreciate the Uranian reference there ... an influx of high-voltage energy, unexpected, unsettling, yet with gifts for us if we can make the choice to take advantage of them.)

I've been sleeping very well since I returned home, with dreams unlike what I'm used to, with lots of movement and people in them. Some of the dreams are unsettling, and yet they feel "right", with a somehow orderly flow to them, as if something's being adjusted or healed inside of me. Then I wake up feeling rested, yet at the same time panicky, sometimes with a feeling of impending doom. I tell myself, "just get up and start moving"; and once I do, I usually feel more empowered and grounded, although I'm aware of an underlying sense of heaviness and depression that's there most of the time.

I suspect it has to do with the fact that I'm on the verge of making a major leap, a quantum leap; and in fact, we are all doing so, individually and collectively. No wonder things feel stirred up. I think we're doing damned well with it, to be honest. Time for a little pat on the back, and definitely time for us to take care of ourselves, in big ways and small, as we prepare for take-off.

What a difference a week makes

When I left for Dallas on May 17, the Pacific Northwest had just turned the corner fully into spring. White blossoms were showering from the apple trees, the forget-me-nots and wildflowers I planted in late April were beginning to sprout, and there was new green all around, tentative and vulnerable.

Arriving home on the 24th, I drove up the steep driveway into a paradise of purple ... tall columbines, blooming in indigo beside my front deck and everywhere else they've taken root since last year; rhododendron bushes covered with soft lavender and vibrant magenta blossoms; and lilac-hued flowers spiking out from the chive plant that has over-wintered in its pot for two years.

The apple and plum trees are completely leafed out now, casting shadows on the lawn, which at this moment is greatly in need of mowing. A large flock of bluish-gray band-tailed pigeons visits my birdfeeder every afternoon, and frogs chirp and croak their mating songs all night long. By 5:15 each morning, the sun is peeking through my bedroom window, a reminder that the summer solstice is a little over three weeks away.

I've taken the week off from blogging to dig in the earth (I've got a plot at the local community garden, and this is planting time) and to absorb what this season of change has brought for me. 

Long journey home

I met an Internet friend "in real life" for the first time yesterday. (By "the first time", I don't mean just this specific person, but anyone I've met online. That is a phenomenon worthy of an entire post of its own, which shall come later.)

At any rate, this friend has been visiting family in Seattle and took the train down to Portland for the day. It was a glorious spring day, sunny and cool after almost a week of cold and rainy weather, and we spent the afternoon walking around downtown Portland. Newly emerged from my post-Katrina cocoon, I'm ready to explore new places, and I got to see several yesterday.

On the west bank of the many-bridged Willamette River, which runs from the south through Portland to its confluence with the Columbia River, there is a lovely waterfront park on the former location of a four-lane highway. Between the Burnside and Steel Bridges, the city maintains the Japanese American Historical Plaza, dedicated to the American citizens of Japanese ancestry who because of fear and ignorance were forcibly deprived of their possessions and confined to internment camps during World War II.

In the memorial garden designed by landscape architect Robert Murase are sculptures and large stones inscribed with poetry about the Japanese settlement of the Pacific Northwest. This one in particular spoke to me:

Living the questions

... I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet (1903)

This quote from the poet Rilke has been one of my favorites since I first read it, early in my adult life. It became almost like a mantra to me. In a time when analysis, control, and the need for certainty seem to be cultural obsessions, these words remind us of the value of not knowing and of proceeding from that standpoint. This applies to the creative process as well as to our individual and collective lives. It recognizes the mystery of life, and points out that something vital is lost when we try to plan, understand and control every step of our existence.

I don't know if it's a function of my age, or whether it's my own personal path, but I've reached a point where some of my early questions have lived their way, at least partially, into answers. Along the way, the questions have metamorphosed, many times over. Things now don't look at all like I thought they would. Much better, in some respects, but it's a bittersweet realization, and requires a good bit of grieving and letting go of what was, and what could have been.

It's as if I've spent so many years observing and experiencing things from so many different angles -- or to use another analogy, it's been like gazing through a kaleidoscope, continually changing the view -- and finally I've come to a moment where the pieces are all lining up into a coherent and simple image of perfect clarity.

The challenge

New Moon in Taurus this past Friday: a challenge to all of us, individually and collectively, to take a stand for ourselves and our planet. What do we value? What do we want? What supports us and feels right for us ... with the emphasis on "feels"? There is a way through, and it doesn't have much to do with intellectualizing about what's going on or trying to "figure things out" mentally.

It's time now for us to perceive and consider things at a different level of our human abilities -- sensing deeply and awarely with our physical bodies, and being open to receiving the invaluable input of our emotions and intuition. In our interactions with each other and the world around us, we've been functioning pretty much as though we're just disembodied heads. In the process, we've lost touch with something vital, including our power to discern what is real and what isn't; and that's led to our present loss of control over our lives, our inability to make reality-based, effective and thoughtful decisions and choices, or even to interact meaningfully with each other. (If you want a clear demonstration of that, you need look no further than the Internet and the mass media.)

As the biblical saying goes, May those who have eyes, see; and those who have ears, hear.

We need to get our eyes and our ears back in proper working order, and that's only done by actually doing it, using all of our abilities, not simply by thinking about it or watching a movie about someone doing it, or by chatting about it on an online forum. (Those activities can have a role to play, but they're not all there is, or even the most important part.)

A random chapter of the Tao Te Ching for this tumultuous and adventurous time  ...

53

The great Way is easy,
yet people prefer the side paths.
Be aware when things are out of balance.
Stay centered within the Tao.

When rich speculators prosper
while farmers lose their land;
when government officials spend money
on weapons instead of cures;
when the upper class is extravagant and irresponsible
while the poor have nowhere to turn-
all this is robbery and chaos.
It is not in keeping with the Tao.

 

Transitions

My mother died this past Tuesday morning, in the assisted care facility in Houston, Texas, where she'd been living for the past five years. She was 81 years old.

From what I can tell from my genealogical research, many of my forebears have had a predilection for living to advanced ages, at a time in history when most folks did not.  While my mother's family has a tendency to various mental issues that act to decrease the quality of life, in my father's family they seem to keep their mental faculties in good shape pretty much up until the end, and living as active a life as they can. There seems to be a core strength they have, even the ones whose physical health is not optimal. They're like the Energizer Bunny; they just keep going and going.

My mother's older sister died in 2007 at the age of 87. My father's two oldest sisters died during the past couple of years, each at the age of 95. His maternal grandmother lived into her nineties, which for the early 20th century was a darn good age. My Dad tells me that during the final three years of her life, his "Granny" felt trapped sleeping inside of her house, so she moved her bed out onto the front porch and slept there. This was a rural area in Texas, where it gets doggone hot during the summers and cold in the winter. From all accounts, she was a tough old character.

My Dad himself is now 87, which makes him one of the last remaining survivors of his generation. He seems to have a healthy understanding of the cycles of life and death. Maybe it's the farmer in him, having grown up in a sharecropping family during the Great Depression -- his mother was a founder of the farmer's market in their area of southwest Arkansas -- or maybe it's just the wisdom acquired from a long life in which he's had much to bear and much to accept.

I've definitely inherited the "farming" DNA. This week I've been turning over the soil in my garden, and this weekend is seed-planting time. (Even though we had a cold front come through yesterday, and a late, light freeze last night.) As to whether I've also inherited the family longevity genes, time will tell. I do feel that core strength present inside of me.

All I know right now is, we (I'm speaking for all of humanity now) live the lives we need to, for as long as we need to. We're doing the best we can, whether we think so or not.

Eternity in an hour

To see a World in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.

[...]

A skylark wounded in the wing,
A cherubim does cease to sing.
The game-cock clipt and arm'd for fight
Does the rising sun affright.

Every wolf's and lion's howl
Raises from hell a human soul.

The wild deer, wand'ring here and there,
Keeps the human soul from care.
The lamb misuse'd breeds public strife,
And yet forgives the butcher's knife.

[...]

A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.

It is right it should be so;
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.

Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.

The babe is more than swaddling bands;
Every farmer understands.
Every tear from every eye
Becomes a babe in eternity;

This is caught by females bright,
And return'd to its own delight.
The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar,
Are waves that beat on heaven's shore.

[...]

Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.

Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.

We are led to believe a lie
When we see not thro' the eye,
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.

God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.

-- William Blake, "Auguries of Innocence"

Chickadee in apple tree, waiting its turn at the birdfeeder

Passage

This is a time for a deep let-go. Allow any pain, sorrow, or difficulty just to be there, accepting its "facticity." It is very much like the experience of Gautam Buddha when, after years of seeking, he finally gave up, knowing there was nothing more that he could do. That very night, he became enlightened.

Transformation comes, like death, in its own time. And, like death, it takes you from one dimension into another.

-- "Transformation", from the Osho Zen Tarot

Easter memories

When I was a little girl, my mother made special Easter outfits every year for my sister and me. At that time, she sewed most of our clothes, using her old black metal Singer sewing machine. (I think she was still using that machine when I was in college.) Our Easter dresses would be made out of organza and taffeta, often embroidered or otherwise embellished, and there'd always be a purse, shoes and hat to match -- and it being in the Deep South, I can remember little white gloves, too.

On Easter Sunday, we'd get all dressed up in our new finery, take photographs to commemorate the occasion, and go to church; then come home, check out our Easter baskets filled with candy and that green cellophane grass that ended up everywhere, and do the Easter egg hunt thing in the backyard. We usually got some sort of stuffed animal as a present. I've still got one of them, a small bunny rabbit, one of the few items of my memorabilia that made it through Hurricane Katrina. That bunny is tan and white now, but I think the tan part may originally have been pink, forty-five some-odd years ago. (And yes, some of those years have been mighty odd.)

Come to think of it, we also had special Christmas outfits as well. The one I remember in particular was made from burgundy-colored velveteen trimmed in white cotton lace. Since my sister and I are only two years apart, our outfits usually matched, either in design and/or color.

Although my mother had great difficulty being a parent, she did the best that she could, given where she was coming from and the hand she was dealt. On the conscious level, she and my father both doted on their little girls, although the reality often didn't match the conscious intent. As was typical for the Depression-WWII generation who were creating the American middle class from scratch, they were determined that their children's lives would be easier and more affluent than theirs. My sister and I were born in 1955 and 1953; I've seen those of us born during those years referred to as the "golden children" of the Baby Boom.

I can't remember when the last time was we got the special Easter outfits. I'm thinking I was in grade school when it stopped ... things began to change for my mother then, which resulted in a lot of ramifications down the line, so that timing would fit.

Hovel

Painful it is indeed,
Passing through the world;
But in a hovel like this,
I live on in peace and quiet,
Winter rain falling.

-- Nijoin no Sanuki, 12th century Buddhist monk and poet,
as quoted in the Little Zen Calendar, March 31, 2009

While my home isn't exactly what I'd call a "hovel", this little poem speaks to me of simplicity and sanctuary, of dedication and determination. The hovel is not a place; to me it signifies an attitude of mind and heart. What is truly important? What are the essentials in my life? Can I let go of that which is not essential and does not serve me?

As the insanity and brutality and all-around noisiness of the world rages at fever pitch -- rather like that ten-day blizzard that came through during the Winter Solstice -- I remain safe and warm by focusing on the present moment and by not getting caught up in the collective grasping and raging. The more I stay grounded in the process of my own life, in touch with nature, with an attitude of acceptance and maintaining my boundaries, the more peacefully and effectively I will make my way through.

This reminds me of one of my favorite Little Zen Calendar quotes:

I go on walking
Higan lilies go on blooming

-- Taneda Santöka (1888-1940)

I've been through a lot in the ten years or so since I first read those words, enough to know now for sure: no matter what, I go on walking.

Doorways

It's been a long winter, a long season on an even longer road, but it feels as if a corner has been turned.

So many days over the past few months, I've awakened feeling depressed or anxious, sometimes to the point of panic, without knowing exactly why. I learned a long time ago that if I just get up and get moving, and not get caught up in believing that to be my "truth", I'm usually able to move myself out of that state. Some days recently it's felt like being on rollercoaster of emotions and energy levels ... up and down, all over the place, from one moment to the next. Lately I've found myself going through periods of great irritation, where I don't feel comfortable inside my own skin and where nothing seems to work right; where everything feels cumbersome and out of kilter.

From what people are telling me, there are a lot of us experiencing this. The usual inclination in this kind of circumstance is to reach out for something to grab onto -- some belief or goal, or a category to stick the experience in, or some thought or activity familiar and comfortable -- but that doesn't seem to work very well now. I've felt kind of "floaty", having let go of so much of what I identified with, in the midst of moving into new ways of thinking and relating to myself and the world. Sometimes I find myself stewing about it all, being so far out of my comfort zone but knowing that I can't (and don't want to) go back.

Then I hear a voice inside saying, "it's cool. Just let it be for now." The only reliable ground I have right now is inside myself, what I know and feel. And isn't that great? What a wonderful place to be. Maybe that's one of the many gifts this time has for me (and I know I'm not the only one): to meet that point of trust inside of myself, that I've finally accessed because I got to where I had no choice.

I just came across this quote. Boy, did it bring back memories of the time when I first heard it, in the excellent "Power of Myth" series of interviews Bill Moyers did with Joseph Campbell in the late 1980s. There's been a lot of water under the bridge since then, literally and figuratively, but it is still as inspiring today as it was then. Since Campbell first said it, the phrase "follow your bliss" has gotten to be something of a cliché, but doggone it, it's true. Maybe we need to hear it, and hear it, and hear it some more. It's helped me through the last 20 years, that's for certain. And here I am again.

If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know there were doors.

--Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Tao Te Ching

Quite often I post quotes from the Tao Te Ching here on my blog, and I've had some comments and questions about it. The Tao Te Ching, pronounced something like "Dow-duh-JING", is one of the classical texts of the philosophical system known as Taoism and is purported to have been written by the legendary ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tse (also spelled Lao-Tzu or Laozi).

As with many legends, there may or may not have been an actual person named Lao Tse, in the same way as there may or may not have been someone named William Shakespeare. But as with Shakespeare's plays, the work speaks for itself, having been written in a time when the "cult of personality" wasn't as important as it is now. (Well, I'm assuming it wasn't.)

There are many reasons why I am attracted to the Tao Te Ching, and to Taoist philosophy in general. One of the main ones is that it is based on the natural world ... the rhythms and cycles of the life process, as it is reflected in nature, and as a metaphor for human existence and creativity. Much of my own poetry is written from this standpoint, using allusions from nature. And with the current chaos and constant change in the world, I find that the more I can stay grounded and in touch with the Earth and its energy, the more balanced I am.

The version of the Tao Te Ching I quote and link to is this one, maintained on the Brooklyn College/City University of New York website, based on a modern interpretation by the eminent scholar, poet and translator Stephen Mitchell. There are numerous other translations, most famously the more traditional 1972 version, re-released in 1997, by Jane English that is illustrated with the wonderful photography of Gia-Fu Feng.

Stephen Mitchell himself has a new book out, entitled The Second Book of the Tao, which just arrived in my P. O. Box from Powell's Books.

Needing ground

March came in like a lion ... here's hoping it goes out like a lamb.

I'm feeling rather weary today.

Random chapter from the Tao Te Ching:

7

The Tao is infinite, eternal.
Why is it eternal?
It was never born;
thus it can never die.
Why is it infinite?
It has no desires for itself;
thus it is present for all beings.

The Master stays behind;
that is why she is ahead.
She is detached from all things;
that is why she is one with them.
Because she has let go of herself,
she is perfectly fulfilled.

Wild hearts day

Late this chilly afternoon, I bundled up and took a drive up the Gorge to the recycling transfer site (fancy name for the town dump), and got so carried away ogling the scenery it's a wonder I made it back home in one piece.

The sun had come out, spot-lighting snow-covered nooks and crannies on the cliffs high above the river and glowing through the clouds that clung to the peaks. As the clouds formed and re-formed, the interplay of light and shadow constantly shifted. Fog wafted around in the little valleys between the peaks and floated out into the Gorge. The wind was calm, so the river's surface was still and reflective ... mirroring the deep green of the Douglas firs on the mountainsides below the snow level, the glistening white snow above, as well as the patches of blue sky that peeked out here and there from behind the clouds. I passed numerous stands of birch, bare of their leaves, like ranks of silvery-brown skeletons.

There was an invigorating wildness to it, and yet at the same time it seemed peaceful and orderly.

More inspiration on this gloriously elemental Valentine's Day:

Wild woman resides in the guts, not in the head. She can track and run and summon and repel. She is the Life/Death/Life force, she is the incubator. She is intuition, she is far-seer, she is deep listener, she is loyal heart. She encourages humans to remain multi-lingual; fluent in the languages of dreams, passion, and poetry. She whispers from night dreams, she leaves behind on the terrain of a woman's soul a coarse hair and muddy footprints. These fill women with longing to find her, free her and love her.

-- Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves

Integrity and deep truth

The PlanetWaves February "Eriscope" for Pisces, written by Eric Francis:

This is one of the most visionary times of your life -- or perhaps one when you've never felt more trapped inside of a vision that you cannot manifest. I can say this: you're a lot further along in your process than you imagine. If you're developing an idea for how you want your life to be (and I do mean your most passionate erotic and creative life), then keep your focus inwardly. You have yet to discover the tipping point where what you align with in your internal world expresses itself as a tangible development in your outer life. This really is a matter of connecting deeply with the truth of who you are, which is often the first thing that we deny or evade. Let yourself be drawn to the strange, the unruly and mostly to the unknown. Gradually enter the space of the unspeakable. Make eye contact with others as you do this. Look for the people whose eyes seem to be questioning you back.

One of the most fundamental things I've noticed about my life, from a very early age, is that what's inside me often doesn't translate to the outside. There is a dissonance between the reality and the appearance. This has resulted in much frustration for me. I've found myself living a somewhat marginalized existence, meaning that I am experienced by others as something other than what I am, and I have been reluctant to push the issue, mainly because I can feel their need for me not to do so. It has contributed to numerous relationship miscues because I'm not necessarily who or what people expect me to be, as well as to a sense of isolation.

This is not a physical isolation, since I'm engaged in the world, but is at the level of wanting deep connection and not getting it. Hmmm ... this is a bit difficult to put into words. The deep connection I have with the world does exist. Being an empath, I have always known that connection, as a matter of personal experience. The problem is that it has not been reflected back to me, not acknowledged by the world, and in fact is often denied or actively resisted.

There's that dissonance again that I spoke of, which borders on paradox ... I feel so connected and so isolated, at one and the same time.  It's as if I know about a beautiful dance that we are all participating in, and that I want to experience openly with everyone... but we're not dancing. Or more accurately, people are dancing while at the same time insisting there is no dance going on.

I've thought it was just me who had that problem, but on reflection, I suspect it's pretty common ... perhaps even part and parcel of the "normal" human condition (at least as we've known it up to now.) Maybe I'm just more aware of it, or less able to go along and contentedly play the game everyone else in the world seems to be playing ... or something. People often remark on how "independent" I am. That's true, but there's more to it.

There's got to be a reason for the abundance of New Age "affirmation-visualization-create your life the way you want it" seminars and books, and I think this has a lot to do with it. People are reaching for something beyond what has been presented to them as the normal way to live, while they feel unsatisfied or even thwarted in living fully. Another culturally-typical way of handling (or denying) those feelings is through our addictive behavior ... alcohol, drugs, food, smoking, shopping ... anything to avoid getting out of the illusion and facing reality. That includes the reality of our deep needs and desires, the deep truth of who and what we are, individually and collectively.

Our culture teaches us that wanting to live happily and creatively is an option, not a necessity, and that it's even self-centered or frivolous. But I think it is essential for our basic integrity. "Integrity" means more than simple honesty. Think of the structural integrity of a building, which makes the building whole and sound, and fit for human habitation. Integrity is not a luxury, at least not any more. The survival of the human species depends on it now.

(By the way, for those of you who know I'm a Sagittarian and are wondering why I'm posting a reading for Pisces: in using astrology most effectively, it's important to consider your rising sign as well as your Sun sign. In some ways, a reading for your Ascendant (rising sign) can be more accurate than one for your Sun sign, because it takes into account your time of birth.)

Pushing the "age" boundary

Now this is inspirational:

56-year-old becomes first woman to swim Atlantic

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) – Jennifer Figge pressed her toes into the Caribbean sand, exhilarated and exhausted as she touched land this week for the first time in almost a month.

Reaching a beach in Trinidad, she became the first woman on record to swim across the Atlantic Ocean — a dream she’d had since the early 1960s, when a stormy trans-Atlantic flight got her thinking she could don a life vest and swim the rest of the way if needed.

The 56-year-old left the Cape Verde Islands off Africa’s western coast on Jan. 12, swimming about 2,100 miles (3,380 kilometers) through strong winds and waves of up to 30 feet (9 meters).

[...]

My God, this woman is a year older than I am. You go, girl! (Well, I guess she did.)

This reminds me of how the Boomer generation has continually redefined what age and aging mean. Sometimes I think we're "the generation that will never grow up", in terms of a certain less-than-mature self-absorption, but there are good aspects to that as well. We have consistently refused to accept prior rules and assumptions about what is proper and possible. Say what you will about us, we're true pioneers, and probably will continue to be until the day the very last one of us bites the dust.

When I first began experiencing menopause symptoms eight years ago and sought out information and resources, it was all so "hush-hush". I've had numerous friends in the generation ahead of me, and none of them ever talked about menopause. I don't think it was just because they thought I wouldn't understand. It simply wasn't something you discussed openly. 

In 2001 when I went into bookstores or health foodstores, I felt awkward asking about menopause ... but I did, and spoke about it to all sorts of people as if it were just another topic of conversation. Which ultimately it seems to have become. Nowadays, there are menopause message boards, and mainstream media advertisements for remedies, and books galore on menopause, whose authors appear on the Oprah show.

I remember when I was in my late thirties, feeling quite ancient by the then-current standards of "youthfulness", and watching the 1992 Winter and Summer Olympics. There were numerous world-class athletes over the age of thirty, which at that time was really pushing the limit of what was considered possible.  Seeing them compete helped me past some limitations I had started to place on myself. In 2009, thirty seems so young; it's no longer a big deal to see someone in their thirties or even forties competing seriously in sports.

My first inclination is to think, "But that was when I was in my thirties. I was still young. I'm in my fifties.  It's different now." And I hate to admit it, but that's the mindset I've found myself sliding into lately.

And then someone like Jennifer Figge comes along to remind me, "Nope. You go, girl."

Groundhog Day

Random chapter of the Tao Te Ching:

54

Whoever is planted in the Tao
will not be rooted up.
Whoever embraces the Tao
will not slip away.
Her name will be held in honor
from generation to generation.

Let the Tao be present in your life
and you will become genuine.
Let it be present in your family
and your family will flourish.
Let it be present in your country
and your country will be an example
to all countries in the world.
Let it be present in the universe
and the universe will sing.

How do I know this is true?
By looking inside myself.