Offering for Brigid

Here is my offering:

Someday Our Peace Will Come - Ellyn Maybe

one day poetry dropped from the sky
and the animals grew iambic pentameter tails
and the people breathed in stars

one day music dropped from the sky
and the architecture turned symphonic
and the people breathed in harmony

one day memory dropped from the sky
and the past present and future sifted like flour
and the people breathed in wonder

smoke and ash
as distant as two sides of the same coin

Hallelujah

Maybe there’s a God above
But all I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It’s not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not somebody who has seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

Leonard Cohen

What is the difference between a romantic and a mystic? Is there any?

A few years back, I was seeing a talented psychic and spiritual teacher through a bad heartbreak. In matters of the own heart, being psychic proves no defense. One day, in the midst of tears, she sobbed, “The truth is, I love God the most”. We both took a deep breath and then simultaneously broke into laughter. Eventually this turned to tears all around. Laughing and crying are the same release. Together, they are divine.

Could it be that every love affair is with God in some aspect or other? Could it be that every broken heart resides in the same place as the mystic’s Dark Night of the Soul?

I am relentlessly romantic. And a mystic. And a Pagan. I guess I do love God the most, and I see her everywhere. In my clients, my garden, my child, my friends, the wild coast, and of course, in every person I have passionately kissed.

And, when break-ups have happened, especially those not of my choosing, it has been a break up with God herself. And… paradoxically, she presents herself all over the place eventually to give comfort. The Divine turns out to be the rebound lover of this lifetime.

This struck me hard listening to Joni Mitchell’s Blue album the other day, the album that has been a musical cornerstone of my life. It consoled me thru the 6 week trek through Europe with my 12 year old sister that I did at 15 – sans parents or adults. I don’t even think I ever had opportunity to play it, but it stood up in my suitcase lid every night, my first altar. I’ve played it over and over every time I have fallen in love, and every time I have been hurt by love.

What is it about that album? Move over, Rumi and Hafiz….. Joni’s songs have indeed been tattoos, each etching under my skin some element of the dance with the Beloved, the journey of mystic and romantic, those of us who want to drink a case of the divine and still be on our feet, rejoicing.

Do all romantics and mystics meet the same fate someday? Pretty much all have to go through the dark café days, yes. The Beloved will eventually disappear or disappoint, or we will ourselves walk away. The fracturing of the heart pulls the dark cocoon around us, and yet, on that lonely road we travel, if we pay attention, we meet the Beloved again and again.

Loving the Divine does not mean you don’t get your heart broken. You do. But, sometimes, when you least expect it, the dark cocoon of emptiness erupts and gorgeous wings appear.

And even if they don’t, a true romantic and mystic will still be able to eek out Hallelujah. And sometimes sing it.

Have I told you how much I love Joni and Leonard? They are simply and complexly divine.

spring spell

Morels, spring garlic, asparagus, duck eggs, several bouquets of sweet peas and daffodils. This is what came home with me from the farmer’s market this weekend. Last night I slivered some of the spring garlic, sautéing it along with the morels in butter. Served over a steak along with grilled asparagus, on a table graced with a vase of fragrant flowers, I gave thanks for the season and savored the taste and smell of it.

The duck eggs? My neighbor has been baking up a storm – lemon pound cake most notably – from the eggs which I have been blowing out to make psyanky eggs.

I have been making psyanky eggs for over forty years, learning the art from a friend in junior high. The practice precedes Christianity and takes a lot of time and focused attention. It is serious spell work. At eighteen, I complemented my wages as a dishwasher by selling psyanky at a gallery in the little town I had moved to on the Oregon coast. I ate a lot of eggs and friends kept me company as I drew symbols on the empty shells with melted beeswax, dipping them in progressively darker dyes, drawing out the future I wanted for myself.

Before the internet, the address of the store where I got supplies I kept close to me, a treasure in itself. Now I have easy access to Ukrainian small businesses which sell psyanky supplies, but I like to remain faithful to the small store in the East Village which has been mailing me dyes and kistkas for decades now. After years of ordering from them, I finally visited the store a few years back. It was everything I imagined it to be, small and magical and filled to the gills with decorated eggs of every size and shade.

My goddess daughters have learned the art from me, and many of my friends have an egg or two or three in their possession. I have given them to new parents to bless a birth and put them in the coffins of loved ones who have died. This morning, I gave a friend who is recovering from several losses an egg covered with hearts and the word joy. Every egg is different, and every line and color has meaning. Red for love, violet for power, green for growth, white for purity, pink for success, blue for health. Apples and plums are for wisdom and healing, windmills signify happiness, birds bring fertility, dots stand in for the stars and constellations, flowers bring beauty, deer bring prosperity. Lines drawn around the eggs symbolize infinity and eternity.

This year, my new art studio has a table covered with jars of dyes and my beeswax, candle, kistka, and eggs have traveled from studio to kitchen and dining room table, depending on who is visiting and where we are sitting.

Egg magic is a powerful and unpredictable thing. Every spring there are eggs that explode in the last step of melting the wax off or crack suddenly as I am working on it. Doing psyanky is practicing the art of non-attachment. The spell is in the process, not the finished product. Every egg takes the dye in a different way, control over the wax is minimal. It is not an art for perfectionists. I love it.

When I finish writing this, I will get back to psyanky making. I think this next egg will be pink, green, and blue. It will be a spell to assure many many many more springs with morels, duck eggs, asparagus, and spring garlic. Oh yes, and bouquets of daffodils and sweet peas as well. And psyanky spell crafting.

into the light

There are those who would set fire to the world.

We are in danger.

There is only time

to work slowly.

There is no time

not to love.

The day after the reactors in Japan started to melt down these lyrics sprang to mind. Not a day has gone by since when I haven’t found myself singing them, or sharing them with clients or friends.. They come from a poem by Deena Metzger and Charley Murphy put them to music in the 1980’s. It was a song that was sung at my first marriage, the two of us devoted at the time to not only each other, but anti-nuclear work.

The past two weeks the disaster in Japan has come in and out of my therapy room. The rain here in our city seems to be relentless, and it feels to many like we might live out our lives amidst a storm that will not cease.. Several clients have mentioned that they have been trying to put together an earthquake preparedness kit only to find out that first aid kits and whistles (which you blow if stuck in rubble) are sold out in this city. Along with, of course, potassium iodine.

So, I keep breathing into that song. I also keep flashing on a scene from my childhood. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, I lived outside of Detroit. We had a bomb shelter in our basement.. During that stand-off with Russia, when nuclear war seemed imminent, I was down in that grim little room, playing with Barbie, trying to get away from the fear of the grown ups and the television news.. My legs stuck to the green vinyl couch and squiggling away, I looked up at the big shelf of spam and deviled ham and had a moment of childhood clarity.

I had been told that it would be so bright (the bombing) that I’d have to put a pillow over my eyes to not be blinded. It hit me clearly that I would not go along with my parents plan. Spending the rest of my life with my family in that little room, eating spam while the earth above me was scorched, this was truly horrifying. I resolved to walk out into the light, Barbie in hand. Hopefully dressed in her pink satin evening dress with the white boa.

That childhood clarity still abides in me. I still retain that image of walking out into the light rather than hiding out in the dark. Which doesn’t mean I don’t believe in being prepared for an earthquake. Of course, my earthquake kit sure doesn't include spam. And, I truly think I would feel safer with a cyanide pill than with a whistle.

tipping the balance

The wind is fierce and the rain heavy.
The avocado tree lashes against the bedroom window.
Who can sleep amidst this stormy change?

The tree threatens to break into my room
And somewhere, there is war, hunger, sudden and slow death
I pull the covers close.

All I can do is breathe and love, which dilutes the fear.
Listening to the hard rain and the pounding of branches
I lean into my heart and wait for shattered glass.

Have I told you how much I love this world?

I wrote that last night amidst the mighty storm here in San Francisco. Today is spring equinox in a world tipped mightily out of balance. I wait for the disaster(s) to come through my windows or doors.. to impact me as so many people around the world are impacted. And yet, my good life continues, and I do sleep through the night in a warm bed, well fed, content with my work, surrounded by beauty and love.

Last night I worried about the tree, and my window, and knew I would have to get this tree cut down as it is dangerous to the building. We'd talked about this before, as the tree also blocks so much light out of the garden and has grown in a way that is awkward and top heavy. This morning, I woke to the tree filling the backyard, having cracked and blown over in the night, miraculously not waking me. No need to cut it down now! And any damage done is to the arugula and maybe the rhubarb. We were going to work in the garden this weekend and put in new plants. The rain curtailed this.

My heart is aching from world events, but today, looking at the tree in the garden, I marveled at my luck and gave thanks. It is equinox. With every day, the light will increase in my garden. I will have the tree cut up and taken away, and I thank it for not hurting my home. I will grow more arugula and rhubarb and put in zucchini and other vegetables.

The wheel will turn. And I will keep loving this world.

hard rain

"And I'll tell and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin'
But I'll know my songs well before I start singin'
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall."

Last night, as I was driving from San Francisco north on 101 to Forestville, Dylan's Hard Rain came up on my iPod shuffle. A few lines into it, I was sobbing.

The night before the tsunami in Japan I had a nightmare that San Francisco was flooded and I couldn't find my son. I woke to a phone call from a friend back east, concerned that I was okay. She said she'd heard San Francisco was going to be hit by a tsunami. From that moment on, it's felt like I don't know the difference anymore between dreamtime and waking time.

Back in the last century, I spent a lot of time fighting nuclear power and nuclear weapons. My spiritual community was forged in this endeavor, many of us being arrested time and time again practicing civil disobedience to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons and power. Tonight, so many decades later, there are nuclear reactors melting down in Japan. A hard rain is falling and will continue to fall.

I find myself crying easily and regularly. My altar has on it a globe on which I have circled Japan with a heart and many drawings and prayers. I feel a great tenderness towards everything and everyone, and a gratitude for every sign of spring that shows itself.

What else can we do? I am sure there is plenty. This year I plan to seriously tackle getting solar panels on my roof. I will continue to walk more, drive less. Money will be sent to those doing work to shut down reactors. Time will be spent and energy expended. But, for right now, I think crying and tuning into the beauty of the spring blossoms is about all I can manage. And praying.

'

Offering to Brigid

Mindful

Every day

I see or I hear

something

that more or less

kills me

with delight,

that leaves me

like a needle

in the haystack

of light.

It is what I was born for -

to look, to listen,

to lose myself

inside this soft world -

to instruct myself

over and over

in joy,

and acclamation.

Nor am I talking

about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,

the very extravagant -

but of the ordinary,

the common, the very drab,

the daily presentation,

Oh, good scholar,

I say to myself,

how can you help

but grow wise

with such teachings

as these -

the untrimmable light

of the world,

the ocean's shine,

the prayers that are made

out of grass?

Mary Oliver

mars goes direct

I’ve been sleeping soundly for the past week, dreaming the kind of dreams that only can be described as sweet.

My rhythm seems to be congruent with the season, and the movement of planets. Fern tells me that Mars went direct last week, and things that have felt stuck, will begin to move. For me, that move was immediate, and my mood found its mirror in the brilliant spring days.

It’s nice to have a good friend who is an astrologer, who tells you when planets go direct, and who also gives you the heads up when a new moon is a particularly auspicious time for making wishes, Fern told me to do things yesterday that I wanted to bring into or maintain in my life.

Check. And then some.

Over coffee and with the magic of skype, I talked to a dear friend in England and we did some planning of Avalonspring. My son had the day off from school and we worked happily together on some details around next year's college. My son helped me garden, and I mindfully planted seeds for things that are delicious and nurturing. I got news that a beloved friend who I haven't seen for 2 years will visit me in April. An unexpected connection was made and my weekend dance card became delightfully full. I worked in my art studio. I challenged my professional association to not bow into the religious right and to stand up against hatred. I put money in the bank and was grateful for the work I do. I went for a walk. I swam for an hour. I got an 80 minute massage. Then, I went out to dinner with a friend who had just finished a book and feasted on good food and even better conversation. I walked home, loving with every step where I live. And, wonderfully, time expanded and the day felt long and spacious. Then I slept and had sweet dreams.

Equinox, here I come!!! From being off kilter for months, I suddenly seem to be coming into some balance. If yesterday planted the seeds of the coming years, then everything is sure to be coming up roses.

And, I am trusting that those roses will be of many colors and all smell divine.

Turn and face the strange. changes.

"We cannot change anything until we accept it.” Carl Jung

I come from a spiritual tradition that believes that magic is the art of changing consciousness at will and that practicing this magic is our sacred duty. I have been in large groups of people more times than I can count, holding hands and doing a spiral dance, chanting “She changes everything she touches, and everything she touches, changes”. She, of course, is the Goddess. She is paradoxical gal, and she knows that the only constant is, yep, change.

In the past months, I’ve been going through changes. Big Ones. And, oh, how I want to use my will to change this!!!! I’ve done countless cleansings, purifications, furniture has been moved, and every closet and drawer organized. I’m that kind of magician. I know how to cast a circle and wave around my athame and/or wand with charged gusto, but I find cleaning my refrigerator just as effective. Incantations, of course, are involved in both.

So, I’ve done my best to meddle, to spell out where I want to get to; that calm (tidy and well organized) beach across this stormy emotional sea. Yet, the sea is still stormy. So, acceptance is the damn issue. And that takes awhile. How I want the winds of change to whip though, followed by fires of transformation, me emerging like Yemaya from the healing waters of this stormy sea, emanating self-love and pearls of wisdom dripping off me from the irritation of this experience! But no, as it turns out, the only way to really endure a stormy sea is to invoke the deep gravity of the earth, accepting the weight of time and doing nothing but enduring.

Everyday in my work I balance the power of silence with the power of the word… when is my job to intervene, engage and spell out change and when is my job to simply be silent and bear witness? The truth is, to be an effective change agent, we have to have both hands holding these different reins, open to changing consciousness at will, and open to doing nothing but accepting what is.

My hands are on these reins. My closets are clean, my pantry organized. Even my taxes are done! And, I’m accepting that my heart is still one big mess and breathing into it and letting it be okay. But, I will still keep cleaning. And muttering incantations. Balance is the issue and thank the Goddess, her time is NOW.

To sleep: perchance to dream: aye, there’s the rub.

Being a therapist, and good friends with not just one, but TWO world-class dream workers, I am well acquainted with the transformative power of dreams. As a woman who has been grieving, I also am too well acquainted with the power of dreams to disturb and disrupt sleep. How many times can a person be run over by a white van, the dream shifting ever so slightly in whether I see it coming, stand firm, run , or get it from behind as I’m happily pulling weeds in a big garden? Apparently a lot, with even little additions like a hose that comes out and sprays boiling water on me, and a sound system blaring salsa music. Understanding the dream hasn’t made it go away, but I am working in dreamtime to get a vehicle of my own that can simply pass the white van and keep going.

I know these white van dreams, and others like them, are part of the process of integrating loss into my being, are normal ways my unconsciousness is trying to make sense of the what makes absolutely no sense to me in my waking life.

But, I have to sleep. Without it, I lose my ability to function. I can’t listen to clients, and truly want to spend my day curled up in bed, with only the bandwidth of attention needed for bad television. Naps just lead to more dreams, and make sleeping even harder at night.

So, I have to sleep. There’s been lots written on good sleep habits, on making your bed a comfortable and inviting place which you only associate with sleep (not hard in my present circumstance), and drinking warm milk or herbal teas before and the art and practice of winding down.

I got these all covered, and still. The truth is if you have a big loss or huge stressor, it perchance and the perchance is high, will come into dreamland with you. And it will wake you up, again and again.

Alcohol doesn’t help, that just makes it worse, as it assures waking in the middle of night, left to toss and turn with only muddied memories of bad dreams and no hope of going back to sleep. I’ve tried varied herbal sleep formulas, and I can’t say any of them kept back the dreams and kept me asleep.

My sense is that the dreams do need to come. And I need my sleep. So, we juggle, dreamland and I, with a triage approach on what will keep me the most functional. I have a nice white and effective jar of sleeping pills that I know if I take regularly I will end up hooked on. So, I use them only when needed, and no more than three times a week. And I am so grateful for them and their power to give uninterrupted sleep.

The night before last , I woke up bone tired, my heart chakra feeling ripped open by the nightmares I’d dreamed. Trying to make it to a car of my own, as the white van headed towards me, I opened the door of what I thought was a VW and it turned out to be made of beautiful tissue paper – like a Japanese kite. Soar, I started to incant, soar!!!! Epithets cames streaming from the white van as it aimed itself at me. I woke, sweating, the feel of torn tissue paper all around my legs, not sure if I was truly broken from the dreamtime.

Last night, I opened my white jar and embraced better living through chemistry. I slept and even dreamed. This time about the salad variety of mache. I dreamed I had a beautiful packet of seeds and was putting them in the garden and suggesting to Andrea and Bryan, who live below me, that we become mache farmers, that I was sure it was going to catch on and be the next gourmet lettuce.

This is the kind of dream that will help me through my day, and the tenderness and irritability of yesterday is gone. Tonight, I’ll do all my good habits and practices and perhaps and perchance, I’ll have sweet dreams. Sandman, bring me some, please? And barring a sweet dream, how about a really nice Jaguar, Rolls, or Benz that I can jump into?

Hera is at home

Sometime around solstice, when I was still in shock from the sleeper wave that destroyed my marriage, my good friend Donald suggested that I work with Hera. Looking around my home, with its rich reds and abundance of peacock feathers, I realized that Hera already had been welcomed here. Today, she really established residency.

I’d taken the day off to spend with one of my newest friends. She turned 60 today and asked me to spend the day with her. How could this offer be refused? I rescheduled or cancelled clients and freed up my calendar to celebrate my friend.

Yesterday it stormed all day. This morning, the sky was still grey and overcast. After doing a tarot reading at her house, we drove valiantly across the Golden Gate Bridge and climbed through the fog up Mount Tam, until we were above the clouds , seemingly alone on the wet and glistening mountain. As we hiked, we alternately viewed swirling fog below us and the beautiful panorama of life which is the San Francisco Bay.

Crows cawed at us and turkey vultures swooped down to check us out. I cried, over and over again, “We are not dead, YET!” Getting older is daunting. I just turned 55, and my friend is a bit in shock about being 60. There's a point when your realize you are no longer middle age, as certainly we probably won't be living until 110 or 120.

After our hike, when we descended the mountain we stopped at her favorite antique shop in Marin, set back amidst beautiful gardens and clerked by an odd assortment of older women. We meandered around the store, her finding some crystal candlesticks discounted by half, me finding some sweet china teacups perfect for holding the dark chocolate pot de crème I love to make.

At the counter, a bust of what seemed to be an ancient Goddess caught my eye. Aphrodite? No, right there on the tag , it said Juno, Goddess of the Heavens. I know who Juno is. She’s just another name for Hera.

So, now Hera, for a very reasonable price, has taken up residence in my home. She is not the Goddess of the Heavens. She is the Goddess of my Home.

She tells me that taking off from work to celebrate a friend’s birthday was exactly the right thing to do. She also reassures me that not every marriage can be saved and that edging into old age really isn't that bad.

Today proved that Hera has my back, that life will continue to unfold and friendships will continue to be made and deepened. I am not dead yet, and probably won’t be for a while. Until I am, I will be celebrating the births of people I love and paying attention to when the Gods make their appearance.

They do, you know. On mountain tops and in cluttered antique stores. The trick is paying attention. Today, I did.

monday night miracles

It’s rare that my teenage son will spend an evening with me going to a movie and dinner, but that small miracle happened tonight. We went to see Shutter Island, which is a movie you can’t say a whole heck of a lot about or you wreck it for people who haven’t seen it. I have some things to say that won’t wreck it, and these are some of the things that my son and I actually talked about over the sushi dinner we had after the show. Yep, we talked and he did not text once. Thank you, Martin Scorcese.

Like the bulk of Scorcese’s films, violence is major theme in Shutter Island. Shutter Island addresses quite brilliantly how twisted we can become when we can't face our own capability for violence. There’s a poignant bit of dialogue after a big storm where the warden of the Shutter Island talks with the protaganist about the violence of nature, surmising that violence is a natural part of the human nature as well as God’s nature. Denying this, only leads to madness.

Four months ago, violence touched our lives. The violence was literally scarring, but what was worse was losing someone we both loved to the madness that incurs when violence has to be disavowed and those you hurt, vilified. Another miracle occurred tonight in Shutter Island being the perfect vehicle for us to discuss trauma, violence, and the power of denial to twist the human psyche.

Now we are home and he’s busy upstairs texting friends and playing music. I’m writing this, grateful for the small miracle of this night, and thinking about the nature of violence and the damage it wreaks, especially when it is denied.

A big storm passed through our lives. It was violent, and sudden, and there continues to be some clean up to do. The conversations that Shutter Island inspired are part of the clean up.

Again, thank you, Martin Scorcese! You've given me a lot to think about.

The call of the wild

I grew up in the hills south of San Jose, which at that time was a city dotted heavily with apricot and plum orchards and fields of garlic and strawberries. At twelve, I spent a summer with my older cousin picking “cots” and cutting them, laying them out on big wooden trays to dry in the sun, making enough money to fund the things my parents wouldn’t, like psychedelic posters.

Spending a weekend at Pantheacon, which happens in a big hotel surrounded by miles of industrial parks and fast food franchises, where in my memory I can see those orchards, is always a bit challenging. Especially because Pcon falls in the time of year those orchards would be blooming - if they still existed.

Driving home, on the brilliantly warm Monday, I found myself doing a little sing song chant about needing more nature in my nature religion and naming all the things I would do that day out in the garden. "Come on in, nature, let the dirt get under my fingernails!", I sang. Yes, sometimes alone in the car I can appear rather crazy.

So, I came home and did those things. I weeded, I turned over soil, I feed my worms and I sat in the garden, just inhaling the beauty of California in February. Dirt was under my fingernails.

Later, I was in my living room, going through seed catalogues, when I heard strange sounds from my back room. My cat was making a weird meow and there were crashing sounds and what turned out to be beating wings against glass. A blue jay had mysteriously gotten in the house though the back door…which is under stairs and not a clear passage way for a bird. Nature was where it should not be. It took a long time, and a refrigerator was moved, things broke, and there were moments I feared I would kill the bird in trying to save it. But I saved it. It finally joined the mate who had been screeching thoughout the entire debacle, and both rested in the blooming plum tree next door.

I laughingly said to friends and family that maybe I’d invoked nature a little too hard on that drive back. Last night, the joke went way too damn far. I picked up what I thought was a flower on a stem that must have fallen out of an old arrangement I’d thrown in the compost a few days before. But it was not a flower. It was not a stem. It was mouse entrails and a tail. The horror.

I am fifty five years old. I’ve done many things in my life. But I have NEVER held mouse entrails and a tail in my bare hands. And it’s been years since my old cats have shown any interest in hunting. There was nothing normal about this occurrence.

The wild has been calling a little too incessantly in the past few days. Nature has been where it is unnatural to be. And the thing is, usually these things happen in threes. I’m just waiting now for the ant invasion.

Costume Box

I spent the weekend at the San Jose Doubletree Hotel with a couple thousand Pagans, going to workshops/rituals, meandering through the giant market concourse, visiting with old and new friends, and moderating a panel on psychotherapy and Paganism. Along with my fellow members of Fool’s Journey, I set up the Pagan Alliance suite as a place for restorative relaxation, complete with rosewater scented footbaths, feet and hand scrubs, spritzers of all kinds, relaxing teas, and cucumber slices for the eyes.

As a child, my mother provided my sisters and I with a creatively stocked costume box. One of my sisters consistently dressed up a princess, the other as a cowgirl. My favorite items were a red Navaho skirt with rose trim, an embroidered Mexican blouse, and a golden paisley scarf, which I tied around my head. Yep, that’s right, I loved to pretend I was a gypsy. Later, as part of the Woodstock Nation, these kinds of costumes became my daily attire. My closet at age 21 closely resembled the costume box of my childhood, stocked with vintage finery spanning several decades.

Remnants of my old aesthetic remain in the silver bracelets I’ve worn since 17, but now my style veers towards simple elegant comfort. I’m a respected psychotherapist, for Goddess sake! Bone jewelry, feathers in the hair, pointy hats, face painting, glitter, capes, bustles or corsets no longer have any appeal to me, although these abound at Pantheacon. Embracing the costume box of childhood continues to be a fundamental Pagan virtue. Sometimes I’ve struggled with this, wishing my chosen spirituality could show a more “mature” face to the world, and give up on the little horns so many wear. It’s just not going to happen. Ever.

But what can you expect from a spiritual community that weds mirth to reverence?

This year, I’m embracing the costume box as sacred. Because, it is. I'm just happy (and proud) that the costume my goddess daughter Lyra plucked out to wear involved an In and Out Burger hat. Now, that's creative!!!

a new beginning

On my fiftieth birthday I began this blog. Sometimes I’ve written regularly, and sometimes there have been long intervals between posts. Never has an interval been quite as long as this one.

I am now fifty-five, the plum blossoms are in full force outside my window, daffodils have sprung up in the pots on my deck, and I am freshly back from Pantheacon. The confluence of these things somehow signal to me that it is time to start writing again.

This is, yet another, new beginning .

My Brigid Offering

Stars

Here in my head, language

keeps making its tiny noises.

How can I hope to be friends

with the hard white stars

whose flaring and hissing are not speech

but a pure radiance?

How can I hope to be friends

with the yawning spaces between them

where nothing, ever, is spoken?

Tonight, at the edge of the field,

I stood very still, and looked up,

and tried to be empty of words.

What joy was it, that almost found me?

What amiable peace?

Then it was over, the wind

roused up in the oak trees behind me

and I fell back, easily

Earth has a hundred thousand pure contraltos -

even the distant night bird

as it talks threat, as it talks love

over the cold, black fields.

Once, deep in the woods,

I found the white skull of a bear

and it was utterly silent -

and once a river otter, in a steel trap,

and it too was utterly silent.

What can we do

but keep on breathing in and out,

modest and willing, and in our places?

Listen, listen, I'm forever saying,

Listen to the river, to the hawk, to the hoof,

to the mockingbird, to the jack-in-the-pulpit -

then I come up with a few words, like a gift.

Even as now.

Even as the darkness has remained the pure deep darkness.

Even as the stars have twirled a little, while I stood here,

looking up,

one hot sentence after another.

Mary Oliver

5th annual Cyberspace Poetry Slam for Brigid

Feel free to copy the following to your blog/facebook/website and spread
the word. Let poetry bless the blogosphere once again!

WHAT: A Bloggers (Silent) Poetry Reading

WHEN: Anytime February 2, 2010

WHERE: Your blog

WHY: To celebrate the Feast of Brigid, aka Groundhog Day

HOW: Select a poem you like - by a favorite poet or one of your own - to
post February 2nd.

RSVP: If you plan to publish, feel free to leave a comment and link on
this post. Last year when the call went out there was more poetry in
cyberspace than I could keep track of. So, link to whoever you hear
about this from and a mighty web of poetry will be spun.


Please pass this invitation on

message recieved

I've been thinking a lot lately about the core tenets of my practice as a Pagan psychotherapist.  Buddhism is currently in fashion in my profession,  mindfulness turning out to be just as useful (if even more) in creating emotional well-being as analyzing family dynamics.   Are there particular things that we earth-worshippers do that inform my profession?  Psychotherapy truly is more art than science, and it figures that many of us who are in the Craft have something to teach other healing artists of hearts and minds

This week one of my core tenets has me laughing. I believe, and try to transmit to my clients, that the world wants to be in meaningful conversation with us.  Once we accept this as true, and cock our ear towards it, the world will not shut up.  

Under great distress, of course, it's hard to listen to anything or anyone. Anxiety and fear can operate as mighty misfiring car alarms, drowning out any truth of the real threat or danger. The Buddhist gift of  mindfullness  is a damn fine tool for re-calibrating the human car alarm. But then what? That's where I think we Pagans have something to offer. We know how to carry on mytho-poetic conversations with the world, and any rich conversation like that makes human life a hell of a lot more meaningful, if not more interesting.

The other day I was with a group of friends, all stressed or beleaguered in some fashion. There were, of course, those who were newly unemployed, and those who were worried about their jobs. There also was a friend had just mid-wived her mother's death from cancer, and another friend who waiting for biopsy test results. And, I had just received a notice from the IRS that I was being audited.  Despite all the stress, there was much laughter, warmth, and gallows humor.  I left the gathering, my heart stretched with tenderness for my friends, and also beginning to contract with worry and mounting anxiety.

It only took me several steps on Cortland Avenue until the world interjected and had something pithy to say.  There, in a window of a small shop, was a big red poster with white lettering.   "Calm down, and Carry On",  it simply stated.  Yes, indeed.

Calming down, is of course, hard. Breathing helps, and slowing down thoughts. Carrying on, well, that's hard too, but it's made easier by the world carrying some of the burden of the ongoing conversation. Cock your ear, and really, the world, it just won't shut up. 

Thankfully, it's pretty darn smart. Carrying on, we would all do well to deeply listen.

divination bordello

 

On Saturday, I had a benefit at my house for the restorative retreat, A Fool’s Journey, that I’m part of putting on at fall equinox.  We raised seed money and 

 money by turning my house into a Divination Bordello.  As it turns out, my house LOVES being a Divination Bordello!  Every room and cranny comfortably held a couple of people intensely engaged in opening up to the divine. I could almost hear the house purring.

 

Our customers trooped up the long front stairs and were offered choices; tarot, dreamwork, aura reading, psychic consultation, reiki,  and prophecy board.  Julian, a talented twelve year old, offered readings from a deck of cards he had made himself.  Between reading for others, I got a reading from him, pulling three cards – Phoenix, lake, and mist – which assured me that I could rise from some challenges I have at the moment if I stay calm, look deep, and stop trying to see into the future.

 

It was a glorious spring day, with fresh air gently blowing in from the bay, and I was happy to read for others on my  deck, surrounded by lemon trees and countless containers of new seedlings waiting to be put into the garden.  The garden too held readers, and my attic art studio as well.

 

It was a perfect day for the flat downstairs to receive its new tenant, and he wandered up and down the stairs, a little disoriented by the beauty of the day and house’s ebullience.  He picked my friend Robin, who has a deep affinity for mermaids, to do a tarot reading for him.  We knew the house had chosen the right tenant when she came away illuminated by stories he had told her regarding how mermaids figure into South American mythology.

 

The house found Gregor through our network of friends, as he came to a party downstairs several months ago. He’s a young British environmentalist who has been living in the Amazon for the last seven years. He’ll be traveling back throughout the year, but for now, he’s ensconced in exotic San Francisco.  His open countenance, and the fact that he literally came with just a few bags of stuff,  made him the Wise Fool of the day, stepping off the beaten path onto a whole new journey.

 

At the end of the day, we readers  contently collapsed in the living room, ordered Chinese food, and drank some good red wine.  We sprawled around the good upholstery, telling new stories and old. 

 

I’m thinking I truly am done with spiritual intensives.  Spiritual restoratives, like the Fool’s Journey, are rich enough for my tastes. As someone said during the day,  “let’s get restored, not floored.”

 

I am for it, and love that here in the beauty of spring, I can imagine us all in the fall, under the grape arbor, eating figs, lounging by the pool, opening our foolish hearts to the what the Magician has to teach us. 

breathing balance

 

My friend,  Donald Engstrom,  years ago coined a phrase worthy of generous usage. Every time I say this phrase or write it, his voice resonates in my consciousness.  Every equinox, I think of Donald, for my good friend is deeply committed to the building and nurturance of the emerging "Cultures of Beauty, Balance and Delight."  Beauty, balance and delight – for that is his phrase - are certainly the stuff of equinoxes.

 

The spring equinox is today, and as luck would have it, it is a beautiful day in San Francisco, The sun is shining, the breeze is sweet and fresh, and on the way to my office I was met with more smiles than eyes avoided. San Franciscans tend to take honest delight in a sunny day.

 

Today light and dark are in perfect balance. How rare a thing that is!  Every other day of the year the light is trumping the dark or the dark is trumping the light. But today, they face each other equally….not to do this again until the fall equinox. Tomorrow, light will be a little stronger, and at this point, I’m yearning for that increase in strength.

 

Therapists treat depression, and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing – hour upon hour since the economic free fall. Even with my clients who are not depressed, we can't overlook the effect the great economic shift has had on them. For weeks now fear has been a frequent guest to my office.  People are uncertain, anxious, and off balance.  Many are cutting down how much they see me, and some have left therapy completely.  And, old clients I haven’t seen for years are back on my green couch, struggling to regain equilibrium in an unsteady time. I'm seeing more clients than I ever have, but the majority can't afford to come weekly.

 

So, I’m breathing and getting my clients to do it with me. That steady and slow kind, where the exhale and inhale are of equal strength, balanced by the place between.  Our breath is a bridge between the para-sympathetic nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system, connecting what we have no control over with what we do. Balancing these two physiologically has an existential ripple effect, taking us out of the state of fear and able to step forward into an uncertain future with a sense of calm. 

 

It’s spring equinox and I’m breathing into balance, taking delight in the beauty that surrounds me, accepting there's a lot I can't control and taking the reins where I can.  Less money being spent has resulted in landfills receiving 30 percent less trash. 

 

All hail the mysterious power of balance! 

California Marriage and Family Therapist for Marriage Equality

In the summer of 1986 , while attending Reclaiming’s first summer intensive,  I called home and received  news that I had passed my licensing exam.  From that moment on,  I have been a licensed marriage and family therapist in California.  For years before that moment, as a registered intern, and for every year since, I have annually sent checks of a couple hundred dollars off to CAMFT, the California association that represents those of us in my profession.

 

Several weeks ago I found out that CAMFT is NOT representing me, or any other GLBT therapist in the state.  The CAMFT board members have refused for months to take a stand for marriage equality.  All the other major associations representing mental health workers have public statements regarding the importance of marriage equality and see homophobia as an important issue that effects mental health.

 

Because, it does. 

 

I am a marriage and family therapist who’s own marriage is in jeopardy of becoming legally invalid.  I work up close and personal with couples, all kinds of couples. Gay, lesbian and queer couples are no less loving, dysfunctional, loyal, short or long lasting than straight ones. Why should anyone be barred from being legally hitched if they want to take that leap?  And even for those who don’t believe in marriage or would never choose to marry, being denied the same rights as other folks is something that affects identity and self esteem. There's plenty of studies that have shown this. Discrimination is not emotionally healthy.

 

I’m proud that my alma mater, Antioch college, has issued a public statement regarding CAMFT’s refusal to join other associations representing my profession in doing the right thing.  This weekend, one of my colleagues from my association of GLBT therapists, GAYLESTA, will be presenting the case , yet again, to the CAMFT board, on why we need CAMFT to stand up for marriage equality and against homophobia.

 

Hopefully, this weekend the board will do the right thing.  Being spring equinox, I’m hoping that the spirit of balance, fairness, and justice is contagious.

 

Homophobia is something we therapists need to treat, not perpetuate.