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