branches up, roots down

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 i...

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...

"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. ...

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

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 plant...

"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 ...

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...