The Abyss Of Despair

You once told me that it would be okay to talk to you if I felt down; today I do.  Don't know why - could be my pain level which is bothering me, or perhaps it's Sunday, which has always been a hard day for me, or it might be that at times the hopelessness of my life becomes more real.  Whatever, it is a rough day and I feel despair. 

I try not to burden others with this, but sometimes it spills out, like it is today, and colors everything I touch.  In these moments I fall into an abyss and I cannot see a way out.  It's dark and overpowering in here, and I cannot find my way back toward the light.   Somewhere inside me I know the light does exist but right now I do not feel or believe this. 

So I let myself be swallowed up by this deep, dark, seemingly unending space.  Time does not exist here, neither does place or space, only the suffocating despair.  The only feeling I have is a deep sadness that is inconsolable.  My tears are plentiful as I bump round in the darkness.  I can't stop them; I only can cry them until I am exhausted.  They have the need and the right to be experienced and heard.  To feel and express them opens a place where I begin to pull away from the despair.  A light appears in this darkness; color reveals itself; and hope for redemption suddenly materializes in this dark place.

 

The downward spiral of my inner journey suddenly reverses itself and the pinpoint of light draws me up toward it.  The despair and tears begin to resolve themselves; like they need room and permission to be heard, and once that happens their need to be acknowledged is satisfied.  I hear, accept, and then let go of these feelings.  Light is suddenly visible as I move out of this dark abyss and back toward my life.    

 

   

Dream Weaver

A practice I learned from Sara, my great grandmother, was to speak my dreams aloud in the morning.  I now realize that by my saying this out loud my dreams were carried into my waking time and became a part of my waking life.  Sara left life shortly before I was six and she never told me why I was to speak of my dreams each day.

My parents and grandparents were not as tolerant of encouraging my dream time as Sara was; I imagine this was too ethereal for their practical minds.  Sara visited me in my dreams after her death but I sensed this was not a topic my parents or grandparents were comfortable with so I didn't share this with them.  I kept these dreams close to my heart and did not speak of them as Sara had taught me to do.

The Christmas before my grandmother, Sara's daughter, died we had gone home to visit my family.  My grandmother called me into her room and told me of a dream she had.  She said that Sara had come to her in a dream and told her that all was well and she would soon be coming home.  It was not like my grandmother to share something like this and I just listened and said little.  My grandmother died suddenly about a month later.

The summer before my grandmother passed away I experienced what I eventually came to understand was a waking dream.  I was attending a seminar at Tulane University in New Orleans.  I was signed up for a class in "alternative realities".  It was the summer of 1980 and for a Midwesterner this was quite a leap from my current reality.  The professor for this class was an aging hippie and his ease of relating to the class and his presentation of his subject matter immediately drew me in.  I was hooked.

The first night after I began this class I dreamed of Sara.  I had dreamed of her after she died and until I became an adolescent.  As I awakened to my adult dreams of her I was reminded of the wisdom she left with me.  It seemed this class on alternative realities might pick up where she left off.  This idea excited and frightened me.  Like a moth drawn to a flame I circled these teachings hesitant to commit.  

At that time I recorded in my journal that I felt my slumbering shaman had been awakened from her twenty year sleep, stretched, and stood right in the middle of my life.  I thought that when the seminar was over I would pack my bags, fly home, leaving her behind, and my life would return to what it had been before she awakened.  I was wrong; she came along for the ride.

I began to experience her presence in everything I did.  My dreams were crystal clear; my waking thoughts were often of Sara's teachings.  I realized that I was young and she was old and her dreams were spun in gold.  I quested for the wisdom that Sara had opened me to as a very young child.  I longed for her presence and found she was a regular visitor in my dreams.  

The weave of my dreams taught that I no longer needed to seek knowledge but rather to open myself to wisdom.  Wisdom was everywhere if I had eyes to see, ears to hear, and the awareness to perceive it.  Sara taught me as a child that life itself would be my teacher if I would become its student.  This had worked for me until I reached adolescence; hormones then kicked in and wisdom flew out the door.  So that summer in New Orleans I was thirty-three and the path to wisdom reawakened along with my inner shaman.

Following my time in New Orleans I came to understand the meaning of synchronicity; the simultaneous occurrence of events that appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection.  I realized how Carl Jung's patient dreamed of a golden scarab and the following day in her session with Jung, as she was describing her dream, a golden scarab flew into to room. 

As I "awakened" in my waking mind I saw, understood, and accepted synchronicity in my life.  Only I could awaken to, understand, and accept this happening.  Until I had the experience in New Orleans with "alternative realities" I was sleeping and unable to find my way back to the foundation of Sara's teachings.  The class at Tulane brought me awake; now I had to learn to take advantage of past teachings while I sought out new teachers and paths to explore.

       
The old combined with the new to become my journey to self.  There is no finishing point or end there is just the weave of life living itself.  We each have a slumbering shaman within ourselves who is waiting the call to wake up.  I learned to not ignore my intuition, to look, listen, and learn from all manner of life, to realize that life, as Sara taught me, is always there to teach if I will show up to learn.

This is my teacher today as much as it was thirty-four years ago in New Orleans.  I must each day show up to learn.  There are days that I am a star student and other days that I am not.  The only thing that matters is that I just keep showing up.  In this classroom of life there is no failure, only lessons that I learn from or I get to try again.  The Dream Weaver is continually weaving and reweaving life as we move along.

A Renaissance Of Wonder

"Synchronicity is an ever present reality for those who have eyes to see."
~Carl Jung~

So often we let expectations get in the way of recognizing the presence of synchronicity in our lives.  Expectations are thought up by the mind; synchronicity arrives through the heart.  In synchronicity we hear, see, and experience with our hearts.  We become a part of our stories and the stories live through us and no longer are just random words that pile up like dry leaves under a tree.... we begin to find wisdom in eyes that can now see.

When this happens we experience transformation in our lives.  We are now open to this guidance and no longer are hindered by expectations.  It is like watching a movie on a small black and white screen to seeing it on a huge wrap around screen in technicolor.  Life becomes completely alive.  We realize that all of life is teaching and we only need to be awake and aware to this process.

Every moment of life is here for our learning if we will learn. We truly learn as we become a part of the living stories that surround us.  This and these are   
synchronicity; when we understand that we are always at the perfect place in life to teach us.  We often fall into the flawed thinking of expectations and the thought that if only other circumstances would present themselves in life things would be better.  In fact a great deal of time and energy are often expended into this "what-iffing".

The what-ifs of life, along with jealousy and resentment, only lead to constant unhappiness.  These are expectations that hinder us on our paths to happiness.  We can't be happy if our lives are lived in expectation and comparison.  We will never be successful or happy in such an environment; success and happiness then are always waiting for us just around the corner and are NEVER now.

When synchronicity is an ever present reality our expectations no longer stand in the way of our happiness.  We realize that by being in each moment we are a part of our stories.  They take on life through us, are a part of us, and we are fully alive.  We experience a renaissance of wonder as we simply just live life without expectations.  A transformation takes place as the center of our being moves from a thought centered to a heart centered life.  

 
Being in the moment allows us to remain in this renaissance of wonder where all things are possible.

Grandmother Courage

"We need the courage to create ourselves daily, to be bodacious enough to create ourselves each morning -- and to say very simply, with hope, Good Morning."          ~ Maya Angelou ~

I was young and she was old but I knew her dreams were spun in gold....  When we met she was already cloaked in the beauty of age.  She had let go her roles of daughter, wife, mother, and accepted her position as grandmother to all.  Her cloak of age was woven with golden threads of wisdom which were the guiding lights of her life.  She knew the value of creating herself daily and always remembered to greet each day with a simple "Good Morning"

She was great grandmother to me, my first mentor, and my friend. I wonder how many of us have had such a person in our lives?  I realize that there have been many such people in my life if I take the time to recognize them.  The opening quote in this post is by Maya Angelou who served as such a mentor to me even though I had never met her personally.  Her written and spoken words and her life presented and modeled to me things I aspire to.

Mentors and teachers are all around if we take the time to stop and look.  Hearing a part of a conversation as I pass by a group of people, or sitting in a crowded restaurant, can offer wisdom to me; especially if I approach these situations with an open mind. Random encounters often lead to deeper self understanding and awareness.

I met such a professor at a seminar I attended in 1980 at Tulane University in New Orleans.  This encounter allowed me to look outside the walls of academia for wisdom rather than just seeking knowledge.  When the desire for wisdom is awakened we begin the journey that we took birth for.  

I have found that if I am still, look, and listen wisdom is all around me.  It often takes Grandmother Courage to allow this wisdom a path into my being.  To remember to awaken each morning and greet each day with a simple and quiet "good morning".  To claim my Grandmother Courage requires that I find and listen to those who hold such wisdom for me.  My sons have offered this to me throughout their lives.  It's not their age but is the wisdom that innately resides within.  They often teach me.  It's the friend who in her/his struggles provide me with insight into my own life.  The chance phrase I hear as I pass a group of people and the realization that the phrase applies to me.  

Grandmother Courage shows me how these things apply to me.  As a child it was easy to see the wisdom that my grandparents imparted.  As an adult, old enough to be a grandparent, it is having the courage to listen to and accept this wisdom irrespective of the source.  This courage helps me sift the wheat from the chaff as I discern the difference between truths and cleverly presented lies.  

Lies are often wrapped in a package of illusion, sometimes cleverly disguised as truths.  Grandmother Courage supplies me wisdom; this teaches me discernment and that allows me to only choose what is in my best long term interest.  With time and patience this wisdom guides my life's choices.     

   
Honoring myself I always honor all others.  My choices may not always make others happy but by staying true to what is in my best interest I can accept and live with others disappointments in me.  Grandmother Courage helps me remain true to myself; first and foremost.  Wisdom comes from many sources; it is not important that I like these sources, but it is important that I learn to separate the wisdom from the source and not loose myself in the source when I merely need to take from my experiences the lessons/wisdom.  From this comes discernment, and from discernment I learn to be impeccable in my thoughts and actions.

   

Leela: The Divine Play In Life

Humans often seek outside themselves the things that they are missing within.  No one has been the product of perfect parenting, and all have things that are missing or are incomplete within.  At some point in human maturational development a needed lesson is to learn to seek within. 

Someone who was not nurtured as a child often looks to other adult relationships to fill these unmet needs of childhood.  When we, as human beings, seek outside of self for this we ultimately abandon ourselves.  This is when the divine conundrum comes into play.  The Leela, the divine play in life, holds these beings in her grasp and humans often cannot see a solution to this conundrum.  Like children we may want to flee the safety of the nest, but only as long as it remains a safe haven that we can return to.  Others caught in the divine play are willing to provide this nest, but they want a relationship with the person who is there.  This cannot happen as those involved in this play of life fantasize it will.

Searching outside rather than within ultimately leads to abandonment of self.  When we seek others to care for and complete us, or if we try to rescue others from themselves we are setting ourselves up for failure.  I cannot fill the emptiness in another person, and they cannot fill that in me.  These are things we must learn to do for ourselves.  

When we feel a gnawing emptiness arise in ourselves is the time to become still and evaluate that emptiness; what is it, where is it coming from, and why is it manifesting now?  Become still in ourselves and examine what this emptiness is about.

Culture teaches us the opposite; avoid this emptiness at all costs; fill up with addictions of people, things, activities, anything to keep the illusion we feed ourselves alive.  People run around filling their lives with junk to avoid this fear of being empty, of not being enough, of being a failure.  These are powerful fears which enslaves those who believe that they are truth.

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself, and if we give up fear we will never have to give up another thing" are quotes that speak truth.  Trying to fill unmet needs with outside relationships leads to disappointment.  Nothing outside of self can fill these gnawing needs.  They must be filled from within.

Realizing that we can stand in the center of our emptiness and we won't be annihilated is a powerful and freeing realization.  The Leela in life plays with us so that we might learn that it is only in and from that center of emptiness we begin to truly fill ourselves.  Our illusions are played with in such ways that we are allowed to examine them and their truths are revealed to us.

We may attach to objects, relationships, activities, and all manor of things, but through the Leela, the divine play, our attachments become clear and we can begin to let go.  Through letting go we understand the energy it takes to hang on.  As we realize this there is a sense of freedom by not being encumbered by what we have been hanging on to.  

At first as we step beyond the encultureated view of emptiness there can be a breathless moment as we absorb this emptiness as being a natural part of ourselves.

 

So we stop, breath, let go, and move on into this natural state of being.  This is what we each took birth to be.  When we can learn and then accept this we can play freely with the Leela, and we move beyond the fears that have held our illusions in place.  These illusions are revealed for what they are, untruths, and the truth of our amness of being becomes our reality.  We no longer need to seek outside of self for what we feel we lack; we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that all we need resides within ourselves.   

     

  

White Buffalo Day

Today, August 27, is White Buffalo Day.  It honors the story passed down in the Lakota Sioux tradition about living in harmony with all beings and the healing of the land.  This day was first honored in 1994 when a white buffalo calf was born in Janesville Wisconsin.

I journeyed to Janesville in September of 1994 to see this miracle named Miracle.  A friend and her mother accompanied me.  My friend traces her ancestry to the Lakota on her father's side.  Her mother is also of native ancestry and on that day twenty years ago her mother rode as an elder with us.

White Buffalo Day is a reminder and a call for all of us to step back and consider ourselves and our roles as citizens of this planet.  It is a call to our heart wisdom.  The wisdom found in the legend of the White Buffalo and White Buffalo Woman as has been handed down for 19 generations by the Lakota.  It is a call to and from our hearts to listen and learn not from our heads but with our hearts.

Not only a call but a plea for world leaders to stop and listen with their hearts rather than their minds.  Our hearts will lead us in the correct directions to facilitate this healing in our roles on this planet and encourage us to come together as a human race working for these much needed changes.  These changes not only will assure that we will survive but that we can thrive as a part of this entire collective of sentient beings on Earth. 

On that day almost 20 years ago my friend's mother, Dorothy, told us a story as we traveled toward Janesville.  Her sister had to be transported by a life flight several years before this.  She accompanied her sister as she was carried by helicopter to a hospital.  Dorothy told of watching the clouds that they were flying through and having the sensation that they were being accompanied by a herd of white buffalo on their flight.  She said a sense of peace came over her as they flew and that she felt her sister was going to be okay; and she was.

Some will say these are merely stories and legends.  These are people who listen with their heads and not their hearts.  I suggest you sit back, close your eyes and visualize Dorothy with her ill sister moving through the clouds with an airy herd of white cloud like buffalo running along with them.  Listen to an audio recording of the story of White Buffalo Woman, close your eyes, and allow images to arise as you hear the words.  This is listening with your heart. As images arise you become a part of this living story, of this legend.  Learn to listen not with your two physical ears but with your third ear of the heart.

This is how we make our stories, legends, and myths become a part of who we are; by seeing them in our minds eye rather than just hearing them with our ears.  We are a part of them and their teachings impact our lives.  They teach us of our innate goodness and how to live with all other beings.  They impart great wisdom in life to us mortals.  When we hear and see these stories in this way they bring the power of transformation into our lives.  We become hopeful of change, and when we have hope change is on the way.

That day 20 years ago the three of us, like three wise women, left Janesville to return home.  A beautiful cloud of hope enveloped us as we sped along the highway.  Like the three aspects of the Goddess, maiden, mother, and crone, we returned to daily life.  We each had been touched by seeing Miracle and our lives forever enriched by this.  Most importantly we carried a part of this energy within ourselves and knew that the legend of the White Buffalo lives within each of us.

  
It is good - mitakuye oyasin

          

Sound, Rhythm, And Cadence Of A Small Town

Dip, dip, wipe, brush, brush, brush; the sound of paint being applied to a wall.  Shuffle, shuffle, tap, shuffle, shuffle, tap; the sound of an elderly man as he walks down the street.  Snap, snap, followed by the sound of wooden clothespins clicking to metal clotheslines as the weekly wash is hung out to dry..  These are the sounds and rhythm of a small town as it comes awake in the morning 

My great grandmother, Sara, lived next door when I was a child.  She was my first mentor and captivated me and my attention.  Stories of this independent, some would say headstrong, woman filled my childhood and my memories of her are still quite vivid.  A gravel driveway separated her home from mine and in that short distance I had daily contact with her as a child. A powerful presence in my first five years...

A favorite story that I was told by my parents was of the time she decided she needed to paint her house.  This happened before I was born but hearing it told I could picture it as if I had been there.

Sara began by enlisting my father to drive to the nearby city of Hannibal for paint and paint supplies.  She explained that her house needed a fresh coat of paint and she being of sound mind and strong body would do it.  Most people didn't argue with Sara when she had made her mind up.  So my dad did her bidding and returned with paint and brushes leaving them in the tool shed in her back yard.

Shortly after getting the paint Sara set out one morning to paint her one story house.  A driveway separated her house from ours, and on the other side a tall privet hedge separated her house from her neighbor, Mr. Johnson.  Now Mr. Johnson had a stroke a few years earlier and he had a difficult time speaking - except for swear words.  

So on a fine spring morning Sara set out to paint her house.  She set a ladder in place, took a bucket of paint and a paint brush and climbed up the side of her house.  It was as neighbor women, including my mom, carried their freshly done laundry to their clotheslines; flowers were in bloom, vegetable plants were growing in the many gardens, and all was right in their world.

Sara set up a cadence of dip, dip her brush in the paint can, wipe the excess on the side of the can, and brush, brush, brush her strokes along the side of her house.  Dip, dip, wipe, brush, brush, brush was her rhythm.  To this was the gentle background sounds of snap, snap, click, click, click of fresh laundry being hung out.  So the rhythm was dip, dip, wipe, brush, brush, brush - playing to the background sounds of snap, snap, click, click, click.  A peaceful reassuring sound. 
  
Mr. Johnson, Sara's next door neighbor, had finished his breakfast and donning his hat and taking his cane he set out for his morning walk.  He opened his front door and carefully stepped onto his front porch, breathing deeply in the fresh sun shine morning air.  As he crossed his porch and began his walk he set up his own rhythm of shuffle, shuffle, tap, shuffle, shuffle tap.  It blended perfectly with the sound of dip, dip, wipe, brush, brush, brush, and snap, snap, click, click, click.  The world was in harmony as Sara painted her house, the neighborhood women hung out their laundry, and Mr. Johnson began his walk.

Mr. Johnson reached the main sidewalk and turning right he began to slowly move toward Sara's house.  Shuffle, shuffle tap was now accompanied by dip, dip, wipe, brush, brush, brush.  As Mr. Johnson past the tall privet hedge along the side of his house Sara, my great grandmother, stood in his full view on a ladder slowly painting her house.  

Mr. Johnson stopped, removed his hat, wiped his brow and said in a loud, clear voice, "I'll be damned".  Now Sara was hard of hearing and could not distinguish his words as she turned to look at him. Mr. Johnson in a much louder and well articulated voice repeated, "I'll be damned".  He was not heard by Sara but all the neighbor women hanging out their laundry to dry clearly heard what he said.  Sara still could not hear his words so she put her paint brush down, cupped her hand behind her ear and said, "ehh", and Mr. Johnson repeated, I"ll be damned".

This exchange of "I'll be damned", and "ehh" continued for several minutes.  I never did learn which one gave up first, but Mr. Johnson went on with his walk and Sara continued to paint her house.  She may never have realized that he was paying her the ultimate compliment before he walked on and she returned to painting. The rhythm of that small town was interrupted for a moment, but as the day grew stronger the rhythm sound, and cadence returned; dip, dip, wipe, brush, brush, brush; snap, snap, click, click, click; shuffle shuffle, tap, shuffle shuffle, tap.  And so it is in the life of a small rural town; it is the sound, rhythm, and cadence of life living itself....