Oombulgurri

(This stand in is waiting for an authentic pic from Oombulgurri)

An elder, one who held the community together, died. The people who lived in Oombulgurri (a village, once a mission station, in the Kimberleys, Western Australia) were in a mourning period. The people of the community were all in their homes, playing cards or sleeping. Wood burning on open fires filled the community with a warm sense of total peace. The place was unusually quiet everywhere.

Out of nowhere, a change in the air pressure caused the door to the commnity store to fling open. It  had been secured and this did not make sense at all. Two  of the women who worked in the store hastened to get me. We high tailed it to the store together to see what had happened. The strangest part of this happening was that, even with the doors wide open, nobody attempted to go into the store and help themselves - which would not have been unusual.

When we arrived, the  other two women would not go inside the store. Most of the people of this very small community of about 100, were standing near the store, just watching. I went inside,wondering to myself how to make the most of this - to further increase the ownership of tthe development and well being of his community by the people standing outside.

Inside was dark, except for a light streaming through a hole in the corner of the roof. The light was extraordinarily bright - or so I thought at that moment. It set my imagination into full screen production. One of this ancient culture's beliefs is that each living thing has a wanjana (dreamtime apirit). I imagined that this light was the wanjana of this elder who had just died.  I imagined him telling me to tell the people outside that he was protecting the store and them as well. I turned around, facing the people standing outside and told them just that. I asked if anyone needed anything from the store,since we were here. Noone did and all returned to their homes.
We locked the doors and checked carefully that all was secure. I set out to return to my own place. On the way, one of the elders called me over to her fire.  She asked me to tell her EXACTLY what I had seen, heard,  and felt. So, I told her that I had quite vividly imagined what I had related to the people standing outside the store.  her response was, "You are one of the clever ones". Translated, that means, I know the secrets of the elders and how to use them.

Clearly, I had crossed over into the persona of another culture, stood in a very primal place, and responded. I acted with a pure heart. I had connected with the people of another culture as One.

This is what the world needs today. People who can do this adeptly and with purpose. This is what I see in so many people today. One by one, occasion by occasion, connecting. Understanding the commonality at the center of different perspectives and understandings of life.

Where has this happened to you? 
Where have you seen it happening?
What difference does it make.

Jeanne

The wall of the side entry, a small office, is covered with Engstrom history. This picture on the right is Jeanne's granddaughter, Jennifer, with her nieces. These were taken in January 2004 at Jeanne's home following the funeral.



Today, I remember, Jeanne Engstrom. I related to her as my only sister. She passed into the Light six years ago this month. I talked to her on the phone once a week and had failed to call her one Sunday night. She died in her sleep. That was Sunday night. On Tuesday morning, her daughter called her and her boss  also was upset because it was the second day she hadn't shown up for work. She had been resting peacefully for a day and a half before her death was discovered.

Few people have influenced who I am today like she did. In many ways, she was  the mother  AND the sister I needed in my life. We had real conversations about real women subjects. She taught me how to be a grand hostess and cook for a large family. Her sense of creating a plush, inviting environment is unsurpassed by any. She should have been consulted in decorating and hosting at the white house now and then. She had fiery red hair which she maintained, along with her attire - the elegance of a queen AND  pzazz of Auntie Mame.

Jeanne was a contralto, the best in the valley. She sang with my father, the bass. The soprano was Ruth Larsen, and the tenors varied, from Bill Marley to Leo Carvelle. They all loved music and performing. Jeanne was active in local theater, too.  She is especially remembered for her role as Aldonza in Man of LaMancha. I remember helping her to learn the words to another musical,  That's Why the Lady is a Tramp. Of course, I know all the words by heart, too.

She sang at my wedding - The Lord's Prayer and Wheree're you Walk, Cool Gales Shall Fan the Glades. I heard her trembling as she sang. I was honored to be so special to one who was so special person.

When I'd return to the Utica area for a visit, I'd stay at Jeanne's. She and Rod always made me feel like I was at home at their 300 year old circa  building, which had been a doctor's surgery once.  So many memories. Further back to when I was a little girl when she gave me an apple green depression glass tea set that had been hers as a little girl - back to stories she told me of her own childhood. When she and Rod began their family, I baby sat and watched them grow.

I only know one grandchild, Jennifer. She has fiery red hair, a beautiful soprano voice, plays the cello, and is celebrating the 10th anniversary of NYMVAE, an opera company she joined in NYC and never left. Jeanne would be so proud of her. Even, if she were in a wheel chair, carrying oxygen, she would be at the anniversary celebration. I do also have to say that she would have a martini in her hand, if only for the memory of a life lived to the fullest that she knew how to live.  As I do, she would see her Spirit carrying on through to her granddaughter. She might even see some of herself in me.

Here's to the lust for life and the love of the theater that Jeanne channels into our lives!

We all have these memories of people close to us, no matter how our lives unfolded. Who is one for you who nurtured and protected your inner child and applauds for what you have become?

Synthesis

I receently read three books:  The Stranger, Noah's Compass, and The Lacuna. They were  about men who let life happen to them in different ways. All  three had shadow events which they had blocked out.  I know that The Stranger was  a profile of a circumspect. In Noah's Compass. the main character was a school teacher whose job had been downsized from a philosophy professor to finally a preschool aid. The Lacuna was written as the diaries of a man who became a famous writer and was destroyed by the McCarthy era Inquisition.

One soul walks tthrough life as a stranger.
The stranger  is circumspect with
a gun in his hand - disconnected from his
experiences.

One soul walks through life as a teacher.
The teacher is displaced from one job after
another  - accepting one of lesser meaning  each time.

One soul walks through life as a writer.
The writer captures the essence of
his experience  - only to be destroyed by national paranoia.
(He does disappear and there are hints of his having returned with a new identity)

I was drawn to these three stories NOT to awaken me to the demise of letting life happen (not to be confused with accepting the way life is). Rather,  it connected me with the deep cry from within which screams "Help me!" These cries I hear in the silence of people who I know are needing to tell their life stories and just don't know how to do it.

As Bill Salmon said in on earthrise@yahoogroups.com  recently, it isn't  objectivity, rationality, or a cognitive perspective that needs telling . Looking through that scientific lens  very likely causes hopelessness, confusion, and despair.

What, when, where, how, who and why are facades of the deeper story, one which boils within like a volcano about to erupt or a sun about to show its face on the horizon in the morning.

The stories that need telling are life experiences, those which are meaningful to the teller, and communicate ownership of the experience. They reveal the underlying purpose of having been born, or a dream realized or quashed, or a shadow brought into the light.

These three stories, The Stranger, Noah's Compass, and The Lacuna were presented to my experience one after the other. I asked myself  "What is the experience in each one which I connect with?" Then I ask myself "How are these three experiences are alike - or similar?". I meditate on the answer, going even deeper. Then ask, "What is the story I have to tell here, including the message, the insight, or the aha?" The final product, if you will, is a synthesis - a gestalt of what appeared to be three separate experiences, but has become one meaningful slice of  life.

After the objective, reflective, and interpretive aspects of your own experiences, pick two or three, go deeper to how they relate, and deeper still to the insight in the relationship? What is the result?



p.s. Back from having been published, I need to add to this story that I got a call from the local paper asking if I'd be interested in writing for them. The assignment is to interview local people, writing up their life experiences. Do I have some real questions to be asking them now? You bet I do. Thank you three books.

My Mother

My own mother, I believe Jung would agree, energized a negative archetypal energy,  which I continued in the raising of my own children in many ways. My mother did not emotionally connect with me as a person. She was very critical of me. She contributed greatly to my own understanding of myself as not good enough, as an outsider, as alone in this world. My mother's last spoken words to me, three days before her death, were, "Let go of me!" which she shouted out, however weakly, when I attempted to hug  her.

Ironically, everyone liked my mother. Her grandchildren loved her. Her friends loved her. Her colleagues loved her. She was attractive, took care of her health,  and was involved in many activites. As a teacher, she inspired many to go beyond what they thought was possible for themselves. She loved to cook and always intended that we had nutritious meals. There were times we were really poor. She would go to work so the bills could get paid. After we had all grown, she made sure the family would all gather at one time now and then on a holiday. However, my brothers and I are in agreement that that we experienced being  "on our own" by the time we were teenagers.

During the holidays this year, I went to an annual holiday tea at the church she attended. I like to go because the women's group sell crafts which they made during the year. They also have those little sandwiches with the crusts cut off and fancy cookies. They serve coffee and tea from a real silver tea set, into china cups with saucers. While I was mingling in this luxury, several of the women mentioned how much they missed Mother's  smiling face, and her voice in the choir.  My own internal response (refer to previous paragraphs) was a double whammy":  the return of the abandoned child who once lived as the shadow of self-depreciation itself, and the woman I now am - one who chooses to honor my mother's life and her role in mine with compassion and forgiveness.

I believe that we chose the life we would come into before we were born into this incarnation. We chose it for the lessons we need to learn and the messages we need to deliver. I also believe this belief is a metaphor for taking responsibility for the relationship to the life we have lived. and the story we create to hold those experiences.

I bring my mother into the circle of the dance and let her go, as she so clearly requested. I am grateful for being consciously aware, brateful for the gift of mindfulness, AND grateful for being aware that I am free to choose the relationship I take to my experiences. Most of all I am grateful for the source of creativity - the space where I energize suportive and positive archetypal energy.  These qualities make lesson learning possible. In fact, learning to access them, may just be the lesson I have learned.

I can say that my mother's life was received into the Light as whole and perfect - her whole life, all of its pain and all of its joy. I am free to choose a Mother archetype for  this phase of life.

She is Sophia: http://northernway.org/sophia.html

How have you been transformed by changing your relationship to an energy that gets in your way sometimes?

Communion

Common Meal in the Great Hall, Chicago, in the 70s.

A highly formal ritual of communion.

The white symbol on blue is the "wedge blade". The circle reprresents the earth. The white perpendicular line represents the way life is right now.  The wedge through it all is the movement into the future, beyond what is. Steppping out beyond the point of the wedge, is to be the Church.

The church as a social pioneer, an image captures by H.Richard Neibuhr, drew me into a life of social change. The journey, in and of itself, was a great awakening. During this period of my life, my purpose was to be  and to create a demonstrtion of renewal within the church, of the leadership, and in the community. II was part of a world wide ecumenical moement of people who pioneered in our lifestyle, what this renewal looked like. It was a rigorous journey. It was an experiment.

I would have to say honestly, that today I am ex-church. Not in the sense of pioneering new ritual, story, and symbol. I am no longer "ecumenical". There is the whole world, many cultures, and a new earth consciousness emerging in the collective psyche of the people who live on this planet earth.

There is a new pioneering venture now. Awakening people is not needed. Forming a  synthesis the gifts of the cultures and religions of the people of the earth is needed now -  into a conscious understanding of our pluralist unity.  From this will emerge the new meaningful rituals, mythology, and common symbols.

 Where to begin?

Here is one group inviting everyone to meditate and pray for forty days as a worldwide sangha.

http://www.winterfeastforthesoul.com/

What is your thinking on how to synthesize the diversity of the cultures and religions of the people who live on this earth of ours?

Yule

To see a Yule log indicates joyous and promising expectations for the coming year.

 http://www.controverscial.com/Yule.htm

Solstice means “Sun stands still in Winter”. Solstice celebration has been renewed and has become popular during my life time. Yule and Winter Solstice are one and the same. While Winter Solstice is now a tradition on December 21st, the burning of yule log on New Year's Eve is the same celebration. Both are celebrations of the old year ending and the new year beginning.

While living in New York City, I never missed a Winter Solstice celebration, even when it meant treking up to Connecticut to walk the labyrinth at one of the churches. I also enjoyed several years of Paul Winter in Concert at St. Johns Cathedral, too. Two years ago, a local church here in Crescent City had rented a labyrinth and the hall was full of people walking the labyrinth here. There has not been a "return engagment", however. As a side note, a colleague told the story recent of his walking the real labyrinth in Chartes Cathedral. When he got to the center, and began the return, he was informed that the correct procedure from the center is to go straight to the altar.

I went to a New Year's Eve party last year at Scruffy's Fish Camp. His New Years Eve parties have become a local tradition. I had heard about them for years, but, even though people urged me to just go, I did not feel it appropriate to do that. Scruffy plans these parties for the people - mainly retired couples -  who stay there during the winter months.  Well, last year I was invited, cooked a dish to add to the pot luck, and went. Even though there was great food, company, and awe provoking fireworks, the burning of the yule log, definitely was the highlight of the party. The log was huge and the fire was lit so the inside would burn and much attention was paid, somewhat like a vigil,  to keeping the inside burning while sustaining its upright position asthe outside burned from the bottom. Missed it this year, but did go over the next day for the New Year's Day party. Again, I brought a cooked dish to add tot he potluck, enjoyed meeting new people, and stared for along time at the remnants of the burning of the yule log. A misty rain had just stopped and the fire was a welcome warmth on a jacket-cold day in Florida.

In conclusion, I would say that being an old time Floridian, is to have created a new indigenous culture. This culture provides a sense of community - a sense of place and belonging - and is celebrated with its gatherings and the rituals within those gatherings. I feel privileged to have encountered this community of the new indigenous people, and to experience a sense of belonging when  we are gathered. A guy named Scruffy and "his woman", Melanie, make it happen here.

I have a feeling, also, that this is happening everywhere. People have been isolated, (or even sadder, are trapped in a kind of collective autism, with no way to communicate with anything or anyone new on the scene) are capturing meaning in rituals of yore and making community happen from the embers of the yule - a life once full.

I would love to know your experience of new community and its celebrations.

Bue Moon

December 31st, 2009 -New Year's Eve

Blue Moon

Since December 31, 1999, ten years have passed - placing us one decade into the new millenium. A blue moon on New Year's Eve is unusual. In addition to the blue moon, there was a lunar eclipse in many parts of the world. New Year's Eve is the one common event celebrated by about everyone on earth. With satellite technology, anyone can celebrate, with images, every hour on the hour for the whole 24 hours as the old year ends and the new year begins in a time zone.
My own meaning of a blue moon is that it is a special night. In my life, years of the blue moons have been turning points in my life. They have been times when I began to move headlong into a new vision of my own existence. This blue moon is again, a time when I begin anew.
During this past year, significant people in my life, those I would call mentor, all died. It was a sign to me that I could leave the past and stand present to a life yet to be, unhindered by notions of unfinished business.
A full moon meditation - a blue moon meditation - gave me three insights to carry with me into this yet to be.One is that mindfulness is as simple as intentionally breathing in and breathing out. Another is that nonself -or selfless - is not being empty of all, it is inter-being - one with all - all one - not separate - whole. "I empathize" has a new meaning. The third is that I can transform my energy by inviting the energy present into my life, welcome it, support it, listen to it, and thank it for being my energy - whatever it is. This will transform the energy.

I'm sure there are other insights on the way. These are given to me on this blue moon. With them, I enter 2010. I am ready now for new year's resolutions. to support this life yet to be.

These three insights given to me on this blue moon, are given to me because I need them right now.

When I look deeper at the common message in the three, I understand that I have what I need to get on with it - this new phase in life.

How did I learn to listen to my inner wisdom? What a gift to be given. How do you access your inner wisdom? What is it telling you these days?