Village Leadership Institute

An Iron Man Statue in Kenya. Who constructed it?  Is that Daniel Ndolo standing in front of it?

Under that, the hills of Machakos area.

I feel like I’m being bombarded with invitations to explore “awakening to Soul’s purpose on earth”. Surely, I have done more than a fair share of reflection on the topic. I can tell many stories of where I experienced myself aligned with Soul’s purpose on earth. I prefer to see this dynamic reality as "Soul’s purpose lived through me" rather than “My Soul’s purpose” – for a number of reasons.

One time in particular that stands out is the Village Leadership Institute in Kenya. I was given the assignment to make it happen. No one said, “You are the one that is the best choice.” – or anything like that. After Kay (now Kaze) and I got the curriculum written, I was left to see it through. The objective of the training was motivity (creative motivation). Village leaders would return to their villages motivated to get others involved in implementing plans they and the rest of their village had made at a strategic planning consult.

The school was a seven day training of village leaders. The staff were young Kenyan volunteers. About fifty village leaders came, so the necessity arose as the obvious choice to quickly train the young staff to lead the workshop sessions. The week proceeded with high energy. I wasn’t sure what exactly was happening in each of the workshops, but the Kenyan staff member, with whom I co-deaned this VLI, observed regularly and felt that, for the most part, the newly trained staff was sticking to the curriculum and the village leaders were responding well.

At the closing, the celebrative event was dinner and Kenyan story-telling. This indigeonous folklore powerfully reflected a synthesis of history woven into a new future. Finally, the first graduates of a VLI, “claimed promises” for their plans upon returning to their villages.

I could have died and gone to heaven that evening right then and there. I was feeling that I was doing what I had been put on this earth to accomplish. Soul’s purpose had worked through me. Local motivity was the missing element of human development projects. That night, a light of possibility shone for the future of Kenyan people doing their own development - and most importantly - national staff doing the motivity training that would make it happen.

Chiron, the planet of life purpose was orbiting right through Kenya at that time. And now it's orbiting right through where I am now feeling drawn. Astrology is another paradigm, but I believe it has value, if only for confirmation of urges and tendencies.

Where is Chiron orbiting for you. Where do you feel drawn to "Soul's purpose working through you?"

Contemplating 85

My new free lance venture in news journaling took me to the Crescent City Library. I was there to take pictures of a class of 2941, 1942, and 1943 high school reunion. These reunions had been happening since 1984. There were twelve alumni and six others who were either spouse or companion, one woman travelled from California with her daughter. These Crescent City High School graduates had gone to school together for the entire 12 years. They are approximately 85 years old. The reunion lasted three hours, included lunch, picture taking, and a word from each person present, including me. Someone had kept the history of these reunions in albums dating back to graduation.


What struck me about the gathering was the incredible energy in the room. Every one of us was a welcome addition to the gathering. No one was in a hurry to go home. No one was sitting off alone.

One man said, “I got here because I might not be able to again.”

Everyone was gracious. Everyone was interested in what everyone else was doing.  Everyone was happy to be there. They laughed a lot and the memories they shared were rich with wisdom.

Such wisdom as this apparently can only come with having lived so long. From listening to what everyone had to say and watching everyone, I learned that these folks have learned to value being alive, be grateful for community time, and to linger just awhile longer. No hurry now. Relishing the moments together here and now.

While contemplating diverse community, surely it includes the children, youth, and elders.

What are we waiting for?
Shall we dance?

How Things Turn Out

 I am remembering being  very young, my cousin Joannie and I playing in the fenced in yard, making gourmet mud pies. We added little orange and red berries which grew on two bushes next to the porch. Joannie's were always much better than mine. They tasted the same, however!!!

Whether or not life would be any different was not even on our minds. But, then one rainy day, four of us, cousins, Donna, Dorothy, Joannie, and myself,  were spending time together with Nana LeBaron, in her liviing room.  She was watching us play - each doing a different activity, and asked us to share  with her what we dreamed of being when we grew up. Dorothy was going to be  a secretary, and was busy writing "shorthand" while she spoke. Joannie was going to be a teacher and was reading a book. Donna was going to be an artist, telling us this with her crayons in her hand and showing her picture.  I was going to be an actress, dancing and humming a tune while sharing this.

Dorothy has now published two novels I am aware of, one with her daughter. She wrote a family newsletter for a while, and now has a great blog - BloggerOne which you can go to by clicking the link in the right hand column.


Donna,  had her own advertising business, but got tired of it. Today, still a CEO, is sewing  fleece hats and mittens, doing well in New England.

Joannie,now with her doctorate, was a teacher. Even more, she created a reading program which pioneered diagnosing reading problems holistically. She's written a book on using portfolios to measure student progress, and is a Dean of eduction at a university .

 I had a full drama scholarship to Ithaca College, but life had other plans for me.

Two  common seeds all four of us shared:  practical creativity and service to others - and a grandmother who opened the future for us.

Today, Nana LeBaron's boarding house, her living room where we dreamed of the future that day,  and  its bushes with little red and orange berries, is now a tarmac paved parking lot for a Baptist Church.  Even the mud is gone. The past is gone, gone, gone. There is no family place with a long history,  to share visions and dreams. Yet, we are all sustained.

Who and what is your community?
Does its Being contribute to creating dreams for the future?









-

Ecstasy

The photo is a recent picture of Jessye Norman.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYmaznpLMz8&feature=related

The video is of  Jessye Norman, performing "Sanctus from Gounode's Mass in D Minor in
Notre Dame Cathedral

I am not a master musician. In fact, for years I was afraid to get up in front of people. I did sing in a group, and in a chorus or two. In the shower, I was a great singer -able to span at least three octaves., or so I imagined. When sitting around AT a party, everyone singingor playing an instrument, expected to harmonize, I couldn't.

"I put it on my "bucket list" - when I was in my late twenties - to successfully speak in front of a group - AND to sing a solo. It would be a childhood dream actualized - at last.

I was asked to sing "And Neither Have I Wings To Fly" at a wedding. I practiced and all went well. At the wedding, nothng came out, This event happened a lot.

Then in my late 50's, I encountered Jessye Norman. I played her tape and sang along over and over. I could sing anything she could sing, or so I imagined.

The choir was singing "Panis Angelicus", which is on that tape of hers. In rehearsal, I was singing out, with the sopranos, at the top of my lungs and on key. For the concert, when I was supposed to step forward and sing above the rest of them - a somewhat solo - nothing came out.

But, then, at my mother's memorial service,when her grandson's were supposed to sing, they backed out. I had been singing Enya's, "Time Never Promised a Dream Come True", imagining myself singing it in front of a whole house full of people. I sang it in the shower until the water ran cold and the rest of the household protestested.

So, having it memorized, and having imagined myself singing it in a full house,I began the memorial, singing it - acapella. I lost myself in the image I had created of singing in a full house, and was successful beyond what I had thought possible, but still, it wasn't quite the bucket list event!

After that, I had a dream that I sang, "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child". I was as intense and passionate as Jessye Norman's singing. Shortly after that, an occasion presented itself to me to participate in a Mother's Day event. I told the coordinator of the event about my dream. She put me on the program.

The moment came, I stood in the center aisle, imagining myself as capable as Jessye Norman about to begin. Again, a capella, I lost myself in the singing and ian ad lib interpretation of this powerful spiritual . Victory at last!

A lot of surprised people commended me later. That was fun, too. I loved the feeling that I had created a feeling of deep joy in those who listened. But, to be truthful, I did it for myself - even if it did take until the other end of my life to reach.

It was ecstasy. I self-actualized. I imagined it to be. I visualized acting it out - at all levels. Stepped out of the dream and now it is history. I do believe it took the presence of the Soul, which Norman eminates, for the will to be strong enough to support dreams coming true.
We all have this passion inside that has to express itself.

What has been for you, an experience of ecstasy in your own action?
What is the difference in that and just being successful?

Rob's Poem

Desperately I cling

Unto reality defined

But always

My grasp falters

And as the autumn leaf

Withered crisp and dry

Falls slowly spinning

From the tree standing steadfast

So must I

Fall into the depth

Of all that is not known.

Rob wrote this poem in high school. I have a xerox copy. The poem is under a picture he drew.

My first response was to ask myself, "These are images in MY son's mind? Where was I?  Why did I not have a clue?"  Here is a profound statement of a young man connected with his Soul's longing. Was this always this way, or did these images reveal themselves to him as a teenager. As I look back on our lives and at what I know about him, and of his other  creative expressions, I suspect he was born to live in the depths of life -botrn to stand in the seering presence of the Mystery that life finally is - born to have suffered deep wpimds and fin it find the poetry to name the ineffible.

Robert A. White, Age 44.

How did the old TV ad put it  - the one that showed at 10:00 pm? "Do you know where your children are?"  I confess, I did not know. I have heard it in his music, especially in playing his harmonicas and guitar. I have felt it in his angry rages. I have appreciated his thoughful gifts and cards on special occasions. Still, it is a miraculous wonder to me that I should be privileged to discover this ever so sensitive part of my own son. Pulling this out of the archives of family memorabilia was an awakening moment.  I hope I get to know more of my son's great depths - at least a taste of his deep truth. I hope. I hope. I hope.

When is a time that you were able to connect with someone very special?

What did you find you have in common?
How do we honor these great gifts of our children and of their children?

Family Pictures

Recentlly, I pulled out a suitcase stored way back in the closet. It was filled with family pictures through the years. I stored them in the suitcase and in a waterproof sack in preparation for a hurricane's onslaught. 

When each of my three sons turned 21, I presented them with an album with photos and certificatesthey had achieved. Russ and Randy's albums were in the suitcase. They had given them to me on different occasions for safekeeping. At the end of each of their albums was their very first picture taken. I had cut it so that each had the half that was his own picture.  I might mention that they are twins. That I cut the picture in half like that has bothered me for over 20 years, now and then.  So, while I had both albums out, I took Randy's picture out of it's place and put it into Russ's album. It fit like a puzzle piece. For a moment, all was well with the world.

One album had the remainder of the pictures I had removed to make the albums for my sons. I took them all, labeled them and put them in a new album. One other album is still missing. The old wedding album remains in tact. I organized artifacts and pictures of grandsons into envelopes for later assembly into albums, packed all in plastic and found room for them in the album closet.

As I closed the closet, , I noticed two big shoppiing bags of unsorted pictures which, I vaguely recall storing there with full intention of creating a visual journey through their time. Several years have passed since that storing of those pictures. I didn't even venture to look to see if I could remember their stories!!

when my mother died, I packed up all her albums and gave them to her granddaughter to keep. I don't recall if they are labeled. I gave pictures to my brothers that were of their family alone and sent a few to cousins of their families. I found a few pictures in frames that I thought one of the hurricanes took with them when they broke opened my door and took my roof, while passing through!!

At the end of the day, I closed the album closet's door with the full intention of getting back to it really soon.  If I don't, I don't. There is history to be told and all the memories are stored in our hearts, waiting to be told. The pictures help with the details. They all have smiling faces, but sometimes, there is a darkness that accompanies them, that won't be forgotten either. Forgiven, yes. Lesoons learned, yes.  Wounds heealed, for the most part. The most valuable part of the pictures is that they reflect that there has always been joy along the way, something I sometimes forget.

The most important part is putting the pictures together into a story. How will the story read?
Suggestions are welcome here.

New Moon

New Moon Dreaming

always of You

New Moon Dreaming

Never Comes True

Forever is gone now.

Forever is gone.

This is the beginning of a song I was writing about  the time the four hurricanes were having their way with Florida and where they traveled to before and after their visit here. The chords were an A minor and an Eminor and another minor at "forever". LIfe was a roller coaster ride for several years and those hurricanes were top of the ride. Life is more of an ambling path these days, a refreshing change.

Now, if there is an underlying sense of being alone, it is definitely to be found on the internet. Games played, gifts sent back and forth, crops harvested, points made, levels reached. It is a cyber interaction with neighbors of the game and that's it. Whatever I make of it, I made of it, and it has nothing to do with the growth and bonding of friendship at all. I have enjoyed all of the posts from new friends and friends of yore. In fact, with many, the posts have been encounters with great experiences of art or calls for social action. Again, what I make of it is what it is.

This blog, I have decided, is me writing my life for myself. If another reads it, I am grateful that words that I intended to write from my heart, have reached another to experience. I am grateful to be able to know what is happening in the news directly from where the news is happening. Right now, I want, in the worst way,  to hop on a plane and go to Haiti for crisis intervention care of the caretakers there. Yet, here I am, sending healing light and blessings as a constant vigil.

There are gifts to being so totally alone. I am getting a lot of writing done. But, there is community, too. It is the "forever" that needs to be recovered at this time. I long for the sense of community to be more than a cyberspace phenomena or an annual conference.

As I drum under the new moon, having been invited to attend a drumming that is occurring in a community who are actually gathered, I feel community. Yet, here I am alone, however connected.

Is the time right for real community to resurge for me? What would be a global demonstration of its value?
Where do I begin?

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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?

Winter Solstice

Sun rising on new fallen snow.

While a seed deep within the earth.

Sleeping in mindful anticipation

Of flourishing rebirth in Spring.

Sprouting as a new beginning.

A new perspective on ancient wisdom.

A new form for earth's well being.

Recently, at the mercy of an east coast snow storm, I became mindful of the opportunity to practice living in the present moment - mindfully. After a seven hour wait in Union Station, WDC, I boarded the train headed to Florida. After an hour or so of waiting there, I fell asleep, waking seven hours later only one hour from WDC. The woman next to me said we'd been there for two hours. We were there for two hours more. People were getting antsy and complaining. There had been the same anxiety in the station and several outbursts of anger at the delays and lack of information.

The previous morning, before the trek into the new fallen snow to get to the symposium I was in WDC attending, I had meditated on three questions provided by Pat Webb of the Silence Foundation: 

(1) What is alive in me today?  I experienced an abundance of gratitude for this snowy day ahead.

(2) What am I open to receive?  I was looking forward to experiencing each personal encounter.

(3) What am I willing to give?  I experienced my heart opening to send love's light into the day.

I grew up knee deep in snow, but it has been years since I experienced being right in it. I was delighted with the experience, inconvenience that it was. When feeling discouraged by the waiting time and empathizing with the frustration of others on the train, I did share with a few how thankful I was for being able to participate first hand in what I might otherwise have only seen happening on TV this storm of the century. Needless to say, occasionally, this was not well received.

While the train was moving ever so slowly through the snow, I was able to take many photographs - pictures which hold nature's awe and allowed me to step outside the tension and frustrattion. This is one of them accompanied by the poetry which gushed from my heart's light.

Mindfulness practice is such a healing activity. I become silent, listen to the silence, and listen to my heart.  What's your mindfulness practice?

Healing

Beau Bear and Bo Ceefus are two old himalayan long haired seal points.  Bo was a feral sort retreived from the woods. Beau came from the animal shelter, coming with telltale signs of having been spoiled. They used to spend their days in a very rural area and their nights in the garage or in the house.

 Nowadays they live in a small town where cars, trucks, and motorcycles  and new buildings going up, all interfer with their sense of safety and interrupt their daytime sleep. At night, they have to hide from the possum and racoon.  As a result, Bo sleeps in the boat when the days are cool and in the ferns when it's hot. Beau spends most of his day in the. At night they'll stay on the railing or go find a boat to hide out in.  Bo knows how to avoid danger and how to keep himself clean.  Beau doesn't. As a result he has a notch in his ear, a scar across his face, and a cronic rash. I used to give him a full bath weekly and take him to the vet for shots. I gave up on that because it didn't cure the problem. Nor would not agree to being an inside cat.

Frustrated by my conflicting feelings about how to care for this hopeless pile of white fur whose face looks like a bear, I began to talk to him. Turned out to be a most productive passing of the time. I had read a book once about psychic communication with animals. Recalling it, I "talked" by visualizing what I wanted Beau to be doing. I visualized his healthy body and safe and clean places he could sleep.  I also fed them both tuna fish and shrimp for a few days so they both would want to be around me. (Let's face it! What cat in his right mind would want to come near someone who was going to give him a water bath!!)

As Beau Bear began to feel it was safe to sit in my lap again, without getting carried off to the tub of suds, he'd jump up into my lap for a sit and a purr. So,  I began to use my hands to send him healing energ.  Now,while Beau Bear is sitting in my lap, I mindfully pet him with the intent of sending healing energy. I mindfully visualize calm, safe, clean, healthy ways for my cat to feel safe.  And, I will just mention that  I keep on feeding them tuna fish and shrimp!

I believe my Beau Bear is improving and Bo Bear, the feral one, loves to sit on my lap as well. He, I believe picks up on the purr-time energy of Beau. In fact, like the old days in the country, we did occasionally pile up and purr on the porch at night.

Of course, it might be the tuna and shrimp. But, I prefer to look at it this way. What cat who knows where its at would pass up some hands on healing and some good conversation?

The three old men on the porch!

How do you practice mindful healing? -or-  How do you pet a cat?

Being tested

Master Sgt. Randy playing digeridoo!

More than anything else while a  public educator, I preferred to not be evaluated. I  experienced it as wasted time and pure aggrevation. In addition, the more I was scrutinized the more I did what I so wasn't supposed to be doing.  Any judgment, positive or negative, that an administrator had to conclude about the observation, I perceived as projection  and/or transference of the evaluator/s own stuff, , invalidation, weilding power, naive perceptioins of what was happening there, and other such  relationships to the whole process. 

Much of it had to do with my own perception of what is valuable - someone else's feedback on my performance not being of value. I do, however, appreciate and am grateful for feedback when I am in the process of creating something new.  What I was creating, of course, is never included as important in the traditional performance evaluation process in public education.

Over the years, there, and in other types of commmunity, of which I was a part, I would often be referred to as creative - as in "My, how wonderfully creative you are." It was a put down. Yes, it was. Do not protest.

I just finished reading (audio, yet unabridged) Dan Pink's A Whole New Mind.  In this book, he proposes that there is a place - in fact, a preference for - emerging for those with dominant right brains. He posits his theory with substantial back up.  I am relieved that here, at the other end of my life, I and the majority of people on this earth who share this dominant right brain, are no longer "afflicted. Instead, we are now "in demand".

Pink further proposes that there are six senses. I thought he was going to reiterate the traditional five senses and then go into depth on "the sixth sense". Instead, he proposes that the six senses are: design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning.  He includes a myriad of websites and other resources to look into which confirm his thesis to beyond a doubt.

The book is an easy read. I recommend it for your consideration. I say, "Yeah, Dan Pink". You wtote another of the books I would have written. And you did it so perfectly.

However, I sense there are more senses that are valuable for creating the world we want today. 

What would you propose is the seventh sense?

The passing of a collegue of Yore

I connected with an old friend on facebook this summer. I also connected with her two daughters. So, I have many recent pics and activities to bring me into the present staus of the family. I talked to my old friend on the phone one day - she was about to begin a new round of chemo. She never said how long she had it, but I knew the time was drawing near to her passing into the light, by the conversation. Our conversation included how to write down for the girls why she had lived the life she lived. It was close to my 65th, and inspired me to go deeper into my reflection on this whole journey. She wrote on facebook on Nov. 18. We were in the Sequoia National Forest on the 20th and as near as I can figure, just about the time that she was passing into the light. I had the urge to raise up my arms in ecstasy and sing the Hallelujah chorus and I imagined angels in the trees singing it for me. Silly, I know, and sounds a bit flaky, but it is the truth.

I did not know what happened that I didn't hear from her anymore.
Sometimes, my whole body just wrings out dry when I remember that I, too, left my sons in the care of others for so long while I was off changing the world. While they have assured me that all is well the feeling overwhelms me on occasion. Truth is they are all the better for it - as to which they will attest. I do remember her asking me how I could leave my children on one continent while I went to another. Then she left hers in the care of colleagues - for the Mission, we told ourselves.

Contacts such as this, after so many years - almost thirty in this case - bring up memories, sometimes in abundance, pouring into consciousness all at once. I remember her passion for music and having studied with Nadia Boulanger; community arts festivals; wine for communion for the first time ever on Maundy Thursday; her needing kirschwasser for a fondue; posters of radical revolutionaries hung for a Sunday of social action; me yelling at kids when it was my turn to care for our childrens' spirits (!) during our morning meetings and her having a talk with me about it; the building a new church from the stones of an old brownstone church - one of the many ends of the underground railroad, and a partnership of Scotch Presbyterian and the mystical Waldensian tradition; she and I attending a women's lib meeting, our corsets keeping us looking trim - never to wear them again!! Those were intense times of wild spirited social change. Broader social strategy that it was, the ICA we soon all became part of was boring in comparison . This grieving time for my friend-in--common-mission is appropriate, but it is also a time of letting go of the youthful exuberance and boundless energy we once had. How we live our lives today, is totally appropriate. All is really well.

I am so grateful to have been able to to have reconnected. We all have since lived a life of Mission in new ways, with the same intent -- to care for the coming into being of a new social vehicle - a new earth.

I have a deep appreciation and gratitude for the life we, in fact, lived fully.

Create a timeline of your own life's expenditure. What has been the underlying intent, the learnings, your reflections?

Poem

Poems. Images upon images of life experience, all metaphor and all real in the same phrase. Twenty years ago, I set out to write enough poems to publish in one book. Below is one of the two poems I wrote since that time. The one I'm not writing here is called, I Am No Slut and has images from The Woman Who Runs With the Wolves by Estes - Baba Yaga for instance. Written to myself, it served its purpose and needs no repeating.
This one poem still expresses my life twenty years later. I experience its images differently, tis all.


Gentle Sweet Wildness
When did you leave me so alone -
A silent breeze in a whispering pine wood field?
Loving,
Weren't you to be here forever -
A sunset changing the colors of your sky?
Forever is a full moon holding midnight on a swampland lake,
Just as the night ends, is a moment of breathless death.
Then the sun rises on a new day.
Nature's choir chants live.
Soul is Dancing.
Healing Begins.
All One.
Alone.


This is a version. It changes with each reading. The somewhat indigenous people who live in the outer islands of South Carolina refer to that moment of breathless death as "dayclean". I will sit on the porch just before sunrise just to hear this moment: night sounds - no sounds - one chirp - two chirps - many chirps (and maybe a boat leaves the dock), and the day opens to a new opportunity to live a great day!

One poem holds it for now.

And you? What's your poem? How has it changed?

Mandala

Creating an artform, using any medium, can be effective in processing emotional overload. There have been times, when children came into the Guidance room that talking it out was a futile effort. At these times, I would pull out a circle shaped piece of paper, water colors, colored pencils, clay, scissors and a bag of colored pieces of cloth, paste, and whatever else I could find that could be used to create an artform. I had a big box full of these supplies and added to them as something new presented itself as worthy of the box. I would provide instructions: fill the circle, choosing the content by what feels right. I would show a few examples of a mandala for the child as a brief image of how to proceed. There never was a time when the invitation to do this was refused. When done, I would ask the child to tell me a story about the result. Sometimes, the story telling needed the asking of many questions to get it told. I asked why a color was here and a shape there and an empty space somewhee else. I asked what feelings accompanied an action. I wrote down the answers and we looked at the story together. With the mandala creation in front of us, I then would ask the child to talk about how it was s/he was in the Guidance room.

I had been to several workshops on mandala creation and had the eyes to see through the mandala to the root of the problem, Instead of interpreting it for a child, I used my knowledge base and my intuition to create the questions that would be a guide through the volcano of emotions. Creating the mandala also provided a distancing from the cause of the upset, while serving as a mode of processing.

It does not make a hoot of difference that I can diagnose someone else's malaise. Those creating the artform, are creating an artform of their own lives. Those lives, to be lived fully, need to be interpreted by the creator of the artform.

We are always in the process of creating our own mandalas. Occasionally, it is a fun way to reflect on where we are on the journey at a particular time. Here is a website page which has examples of mandalas (complete with mantras):
www.tzaellachiera.com/?gclid=CIS638yAjZ4CFRaenAodKEQ5o

Create a mandala yourself. Write down its story. Ask yourself, "Where am I on the journey of it's creation?" "What next?"

Taking Care of Yourself

I believe and am totally committed to human beings taking responsibility for their psychological and physical health - with the help of all that history has created so far. The technological revolution alone did not invent enough to get the job done alone. Tuesday, I went to the cardiologist to get the results of a stress test that i finally had agreed to after a year and a half. It might help to mention that I had congestive heart failure two years ag0. I opted not to have the mitral valve replaced, choosing to live with atrial fibrilation, an enlarged atrium, and an irregular heartbeat to boot. I work with a nutritionist and also agreed to a physician's three prescriptions to reduce the risk of death by heart failure. Anyway, the cardiologist reported that nothing new presented itself in these tests. He did remark that I appear to have improved and am amazingly healthy considering the condition of my worn out old heart.

There are many people to whom I am grateful for my physical state.
Firstly, I am grateful for Louise Hay. I learned affirmation from her little book, Heal YOur Body. I read everyhing she has written, and practice everything she recommended.

Secondly, I am grateful to Carolyn Myss. I've read everything she has written, made a retreat out of the books which were workshops, especially Entering the Castle.

Thirdly, I am grateful to Gary Craig who has made pressure point balancing so accessible to all.I was introduced to "tapping" by another person for whom I am grateful - Martha Crampton (a pioneer in Psychosynthesis). I tried it, and purchased The EFT (emotional freedom technique) Manual to be a guide in this process.

Now that I have begun writing about those for whom I am so grateful for being able to take responsibility for my health, I am sure I could write a whole reference book. Written here are just the tip of an iceberg of techniques, resources, philosophies, and approaches that complement traditional health care providers. Healthy is not about living longer, or forever. Rather, it's about feeling good, about enjoying the passing of a day at a time, being able to focus on your life's work, dancing with limitations and possibilities. I believe that everyone I know has other ways of healing than just going to a doctor, taking a pill, having a treatment, or having surgery.

What are your beliefs about health care and how do you take care of your own psycho-physical well being?

Father

When my father died in 1982, I returned from Kenya for the funeral. We lived in an area of upstate New York which was mostly small towns and villages. My father was tall blond and handsome, a very popular man. He sang bass. He had sung with Glen Miller's band at the Aragon in Chicago, recorded with Kate Smith, and enjoyed the bass roles in local theater musicals. He was mostly known for his singing in the church. First in Grace Church Cathedral boys choir as a soprano, with his three brothers, and later as the bass soloist in every concert, and in the big Presbyterian church..
The night before I left for Kenya, two years earlier, my mother, father, , one of my brothers and I went to a fancy restaurant where big band era hits were playing live. That was my last time spent with my father. We danced while he sang along with the band, and did not let the pain causing trembling in his left arm, nor my gentle protests that we sit down, interrupt his dancing with me. When I left the next day, I knew this was the last time we would be together.
It isn't that I had such a great relationship with my father. Yes, he was the nurturing one of both parents. He was also an alcoholic and our lives did revolve around his ups and downs and his life as the musician. He kept tight reins on my comings and goings. My boyfriends either feared or idolized him, neither of which helped in my developing the ability to form good healthy relationships with them. But, father is a powerful symbol, nonetheless. My father, because of his ability to bring the Great Mystery into the presence of all who listened to him singing, was a particularly powerful symbol.
The memories of many Christmastime concerts rode with me to Little Falls for the annual singing of Handel's Messiah.. That my father would not be singing the bass parts, did not go unnoticed in my anticipation - and dread - of the evening. The soloists were all young and talented performers. As well, the choir was fully angelic. My father was particularly famous for his ability to resound loudly on the lowest of notes. I was remembering those moments when my heart got caught in my throat. When the bass began to sing, "Who shall stand when He appeareth?", my heart stopped. The bass was talented and well trained and obviously loved what he was singing. But, when it came to the low low notes, there was no sound. He could not hit those low low notes. I began to cry uncontrollably. Although I was embarrassed, the tears refused to cease. This was a moment of pure and simple clarity. My father was really gone from this earth. To have to have this "aha" experience in this way, was cruel and unjustified. At the same time it was a letting go, a relief.
I was left alone with the memory of that archetype, who was also really my father, which occasions the presence of the Great Mystery.
There were times after that, when my father would make contact with me. Whether this is an actual fact, or a metaphor for life-like memories, they nevertheless brought with them that presence of the power of the Great Mystery.

How does the power of the Great Mystery present itself to you?

The Balancing Act

"You can't sit on this porch for the rest of your life like this!" said Lyn. "We are going dancing and that's it!". I hadn't been out socializing for six months. I would go to work, come home, sit on the porch, and write. The book was finished and the computer had just crashed that afternoon before I saved the massive editing job I just did. It was the day after Thanksgiving 1997. We drove the 12 miles out to the river where a band was blaring out some relatively high quality music for a country bar in a fish camp. Lyn went there often, so had her dancing partners all lined up and was off, beckoning me to ask someone to dance. I wasn't about to do that - women didn't ask men to dance. It was the other way around in my book!! While struggling with the courage to ask anyway, a pencil thin tall drink of water was in front of me with his hand out. "What the heck", I thought and let him lead me to the dance floor. He was not one for conversation, but then, neither am I. So, silently he led me through a cross between a country two-step and a tango. He actually was quite good and I was quite clumsy, out of practice with the art of being flexible and spontaneous as I was. We danced an then he was gone. Vanished! Poof - with a cloud of smoke!!
I sat there for what seemed like forever while Lyn spent the entire time on the dance floor and if no one was there to dance with her, she danced with herself. She was having a joyous time.. I was envious of her decision to just go ahead and dance. I remembered when I was like that. I was jolted out of my dream world by a hand in front of me, held out as an invitation to dance with him. No words, no encouragement other than the hand out refusing to back off. I rose and let myself be led once again to the dance floor. After a fast dance, a two-step, and a hugger-up slow country sad song, I knew his life's story and never had to say a word. I do recall that evening as having danced all night.
Sometimes I wonder where Lyn is now. Does she still dance? Is she joyous - spontaneous and free flowing? Whereever she is, she returns as a messenger on my meditative council. Her message arrives on those occasions when I am tempted to just sit on the porch night in and night out. With her comes that hand reaching out to lead me to the dance floor.
Passing the time on the porch is very relaxing especially watching the moon rise over the lake. But,then there is the dancing. That's equally important. That's where the balancing act happens - the quiet solitary time and the interactive social time.

What gets you off your reflective butt and out onto the dance floor of your life?

The Performer Archetype in the Classroom

Seeing through the eyes of Psychosyntesis in a classroom has been valuable research. My last year in public education, I co-taught in an American History class. Co-teaching, for those of you who are not familiar with the term, is defined as two teachers sharing the load equally, at least one being certified to provide intervention for students with disabilities (me), and at least one being certified to teach the subject (Dotty). Dotty was not open to this situation and had little skill or tolerance for those who did not fit the norm. The whole year was an unresolved struggle between us. We may have actually worked "together" 15 or 16 days during the year. Early on, After six months of her refusing to share the load and me working one-on-one with kids, I decided it was time for a change. Sitting down together with admnistrators mediating did not work. After giving it some thought, I decided to try an experiment. I put on subpersonality feedback loop glasses with the intent of balancing the dynamics in the classroom. Describing the realitiy of these opposites was easy. Their nature, yes, but corresponding archetypes, no. Finally, I settled on the performer. In the manner of a true artist, Dotty would lecture on American History, totally engrossed in her very knowledgeable presentation. I, also in the manner of a true artist, led participation into experiencing the performance's intent, - as coreographer and the musical accompaniment might. When we were able to work together like this, students would learn. When we didn't, stludents either fell asleep, or kept themselves busy elsewise or I would work one-on-one and tutor them as needed.

Knowledge of subject is important. Tools to implement are important. Equally. An actor's monologue falls on silent ears without the audience's interest. A dancer's interpretation goes unseen without eye catching attention. As the cliche goes - it takes "two to tango"! The performer exists when both dynamics are presented in a balanced way to communicate the intent of a performance - or in the case of the classroom - a lesson's intent.

At this time, where are you needing to bring a quality of your personality back into balance?.

Grand Academy,lower east side Manhattan, is where I began my journey in public education. I had been a substitute teacher that year in Junior High School #21. When students' behavior was so bad - like having committed a crime - that they were expelled from JHS#21, then were enrolled in Grand Academy. It was on the second floor of a community center close to the "real" school. My job was to finish the year there as a a permanent sub, teaching World History to 7th, 8th, and 9th graders. I was taking the place of a young handsome man with a pony tail. Students enjoyed his class. I, with minimal class room management skill, and very little social appeal, had my hands full. The idea was to capture their attention and hold their interest for the duration of the class, and have that attention somehow focused on World History.

With a small grant ffom a colleague's foundation, I created and implemented a set of lesson plans for the six months which included a trip to the United Nations and the nearby neighborhood, Loisaida, for a tour by the leaders. The students were all of Puerto Rican descent. Most of them lived within this human development project neighborhood). The students experienced the six major Ur cultures by a day with food, tradional dress, music, dance, ambience, and explanation of the origin of each perspective. I picked small sections of the text for each new encounter, introducting them to the geography's role in creating the culture. This all caught their attention enough to learn some of the terms and people they needed to know.

When report cards came outmany didn't get "A"s, as they were accustomed to getting from the young man in the pony tail. There was an angy onslaught on parents night, complete with sticks and threats on my very being. Oddly enough, my responses were satisfactory as parents heard that I cared about their children succeeding, how well they were progressing, and that I, in fact, was enjoying their being in my classes. I actually was surprised that a stance of unconditional positive regard worked. My inclination otherwise would be to walk away angry at the outrage of it all.

The rest of the twenty years in public education was not much different. That was the only time I got to teach World History. Taught children with disabilities for awhile, was a Guidance Counselor for most of the years, and then did consultation with students with disabilities and their teachers. There is a library full of learnings in that twenty years, the greatest of which, I did not master - that being one who is en-joying having a job in an institutional setting.


And you? Do you en-joy your work?

"A PBS presentation of Bob Dylan had just finished. I was overcome with a sense of yearning to have been Bob Dylan My passion thru that period of radical cultural metamorphosis was expressed so clearly in Bob Dylan's poetry. The yearning continued as I reflected on the underlying cause of these feelings. I wanted to have been a significant contribution to those radically changing times. I’ve had as little or as much going for me as he did. I remember how he took what rudimentary skill he had and let it develop to match his passion. Perhaps, I and thousands of others, in reality, were all Bob Dylans and more. Perhaps, today, I can just be me with my finger on the heartbeat of the times. It’s a whole new time, a whole new beat of the heart, and I know I’m not the only one yearning to leave this memory of passion for social change and respond to a whole new metamorphosis in the process of coming into being. I may have a day or a year or 20 years to be on this earth. I feel the kairos of the moment screaming to be heard. Not for my own sake but for the freeing of the SOUL of Earth itself. Nothing to probe – only to BE."


In which social crisis are you hearing the call to respond?

Unconditional Love and Forgiveness

Every time I think about re-engaging in anything I did 45 years before now, or have been doing for this 20 years, my meditative council congests my heart with reasons why I should not go that road.

I have many successes to claim during my life. I also have many failed attempts. I could go on about successful integration of Psychosynthesis and Imaginal Ed into a career, too. But, there is only one accomplishment that is worth mentioning, really. I have learned and am still learning unconditional love and forgiveness - for others' woundings as well as for my part in the wounding and holding on to the pain.

The place I go to calm the suffocating feelings, occasioned by memories, is to step into my own heart, have a seat, let the council members have their say, and then open the flaps to the brlilliant white healing light of the Higher Self.

Regrets and resentments are transformed into blessings, gifts, unexpected results, learning experiences, growth opportunities, dancing metaphors...turning away from the past, facing the future, right here and now.

How do you forgive and let go completely?

A n Integrative Life Guide

I believe I have everything I need now and can turn my attention toward what I want - strange feeling to not need anytning at all - a relief in many ways. What I want, however, opens up a vast and deep abyss of pure possibility. So much so, I have to take a break right now and take something to the post office - or go to the bank - or check the mail. (3 minutes later)Well, check the mail was a good move. The latest AAP (Association for the Advancement of Psychosynthesis) newsletter was in the box. Right on the front page is the announcement of the 2010 conference, the theme of which is "Creating the World We Want". Reminds me of Piero Ferrucci's What We May Be, a must read if serious about Psychosynthesis.

Some readers may be asking, "What is this Psychosynthesis?" A short course to answer is that is that it is an inclusive image of the Psyche - inclusive of other philosphies, and of being human. At Psyche's center is the Will - or what I want and the process of Psychosynthesis is one of aligning all the parts of my Self to empower the Will. Important in this process is to integrate the presence of the Higher Self into this empowerment.
I did some of my training in an Integrative Therapies, It was a three year program of exploring other approaches to empowering people, in order to integrate the gifts of these approaches into my Psychosynthesis practice. For the most part, I then integrated Psychosynthesis into my work as a Guidance Counselor in the public school system in the USA.

Given that, the question "what do I want?" is not a selfish question, yet it is a question of Self. For me to begin to answer this question can also be expressed as "standing in my vision": My vision for how I will live my life, for where I will live my life, who I will be my colleagues, for what purpose will my life be lived.

What I want - really want - is to channel Spirit as a guide for indiviudals, and groups to integrate Spirit into their livestyles I am creating anew what that means. I recently read a descriptive title for this: Integrative Life Guide. That's it. That's what will carry what I really want into this new phase of life.

How about you? What do you want? What do you really want?

On Writing About Experiences

At one point toward the end of twenty years in public education, I decided to write a novel of my experience and learnings. I dreamed about how it would be funny and painful, insightful and ironic. It would definitely be a best seller due to its ability to renew and refresh a passion for making a positive difference in kids' lives. However, after reading Teacher Man (and Angela's Ashes and 'Tis), I came to the conclusion that Frank McCourt got that book written, and had done a better job at it than I ever could. So, instead, I wrote a manual on motivating middle schoolers. It included the integration of Imaginal Education and Psychosynthesis. I added some new eye glasses for teachers of children with learning differences to see students more compassionately and in a way they could effectively provide intervention. Easiest to digest were techniques teachers could use, those which I had, in fact, recommended, or seen being delivered in a class room. I presented the outline at a department meeting. Noone was really interested, but I would guess that was more because of the level of burnout at that time of year than the potential brilliance of my creation. SO, there it sits, on a shelf, ready for editing and publishing should I ever get motivated to finish my work. In the meantime, I have begun to write another great book.

What are your dreams that have only just begun to become reality?

The Passion of the Gypsy and the Peace of Shakti

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One exercise I have found to be healing is to take a moment to open the door to the dark room in the deeps of the unconscious, let one memory come into the moment, walk with that memory personified, described, and archetyped, onto a stage. I let the performance begin, with me in the director's seat. Then I fold back the stage's roof and let the stage flood with light and watch what happens.

In what has been one of the most memorable transformations resulting from this exercise was the emergence of a tumbling twirling frenzied gypsy dancer. Watching the dancer, her colorful skirt and tamborine, was totally exhausting. When I rolled back the roof to let the light pour in, the gypsy became a dancing Shakti. A peaceful saraswati filled the air with its gentle spontaneity.

When is a time that which exhausts you has been transformed? Try this exercise and watch what happens.

Changing Thought Patterns

For several years now, I have been working on letting go of an annoying pattern of mine - that of rehashing events that have occurred - those which I would rather not have lived in the first place. Occasionally, I would have a break through at the moment of the rehashing. At these times I have been able to stop my thoughts and put them into a circle of the dance and the pattern would successfully change. I wrote this in my journal one day after having one of these successful experiences:

When I am almost awake each morning, lying in bed, I find myself regretting moments in my past. In all honesty, I have to say that the expereince of that rueful state of being is what gets me up and out of that bed. This morning, instead of dwelling on one of these experiences and then hopping out of bed to avoid it, I asked myself why I am doing this every day. My insight was that these are moments I have intellectually forgiven myself for which now are returning to be fully released. I then listened to my insight and began to let go of that particular experience. The result was another image of myself later on in life of the same kind of experience I had regretted. I saw myself as responding to the experience differently, as if I had learned from the original one. Yet, still there existed a gap between the original and the next. I held a tension between the two as a rubber band stretched between my fingers of both hands. I stayed with that for awhile. For what purpose or outcome, I had no idea. All I received was, “There is the journey, and that is good, you are redeemed, whole, and perfect. Continue the journey you have chosen.”

I have since established a ritual. I step into the circle of the dance. I become the listener and observer as experience is replayed in my mind's eye. Then I say to myself: I am the experience, but I am more than the experience. I am the feelings about the experience, but I am more than the feelings. I ask myself what I learned and wait for an answer. I image how I will react differently from now on, and let it go. Sometimes, I give it wings and send it on its way to take its place in that which has passed on. Then, I make sure and say something good about myself, or look into a mirror and smile. I never do anything the same twice - well maybe twice, but never three times. It just isn't like me. This way each time I do the ritual, it is new.

In the past two years, I to wake up more often in the morning anticipating the great ventrue that is there for me that day. I am this venture, but I am more than this venture. I am the circle of the dance, but I am more than the circle of the dance.
I am.

What are your first thoughts upon awaking each morning?

A Young Margaret Mead

All of us have role models to emulate, people who inform our decisions in one way or another. One of those people in my life is Margaret Mead. The following is a an excerpt from a monologue, in the persona of a young Margaret, spoken at a "Women in History" presentation:

I am Margaret Mead. I lived during the first 3 quarters of the 20th Century - 1901 to 1978 when I died of cancer. I am here with you today as a 23 year old graduate student about to set off to the south Pacific to do field research.

The results of this, my first study - on biological and cultural influences on adolescent behavior, will be published as “Coming of Age in Samoa”. It will be translated into virtually every language. The facts of my findings will have, of course, been disputed, as are all new images of reality.

In my lifetime, I will have published 44 books and will have written over 1000 articles - including those steamy monthly articles in Redbook. I will be a Counselor to American Society - on family related issues - the decline of the extended family role - the isolation people feel by living in cities, and the generation gap.

I want a family, yes.

I want a career, too. I will spend most of this in some capacity or other with the Museum of Natural History. I will be part of creating groundwork for solving major problems which keep people from living fully.

I was born into the 20th century, a time when there was a dawning of a new consciousness about humanity on this planet of ours. If I contribute nothing else, I hope I give people the opportunity to think about this radical - metamorphical - change in consciousness that is occurring.

I am grateful that I live life fully. I am grateful that I live at this particular very difficult, very dangerous, and very crucial period in human history.

I only hope that you might experience my experience - I cherish the life of this world - all of it - in all its diversity, possibility and ongoing change.
I'm sure these are mammoth shoes to fill, if I wanted to be just like her. This is not the purpose of a role model. The purpose of a role model is to be a guide on the journey, a partner in purpose, an inspiration.

Who are your role models for today's research of human consciousness?

The Nameless Nobleman

An ancestor, Jane Austin, was an author who lived in New England and was a contemporary, and probably a friend, of Louisa May Alcott and Ralph Waldo Emerson,as she probably was with other writers of early America. She wrote two historical fictions of our family: The Nameless Nobleman and Doctor LeBaron's Daughters.
The Nameless Nobleman tells of Francis LeBaron's arriving on a pirate ship in Buzzard's Bay, making it to shore and hiding out while he was healing from wounds in the attic of Mary Wilder's family. They eventually got married and he was able to live and work in the Plymouth Colony because he saved the leg of an inkeeper's wife with his up-to-date medical skills. His past was a mystery, eventually unveiled. He was a baron from France who was unable to claim his land for some reason. Mary referred to him fondly as "Le Baron de rien de tout!" and thus giving him claim to the surname, LeBaron. He was buried in Plymouth up on the hill. Down the hill from he and Mary's grave is Miles Standish' grave, giving the reader a hint of the prominence Frenchman, LeBaron, enjoyed in the colony.
A few years ago I visited Plymouth with my grandson, Brandyn. I wanted him to experience another aspect of his roots, one to balance the dominating Italian blood. He noticed that on one of the two gravestones for Francis LeBaron was written, "Here lies Francis LeBaron, lost at sea.... Brandyn was amused by "lies" since he really wasn't dead and arrived back in the colony after the gravestone was placed there in his memory.
The other gravestone under which he actually was buried was across the pathway and next to Mary Wilder. While Brandyn was chuckling about the writing on the first gravestone, it struck me that my family history in this root was all about Francis LeBaron and its roots. There is a book in the National Library of Congress on the LeBarons. But, as I looked at Mary Wilder's grave, it occured to me that she also is my ancestor, they were her daughters,too. She was famous in her own right and her roots can be traced back to England. I resolved to find out more about her family, too. That for some reason, the women in our history got left out of the story, except for bearing the children and caring for the house. The time has come to write about the women in our histories. Jane Austin beagan the process when she didn't use a penname. Her husband supported her writing in a time when women writers were not especially socially accepted. Now is a good time for some rich historical fiction on the women in our family tree.

What is the story in your history that is wanting to be told?