Always Into Love

On this voyage of

the soul, may we be

bridge builders,

our common ground

visible beneath the

surface differences.

May we braid the

threads of reconciliation

into a chain of possibility

that joins, heals, and

includes what once

seemed separate.

May our shared prayer

be answered:  to grow

so open that there is

no "them" or "us,"

only the One, moving

always into Love.

- Dana Faulds

An Alternative Remedy for the Times in Which We Live

In these turbulent, chaotic times, we often wonder what can be done?  Perhaps take a stronger stance, exert our rights more loudly, tweet profanity at what we do not like?

Or hum?

Recently, I attended a meditative yoga class at a little yoga studio I rarely visit due to its location in the suburbs of Detroit where my daughter and her family live, about an hour drive from home.  While visiting my daughter last week,  she suggested we attend an evening class that sounded interesting and I jumped at the chance for a break from our hectic, fast paced day with my adorable two year old grand-baby.

That evening, upon arriving at the yoga studio, we entered a low lit room with brightly painted walls and began setting up our yoga mats with blocks and an assortment of other props. Soon the instructor and a musician took their place at the front of the long, narrow room.  Behind them stood an altar with flickering candles, prayer beads, and numerous photographs of eastern gurus serenely staring back at us.

 After a series of slow deep stretches with a handful of other yogis and yoginis, we prepared for meditation by sitting cross legged on our mats with eyes closed.  While one instructor played an instrument popular in both India and the west called a Harmonium, a type of tabletop size organ with bellows, a second instructor softly guided us through deep breathing exercises followed by a period of sustained humming.

Yes, humming.

We followed instructions to begin "humming like bees" and were encouraged to be playful in our discovery of different octaves and tones. Moving up and down the scales, it took me a few minutes of experimenting to find my "perfect pitch" - the one I could sustain without much effort.  I noticed how my humming floated in and out and combined with the other vibrating notes in a soothing, harmonious euphony of sound that pleasantly moved through my body as it filled the room. 

 Our collective humming was a balm to my nervous system.  I did not want to stop.  Soon however, when the bell rang, our voices were replaced by a sparkling silence in which the reverberations of each unique hum rested. We sat for several minutes soaking it all in.

Not wanting to disturb the effects of our practice, my daughter and I remained silent as we rolled up our mats, put away the props and walked back out to the car.  Who would have guessed something as simple as humming in unison with other like-minded hummers, could create so much peace and tranquility. We savored the quiet drive home under the twinkling stars.  And as we wet off to bed that night, we smiled, hugged and whispered "good night".

Me and Laura Dean

Last night in a somewhat puzzling dream I see myself mulling over a decision as to what direction to take after retiring from my life's work some years back.  In my dream I am speaking with a woman by the name of Laura Dean whose name is emblazoned in bold black lettering across the screen of my dream world.  Laura is young and stylish and somehow we know each other, sort of, although I can't quite place her face. 

Next morning, out of curiosity, I decide to Google the name "Laura Dean" since I do not know anyone by that name.  What I discover is an American modern dancer, choreographer and composer by the same name who was born in 1945.  In her early years, Dean danced for a short time with the "Paul Taylor Dance Company" in New York, a modern dance group I saw perform in the 1970's.  This piqued my interest even more especially since, as I'd shared in a previous post, I have always been a huge fan of modern dance. 

I learn that Laura Dean eventually started her own Dance Company with a style all her own and is well known in modern dance circles, interestingly, for her "structured movements of spinning and whirling".  In addition to spinning and whirling, her choreography at times would include stomping foot patterns, chanting, and singing from the dancers themselves (odd yet wonderful).  Dean once remarked:  "I spin because I remember spinning and whirling as a child.  These childhood memories of whirling came back to me when I was working on movement by myself in a studio in San Francisco in 1968."

As I continue scrolling down on my computer, noting all of her many accomplishments, I come upon another quote by Dean, this time elaborating more fully on her notable love of spinning:  
"Spinning is a central fact of the universe.  Not only are the planets spinning, but the galaxies are spinning too, and the Milky Way, our galaxy, is a in a spiral pattern.  Even our DNA is a spiral.  Whatever the universal force is, I feel a kinship . . . "  ( "Me too!", I hear myself say out loud.)

She then had this to say:

"I've always in my choreography had a love of grand design and pattern, but at the same time a love for the individual inside of that.  That is precisely what we are.  We've been placed in this grand design, and it's up to us to decide what to do with it."

As I read this last sentence, a big smile spreads across my face, taking in the serendipity of it all as if the dilemma in my dream, of what to do with my life, had been answered in some strange way by the life and words of a dancer I'd rendezvoused with in my dream.

It answers the question many of us ask at some juncture in our life as we consider the gifts and opportunities before us.  What to do with this life we've been given?  Will we squander it on distractions and superficialities or take what we've been given and go with it, no matter how odd or simplistic it may look or seem.  Laura Dean knew from the time she was a child that she loved to spin and whirl.  And later in life, she became a modern day whirling Sufi in her own amazing right.    

It got me thinking that what we do doesn't have to be big or complex or even life changing.  It can be that one simple thing we just love doing. Like singing, or planting

or writing. Maybe that's part of what we're here to explore on this spinning, whirling planet of ours. 

                                  When you attune yourself to nature, a magical quality is there that sparks your creativity.  Your love expands to include new qualities of consciousness.  When you bring light through your being and allow yourself to receive nurturing from nature, there is a blending of your most divine eternal self and your most human.  

                                   - Richard Goodman

When I lived in Virginia, the Blue Ridge Parkway was literally minutes from my back doorstep.  I loved walking the trails, especially in the spring and fall.  It was my sacred sanctuary.  I loved to watch the dance of autumn leaves as they fell from the trees on a sudden gust of wind and marveled at how each one's letting go followed its own perfect timing.

Nature teaches us so much.

It teaches me about rhythm and flow and how to slow way down. It teaches me the value of carefully  listening to each pregnant moment and to the silence of my own Heart, but mostly it teaches me to trust.  Writing is a lot like that.

I am learning to trust that when I show up to write the process will inform me as I listen, open and get out of  my own way.  I've learned to become quiet so the most intimate and subtle nudgings may be sensed.  

Spiritual teacher OSHO writes in his book on creativity that the creative act is not a "doing" but rather an "allowing".  He states that if you wish to write from a truly authentic place, you must become a hollow bamboo. In other words, you become a passage so the whole can flow through you.  It is action through inaction.  And when you become hollow something wonderful begins to happen.  

You become like a river - flowing, melting, streaming.  No matter what you are doing - writing, walking, driving, scrubbing - you're alive!  A song will start coming through you but you are not the creator of it because it comes from the beyond.  And this is when  magic begins to happen and life takes on wings. This is where the divine and human meet, not unlike a breathless walk in nature.

Wild Mercy

Wild Mercy :  Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics is a book a friend recently recommended.   Even though it may sound like a "woman's" read, the author, Mirabai Starr, invites both men and women into the conversation.  I haven't gotten far in my reading and already I can't wait to share some of her beautiful prose.

For many years I have been drawn to readings on the contemplative lives of the Christian mystics, most of them men, especially St. John of the Cross and  Meister Eckhart.  However, there is one woman mystic who has always stood out for me and that is Saint Teresa of Avila.  She was a rebel in her own right.  I like rebels because they question the status quo, even though I have lived a fairly conventional life.  Saint Teresa renounced the dogma of religion and the belief in the need for an intermediary between God and man.  Her's was a journey of divine union through a "theology of innerness" of love and surrender.

In Wild Mercy Mirabai Starr writes, "The contemplative life is a tapestry of intention and surrender, of reaching out and letting go . . . It is not for the timid.  It's scary to be quiet, and it takes courage to be still . . . "  She draws us into the dilemma in which many women (and men) find themselves and illuminates the crazy making we call life. And then tenderly she leads us into the nurturing lap of the great Mother herself who relieves us of our burdens if only we will offer them to her.

Here.  Come Here.  Take a

moment to set aside that

list you've been writing in

fluorescent ink.  The list

that converts tasks into 

emergencies.  Items like

"feed the orchids" become

"If I don't accomplish this

by 11:00 a.m. tomorrow

morning the rain forests

are going to dry up and it

will be all my fault."  Or "If I

fail to renew my

automobile insurance I will

probably crash my car and

everyone will die."  Or "this 

friend just had her breast

biopsied and that friend's

brother-law-beat up her

sister and my aunt just lost

her  job with the symphony

and my nephew is

contemplating divorce and

I must call them all, and

listen to them for an hour

each, and dispense

redemptive advice."

Gather your burdens in

a basket in your heart.  Set

them at the feet of the

Mother.  Say, "Take this,

Great Mama, because I

cannot carry all this shit for

another minute."  And then

crawl into her broad lap

and nestle against her

ample bosom and take a

nap.  When you wake, the

basket will still be there,

but half its contents will be

gone, and the other half

will have resumed their

ordinary shapes and sizes,

no longer masquerading as

catastrophic, epic, chronic

and toxic.  The Mother will

clear things out and tidy

up.  She will take your

compulsions and

transmute them.  But only if

you freely offer them to her.

Ch - Ch - Ch - Changes

After over a year hiatus from blog writing, I think I might be getting my groove back.  In this second entry in a week, I will explain what took me so long.

In October, 2017, my daughter gave birth to our first grandbaby, Jacob.  In retrospect, I see how I utterly failed to comprehend just how strongly this little darlin' (as they say in the south), and the role I was destined to play as his grandmother, would change my life forever.

I used to listen, a bit skeptically, to other grandparents gush over their grandbabies and I'd think to myself , OK, sweet, but aren't they "going a little overboard".  Of course there is nothing like experience to humbly change one's perspective forever.  I admit, I am worse than any gushing, dribbling grandparent I have ever met.  My heart has turned to mush and I am certain there is no turning back.

Of course upon realizing after Jacob's birth that we had hopelessly fallen in love with this little eating, pooping, sucking, crying machine, and couldn't possibly live without him, my husband and I decided without further notice to up and move to Michigan where my daughter and son-in-law's careers had recently taken them.

With no other explanation than this, we uprooted 31 years of living in Virginia which included our home, job, and community of friends.  I'm sure there must have been a friend or two who thought we were "going a little overboard".  Karma has way of coming round.

I don't recall being a parent for the first time in quite the same way as being a grandparent, probably because the shock of parenthood brings with it an overwhelming sense of responsibility which puts a damper on the highs.  Also, it's almost impossible to be ecstatic when you are suffering from chronic sleep deprivation and your body image and hormones have plummeted to new lows.  You fear you will never be the same again.  And you're right.

Needless to say, these major life changes have taken up the majority of my waking hours for many months.  Yet, the changes have all been surprisingly wonderful.  We love living in Ann Arbor and adore watching Jacob grow.  Of course this post wouldn't be complete without including a million photographs!

There is a village of women who know they are fire & they burn fierce

with Love & even though each of them lives in different places, far apart,

in golden fields & loud cities & by oceans & rivers & underneath the

baobabs in Africa, still they come together often in dreams & for all you may think they are just ordinary women you pass on the street every day, they are the ones who hold the Heart of the World for all of us who will come after.

                            - Flying Edna

I've just returned home from a retreat with my village of women.  They say it takes a village so the seven of us meet every spring, deep in the quiet outdoors, five hundred acres of sprawling greenery off the Carolina coast.  It is a spiritual oasis, an ocean of love, nestled away in the towering trees that shield us from a busy beach resort just outside its rustic grounds.

We come not knowing what love has in store for us.  However, one thing we know for certain is that we care deeply about each other, and about the brokenness of our country and the world in which we live.We are warriors of love.  And we come together to be in sacred relationship, to commune from the depths of our inner being, where each ones devotion to truth nourishes our soul, lifts our spirit, and fills our reservoir.  

Suspended in time and embraced by a community of like-minded warriors - men, women, and children, we share our stories.  We laugh and cry and sing.  We hold each other tenderly in the fire because that's what love requires.  Sometimes the men join in our circle of seven - Jeff, Will, or Bill, adding tidbits of sagely wisdom and inspiration.  We share our visions for a better world.  A world filled with love rather than fear.

And we come together with intention.  Because intention is everything.  Our intention is to support and empower one another so that our wise woman love spills over into every part of our life, an unbroken stream informing every word, thought and action so that we may sow seeds of love, not hatred, that mend our towns, cities and country sides.  Because we all know - it is time!

Time to heal and to share what we have received because we can only share what we have gleaned from our own true and examined experience.  The unexamined life carries no weight on this path of fierce love. For love can only be sown by those who carry the seeds of love in their heart.

So our work together is to listen carefully, to see where loves light may be hidden - perhaps behind an old wound, or a judgement, or sense of shame that inadvertently cut us off from loves pure flow.  Like a plant cut off at its root that has withered and died, there are parts of ourself cut off from our heart.

Jeff keeps reminding us to be patient because "love moves slowly."  Even when I want it to move fast and wildly and without holding back.  Yet, do not dismay I am told.  Because love has its own perfect way.

Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world.

All things break.  And all things can be mended.  Not with

time, as they say, but with intention.

So go.  Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally.

The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.

-  L. R. Knost