Psalm 23, Dedicated to My Mother

Full Fasting Moon

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"When have you encountered the Light through music?" 

For the first time all day I was alone. Not really alone, nurses bustled about down the hall and the whole hospital building buzzed with the hushed vibrating energy that was still new and uneasy to me. My sister had just left and I knew her leaving came with both relief and worry for her. This hospital was hard for her, but she had been my rock for hours.

For the last time in a week I was all alone. The pain hadn't become tear wrenchingly unbearable yet. The nurses faces still shined with optimism and hope. But as I was left alone, alone for the first time all day, alone for the last time for a week, I cried. I was on the edge of a chasm though I couldn't see it at the time. All I knew was I was alone, ill and scared.

I found myself searching my mind and heart for something to comfort me. A fragment of a story, a glimpse of a melody. Where had I heard it before? I don't even know. But I found what I was looking for on YouTube (G(!)d(dess) bless the internet!) and listened to it all night.

The Lord is my Shepard, I have all I need,
She makes me lie down in green meadows,
Beside the still waters, She will lead.

She restores my soul, She rights my wrongs,
She leads me in a path of good things,
And fills my heart with songs.

Even though I walk, through a dark and dreary land,
There is nothing that can shake me,
She has said She won't forsake me,
I'm in her hand.

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The song is Psalm 23rd, Dedicated to My Mother written by Bobby McFerrin and performed by the choral group Cantus. I've never been much of a Bible reader and the imagery of god as a shepherd has never resonated with me. God as a tall, thin, bearded man with a white robe and a shepherd's crook reeks of watered down bible stories for children and patriarchy. C.S. Lewis reminds us, though, that we don't have to understand how something works to know that it does, whether that thing is a good meal or redemption in Christ. I don't know how these words, words that may or may not describe how I view the Divine, came to make themselves known to me that night. I certainly do not know how they soothed my very being in that dark and dreary land of the OHSU emergency room but I do know that they did.


This was written for my Quaker Meeting's collective journal, Minding the Light. Check the link for our web presence, and check out all my other posts labeled Minding the Light here. 

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Full Fasting Moon 2012: The Sap Moon

Full Fasting Moon 2011: Of Peacocks, Pride and Park Rangers

Full Fasting Moon 2010: I didn't post a Full Fasting Moon post in 2010, but Spring is Springing is a New Fasting Moon post for that spring.

Full Fasting Moon 2009: Full Moon in the Fasting Moon

Hedonism and Big Juicy Good

New Journey Moon

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God
and I have become
like two giant fat people living
in a tiny
boat.

We
keep bumping into
each other
and laughing
-Hafiz

I joke that I gave up vegetarianism after college to become a hedonist. Little did I know how fruitful of a spiritual path hedonism could actually become. Over the last year or so I have allowed myself to indulge in all manner of earthly pleasures gastronomic, aesthetic, carnal and ecological. To my surprise and delight, I have found that these joys are not a diversion from spiritual pursuits but have been a yellow brick road leading directly to the Divine Wow.

Ascetic traditions ask followers to rise above the sea of emotion and physical sensation that are a leading cause of suffering. “Suffering rises from attachment to impermanent things,” the Buddha says. Monks and seekers from traditions Eastern and Western have been encouraged to abstain from certain foods, intoxicating beverages, the entanglements of romantic relationships and even the sensual pleasures of art and music for fear that they will dull or distract the soul from its journey towards God With a Capital G. In my experience, the unencumbered mind can soar to intellectual heights in this kind of pursuit. But there’s not much laughing there. Or ice cream. Or roasted duck, champagne cocktails and two hour make out sessions. And honestly, who wants to live in a world or go to a heaven without those thing? 

Indeed, those things have not stopped or distracted me from my connection with The Eternal Bliss. As my focus shifted a few chakras down over the last year the realizations are no less real or even less abundant, they are just of a different kind. Just the other night, while lounging contentedly, I said to the gentleman sharing my bed, “The Buddhists say Namaste – the divine in me greets the divine in you. Right now I wish there were a word for ‘the loving in me greets the lover in you.’” But there are no words for that kind of thing, just a squeeze, a kiss, a smile and knowing that this is All Good. My experience mirrors that of the Sufi understanding that all love, all pleasure, is a practice run for the love and pleasure we find with God. 

The renunciate’s ideal of detachment offers one path to the Kingdom of Heaven where we hurt no more. Radically deep connection is another way. In nature there is individual tragedy – the mouse must die for the owl to survive – but the web of connection keeps the mouse, the owl, the Fir tree, the fungus and everything else in Harmony. Rather than floating above the waves of emotions and physical sensation that are the root of hurt, this body and connection based search for That Which Is Wonder, invites me to dive into the ocean of life. There is pain and grief there; water up your nose and sand in your shorts. Feeling certainly causes a lot more tears than thinking, but that can’t get in the way of experiencing Big Juicy Good. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said to me once. “Well, there’s heartbreak at the end of this no matter what,” I replied, “’tis the human condition. Let’s not be afraid of that, ok?” The only way to feel ocean currents on your skin, to feel your heart ready to burst at the beauty of an azalea bush the size of your bedroom, or to experience the pleasure of a salumi plate and a crisp pinot gris on a warm spring evening is to dive in rather than float above. At least get in the boat with us  :)

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Yes, it has been a long time since I've posted. My life has been very full of doing and not so full of writing. But I try. And so here is a piece I wrote recently that shares a little of what my life is like these days. Hope you enjoy it, but more than that, I hope you are enjoying your own journey.   

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New Journey Moon 2011: Perseus and the Journey Moon

New Journey Moon 2010: Journey Moon is New

New Journey Moon 2009: Journey Moon

Playing Games

Birth Moon

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The low winter sun streams through the Douglas fir and cedar branches along the Wildwood Trail. The trail winds along a contour line out in the deep wooded heart of the park and I am alone. Well, almost alone. Around a bend in the trail my comes my dog, running full out, her ears flapping and mud flying out behind her. She skids to a halt in front of me, her doggy face practically grinning as she hops up to touch my hand with her nose, spins and darts off up the trail. I can’t help but laugh.

Tumalo

I laugh out loud, my voice muffled by the ferns and fir tree foliage all around me. I laugh at her silly antics and goofy ways. She’s not a clown of a dog, but her little hop, flapping ears and flying leaps make me crow with laughter. I giggle uncontrollably at her yipping and yowling in her sleep. Is she dreaming about giant squirrels or flying tennis balls? Goddess only knows what goes on in the mind of a dog.

My laugh softens into a chuckle and a grin as I catch sight of a flock of chickadees tumbling their way through a stand of cedar and hemlock trees. The sheer joy she gets out of living her dog life makes me laugh, too. She is never self-conscious about her pleasure at a smelly fence post, at a sunny spot in the lawn or a good chase. She is never anything but herself, without reservation or apology. The chickadees come closer, chipping and chirping at each other, completely oblivious of my presence. They, too, are fully present in their lives, not worrying or pretending. They simply are. One flits from one branch to another, doing a somersault over the new perch, hangs upside down and digs in the needles for bugs. I can’t help but grin.

Me ant Tummy

I heard an interview with Brother Guy Consolmagno, a Jesuit priest and astronomer, recently in which he tells a story about his mother. When he was about 9 years old she played cards with him one rainy Saturday afternoon. They played for hours and she let him win more often than not. Of course, she could have beat him every hand but that wasn’t the point. Playing the game was a way for her to say she loved him and Brother Guy sees exploring God’s created universe as a similar game. He is an astronomer and a mathematician so super novas and equations explaining planetary orbits are the game God plays with him to show his love.

I am a naturalist and a dog person so God plays a slightly different game with me. She shows me how to stop worrying and just be through a muddy Labrador. She shows me how she cares for every being through a flock of chickadees. She shows me that she will light my way with a big bright moon rising over the mountain as I drive home. She shows me that she loves me by making me laugh. 

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I wrote this for my Quaker Meeting's journal, Minding the Light. The querie this season was "When has god made you laugh?" I think this story about my dog, about chickadees and about the games God plays with us fits well with the theme of the Birth Moon. This is a time when the light of the Sun Son is new and feeble, but growing stronger each day. The Goddess watches over that growing light, protecting it, loving it, giving it what it needs to become the Light of The World as the summer waxes. I think she is doing that for all of us, giving us exactly what we need exactly when we need it... be that a muddy dog, a giant full moon or another dark, rainy night. 

You can read past issues of Minding the Light online here. My previous posts written for the journal can be seen by checking out all the posts tagged Minding the Light.

The Book of Nature

New Nesting Moon
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When I was 21 I began observing the moon. I was well versed in the natural history and geology of my environment, but was woefully ignorant of how the sun and the moon cycles worked. Maybe I was inspired by the months on end of clear skies in Southern Oregon or maybe it was my continuing interest in nature based spirituality. Maybe it was God tapping me on the shoulder and pointing her finger at something I should check out. Whatever it was, I faithfully watched the moon for cycle after cycle that year.

What I found amazed me. I was enthralled by the shapes the moon takes, the patterns on its surface and the relationship between the moon and the sun. I watched the moon wax and wane, and also found myself watching the seasons wax and wane. I saw the sunset move up and down the crest of the hills and the angle of light rise and fall with the seasons. I felt how the earth seems to wake up, be full, release its energy and then hibernate as the seasons wax and wane like the moon herself. I kept watching, kept observing month after month, year after year. The rhythms of day, month, season and year started to feel natural and deep, like my own heart beat and breathing.

I have felt God's presence in nature for much longer than I have ever felt it anywhere else. I knew the liturgy of growing plants long before I knew any church liturgy and heard God's voice in song birds and streams long before I heard it in a meeting for worship. Today, my primary language for accessing God is still the language of the living earth and especially of the natural rhythms of the sun and the moon. I see all life moving in these cycles, from the compact and huddled seed in winter, to the shooting growth of spring, the fullness and flowering of summer into the dissipating, conserving, slowing comfort of autumn. Gardens, creative projects, human lives and even civilizations move in these cycles. Breathing into these cycles, living fully in them and allowing them to unfold seems to me to be the best, highest and closest to God way to live my life.

Our culture seems to be an always on, always up, always growing kind of culture. But do you remember what cells that don't stop growing are called? Cancer. Plants that don't stop growing, like kudzu or English Ivy, are choking weeds. Sun that doesn't stop shining creates deserts like the lifeless land of the planet Venus. I feel deep in my bones that cycles of growth and constriction allow a chance for starting over, for assessing the last period of growth and for resting. I know God is in all parts of this cycle. I feel her in the pruning and contracting of autumn just as much as in the growth and light of spring. God is even in the hibernation and death of winter. God, my mother, knows and loves me through all parts of the cycle. God, my father, uses the cycle to encourage me to grow and challenge myself. The book of nature and the book of time are, to me, the fullest and most beautiful books God has written to help me navigate my life. And all I have to do is watch.

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This post was inspired by both my Quaker Meeting's literary journal query for the Autumn and a Rob Breszny horoscope from a couple weeks ago. The query is "How have you experienced god's presence in nature?" (which I chuckled at a bit - I've been writing about that twice a month for three years and still haven't exhausted all I could write about) and the horoscope is below:

Storyteller Clarissa Pinkola Estes loves life's natural rhythms just as they are. She says we can avoid a lot of suffering if we understand how those rhythms work. "The cycles are birth, light, and energy, and then depletion, decline, and death," she told Radiance magazine. In other words, everything thrives and fades, thrives and fades. After each phase of dissipation, new vitality incubates and blooms again. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, Virgo, you are currently going through a period of dwindling and dismantling. The light is dimmer than usual, and the juice is sparser. But already, in the secret depths, a new dispensation is stirring.

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New Nesting Moon 2009: Breathe a Sigh of Relief

New Nesting Moon 2010: Ramadan

My Summer Solstince/Pagan Value's Blogging Month post from this summer is on a similar theme of cycles in nature: Circles, Cycles and Pulses: Pagan Values Blogging Month

I Didn't See Fairies When I was Little

More on May Day

May Day 2009: May Day
May Day 2010: Glory Days
May Day 2011: The Brook in the King's Garden

P.S. My last post, The Brook in the King's Garden was my 100th post! That's a lot of writing on my part and a lot of reading on your part. Go us!

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I didn't see fairies when I was little, I had to learn to see them after I was grown. As a child I played in redwood groves and mudflats, feeling the pulsing life in the land. I pretended to be raccoons, pioneers and alligators in oak groves, meadows and creeks, as close to the grass and sky as snakes and gulls. I didn't need fairies to know the living presences of the earth.

There comes a time, though, when we separate from that wholeness. We fall, we wake up, we walk through a doorway we didn't even know was there. We become aware of our Self and our Self's desires, needs and fears. I still walked in dark forests and open fields but I was thinking about little sisters, algebra and boys. I saw the flowers and clouds, but I didn't SEE them any longer.

My path back to seeing fairies started with my intellect. Those early experiences in the woods and fields had laid a foundation for an interest in natural science that I pursued through high school and college. I remember coming home from 11th grade biology class, going to my favorite wooded canyon and experiencing deep awe over the xylem and phloem system in an fir tree - it was transporting gallons of water, dozens of feet with nothing more than water tension, evaporation and magic. I laid down on the forest floor and looked up at those trees, the wonderment of nature washing over me like a wave. I didn't see fairies that day, but I was beginning to feel them again.

These days I do see fairies, sprites, gnomes and even sometimes angels. They are a form of the divine spirit, personification of the subtle life force in all natural and living elements. Flower fairies, water sprites, pixies of the woods, these are to me projections of the divine spirit in the way our own human souls are. I have actually learned to perceive these elementals. My scientific mind was an early gateway to recognizing the Ultimate Mystery, but I have found other gateways show themselves when the intellect is suspended, or balanced with other forms of perceiving and thinking. A childlike, beginners mind and a rich diet of beautiful stories have opened my heart and my eyes to the dancing forms of the divine all around me.

When have you seen fairies? When have you been so in tune with the subtle forces of nature that you don't need to see them? How are you celebrating the blossoming of the year this spring?