A very Old Ocean Poem............

I found this poem I wrote when I was just 18.  I'm surprised at how it still rings true for me.  

 

OCEAN PIECE

Think of this song

this song in you

     what is it?

What is this music you are,

     think of this song in you

standing at the mouth

     mouth of the ocean at dark

into the darkness this song

     the ocean makes

this song 

it passes you, through you

it is not your own

you are a part of it

Travels on the Coast (2)

I am tired, I confess.  I am also, apparently, a homing pidgion.  

Driving north from San Diego, I was depressed by the terrible dryness of inland California, the drought evident everywhere. In fact, the right word would be sorrow, and a low, humming, underlying terror.  This is global warming, surely, this devestation of my homeland, this terrible drought.  So much is changing now.  

I didn’t want to complicate my state of mind by traffic in the Bay Area, so I attempted to bypass the whole mess in San Jose, only to become confused, and find myself headed straight for Berkeley during rush hour.  Naturally, I had to get off and get a coffee at Café Med on Telegraph.

Telegraph looked seedy and depressed, the Med was much as I remembered it, but dirtier, and yet, not the same at all because 40 years is a really long time.  All my friends are memories sitting at those marbletop tables, and memories, in the end, are poor companions.  Does anyone remember People’s Park, or Moe of Moe’s Books, or  the street artists of Telegraph?  I saw my first husband, Paul, sitting vividly in my imagination at the table at the top of the stairs with his camera bag, and his dogeared  notebook………but who knows where, or who, he is now.  This becomes a metaphysical exercise if I think about it too long...........
I left to begin the ordeal of nearly 2 hours trying to get out of the Bay Area.  

At last I found myself in Vallejo, and headed toward Napa, the Wine Country reviving my spirit, and found myself, homing pidgin again, on the road to Middletown and Harbin Hot Springs.  Lots of memories there as well, the Ancient Ways Gathering in the valley campground, and dreams, even a very  prophetic dream*  I had in 1999.  For all it’s being crowded,   it’s still a healing place, a place that would be favored by Sulis, Goddess of the waters and of the fires..

Walking heavily in my bathing suit, a little lame from a decade ago injury, short of breath, I try to remember the lithe woman I was 20  years ago.  I  suppose the many nudists here look at me in my bathing suit  (with a skirt yet) like a dinosaur emerging from the 1950’s.  Fine with me, in my old age, I like both bathing suits and nightgowns.   

The waters worked their magic, and I had the little heart shaped  pool to myself all morning (fear of old ladies in bathing suits with skirts?)  Hey, wish it would work  in parking lots as well.   I hope I am becoming, as Clarissa Pinkola Estes termed it, “a dangerous old woman”. Yes!  

I floated on my back, allowing the water to take me where it will.  And with a view of the sky, tree tops, birds and bees above me, just as the previous night I saw a vast ceiling of stars glittering between dark branches, so I floated away a stress and sadness.  As I let go of “direction”, the currents floated me around the pool, , occasionally bumping into the sides, different views, sometimes returning to the same sky view but with a different slant of sunlight, a different bird, a new cloud making itself.  Until finally I came to  stillness in the center of the pool.  

And somehow, I felt that my question, “what do I do now?”  had been answered.  If indeed I had a question.  Or perhaps the question and the answer both occurred in the process of floating.  Let go, the Circle is always there, the truth is viewed from all sides, and ultimately, we all return to the Center.  Trust.

I am a great devotee of hot springs, of the generous Numina who keep the hot waters for all of us.  I don’t dream much anymore, but  I did  dream last night.  Hotsprings, I have noticed, are great places for dreaming,.  I was buying a green dress, and it had a beautiful, layered, billowing skirt down to the ankles.  I felt that I “couldn’t pass it up” as it was “only $45.00”.  But I wasn’t sure I could fit into it, it would need some adjustment, and I hadn’t had a chance to try it on before I woke up.  A good color, the color of healing, of  the Fey, of  the green growing Earth, a good dress to try on now. 

Travels on the Coast (1)

"Dragon Tree Deva" (2014)

The Botanical Garden at Carlsbad

(with many thanks to my friend Joanne for taking me there).............and I find very, very sexy flowers, Agaves with Attitude, and quite a few emergent Devas of the Garden........... 

The whole portfolio of images is available as a slide show at: 

 http://s27.photobucket.com/user/laurenraine9/slideshow/Carlsbad%20Botanical%20Garden?sort=3

Corn Mother Mask

"Indigenous people have always known corn metaphorically in two or more of the four senses, mother, enabler, transformer, healer; that I use throughout this weaving.  Although early European settlers took the grain only, there is evidence in America today that the Corn-Mother has taken barriers of culture and language in stride and intimated her spirit to those who will listen, even if they don't know her story or call her by name." 

Marilou Awiakta

"Native American Indian legends tell of The Corn Mother sacrificing herself so that her people could have life. According to her instructions, in one legend, she was to be killed, her dead body dismembered, strun among the fields and planted.  In harvest ceremony after harvest ceremony the last sheaf of corn was gathered together and dressed in women’s clothing.  This Corn Mother doll was referred to as The Old Woman, The Old Grandmother, Old Wife or even The Great Mother. To assure a plentiful harvest The Old Corn Mother was given to a family for safe keeping until the next growing season began and the cycle of birth, growth, death and rebirth continued. As I looked further into what I had learned about the archetype of the old woman, I realized that the power of the “Old Woman” is her ability to embrace change, her willingness to give birth to her Old Self, to make friends with her death and trust in rebirth."

Sondra Fields

http://cornmother.com/About_Sondra.html

Painting Courtesy http://www.returnofthecornmothers.com/

I recently made a new Corn Mother mask, which I'm taking with me on my travels (my brother's funeral in California, then a trip up the coast).  She wanted to come with me, and I will be taking the masks to show my friends Mana and Annie in Willits, to receive a blessing for it.  The story of the previous Corn Mother mask was quite wonderful, and although I've shared it before, I felt like re-posting it here.  Corn Mother is the Sustainer of the Americas, sacred in virtually all native American traditions.  I hope this mask will find new Dancers to share Her ever evolving stories.

"And where corn is the Corn-Mother is also.‘This thing they call corn is I'."
Marilou Awiakta

Corn Mother has many names, and among the Cherokee she is called "Selu".  

The story is that Selu fed her family with delicious grain, but no one knew where it came from.  Finally her sons saw her shaking corn from her body, discovering her secret.  They had witnessed a mystery they could not understand. Being young, fearful, and ignorant, they resolved to kill their mother, calling her a witch, and  making  disastrous assumptions about her power. Knowing she could not  give them wisdom, nor teach them the ways of nature, Selu told them to bury her body in the earth.  Thus, She is born again each year, nourishing her children in a continuing act of sacrifice.  Selu does not punish - in loving generosity, She offers her children a chance to return to good relationship.  

My own relationship with Selu began in 2002.  

I had given masks to choreographer Mana Youngbear to work with in a ritual performance she was organizing at the Black Box Theatre in Oakland.  I was living in Arizona at the time, and I didn't know what her program was going to be, but I looked forward to returning to California to attend the performance. 

Several weeks before her event, I attended an unrelated event at the Ritual Center in Oakland, founded by Matthew Fox.   A guided meditation by a woman minister was central to this ritual event, which was dedicated to the return of the Divine Feminine.  The meditation was about the need to heal the damage done to the feminine in the past, and she spoke of the Inquisition, the Burning Times.  As I sat on the floor in a darkened room with some 300 people, I could hear the sound of many people weeping. 

 And yet I  found myself absorbed by a vision. When I closed my eyes I immediately saw a Native American woman dancing. I opened my eyes, and closed my eyes again, and still she danced before me.  Dressed in a traditional fringed costume, she had ears of multi-colored corn in her hands as she danced, and this vision continued until the end of the meditation.  

It was so vivid that when I returned to my studio, I decided to make a mask for Corn Mother.  I bought an ear of corn, cast it so I could duplicate it in leather, and made a mask with corn on each side of the face.  

I had been reading about Black Elk, the great Lakota shaman. As a young boy, he foresaw the destruction of his people, what he called the "hoop" of the Lakota nation. But he also prophesied a "hoop of the nations": a great circle, composed of many interlocking circles, that would someday come to be. A "Rainbow Tribe".  So I painted a rainbow on the mask's forehead, because the children of America are now of all colors. 

"When I held up an ear of calico corn we would think about this wisdom of the Corn Mother. How the different kernels are ranged around the cob, no one more important than the other. How each kernel respects the space of those on either side, yet remains itself - red, black, white, yellow or combinations of those colors. How the Corn-Mother, in Her physical being, exemplifies unity in diversity." ..........Cherokee poet Marilou Awiakta

Just before her performance, I spoke with Mana, and learned there was one dancer in Manna's cast who had no mask, Christy.  Christy had felt inspired to dance "Green Corn Woman" because of her deep affinity with the Corn Mother, and had created her costume for the performance.   Now it seemed she had her mask.  

Here is the story Christy told me when we finally met, and the new mask was delivered.

Christy Salo as "Green Corn Woman" 

Cornmother's Gift
by Christy Salo
(2002)

I made a bouquet of corn for Manna's wedding, with a necklace of rainbow beads I bought at a garage sale. I later used this same bouquet I to dance Green Corn Woman. Manna is part Cherokee, and when she cast her show, she asked if I wanted to dance Corn Mother. We didn't have a mask for her, but I was inspired to dance anyway. 

I knew very little about the Native American Corn Mother, about Selu, who is Cornmother to the Cherokee.  I planned on doing some research. Along the way, I remember stopping at a used bookstore. Opening a rather esoteric book at random, I discovered I was looking at an article about the Corn Maiden. I was further stunned to find it illustrated by Vera Louise Drysdale. Vera was my friend, years ago, when I lived in Sedona.

And so, without any further urging, I was ready to begin. The feeling of familiarity continued as I created a costume. I was looking for materials I would need, and within a few days, Manna left a message. "Christy" she said, "There is a Hopi woman visiting Isis Oasis Retreat Center, and you need to meet her! She gave me some 300 year old corn meal to give to you!"

Once again, I felt Selu encouraging me! I thought about what She meant to me personally. To me, Selu is about the wealth that comes from the work of forgiveness. How can we be fed and sustained, how can we create peace, if we cannot practice the lessons of forgiveness, if we cannot learn tolerance and compassion for our differences? That is the beginning place for the cooperation we will need in order to evolve into a global family. In America, we have mixed bloodlines, "rainbow blood". Especially as Americans, our challenge is to understand our true relationship to each other. I've always conceived of the Rainbow as actually being a circle. Half of the rainbow disappears into the ground, into an underworld realm, where it exists beneath the Earth, hidden, but present. Like the Corn Mother. Aren't we all Her children? Perhaps, what she gives us now is the means to seed a rainbow vision.

We received the new mask at the time of the lunar eclipse, in May of 2002, and decided it was an auspicious time to consecrate it with our dried corn. As we did, a flash of light went off in the room! At first we thought it was a light bulb that blew out. But no electric lights had been turned on in that room. We looked at each other amazed, and felt the presence of Corn Mother.

References:

http://www.returnofthecornmothers.com/

Marilu Awiakta  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilou_Awiakta

• Selu: Seeking the Corn-Mother's Wisdom. Golden, CO: Fulcrum, 1993. A blend of story, essay, and poetry.

There's a Crack in everything - that's how the Light gets in

Driving to my brother's funeral in Los Angeles, where my family is from.  First thing I do is go to visit Mother Ocean, the Pacific, the place it begins and always seems to end.  My feet walk on the sand, and I think of this song by Leonard Cohen.  Truly, he says it all.  To love, indeed, we all must come - but like a refugee.  That's how the light gets in...............

http://youtu.be/_e39UmEnqY8




http://youtu.be/5ma5tF6TJpA



The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
Has passed away
Or what is yet to be

Ah the wars they will
Be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
Bought and sold
And bought again
The dove is never free

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

We asked for signs
The signs were sent:
The birth betrayed
The marriage spent
Yeah the widowhood
Of every government
Signs for all to see

I can't run no more
With that lawless crowd
While the killers in high places
Say their prayers out loud
But they've summoned up, they've summoned up
A thundercloud
And they're going to hear from me

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

You can add up the parts
But you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march
There is no drum
Every heart, every heart
To love will come
But like a refugee

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in
That's how the light gets in
That's how the light gets in

Transformation without Apocalypse - Ursula K. Le Guin and Kim Stanley Robinson

"And shaken, we know the immanence of Mystery, and Change."

A few weeks ago I ran across a Tor paperback with two novels at a yard sale, and took home a book with a story by Ursula Leguin ("The New Atlantis" and Kim Stanley Robinson ("The Blind Geometer").  There was a kind of synchronicity in this purchase, because on the cover it said:  "Plus the bonus novelette THE RETURN FROM RAINBOW BRIDGE".  Having worked for 20 years on The Rainbow Bridge Oracle, it seemed worth investing 50 cents in.  

The Leguin story was so disturbing for me I couldn't finish it, because it reflected, in a strange way, the despair I sometimes feel at the falling away of our world, the sense that we, too, are living "before the deluge".  And Robinson's story even more so - I couldn't plow through it.  Which is unusual for me, as I usually devour SciFi insatiably.  But something prompted me to Google Robinson, who I had never heard of before, figuring he was some obscure writer no one remembers........and I found him, and Leguin, reading at an extraordinary conference in Oregon called Transformation without Apocalypse: How to Live Well on an Altered Planet,which occurred on February 14-15, and featured Joanna Macy, Ursula K. LeGuin, Tim DeChristopher, Kim Stanley Robinson, Rob Nixon and other speakers.  Wow..........wish I had known!  If they're having another conference next year, by golly, I'm going!  

 http://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/centers-and-initiatives/spring-creek-project/

Hearing Mr. Robinson speak I see that he is a visionary writer, very concerned in his work for the environment and the future...........and what a treat to hear him with Ursula Leguin, who has been my mentor, and has created worlds I've visited many many times, for 35 years.  

 Synchronicity, following the threads of Spider Woman..............leading me always to answers, in the same gestalt way that dreams can lead us to what we need to know or to affirm.   The "Rainbow Bridge", in Nordic mythology, was the bridge between the realm of the Gods and the Earth.  The Rainbow Bridge, to me, is also the vision that bridges together our human diversity, what Black Elk called "the Hoop of the Nations", into a common humanity.  It seems to me that building that Bridge, spiritual and practical,  in this time is, among others, the work of artists of all kinds, which Leguin and Robinson so eloquently elucidate.   What caught my attention enough to buy a little book led me to where I needed to go.   

 "Humans will be living differently in the very near future, perhaps occasioned by catastrophes brought on by overpowering forces of greed and climatic disintegration. But it’s also conceivable that we will choose, by acts of imagination and collective will, to create new narratives of how to inhabit the planet. This will require a radical re-imagining of who we are in relation to the world and how we ought to live. We have to be doing everything possible to end dependence on fossil fuels, stop the privatization of water, seeds, and the very atmosphere, and arrest climate chaos. But that work will fare better if we have tangible visions of new / old ways to live that promise thriving without exhausting the Earth. This symposium will engage the essential experiment, testing a different sets of ideas about how to live on Earth."

http://youtu.be/Qlp2WvtjeGk

Prayers for the Dying

    Do not stand at my grave and weep,
    I am not there; I do not sleep.
    I am a thousand winds that blow,
    I am the diamond glints on snow,
    I am the sun on ripened grain,
    I am the gentle autumn rain.
    When you awaken in the morning’s hush
    I am the swift uplifting rush
    Of quiet birds in circling flight.
    I am the soft star-shine at night.
    Do not stand at my grave and cry,
    I am not there; I did not die.

    Ann Frye

"Form Is Empty" (2009)

I really don't know how to write this entry, or even if I should, because it's both very personal and conflicted.  But I want to try.  

In 2008 my brother suffered a brain stem stroke.  Because he did not have a living will, since then he has been on complete life support.  In 2009 he was pronounced brain dead.  My mother is now in a nursing home with Alzheimer's, and my other brother has finally agreed to allow me to withdraw life support for Glenn, which we will do on the 15th of this month.  

 Above is a card I made for Glenn  in 2009 when I created a "Dia De Los Muertos" Alter at Wesley as their resident artist.  Below is one of the sculptures I made in 2009 for Glenn, honoring his long interest in Buddhism. All of them have tiles with words and phrases pressed into the clay, symbols and antique designs, all of them, like pottery shards, broken, disordered, "de-constructing".  In this realm of being, words and symbols are what we construct our ideas of life from, the "shells" we create our identities from.  In  "Form is Empty" I saw the hand of the dying reaching through the shattering of form toward the offering hand of the Divine, the greater Self. 

It's been such a long time that I have grown numb to it, to be honest, worn out.  I've tried all kinds of strategies to come to grips with the situation, including calling in a medium several times who told me that Glenn was not in his body, and that he had "crossed over".  I was comforted by that.  Towards the end of his life Glenn was a bitter recluse, and I know that he was tired of the life he had.  That made the situation that much more awful to me.  I'm relieved that this is soon going to be over.

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” 

Gospel of Thomas

I suppose it sounds hard, but people take a long time to die, and after a while, you just have to go on with life, or you lose your life to the dying.  I was my beloved grandmother's caretaker for 5 years as teenager, and I learned after a while to be "selfish" enough to allow myself an adolescence.  To survive in a family with much dysfunction.  In many ways, Glenn was the most sensitive sibling, talented and intelligent,  and I'm not sure he did "survive" - so many of the things he wanted to do he never was able to.  

I often think of the quote above from the Gospel of Thomas.  I think Jesus was talking about the great creative drive that every being incarnates with, a kind of individual purpose or purposes we all have.  We have to be responsible to the needs of family and tribe.........but we also have to honor what Joseph Campbell called "following your bliss", your unique path and calling. Sometimes the demands of family or tribe are wrong, the values inappropriate.  Sometimes relationships keep us from evolving..............In examining my life, I'm glad I was both rebellious and "selfish".   I wish Glenn had been able to do so as well, and I think of him free, and able to create a new life in the other realms.

Form Is Empty

"The Heart Sutra" (2009)

One story I remember was in 2011,  when I began to remodel my mother's house after she went into assisted living.  My other brother, David, left Glenn's room exactly as it was, including a locked closet that was full of guns, reflecting the paranoia and isolation Glenn felt. David refused to open it.   Finally, when he went back to California, I decided to clear out Glenn's room no matter what David thought, and I painted it a bright sky blue, as a ritual, to embody peace, and the open sky, release.  As I was painting around the door of the locked closet.........it very gently opened!

I took the guns, sold them, and sent the money to a couple of charities, including sponsoring a girl in Nepal, which I felt was another way to change the energy, to "open the way" for Glenn's spirit to be free.  I like to think, am pretty sure, that that opening door was Glenn's way of letting me know that all was well.  Unfortunately, my other brother refuses to consider anything he thinks is "metaphysical nonsense", so he's unable to benefit from experiences like this.

 In the 2nd piece, "The Heart Sutra",  I used the hand of a 90 year old woman and a 9 year old child.  The Heart is what lies between.

One of the things I hate about any kind if  fundamentalism  is the endless heavy footprint  of patriarchal preoccupation with sin, punishment, torture, etc.  The Old Testament tribal war gods have a lot of rules, and no mercy.   I've met people so terrified of death because they feel they'll be tortured forever  by some vicious god or devil. 

 How much wiser the Egyptian concept of Maat, who holds a feather and a scale before the door of  death and new life.  With "the Questions of Maat", the Goddess helps souls to weigh the lives they've had, to understand, to "fore-give" and be "fore-given".  She is both grief and praise, and as I understand the word "forgive", it means to not hold on, but to release the energy in order to give it fore-ward, into new form, new love, new creation.   When at last each soul is  "as light as the feather of Maat", the door opens, and they can pass on.

"Holy Mother Take Me Home" (2009)

A River Runs Through Us

   

"Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River. Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. "

Norman MacLean, "A River Runs Through It"

The last piece, "Holy Mother Take Me Home",   is a prayer to the Goddess, the Source.  I used a child's hand again, and the broken shards, with all the words, float down the river of light.  We're all children, really, all children.  She reaches out Her hand to take us Home.  It doesn't matter what you've done, where you've been, what kind of life you think you've led or not led.  She waits.  

It's been a long journey Glenn.  Be at peace.  

"We have been raised to think that our body ended here, with this bag of skin, or with our possessions or education or house.  Now we begin to realize that our body is the world."

Joanna Macy