The Point is.....

I get to the end of so many days, especially those spent home, alone - and wonder "What, exactly, is the point?"   Like the old song: "Is this all there is?"    Even writing in here I have interpreted that in various ways......I'm a Scorpio, I am not content with a quiet life. I need to take on challenges, have everything called from me. And yet it takes a lot from me to conduct my current life.....perhaps precisely because of it's quietude. But tonite I thought for the first time (tho it seems logical) perhaps the Point Is....precisely how one conducts one's life, whatever it happens to consist of. 

On my wall I have my own writing: "What if all my Doing here were from a state of Grace?" What if all my doing were from a state of Grace? Well I think I will "chew" on that for a few days.

HESITATIONS AND AN OMEN

Two days ago I wrote in my journal, “Truth is I’m not so interested in Africa, now.” Strangely, after all that passion, I have been feeling that. In part because of so many negative reports in the two books on Africa I read (and noticed I have stopped reading.) Mostly that. Also some creative work emerging again at home and work; finding something in my life here to be more interested in. So last nite at women‘s group, one woman said, “I have the Alchemist on tape!” Another friend and I responded at the same time: “Oh I’d like to hear that,” so the woman gave it to my friend and she would then give it to me. Suddenly I remembered I had already read it or started it, so I really didn’t want it that much, but my friend said, “Here, you listen to it first - I don’t have the time.” At that moment I wondered why it was being thrust on me, and I remember wondering if there was something in it “for me,” some message, perhaps. 

Well I had forgotten that the story is of the little boy who is moved to follow his “personal legend” (myth, as I get it) and his dream is to go to Africa. Well, really Egypt, but they refer to it first as “going to Africa.” And he gets waylaid at various points along the way, and thinks “well, really this little life here is very nice; I should settle for this, and forget about all those dreams....probably they are not realistic anyway.” But along the way he has all these encounters, learns to “read the desert,” “to look for omens to guide him,” to trust himself, etc etc. And at each step he thinks, “well maybe this is enough.....” or "oh the dream is just too hard to achieve..." But something keeps urging him onward. So.......How might this apply to me??...... My attempts to get my birthcertificate and passport have been a nightmare, due to some name changes in the past that I never made legal, so there are still steps to go, and the trip a little over a month away. It is good that I have the "omen" of this story to keep me moving.

War, and Peace

Today is the anniversary of death and destruction and deceit at Pearl Harbor. It goes on and on. Shouldn’t Shakespeare’s plays about these same issues in the time of Richard III and Henry VIII tell us this is How It Is? Shouldn’t any perusal of history, especially up close, tell us that this is the way mankind is? Still I think we have to say, though it is the same, still things now are better or more humanitarian than in the past. We are not putting heads on pikes outside the White House and not chaining retarded people in dungeons in Chicago, nor burning people in New England for believing differently than we do, anymore (tho of course we come close at times, and metaphorically still do some of the same.) And of course el Presidente is close to calling this a religious war. I wanted to write about Presence tonite; I’ve been thinking about it for days, but once again a bit of news has me incensed (Bill Moyers' article on The Rapture viewpoint.) Maybe we are approaching Armageddon - that is, the clashing of worlds, of world-views. Maybe this is a huge battle, but not the one they think. And maybe the battle IS on a spiritual level. The trouble is, it is always enacted physically, and there the death and destruction. Occasional glimpses of the future I see frighten me. Revolution, “Cleansing” by the Religious Right, After the Fall of Civilization. The "Mad Max" period of a frightening future. I reassure myself that sometimes the lessons Mankind has to learn can only come in this sort of testing, but always I fear for the innocent. It also scares me for the tests that will occur between family members or neighbors with different religious views. I know the horrors that have befallen women and children (and men) in Rwanda and many other countries...horrors beyond anything but a few victims in America have ever encountered. I know people (men AND women) are capable of behaving worse than beasts. It scares me. I work to maintain composure, and Faith.

Well, I will write about Presence. Everyone seems to talk about it these days: living in the " Now," living in the present moment. "The past is a memory, the future is a fantasy." And yet most people live in those two states incessantly. And so do I, for probably 75% of my non-working hours. Even when I'm walking the dogs I have to remember to pull my attention outward, if the wind on my face doesn't do it for me.

One place I find it easiest to remain in the present is when I'm working on jewelry - when this activity draws my attention to color and shape and my emerging skill - or in my garden, with its soil texture and small insect life and shiny red tomatoes and open golden roses. The quality of the objects in my home also can call my attention outward.....the glow of my friendly woodstove fire, the good wooden handles of my chopping knives, my handmade wooden cutting board with its rich walnut grain, and my own actions: chopping baby carrots finely, noticing the glossy green leaves and bright red stems of the chard also under my knife. Recognizing that these foods were raised naturally by someone who cares about the quality of the food (even when not from my own garden;) knowing that they are full of vitamins for my health......these awarenesses nourish me and warm my spirit, and keep my attention on the meal I'm preparing. My dishes - most individually chosen at one time or another, brightly colored - and the warmth of the water and the shiny soap bubbles make this also a meditative activity.

Objects on my windowsills speak back to me of my delight when I found them in stores, the woods, the beach....not that I think back to those moments, but that they mirror that pleasure back to me. I live in rooms in which I've chosen the color for the walls, the paintings on them, the cloth on my couch, the rug - well, now I'm talking more of the pleasure given back to you when you have made the room your own. And of course in my case, I built the house, chose the wood on the walls, remember the trees the wood came from, cut and stacked and planed and bleached it (in the early days,) and have lived with it through some changes for 23 years.

These things warm my heart, make me notice details - thus drawing my attention outward and keeping it there. As do the sounds, the smells of the forest outside my home. I think the times I have stayed present longest was squatting in my chicken yard, watching their little chicken social life.....watching my large many-colored rooster with his majestic tailfeathers as he cracked corn and clucked the baby chicks over to it, watching the "pecking order" carried out between the hens, their competition over a bug, or special bit of feed.....and at night, as I closed the door to the chickenhouse, listening to their sleepy murmuring to each other: "I'm here, are you?" "I'm here....."

But no chickens in the yard any longer; not since the mother bear came and knocked down my fence and ate them one after another. I was incensed, I hammered boards and added more wire, and put stakes in to hold the wire to the ground. I spoke to her in my head, called on the Spirit of Bear and felt I actually connected when the image came of a Kwakiutl woven bear-head. I told her, as I hammered, "I too am persistent and strong, and this is my flock!" challenging her to recognize our common desire to nurture and caretake, but she came back and knocked it all down with one blow and ate the rest of the chickens. So no chickens, and now no many-colored fertile eggs with their bright orange yolks.

I think a life which includes as many natural objects as is possible for the place you live will draw your attention outward, will allow you to notice and appreciate your surroundings, will keep you in the present moment, the "Now." "This is a gift - that's why they call it The Present."

“SATAN’S” PULL and My “Conundrum” Revisited.

Many years ago, again on my deck, I first came in contact with what probably were only God we’d all follow Him and everything would be hunkey-dorey and no challenge, no task, no material plane. There‘s also the yin/yang idea - that both are needed for the material plane to exist. This is to day, in that particular moment, it was perceptible to me that there is a downward pull. If God is upward, then the pull away from God is down. But I don’t get this like “Evil” (though I suppose it could be) - it can be as simple as sloth, fear, hesitation, self-indulgence, self-doubt, and all the various temptations. All those things which pull you away from the task you were put here for.........to become fully and truly yourself. So when I look at the my life at this moment, (and we’re back to the conundrum, of course, because that’s what a conundrum is) my question is: Is my desire to do something larger, more out-in-the-world, more all-consuming (whatever form it takes) a natural outgrowth of my path, my coming-into-full-Being? or a flight from the tasks at hand? Is my feeling I should just continue to do what I’m doing, but perhaps with a fuller heart - part of “Satan’s” pull on me? Sloth? Self-indulgence? Turning me away from my grander vision? Fear? Or a more mature and realistic way of pursuing my life?

When I work with people with similar questions, I always ask, “What is your habitual response to things?” My thought is that our habitual responses are connected to old ways of being, and the things we struggle with are part of new growth. (Astrologically, we look at the South Node and its connections as part of past behavior, and the North Node and its connections as the path for this lifetime, though you often do, and should, USE skills from the past toward your new goals.)

My habit is to run. From one thing, to another, to another. As each new interest (drumming, jewelry, weaving, singing, dance, furniture-making, working on my house) proves to require more work to become really proficient than time and patience I have available; as it doesn’t bring me the attention and recognition I crave, I run to the next thing which then becomes my new obsession. I would say the more recent political work is the first time I've gotten caught up in something that I have just done what I felt needed to be done and recognition was not the goal at all. (Conversely, of course, I got quite a bit of local recognition......or maybe it just felt like more because I wasn’t looking for it.)  I felt the evenness with which I did this work was part of the new non-ego-oriented way I was learning.

So again, the question is: does this huge desire to give all of myself to something, to be totally engrossed with team-mates in a large task of humanitarian significance of some sort - is this NECESSARY to my life-path? Or am I just running again?   As is my bent, I turn to my horoscope to understand myself:   My Sun in Scorpio brings me passion and obsessiveness, in the 10th house of my horoscope it is played out in The World, the public eye. Conjunct the MidHeaven - right at the top of the chart - it is the desire for public recognition and presence. My Sun - the described configuration - is opposed by Uranus, the revolutionary, the impulsive. And it is in good aspect (trine) to Saturn, the slow and patient. Recognition of this was what sent me back to grad school and a traditional occupation........which has worked very well for me, at least financially, and to a large degree in keeping with my natural Being, my interests, my caring for people, my desire to help - my Moon sign in Aquarius.

If I look to my South/North Node for help in understanding my “conundrum” - the South (the past) is in Cancer (home, family, children) and in the 6th house (work, employment.) So that is what I’ve made this life out of, too. Many years as a mother (a stretch of 33 years over 4 kids,) although I also worked at times and pursued my education. And then working with children, adults and families on a regular basis for the last 20 years. So my North Node (and I find myself hesitant to look at this) is in Capricorn (work, struggle, unearthing) in the 12th house (isolation, spirituality, the psyche.) I find it hard to interpret that - except it doesn’t sound very out-in-the-world or working with others. It sounds like what I’m doing now........working on others’ psyches (with a lot of mothering/parenting thrown in) and on my own.

And here I am at the moment, isolated in my home (though I rarely feel really isolated)........muddling about in my psyche, trying to figure myself out, as I have in various ways all my life. Is there anything about 12th house/Capricorn that suggests the larger world, or any of these prospects I look at for doing humanitarian work around the world? Capricorn is the 10th house sign......the world.......work.......career. But in the 12th house? I could imagine I might have some connection with a group doing work around the world where my part is to work at home on my computer......as I did answering emails from around the nation for the Kucinich website, during his campaign. But that is not EXACTLY what I crave. The 12th is self-sacrifice.......Hmmm.

I can of course ask God. And I have, but the answers I’ve gotten to the various parts of the question are very mixed, which usually tells me I don’t see the whole picture to know what to ask, yet.

So we’ll leave it at that for the moment. ...........as a Conundrum.