Monthly Archives: December 2014

Dec29

Off to BE the Wizard…

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As the new year begins, I too have a resolution. I am taking Edwene Gaines’ 21 Day Challenge: to fast from complaining for twenty-one days – the length of time psychologists say it takes to change a habit. Complaining is a bad habit. Addiction specialists tell us that the easiest way to overcome any bad habit is to replace it with a healthier one. And so, I will begin each of the 21 days by listing at least eight things in my life that I am grateful for. It’s a wonderfully sneaky exercise as it starts you thinking in terms of gratitude…and you tend to keep thinking this way throughout the day. I’m so grateful someone else figured that out for me…

I’m on Day Three today, and I have a big confession: I have done Day One over more times than I can count. You see, if you slip up you must start over the next day. If you know me, you find it remarkable that I’ve made it this far! Meaning, of course, that if I can stop complaining, ANYONE CAN STOP COMPLAINING!

But I am putting my “money where my mouth is”…as Edwene says in her Four Spiritual Laws of Prosperity. It’s time to walk the talk. My friend Nadine gave me this book for Christmas (grateful.) IT JUST WASN’T THIS CHRISTMAS! It was a year ago. That should give you a hint about what I’m working with here….sheeeeeeez….but in my defense, the book was packed in a box for months during my  l o n g  move (not complaining) and I just re-discovered it. With prompting from Nadine…

Last week Nadine sent me this YouTube video which reminded me that I had that book around here somewhere. I invite you to listen to this Yoda in the form of a munchkin…and follow the yellow brick road with me.

“The more you complain, the longer God lets you live.” -unknown

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Dec28

With Tuppence for Paper and String…

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I don’t know about you, but I see an awful lot of myself in P.L. Travers. The uptight intellectual snob who wrote Mary Poppins fought with Walt Disney over creative rights for twenty years. She needed the money, but she was utterly opposed to her beloved characters frolicking in a musical –  lest they be made to seem trite or unimportant, powerless. Sometimes a push is needed to allow truly magical things to happen that would otherwise never come into the world. It allows for healing to take place. I suspect that is true of all art. It gets away from the artist and takes on a life of it’s own.

To this day this is one of the best selling stories of all time, and I know why. It speaks to us all, to overcoming heartbreak and becoming powerful again, to healing. Heroes come in so many unexpected ways, don’t they?!

For my dear Dad and my beautiful sister Shelly, who both played piano and sang the soundtrack of my childhood.

Dec26

Sacred Curiosity…Pushing Into the Mystery

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When I was a little girl, my Great Aunt Lily Pierce Heiler used to come over from England every summer to visit. She drank tea, and so, I wanted to drink tea. All I remember is that it was sweet and warm and yummy…and to this day I drink my tea strong with lots of milk and sugar. Mimi was my maternal grandmother who taught me to quickly sip up the bubbles from the top of the cup before they disappeared. She said they brought you money. And this morning I poured my coffee and sipped up the bubbles…

When Maya Angelou was asked in an interview if she were a Christian, she said, “I’m practicing…” I like that attitude. I’m practicing…I’ll never entirely get it. There is an internet pastor who claims that some of the most powerful women – including Dr. Angelou – are (or were) actually practicing witches, to which I reply, “we can only hope.” I don’t see these things as dichotomous any more than I see God separate from science. Science has begun to prove God now – we’re catching up with Heaven’s time.

“Magic is science not yet proven.” – A. Einstien

It seems to me that the core, or underlying, evil in the world is not the bigotry of racism or poverty, but the self righteousness that causes it. And witches, self-proclaimed as “practicing”, or perhaps completely unaware of their actions, as Mimi, see the discrepancies. They are the seers. Where would we be if evil weren’t recognized and called out? If no one stood and faced the dragon and proclaimed, “You shall not pass!,” or asserted “Get thee behind me.”

Jesus left us a treasure map to the Kingdom. He asked us to approach life as little children…aware of our own innocence and the innocence of our human brother’s and sister’s. That’s what good witches do. With no intent of personal gain, they see all sides and stand up for the innocent in us all. They protect our sacred curiosity.

No one is born evil; evil is made.  I think Scott Peck described it best in People Of The Lie. He illustrated how a poor decision veers you off course, and as time plays out and other decisions are based on that one, you stray further and further away from who you once were, from your healthy possibilities. It seems unlikely we can experience awareness of innocence and be self-righteous at the same time.

Brene Brown advises we practice vulnerability, and I think she is on to something. Vulnerability and curiosity, the willingness to be unknowing. My grandmother Mimi was from Little Rock, Arkansas. She was raised by her older sister, Nellie, after their mother died.  She thought singing and dancing could cure just about any ill…and she lived twenty-eight years beyond a terminal diagnosis. She had a funny way of speaking. She was never afraid to admit that she didn’t know something when asked a question. She would answer “I am not knowing.”

I like that attitude, too…I am not knowing.

I do think our tightly clutched beliefs can be the demise of our health, our strength, our joy. They lead us to that one poor decision that veers us off course and we find ourselves deep in the woods before we realize darkness is upon us. In sacred curiosity I must always question my beliefs in order to continue to turn toward the light. It’s a good practice.

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” -Mark Twain

Dec23

Sometimes the Truth Is Like A Second Chance

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Mahatma Gandhi wisely said, “I like your Christianity. I do not like your Christians.”

My fundamentalist born again sisters used to wear bracelets with W.W.J.D. engraved on them…they brought a smile to my face and made me happy. They always made me think “What Would JONI Do?” And as long as I was thinking of Joni, I could hardly go wrong. I read recently that when Joni Mitchell met Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche she offered him a line of her cocaine. He sat up, appearing indignant and began breathing like a dragon, nostrils flaring…she was sure she had offended him. He continued to breath this way for a long time. Slowly she began to feel differently, and soon entered into an altered state where she remained until she had another thought…as herself, another “I” thought – that snapped her out of it. Three days had passed. She was cured of her addictions.

I have had a similar experience, seemingly brought on by illness. There was no other person present at the time, at least not visibly. I felt a strong presence, and I believed it to be the Christ. Not the man, Jesus, but the Christ – the state of enlightenment. Christ wasn’t the man’s last name – he was Jesus THE Christ – meaning the christened, the enlightened. Personally I think if the man DID manifest himself back into A body and walk the planet, he would be appalled at the behavior of most who call themselves “Christians”. And I also believe that in his disembodied state, moving freely through the cosmos (and us), he IS just dumbfounded by human behavior…but I digress…

I have since tried to research that experience in order to connect with others who have had it; it is often called a “conversion” experience. It is said to have happened to John Newton that night the storm threatened to sink his ship, his last voyage to deliver slaves for auction, and inspired him to write the hymn Amazing Grace. I can believe it. You could not have that experience and not be completely changed. I sure was. I felt every cell of my body being remade. It isn’t something words – at least not any words I know – could ever describe.

I have spent the majority of the last sixty years trying to change people, my family mostly. I came by the arrogance of codependency naturally. How I managed to escape the alcohol and drug addictions of my family I don’t know. But I had a therapist who finally got through to me and convinced me that codependency is an addiction also. And possibly harder to cure.

Jesus the Christ was an alchemist, able to rearrange the molecular combination of the elements. The alchemists of the western world are the artists. They can change our states. They can cure us. I thank God for them every day I am alive…

“When I was young and free and my imagination had no limits, I dreamed of changing the world. As I grew older and wiser, I discovered the world would not change. So I shortened my sights and decided to change only my own country. But it, too, seemed immovable.

As I grew into my twilight years, in one last desperate attempt, I settled for changing only my family. But alas, they would have none of it. And now, as I lay on my deathbed, I suddenly realize…if I had only changed myself first, then by example I would have changed my family.

From their inspiration and encouragement I would have been able to better my country, and who knows, I may have even changed the world.” – on the tomb of an Anglican Bishop in Westminster Abbey

Dec21

It Was the Wicked and Wild Wind…

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“Any arbitrary turning along the way, and I would be elsewhere, I would be different…” -Francis Mayes, Under the Tuscan Sun

The winter solstice lulls us into the dark imaginings of what might have been, and awakens us to think of what could be. I still cry in the shower. I miss my Mom; I miss my Dad. They meant the world to me. I miss my dog, Oliver. I miss my four siblings, although THEY are still alive. We don’t talk. I miss who we were as a family, as children…before we were Democrats or Republicans, vegans or carnivores, liberal or conservative, straight or gay, high or drunk or strung out on chemo; before we were right or wrong. When we were innocent and blameless and healthy and free…jumping into the pool from the garage roof and defending each other in schoolyard fights and singing and dancing and playing endless games of Euchre…shivering as we took our obligatory (certainly unnecessary!) baths in Georgian Bay off the stern of the boat…watching the cat give birth in the closet, gathering wild blueberries and making birthday wishes…

We stood up in each others weddings, showed up with food after the cancer diagnosis’, moved each other and moved each other again. And again.

We had a lot. A lot of fun, laughter, prosperity, health, beauty, adventure. We expected a lot. We took a lot for granted. Here, now some fifty years later, we can’t find common ground enough to hold a conversation. We’re all lucky to be alive, and we know it.

In my wildest imagination I never would have pictured my life to be as it is today. I probably would never have chosen it this way…but as the dog and I walked along the Grand River today I realized that -although it doesn’t look like I imagined- it is in many ways what I asked for. Hariat and I go for long walks and get more fresh air and exercise than I have gotten in years. We eat well. I write most every day. In many ways it is as I always imagined I would spend my older years…it’s a good place to be. It’s a good start.

Dec21

…angels on the sideline again…

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My son and I send each other songs back and forth…there seems to be no shortage of inspiration and awe for life, for each others’ ever expanding capacities…we are not musicians, but we have musical hearts. Don’t we all, really…have hearts that cannot resist? We cannot resist each other.

How was he ever to come from me and not be so soft, so strong, so wounded, so brilliant…as we realize our shaman selves together? He is a gift beyond measure, a pearl beyond price.

He is young, and was born wise it seems. My hair is white now and defies the ageless truth of who I am inside. But ooooooh….I believe. Fate smiled and destiny, well…destiny laughed as she came to my cradle. I sent him this song by the poet Natalie Merchant:

“I am a challenge to your balance…I’m over your heads.

How I confound you, and astound you, to know…

I must be one of the wonders of God’s own creation,

And as far as you see you can offer me no explanation.

With Love, with Patience, and with Faith, she’ll make her way.”

He sent me this: