wise women of the dreamtime

Who are the wise women in your life?  When do you seek their counsel?

The wise women speak to me through dreams and symbols.

There are no coincidences...I am being guided, moment by moment.

"In the ancient way of being, the earth not only creates, feels, and protects life, but like a mother, whispers through natural signs and images the secret knowledge of how body, mind, emotions and spirit work upon each other in an intricate, invisible weaving."
- Johanna Lambert from "Wise Women of the Dreamtime"

grateful for the wonder

playful mixed media from one of my older journals...

"Sex is the consolation you have when you can't have love...

Don't let yourself die without knowing the wonder of  f*cking  with love..."

- Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I am truly grateful for the wonder...intercourse as consolation seems sad, empty, cold, soul-less and unfulfilling...simply not for me...

where does the dance begin, where does it end?

"Don't call this world adorable, or useful, that's not it.

It's frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds.

The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil.

The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold.

But the blue rain sinks, straight to the white

feet of the trees

whose mouths open.

Doesn't the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance?

Haven't the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe,

until at last, now, they shine

in your own yard?

Don't call this world an explanation, or even an education.

When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking

outward, to the mountains so solidly there

in a white-capped ring, or was he looking

to the center of everything: the seed, the egg, the idea

that was also there,

beautiful as a thumb

curved and touching the finger, tenderly,

little love-ring,

as he whirled,

oh jug of breath,

in the garden of dust?"

- Mary Oliver

in the midst of your nightmare

Sekhmet, The Lion-Headed Goddess Of War

"He was the sort of man

who wouldn't hurt a fly. 
Many flies are now alive
while he is not. 
He was not my patron. 
He preferred full granaries, I battle. 
My roar meant slaughter. 
Yet here we are together 
in the same museum. 
That's not what I see, though, the fitful 
crowds of staring children 
learning the lesson of multi- 
cultural obliteration, sic transit 
and so on. 

I see the temple where I was born 
or built, where I held power. 
I see the desert beyond, 
where the hot conical tombs, that look 
from a distance, frankly, like dunces' hats, 
hide my jokes: the dried-out flesh 
and bones, the wooden boats 
in which the dead sail endlessly 
in no direction. 

What did you expect from gods 
with animal heads? 
Though come to think of it 
the ones made later, who were fully human 
were not such good news either. 
Favour me and give me riches, 
destroy my enemies. 
That seems to be the gist. 
Oh yes: And save me from death. 
In return we're given blood 
and bread, flowers and prayer, 
and lip service. 

Maybe there's something in all of this 
I missed. But if it's selfless 
love you're looking for, 
you've got the wrong goddess. 

I just sit where I'm put, composed 
of stone and wishful thinking: 
that the deity who kills for pleasure 
will also heal, 
that in the midst of your nightmare, 
the final one, a kind lion 
will come with bandages in her mouth 
and the soft body of a woman, 
and lick you clean of fever, 
and pick your soul up gently by the nape of the neck 
and caress you into darkness and paradise."

- Margaret Atwood

his kiss still makes me blush

“The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They are in each other all along.” – RUMI

he kissed me (my first kiss)
21 years ago
today

he married me
13 years ago
today

his kiss still makes me blush...

one wild and precious life

"Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean- the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down - who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

- Mary Oliver

valor and daring

"Your love should never be offered to the mouth of a Stranger,

Only to someone who has the valor and daring to cut pieces of their soul off with a knife,

Then weave them into a blanket to protect you."

- my beloved Hafiz

snapshots from my evening stroll

that unnoticed and that necessary

"I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only.  I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary."

-Margaret Atwood

remembering my exquisite grandmother on her birthday...

thanksgiving judgement or thanksgiving peace

"Do you think peace requires an end to war? Or tigers eating only vegetables? Does peace require an absence from your boss, your spouse, yourself? Do you think peace will come from some other place than here? Some other time than Now? In some other heart than yours?

Peace is this moment without judgement. That is all. This moment in the heart-space where everything that is is welcome. Peace is this moment without thinking that it should be some other way, that you should feel some other thing, that your life should unfold according to your plans. 

Peace is this moment without judgement, this moment in the heart-space, where everything that is is welcome."

- Dorothy Hunt

the TRUTH about the thanksgiving holiday

"Another example of the misuse of images comes to us from our American holiday of Thanksgiving, which we're about to celebrate. We've been told that Thanksgiving arose from the friendship of the Native peoples with the Pilgrims and our children put on plays about this friendship. In reality, those early Pilgrims raided and killed their Native helpers and came home to celebrate the final harvest afterward. This re-shaping of the truth still holds us hostage, allowing us to believe a truth that isn't real. While Thanksgiving is a great time for our harvest celebrations, the story we've been told isn't what happened."

- Cathy Pagano

"In thinking about my earliest memories of elementary school, I remember being asked to bring a brown paper sack to class so that it could be decorated and worn as part of the Indian costume used to celebrate Thanksgiving. I was also instructed to make a less-than-authentic headband with Indian designs and feathers to complete this outfit. Looking back, I now know this was wrong.

The Thanksgiving Indian costume that all the other children and I made in my elementary classroom trivialized and degraded the descendants of the proud Wampanoags, whose ancestors attended the first Thanksgiving popularized in American culture. The costumes we wore bore no resemblance to Wampanoag clothing of that time period. Among the Wampanoag, and other American Indians, the wearing of feathers has significance. The feathers we wore were simply mockery, an educator’s interpretation of what an American Indian is supposed to look like.

The Thanksgiving myth has done so much damage and harm to the cultural self-esteem of generations of Indian people, including myself, by perpetuating negative and harmful images to both young Indian and non-Indian minds. There are so many things wrong with the happy celebration that takes place in elementary schools and its association to American Indian culture; compromised integrity, stereotyping, and cultural misappropriation are three examples.

When children are young, they are often exposed to antiquated images of American Indians through cartoons, books, and movies. But Thanksgiving re-enactments may be their most active personal encounter with Indian America, however poorly imagined, and many American children associate Thanksgiving actions and images with Indian culture for the rest of their lives. These cultural misunderstandings and stereotypical images perpetuate historical inaccuracy.

Tolerance of mockery by teachers is a great concern to Native parents. Much harm has been done to generations of Indian people by perpetuating negative and harmful images in young minds. Presenting Thanksgiving to children as primarily a happy time trivializes our shared history and teaches a half-truth. And while I agree that elementary-school children who celebrate the first Thanksgiving in their classrooms are too young to hear the truth, educators need to share Thanksgiving facts in all American schools sometime before high school graduation.

Let’s begin with Squanto (aka Tisquantum), a Patuxet, one of more than 50 tribes who formed the Wampanoag Confederacy. Around 1614, when he was perhaps 30, Squanto was kidnapped along with others of his people and taken across the Atlantic Ocean to Malaga, Spain, where they were sold into slavery. Monks in Spain bought Squanto, shared their faith with him, and made it possible for him to find his way to England in 1615. In England he worked for shipbuilder John Slany and became proficient in English. In 1619 Squanto returned to his homeland by joining an exploring expedition along the New England coast. When he arrived at the village where he has been raised, all his family and the rest of his tribe had been exterminated by a devastating plague.

What about the Pilgrims? Separatists who fled from England to Holland seeking to escape religious persecution by English authorities, and who later booked passage to North America, are now called "Pilgrims," though Americans did not widely use the term until the 1870s. In November, 1620, the Mayflower dropped anchor in present-day Provincetown Harbor. After exploring the coast for a few weeks, the Pilgrims landed and began building a permanent settlement on the ruins of Squanto’s Patuxet village, now renamed New Plymouth. Within the first year, half of the 102 Pilgrims who set out from Europe on the Mayflower had perished. In desperation the Pilgrims initially survived by eating corn from abandoned fields, raiding villages for stored food and seed, and robbing graves at Corn Hill.

Squanto was introduced to the Pilgrims in the spring of 1621, became friends with them, and taught them how to hunt and fish in order to survive in New England. He taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn by using fish as fertilizer and how to plant gourds around the corn so that the vines could climb the cornstalks. Due to his knowledge of English, the Pilgrims made Squanto an interpreter and emissary between the English and Wampanoag Confederacy.

What really happened at the first Thanksgiving in 1621? The Pilgrims did not introduce the concept of thanksgiving; the New England tribes already had autumn harvest feasts of thanksgiving. To the original people of this continent, each day is a day of thanksgiving to the Creator.  In the fall of 1621, William Bradford, the governor of the Plymouth Colony, decided to have a Plymouth harvest feast of thanksgiving and invited Massasoit, the Grand Sachem of the Wampanoag Federation, to join the Pilgrims. Massasoit came with approximately 90 warriors and brought food to add to the feast, including venison, lobster, fish, wild fowl, clams, oysters, eel, corn, squash and maple syrup. Massasoit and the ninety warriors stayed in Plymouth for three days. These original Thanksgiving foods are far different from the meals prepared in modern Thanksgiving celebrations.

Squanto died in 1622, but Massasoit outlived the era of relative peace in colonial New England. On May 26, 1637, near the present-day Mystic River in Connecticut, while their warriors were away, an estimated 400 to 700 Pequot women, children, and old men were massacred and burned by combined forces of the Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, and Saybrook (Connecticut) colonies and Narragansett and Mohegan allies. Colonial authorities found justification to kill most of the Pequot men and enslave the captured women and their children. Pequot slaves were sent to Bermuda and the West Indies. In 1975 the official number of Pequot people living in Connecticut was 21. Similar declines in Native population took place throughout New England as an estimated three hundred thousand Indians died by violence, and even more were displaced, in New England over the next few decades.

Looking at this history raises a question: Why should Native peoples celebrate Thanksgiving? Many Natives particularly in the New England area remember this attempted genocide as a factual part of their history and are reminded each year during the modern Thanksgiving. The United American Indians of New England meet each year at Plymouth Rock on Cole's Hill for a Day of Mourning. They gather at the feet of a statue of Grand Sachem Massasoit of the Wampanoag to remember and reflect in the hope that America will never forget.

...Do I celebrate Thanksgiving? No, I don’t celebrate. But I do take advantage of the holiday and get together with family and friends to share a large meal without once thinking of the Thanksgiving in 1621. I think it is the same in many Native households. It is ironic that Thanksgiving takes place during American Indian and Alaskan Native Heritage Month. An even greater irony is that more Americans today identify the day after Thanksgiving as Black Friday than as National American Indian Heritage Day." - Dennis W. Zotigh

Dennis W. Zotigh (Kiowa/San Juan Pueblo/Santee Dakota Indian) is a member of the Kiowa Gourd Clan and San Juan Pueblo Winter Clan and a descendeant of Sitting Bear and No Retreat, both principal war chiefs of the Kiowas. Dennis works as a writer and cultural specialist at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.

The original version of this essay was published on November 23, 2011.

the mission of woman's body and the holiness of all its parts

"The dancer of the future will be one whose body and soul have grown so harmoniously together that the natural language of that soul will have become the movement of the body. The dancer will not belong to a nation but to all humanity. She will dance not in the form of a nymph, nor fairy, nor coquette but in the form of a woman in its greatest and purest expression. She will realize the mission of woman's body and the holiness of all its parts. She will dance the changing life of nature, showing how each part is transformed into the other. From all parts of her body shall shine radiant intelligence, bringing to the world the message of the thoughts and aspirations of thousands of women. She shall dance the freedom of women ..."
- Isadora Duncan (1877 – 1927)

magic

"I think your applause died out, hands red, tired, and stained with the hue of once excited blood. I think you thought I was magic. Did my curtain lift when I forgot to take my bow? I think you thought you saw mirrors hiding in the fog and light. Backstage and alone I will slide off the cape, set down the hat, and bow to the empty seat I thought you were filling. I think you thought I was magic."

- T. Knott Gregson

and I thought you were brave 

and I thought you were true to your soul

I am tired of being at your beck and call

I am tired of seeing you controlled like a lifeless, helpless puppet on a string

fair-weather friend...

from my journals 

my mother

"My mother is a poem
I'll never be able to write,
though everything I write
is a poem to my mother."
- Sharon Doubiago

wishing my beloved mother a happy birthday and blessed year...

freedom

"I have no fear of losing you, for you aren't an object of my property, or anyone else's. I love you as you are, without attachment, without fears, without conditions, without egoism, trying not to absorb you. I love you freely because I love your freedom, as well as mine." 

- Anthony de Mello

the forbidden necklace

...it was all about the necklace. She wore it, knowing it did not belong to her - that it never would belong to her, knowing it was forbidden. Through her own temptation and curiosity, she sealed her fate the instant she closed the gem-encrusted clasp. Such disrespect and self-betrayal would haunt her the remainder of her mortal lives. The necklace had been created for a high priestess and possessed magic and mystery which only a high priestess would understand...

excerpt from a short story written years ago

friendship

"Never forget the days I spent with you. Continue to be my friend, as you will always find me yours."

- Ludwig van Beethoven

Letter to my Worried 20-Year-Old Son - Molly Barker

"Hi Sweet Man:

I’m so glad you called me last night. I’m sorry if I sounded a little groggy. I had just gone to bed and was drifting off. I’m so grateful that you and I have the kind of relationship where you can call me when you are afraid. That says a lot I think…about you…about me.

About us.

But since you are in New York City and I am at my usual place in the coffee shop where I do a lot of my work, I thought it might be a good idea to just write you a letter.

The world can be a scary place. It’s just part of living in it. I’ve been scared a lot. I think people like us who feel “stuff” get scared more easily. We feel before we think and sometimes that gets us in trouble.

But you know, Hank…it’s also our gift.  People feel safe with us.

I’ve learned a lot in my life and as I look at my own fear with the current state of the world, I have come to a few revelations that I think may help you with yours. So…here goes…

1. Accept the fact that you feel helpless and really, really scared about the current course of human events. This is perfectly normal and absolutely natural in response to what’s happening; but also remember that you are important, because you were born. You have an essential role in the universe. You were chosen to be here. Never ever forget that, son. You have a purpose.

2. Even though at times, you may feel small and powerless, you possess more power than you can possibly imagine.  You have the capacity to change the world with each and every encounter you have. It’s true. You have the power to positively influence all those with whom you come into contact, which on any given day can be literally hundreds and hundreds of people. People who remember this…are the ones who change the world. Sometimes they are famous and sometimes they are not.  Sometimes they are rich and sometimes they are not. But the people who remember this, change the world and are remembered for doing so. Be that person.

3. Even though it can be scary to admit you’ve made mistakes or that you’ve been wrong, you are free with me and those who love you to admit them. You are wonderfully human Hank…complete with your own story, your own journey and your own experiences. When appropriate share your story and your feelings. Share your mistakes and your fears. When you are vulnerable, your secrets no longer own you. You become free and in the process show others the way.

4. I know the internet can be scary…there is so much anger, violence and fear there… that can get in the way of interacting with what’s real. Be intentional with how you use it. Set it aside when you feel fear and look to the beauty and wonder around you. Talk to someone.  Touch something that is real. Smell a flower. Eat something good. Go for a run.  Make art. Dance. Hold someone’s hand.  Cry hard at sunsets. Laugh with your friends. The world is not nearly as scary when we take time to be in it.

5. It’s so easy right now to be afraid of “them.”  But my experience has been that we have a lot more in common with others than we realize. We all hurt, cry, laugh and love. We all want to be seen, heard and know we matter. Look to those around you and realize this.  Assume positive intent when you see another person and assume that they come to you in the same way. Smile.  Wave. Open your heart.

6. Take time to be still. Watch the trees sway in the wind. Feel the rain on your skin. Be still and know that there is a power greater than yourself. See it in nature, the sound of the traffic, the changing of the stoplight. This force is conspiring in your favor…at all times. Name it for yourself and call it to you when you are afraid.

7. Give up needing to be right every once in a while. Watch what happens. It’s like magic. There is nothing to resist and nothing that resists you. The world needs safe places for people to feel right…without resistance. So be that. Be a safe place for someone to get out their fear and anger…to express themselves…to discover themselves. Every moment you provide safety for another, is another moment the world sings.

8. Don’t postpone your joy, son. Don’t postpone it! Yes…it is hard to feel it with so much pain and suffering in the world.  It is so easy to feel the burden of the world on your shoulders, but watch the children. Watch them dance, sing, laugh, skip. Joy is essential to the well being of those around you. Be joyful. Seek Joy.  Bring Joy. Joy heals. If you can’t find it, go be with the children.

9. And Love. Love even when you don’t want to. Push back your shoulders, physically open up your ribcage and walk through the New York streets being love.  Let love pour out of your mouth, your eyes, your stride and the very essence of you. The world needs you to be love and light and wonder and joy. Because of all the things I’ve learned, lived and experienced I know one thing for sure. As a matter of fact it is for me, an absolute truth.

Fear cannot live where there is love. So be that. Be love.

You got this Hank. You got this. Please feel free to come home anytime you need to be reminded of these things. You are safe with me always.

Momma" - Molly Barker

with gratitude to Adriana Murphy for introducing me to this beautiful testament to motherhood...

the soul is an artist

"Each soul is unique, and we are called upon to break out of the minimum security prison of conformity and mediocracy to experience our soul's true magic and power...The soul is an artist. Its nature is to create, and its natural expression is in the sacred archetypal roles of the dancer, the singer, the poet, the actor, and the healer. Life is a cabaret, and our challenge is to act out our essential self on the stage of the world."

- Gabrielle Roth

grounded in wisdom of uncertainty

- 2013 mixed media on canvas -

wisdom from Deepak Chopra:

In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty...in the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past, from the known, which is the prison of past conditioning.

And in our willingness to step into the unknown, the field of all possibilities, we surrender ourselves to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the universe.

...in order to acquire anything in the physical universe, you have to relinquish your attachment to it.  This doesn't mean you give up the intention to create your desire.  You don't give up the intention, and you don't give up the desire.  You give up your attachment to the result.

This is a very powerful thing to do.  The moment you relinquish your attachment to the result, combining one-pointed intention with detachment at the same time, you will have that which you desire.  Anything you want can be acquired through detachment, because detachment is based on the unquestioning belief in the power of your true Self.

Attachment, on the other hand, is based on fear and insecurity - and the need for security is based on not knowing the true Self.  The source of wealth, of abundance, or of anything in the physical world is the Self; it is the consciousness that knows how to fulfill every need.  Everything else is a symbol: cars, houses, bank notes, clothes, airplanes.  Symbols are transitory; they come and they go.  Chasing symbols is like settling for the map instead of the territory.  It creates anxiety; it ends up making you feel hollow and empty inside, because you exchange your Self for the symbols of your Self.

...The search for security is an illusion.  In ancient wisdom traditions, the solution to this whole dilemma lies in the wisdom of insecurity, or the wisdom of uncertainty.  This means that the search for security and certainty is actually an ATTACHMENT to the known.  And what's the known?  The known is our PAST.  The known is nothing other than the prison of past conditioning.  There's no evolution in that - absolutely none at all.  And when there is no evolution, there is stagnation, entropy, disorder and decay.

Uncertainty, on the other hand, is the fertile ground of pure creativity and freedom.  Uncertainty means stepping into the unknown in every moment of our existence. The unknown is the field of all possibilities, ever fresh, ever new, always open to the creation of new manifestations.  Without uncertainty and the unknown, life is just the stale repetition of outworn memories.  You become the victim of the past, and your tormentor today is your self left over from yesterday.

...In your willingness to step into the unknown, you will have the wisdom of uncertainty factored in.  This means that in every moment of your life, you will have excitement, adventure, mystery. You will experience the FUN of  LIFE - the magic, the celebration, the exhilaration, and the exultation of your own spirit.

Every day you can look for the excitement of what may occur in the field of all possibilities.  When you experience uncertainty, you are on the right path - so don't give it up.  You don't need to have a complete and rigid idea of what you'll be doing next week or next year, because if you have a very clear idea of what's going to happen and you get rigidly attached to it, then you shut out a whole range of possibilities.

...When you get attached, you freeze your desire from that infinite fluidity and flexibility into a rigid framework which interferes with the whole process of creation...With uncertainty factored in, you might change direction in any moment if you find a higher ideal, or if you find something more exciting.  You are also less likely to force solutions on problems, which enables you to stay alert to opportunities.

...You can look at every problem you have in your life as an opportunity for some greater benefit. You can stay alert to opportunities by being grounded in the wisdom of uncertainty. When your preparedness meets opportunity, the solution will spontaneously appear.

What comes out of that is often called "good luck."  Good luck is nothing but preparedness and opportunity coming together.  When the two are mixed together with an alert witnessing of the chaos, a solution emerges that will be of evolutionary benefit to you and to all those that you come into contact with.  -- Deepak Chopra

prayer for peace

Lord, make me a channel of your peace,

That where there is hatred, I may bring love:

Where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness:

Where there is discord, I may  bring harmony:

Where there is error, I may bring truth:

Where there is doubt, I may  bring faith:

Where there is despair, I may bring hope:

Where there are shadows, I may bring light:

Where there is sadness, I may bring joy:

Lord, grant I may seek rather

To comfort than to be comforted;

To understand than to be understood;

To love than to be loved;

For it is by forgetting self
That one finds,

It is by forgiving
That one is forgiven,

It is by dying
That one awakens to eternal life.
Amen.

- "Prayer for Peace" by Mother Teresa and The Sisters of Charity
adapted from the Prayer of St. Francis

one of my favorite prayers