Completing the magical circle

Structure seems to have captured my attention lately. 

Last Saturday we explored Louise Nevelson's work with Artsy Fartsy kids. I took some of the leftover scraps and created my own piece. I loved playing with the the re-cyled pieces of wood, moving and arranging them until they suited me. At one point, it became so hot in the room and we needed more ventilation for the spray-painting booth, that I opened a studio window. As I did, I noticed a scraggly, weather-beaten and warped strip of plywood. Perfect, I thought for my scuplture. I removed the rusted screws and added it. 

And, then I left it for the weekend.

All week, I have been slowly gluing sections together and tweaking the design. After most of it was glued, I realized it wasn't gong to be a wall piece, but could stand on its own and was interesting from all angles. But, it needed something. I removed the one plastic piece, which no longer seemed to fit and shifted the warped plywood from across the front to the top. It's sort of Picasso meets Zen temple. I adore it and the process that bore it!

It is solid, aesthetically pleasing and gives me great pleasure.

At the same time, my brain has been developing some ideas around the skeletal structure and I suspect this process is entirely related to my creative building exercise.

A Thomas Kelly quote from a Sunday Quaker worship sparked my imagination. Something about lingering in "double-minded obedience." The night before, I'd remembered a dream snippet of recognizing to love myself from within. All of this moves me closer to deeply knowing that the seed of God is, indeed, within me. Focusing on this wisdom moves me away from double-mindedness and into deeper relationship with Spirit, wholeness, being, existence, Truth and the eternal.

I mulled this over in worship, primed by the Kelly quote and God's words to Moses from the burning bush: "I am that I am." They have haunted me for some time, though they are such a mystery and their definition, for me, is beyond words; more like an intuitive, bodily knowing.

As I sank deeper into the golden silence, a meditation came to me:

Bathe yourself in love
completely, unlike any
other time

[feel the love]
bubbling up from inside,

trust and go deep
into the Tree-of-Life roots
work your way up your spine;

the entrance is the place in
your sacrum I showed you

you already have deep roots
trust those

take my hand and we'll ascend
toward the nothingness of Love

leave everything else behind

I had an experience last year of journeying through the Tree of Life. This time, I understood the tree represented me, my body and journey. My body is the trunk. My faith is the roots and I am pushing the Christ Energy that I can feel, which is the seed of God, within me up and out the third eye toward this no-thing-ness of Love, void of emotion and thinking; a place of pure being.

A week later, again in worship, this tree-like skeletal system flashed in my mind and I began to identify other body parts:
• Feet – roots of faith
• Sacrum – where God resides (sacred space)
• Heart – where Jesus lives
• Reproductive organs – creativity
• Head – wisdom/Sophia
• Eyes – awareness
• Hands – compassion
• Ears – discernment and Truth
• Third eye – divine connection

I am grateful to tangibly know this sense of Spirit within my own body and to be able to taste it as I create an outer structure that has given me such joy.

• When has a tangible act sparked a spiritual Truth or epiphany?
• What was my emotional response?
• Where do I imagine Spirit? Outside or within?
• How has my vision of Spirit's placement or proximity changed?
• How can my body be a temple or vessel?


we crawled through
the tangle of roots
into the altar of the sacrum,
traveling up
higher and higher
as the branches grew thin
to the point of
nothingness

the place everything becomes love

we are birthed from this
nothingness and our life's
work is to make our
way back, completing
the magical circle,
our cycle and purpose

Listen to this post:

Nothingness of Love

I don't recall whether the first time I was sitting or laying, meditating in some fashion. Either way, my guide quietly arrived as if from nowhere and gently took my hand. I didn't question; there was no need. My instructions were wordless and did not originate in my brain. They were heartfelt.

We entered through the roots: thick, rich, deep and ancient. Through mud and silt, frothy loam and insects. This gnarled, substantive infrastructure had been planted eons ago and never budged, just hunkered down father reaching somewhere distant and unknown. 

Up we glided through spaces only crawl-able to a boundary-less elevator that, without seeming to move, whisked my guide and me up and past rows and rows of glistening hospital-like basinettes. Clean, but certainly not sterile. Protected, but not unapproachable. Millions of them, jammed inside this tree trunk, with an exterior I could only imagine. As we rose, the tree grew thinner, so slender I was certain we were headed for oblivion. Then we stopped, exited and I was directed to one specific, unmarked cradle. In fact all of the beds were unmarked and unattended. Something told me there were well tended though. 

Some being, the only other besides me and my guide, reached in and down, picked up a blanket bundle and handed it to me, motioning me to open it. A gift, I assumed. I was too stunned to open it initially, but, sans words, knew I must. Gingerly, I peeled back the cloth layers and almost dropped the package. It was like nothing I had ever seen: a primal embryo, shining. At first glance, I was repulsed. I had expected a human infant, my ridiculously human response. 

Yet, as I held this entity, a deep understanding swelled in me – one of those brief and rare glimmers of Truth. I was being handed my own soul, unmarked in all of its naked beauty, oozing only love. This was me! And I had been given a precious journey inside the tree of life.

Today, the second incident arrived during centering prayer, bursting in with no guide. I was in the tree again, rising toward the top with no memory of entering through the roots. Just plopped there, rising higher and higher as the tree grew narrower and, eventually into a thin line, the line graying to nothing.

Nothing. That's the beginning and end. The place of Spirit, our birthplace. It is the nothingness of love. The higher up one travels within the tree, the less formed the beings in basinettes become. The less formed they are, the more pure they are as they approach the Nothingness of Love. This is our origin. The nothingness is magical and like the ether, ether[ial]. Not even a place, but a way void of emotion and thinking. This Nothingness of Love is pure being.

I'm not sure how or why I arrived here, just grateful that I did. I had a poolside conversation earlier about how our only purpose in life is to love and life is not about reacting, but responding ... responding in love. An hour-and-a-half later, I opened my "Daily Reader for Contemplative Living" with: 

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.                     – Mark 12:30

Yes, I agreed during centering prayer, I do love you with all of my heart and soul. Please, teach me how to do so with my mind, which wanders and worries, and with all of my strength – what does that even mean? I had used the word love as my entrance to prayer today. And, without warning, I was inside the tree, again.

• What is my understanding of love?
• Of God's love?
• Of human love?
• Self love?
• What do I believe is the origin of love?


in the torrent
of life 

all of its
demands and
imperfection

my friend
recognizes
a swirling 
pool, where
she is thrashing

also the
shore above

and the
opportunity
to pull herself
out

Listen to this post:

Balancing act

Ma Joad, I was thinking as I slid into a yogic forward fold, noticing my grounded wide feet, spread toes and heels sunk into the mat. You know, the mother and driving force in Grapes of Wrath.

I had not thought of her since high school, when I wrote an essay for an exam, choosing her as the topic of my response. I don’t remember the question, just how her solidness struck me as the pillar of the family as I described her physique as a metaphor for her place and influence on the Joad clan. Promptly after, as we all discussed the test, much to my horror, I discovered no one else elected to answer the question citing the Grapes of Wrath. I must’ve screwed up, I stewed until a few weeks later as I gingerly opened the scoring envelope, squinting and steeling myself for bad news. All for nought: I captured the highest grade. I need to remind myself of that time and its lesson of not doubting myself – especially when I take the road less traveled. I had felt really good about my answer until I compared. That’s what typically gets me in trouble.

As we transitioned from the cascading bend into Warrior III, lifting one leg and spreading our arms, I felt balanced, graceful and the feminine foundation for my daughters, 121/2 and 151/2. I am their Ma Joad, even the days I struggle. I want to be perfect for them, there in every way conceivable, but, alas, I can not. So I do my best, which isn’t so swift some days, but pretty on-target others.

I’m trying to get my act together much as I can. That seems like a life’s work . Five weeks of physical relapse has taken me back to high school and doubting myself, but not totally. Something tells me on a deeper level that I am not in the place I was in high school or even last time I experienced a flare-up. I think I’m a bit higher up the mountain with a little more or, at least, different perspective. Both my pastoral counselor and chiropractor insist I’ve opened an old wound and am shedding or healing.

Right now, yoga hurts more, it’s hard to get up at 6 to swim laps when sleep comes as a luxury, yet I persevere no doubt thanks to divine grace more than any of my own. And another old nemesis has come to haunt me: the flirtation of money.

I believe it’s also haunting my youngest. She can’t manage to hang onto it and craves more. I tend to save it and disassociate from it. We’ve always been mirrors for each other. I think the learning now is for me to worry less about it and for her to see it’s not that important. Perhaps my dislike of it has forced her in the other direction. We both need balance. Seems I must find mine first as an example.

As we tackle our hurtles, I have decided we need to meditate every evening before bed TOGETHER. She needs it. I need it. We need each other. And, when two or three are gathered, you know what transpires.

If Ma Joad held her family together, then I can try likewise, reinforced by allowing space for Spirit in my life and my daughters’.

• When have I felt like the pillar of the family?

• When have I felt unbalanced?

• How does doubt topple that balance?

• What throws me off?

• What helps me rebalance toward Spirit?

firm and functional,

maybe not pretty

flat and strong,

they carry

me through

thick and thin

health and illness

isolation and oneness

they keep my

balance

and I am

grateful

Listen to this post:

Against the cultural flow

After what seemed like a very short night full of anxiety, I roused myself at 5:30, went to the gym pool between getting girls off to school (with much thanks to my other half or it would not be possible) and came home physically re-charged. but somewhat lacking mentally.

I showered off the chlorine, fed my growling tummy and decided to head to my studio FIRST instead of the computer, from which I never seem to emerge. Maybe that's why I rarely get to my studio. Anyway, in my safe haven, I journaled and prayed and made art and pushed the negative out ... and into the paper and prayer. En route back to the house, the garden called; specifically, the eggplant, green beans and pepperoncini. They were begging to be harvested or languish. I obliged, having to go in twice for bigger colanders. I tenderly twisted the deep-plum colored eggplants off the vine, then headed to the strung-up beans on so many tangled yellow vines. I gathered for over an hour. Each time I finished an area and dumped a load, I looked back to see more. They beans appeared to grow magically as soon as one disappeared.

The meditative task worked its spell on me and I laughed at the metaphor before me: "There IS plenty."

That is what I was struggling to figure out in the studio, my concern for not having paying work at this moment and lots of expenses.

It's so very hard to be outside of the American norm: to be called to ministry that is not yet a livelihood. It seems everyone else has returned to a rhythm and something productive such as school or a regular job. While I wait, which it seems I am often called to do.

So this was my prayer today and the response:

Dear God/Spirit –


I release all
of my anxiety
and concerns
   to you


Replace them
with your vision,
your work for me
...

You didn't get
    this way accidentally
  
You have the freedom
now because I provided
it – giving you time
   to prepare the way

Get strong and healthy
 for when the work
 does come.


And it will


Unburden your stress
              your worry
                  anxiety


Give it all to
      me
I don't want you
to carry any of it,
child


   Only my love
for you ... to
   transfer to others


breathe that in
let it embrace you


• With what am I wrestling right now?
• Is there a way to release it?
• Is prayer a possibility?
• If so, what is my prayer?
• When said, what's the response?

Spirit releasing me to my work, against the cultural flow