I've got a Pluto-Mars square going one right now so I've got energy coming out my ears. I've been doing and doing and doing and one of the things I've been doing is thinking about Venus.
I am raising two girlie-girls, which was not my intention. They both love pink and sparkles and fairies and ballerinas and Barbies. There was a two and a half year period when Hazel would break down in tears if you asked her to go out of the house in anything other than a pink party dress. It was cute for awhile and then, when winter hit and she had to put on a snow suit (which, by definition, involves pants, God forbid) every morning involved a hysterical crying fit and it wasn't cute anymore.
Now Hazel happily wears pants but she's also already had two boyfriends (I blame her father. I didn't have my first boyfriend until college.) and the other day she told me she liked one of the babies in the kiddie pool because she was "skinny". Uh-oh. Time to start grappling with Venus.
This is not the first time I've been confronted with such a Venusian focus on aesthetic in my family. My mother grew up in Memphis, and though the girlie tendencies of Southern women seems to have passed her by, they were fully developed in my Grandma Mary. She was the sort of woman who never left the house without lipstick, planned her outfits for every occasion, and loved to flirt. When shopping with me for clothes she would say things like, "Why would you wear that baggy thing? It makes you look pregnant! You've got curves. Show them off!"
I will never forget the day we were watching TV and Janet Reno, then Attorney General, came on the news. Grandma turned to me and said, "That woman is uglier than homemade sin!"
"Grandma!" I exclaimed, in horror, "That woman is probably one of the smartest women in the country!"
Fixing me with a look that said I clearly was not as smart as the Attorney General she replied, "I didn't say she was stupid. I said she was ugly."
After I got past my early feminist outrage at her focus on looks I could appreciate my grandmother's enjoyment of beauty. She maintained a lovely, comfortable home, adored art and had terrific style. She took sensual pleasure in the world around her, loved colors, textures and tastes. She made me rub fabrics and smell perfumes and stare at paintings. When I was with her I noticed things I wouldn't otherwise- the color of a bird or the shape hiding in a cloud, because she trained me to pay attention and soak it all in.
My grandmother also chose, after my grandfather died when she was fairly young, not to remarry. She set her own schedule, made her own friends, and traveled around the country and the world for the next forty years. There were many reasons she chose to remain single but one of them was she liked to do things her own way. Her particular mix of girlishness, sensuality and fierce independence was what I loved about her.
Now I know that Hazel's comment about the baby being skinny and the fact that she can tell me which of her friends are skinny and which are not is not just aesthetic. It's all the shit in our culture about women and girls having to conform to a single image of beauty that is not normal or healthy. And we have talked, and will continue to talk, about the importance of being healthy, everybody being different and the many types of beauty and bodies out there.
But for her, and I suspect for Ruby, there is an inherent focus on all things Venusian- beauty, aesthetic, balance, sensuality. Hazel's got four planets in Taurus (ruled by Venus), including the Sun and the Moon. She's also got Venus itself in Capricorn, which can tend towards formality and reserve but also tradition and there's nothing more traditional than femininity.
The important piece to me is not whether she continues to love pink, sparkly things and wearing dresses. It's that she always chooses what is beautiful to her regardless of whether or not anyone else would choose it. This ability to choose from the authentic Self is at the heart of Venus as much as an affinity for beauty is. It is not at heart a responsive choosing that accommodates or nurtures another. That is the Moon's territory. The Moon says "I need". I need to be a part of something. Venus says "I choose". I choose because it makes me happy, it feeds my Soul, it satisfies me.
Interestingly, since having Hazel I have become increasingly girlie. Maybe it is her influence, maybe I'm becoming more traditional as I get older (Capricorns are known for it), maybe I'm just embodying my Venus in the 2nd House better, but mostly it just feels like as I settle more and more comfortably into my own skin that that's what my skin wants. It's funny, because many people might say that I have always been girlie but when I was younger it felt more like a costume I put on than something I chose happily for myself. From the time I was a tiny girl I was aware, was forced to be aware, of how men and boys reacted to me as a female. I got sexualized very young and so I saw myself as an unavoidably sexual creature with all the traditional feminine trappings that came along with that. The fact that I've been fully developed since 8th grade just underlined that point. And admittedly, I spent so much time feeling broken, dirty and powerless that being able to elicit sexual response from men carried a certain feeling of power that was alluring.
But, again, all of that flirting and dressing up and showing off my girlish figure felt more about the Moon than Venus. It was all about responding to and accommodating the needs of others in order to get something I needed- power, safety, attention, affirmation. None of it felt like what I would do left to my own devices. It felt like I had no choice given the cards I'd been dealt.
Now, though I'm not much of a flirt, I am more feminine than ever. The difference is that now I choose to be that way because it's what I want. It's a lucky coincidence that it works for my husband, but I don't honestly do it for him. I do it for me because I love it. And I believe that claiming this for myself will hopefully prevent me from projecting it onto my girls while only allowing myself the Moon/Mother role because that's a recipe for pathology and resentment on both sides, let me assure you.
So, this is the lesson of Venus that I want to teach to my girls- that no matter what anybody else wants or thinks or needs you have to choose what makes you feel good, what makes you feel beautiful, what makes you happy in your own skin. Because when you really choose what is true for you then your Soul shines out of every pore of your being and you are beyond beautiful. You are radiant.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
On the Dark Side of the Moon
For the first time in seven years I went recently for a private reading with my astrology teacher. I went expecting to talk about transits, the movement of the outer planets in the sky and how they're totally messing with my life, and how to re-frame that experience for myself so I can hopefully see the greater point of it all and not just feel lost and fucked. Instead we spent almost the entire time talking about progressions and the Lunation Cycle, which accomplished the same thing in a totally unexpected way.
Transits are the effect of the movement of the planets in the sky as they touch upon significant places in our natal chart. Because they are about the interactive relationship between something happening outside with who we are inside they often feel like they are happening "to" us. People or events "do" things to us which give us the opportunity, if we are conscious about it, to develop a more expansive and complex sense of who we are. At least that's the potential use and significance, but the "from the outside-ness" of it can still leave us feeling put upon, out of control and completely, totally fucked.
Progressions, in contrast, are about how our Soul changes and transforms as we move through our life. They have to do with how the essential structure of who we are transforms to meet the manifest world. If you think of the natal chart as the skeleton, then the basic structure of the skeleton never changes. But the body grows, just as the Soul grows, and so the skeleton moves through the world differently depending on where we are in relationship to where we started.
The Lunation Cycle takes the pattern of the waxing and the waning of the moon and teaches us how that pattern mirrors on a small scale the larger pattern we all experience in our life of Spirit offering us a seed and then the gradual growth of that seed in the world through us. The cycle of the Moon is really about the relationship between the Sun and the Moon, how the Moon reflects the Sun's light down upon the Earth. Similarly, the Lunation Cycle is about how Spirit instills in us an idea, a bit of illumination, that we digest and grow through the progression of our Moon until we have taken it to its completion and it "dies" so we can be seeded again with a new idea.
Most of us are not born at the moment of a new moon, however, so we enter this life already seeded with some inherited idea, and depending on where we are in the cycle we have more or less time to live with that idea before it has fully grown and died so that we can be seeded with a new idea. I was born three days after a full Moon, halfway through a Lunation Cycle that began with the new Moon at 26 degrees Sagittarius. The symbol for that degree is a flag bearer. Jones states that:
"This is a symbol of the enduring significance which tends to overshadow the more immediate interests or wholly selfish concerns of man, and the emphasis is on the natural supremacy of common ideals over mere individual ambitions. Implicit in the symbolism is the call for a high self-sacrifice, and for the development of such new dimensions of experience as will permit the self to realize its transcendental aspirations. Every resource of normal life is commandeered for the greater potentiality."
Anyone who has been following my posts for awhile knows that I was born into a family created through my parents deep desire to make the world better. They are people who believe deeply in being of service, in working for the greater good. And they tried, through the places they chose to live and the children they chose to adopt, to create a more just world. And, unfortunately and unintentionally, they offered me up on the altar of their idealism for sacrifice.
I experienced my first new Moon, when the cycle of a new idea seeded in my life, 10 days before my 13th Birthday, December 24, 1984. The symbol for the degree of that new moon at 26 degrees Capricorn is a water sprite. Jones writes:
"This is a symbol of a pure mastery of experience in its inner and spiritual aspect, and of the possession of every richness of outer reality in a highly imaginative or personal form. Here the pure integrity of self asserts itself as a protection against blind or inept participation in the current course of events, and calls for a conscious self-idealization in even the most unimportant or transient functions of life. Spontaneity is demanded as a necessary quickening to values."
What actually happened at the point of that new Moon? I kicked my brother David out of my bed for the first and last time when I woke up in the guest room of my grandparents house where we were visiting for Christmas and found him spooned up behind me with his hand down my pants. He'd been sexually abusive since I was in pre-school but after that night he never touched me in that way ever again.
By finally telling him to get the hell out or I was going to scream bloody murder the tiny little butterfly of my Self cracked open the cocoon of my family and started to spread her wings. Slowly but surely I have progressed through the growth of this idea, this calling to assert and develop myself as a creative, conscious human being, for the last 26 years.
This spring I enter the final phase of this cycle, the balsamic moon phase, which can be a dark and lonely time. It is a time of deep introspection and of unnecessary manifestations of the near-ending cycle falling away. Luckily, I'm entering it with my eyes open and some understanding of the necessity of this phase in the cycle. Old things must die to create space for new things to be born. There is grief in it. There is also yearning and a fierce sense of expectation, impatience even.
The next cycle begins on July 19, 2014 when the moon arrives at 26 degrees Aquarius. The symbol is a hydrometer. "This is a symbol of the powers of immediate analysis which enable man to achieve his commonplace or practical goals. Here he has full assurance of an intelligence and order to be found throughout the world of everyday realities, and he comes to see that a very real cooperation of natural conditions and forces may be enlisted for any project of special concern. The individual learns that when he will take responsibility for events he may shape them to his own convenience, and thus find ways to capitalize on any difficulties that arise", according to Jones.
As I've said before, I have no idea what is coming next. But I do finally have faith that it is coming. For now I am just trying to get from here to there with a modicum of grace and an appreciation for the necessity of every step on the journey.
Transits are the effect of the movement of the planets in the sky as they touch upon significant places in our natal chart. Because they are about the interactive relationship between something happening outside with who we are inside they often feel like they are happening "to" us. People or events "do" things to us which give us the opportunity, if we are conscious about it, to develop a more expansive and complex sense of who we are. At least that's the potential use and significance, but the "from the outside-ness" of it can still leave us feeling put upon, out of control and completely, totally fucked.
Progressions, in contrast, are about how our Soul changes and transforms as we move through our life. They have to do with how the essential structure of who we are transforms to meet the manifest world. If you think of the natal chart as the skeleton, then the basic structure of the skeleton never changes. But the body grows, just as the Soul grows, and so the skeleton moves through the world differently depending on where we are in relationship to where we started.
The Lunation Cycle takes the pattern of the waxing and the waning of the moon and teaches us how that pattern mirrors on a small scale the larger pattern we all experience in our life of Spirit offering us a seed and then the gradual growth of that seed in the world through us. The cycle of the Moon is really about the relationship between the Sun and the Moon, how the Moon reflects the Sun's light down upon the Earth. Similarly, the Lunation Cycle is about how Spirit instills in us an idea, a bit of illumination, that we digest and grow through the progression of our Moon until we have taken it to its completion and it "dies" so we can be seeded again with a new idea.
Most of us are not born at the moment of a new moon, however, so we enter this life already seeded with some inherited idea, and depending on where we are in the cycle we have more or less time to live with that idea before it has fully grown and died so that we can be seeded with a new idea. I was born three days after a full Moon, halfway through a Lunation Cycle that began with the new Moon at 26 degrees Sagittarius. The symbol for that degree is a flag bearer. Jones states that:
"This is a symbol of the enduring significance which tends to overshadow the more immediate interests or wholly selfish concerns of man, and the emphasis is on the natural supremacy of common ideals over mere individual ambitions. Implicit in the symbolism is the call for a high self-sacrifice, and for the development of such new dimensions of experience as will permit the self to realize its transcendental aspirations. Every resource of normal life is commandeered for the greater potentiality."
Anyone who has been following my posts for awhile knows that I was born into a family created through my parents deep desire to make the world better. They are people who believe deeply in being of service, in working for the greater good. And they tried, through the places they chose to live and the children they chose to adopt, to create a more just world. And, unfortunately and unintentionally, they offered me up on the altar of their idealism for sacrifice.
I experienced my first new Moon, when the cycle of a new idea seeded in my life, 10 days before my 13th Birthday, December 24, 1984. The symbol for the degree of that new moon at 26 degrees Capricorn is a water sprite. Jones writes:
"This is a symbol of a pure mastery of experience in its inner and spiritual aspect, and of the possession of every richness of outer reality in a highly imaginative or personal form. Here the pure integrity of self asserts itself as a protection against blind or inept participation in the current course of events, and calls for a conscious self-idealization in even the most unimportant or transient functions of life. Spontaneity is demanded as a necessary quickening to values."
What actually happened at the point of that new Moon? I kicked my brother David out of my bed for the first and last time when I woke up in the guest room of my grandparents house where we were visiting for Christmas and found him spooned up behind me with his hand down my pants. He'd been sexually abusive since I was in pre-school but after that night he never touched me in that way ever again.
By finally telling him to get the hell out or I was going to scream bloody murder the tiny little butterfly of my Self cracked open the cocoon of my family and started to spread her wings. Slowly but surely I have progressed through the growth of this idea, this calling to assert and develop myself as a creative, conscious human being, for the last 26 years.
This spring I enter the final phase of this cycle, the balsamic moon phase, which can be a dark and lonely time. It is a time of deep introspection and of unnecessary manifestations of the near-ending cycle falling away. Luckily, I'm entering it with my eyes open and some understanding of the necessity of this phase in the cycle. Old things must die to create space for new things to be born. There is grief in it. There is also yearning and a fierce sense of expectation, impatience even.
The next cycle begins on July 19, 2014 when the moon arrives at 26 degrees Aquarius. The symbol is a hydrometer. "This is a symbol of the powers of immediate analysis which enable man to achieve his commonplace or practical goals. Here he has full assurance of an intelligence and order to be found throughout the world of everyday realities, and he comes to see that a very real cooperation of natural conditions and forces may be enlisted for any project of special concern. The individual learns that when he will take responsibility for events he may shape them to his own convenience, and thus find ways to capitalize on any difficulties that arise", according to Jones.
As I've said before, I have no idea what is coming next. But I do finally have faith that it is coming. For now I am just trying to get from here to there with a modicum of grace and an appreciation for the necessity of every step on the journey.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Sometimes Others Say it Better
I got back late Friday night, or rather early Saturday morning, from a conference down in the DC area that I went to for work. It was great, very inspiring, but between the odd travel food, the dead hours watching hotel TV, and the restless sleep, my brain is a little fried. So, I hope you will forgive me if instead of offering up whatever random thoughts I might be able to squeeze out of my parched brain I offer a poem by someone else. A framed copy of this poem was given to Matthew and me when we got married and, though I read it then and found a place for it in the house, I wasn't really struck by it. And then the other day I happened to read it as I was getting dressed and it bowled me over. It encapsulates perfectly the spirit with which I am living this life I've been given. And the irony of the subject, given where I live, is not lost upon me.
Ithaka
As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - don't be afraid of them:
You'll never find things
like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts
raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon -
you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along
inside your soul.
Unless your soul sets them up
in front of you.
Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen
for the first time,
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind -
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many
Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn again
from those who know.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are
destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you
reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained
along the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her, you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor,
Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become,
so full of experience,
you will have understood by then
what these Ithakas mean.
- Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)
As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - don't be afraid of them:
You'll never find things
like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts
raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon -
you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along
inside your soul.
Unless your soul sets them up
in front of you.
Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen
for the first time,
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind -
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many
Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn again
from those who know.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are
destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you
reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained
along the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her, you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor,
Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become,
so full of experience,
you will have understood by then
what these Ithakas mean.
- Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)
Sunday, February 14, 2010
To See and Be Seen
I have been kicking around a post in my head for several weeks now but haven't been able to get clear on it. I have been thinking about love, and particularly my marriage, which feels so solid and sweet and satisfying these days. It hasn't always been this way. In fact, it was a long time in coming. We were both pretty miserable when we met. Miserable and self-protective and cranky. It was kind of like porcupines mating. When we got married I argued for a picture of two porcupines in wedding outfits on the cover of the invitations but Matthew didn't think it was as amusing as I did. Ah, well.
Luckily for us we are both also stubborn as hell so we stuck it out when others might have run. Many others had run, actually, on both of us. I don't know what Matthew's exes excuses were, but mine usually went along the lines of, "Why do you have to be so intense? I thought we were just hanging out..." But Matthew, to his credit, has never once said this to me. From the beginning he liked my intensity, my passion, my commitment to reaching for something greater and higher. Having him love about me some of the things that felt so essential to my sense of myself, things that had always ultimately turned off so many in the past, made me start to love those things about me, too.
Loving the fiery, sparkly bits is easier than loving all the dark, nasty bits though, and after we moved here he got to see plenty of those, too. Something about the way that we are together moved me to expose myself to a greater and greater degree, and with every exposure where he didn't leave it was like he was giving a piece of me back to myself. With him I stopped censoring myself, stopped bartering away parts of me for love.
I have talked in the past about what the experience of having an interception is for me. I have my Sun in Capricorn intercepted in the 1st House (Self) and Cancer intercepted in the 7th House (Other). For me what it has felt like is that my Self is cut-off from the external world. It lives inside of me but it hasn't always been able to get out very easily. Similarly, in partnerships there has always been this vast interior space in which I am experiencing the whole thing, but I'm in there by myself. Which is a terribly lonely feeling to live with all the time that you're supposedly loving someone.
When Matthew and I moved to Ithaca and made a real home together finally someone climbed inside that big, lonely space with me. And then he slid down the rabbit hole into that little space where I'd kept my Self tucked away all those years and he saw me. He saw me and he loved me and I couldn't quite believe it. I kept to my old habits and tried to give away parts of myself, ignore them, pretend they weren't there, but the quality of his regard had made me greedy. Whenever I took the risk to be vulnerable it was terrifying, but it was exhilarating too. And I wanted to feel the rush of it all the time. So I kept taking more and more risks with him, which gave me the courage to take more and more risks out in the world, until one day I looked up and realized I wasn't afraid anymore. He knew me and I knew me and I was fearless.
I recently read Elizabeth Gilbert's new book, Committed. My favorite part of the whole thing was when she presented her fiancee with a list of those things about herself that she was the least proud of because she wanted him to know exactly what he was getting himself into. He, of course, received them with gravity and then laughed at her and asked, "Do you think somehow that I don't know these things already?" She was taken aback and then she was grateful. She was grateful because she knew that he saw her as clearly, if not perhaps even more clearly, than she saw herself. And he loved her for exactly who she was.
Today Matthew and I hosted a Valentine's Day party for 6 little girls, ages 2-8. We started the evening by covering the dining room table with paper and stickers and old magazines and glue sticks and markers and made valentines. Long after the girls had wandered off to do other things Matthew and I were still sitting there making each other valentines. The front cover of Matthew's for me opens this post and mine for him will close it.
Thank you, Matthew, for your loving regard. As I said when we married: I acknowledge that you are not perfect but I believe you are perfect for me.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
A Fire Worshipper: 13 Degrees Capricorn
There once was a little girl who loved fire. Birthday candles and curling up with her ear on the dog's cinnamon belly in front of the crackling fireplace in winter. Campfires on a warm, summer night watching the sparks caper and dance up to disappear into the inky black sky. The satisfaction after hiking in the rain of starting the fire for dinner with damp wood, one lowly match and her steady, gentle breath.
She grew and learned to cook because the marriage of food and flame made edible music. She became a potter, spinning and coaxing the clay and then offering it to the fire for transformation. She found she preferred to drink her liquor straight so it went down fast and warmed the belly. And she always loved to love and fuck with a wild, fiery passion.
She married and birthed, was honed and tempered to a fine edge. She read and wrote and studied and sought. She turned inward and found the fire there, faithfully lighting the way down the path, so she followed where it led.
The fire within her grew and grew until it burned like the sun. It shone out of her eyes and flickered at her fingertips and roiled out of her mouth like a furnace. She burned and burned until her bones flared and blackened like matchsticks and yet still she was not consumed. She walked into the fire and she became it and her Soul spun up to caper and dance in the heavens.
A tree
constantly burning
always rooted
always transforming
Foundation
Food
Ashes flying to God
She grew and learned to cook because the marriage of food and flame made edible music. She became a potter, spinning and coaxing the clay and then offering it to the fire for transformation. She found she preferred to drink her liquor straight so it went down fast and warmed the belly. And she always loved to love and fuck with a wild, fiery passion.
She married and birthed, was honed and tempered to a fine edge. She read and wrote and studied and sought. She turned inward and found the fire there, faithfully lighting the way down the path, so she followed where it led.
The fire within her grew and grew until it burned like the sun. It shone out of her eyes and flickered at her fingertips and roiled out of her mouth like a furnace. She burned and burned until her bones flared and blackened like matchsticks and yet still she was not consumed. She walked into the fire and she became it and her Soul spun up to caper and dance in the heavens.
A tree
constantly burning
always rooted
always transforming
Foundation
Food
Ashes flying to God
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Just Showing Up Today
My senior year in high school I did something that, for me, was pretty radical. I decided not to take math, since I'd finished all my requirements, and take choreography class five days a week. My mom was horrified and pissed off and convinced I was never going to get into college because I wasn't taking calculus but, for once, I didn't really care. I wanted to dance, I wanted to be creative, and I wanted to have fun. It was great and I had an incredible time in that class but as the time drew nearer to preparing pieces to audition for the end of the year dance concert I totally froze.
Modern dance is a big deal at my high school. Hundreds of people come to the end of the year concert, including many former students who were heroes of mine. I was a senior, supposed to be at the top of my game and presenting work that was a culmination of four years of developing creativity for this audience that I wanted to impress so badly, and I totally shut down. I couldn't get anything done and was coming up on deadlines with nothing to show for myself until one day my teacher, Arlene Horowitz, took me aside.
She asked me what my problem was and I said that I just wanted everything to be perfect and nothing was working and I was stuck. And in her usual brashly insightful style she told me to just get over myself. That she didn't care if I was perfect, just that I get my assignments done. That if I didn't just do the work then I was never going to get anywhere. Something was better than nothing.
It was like a dam breaking, being given that permission to just work without worrying about the outcome, to just commit to the process. All of a sudden ideas were coming in a torrent and I did some of the work I am most proud of to this day.
In an excellent talk on creativity that she gave at a TED conference Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, talked about re-framing our conception of the creative process to incorporate the idea that it is a mutual effort between ourselves and our daemon, our genius. It doesn't all come from us. In fact, the most inspired parts probably don't ever come from us. We're just the vehicle and our job is just to show up and do the work and if we're lucky then genius will visit us. But we won't be available to channel that creativity if we're not there, working away, providing the vehicle.
I've been stuck the last few weeks. I've started attending these discussion groups on the philosophical and mystical underpinnings of astrology. We're discussing Big Ideas about the nature of the ego, the requirements of the quest for illumination, the nature of the Divine. I have been wanting to write about some of it but I haven't been able to say it perfectly so I haven't been saying anything. Then Arlene perched on my shoulder the other day and just told me to do the work so here I am.
As a Quaker I was raised to believe that there is that of God in every person and, as a result, that every person is capable of channeling the voice of God and offering true ministry. This is the whole point of unprogrammed Quaker Meeting. That we gather in silent, expectant waiting for the Spirit to choose Its vehicle and speak to us. I have seen this happen, I have been this vehicle, and I can attest that there is good reason they're called Quakers because being in the Presence will cause you to shake in your shoes.
George Fox also taught that if you were going to call yourself a Christian then you had to commit to living the life of Christ everyday. That just showing up to Church on Sunday was not enough. I don't consider myself a Christian and I don't strive to live the life of Christ (though I think it is a noble goal) but I do want to figure out how to get my ego out of the way on a daily basis so I can be a vehicle. For me going to Meeting and compartmentalizing my spiritual work to that hour a week is not enough. I want to instill that listening, that committed attention into my everyday life. And though being filled with the Presence is awe inspiring and exhilirating, I don't believe it is always. It can also be a quiet knowing, a subtle shifting, a small, humble prayer in action. This is the daily work.
The circle of the astrological chart is made up of 360 degrees. Thirty degrees in twelve signs. If the manifest world were a room, then the degrees would be the 360 doors ringing that room. Some of them are grand and gilded, some are sturdy and utilitarian and some are like the old, little door at the back of my closet growing up that led to a dark, dirty, secret place under the eaves. When we are born we choose ten doors, the degree placement of the ten planets. Most of us don't even acknowledge the doors are there. We're satisfied with the confines of the room and what it contains. If we do notice them we pick the ones we like the look of, thinking "What a nice door I picked!", and try to ignore the other ones.
But the purpose of a door is to give us access to something else, something beyond the space we're in now. And the degrees of our natal planets are the access we've each chosen to the Infinite that exists beyond the confines of the material world. So, we try to open them and see what's on the other side but it's hard to keep them all open all the time. I live in an old farmhouse, built when there was no air conditioning and everyone understood the importance of big trees around your house and plenty of windows for air circulation. In the summer we keep all the windows and doors open but as soon as a breeze blows through one of the doors slams shut. You constantly have to mind the doors and remember to prop them to resist their desire to close.
We are like this, too. Change comes and we lose track of our wholeness, we fall into our ego, and let some of the doors slam shut. We decide the inside of the room is just fine, thank you very much, and who wanted to go outside anyway? It's a lifelong process to be the doorkeeper because change never stops and our ego never gives up. It is not glamorous or earth shattering, this daily mindfulness. But if we make the daily commitment to hold open the doors and let Spirit into the world through us then occasionally we are offered a bit of illumination. We understand that, though it is our job to attend to the doors we are not at our core the doorkeeper. We are not our ego. We are the Light of God shining through the doorway.
Modern dance is a big deal at my high school. Hundreds of people come to the end of the year concert, including many former students who were heroes of mine. I was a senior, supposed to be at the top of my game and presenting work that was a culmination of four years of developing creativity for this audience that I wanted to impress so badly, and I totally shut down. I couldn't get anything done and was coming up on deadlines with nothing to show for myself until one day my teacher, Arlene Horowitz, took me aside.
She asked me what my problem was and I said that I just wanted everything to be perfect and nothing was working and I was stuck. And in her usual brashly insightful style she told me to just get over myself. That she didn't care if I was perfect, just that I get my assignments done. That if I didn't just do the work then I was never going to get anywhere. Something was better than nothing.
It was like a dam breaking, being given that permission to just work without worrying about the outcome, to just commit to the process. All of a sudden ideas were coming in a torrent and I did some of the work I am most proud of to this day.
In an excellent talk on creativity that she gave at a TED conference Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, talked about re-framing our conception of the creative process to incorporate the idea that it is a mutual effort between ourselves and our daemon, our genius. It doesn't all come from us. In fact, the most inspired parts probably don't ever come from us. We're just the vehicle and our job is just to show up and do the work and if we're lucky then genius will visit us. But we won't be available to channel that creativity if we're not there, working away, providing the vehicle.
I've been stuck the last few weeks. I've started attending these discussion groups on the philosophical and mystical underpinnings of astrology. We're discussing Big Ideas about the nature of the ego, the requirements of the quest for illumination, the nature of the Divine. I have been wanting to write about some of it but I haven't been able to say it perfectly so I haven't been saying anything. Then Arlene perched on my shoulder the other day and just told me to do the work so here I am.
As a Quaker I was raised to believe that there is that of God in every person and, as a result, that every person is capable of channeling the voice of God and offering true ministry. This is the whole point of unprogrammed Quaker Meeting. That we gather in silent, expectant waiting for the Spirit to choose Its vehicle and speak to us. I have seen this happen, I have been this vehicle, and I can attest that there is good reason they're called Quakers because being in the Presence will cause you to shake in your shoes.
George Fox also taught that if you were going to call yourself a Christian then you had to commit to living the life of Christ everyday. That just showing up to Church on Sunday was not enough. I don't consider myself a Christian and I don't strive to live the life of Christ (though I think it is a noble goal) but I do want to figure out how to get my ego out of the way on a daily basis so I can be a vehicle. For me going to Meeting and compartmentalizing my spiritual work to that hour a week is not enough. I want to instill that listening, that committed attention into my everyday life. And though being filled with the Presence is awe inspiring and exhilirating, I don't believe it is always. It can also be a quiet knowing, a subtle shifting, a small, humble prayer in action. This is the daily work.
The circle of the astrological chart is made up of 360 degrees. Thirty degrees in twelve signs. If the manifest world were a room, then the degrees would be the 360 doors ringing that room. Some of them are grand and gilded, some are sturdy and utilitarian and some are like the old, little door at the back of my closet growing up that led to a dark, dirty, secret place under the eaves. When we are born we choose ten doors, the degree placement of the ten planets. Most of us don't even acknowledge the doors are there. We're satisfied with the confines of the room and what it contains. If we do notice them we pick the ones we like the look of, thinking "What a nice door I picked!", and try to ignore the other ones.
But the purpose of a door is to give us access to something else, something beyond the space we're in now. And the degrees of our natal planets are the access we've each chosen to the Infinite that exists beyond the confines of the material world. So, we try to open them and see what's on the other side but it's hard to keep them all open all the time. I live in an old farmhouse, built when there was no air conditioning and everyone understood the importance of big trees around your house and plenty of windows for air circulation. In the summer we keep all the windows and doors open but as soon as a breeze blows through one of the doors slams shut. You constantly have to mind the doors and remember to prop them to resist their desire to close.
We are like this, too. Change comes and we lose track of our wholeness, we fall into our ego, and let some of the doors slam shut. We decide the inside of the room is just fine, thank you very much, and who wanted to go outside anyway? It's a lifelong process to be the doorkeeper because change never stops and our ego never gives up. It is not glamorous or earth shattering, this daily mindfulness. But if we make the daily commitment to hold open the doors and let Spirit into the world through us then occasionally we are offered a bit of illumination. We understand that, though it is our job to attend to the doors we are not at our core the doorkeeper. We are not our ego. We are the Light of God shining through the doorway.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Can You Carry It Uphill in a Rainstorm in a Country Where You Don't Speak the Language?
When I was growing up I had the great privilege to go to summer camp. And not just any summer camp, but Quaker wilderness summer camp. I learned some of the greatest lessons of my life there- how to make bubbles shoot 10 feet in the air (all you need is an industrial size funnel turned upside down and a sink full of sudsy water. Hours of fun. Trust me.), how to embrace public displays of silliness and stupidity (work crew skits, anyone?), and how to fling butterscotch pudding with accuracy ( you never know when you might need to know...). I also learned that children are deeply spiritually insightful if you take the time to listen, that it's infinitely easier for me to connect to Spirit when I'm outside as much as possible, and that I can carry everything I need to sustain myself on my own back for days at a time.
This last piece is something I found myself thinking about in the last week because it's not a lesson that most kids in the States learn. We don't generally ask them to pack up a pack with a couple of changes of clothes and their own food, water and shelter and carry said pack into the hills for miles on end and days at a time. I'm sure there are other ways to get a visceral sense of what you really need and the confidence that you can provide yourself with it, but I can't think of one off the top of my head.
When I was preparing for a semester abroad in Kenya in college and was trying to figure out what to pack in my frame pack for four months of unknown adventure my best friend Carrie posed her answer to my conundrum like this:
"Never pack more than you can carry uphill in a rainstorm in a country where you do not speak the language."
Truer words were never spoken. And I have recalled this advice repeatedly whenever contemplating whether or not I need something- material, emotional, or spiritual. If it isn't essential, if I wouldn't want to have to carry it when the going gets tough, then maybe I just need to lay it down.
Now, what I might consider essential and what others might consider essential are different things. For me, daily doses of incredible, whole foods cooked with care are essential. One pair of red shoes is essential. Time to read totally escapist fantasy literature is essential. The touch of my children and my husband on a daily basis is essential. Being connected to the changing of the seasons is essential. Laughter is essential. Writing is essential. Silence is essential.
On the rare occasion I end up in church I find all the talking and singing and passing of plates and rustling of programs mind boggling. I know that this is essential for many people but for me I can't help but think, "How can you ever hear the still, small Voice in the midst of all this racket?" Because that's really what it comes down to. I don't want so much stuff and emotional baggage and activity and noise in my life that I can't hear what my Soul is saying.
About a year ago the planet of Pluto moved into the sign of Capricorn and all the structures and traditions started to fall apart or get called into question. The banking system fell apart, people lost their homes and jobs, the question of gay marriage filled the headlines, new marital infidelities were uncovered seemingly daily. Many of us are being forced to really think about what we need and who we are once all the things we thought were essential are stripped away. This is not a comfortable process to go through, but sometimes it is necessary.
I truly believe that every person carries within them a perfect Soul. That of God within them, as the Quakers say. It is as much the structure upon which our life is built as our bones are the structure of our bodies. And I think, just as the trees are stripped of their leaves and their underlying structure is exposed in all it's stark beauty, that we have entered a season in which we are called to lay down that which is not essential and be moved by the exposing of our Souls. And if we don't do it willingly then Pluto may not give us a choice.
For myself, I would rather carry what is essential for me with intention and confidence than be caught out, lost in the rain and overwhelmed by my heavy load.
This last piece is something I found myself thinking about in the last week because it's not a lesson that most kids in the States learn. We don't generally ask them to pack up a pack with a couple of changes of clothes and their own food, water and shelter and carry said pack into the hills for miles on end and days at a time. I'm sure there are other ways to get a visceral sense of what you really need and the confidence that you can provide yourself with it, but I can't think of one off the top of my head.
When I was preparing for a semester abroad in Kenya in college and was trying to figure out what to pack in my frame pack for four months of unknown adventure my best friend Carrie posed her answer to my conundrum like this:
"Never pack more than you can carry uphill in a rainstorm in a country where you do not speak the language."
Truer words were never spoken. And I have recalled this advice repeatedly whenever contemplating whether or not I need something- material, emotional, or spiritual. If it isn't essential, if I wouldn't want to have to carry it when the going gets tough, then maybe I just need to lay it down.
Now, what I might consider essential and what others might consider essential are different things. For me, daily doses of incredible, whole foods cooked with care are essential. One pair of red shoes is essential. Time to read totally escapist fantasy literature is essential. The touch of my children and my husband on a daily basis is essential. Being connected to the changing of the seasons is essential. Laughter is essential. Writing is essential. Silence is essential.
On the rare occasion I end up in church I find all the talking and singing and passing of plates and rustling of programs mind boggling. I know that this is essential for many people but for me I can't help but think, "How can you ever hear the still, small Voice in the midst of all this racket?" Because that's really what it comes down to. I don't want so much stuff and emotional baggage and activity and noise in my life that I can't hear what my Soul is saying.
About a year ago the planet of Pluto moved into the sign of Capricorn and all the structures and traditions started to fall apart or get called into question. The banking system fell apart, people lost their homes and jobs, the question of gay marriage filled the headlines, new marital infidelities were uncovered seemingly daily. Many of us are being forced to really think about what we need and who we are once all the things we thought were essential are stripped away. This is not a comfortable process to go through, but sometimes it is necessary.
I truly believe that every person carries within them a perfect Soul. That of God within them, as the Quakers say. It is as much the structure upon which our life is built as our bones are the structure of our bodies. And I think, just as the trees are stripped of their leaves and their underlying structure is exposed in all it's stark beauty, that we have entered a season in which we are called to lay down that which is not essential and be moved by the exposing of our Souls. And if we don't do it willingly then Pluto may not give us a choice.
For myself, I would rather carry what is essential for me with intention and confidence than be caught out, lost in the rain and overwhelmed by my heavy load.
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