Adversity to Alignment

I write, and I start; write and I stop; what can be said in these times? Only that what many consider real out there is simply not my reality. Yet how to explain this so that people don’t feel as though I am being careless or crass? The fact is, I care so much about the future of this planet and the life upon her that I cannot participate in the waves of fear that the Powers That Be are broadcasting on a global scale. Last night’s global meditation proved I am not alone. The energy was amazing; palpable. Our choice is ever to be subsumed in the old paradigm or to gather with like minded souls and unseen helpers and step into the New.

I happened upon a video last evening and watched it straight through. This is not typical of me, I get fairly bored with watching anything on my phone. And yet it pretty much sums up what I am feeling. You’ve got to get past the first questioner who is having trouble framing her queries to the hosts. I am sure she is nervous. Still, there’s content there that might be familiar to some. And once past that first five minutes or so, it gets rich fast.

So honestly? If I could say it better, I would. There have been many days in the now-distant past that I felt compelled to write and fill in some of the missing links. In this case, it’s already done for me.

Aloha, dear readers. Align yourselves and change the world. 💗

Choices, Choices

Will we be part of the madness, or will we join in a vision of a better world?

How many times has this thought occurred to you in the past few decades? Yet now more than ever, the question becomes crucial. My friend Sue Dreamwalker recommended a series of video/audiofiles a few months ago called Time of the Sixth Sun. This is a brilliant compilation of visions and voices of Indigenous peoples throughout the world. As one speaker says, we are all Indigenous to somewhere. Think about it, and you’ll realize it’s true. We may have lost our roots, but we haven’t lost the desire to belong to something larger than ourselves.

I have shared this website with many, and gifted several series memberships to loved ones, as a result. The information presented is brilliant and illuminates corners of my very being that had lights blinking on and off for a time. I am grateful to have the affirmations of many, stated in various ways that touch on each corner of what most now term Reality (which is, after all, an agreed-upon collective ‘creation’). And participants turn these corners upside-down and inside-out with their grounded earth-based wisdom. If you want to heal the earth, or more particularly our relationship to it, I know of no better compliation of work. I realize, and you might as well, that we Can be the change we want to see.

The ‘old guard’ is not going to go without a fight, the like of which is plastered across worldwide news media screens like a bloody banner these days. I always thought watching corporate news was a waste of time, but now it’s even more blatantly clear why this is so. There is So much going on, So many wondrous things happening in our world! Yet the same sources all over the world hash and re-hash the same fear-based agendas: war, conflict, politics and greedy corporate business machinations. Most of us know that political systems are breaking down left and right, making a mockery of any sort of Democracy or social justice constructs. Do we really want to play into this fantasy vision of reality? It is a choice we make with every breath we take.

~ bj photo “Kohala Windmills” 2020

 

Echo

I do not flourish in chaos,
though some thrive completely therein;
I’ve caused and I’ve witnessed the sorrows
that settle just under the skin;

You may tempt me or taunt as it pleases,
that is your need, not mine to behold;
I prefer and I cherish the spaces
in deep quiet that nurture the soul.

 

Independence Day 2014

Today the USA honors Independence Day, a holiday celebrated with food and fireworks and thoughts of those who died to grant us the freedoms we now enjoy as a nation. I’m always conflicted when it comes to this holiday, however, as it’s far too easy to memorialize war over peace, to value aggression over compassion in our quest to secure an outdated dependence on oil and other precious resources rather than to implement a worldwide model of sustainable living.

From the Cambridge Dictionary: Independent: Capable of thinking or acting for oneself.

I wonder how a nation of ‘rugged individuals’ has devolved into one in which its citizens seem to prefer a trancelike adherence to the status quo rather than realizing that democracy and freedom are both intrinsically linked to the participation of the citizenry, itself, of each and every one of us. Instead, many have bent to the corporate takeover of our country and greed supplants the largesse of spirit Americans have long been admired for.

We possess the resources, as one of the richest nations on earth, to advocate for the oppressed and downtrodden and to celebrate the amazing freedom of every citizen to develop their unique gifts and talents. Most all of us, save the Native Americans, remain descendants of immigrants. Instead of celebrating our growing diversity, however, many currently argue for closing the door on those we consider ‘outsiders.’

I don’t possess the answers, but I often ponder this quote, engraved below our own Statue of Liberty:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

~ Emma Lazarus

 

 

SCHEMA

He rolls over, nestles into her back;
warm, soft hands cupping bony ribs,
slack belly, full hips.
Years they have lain this way,
waning dancers in the twilight.

She turns, his synchronized movements
practiced upon nights beyond number;
limbs flailing, twisting, entwining.

This is comfort, closing out their days
after the world leaks in.
This is life, restoring rhythm until,
like the last smear of a comet’s tail,
their light extinguishes,
and another assumes its place.

image: Carolyn Weltman

Lady of the Lake

The hills lay sideways

like a sleeping woman,

hips colored now in showy hue

before winter strips her

back to bone.

 

Caught in waiting,

hair tipped with a million blazing stars

and fog laced over her crown;

steam rising from mouths

of fishermen, ignorant

of the sensuous body brazenly

revealed before them,

not amazed.

 

Yet a few unknowingly take heed

and, with each sideways glance;

each fluttered eyelash;

her variegated image registers

on the tipped lens of human retinae

and a patient vigil,

though unchanged to the eye,

lays tracks in the heart.

 

~ bj

Duality

If you knew me when I was young, you never would have imagined me as the solitary sort. I was always with friends, either surrounded by people or animals or any sort of distraction. Yet I never fully trusted anyone, for I was raised to keep secrets. And keep them I did, well into my thirties and beyond. It turned out to be a great quality as a therapist, for I could hold even the most heinous truths close to my chest and not betray those most accustomed to betrayals.

And so it is that I find myself at nearly sixty preferring my own company and that of my husband, children and a couple of very dear friends. With little tolerance for idle chitchat and disingenuous people, I am rarely inclined to cultivate new relationships, preferring instead spontaneous interactions with those I meet while bicycling or hiking or, more rarely, at gatherings. Spending the balance of time in silence is a luxury I never take for granted.

I wonder if I am antisocial or simply set in my ways, but life is full enough with its eddies and surges, both my own as well as those of loved ones. I’d rather invest myself  in a precious few rather than to twist in awkward silence while others drink themselves into conversation.

It was with great spontaneity today then, that I struck out with a friend with whom I have shared only a few hours in the past. We lunched, laughed, and conversed nonstop for most of the afternoon. Coming from very different worlds, we disclosed heart and soul and life experiences. And I felt blessed and lightened and energized to think that I might have discovered another kindred spirit in this magnificent hall of mirrors called life. Makes it worth investing in the human race, if only for a day now and again.

Well Met

Strange fruit –

shape and husks like the mottled

purple-white breasts

of small dying birds,

scattered on asphalt.

Running together,

life and death

in the avenue.

That we choose one

over the other –

fight like cancer to linger

in this place –

affirms daily the experiment.

To validate, rather than destroy –

whether with arms, words

or intention –

the inviolate

right of our fellows

to share space on

this spinning playground;

promotes delight

in earthly pleasures

on nature’s own terms.

Eulogy to My Father

Sometimes we give all that we can,

and it’s not enough.

Will never be,

unto death.

Other times

(and this may be a mistake)

We do not.

 

Wounded pride,

arrogance,

hurt,

sensitivity;

anger, fear, resentment

keep us from it.

 

We cannot give

what we do not possess.

There is only this

to forgive.

 

SPRITE

As a child in less than ideal circumstances, life was filled with dread and despair. Yet I always felt I had an invisible confidant in a faceless Creator – a sort of tabula rasa onto whom I could project all my love and hate; all the repressed passions I could not otherwise safely express in a world of chaotic uncertainties.

As I grew into adulthood with more than my share of unanswered existential inquiries, the one constant that brought me again and again into alignment with the only stable sort of inner calm I have ever known was my forays into the wilds of the world. It was and is there that I discover complete acceptance – blessings and beauty always exceeding expectation. It was and is there I return, again and again, for solace and comfort and the deep awareness that I am a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars [who has] a right to be here (The Desiderada).

Where is God to be discovered for us mere mortals if not right here and now, wherever we may be? To be doomed solely to imagine the numinous is a fundamentalist punishment I have long since cast off as a snake sheds its skin, leaving a hollow ghost body behind. Not in any way meant to diminish The Mystery that confounds even the most ardent quantum physicist or cleric, my forays into nature infuse me with grace in ways both profound and sacred, insuring my place in the scheme of things. The interplay of light and shadow; the fathomless eyes of wild creatures; the miracle of each leaf and petal draw me into a dance with life, itself. If repeated on a regular basis, a divine dispensation imprints itself on my very being, much like placing small hands into setting concrete. It is an imprint that is not easily removed, once fully cured.

 

All images taken on the Mana Road of the Big Island of Hawaii – copyright 2012 by Bela Johnson