Friday, Sept. 22, 2023
Autumn Equinox
Good morning,
It’s after 5am and I’ve been awake since 3. I woke from a dream that I remember nothing about, not even that I was dreaming, but the anxiety and dread that filled me instantly told me there must have been a dream. When I wake in this place I need company and so I usually listen to one of my favorite news podcasts. More on this in a minute. But it does strike me that this is historically my favorite time of day to write you. So here we are. You, me, Venus rising in the predawn sky just out my window, autumn equinox, the beginning of my very favorite time of year where we move into the sacred time of darkness.
It hasn’t started well, these three weeks. We’ve been smoked in since late Tuesday afternoon, making my planned mornings in nature not doable. I haven’t been sleeping well and the fibro is flaring badly. I lay awake for hours the last two nights, my entire body burning with pain. I’m tired and sleep deprived and I’ve lost touch with the light of my being and feel depressed. This after four wonderful days with Faye, each day watching her lose her initial shyness and get warmer and warmer again. One moment stands out. We were holding hands as always walking to the park next to my home when something was said, I can’t remember now what it was or which of us said it but it produced in her a genuine rush of affection the likes of which I haven’t experienced in her; she held my hand tighter and squished up next to me as we walked, putting her sweet head against my arm, looking up at me.. What a joy that was! There is so much regret, so much sadness at the physical distance that felt necessary – though I question that now – and I can no longer hold back from her and when we get to the park, where we are out of sight of Annie and her fear, I always sit and give her a big hug and then hold her. Just like when I’m visiting them at their place. It feels like the beginning of some repair, at least I hope that it is, and I see that moment when she did not check her impulse for closeness as an encouraging sign. I cannot hold Silas without also holding her. Speaking of Silas, what a wonder he is. I can see through him, through how he and I connect with ease, with how he connected with ease with Annie, who met him this week for the first time, that there is already a knowing with all of us. I did not have to worry about the distance making it difficult. He knows us and we know him. I had very little time with him, the focus was time with Faye and time for Katie to get out without Faye, but even if I held him only for five minutes or just talked to him in his carseat, the smiles were instantaneous and from the core of his sweet being.
So this morning I knew that I could not listen to more news. I’m so worn out of it all, and tired of bringing it constantly into my field, into my being. The unhinged toxicity. But I’ve never known how to find other things to listen to when I have the need of another human voice, when I am not in the right state to listen to music or a meditation. (I have tried listening to library books and sometimes that works, but this morning I could tell I was awake for a while so I wanted something not to lull me back to sleep, which didn’t seem doable anyway, but something that might be meaningful, even good for my soul.) So this morning I had an epiphany; I thought of one of my favorite books, “The Dream of the Cosmos,” and I put the author’s name into the search field in podcasts. Up came the most amazing podcasts that I haven’t known existed, about the sacred feminine, about consciousness, about this era we are in and the new human, the new humanity, of relationship, of connectedness, of love and care for others and for our planet, that will need to be birthed if we are going to be saved as a species. (Ervin Laszlo believes the 'new human' is already beginning to be born on earth.)
So many breadcrumbs dropped and found ala Hansel and Gretel, all to help me find my way home to my deepest being and my continued path. This wonderful conversation I listened to this morning scattered the crumbs to be followed next; books I didn’t know about that are intriguing, talks that seem important to listen to, topics that are now of interest. I look over at the pile of books next to my bed and marvel at the transition that has quietly occurred in the past couple of months, all of my beloved nature essay collections, all of my Gretel Ehrlich and Peter Matthiessen books (except of course “The Snow Leopard” which has a permanent place there) have given way to books and authors that until a few weeks ago I was unaware of. “Awakening Earth,” “The Great Disruption,” “The Living Universe,” “The Doors of Perception,” “Merchants of Light,” all now sit beside the LSD book – still unfinished for now is not the right time – that started it all. Incredible. Wow.
It’s so useful to put this all in writing because I can now see the profundity of it in a way that I hadn’t before. Maybe not being able to write right now is no accident. (As painful as it is.) Maybe there is a purpose. Maybe I need to expand beyond that, hopefully to be returned to but also who knows?. It helps me see the path behind me with far more clarity; the thinking formerly being that I left behind things that shouldn’t have been left behind—the Gemini being easily bored and butterfly like, also the proverbial jack of all trades, master of none. I think of astrology, of Women Who Run With the Wolves, all the things I studied for so many years, and see it all differently now, including why I have not been successful trying to return to them. They are not, I see clearly now, things that were accidentally left behind that need to be returned to. Rather, they were key aspects of this journey. They were important, they were vital, they changed me, they inspired me, they helped me grow and transform; they are part of the journey, the complicated, sometimes chaotic, colorful mosaic that I am. Pretty revolutionary.
(Earlier I experienced a profound rush of gratitude that I was led to Deborah all these years ago now, for there I learned about the soul and soul work, about the inner journey, and was introduced to Jung and the language of the soul, dreams and archetypes, etc., and that was the very first opening, it was the fork in the road and changed me fundamentally and also altered the trajectory entirely.)
Outside the sun has swallowed Venus as it rises through smoke hovering between unhealthy for sensitive groups to just plain unhealthy. Poppy sleeps curled up next to me. The first birdsong breaks the stillness. Yesterday the funk, like the smoke, was so thick I didn’t know how I was going to come through it. It wasn’t until halfway through the day that I found music I was able to listen to and opened my large ipad and worked on photos for a while before transitioning to a seascape I’m working on with fabric…
Do you remember telling me the last time we talked before you left that you were surprised at how good your watercolors are? I hope I understood what you were saying correctly and that I’m paraphrasing accurately. I’m so glad you said that because it gives me permission to say that I am pretty surprised and awed at the art that is coming out of me with fabric and stitching. Not the older things you’ve seen, not that those were bad, but the newer work seems to have a certain surprising quality to it, almost an elegance. None of my dozens of inspiration pieces have that quality. In fact slow-stitch in general doesn’t seem to have that quality. It’s casual, with it’s raw edges and imperfect stitches. But I am loving it, and honestly moved by how lovely they are. (Waiting for the backlash~) It inspires me to keep going and see what wants to be created next!
A couple of days later~
You texted this morning! It was so nice to wake to that. I’ve edited this letter just a little and now I will add a little to it and send it thanks to your invitation.
The podcast I listened to yesterday morning that I referenced in my text is a different one that I wrote about earlier in this letter. This one featured a woman I had never known of named Marti Spiegelman who for the last twenty plus years has been taught and indoctrinated by shamans from ancient cultures around the world; and she now teaches. What she said spoke to me so much I think because of the experience I had last mid-winter and winter when I went out almost every morning in nature as an answer to the really difficult and painful place I had been in, and even though my intention was not to try to change anything, it ended up changing so much.
From Marti Spiegelman (Italics are my emphasis):
Every original human wisdom culture around the world knows that we are here to be stewards of consciousness itself. And to be the conduits of creation. That we be aware of the world, wired into the world, informed by the world, and that we be the caretakers not only of our own consciousness but of the land that we belong to.
We have a memory in our cells of full consciousness. We have a memory in our cells of our capacity to be connected to the world; that is our nature; we belong to the world as well as to one another. This is what indigenous wisdom is. The key is through the magic of awareness being connected in the world again. To perceive is to know the world through the senses. The senses bring instant knowing. A little bit of attention on nature everyday will change you...
The oldest exercise in the world for training consciousness is to be taken out to some wild place, or even to some wild little piece of a park, and you sit down and you stay in that place and experience your whole surroundings through your senses without thinking. Learning to do that what you experience is that you are a part of it; the separation that is so inherent in modern consciousness dissolves as the world fills you up and your body wakes up to the memory that you're part of this and its constantly being spoken into being. Completely shifts the experience of life, it makes it so much easier to live and to thrive in the world we have.
The outcome of these ancient practices, called 'being in a place well," is there's no emptying (as in contemplative practice) whatsoever, you are filled with the world and filled with the awareness of your connection and your part in it. You are informed as to your value, your function, your presence, and how important it is. You learn, moment to moment to moment, and instead of thinking and trying to figure things out after the fact you are informed in the moment, you know via experience. So sensing is what takes the place of thinking. Thinking is after the fact of experience.
(Me: Ah, yes, just as we've talked about, too much thinking after the fact in my writing, getting in the way of the experience just flowing out...)
Asked about the existential questions, who am I, why am I here, what is my purpose, etc, she says: I find that there is no need to ask these questions. (Me~ I love this! Does the heart need to ask these questions, does the soul need to ask?!) The experience of being part of the larger system dissolves the existential approach that western cultures have fallen into in life. It begins to be an experience rather than an idea or an explanation. It becomes an experience of being gifted life moment to moment and you know it's coming from large immeasurable indescribable forces but you come to know those forces and you are known by them. So you don't have to ask the questions anymore. You have more of yourself, you have all of yourself, all of your life force, all of your awareness or attention for living. It becomes so much easier. You are part of the pulsing universe, you are a cell in a huge living organism which can wake up a sense of belonging, a sense that everything is really okay, a sense that I am worth something and am supposed to be here, and so I don't need the existential question anymore. Those questions are deep in modern consciousness because we've separated from the system of life.
Important distinction to notice the difference between our emotional responses and what we are responding to. Otherwise the emotions become the experience. The emotions become the story rather than what was being responded to being the story. Important to distinguish between the thing in nature that makes you happy and your response of happiness. For most people that is enough to change their life.
(Wow!)
Me:
It is amazing to think about this new for me study of cosmic consciousness, and all that is connected that I'm being exposed to, this introduction and this path, that even though it has only just come into my knowing recently, I was actually doing this practice, "being in a place well," intuitively months and months ago. Wow. And to think that all of this has been brought to me, the branches of which are many and stretch in so many different directions, including even just finishing watching a video about unified field physics without my eyes glazing over or going instantly to sleep, is just so amazing and hard to believe! What is the universe up to??
Nora, thank you for saying that it's okay to send this to you. Though I'm not planning to send writings often, it does feel important to know that you know what's going on with me in a sort of real time. Because it does feel as though what is going on with me has sped up. And it really helps me continue to feel connected to you, and most likely then with myself, too. I'm pretty gobsmacked really when I think about all of this that is so new but which is now becoming a big part and focus in my life. Who knew?? In fact, this time is beginning to feel similar to that time early in therapy with Deborah, when so much came so rapidly into my life with its huge changes.
I'm thinking about you in Paris, and hoping it's a truly wonderful time. And hope that your gut is healing quickly! Thank you so much again. I'm beyond grateful to be on this incredible journey with you as guide, wisdom, midwife, and so much more!
Much Love,
Debby
