Gateway

Tonight we walk through the gateway of the East.  A full lunar eclipse graces evening skies with a coppery red moon.  Frosty winter breath blows silence across the land. Many of us lay in snow, swim in rain, allow wind to caress our cheeks; we feel the first impulse of sweet spring sap in the marrow of cold.  Holiday time, family tensions, family clearings, new birth, new structure.  Structure which will support seedlings in rooftop gardens and songbird melodies on the breeze.  The new earth may be but an impulse deep within lava flows, but she is here!  Oh she is here!!!  Welcome. xxxxxxxx

Santiago

Sometime ago I read The Pilgrim by Paulo Cohelo.  In this adventure the protagonist walks a mountain path which is an ancient pilgrimage to the town of Santiago in northern Spain.  During the course of his journey he faces his fears in the form of a vicious dog, he buries himself alive under a tree at night, he learns to accept help from the most unlikely of angels.  A beautiful weaving of an inner journey, it parallels the journey I said YES to when I chose the path of the whirling dervish.  I said yes. And I pass through the fire.

The fire burns all.  It is a consuming love which hurts as much as it portions out ecstasies.  I have come to notice, this past eleven months, that my supreme ecstasies often precede a harsh blow.... we are given these to fortify us for the next high pass.

When I lived in the Sierra Nevada Mountains for a summer, 16 years ago, I hiked 27 miles in one day.  I was several months pregnant, and I took nothing but water with me.  I loved to do this back then!  Foraging berries, resting on rocks in the sun, an occasional swim in the small icy lakes, it was bliss.  And hard work.

This journey I am on, it is testing me.  Living with family is not easy.  Every pattern that wove my childhood coping skills is on display for me to see, and unwind.  And of course, there is much resistance to that.  Everyday, we walk the firewalk.  With patience, strength, and dignity, the blazes atop my mountains will simply grow in munificence.  Warming, generous fires of Love.  Big Love.  Real Love. 


Hu.

Join Us

Come dear ones, to join the feast.  This full moon, this year, this life, I am so lucky, so blessed, to be crumbled like clay.  Forever now, I fiercely celebrate.  Warrior and princess and angel and queen and oh especially mermaid and starlight I sing.  Dance with me then.  ~Tell me your stories.~   I can hardly get enough of life, humanity, blessedness.  Let us sound the world into being once more.  I love you.  

The 
Earth
Lifts its glass to the sun
And light - light
Is poured.

A bird
Comes and sits on a crystal rim
And from my forest cave I
Hear singing,

So I run to the edge of existence
And join my soul in love.

I lift my heart to God
And grace is poured.

An emerald bird rises from inside me
And now sits
Upon the Beloved's
Glass.

I have left that dark cave forever.
My body has blended with His.

I lay my wing
As a bridge to you
So that you can join us
Singing.

 -Hafiz-
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sunsets

Wow I can get going so fast, so high, so beauteous, and then I land on earth again, open my eyes, stop turning for a moment, and there is patience smiling sweetly at me. 

The grunt work, the waiting, the hours of loneliness, these are nearly intolerable!  Streaming is so much more fun!  

As the old falls away, in the vacuum, where the new is a mass of potentialities waiting to be chosen, to be activated, to dance hot new life, there is grounded love and elbow grease.  

"Out here in the desert, the sky goes on forever." The Orb

The new patterns reveal themselves each day.  Tougher kids, teamwork, savvy mama, fewer movies, it's all good.  I write sooooo much, nearly 2,000 words a day of passion.  One day - books will be prolifically stemming from my fingertips.  Soon, very soon, I will turn and dance without stopping for breath....I will quite possibly miss these hours of stillness and visions.  

As the end of this particular liminality is perceived, the path of dense undergrowth to clear out in getting there is swatting at my face.  I sweat, crawling on the jungle floor, looking for the water of life which is already on fire within me.  I sit, caked in mud.  I hear in the distance - a hot sauna - waiting to embrace us in sumptuous waterfalls.  And shiny new, we step out, the kids and I, into the next world.  Ho.

Re-neg-o-tia-tion

This is so amazing, this new space, the space of growth after birth, tender green shoots in the darkness of the universe.  And to be a star!  Quiet..perfection..the smell of sparks...the sound of light cracking...the sense of expansion...swimming streaming love and gold.  

I have become crazy and ecstatic, and i have no shame!  I spin and turn and moan and feel and love and sway and my eyes are rivers of diamonds.  For as much sorrow as was carved into our bones, that much joy is given.  In-te-gra-tion is my constant companion, a lily pad of flight on the mythical river, or silk road. 


While I was in Cambridge, the flip just embodied itself deep into my cells.  I let go of Kevin, I forgave him, I learned to jump, and to my surprise the wind is lifting my baby wings.  The whole of trauma, from conception to entry into matter, childhood, original wounding, first loves, shattering disbelief and pulverizing of the ego, I left it at the foot of the mountain and wove the red or golden thread of life into my bones, my eternal bones....the ones which spark and spin.


And oh the loves and the friendships and the helpers along this road!  Endless endless gratitude.  It is a joy being human, with you.


huuuuuuuuuuuuu~

Eagles

Today is veterans day.  My father was a proud veteran.  He fought in Vietnam and served in the military throughout my early childhood.  For most of my life he refused to speak of his military service, it was not for my child's ears, or maybe it was just too difficult.  He would talk of the monsoons, of Vietnamese culture, of his friends in service.  He spoke more to my brother about war itself, and a few years ago, when he went into the hospital for liver failure, he dreamt extensively of his time in service.

Today we went to a ceremony for veterans at the cemetery where my father is interred.  There were speeches, songs, and prayers by members of the military both active duty and retired.  God Bless America was sung as flags from each branch of the military waved softly in the breeze.  Applause was conducted for all veterans present and a hot dog lunch was served for everyone.  It was very all American, very small town West Coast, very touching.  Two hawks performed a lovely fly over, as well as several early period planes.  137 flags graced the walkways, each with the name of a local service man embroidered along the spine.  Next year, my fathers will flag will fly as well.

Post hospitalization, my father brought the wall that heals to Paso Robles.  Many veterans turned up to witness it, and many cried as they touched the names engraved there.  Now, my father is interred in the veterans ossuary himself.

War, it is a powerful ritual that many share in...it is a space where survival instincts rule, where raw energy dominates, where intensity of experience reigns.  For many veterans, integrating back into "normal" life, especially in rich America, is nearly impossible.  They are little boys-who go on their own heroes journey-and negotiate life from a specialized lens forever after.  The eagle is their chosen symbol.  Daring, solitary, unrepressable, it stands above my fathers grave. 

 I love you Dad, I miss you today. xxxxxxx

Flip

In the polarity model there comes a moment, when involution is complete, and incarnation into form has fully manifested, that the flip takes place.  The human soul, the soul of the age, the soul of time and of the universe all witness and enact this process.  We transition from coming into being to returning to divine breath.  In polarity is called the dense point at which matter begins to evolve.  In my drawings, it is a still point, the dot which 11 dimensions were found in, the moment that contains it all.

It is to the flipping point that reference is made in the new testament, "When I was a child I looked as a child, I acted like a child, I spoke as a child, but now that I am passed beyond that all childish things have gone away from me." (forgive if my quotation is not perfect, it is from a long ago memory.)  There is a letting go of what no longer serves, what cannot accompany us back, and I finally have the courage to do this.  Mevlana Rumi wrote, "Forget every touch or sound that did not teach you how to dance." 

As I look at the past six months I realize what an immense spiritual journey this has been, what a truly human endeavor.  I am ready to accept my wings, to know my worth as both the involuting and the evoluting Hannah that writes to you today and sends love to you from all of time.  For it is not me who could manage this flip!  It is a force bigger than myself, which I don't really have to understand.  It is the mystery of life.  And what a bizarre happiness to enter this, brimming with pain, swirling in a vortex toward an outward upward spiral.


Much Love.  Bless this next two weeks I will have in Cambridge, that the new will manifest across continents, joys, and petty human divides; that the angelic will stay present with me and my household, never to leave us again. HU.