The Fisher King

Today I caught sight of the Kingfisher making flight upstream and then downstream over the river Dart. What a glorious sight on a bright summers day. I had visited the river quite a few times in recent weeks hoping to see this beautiful bird with no avail. This morning I walked down to the banks once again with a good friend who has a much stronger acquaintance with this wondrous creature. I thank the kingfisher and him for this precious moment.

KEY-WORD ASSOCIATIONS FOR THIS ANIMAL: 

PEACE, MINDFULNESS, TRUST, PROSPERITY, SELFLESSNESS

"Kingfisher indicates a period of increased mental and spiritual activity. He will show how to manifest your destiny by listening to your intuition. Since psychic perceptions are increasing, he will instruct how to remain grounded in the earth and be comfortable in doing so. Take time for yourself in quite solitude connecting to Mother Earth. Grounding and centering is needed. Although he may be shy, he knows how to strike with determination. How are you using your "dagger-like bill"? He will teach the art of timing and when to act. Kingfisher demonstrates excellent visionary skills and will teach how track your "prey". He directs attention to feelings and what is unseen. Watch carefully what is going around you. Listen to your dreams and visions. He shows it is time for forward movement, letting go, forgiving the past. Kingfisher's medicine guides in seeing into the depths of emotions and into the un/subconscious. His lesson goes much deeper than what is on the surface. This is another opportunity to balance masculine and feminine energies. He aids communication and reaching higher spiritual energies along with the ability to express ideas with coherence. Take care of your upper energy centers for they will increase in sensitivity. Kingfisher presents a time of prosperity, love, warmth, and a new found peace of mind. The time period for Kingfisher is about a month of exploring and learning and another month of adapting the new energies. Pay attention to its color which correlates to the area in which to personally reflect upon."  

http://a-rainbow-of-spirituality.org/kingfisher.html

Shiny Happy People

A few years ago I was in a room connecting with the stories that no longer serve me. I was trying to identify the toxic mimics in my life that I needed to remove. I wanted to convert the toxic mimic into authentic ways to meet my needs. 

During this exercise I was seeing images and hearing songs. I always pay attention to what my subconscious is sending me. Typically they contain a message. The first song was a Doris day tune, Que Sera Sera. It starts with the line, 'When I was just a little girl I asked my mother what will I be? As I read through the lyrics I am struck by a line that repeats through the chorus, 'The future is not ours to see'. Each question in the song is met with this same answer, 'The future is not ours to see.

I live in a binary story that is oppositional in tone. For every position there is a counter position. Thesis and anti-thesis. Black and white. Right and wrong. Good and evil. In an ideologically driven time I know my move. Pick a side and fight to be the dominant winning argument that powers over and rules. Simple. In my story capitalism is winning. Possibly, as Francis Fukuyama suggests, the final out and out winner of all time. 

I watch the news and the world seems caught up in battle lines where this ideological binary is being fought on land and sea and air. The fault lines are in the Middle East over oil, in Asia over land grabs, in Latin America over political movements. The fight is on.

During the 21 century the division has dispersed and it is no longer a simple geographical matter. The difference is more like a rhizome, appearing everywhere and anywhere at any given moment. Bombs and explosions being set off in the cities of North America and Europe, Australia. Nowhere appears safe anymore.

A second song starts to play. This melody is accompanied by the words of William Blake. The last lines of which are, 'I will not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand till we have built Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land'. And there is William fighting with ideas and mental thoughts 'sword in hand'. 

How do I move on from the binary? How can power in this story be transformed into something everyone can share? When will we allow everything and everyone to shine?

And a third song arrives with these lyrics by R.E.M.

'Meet me in the crowd, people, people
Throw your love around, love me, love me
Take it into town, happy, happy
Put it in the ground where the flowers grow
Gold and silver shine'

Moving into a new chapter of the story. A story of cooperation and empowerment, of shared power, of circles and community. I need to explore this much more. 

Will I dare show my heart, live from my heart and allow my thoughts and feelings to be in service to what entangles me and not what divides me?

This thought thread is to be continued...

I can relate ...

Spring is here, she's waking up.

This beautiful picture by Lisa Aisato sums up the last 4 days. We had blizzards on Thursday and were snowed in for the next couple of days. A blanket of snow snuggled over the land. Not much else to do except sledge outside and be warm around the wood-burner inside.

Now the storms have passed and the sky is cloudy with outbreaks of sunshine and blue. The melt begins and the rivers and streams are full with the waters travelling back to the seas.

Winter has been long and a big teacher this year. Lots of lessons and realisations. With the rebirth of spring there are new paths to seek and follow. And there are old paths to thank and move on from.

To Be of the Earth

 

“To be of the Earth is to know
the restlessness of being a seed
the darkness of being planted
the struggle toward the light
the pain of growth into the light
the joy of bursting and bearing fruit
the love of being food for someone
the scattering of your seeds
the decay of the seasons
the mystery of death and
the miracle of birth.”

― John Soos

Risk

And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to Blossom.

Anaïs Nin

Parenthood

Becoming a parent later in life has many blessings. Little people carry an emotional directness, warmth and joy that is unsurpassed. To be in their orbit brings much to be inspired by and grateful for and yet, I have encountered some very unexpected consequences. Here is the rub, bringing up a child in our modern disconnected fragmented world is isolating and lonely. Should I have seen this coming - possibly, however, living into the experience has been more shocking and disheartening than I imagined.

Being an introvert I am ok with alone time. In fact for me it is essential. The mothering experience of aloneness has a different quality. It is represented in the restrictions integrating childcare with other social and work activities. I feel I have compartmentalised life activities to such an extent that it has become very difficult to cross over or blend them.

Young children need attention. Their interests are relatively simple and often repetitive. For someone like myself who needs creativity and spontaneity this is not impossible to fulfil with a little person onboard. I have found it is more of a challenge to bring others into this scenario. Other adult company can be sparse. Sometimes it is much easier to stay at home in familiar surroundings. This compromise comes at a price.

Mostly it is restricting in terms of what opportunities are available. I can hear people saying, 'but surely this is your own framing of the circumstances?' I am less convinced. Cafes and restaurants are too often unequipped for small children with short concentration spans. The British weather when at its best is perfect for outdoor play and roaming, especially for someone like myself who has chosen to live in a rural environment. On the not so clement days, which there are plenty, the restrictions can kick in. Where to go on the driving cold rainy days when there is low provision for family fun at affordable prices? This mission is like questing for the end of the rainbow.

I sometimes wonder what parenting must be like in more traditional societies. Is it any more equitable? I often ask people who have more experience or knowledge of traditional peoples how they parent. I am told that older children care for younger children. The village brings up the young. It is not solely the domain of the immediate parents. The role of elders, aunts, uncles, family friends and older children are much greater and more present. Whereas in our more segregated distant modern communities this ever wider support system rarely exists.

I am now being given an insight into how many many other people, mostly women, thrust into the unpaid, undervalued, invisible position of caring must feel. It is not that I do not want to be a care-giver. What's in question is the impact this has because of the restrictions, invisibility and generally lack of economic recognition that comes with this vital social contribution. I appreciate I am late to this realisation, nevertheless, I am here now and feeling the discomfort and inequity.

I have recently told my wife - no more. I am not prepared to live like this or feel like this. Something has to change and change pretty quick. How can parents care if they don't feel cared for in return? Reciprocity is an essential cycle that needs to be honoured and recognised.

I do not have any answers to this modern parenting predicament. That would be too hubristic, quick and knee-jerk a response. This issue is far to deeply rooted in our societal system to be addressed by a few tweaks here and there. Inequality in any form is unjust and unfair and runs deep. Instead I am wanting to voice how it feels and join the many others flagging up that this exists.

As an Introvert I have a moment like this on a Daily basis - seriously!

What a day ...

Show-up, do my thing, work on my stuff and step into my own power. GGGGrrrrrrrr.

Kindness

I have a roof over my head and that of my family.
We have food on our table.
We live in relative safety.
I have some opportunities to work.
This is as good as it gets.
This is privilege.
I know that.
And yet I look out my window and I encounter people and stories
that tell me we are in very turbulent, unsettled and uncertain times.
Acceptable relations between men and women are being reset.
The nature of power dynamics are being reconsidered.
Fundamental questions like 'what does it mean to be human?' are being asked.
This is what transformation looks like, feels like, tastes like, smells like and sounds like.
Maybe every generation from the beginning of time goes through this experience,
believing their moment in time is the one, the turning point.
And yet I think there is something tangibly different going on here.
The reason being is their is a collective mystery being confronted.
And what is our stance in these times?
Do we become reactionary?
Do we retract ourselves back into known territory?
Or can we offer kindness to a stranger?
Can we turn and face the  unknown and step forward?
These are questions and gestures we are going to become more intimate with.
Might I suggest more kindness.
More kindness to ourselves and more kindness to others,
especially the outsiders, the homeless and the unwanted.


KINDNESS* by Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

*From Words Under the Words: Selected Poems. Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye.

Laniakea: Home in Perspective

I have my issues with Facebook, but it is not all doom and gloom and negative on the news page. Last night I came across a link that took me to a short video showing our latest understanding of the map of the universe. Not only does it give me a greater perspective to place my tiny steps. It also described a larger scale occurrence of the allurement phenomenon.

I have been told by an astro-physicist friend that the images we often see of outer space are visual presentations given to mathematical and other data. It may or may not actual look like this. Nevertheless there is to me real beauty in the dimensions and architecture of our universe. And I love that there are real open questions about its purpose and size. It could be finite. It could be infinite. Either way the quantities we are dealing with are so huge it is questionable to what extent we can actual process the numbers. We can place values next to the data but really what meaning does this have?

However, there are also qualities present. There is movement and intentions at play and this maybe something we can more readily connect with for these same dynamics are occurring in and around us all the time. Allurement, repulsion and the push and pull of tides are something we can see and feel.

If the matrix of the universe is a fractal one. If this is one consciousness expressing itself. Then we are a microcosm of the macrocosm. Coming home is a constant process of return. Maybe it is in the design (dance) of the universe to move away and to come home like a pendulum swinging. Maybe nothing is meant to be static or a absolute constant. Even rock moves, just very very slowly most of the time. This would suggest coming home is a dance too. We must keep moving, conversing, dancing, interacting, participating to be in relationship with everything, including ourselves and what we call home or a sense of belonging.

Even when we sleep, our physical bodies may seem still, but our minds are active. Our dreams take us to untold places. There are some peoples who believe that our dreaming life is the more real world and our waking life is the more unreal.

In Lak'ech Ala K'in

In Mayan tradition, there is a greeting that goes, 'In Lak'ech Ala K'in'. It's traditional meaning has been translated as 'I am another yourself' or' I am you, and you are me'.

This reminds me of Satish Kumar's book titled 'You are therefore I am', which is a modern day response or reworking of the well known quote of Descarte from the 17th century which stated, 'Cogito ergo sum' (I think therefore I am). This quote by Rene Descarte is attributed to be a symbolic representation of the rationale scientific project separating human kind from everything else living and non-living.

What Satish in his modern idiom and the Mayan's in their traditional ways are doing is reminding us that we are inseparable for one another, from everything. Fundamentally we are part of a web of life and deeply and intrinsically interconnected. What we do to one we do to all. What we do to someone else we are doing to ourselves. Inherent within this notion is held a perennial appreciation of bonding, connectivity and oneness. With this subtlety of knowing every intention, thought, action and deed might more likely be cooperative and regenerative rather than carry any notion of competition, lack or harm.

In Lak'ech Ala K'in

Mitakuye Oyasin

Namaste

Samhain

Beware when you honor an artist.

You are praising danger.

You are holding out your hand

to the dead and the unborn.

You are counting on what cannot be counted.

The poet's measures serve anarchic joy.

The story-teller tells one story: freedom.

Above all beware of honoring women artists.

For the housewife will fill the house with lions

and in with the grandmother

come bears, wild horses, great horned owls, coyotes.

- Ursula LeGuin -