Small Circles

grey daze

It was cold and grey today.  Heat on in the house kind of cold... fleece vest kind of cold.  Curl up with a good book kind of cold.  Mama earth is giving us a little respite.  A respite from the dry, hot, brilliant and bright summer sun.  A gift.  A little exhale, in this inhale sort of season.  And I feel grateful.  The earth speaks, and sometimes I can hear her.

One year. A memorial.

Woke up this morning with an aching heart, full of tears.  Tears, all choked up back in my throat.  Perhaps a yell wanting to escape.  Really?  War?  Still?  A few thousand years isn't long enough to figure out that war sucks?

And the gulf, the oil, ooooooh the gulf.  There is nothing to say, my heart breaks.  I wail.  A banshee.

In the big, huge, billions of galaxies and solar systems picture, perhaps it is not so significant.  Just the game here on earth.  But what a heartbreaking game sometimes.

And then, the soothing balm...  I was sent some poems this morning.  They are lovely.  So lovely that they inspired me to come here, a year since my last post, and share.  The human game, it is a beautiful game sometimes.

Enjoy.  Today of all days, let's wage peace...

Those Holy Moments
By Karen Ethelsdatter

Those holy moments before sleep
when the mind lets go
& the hands & the teeth & the jaws unclench
& the body settles into the arms of the bed
& in winter comes the welcome weight of blanket, of cover.

Those holy moments we call peace, may they cover the land,
may they overtake the warrior
May they show us how to cease fighting
among ourselves.
May they unname the enemy,
may they rename her/him
neighbor, friend.

***

Pray for Peace
By Ellen Bass

Pray to whomever you kneel down to:
Jesus nailed to his wooden or marble or plastic cross,
his suffering face bent to kiss you,
Buddha still under the Bo tree in scorching heat,
Adonai, Allah. Raise your arms to Mary
that she may lay her palm on our brows,
to Shekinhah, Queen of Heaven and Earth,
to Inanna in her stripped descent.

Pray to the bus driver who takes you to work,
pray on the bus, pray for everyone riding that bus
and for everyone riding buses all over the world.
If you haven't been on a bus in a long time,
climb the few steps, drop some silver, and pray.

Waiting in line for the movies, for the ATM,
for your latte and croissant, offer your plea.
Make your eating and drinking a supplication.
Make your slicing of carrots a holy act,
each translucent layer of the onion, a deeper prayer.

Hawk or Wolf, or the Great Whale, pray
Bow down to terriers and shepherds and Siamese cats.
Fields of artichokes and elegant strawberries.

Make the brushing of your hair a prayer, every strand
its own voice, singing in the choir on your head.
As you wash your face, the water slipping
through your fingers, a prayer: Water,
softest thing on earth, gentleness
that wears away rock.

Making love, of course, is already a prayer.
Skin and open mouths worshipping that skin,
the fragile case we are poured into,

If you're hungry, pray. If you're tired.
Pray to Gandhi and Dorothy Day.
Shakespeare. Sappho. Sojourner Truth.

When you walk to your car, to the mailbox,
to the video store, let each step
be a prayer that we all keep our legs,
that we do not blow off anyone else's legs.
Or crush their skulls.
And if you are riding on a bicycle
or a skateboard, in a wheel chair, each revolution
of the wheels a prayer that as the earth revolves
we will do less harm, less harm, less harm.

And as you work, typing with a new manicure,
a tiny palm tree painted on one pearlescent nail
or delivering soda or drawing good blood
into rubber-capped vials, writing on a blackboard
with yellow chalk, twirling pizzas —

With each breath in, take in the faith of those
who have believed when belief seemed foolish,
who persevered. With each breath out, cherish.

Pull weeds for peace, turn over in your sleep for peace,
feed the birds for peace, each shiny seed
that spills onto the earth, another second of peace.
Wash your dishes, call your mother, drink wine.

Shovel leaves or snow or trash from your sidewalk.
Make a path. Fold a photo of a dead child
around your VISA card. Gnaw your crust.
Mumble along like a crazy person, stumbling
your prayer through the streets.

***

Wage Peace
By Judyth Hill


Wage peace with your breath.

Breathe in firemen and rubble, breathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds.

Breathe in terrorists and breathe out sleeping children and freshly mown fields.

Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.

Breathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.

Wage peace with your listening: hearing sirens, pray loud.

Remember your tools: flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.

Make soup.

Play music, learn the word for thank you in three languages.

Learn to knit, and make a hat.

Think of chaos as dancing raspberries, imagine grief as the out breath of beauty or the gesture of fish.

Swim for the other side.

Wage peace.

Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious:

Have a cup of tea and rejoice.

Act as if armistice has already arrived.

Don't wait another minute.

Celebrate today.

Perhaps not this kind of happy, but I feel super happy nonetheless

And I love writing "nonetheless," so now I'm even happier.  Feeling good, at peace, not sure how I got here but feeling super grateful that peace and ease and grace and happy is where I find myself.  The tears made room for this feeling, this rainbow of feeling.  All colors.  Anyhow, here's Rousseau on happiness:

If there is a state where the soul can find a resting-place secure enough to establish itself and concentrate its entire being there, with no need to remember the past or reach into the future, where time is nothing to it, where the present runs on indefinitely but this duration goes unnoticed, with no sign of the passing of time, and no other feeling of deprivation or enjoyment, pleasure or pain, desire or fear than the simple feeling of existence, a feeling that fills our soul entirely, as long as this state lasts, we can call ourselves happy, not with a poor, incomplete and relative happiness such as we find in the pleasures of life, but with a sufficient, complete and perfect happiness which leaves no emptiness to be filled in the soul.

And so the end begins...

It has begun.  I am really present to the sadness today, and so is Albie.  Mama, I am really going to miss my friends, he says.  I know, I know.

So many goodbyes, still saying goodbye.  In 36 years, so many goodbyes.

The tears are flowing, there's no stopping them now.  Just the other day I was praying for my heart to burst open with love, longing to feel that bliss....  I suppose tears are a great vehicle for that love.  I am feeling the love.  And it is beautiful.  And it hurts.

Thresholds, samhain, mas cara...

Monday morning.  The Monday morning after a beautiful and intense Samhain ritual with my friend Monica's circle.  {Briefly, Samhain is the mid-point between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice.  Up north, we know it as Halloween. The moment when we cross the threshold to the three dark months of the winter-tide...  The time of the dark goddess...  The witches' new year...  It is said that at this time of the year, the veil between the worlds of seen and unseen are at their thinnest.  A great time for divination...}

Back to that Monday morning...  Albie was home sick, two friends were coming over for a visit, and I thought I'd make a quick exit and take our dirty clothes to the laundry.  (I will miss you $3 dollar wash and fold!)  The laundromat is a half a block away, across the street, past the first intersection.  I approach with my two bags, and argh!  It's closed!  I stand there, wondering what to do.  Things like this, the small details of daily living, they leave me a bit muddled.  I am confused.  Why is our laundry closed?  Is everyone alright?  Should I take my clothes elsewhere?  What if elsewhere uses too much perfume and then my clothes disgust me? 

As I am standing there, befuddled, a man walks by.  He passes me, gets to about 10 paces beyond me, and stops.  Turns around.  Comes back to talk to me.  Now, in conventional, norms of society rules, well, he's a bit odd.  Round and ballish, of indiscriminate age -- not too old, not too young.  Wearing a bright green shirt.  Ruddy complexion.  Carrying a "Disco" bag.  And in a laughy smiley kind of voice, yes, he's laughing while talking, he says, "Ha!  You're trying to wash your clothes and you can't -- how about I wash your soul?"

And I'm now more muddled, but laughing too.  Wouldn't you if someone offered to wash your soul?  And so I giggle, and I muddle, and I think I grunt in response.

And so he continues -- he'd like to do a tarot card reading, right there, on the sidewalk, for me and my bags of laundry.  He whips his Kabbalah Tarot deck out of his pocket, explaining it's not about the money, I can give or not give him anything...

My first impulse is to brush him off...  Like, how charming, yes really, quite nice you are -- but I must get home to my son and my friends, BuhBye!  But then. True impulse says, you crazy lady -- say yes!

So I say yes.  And then this Fool, La Loca in her masculine form, proceeds to do a reading, on the corner by the laundry, for me and my dirty undies. At 9 in the morning.  And I just flow along.

I don't remember much, I have to admit.  There was a whirlwind of cards, one reading after another.  But some things stood out.  Each time I pulled cards, (he did about 5 three card readings,) he'd impishly say, "Hay, mira!  Que buenas cartas!"  Really good for the ego, that is.  He did a reading for Albie, and they were all "coin" cards.  There were a bunch of 5 cards, which often represent for me my own personal struggle with being human, with my humanity.  The five also coincided with a vision I had (during meditation in the samhain circle) of myself as a five-pointed star. 

He kept throwing around Hebrew words, which connected me to the feeling I've carried with me for quite some time, that inside of me, somewhere, there lives an old Jewish woman. 

The thing that stuck with me most, was what he said when I pulled "The Moon."  Now, in my life, I use the Motherpeace tarot and I am quite used to Vicki Noble's more feminine, feminist interpretations of the cards.  So my interpretation of The Moon would have been a bit different...  But Mr. Green Shirt Fool, what he said was:  This card shows your dependence.  The Moon needs the sun to shine, it does not shine in and of itself.  You need to shine, without dependence on another.  (Or something like that.)  He kept saying something about a mascara.  Singing almost, "Mascara, mascara -- Mas Cara!  Entendes?  Mas Cara!"  (Mascara means mask, mas cara means, more face...)

Anyhow, that was it...  Without going in to too much detail, that's been where I is at.  Just the other day telling Chris how he needs to recognize my greatness, or some such bullshit like that.  Big belly laugh bullshit.  And in many ways, it's the core of my learning here in Buenos Aires:  How to be a Solar Woman?  How to shine with my own light?  Here, at the glorious age of the middle?

The reading finished, we made an energy exchange (money for reading) and he walked off, carrying his Disco bag.  He laughed as we parted, "I've never done that before!  Washed the inside of a woman who is trying to wash the outside!"

And I watched him go, funny round messenger man, grateful that I took a moment to pause, and walk through the portal that had opened before me.  I picked up my clothes, and walked home.  The laundry was still dirty, but the soul was clean.

So as not to forget, the boy's words...

Mama, I love you and papa so so so much,  I am going to be so sad when you die.  I love you both so much I'm going to plant lots and lots and lots of flowers when you die.

*thoughtful pause*

But who is going to plant flowers for me when I die?

Unfolding

Oh, Albie. 

I wrote a while back about how Albert was beginning to explore death and dying and love.  He's still there, dealing with some 6 year old fears, and deepening into love and connection.  Last night, as we were going to bed, the deep river of love started overflowing.  "Mama," he said, "I love you so so so much, I love you so much more than you love me."  I explained that I didn't think that was possible, that a mama's love is bigger than the universe, but no...  he assured me that his love was infinity.  Mine was only 100 googol.  As we turned off the light, and kissed papa goodnight, he got weepy with his love again.  In his most emotional voice he said, "I am so grateful that I have such a wonderful mama, and I am so grateful that I have such a wonderful papa."  I snuggled up and held him tight and told him that he was a gift, a precious gift in my life, and that I too was filled with gratitude. He replied, still with that weepy (he could win an oscar) voice, "I know.  I am a gift."  And then he began to name all the people in whose lives he was a gift:  "I am a gift to Abu, I am a gift to grandma and grandpa, I am a gift to Patti..."

He is always a character, no matter how precious the moment.

In this, the last year of his first cycle of seven, he is unfolding.  Really.  I feel as though I am witnessing the unfolding of consciousness, of connection, of vision.  There is sadness -- the innocence of babyhood is being left behind, or perhaps transforming into something different -- but the boyhood that is arriving, well, my heart swells.  I am seeing him more and more as a companion on the path --  this sense of: I know, I'm human too, there's so much, life is so big...  (Doesn't mean I don't nag him to eat his breakfast, this growing companionship status...)

There is something going on, and I am honored to be a witness to this child's growth, and I am honored that we can share the path for a while.

Passing the torch ~ letting go ~ the story of a circle

When I first arrived in Argentina, I searched high and low for a woman's circle.  I think I wrote about this before...  using google to search for a circle in BA...  I called up a woman whose site I had found on the internet, and asked her if she had a circle.  She didn't.  Lots of workshops and classes, but no regular circles.  We spoke for a while, sharing our stories, and at some point she says, "Wait a minute...  why don't you start a circle?"  "What are you waiting for," she said, "the goddess herself to come knocking on your door?"   I responded like a little girl.  I think for her I tried to keep my cool, uh yeah, perhaps I'll do that...  but inside I thought, no way, not me, where would I do it, I'm just a visitor, for pete's sake they speak spanish here.

Fast forward a few months:  I had been sending out monthly emails to a group of women I'd met in a class, all saying, in short: whoops, sorry, not this month, I still can't find a space.  Weird huh?  How in this huge, gigantuous city, I could not find a space to host a circle.  So convenient.

Fast forward to June-ish, and a young woman writes back to me, I have a space, let's do it...  I say ok, great, yup, Friday it is.  Then the internal critic, (those gosh darn vermicious knids of the mind,) starts in... blah, blah, yuck, yuck, you suck.  This woman, Jaz, is somewhat of a flake, and we don't really confirm that we are doing a circle until Friday morning.  The circle is supposed to take place that evening.  I run around like a mad woman all day, gathering supplies, fighting the critic.  She's telling me all day to just blow it off...  run away!  You're better off alone!  I share my sentiments with Chris, who knows a thing or two about Jen, and he says, "You're going to go and then come home and tell me, 'Oh Chris it was so beautiful and so wonderful and the women are so amazing.'"

I facilitated the circle that night, there were five of us at its birth, and I came home and said, "Oh Chris it was so beautiful and so wonderful and the women were so amazing."  And it really was...  it was a beautiful birth. We sang, we danced, we released, we made magic candles.  I realized that first night that this circle was not about me teaching, it was about me learning.  As we held more circles, it became clearer and clearer:  there was so much I could learn from these women.  I had been nervous that they would think some of the rituals goofy, and I had thought I'd go slow...  slowly bring them into the fold.  Well, poop on me -- it was them who brought me in, fast and furious.  They were/are so open, so ready for this kind of sacred play, so ready to release and act and participate and howl at the moon.  Goofy?  That was my thing...

By the fourth circle, I felt as though my vision for the circle had been fulfilled.  Three of the women were so enthusiastic, they asked if they could participate in the creation of the circle each month.  Of course, I said yes.  It was a great opportunity for my ego to let go:  this is my circle, these are my rituals, this is mine!  It actually wasn't all that hard -- I saw that by letting go, I could ensure that this circle would continue on, long past my short stay here in Buenos Aires.  And so, by the forth circle, I felt complete:  this circle would grow and flourish...  and my role was in birthing the circle.  The sustenance of the circle was perhaps not my role...

Well, on Friday, I officially passed the torch.  Even though the circle was sometimes created communally, I had been doing the facilitating.  Well, this month I asked the other women to take charge.  Actually, I was so extreme that I almost didn't go to the circle.  (Must have been my critic again:  run away!)  But that would be like teaching someone to swim by throwing them in the middle of a pool -- doesn't feel all that safe when you're the one being thrown in...  So, of course, I went, as a participant, and just to help embrace these women...  give them something to lean up against.  I bought the circle a cauldron, and officially passed on the fire.  It was a beautiful circle, and they completely took on creating it for themselves, and with their vision.  Even so there were sparks of me, sparks of Susan and the NY circle, sparks of the Spiral, sparks of Vishnu and ascension and my first circle of way back when...  So full...

And so it is complete.  I feel a lot of pride, but in a "look what came through me" kind of way.  Perhaps it is more honor than pride actually, honored that somehow this little spark, ignited in NY (and before and since time immemorial), came with me to BA, and I could pass it on, and they will pass it on, and on, and on...  It's like what I feel about Albie and his amazingness...  I can't take credit for him, his greatness -- I am just touched and mystified that he came through me...  Stevie says it best:  "I can't believe what god has done, through us he's given life to one, isn't she lovely, made from love..."

So you know, well done me, well done us, thanks to the spirits for seeing to it that our sparks connected to ignite the great fire of this circle.  For this last gathering one of the women's partners created a flier.  I post it here, like a proud mama, showing off pictures of her one year old...  Happiness and hugs all around...

Pisces, so far, an aspiration...

"She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go. She let go of fear. She let go of the judgments. She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head. She let go of the committee of indecision within her. She let go of all the 'right' reasons. Wholly and completely without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn't ask anyone for advice. She didn't read a book on how to let go. She didn't search the scriptures. She just let go. She let go of all the memories that held her back. She let go of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward. She let go of the planning and all the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn't promise to let go. She didn't journal about it. She didn't write the projected date in her Day-Timer. She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper. She didn't check the weather report or read her daily horoscope. She just let go.

She didn't analyze whether she should let go. She didn't call her friends to discuss the matter. She didn't utter one word. She just let go.

No one was around when it happened. There was no applause or congratulations. No one thanked her or praised her. No one noticed a thing. Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go. There was no effort. There was no struggle. It wasn't good. It wasn't bad. It was what it was, and it is just that.

In the space of letting go, she let it all be. A small smile came over her face. a light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone forevermore."

- Rev. Safire Rose, Agape International Spiritual Center

Two sides to every moon (sort of, not really.)

Bad news:  we have been denied for financial aid at the school we've applied to in Boulder for Albie.  Bummer, right? 

Good news:  apparently, we're rich!  Drinks on the house for everybody!  What a fabulous message from the universe...