June Gloom

Two days in a row there was a light sprinkle and a cloud filled sky to accompany my morning walk. With a few exceptions every day since January had been sun drenched; something must be up. When I came home my husband told me about May Grey and June Gloom; the weather phenomena that causes morning cloud coverage over Southern California. I was thinking about seasons and how I was entering internally into a Winter, even though it was June, which means Summer in most of the United States. So I was surprised that the late Spring days were grey and full of a quiet energy, much like my inner world.

The Midwest and Northeast, in particular, are known for their distinctive seasons, but I have always delighted in the subtle seasonal shifts in the Arizona desert, the New Mexico high desert and now the California Coastal desert. There were flowers in January, but now there are more, and there are trees flowering and offering fruit. Everyday I am more deeply drawn into the labyrinths that emanate from the succulents that line my path. In the fog of grey skies and draught these plants so generously display their bright and unusual flowers and leaves.  In a place known for being 70 degrees on any given day one must look to other patterns and events to carve out seasonal rituals. Every place has its own rhythm and when that rhythm slows down we can get a more complete sense of what animates and fuels the places we live or visit.

For the past 7 years and many years before then, I was used to a sort of melancholy descending in January and if lucky leaving by mid-March as the days lengthened, and one could go outside not looking like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. My natural rhythm calls for times of hibernation and a cold snowy winter usually fit the bill, but for now, a gloomy June will do.

Do you notice that your inner weather patterns mirror outer ones or vice versa?  How do you honor or experience the change of seasons?

A Day's Foraging

I was walking home when I checked my phone; the message read, "Going on a hike to find some sage." It was a day my husband and I were both doing our own foraging. I had spent the morning talking with a woman I met through my current job hoping she might lead me to another job. Turns out, she has family ties to the Chicago area and when she saw my Illinois plates, her natural inclination towards networking overcame her and she offered me, a complete stranger, counsel. Our brunch may or may not lead to an improvement in my work situation, but meeting someone who was generous with her time, knowledge and contacts elevated my spirit. The afternoon was spent at a writing workshop. Again not sure if the workshop itself was immensely helpful or will lead to a job (!), but I treasured the quick intimacy created by sharing our writing aloud. The day's adventure through the urban forest had bestowed many treasures, my basket was filled.

When I returned home, there were three bundles of sage awaiting me, like a cat bearing gifts, my husband had left these fragrant leaves on my desk. He was not aware but I had just burnt the last of my sage. This happens to us sometimes. Something we have not verbally expressed is somehow known. I like to think we communicate well, but it is in the visible ways he responds to my subtle desires that amazes me. It is like receiving the answer to a prayer not yet formulated. It seems this is a consistent aspect of love, of God, of the Universe; a deep listening for what is truly needed in any given moment or situation. Of course this is easier to believe when we agree with what has been bestowed or with what has transpired. I guess this is where trust comes in. Often there is a responsibility to make things happen, but at times the most needed action is to open our hands and hearts and receive.

A new lead on a job or an epiphany with my writing would have been welcomed gifts of the day, but it seems I yearned for something else; kindness and fellowship with strangers in my new city. And some wild canyon sage hand-harvested by my beloved that will one day offer itself in a prayer of gratitude for all that is given.

A Path with Heart

The other night I was at a party and spoke with a woman who mentioned a few years ago she was thinking about making a career change and decided to go through a career counseling program. She took a slew of personality and aptitude tests and when the results came back she was surprised to learn she was already doing the work she was most suited for.  This got me thinking about my own career path.  For a few years, I have been searching for work that I would deeply enjoy and that would make good use of my talents.  Twice, I looked seriously at graduate programs, only to end up dismissing them for one reason or another.  Now I think I was hoping some other version of myself was going to appear and make my life, more specifically my career path, clear and easy.  I wanted work I would love, but I wanted it to happen easily, organically. If I had to fight for it or step too far out of my comfort zone, then it probably wasn't worth it.  The truth is my path had been clear, in a muddy sort of way, mostly because I kept throwing mud on it.  The mud of fear, of doubt, of laziness, of unworthiness, of shame. My fear of saying yes to my purpose was so great that I was searching for jobs in fields that a) I am not qualified for and b) I would have most likely hated. Like the woman at the party, I flirted with other possibilities even though at some level I had already made the commitment to my deeper love.  For example, whenever I thought about going back to school it was always in the same field, and when I meet anyone who does this work I always want to talk with them.  So maybe what work I would do was not so much the question as when, how and where. Maybe timing is everything. Maybe it was not the right school or program in the past. Maybe I was not quite ready.  But this I know for sure, if I do not say yes now I will be stopping the life force in me that is ready to take form and live in the world. My mind still wants to entertain other possibilities, but my body and my spirit are preparing for the birth. The path is still a little muddy, but it is a path with heart and I am finally ready to start the journey.

Is there a journey that has been calling to you?  Is there a dream, or friendship or hobby from your past that is worth revisiting? Is there fear, uncertainty or doubt that is keeping you from a life affirming yes?

The Charms of Spring

Last weekend at the farmer's market I bought a bouquet of burnt orange ranunculus.  I had been eyeing them for the last couple of weeks and decided this was the week they would come home with me.  We were nearing the end of a few unseasonably hot days and I had my doubts that these beauties would last mid-week.  And indeed on Wednesday they did start their natural decline, opening and shedding petals, while a few flowers remained in their Rembrandtesque charm.  I think this is one reason I love these flowers, they look like a painting from another time or that they were cut from a 17th century garden. I noticed the older they got, the more the flowers opened into the releasing of their petals. The vibrant color and lushness of their youth is unmatched and yet I remain drawn to them in their softer colors and smaller blooms.  Even in their "declining" state, they remain a source of delight in my meditation space.  They remind me of the gifts of every season, of every age.  I am one of those odd ones who has always looked forward to middle age and beyond.  Maybe I sensed I would be a late bloomer.  I am excitedly nearing this time in my life, but I also see that there are some gifts of youth that would serve me well to remember and reconnect with.  When I was younger I was more prone to doing something just for the joy of doing it, not worrying what others would think, how much it would cost in money, time or energy or if it would "do something for me."  I have allowed time to wilt this part of me away.  As children we don't think, "I can't wait to be an adult so i can loose my sense of delight and be afraid of being myself."  But, unfortunately, I think this happens to many of us.  And if you are like me, it probably happened subtly over many years.  But the good news is this part of us is still within us.  And spring is a wonderful time to reconnect with what has lied dormant.  The earth and the energies of spring show us the way every year.  Why not see where it will take you?

Seeping

The new sun dries the pools of winter

In this perennial act of mercy, 

The last remnants of her stay are dissolved.

I look closely to find

She is quietly seeping into her new gown.

She mixes mud, dust, light on my face

The seasons exchange secrets across this pulled canvas.

Pale arid canyons softly fill with golden streams.

In the cave

A long asleep bear grumbles awake

A shake of the leg

A twitch of the eyelash

He braces himself as best he can, but the months underground

Have taken something he can’t live without

This waking death every year

For something he can’t live without…

The unveiling of her new gown.

Today is as good as any to begin

I recently read that when we see qualities in another that we admire and resonate with, it means that we have the seeds of these same qualities within us.  And this morning I realized I have been searching for beauty, more specifically, flowers.  They inspire me and fill me with pleasure and a delicate joy. They are all around me here in Southern California.  On my run today, I smelled a white rose that smelled just like a rose.  And most days when I am walking around minding my own business a gentle breeze delivers the scent of the woody eucalyptus or the almost sweet jasmine.

A few years ago I traveled to Mexico hoping to find some answers about my past and find some direction for my future.  Of course, I realize this is a lot to ask of a country, but I was desperate.  I spent time in the highlands of Oaxaca, hoping to meet a shaman who could help me heal my past so I could move on with my life, in the direction of my own choosing.  In the market, filling the narrow mountain street, was a woman selling mazatec pottery. She called me over and invited me to stay with her and her family.  She was genuine, and familiar with gringos coming into town looking for ceremonies, so I took her up on her offer and went back to the hotel and collecting my things.  She provided me with my own room on the bottom floor of her mountain side home, it was cold and damp.  She fed me egg omelets, tortillas and coffee.  When the day came for the ceremony I was excited and hopeful that what I felt I had lost would be returned to me, that I would feel whole again.  Of course, healing is rarely this instantaneous, but a girl can dream.  The ceremony was a mix of Catholic and Indigenous prayers and rituals, as well as Ines' generosity and compassionate heart.  She could tell my heart and soul were in a rough state of affairs, but her faith was resolute.  During the ceremony I did not feel any major shifts, but I did feel I was in the presence of prayer and trusted Ines' work.  That night I went to sleep, only to wake up in a dream-like meditative state speaking in a language I had never heard and didn't literally understand, but somehow knew it was working magic on me.  I saw my soul traveling into the Sierra Madres searching for what had been misplaced.   On my way down the mountain the next day I would understand this vision more clearly.  When I woke in the morning I remembered a dream; I was cut open like a c-section, but instead of giving birth to a baby, I gave birth to flowers.

The memory of this dream surfaces every once and awhile, like today, when I remembered for a moment that what I am seeking outside of myself, like beautiful flowers, is already within me. Spiritual teachers repeat this quite often and I honestly always thought it was kind of vague and even trite; but now I think it is just that it is really difficult to believe.  In many ways it was easier for me to travel a foreign country alone than recognize I had all the seeds of happiness within me.  My psyche needed to be in Mexico, it was a part of my particular healing that had to do with my father and a former love, but it was also a way of fleeing some of my deepest emotions.  I was simultaneously searching for my place in this world and running from it.  Being in Mexico quieted my most painful inner voice; that said I had given up on the life I was meant to live.  This voice had been teasing and taunting me for years and I needed to be in a place where it had little or no power.  Free of this voice I began to accept that my life was heading in a new direction.  I realized Mexico was not to be my home and I was ready to return to my friends and family in the States.  It's one of the paradoxes of healing; that sometimes we have to leave our home, both literally and spiritually in order to return more deeply to our essential self.  It has been 8 years since I made that journey to Mexico and today the early spring flowers are encouraging me to look within, to remember the dream, to add beauty to the world, and to trust what is unfolding within me.  As we approach the Spring equinox, what do you sense is unfolding within you?  What seeds would serve you best to cultivate and grow; and what seeds will serve you best to stop watering?