Happy Birthday

A year ago I awoke on my birthday to the announcement on the TV that a terrible tsunami had struck in the Indian Ocean, killing thousands of people. I remember feeling, since it occurred on my birthday, that it was connected to me in some special way--that I had something in particular to learn from it, although I guess you could say that we all had something to learn from it. At the time, I believed that cataclysmic earth changes were a result of our arrogance and indifference to the earth--the tsunami was a way for the earth to strike back at us in order to get our attention so that we would stop mistreating her before it was too late. By too late I mean, before she wiped us off her surface. I also saw the tsunami (and the New Orleans flood) as a cleansing of the energies of greed which have caused us to mistreat our planet. As they year progressed, I went through an "internal tsunami" which I have written about here on this blog. (posts are archived in April and May). This channeling of apocalyptic energy through my being was also a cleansing. I can now see that the earth was not, is not, and will not, strike back at us for mistreating her. It is we who are lashing out at ourselves through flood, flu, and hurricane. The cataclysms are thought forms--a product of how we feel about ourselves and what we have created. They are indeed a cleansing which we have called upon ourselves because somewhere beneath our confused and scared egos we know that we need it. However, they do not have to be cataclysmic and violent, as we have witnessed this year with the Asian tsunami, the Pakistan earthquake, and Hurricane Katrina. Until we break the cycle of war and violence upon ourselves, upon the earth, until we realize our oneness with all, the earth (ourselves) will continue to cleanse her/ourselves in cataclysmic ways. However, as soon as enough of us realize and feel in our hearts the bliss of no separation, the cleansing will be as peaceful as inhaling clean mountain air, as drinking water from a spring, as soaking in the sun on a white sand beach as the waves lap at your feet. A year ago I believed we were in control of nothing. Now I feel and know we have infinite potential to create our reality, and I rejoice that every day I am choosing to experience gratitude, pleasure, and joy. What a difference a year has made! The greatest transformation in my life.....thanks to all who have joined me on this journey. Namaste. I honor the light and dark with you. All that leads us to peace in our hearts, the center of the earth steadily beating.

The Light is Reborn

Silent night, Holy night
All is calm, All is bright
Round yon virgin, mother and child
Holy infant, so tender and mild
Christ the savior is born
Christ the savior is born!

Today is the solstice.
The birth of the Sun King.
The rebirth of the sun in our hearts.
The birth of Christ in our hearts.
We are one--land and spirit, spinning in space.
I found a white feather in a field today with downy edges.
From a fledgling. A bird just learning to fly.
A white tailed deer leaped away through the brambles
and the chickadees chirped among the winterberries.
All is well. Peace in your heart on this holy day...
and always........

love, Whitewave

What The Moon Sees

What The Moon Sees

Tonight, on every continent of this
war torn planet, there are still people
laying in wait for their enemies with guns, grenades,
knives, stones, bare hands, thoughts, words, feelings.
Terror reigns in dead-end allies, and behind walls,
both real and imaginary.
People still strap bombs to themselves
and board buses carrying schoolchildren, young lovers,
and old women tired from searching the city for bread and meat.

Tonight, on every continent of this
starving planet, millions of people went to bed
without enough to eat. Women shoo flies
from the lips of their dying children.
If they’re lucky, they fall into a dreamless sleep.
High in glass towers, some feast on
wild animals who may soon be extinct.
It's hard to believe they’re unaware of
what goes on down in the street.

Tonight, on every continent of this
overburdened planet, prophets of doom
dressed as anchormen cast fear in our hearts
in between commercials for frozen pot pies
and pills to improve our quality of life.
Bird flu, bombs, nuclear waste, they recite.
Not even money will keep you safe, they say,
but we still keep buying.
Mountains of garbage ring our doomed cities.

Tonight, on every continent of this
traumatized planet, there’s an ocean of pain,
but everyone’s denying the waves.
Some drown in bars, some sink to the bottom
with a needle plunged into their veins.
Some of us are so used to its texture
we can’t feel it scraping our skin raw, even when it bleeds.
We swim in the undertow, despite being warned it isn’t safe.
We stumble into dark allies to be beaten and raped.

Tonight, on every continent of this
laboring planet, some of us are beginning to see.
We take the boards off our windows and walk undefended
into enemy territory.
The moon calls us to the rooftops of our shell-shocked cities.
Face to face, we can’t tell friend from enemy.
Past and future fade away.
We turn to the sky and remember: a star, a child, wise men
kneeling with the beasts.

Providence Journal Article

Poetry column: From the safe harbor of academia to the storm-tossed self
01:00 AM EST on Sunday, November 6, 2005 by Tom Chandler

The twisty road to the writing life has no guardrails. There are plenty of off-ramps but very little signage.
Jen Lighty has wanted to be a writer for as long as she can remember. She grew up in Connecticut, writing poems all through her childhood. After high school she still had the itch, but decided to pursue an academic career because it seemed safe.
So she went to George Washington University, where she earned a degree in English, and gave up writing poems because she had by now convinced herself she wanted to be an 18th-century scholar. Like most English majors, though, she realized she would need time and experience to find her true calling, and so traveled for a few years after college, living in Hawaii, New Orleans, Colorado and California.
Jen worked her way back toward poetry by enrolling in the Breadloaf School in Vermont, where she received a master's degree. She went on from there to Warren Wilson College's MFA program in poetry writing, but still felt unable to commit to a future of poverty and obscurity, which seemed to her the fate of contemporary poets who try to make a living outside of academia. She says now it was probably that she was more afraid of uncovering who she really was, that "poetry was the path to my soul, but I was afraid to walk down it."
She finally ended up spending a winter on Block Island, a place that had left an indelible impression on her since she had spent her first summer there at age 5. Jen has now been a full-time resident for nine years, and has at last come to see that Block Island has truly been her greatest teacher.
Since settling in, her poems and stories have appeared in such journals as The North American Review, Seneca Review and Birmingham Poetry Review. Her first collection of poems, Siren, was published in 2002.
Of her poem "Animal Speak," Jen had this to say:
"The events in the poem actually happened, and I wrote it at the beginning of what some would call a 'breakdown,' but which I (now that I am on the other side) call a 'breakthrough.'
"I came face-to-face with those deer in the poem, and lay in the sand beneath the fallen watchtower on the southwest corner of the island. This was the beginning of my spiritual emergence (not emergency). On that day, I surrendered to the island and feel that I have been a voice for this piece of land ever since."

"Animal Speak" was first published in Poet Lore.

Animal Speak
This could be the last full moon before the end of the world,
said the two deer who crossed my path last night.
When I came upon the buck and doe in the goldenrod haze of day,
they froze in my gaze.
Fear exploded like the cock pheasant rattling across the sky as I write.
If I had a gun, they'd be hanging from a tree
so their blood wouldn't stain their meat.
They had weeping willow legs,
their withers trembled like an earthquake.
In the not so distant, the hounds bayed.
With a bow and arrow I could have
pinned their hearts to the ground,
but a spring rose up through the clay at my feet.
An arrow flew from their eyes and sank into
the black hole in the center of mine.
I saw I had always been blind, and I knew
why I'd always been thirsty.
I pressed my stone heart to the ground and took a drink.
The clay was cool, cracked and worn away by wind and feet.
It knew better than anyone how to receive.
I gave the earth my shame.
All the arrows I had flung without thinking whom they would meet.
I asked the earth to punish me, but she said come this way.
The doe walked into the west, the buck followed.
Some of my teachers have led me astray,
but they were all leading me to these tracks on the beach,
the hoofprints that I followed,
knowing my life had finally found me.
All I had to do now was keep walking,
but the sand stung my face like a swarm of bees.
For hours I fell through the glass,
wading up to my knees, to my waist, to my ribs and lungs,
I knew my heart would break.
I finally lay down and asked the sand to bury me,
but I choked on the words, spitting out grains
because I still wanted to breathe.
I was blind now.
The wind pulled me to a fallen watchtower
where my ancestors had waited to be destroyed.
I heard the planes close in and submarines rise.
And when my ears were clogged with sand, I cried.
Even the wind had abandoned me.
I had thought my ancestors would greet me,
but there was nothing in that empty space.
Finality may be as unrecognizable as the sperm and egg
that set you upon this path in the first place.
Heaven is the first house you come upon,
after six hours of walking the edge of an island
scoured by waves.
You are shocked that heaven is lit by electric lights,
but you enter their orbit because by now
you'll accept any embrace.
So this is why they stand frozen -- the ache.
-- JEN LIGHTY

Reflections On Consensus

Reflections On Consensus

by Jen Lighty

Consensus is a way of making a decision within a group that honors the individual contributions that each member has to make. It is process oriented, rather than focused on achieving a product or result at all costs.
Most of us who came of age in 20th century America have been raised in a society that values the product at all costs--whether it be chasing down a client, getting a big tip, achieving a perfect body, relationship or child--we tend to judge ourselves on winning, rather than on how we play the game. As you know, the most competitive players are usually the ones who win--those who come out on top.
We call this a hierarchy--a social system where people compete for their position on a vertical scale. Generally, the more dominant and aggressive traits of the human personality are the most valued, as they enable the person who possesses them to grab control and rise to the top. This behavior is often justified by comparing it to the animal kingdom. This attitude--that it is the fittest who survive and prosper, is one of the paradigms that shape our consensual reality. It is systemic in all aspects of our existence on earth. Not only does it reflect our attitude toward every aspect of our personal and public relationships, it mirrors the way we think about the earth--as something under our control, to be dominated and used.
Before I go into the problems with this mode of thought, I would like to identify it as just that--a way of thinking that is based on separation, a firm belief that the material world exists as something unchangeable outside ourselves. However, as discoveries in quantum physics have shown, consciousness can alter physical reality. If enough of us are able to feel and think a different way of being, than the physical world will reflect our thoughts, creating a new consensual reality. In other words, it is our choice. Do you want to live in a world where only the fittest survive, or in a world where everyone is allowed to flower without fear of being devoured by wild beasts?
Back to the problem. The problem with hierarchies is that they are not sustainable. They demand infallibility--when one weakens, one falls and looses one’s authority. When one can no longer perform, one is expendable. This way of thinking has been taken to its extreme. It reaches into all aspects of our consciousness, including the way we relate as a society to the earth. By constantly expecting the land to perform for us, we have exhausted its resources and created a situation where there now seems that there is not enough for all to share. This is a lie based on fear created by those who are invested in the hierarchical system! We have the choice to co-create new paradigms based on respect and sharing. When enough of us decide to do this, we will embody these values, and since our bodies are physically no different from the earth, it will change as well.
Consensus is a way for us to re-create ourselves based on mutual respect. It recognizes that we all have unique contributions to make, and that we all serve as mirrors for each other, enabling us to learn our own strengths and weaknesses as we go through the process of determining the best way to achieve our desired result. Above all, consensus is a way for us to recognize that we are here to learn from each other--that earth is a school--and that the emotions which arise when working in a group are the most important lessons. If we only value the qualities which enable us to most efficiently grab control and win (the capitalist model), then we risk losing the many opportunities to fully develop ourselves provided for us by working in a group.
My experience: I learned about consensus at Earth Activist Training, a program combining permaculture, energy work, and social activism. We worked in small groups on permaculture design projects using the consensus method.
In my experience, consensus can be frustrating and exhausting, but the rewards of learning about myself as I learned to listen to the needs of other people were far more rewarding than presenting our final product. Unless the group is really adept at self-organizing, a good facilitator definitely helps. Someone who can bring out the best in everyone. Accustomed to being overlooked in a hierarchy, quiet and shy people often don’t speak at all. It is the role of the facilitator to give them space to be heard, and to moderate the more dominant types without quelling their enthusiasm. A major part of facilitating (and of being a member of a group) is to look for what’s going on beneath the surface of what’s being said. This is where emotional wounds fester, wounds which have the potential to erupt at a later point, often making it difficult for the group to cohere enough to present the best that they can for the common good.
As a decisive person blessed with the ability to create an overall vision with ease, it was difficult for me to sit back and give the less decisive room to let their thoughts ramble where they needed to go. By sitting back and listening, I learned the value of patience, and the pleasure to be found in piecing the vision together from detail to detail. The experience can be likened to following the tracks of an unknown animal over the landscape one step at at time. When you finally discover what you’ve been following, the thrill and sense of satisfaction will be much greater than if one knew at the beginning.
Ego insecurities will most likely come out in consensus. I noticed in our group that most of us had been conditioned to want approval by the authority figures (although not by the teachers at EAT!). The fear that we would fail and not have a project that was good enough to present to the group hung over us the whole time and brought out the aspects of our personalities that needed refinement.
One other problem that can arise, is the inability to make a decision. I found that nobody in our group wanted to step on anyone’s toes. Nobody wanted to be seen as trying to grab power by finalizing everything. We had all internalized such negative messages about capitalism and the hierarchical models of organization that we suppressed our leadership abilities, and even our creativity to some extent. It is hard to flow with one’s creative energy others in the group are mulling over process points. This is where splitting into subgroups can be handy. Identify what people are best at and have them report back to the main group. The main thing really, is for everyone to just let go and recognize what they are best at, and for everyone in the group to realize that every task has equal value. Being able to locate paper and pens is just as important as being able to draw.
I found the mechanics of the process awkward and stifling--having to make proposals and then having to vote on each one before doing, but I could see how it was a necessary step in retraining a group of people who had been taught to forge ahead toward a goal no matter what the cost. Once I realized this, I was able to let go of my ego needs and enjoy the energy dynamics of the people I was privileged to work with.
Finally, when meltdowns occur, consider that these moments of uncontrolled emotion may be far more important than getting the project done. I’m not sure this happened very smoothly in the group I worked on--at least not right at the time they happened--although they were addressed afterwards in private. I think a little steamrolling may have occurred at the end when the group decided (without speaking the decision out loud) to just forge ahead despite the hurt feelings or frustrations of those who were still stuck emotionally. Maybe this was the action that needed to be taken for the greatest good--I’m not sure. In creatures like ants, who, from the human perspective, seem to work as a group mind with ease, the boundaries seem a lot more clearly defined. But we are not ants--we are humans, blessed with the gift of emotions. We get to choose whether or not we want to let go and fall into the arms of the universe, and if we do, we are able to see that nothing is out of order at all. We are always in the right place at the right time. It is in moments of realization like this, that compassion for others, and most importantly, for one’s self, is born. And in my case, gratitude for the lessons learned.

The Soul Gets To Choose

Sacrifice leads to bliss...

Forgiveness is the path to unconditional love...

These are two of the dominant paradigms that have shaped human cultures all over the planet for the last four thousand years or so. Both of them imply that we live in a fallen world, that life on earth is a punishment for a sin against God, that because we sinned, we must be punished by learning through pain.

For example, I first felt unconditional love through being betrayed over and over again. Finally, after the most painful of all the betrayals, I realized my own role in creating the situation where I felt so much pain. This occurred because I was able to see beyond what my ego wanted for my life, and what my soul was trying to teach me. When the soul chooses to incarnate somewhere, it has to adapt to the rules of the domain where it appears--that is how it learns, how it becomes aware of itself (this is how I see it at least). On earth, as the ego experiences pain, it is giving the person the opportunity to make a choice: choose to realize that you attracted the experience of betrayal. When I realized this, my heart was filled with so much love for the person who betrayed me. I was able to see how I had been only using such a little part of my heart, keeping the rest safe because I didnt' trust in the divine plan of the universe. One can also choose to shut down, to sink into the pain until there is no separation between it and you. You embrace your identity as victim and your heart closes down. I don't know why I finally decided to realize that I was attracting the experiences of betrayal. I don't think there is a rational explanation. It was not an intellectual choice. I think my soul just knew that it was time for me to learn this lesson--divine intervention occurred, what we sometimes call grace.

Now to my next point, the one I am really excited about! I believe the two paradigms I listed at the beginning of this post are relics of the past. The energy on earth no longer supports them. We are now in a time where one does not have to sacrifice in order to experience bliss, and where one does not have to experience painful betrayals in order to experience unconditional love. Forgiveness is no longer a necessary part of the process because we will no longer be learning through pain. Although the world may look like it is falling apart, this is the last gasp of those who will not let go of the control they exert over others, a control based on fear, and on the paradigm that life on earth is one of suffering that will be redeemed in Heaven.

I don't have any facts or evidence to back this up, but my heart knows this is true, and I trust my feelings over anything else. Another thing I learned from being betrayed--one's feelings are usually right, not what one knows intellectually. This gives me another reason to thank all those who have betrayed me!

So what will our new paradigms be? For me, poetry is the language of feeling, but I wanted to sketch my ideas out here to provide the images I feel coming some structure, and to ask all of you what you think. What do you think human life on earth will be like now that we don't have to sacrifice, now that we don't have to be redeemed, now that heaven will be here on earth, now that we don't have to protect our hearts because they won't have to be damaged so that we can learn to forgive to re-open them to the limitless glory of divine love?

Read The Land Of Curving Water: A Mythological Memoir

I have decided to post the book I have been working on for the past eight years or so on the web. It is called The Land Of Curving Water: A Mythological Memoir. The book deals with my experiences in Waipi'o Valley, on the island of Hawaii. I have had enthusiastic responses from a few agents, but no one would take it, saying it is not commercial enough. As you can see from the title, I have invented my own genre. The book is mythological in the sense that it deals with the making and mythologizing of the self. It also has a few Hawaiian myths woven into it that parallel my story. I thought about self-publishing it, but don't have the money right now. I thought posting it on my blog would be a good way to let it go, enabling me to move onto new creative endeavours. To read the book, click here. This will lead you to the book, hosted by my friend John at www.blockislandfactor.com. Thanks John! Thanks to all who have been a part of my journey as I wrote this book.

Thursday, Nov. 4 -- I made an important discovery today I want to add to my words above. I realized that a part of me was hoping I would find a "real" publisher for my book by posting it on the internet. Real, as in the sense that they would pay me for my work. The shift in my thinking which occured today can be attributed to someone telling me that The Land Of Curving Water must have been a real labor of love for me to work on it for 8 years. I replied, it was not a labor of love, rather a labor of learning to love my self. For the past few years that I've been trying to get the book published for money I've been telling myself it doesn't get accepted because it's too non-traditional, ahead of its time, not mainstream, painting myself as a victim of the publishing industry like so many other misunderstood and unappreciated artists before me. Now if there is one thingI've learned in the past four years it's thatI am not a victim of anything--I create the situations I need in order to fulfill my soul's needs. Ironically, that is the major theme of The Land Of Curving Water. So what does my soul need to learn from not getting published? In my old way of thinking I would say my soul needed to go on no matter what happened, to learn to be strong, to find joy within and not rely on approval from others. However, I have been learning about reframing lately. As we move through this energetic shift on earth, our old ideas and concepts based on lack are falling away. We have lived in a world that defines existence as something based on suffering. Everything I am being taught, and directly experiencing, tells me that this is no longer the case. Human existence will be based on the joy of creation from now on. The Land Of Curving Water is a book about suffering. I saw today that the reason I was guided to post the book on the web was because I was meant to give it away. Who would want to make a profit from suffering? As I give my suffering away, I allow you to let yours go as well. Yesterday I watched two golden eagles soar on the wind. This morning a young bald eagle hovered twenty feet above my head. Eagles balance water and fire. The island of Hawaii is being born as I write these words--molten lava pouring out of the heart of the earth, taking solid form as it encounters the sea. We can live in balance. We can give away our pain. Aloha means to give without expectation of receiving, but I suspect the more we give the more we'll receive. I was given the gift of eagles at my window, the sun radiant on their golden wings.

Jen

Soul Age, Part Two

I would like to point out that soul ages should not be rated hierarchically, as we are accustomed to doing with age. It is tempting to claim spiritual superiority if one identifies with the mature soul category--but looking down on a baby soul who needs dogma in order to function will not enable one to move into becoming an old soul. I think I forgot to mention that the goal of all souls in an earth incarnation is to experience unconditional love for all of humanity. As a mature soul who often feels belittled by adult souls, I am tempted into thinking myself superior--but know that this will only hurt me in the end. As Rumi said, "I ignore anything which insults my soul."

With Dignity And Grace

I wrote this poem about my friend Padme, who I met last winter at Earth Activist Training. Padme is a very beautiful spirit who freely gives of herself...she gave the best hugs! Right now she is in Algiers, Louisiana, across the river from New Orleans, working with the Common Ground Collective to help victims of Hurricane Katrina help themselves. She and the others in teh colective are helping community members self-organize to provide for their needs--since the government has failed to meet them. This is an example of the permaculture principle "the problem is the solution" in action. The failure of the government to compassionately meet the needs of the people of New Orleans is giving people the opportunity to create a system of self-governance that reflects their needs and their beliefs, to take charge of their lives and to regain dignity, instead of what the U.S. government wants to give them in the name of charity. Padme is in charge of counselling relief workers and people just coming back to their homes for the first time. She is of course giving lots of hugs! I send these words out into space hoping they nurture her. Thank you , Padme.

In The Green Fields Of Iowa, Padme Crowe Weeps

In a white clapboard house
down a dirt road that used to be a stream,
Padme Crowe weeps.
Sparrows twitter at the window for sunflower seeds.
She sprinkles them on the sill knowing
they’ve been poisoned by cropdusters
who bomb the fields surrounding the house everyday.
She’s afraid to breathe,
but someone must sing to the green corn
rising out of the furrows,
plowed by steel teeth so fierce
no stone can chip or crack them.
It’s not your fault, she sings.
It’s not your fault poison runs through our veins.
She tilts her head back and reaches with her tongue for the rain.
Just one drop is all she needs.
Look at that crazy girl, the farmers say.
She’s in our way.
Even the crows have deserted the fields,
scattered like buckshot,
headed toward a stand of trees
rumored to be holding out in the next county.
Padme’s voice soars above the bombs, the spray.
She takes a deep breath and lets her faith out,
the hymn in the seed.
The crows fall silent and drop back to earth,
watching the bugs flee the corn,
running from the conflagration
like the Vietnamese girl in the famous photo
from Life magazine, her young body aflame.
Flame is the enemy of innocence
as well as its revealer. There may be nothing
more brutal than to be a witness to pain.
There may be nothing more necessary.
The bugs never make it to the road
where they might have had a chance
to be caught up by a wind that would carry them
to a planet in another galaxy
that has not yet been pillaged and raped.
The crows don’t close their eyes.
Neither does Padme.
Together they open their mouths
and release the last drop of rain.
OM MANI PADME HUM.
OM MANI PADME HUM.
OM MANI PADME HUM.
If you lean in close to these words
you’ll see the black sheen of their feathers.
A blank reflection.
Everything.
See the lotus blooming in mud.
See the black diamond in the center of its petals.
See all your delusions be carried away
by a bright gold beak.
See the dignity of men as they go about
the day’s killing.
See the beauty of each swelling kernel.
Harvest the truth that is budding within you.
Their is nothing but this song that won’t end
when my voice whithers away.

Blessed Be

Blessed Be

On a day when breathing was sweet as wild strawberries,
when air soothed my lungs like a cool drink from the spring
pouring out of the iron pipe to nurture watercress and jewelweed
rejoicing at the edge of the pond where I found a box turtle once
who I picked up and took home to live with my family for a week,
a pond ringed by cattails who filter out the toxic waste that casts a blight
on my hope that one day the child who wants to be born through me
will walk without fear of contamination by pesticides, bombs and radio
waves, at this pond where ducks nest in the tussocks, where I’ve heard
frogs sing, where once I ate the sweetest blackberry I’ve ever tasted
in October, long after the rest of the berries had dried up, been baked
in a cobbler, or plucked by a bright-eyed bird’s beak, god finally spoke to me.
I’d been expecting to find the red feather for weeks since the cardinal
flew into my heart the afternoon I asked for help to dissolve the doors
locked tight in my brain. I knew about hawks and owls, birds whose
symbology had me soaring high above the earth, or delving deep
into my shadows. The red feather didn’t say anything to me when I
asked it to speak, so I put my field guide away and rode my bike
like a horse until I could move across the surface of the earth like
I was being chased by a wall of fire, my heart a panicked rabbit
that knew it wasn’t fleet enough to escape incineration. I looked to the sky
to save me, praying for rain, but all I saw were stars, sometimes falling,
but still balls of swirling flame raining sparks that set my hair ablaze,
hissing like a den of venomous snakes, or relentless waves that wouldn’t
let time stop for a moment to breathe, charging across the universe,
a herd of horses there was no way I could break.
I surrendered before they could trample me.
When the numbness finally arrives it’s a relief after the shock
of the sting, a cold ice cube on skin that just wants the pain to go away,
forgetting that life can’t sprout from ground that’s been frozen unless the sun
arrives in spring to thaw the layers we can’t see, and that it’s possible to turn
one’s face away so far from the sun that the ice reaches bedrock,
where no seeds can sprout to feed the soul, who’s starving.
I didn’t know I had left her behind in that valley were waterfalls blossomed
after heavy rain. I thought she had walked out with me and taken her seat
on the plane that flew back across the Pacific Ocean to the desert where I
started walking toward this moment, following a trail of boulders,
then pebbles, and finally grains of sand, until they ran out and I reached
through the hourglass and took my heart in my hands, when I held my
broken self to my heart and soothed her aches as tenderly as the shadows
the boughs of a weeping willow make on the green grass embroidered with
dandelions and clover, where a rabbit nibbles in peace, letting dogs and cats and
women charge by on bikes, knowing it has nothing to fear from the oncoming storm,
what appears to be a squall of unquenchable emotion, but is really just
a wheel doing what comes naturally, guided by gentle hands who mold the rising clay
into righteous shapes, beauty revealed as each turning point is embraced.
I wept with my abandoned self and she forgave me for leaving her.
I forgave her for making me want to forget in the first place.
We dissolved into each other in waves that I now knew weren’t
relentless, but the echo of eternity giving us as many chances as
we need to reach down and pick up the red feather dropped by the
cardinal as it fed on the suet ball coated with sunflower seeds
hung by a kind-hearted woman from the branch of the pine tree
she can see from her bay window when the butterfly bush isn’t
blooming as riotously as it was today when I rode my bike to water
her garden where pink cosmos currently reign, taking their share
of the sun in full knowledge they will let their petals drop to the ground
when it’s time to release, knowing all must change, and even more,
that all should change, the seasons of the heart as explosive as
wild strawberries, the sweet flame I expected to be unbearable,
until I accepted its embrace.

Soul Age

I learned a fascinating way to determine soul age recently and have been mentally applying it to people in my life. I believe it is from the channeled entity known as Michael, a comglomeration of a 1,000 or so souls. There are books from Michael if you want to read more.

baby souls are concerned with issues of survival

infant souls need dogma in order to survive

adult souls are concerned with achievement, both material and immaterial

mature souls are concerned with relationships and have a lot of emotional drama

old souls see things from the broadest perspective possible and are less interested in playing the material game

I would catergorize myself as being on the brink between mature and old. I have tons of emotional drama, but am aware of it when I get caught up in it, and am generally able these days to get out of it be identifying what the drama is trying to teach me.

The world today seems to be controlled by adult souls. I thought it was kind of funny that the adult souls often look down on the mature souls, who since they are so caught up in their emotional dramas, can't get it together enough to achieve much of anything! Here on Block Island, the town is controlled by adult souls, but there are many mature souls who have been blown here like migrating birds.

I have met very few old souls in my life so far. I think one of them is my teacher Maria. The Dalai Lama is another one, but a less obvious is my brother Steven. He and I share Hawk medicine. Hawk is the messenger bird who sees the earth from a broad perspective. Steven does not often get caught up in emotional drama, but he does not judge those who do. So thanks for being such a great brother, Lightnin'!

For those of you who struggle with emotional drama, remember you can call upon the power of the hawk at any time to lift you above the muck. Emotions are classes in earth school. Now that I have managed to fly a little above my current emotional drama, I can see whay my latest emotional drama is trying to tell me: I am still vulnerable to having someone come in and totally take over my life. In other words, I need to work on my boundaries. This doesn't mean there is something wrong with me. There is nothing wrong with being open-hearted, but somehwere along the way I developed a need for love that is so great that I am willing to surrender my whole identity or order to have another person in my life. This is also called co-dependency. I recommend the book Co-Dependendt No More, if this sounds familiar to you. However, just as I no longer identify with the word alcoholic, I can do the same with this other label. My point is, that if you keep telling yourself over and over again that there is something wrong with yourself, then you will never shift onto another spoke of the wheel of life.

Offering on A Rainy October Night

You Can Learn From A Tree How To Exist In Ecstasy

My friends are so in love they don’t hear
the tin can rattle of our dinner conversation.
Even though I know I should look away
as they stand up from the table to embrace,
I can’t.
I balance on the edge of this island I’ve chosen
as the bride and groom drive away.
They have no shame, but I do, looking at the
bottles of wine on the table and thinking
maybe just one drink would be OK.
In addition to wine, there is starlight.
The table is laden with grilled chicken
and charred zucchini, left on too long
because the cook was so excited to dance,
he forgot we expected to eat.
I want to say the food was divine
as my friends merged with the dune grass
shivering with the first touch of the breeze off the ocean,
and it may have been,
but all I tasted was the ashes as it blew away,
taking my parched tongue with it,
leaving me with no way to speak the words
I was too afraid to invite to the table.
Words that might have set my heart free
from the lead sinker dragging it into the deep
where no one could see its wounds
except the bottom-dwellers
who had somehow found out a way
to generate their own light.
A tree makes food from light,
but I’m not a tree, I’m a ghost
haunted by the waves caressing
the beach on this sultry August night
where I wish someone would randomly appear
to seduce me, so I wouldn’t have to
honor the call of the ocean
who is demanding I get up from the table
and humble myself to its need.
I knew this day would come soon
because I’ve listened to the waves for so long
I don’t hear them.
Birds twitter in the beach roses to the beat of the moon
as it ripples on the break.
I try to look away, but I’m drawn by instinct
like horseshoe crabs on the one full moon tide in May
when they can breed.
My friends are fused now like the roots of two trees
who have grown together in a forest that has always
met all of their needs.
They have no fear they’ll be torn from the earth by a hurricane.
Their bodies are broken levees.
They drift downstream, calling out for me to join them,
but I cling to the rooftop, still believing some unearthly force
is going to drop down from the stars to rescue me.
As I watch them drift away, I realize what the ocean wants from me.
Its voice pours through the hole in my heart which blossoms
as the scabs that protect it are torn away.
Do you remember how the breeze ran its fingers
up and down the curve of your waist?
Do you remember the way sunlight tastes,
the salt on his skin you scraped clean like a cat
until all your edges were as smooth as the stones on the beach
beneath the bluffs, where the waves thundered
with the force inside the seed?
Do you remember how, after, he brought you a glass of water
and held it to your lips so you didn’t have to get up to drink?
Do you remember how you saw god in your own face
when you looked in his eyes, your reflection so open the world fell away?
Do you remember the joy of sinking into the ground
in full knowledge it would someday be your grave?
Do you remember what it feels like to hear only the waves?
Do you remember knowing that even when the time came for you
to drop your leaves, deep inside your heart you’d still have
the root of this memory,
stored away for the day ocean cried out,
so tired of breaking.

Coffeehouse Musings

I started off the day with organic darjeeling instead of coffee. I started off the day to feed Quincy and Noah, two cats who are under my care. Rode my bike, noticed all the chrysanthemums planted, marveled at maroon flowers. My point is that I started off the day with the resolve that I went to bed with. I resolve all day to open myself to god. Last night I was told I was not listening, that I was missing the message god was trying to give me. I was also told I was not fully committed to hearing the message--that's why I'm not hearing it. All I can do is surrender to the moment, the pleasures of the day and the trials. Right now writing has shifted from being a pleasure to a trial because I am in JuicenJava and some people are having a loud conversation about New England prep schools and I keep hearing them mention Middlebury, and because I went there I want to join in, but I'm also annoyed at their elitist name-dropping, which makes me annoyed at myself that I am judging them, and also that I am distracted. Maybe the message is that I am spending too much time in coffeehouses! This is definitely true. Since I don't go to bars, this is the only place I can go to push my loneliness away. Maybe the message god is trying to give me is that I must enter what I perceive as loneliness to realize I am not alone. So I am going to do that....now.

Apocalypse Picnic

When are we most ourselves? Walking alone at dusk on a path on the edge of a bluff, guided by yellow goldenrod, watching hundreds of butterflies flutter from flower to flower? I am most myself when I swim in waves as tall as small mountains at Black Rock. I need the immensity. I am most myself when I am forced to pay attention or I will be drowned. I am most myself when I sit on the beach afterwards around a fire and play my flute. I was myself the other night as I did yoga in a field and watched two deer feed on the hill a hundred yards away. They knew I was there, but decided I was no threat. We were all gentle with each other. It is is hard to be gentle around other people. We have to put up so many barriers just to make it through the day. I am rarely myself around other people, only a version that they want to see, and this is something I want to change. I want to be as gentle and trusting as those two deer on the hill. I want to be as fully alive as I am when I swim with the great waves. That night on the beach after swimming was especially amazing because there were other people around the fire. Surfers, exhilarated from riding waves. I played my flute. It was dark, but they could still see me in my song. I wasn't afraid to be seen. Some campers had abandoned a whole campsite on the beach. Pots and pans, a grill to upt over the bed of coals, a cooler of striped bass and a keg. Even lemons and salt and pepper. Jack cooked the striped bass and we ate it with our fingers. We called it the apocalypse picnic, joking that we were the last people in the world. When everything does collapse, I know we will be ok. We will come together and make the best out of what we can salvage, and what we create will be far more authentic than the illusion we live in now. The more I surrender to the will of god, the more I am able to be myself. I pray that we may all walk in beauty.

I Will Wait For The Will of God To Speak

Two books have greatly influenced my thinking lately--Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell, and The Magic of Findhorn, by Paul Hawken. Both suscribe to the power of positive thinking to shift the fate of our planet from the destruction that seems imminent to a vision of heaven on earth. Although it is hard to see this in action right now, I can attest to the power of the mind to change reality, if only on a personal level. The key is to visualize how you want to feel, not just what you want to see. I wrote the following essay for my application to Hedgebrook, a writer's colony on Whidbey Island, in Washington. Wish me luck!

Last night I wrote "I will wait for the will of god to speak" at the top of a blank page. I had reached a point where I knew if I didn’t cross the threshold into the room without walls I had seen in my dreams, I’d collapse. After years of struggle, I felt no closer than I had at the beginning. I was so tired from running in circles all I could do yesterday was lay in bed, hoping some course of action would come to me.
"I will wait for the will of god to speak." Not action, but surrender. I fell into a dreamless sleep and woke up to write this essay. This morning, I see another possible meaning to the words I received. Maybe it’s not that I’m meant to wait for god to speak, but rather that I must wait for the will of god to make itself known before I speak.
Day to day life is full of so many distractions we forget the power of words to shape reality. We toss them aside as carelessly as crumpled newspapers. I do my best to turn away from the onslaught of negativity the media spews forth daily, but I’ll admit I often fail. I give into the lies that keep us from finding freedom within our hearts. These lies have the majority of us convinced that the system by which we live is the only way, a system based on domination of the earth and its creatures--on ownership, manipulation, on capitalization which demands capitulation of all that the human spirit desires in the dark of night when all defenses are stripped away. These lies keep us from being loved and fully loving, they make us think the earth can’t provide for all our needs. I know we have only to choose words that create a sustainable vision instead of one based on shortsighted greed.
I would like to come to Hedgebrook to quiet the voices of doubt that keep me from fully embodying my truth. I have agonized over the state of the earth. I have let my horror at the war humans have been carrying on against themselves and the planet for so long blind me to believing there is another way. I have let this horror wound me, and I almost succumbed to it before I learned the greatest lesson of my life. I learned to love my wounds by forgiving those who had wounded me, and I realized this applied to everyone and everything on earth. I realized that forgiveness is the path to unconditionality. I learned to have faith in the wisdom of my feet, that they had never led me onto a path where I wasn’t supposed to be. I learned to see the flowers on the side of the freeway.
I would like to see how deep I can dive into solitude, how long I can hold my breath underwater, and who else is swimming with me. I would like to offer my blind faith in the universe. I would like to bring my awakening heart to a place where others can witness its fledgling beat. I realize my reasons for wanting to come to Hedgebrook may not appear to have the ability to have an obvious impact on the world. All I can say is that the more I embody my vision, the greater affect I will have on others, whether they read my poetry or stand next to me on the street.
What I can offer is my commitment to experiencing all my emotions as fully as possible in order to understand what they are trying to teach me, and my commitment to creating a political consciousness that moves beyond fear and anger into unknown territory. I believe we will find the solutions that will enable us to create harmony within ourselves in the unknown, a harmony which will resonate through all beings.
I can offer my heart which is learning to open the way each moment unfolds, without question, trusting that all is as it should be. I can offer a sense of wonder at the web of life, and gratitude for my role as weaver. I can offer the truth found in grace.

Never Give Up Hope

Why? Because the universe works on the law of attraction. Physicists have proven that matter and energy are the same.....we are waves of sound and light, we create with our vibrations. If we vibrate despair then we will create a world where despair reigns. If we vibrate optimism, we will create a world where things go well--the trick with visualization is not just to think what you woudl like to see, but to feel it. A little harder to do than just picturing something, but possible if you actually surrender to your vision. I am aware that this is a very unscientific description that can easily be picked apart by those who want to believe the world is merciless, that earth is meant to be a place of suffering. For a scientific explanation check out Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics. While I think scientific materialism is a useful tool to prove to the doubters, I trust in my intuition above all else. If something feels right to me, than I consider it the truth. However, I am aware that this is the truth to me, that my truth may not be the same as everyone elses. What we call reality is really a consensual agreement--and the reality currently governing the United States is, in my mind, a mass hallucination designed to keep people from realizing they are free to create the lives they want to live, lives of freedom and peace. While I do believe there is a conspiracy of the elite to keep people oppressed on our planet, I see this conspiracy as part of the larger cycle necessary for the growth of both our individual souls and the soul of our planet. "All the world's a stage," Shakespeare said in As You Like It. We all play our parts with different degrees of self-awareness. It is easy to lose hope when faced with local issues--by local I mean both what happens in one's community and also what happens to one personally. Here on Block Island we have come face to face with the greed that is intent on destroying the planet in many ways, most notably with the expansion of Champlin's Marina into the Great Salt Pond. Many of my well-informed friends are convinced the CRMC is totally corrupt and will not be swayed by the heartfelt testimony of the islanders against this expansion. I, however, have hope that the language of the heart will be heard, that there is always room for cracks to appear, and that when they do, the dry earth will be filled with life-giving water. Seeds of hope will sprout and soon we will have a tree we can climb, a tree that rises up through the clouds, into the stars. We will find ourselves drifting on a river of starlight. We will recognize ourselves as citizens of the Galaxy. We will know we are not alone.

Block Island Needs Us

I am sending you this message because I felt you would be interested in joining the Sacred Circle I have called to show our love and respect for the water and land of Block Island. On Friday, the final CRMC hearing in regards to the expansion of Champlin's Marina into the Great Salt Pond will take place. I encourage everyone to show up at the hearing from 10-3 at the Empire Theater. It is important to make our presence known politically--but there is also another aspect of activism that I want to bring into the mix here--by forming a circle we can give energetic support to stopping this expansion. We can also hold the energy in a peaceful way for those who might become angry or upset at the short-sighted greed of those behind the expansion into the Pond. If we who are opposed to the expansion act out of anger, we will only be reacting to the system which we oppose. The only way to break this cycle is by refusing to use the tools and methods of the oppressor, which means we must create our own system. I would like to see a world based on sharing resources, a community based on the common good of all--which includes plant and animal life as well as human. This is my definition of morality--what is most beneficial to the common good. If you agree, please join me on Thursday at 5 PM at the Beach House. If enough people come I would like to do a spiral dance. If not, we will call in the elements and offer whatever comes to us as we join together in reverence and peace. Please come, Block Island needs you. This is an opportunity for us to act responsibly, with reverence for all the island has given us. It is time to speak out and do what we can to stop the exploitation of our beautiful island by offering an alternative vision! The circle will begin at 5 PM, at the Beach House on Corn Neck Rd. (across from Sharky's). Rain or shine! If Hurricane Ophelia hits us we will work with her. We will listen to what she has to say. We will use her fury to transmute our own anger so that we can transmit love to all involved in this conflict. Remember--Ophelia was the tragic heroine who drowned herself when Hamlet rejected her. If we take her as an aspect of the goddess, who has been spurned and denied for so long, it easy to understand her anger, easy to see how she would want to strike back as the water has done in New Orleans. This is an opportunity for us to welcome back the angry goddess in all of us, to tell her it is time to break the cycles that have limited us since civilization pushed her underground four thousand years ago. Civilization is devouring itself in Iraq. The earth is cleansing itself. The circles and cycles are so immense it is hard for us to see them--but if we form our own small circles I think it becomes easier, and we will carry this energy within us wherever we go, bringing more people into our circle, people who want to live in harmony with the earth in a sustainable way. It was Starhawk who taught me that there are 5 sacred things here on earth. By sacred, she means that which cannot be bought or sold--four of them--earth, air, fire and water, are already commodities. It is in the fifth where hope remains--the spirit. However, the spirit needs to be fed, needs to be nurtured and loved. The spirit needs to be heard, or it is in danger of becoming a commodity as well. Is this the legacy you want to leave the earth? I end this request for unity with words from the Hopi Elders--"WE ARE THE ONES WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR." If you cannot make it to the circle in person you can join us energetically. And please, forward this email to all who love Block Island, or to anyone you feel needs these words. I thank you all for sharing this journey with me here on earth, and I honor the light and dark in each one of you.

I am exhausted. Looking back at past entries here, I'm not surprised. Having an opinion outside the mainstream attracts contempt and ridicule from others, all of which has been directed at me, even though I know there are others who feel the way I do--I was the one who publicly spoke out. I don't know about this whole internet thing energetically. I am connecting with all these people I don't know who have a reaction to what I say. If it is positive, then I get the benefit of their reaction, but if it's negative, I get that too. What to do when you just can't stand the way things are anymore? I started this blog to communicate my vision of the world in the hopes of becoming the change I want to see, and in helping others shift toward creating a sustainable earth. Maybe angering people is just one of the steps on the way, but I am demoralized by the negative reactions my words have received, especially when I have tried to communicate with a peaceful heart. I fear there must still be some anger in me. I am beginning to suspect that words may not be the path for me--that action is necessary. My teacher has said that it's a waste of energy to butt heads constantly with the dominant society which is invested in maintaining its power. One has to just go on, creating the world one wants to live in even though it looks like the one one does live in is about to collapse at any second. I keep not learning this lesson. I keep reacting. I keep spinning on the same spoke of the wheel. Why can't we humans change as easily as the seasons? Or is that an illusion too? Maybe the leaves suffer as they whither and fall to the ground too.

Do Unto Others

As you would have them do unto you. This exhortation from the Bible was beautifully demonstrated by a story told to me by a woman who had read my latest letter to the editor in The BI Times. Once, while rushing to get to the ferry in Pt. Judith, she noticed a large snapping turtle ahead of her. Oh no! she cried to herself. She only had 8 minutes left to catch the boat. There were four lanes of traffic the turtle would have to cross to make it to the other side. She pulled her car over to the shoulder and walked out into the road, stopping traffic. Cars cheered her as she walked behind the turtle until it was safely across. The dockhands held the boat and let her on, completing the cycle and giving and receiving when she pulled her car over and stood before those cars to say stop. I thank her for this story. I thank the turtle for letting us build a home on its back.

Abundance Is Our Natural State of Being

Last night I saw so clearly how off track I was again and knew that if I continued on at this frantic pace I would crack again. Although I am relieved to have found a way of earning a living that I don't hate, I know that gardening is not the reason I came to earth. I am here to communicate, to weave a new reality with words, and while I can do this wherever I go, with whomever I meet, I am not fully expressing all that I have to share by the work I am doing to earn money, and my soul will not tolerate this any more from me, whoever I am--so I am not taking on any more jobs. The ones I have are enough. Yes, I could earn a few hundred more a week if I "hustled" but I will pay the price with my sanity. My friend Roark, a fellow writer, put it in perspective last week when someone asked him what his job was--"writing." When asked what he did for money he said he'd live on almonds and water if that was all he could afford. The REAL WORK has to come first for everybody. The jobs we take to keep ourselves safe are a distraction to keep us from the truth. Don't ask me who is keeping us from seeing the truth or why they would want to do this because I haven't figured this out yet. All I know is my own path, my own truth, and I can recognize when someone else is living their truth. To everyone dancing, singing, playing, biking, swimming, growing, all over the world, to everyone living with integrity, I say thanks, and promise I will honor my commitment to myself over the commitments I make out of fear from now on. Starhawk defines the sacred as that which is not commodifiable, the earth, air, fire, and water which give us life--all of thse things are for sale in the present day world, and our leaders are meeting right now in Scotland at the G-8 to decide who gets to make the most profit from the sacred elements. Today I read the police ringed my friends in the eco-camp in so they couldn't protest--but that public outrage turned against the police and they were allowed to leave the camp to speak up for the earth, for those of us who want to share resources instead of control them. No more lies. To myself. To others. Please join me. The fifth sacred thing is not yet for sale--our spirit--undefinable yet with us every moment, even when we sleep. We've been asleep collectively for a long time on earth, but more and more of us are waking up. There is nothing to be afraid of! The earth has everything we need, enough for everybody--please tell everyone you know there is enough for everybody. Blessed be.

Turtle Island

Turtle Island was the name for Earth according to many Native American traditions. Or should I say is the name--these traditions are still alive, even if the the actual people who created them and sustained them for eons are gone. They are being sustained by people everywhere who want to reconnect the earth--people like me who are reconnecting and wanting to teach others how to do the same out of a desire that is sometimes not easily understood. Does it matter on the cosmic level if the earth is saved or not? Everything decays and dies--I say what matters is how this decay and death occurs. All of us wish a good death, free of illness, in our sleep at a ripe old age after years of loving and learning. Don't you think the earth would wish the same? One of the things that Turtle teaches us is that all things ripen slowly over time. If we push the river the banks will collapse, the fields will flood, there will be nothing to eat. Important lessons for me this week as I resist being caught up in the summer rush to make money that captures Block Island's soul this time of year and puts it in a shark cage for a few months. The shark cage is what the locals jokingly call the jail here. I want to be free to live without fear. This may mean I will displease a lot of people who are expecting me to come through, to perform, but it is my own fault for capitulating to the system. Is it more important for me to make a hundred dollars or to write the following letter to the editor of the Block Island Times about the carnage I have noticed on the roads as I bike to my job sites? The earth does not need to be saved, in the sense that we are all already saved, but I do believe that we should act from good intentions, that to spread positive energy, to give voice to those who can't speak and who need to be heard, is part of eradicating the fear that keeps us in the shark tank, afraid we'll be devoured alive if we venture outside the bars. As the dimensional shift approaches,we have the opportunity to create much good karma on an individual and cosmic level by making conscious choices that show our respect for the bodies we've been given, and for our home Earth. I pray every day for the strength to act with right intention in all matters. I ask that my fears about survival be dissolved. I felt lighter after writing the following letter. I know people will laugh at me, but I also know I did the right thing.

To The Editor,

While riding my bike on Corn Neck Road over the past week I have noticed a blackbird, a box turtle and a goldfinch, dead - smashed or stunned by cars. I have also heard of two island dogs killed by cars in the past month. Many will say the dogs should have been tied up, or that the birds and turtle were in the way, but this doesn’t change the fact that these animals would most likely be alive if the drivers had been more conscious of what was in front of them, perhaps in less of a rush to get to the beach or to work.
The turtle, its shell cracked down the middle, was particularly upsetting to me. According to Native American teachings, Turtle is the oldest symbol for planet Earth, a symbol of the eternal Mother who provides us with all we need. With its slow pace, Turtle teaches us to be grounded, to stay connected. The smashed turtle - and this is not the only one I’ve seen – makes it apparent how easily disconnected we become from the island during the busy summer months.
While my heart aches at the current state of our planet due to our rapacious need to conquer and consume, I have hope. More than once, I have seen people stop to help turtles across the road. I don’t expect everyone to abandon their cars for bikes, but I ask you all to show respect for the creatures of the island, and thus the earth, by slowing down. The gifts you’ll receive by connecting with nature will be manifold and renewable. No act is too small to rebuild a sustainable Earth.

With respect for all creatures great and small,
Jen Lighty
Corn Neck Road

Summer Solstice

Today is the longest day of the year, tomorrow we will begin the descent into darkness again--yet winter seems so far away as summer begins, the blackberry blossoms and wild roses blooming frothy white as I race past the stonewalls on my bike. The sun enters Cancer today and we have a full moon in Capricorn, a union which asks us to try to balance our inner and outer worls. "The world is too much with us, getting and spending we lay waste our powers, " wrote William Wordsworth over two hundred years ago, before the Industrial Revolution, before capitalism became the world's religion. Still, I try to find a moment where I resist every day. I noticed goldfinches flashing by my bike and the ripple of moonlight on the duck pond on Old Town Road as I rode home from my catering job serving sailors gourmet meals for a week straight. Half the food gets thrown in the trash at the end of the night and none of the bottles are recycled. No one notices or cares about the waste except for me, but I don't care enough to go back and recycle all their bottles. All I can do is not take jobs like this I guess--or when I do realize it is a test. An opportuniyt to look beyond judgement, to let go of my resentment of the rich, to further my dedicaiton to serving humanity by transforming our world.....my worms are churning in the bin out behind my yard. Worm tea to make tomoroow, when it is supposed to rain, and I can retreat to my inner life, regroup and reconnect with who I am in stillness. Blessed be.

Letter To The Editor

I wrote my first letter to the editor to the BI Times last night. Actually, it's my first ever. I thought I would share it here with you. Note the application of problem is the solution thinking.

To The Editor:

This letter is in response to Bicycle and Moped Safety Commission member John Leone’s statement in the June 11 edition of The Block Island Times that there is no opposition to the proposed town ordinance mandating that all bike riders on Block Island be required to wear helmets.
While I am wary of placing myself in opposition to anyone, especially the Police, who will be handing out $40 tickets to those in violation if the ordinance passes, I feel that this proposed ordinance reflects larger cultural issues in regard to our personal freedoms, freedoms which are rapidly eroding under the Bush administration under the guise of our supposed need for protection, a need created by casting a cloud of fear over all our daily activities, over a simple pleasure like riding a bike. I believe we have reached a point where this fear is so pervasive that most don’t even realize they are being controlled by it, certainly hardly anyone questions the need for its existence in the first place.
While I acknowledge that accidents do and will happen, I don’t feel it is the obligation of our government to regulate the personal choices of its citizens when the results of these choices will primarily harm only themselves. I realize the ramifications of not wearing a helmet effects members of the dedicated rescue squad and the personnel at the Medical Center, but do we suggest an ordinance banning diners at island restaurants from eating burgers and fries because they cause heart attacks? And we as a community, certainly avoid looking directly at the hordes drinking themselves into a blind stupor in the island bars.
Instead of giving the law further control over our lives, I suggest we apply some creative thinking to the problem by viewing the problem itself as the solution. Bikes aren’t the problem - it’s the presence of too many cars that creates accidents, cars often driven by people under the influence of alcohol. Instead of penalizing carefree, environmentally-conscious bikers, we need to come up with creative solutions that will reduce the number of cars driven on the island during the busy summer months, as well as address the issue of drunk driving, which I fear is often ignored in this community.
While this issue may not seem important in comparison with the larger political issues of our day, or just not important at all to those whose prime concern is capitalizing on the brief tourist season, I think it is worth examining on a deeper level in order to determine why we feel the way we do as members of a society who has elected a federal government that feels we need to enact more and more laws to protect us from ourselves. The traumatic head injury this proposed ordinance is supposed to protect us from is indicative of what I see as an injury to the collective brain of the United States itself. We are a brain-damaged nation numbly accepting whatever our government tells us instead of a union of self-empowered citizens able to determine what is best for us on both an individual and collective levels according to our local needs.
I considered not writing this letter in the hopes that the Police would let the ordinance, if it passes, slide for locals, but know that this attitude reflects the hypocrisy I wish to dissolve on all levels of our society. It’s true that we must think globally and act locally if we want to create a sustainable society based on respect and cooperation instead of fear. No issue is too small or undeserving of our attention.
I encourage the Town Council and members of the various town commissions to think creatively instead of on a reactionary level that creates the potential for hypocrisy in its citizens. As we examine our collective decisions, no matter how trivial they may seem on a global scale, I think we’ll find that the truth really will set us free.

Joni Mitchell Morning

Today my sadhana included listening to Joni Mitchell's Blue, speaking the words love and gratitude over the water I drank, water doused with lavender, skulkcap, and st. john's wort to soothe my nervous system, summoning the spirit of those plants to aid me (I read recently that we don't even need to ingest the plants to enlist their aid, all we need to do is ask. Amazing), practicing several rounds of the Swimming Dragon, a form of tai chi I taught myself from a book when I was 22 and which I was surprised to discover Maria also practices, saying fading away as I breathed in and thank you, as I breathed out, as taught by poet Li-Young Li, a brief series of shoulder and back stretches and four rounds of sun salutations, after which I recited the mantra given to me by yoga teacher Jeff Davis and recited the Tube of Light as passed on to me by Maria. Afterwards I mixed ultimate green food powder with some O.J. (green food powder oxygenates the brain and is good for depression), ate some whole wheat toast with soy margarine and drank a gourd of organic yerba mate. Then I sat down and starting writing this litany, with which I complete the daily goals I set for myself with Maria the other day: To meditate and do yoga daily, to eat one organic thing, and to express myself creatively. I have done it all in the first hour of being awake! There are probably lots of days when I do this, but I am not mindful of it, rushing to get to work instead of giving myself credit for the work I am always doing. The work of being good to one's self in small ways is very important. I tend to become so focused on the larger goals of how I want to be that I give up on my daily practice, my sadhana slides into the dung heap and I follow it, wallowing in my self-perceived filth. I am part of a culture that knows deep inside that the way of life it is promoting is wrong, a culture that lies to itself, which means it is not authentic. However, I have the ability through my choices to separate myself from that culture. This is not the same as rebelling, which requires an antagonist. In my heart I am at peace with those who go along with the mass hallucination, although in my mind I grow frustrated sometimes and perhaps speak words that people are not ready to hear. This was an issue that came up in my soul retrieval. One of my wounded soul parts was an Amazonian woman who was trading some sort of fiber from her tribe to white colonialists. She paddled her canoe alone to their settlements. She saw what the white people were going to do to her people and spoke of it, but the men wouldn't listen to her. She even came up with a plan to expand their trade so that they would be more self-sufficient, but they wouldn't listen. They weren't ready to hear about their imminent destruction. One day as she was paddling, her canoe overturned and she became tangled up in the fibers and drowned. She died angry and feeling unheard and as her soul has traveled, finally entering my body, this need to speak and this anger has traveled through its new hosts. During the soul retrieval Tomma, the shaman who performed it along with Maria, went into the water and saved the woman. Tomma watched her go back to the village and live out the rest of her life. This time she stayed silent because she knew that her people were not ready to hear what she had to say. She had respect for where they were at, she operated from a place of non-judgment, which is much more difficult that judgment because it requires letting go of fear. Non-judgment means one accepts whatever happens as what is meant to be. Non-judgment means one dies in peace when the time is right and accepts the death, even terrible violent untimely death, as part of a pattern that must play itself out in order to balance dark and light. Tomma blew this healed soul part back into my heart. I am not surprised that this issue of speaking out when I should be silent is coming up so forcefully for me now. Integrating a soul part takes time and practice, and as sages so sagely say, things are often at their worse right when they are about to be released.

So I have had the sublime Joni Mitchell as my guide on this gray looks like it will rain morning. She is the ultimate musician to me. She sees right into my soul and sings it, unafraid to be naked and bleeding. In her new book the critic Camille Paglia says Mitchell's song "Woodstock" is one of the great poems of our era. She's right. Sometimes when I read contemporary poetry I think it is dull, has its head in the sand like an ostrich when it should be looking at the stars, that its antenna aren't working, that they arent' picking up the signals shooting across the galaxy, that most poets are so dulled by processing their own grief that they can't see the full spectrum of the possibilities available to them about which to write. Maybe that's the function poetry serves for us now--poetry as therapy--and that is well and good, not to be lamented, just accepted. Those who see beyond the word as therapeutic, who see it as a multidimensional tool to create reality, we can invent a new art form. We don't have to call it poetry, just as Jeanette Winterson says she doesn't write novels. She writes books. I don't write novels either, which is probably why my books don't sell. I have recenlty decided to call the book I wrote about Hawaii a mythological memoir. Just calling it a different name is enabling me to break free from the structural constraints of the novel, of what I thought it was supposed to be, and express what the book needed, my wild mind snarling like a tiger in the sugarcane.

Eat one organic thing, meditate, express myself creatively. The day has just begun. Who knows how many more times I will be able to do these things? But if I don't, it's ok. I kept my commitment to myself and can spend the rest o fthe day doing what needs to be done. However, I have a feeling that this commitment, if I stick to it, is going to open doors into new ways of being, that will enable me imagine my life richly, as the Lakota (and Jeff Davis) say.

Troubled Water

Troubled Water

Who told you?
Did you see it live on TV?
The surf finally came that day
after a flat summer.
I had just learned to look
beneath the surface of the waves
I’d been riding since childhood days.
Peace reigned in the kingdom of striped bass
who patrolled the borders of our island,concealed behind rocks and curtains of seaweed.
Sometimes, when I came upon them,
I could have sworn they were asleep.
I shot them through the eyes to prove
they were alive, holding my breath
till my lungs almost burst.
I drove my spear
until it pierced the socket
and came out on the other side.
It’s just instinct--
fish don’t feel pain,
was the general consensus
of everyone on the beach.
I wanted to believe anything.
The surf finally came that day
after a flat summer.
I sharpened my spear tip with a file
and cursed the waves
which made the water cloudy.
I didn’t want to ride, I wanted to sink,
but I swam out to meet them anyway.
We watched to see if clouds of smoke
would blight the sun.
We weren’t that far away.
You might have thought we were crazy.
Our hair was matted and our wetsuits chafed.
You might have thought we should be locked away.
Some of us joked we lived in the mental hospital already.
All of us knew there was no escape.
A year later, we were ready
to defend ourselves
from the Second Coming.
We had clams.
We had lobsters.
We had bunkers
of Budweiser.
None of us thought
the attack would come
from within
our own ranks.
Did you hear?
The counter girl asked
when we rolled into town,
laughing and hungry for sushi.
There must have been
a raw silence
that rose up to meet her
when she leaped.
Most of us thought
bridges were built
to carry us across
the water.
She really believed
there was no escape
from the falling tower.
Someone should have told
all of us are crazy.

Growing Wings

It's rare that I find a contemporary poem that seems absolutely necessary to my existence. A poem that makes "the top of my head feel like it's going to explode" to paraphrase Emily Dickinson. I came upon this Robert Bly poem in a flyer for The Great Mother/New Father conference on the sale table at the BI Poetry Project. I knew immediately that I'd found exactly what I needed--what I'd been searching for for months. I felt like the poet was not only speaking to me, but that it was written for me. These are the best poems I think, for they enter our bloodstream and our breath. The become part of us; they link us to a continuum it is all too easy to forget.

Growing Wings

It's all right if Cezanne goes on painting the same picture.
It's all right if juice tastes bitter in our mouths.
It's all right if the old man drags one useless foot.

The apple on the Tree of Paradise hangs there for months.
We wait for years and years on the lip of the falls;
The blue-gray mountain keeps rising behind the black trees.

It's all right if I feel this same pain until I die.
A pain that we have earned gives more nourishment
Than the joy we won at the lottery last night.

It's all right if the partridge's nest fills with snow.
Why should the hunter complain if his bag is empty
At dusk? It only means the bird will live another night.

It's all right if we turn in all our keys tonight.
It's all right if we give up our longing for the spiral.
It's all ri ght if the boat I love never reaches shore.

If we're already so close to death, why should we complain?
Robert, you've climbed so many trees to reach the nests.
It's all right if you grow your wings on the way down.

----Robert Bly

Building Bridges

Believe it or not, I've been asked the question, "So where's the bridge?" by people who want to come to Block Island. I worked for years in a B &B and had to answer all the mundane questions of people who were so obsessed with the details of planning every minute of their holiday, it was obvious they were in need of a vacation. One of the best things about living on Block Island is that there is not a bridge! Islands like Jamestown, RI or Key West, islands you can drive to, are just not the same as one's you actually have to try to get to, islands that you can't get to on some days (today for example, the boats and planes are canceled due to high winds), or that you can't get off. This is a good test if you're an island person or not. If you get stuck on Block Island and are glad, you are an island person. If you fret and curse the weather, you're not, or are just not ready to be one yet. What are island people like? John Donne famously wrote "No man is an island," meaning we are not alone, that all of us are connected through our mortality. No matter where we go, we end up in the same place, a place we can't see with our physical eyesight (yet.) An island person knows one has to build bridges between people in order to survive. Many island people also have a deep propensity for solitude, a feeling that one is actually an island, separated from the rest of the world from the thousands of moods of the sea. How to live with this conundrum? I will admit this has been difficult for me. I have removed myself from mainland reality because I could not cope with the mass cultural brainwashing I saw taking place. This was not a conscious choice at first, just a natural resistance, a preservative instinct. I wanted to generate my own images, not be told what to see. After many years of connecting to myself, of exploring who I am and why I am here, of taking internal risks while playing it safe on the outside (many island people could care less about "careers." We know that what you do is often a cover up for what you're doing inside), it is time for me to build the bridge that will connect my vision to a larger reality, to be of service in whatever way I can.

In 2002, Suzi Brown, a girl who grew up on Block Island, killed herself by jumping from the Newport Bridge. Suzi jumped the day before the first anniversary of 9/11. I remember sitting on the beach that day wondering what the waves would bring, knowing that something was going to happen again. I never thought it would be something from within our community. Like most of America, I thought it was going come from outside.

In 2003, Rachel Tonner, another island girl, overdosed on heroin and died in the Port Authority in New York City. I view her death, which the whole year round community witnessed, as a slow form of suicide. Throughout the writing of Bluebell: The Apocalypse Diary, I felt deeply connected to these two. I began writing the book the week Suzi died. I knew Suzi a little bit, and Rachel was a good friend of mine who I loved. You know the saying that deaths come in threes? Well I felt all along as I wrote the book that I was the third person in this trifecta. I was aware that what I wanted to achieve was a spiritual death that would help me bridge their deaths for other people--I never wanted to physically die. I wanted to examine why they chose to die--what their souls were saying to us by making this seemingly unexplainable choice.

However, when you ask for a vision, you sometimes receive more than you bargained for. As I went through this process, I lost my way. I was scared and my fear made me confused that I would physically die too. Yes, one could say that my biochemistry was screwed up and made me go over to the dark side (I just skimmed the totally reductive Against Depression, by Peter Kramer, and disagree with his assessment of depression as simply a physical disease that can be treated like any other. Why? Because I don't believe that any disease is simply physical).

All I can say is that the intensity of the experience was what was needed to complete the book--this is what was wanted from me. This is what my soul needed. I know what my soul needs from how powerfully something grips me. When I am drawn towards something so powerfully that to resist feels like I'm dying, I know I have encountered what my soul needs, which is so often contrary to the needs of my ego, sometimes of my body itself. It doesn't matter if anyone reads Bluebell, because I embody this journey now, but I do plan to publish the book at some point in the near future so I can share my journey directly--telling the truth is important and a necessary step in healing.

Healing is a word I have had some issues with recently, since to me it implies that there is something wrong in the first place. If you believe, as I do, that everything one experiences is something one attracts because it is necessary for the soul's growth, then there is no such thing as sickness. Just an imbalance that needs to be corrected in order for the experience to be fully integrated. So I have been trying not to use this word lately, since, if you believe, as I do, that our words create our reality, that using the word healing will stop me and others realizing that we always receive what we need.

There are many bridges to build--forgiveness is a key material in the construction of them, and acceptance is a key component in the construction of forgiveness. I do my best to accept where others are in their lives and ask the universe that they do the same with me. (I ask the universe because sometimes asking actually people doesn't go over well. One has to be "on the same page" as they say sometimes in order to not be misunderstood, thus creating more anger.)

ne of the bridges I am building now is a writing workshop based on my alchemical journey. I will be teaching this workshop next April at the Block Island Poetry Project founded by my friend Lisa Starr. I will also be offering it at some point at a wonderful new bridge being built on Block Island right now. My friend and spiritual teacher Maria DeMarco has brought her non-profit Concordia, Inc., to the island. She is transforming the Beach House B & B, the home of the amazing Ccopaccatty family, into a center for health and art. I am incredibly excited about what she will bring to the community through Concordia, and am looking forward to participating in the center. The first thing I will be doing at the Beach House is a permaculture site analysis. Maria and the Ccopaccatty's want to turn the property into a permaculture site! For someone with no hope of buying property on this island, this really proves that dreams do come true, that to imagine one's life richly, as the Lakota say, will bring your dreams into fruition.

The Internal Tsunami subsides

I apologize for upsetting people with my blog about my suicidal thoughts. For some reason I am being pushed to be as honest as possible. Some people might wish I would just not talk about the way I feel maybe, but I had really reached a point where I could not do that any longer. Transparency has always been a word that comes to mind when I think of how I want to be. No secrets. An open heart. As for feeling suicidal, it is not abnormal as some have said to me......it is something that many people I know feel, most of them artists or activists who are deeply engaged in the processes the earth is going through. I agree, the death of this cycle we are going through is exciting and intellectually I am curious to see what is going to happen, but emotionallly, this is not so. The thing that separates artists from other types of people is their emotional engagement with the world. It is hard to separate the feelings one has from one's self. I became my feelings to such an extent that I lost objectivity. I am not sick. I do not have an illness. I may have a disease--as in "dis-ease," or a lack of ease....but I am only a symptom of the dis-ease the earth is suffering right now. Artists are teachers. Have you ever had a teacher tell you write what you know? I took that to heart.....I had no other choice if I did not want to be insane--which I define as being off-balance. Being insane is just as valid a reality as any other, it just makes those who are more balanced, or off-balance in another direction uncomfortable. All diseases are diseases of the mind. They may manifest on the physical level, and we can treat them on the physical level by rebalancing our bodies--which I recommend doing wholistically rather than through the medical model, which does not even believe in the world I live in. So yes, when asked to admit I had a mental problem, I had to say yes, even though I knew that my definition of a mental problem was not the same as the person who asking. My mental problem was that I, in full knowledge of the power of the mind, could not find the strenght in my mind to bend my thoughts toward balance. I think what I'm goign through may be akin to the alchemical process--in order to make gold the alchemist burns the dross off lead---the dross was my negative thoughts. I think I took this on to such a large extent that I did actually internalize the tsunami that was predicted. If so, then I saved thousands of lives possibly. (I'm sure there were others involved. I'm not that egotistical.) I have also been thinking,based on a vision of a green serpent that appeared to me in meditation, and on some other factors, that I am in the beginning stages of the awakening of kundalini. This awakening also requires the burning off of negative thoughts and energies, a process which I've read is far from pleasant. As a Capricorn, I am a person who has incarnated to bridge the material and spiritual realms. Also, a person who is tested often. Capricorn is ruled by the Devil. Not to say the Devil is evil, it's more like the Devil is the voice of doubt that stops one from being one's fully self, from living authentically. Again, I apologize for upsetting people. It is especially hard to know that even these words of explanation may not be understood by some who love me, that they will make people think I am even more delusional and insane, but I offer them in the hopes that they may create a bridge of understanding between my side of the see-saw and theirs, in the hopes that we can find balance.

Creative Recovery

The following words are from The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron, a book that teaches the art of creative recovery, loosely based on the principles of 12 step programs. I came upon them in an old journal and wanted to share them as something that helps me--the key to contentment is all about remembering--who we are and why we came here. All of us are creators of the dreams that we lead. All of us are Gods.

I am a channel for God's creativity, and my work comes to good.

My dreams come from God and God has the power to accomplish them.

As I create and listen, I will be led.

My creativity heals myself and others.

I am allowed to nurture my artist.

Through the use of my creativity, I serve the goddess.

My creativity always leads me to truth and love.

My creativity leads me to forgiveness and self-forgiveness.

There is a divine plan of goodness for me.

There is a divinge plan of goodness for my work.

As I listen to the creator within, I am led.

As I listen to my creativity, I am led to create.

I am willing to create.

I am willing to learn to let myself create.

I am willing to let God create through me.

I am willing to be of service through my creativity.

I am willing to experience my creative energy.

I am willing to use my creative talents.

The wave didn't come yesterday. Well, there were lots of waves touching the island, more than anyone could ever count, but The Wave is of another sort. It was supposed to wash us all clean, to sweep us all away, to leave behind those who were meant to be here now on earth to embody the new consciousness that has been birthed here in the energetic realms. I'm still not sure what would have happened to me if the wave had come. I still don't feel like the earth is my home. I still dont' know if this makes me a failure or if I am just supposed to accept that I have no work left to do here and move on to somewhere else. All my life I have felt an exile. A lone wolf. A former lover, also an artist, says that's just how all artists feel. We represent that feeling of exile and go through it for all of humanity, who feels it to some extent, just not as strongly. All I know is that I have reached a point where feeling like an exile is unbearable. Nothink makes me feel at home. Not even my art. My words just take me further out into to the open sea, but the sea is not the right metaphor, because the sea, while alien, is of the earth. My words take me into the complete unknown. Into black holes. Dark matter runs through my veins, not the hot red blood I know would gush out if I took a knife and slashed my self open, and I have been angry enough to do this in the past couple of days, barely holding the anger in--why--because I judge even my own anger. I don't want to make a mess or disappoint anyone. I see myself as absolutely pathetic. As a person undeserving of love who has failed whatever my mission on earth was. I can't even just enjoy the simple pleasures that come with every day. I am a complete fraud, walking around making small talk to forget how lonely I am and saying yes to things I dont' want to do and don't believe in. I don't care about anything.

The wave didn't come yesterday. Or did it? Has it been coming for months now as I slowly let go of all doubts and fears, so slowly I don't know they're being swept away? It would be easier if they were washed away by something as obvious as a tsunami. To die is easier than to live in some ways. Does anyone else feel these things? Are you being swept away and are you struggling against the current that wants to erase you becuase you are the only thing you have to hold onto when you go to sleep at night?

How To Commit To Life

How To Commit To Life

You head toward the mud. It’s a habit.
You’re not a great blue-heron, you just
like the way it feels between your toes
and the challenge of staying upright.
The mud is full of dead things,
most of them unrecognizable.
Under the bridge, no one can see you.
For once, the water doesn’t reflect anything.
You’re safe. You push your thoughts away
before shame sends you running back to the
yellow house looking for some errand that has to
get done right away or the world will fall apart, right?
You pray for instinct to lay its hands upon you.
Your hands reach down and pluck three bits of broken
china from the mosaic of oyster and clam shells
decorating the mudflats.
The air is thick as water, if you didn’t know better
you’d think you had gills and could flash by this scene
like the schools of minnows who flee under this
bridge when the sun is bright in summer.
The blue willow painted on the surface makes you weep.
Champ plunges a clam rake off the dock to your right.
No distractions, you say to yourself.
You close your mind to the gentle humor in his face.
You don’t let yourself think of how you love to watch the seals
get knocked off the rocks by the waves.
On the left, two great black-backed gulls squabble over
a flounder, plucked live out of the shallow water.
They tear its guts out as it flaps on the flat
with their livid yellow beaks.
You’ve been careful to hide what you’re feeling
as you went about your daily business, maybe
with a little less purpose than everyone else,
but with enough verve that no one suspects you
when you hoist yourself up on to the bridge and
look down at the current, your eyes seeking
the center of a whirlpool for a clear sign.
You don’t see the surface, only what’s beneath.
All of you calls to the rocks, to the ripples,
to the currents crashing at the tip of the island,
to every wave that has broken on every beach.
You raise your face.
The wind from the north blows through you.
A dissonant chord rings.
You move closer to the edge as it dissolves,
clashing against the solid walls of guts and liver and kidneys.
But then they break down--your organs--and your
rebellious cells pull you back from the edge with a will
you hadn’t known they had. You have.
Silence arcs toward you in the form of a gull as sure of its way
as a boomerang that flies out into space and turns back without resisting.
The gull returns to the flounder, still flopping on the mudflat.
It won’t be long now.
How will you ever be able to say what made you
step off the bridge and walk back to the yellow house on the hill,
past the rock painted with the American flag,
where for the first time, the word freedom isn’t ironic?
All you can say is the mallard with the emerald green head
swam side by side with his drab mate.
All you can say is my heart is not these three bits
of broken china plucked from the mud by instinct.

Thoughts on home

Is the earth my home? This is the question I have been asking myself over and over again for the past couple of months. It seems funny to ask, since I have been weeding for a living and the earth is right in my face. I inhale it. I dig my fingers into it everyday. My fingers are so dirty I can't scrub the dirt off. Sometimes the earth smells so good I think of course I belong here, and when I open my heart to the robins and gulls who chirp and swirl around me I know the earth is my home. It is only when I look up and reenter the world of people where things go awry. Maybe because it is people who I blame for making the earth into a place that I don't want to live. I know though, that I must let my mind soar like a hawk. That I have to see everything that is happening on earth now as part of a natural cycle of decay, as natural as the decay and death of my own body, or of a beetle I unearth with my spade. And I must fully accept that I was born at this time for a reason to witness and be a part of what is going to happen to the earth. I must accept reincarnation in my heart, not just as intellectual idea, and that above all, I must remember that I choose and create every experience that comes my way. I have been living with the psychic pressure of tsunami building in me ever since I read that one was predicted to hit the east coast on May 15. ACtually, I 've been living with this pressure my whole life. May 15th is in two days. Everything has fallen away. I have reached a point where I don't care what happens really. This isn't because of despair, but because I feel like I at least accomplished two things that I was sent here to do. Wrote and published Siren, awakening people who read it to the possibility of apocalypse, and finishing Bluebell: The Apocalypse Diary. No one's read it yet, but I am the living embodiment of its ideas. We are waves of sound and light. My wave touches all of you. Will it crash and break on the beach? Probably. But it will also sneak up on the shore like a lover's kiss as you sleep.