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.