Diving Deeper

Goatfish woman: guest poem by Judith Thurley

As the Sun transits into Capricorn (22 December), I'm inspired to share with you a poem by Judith Thurley that delighted me when I came across it in A Wilder Vein (Two Ravens Press).  It's a poem about a joyfully wild and sensuous experience, and the very human desire to share that with 'every child, woman and man'. 

Solemn Saturn (ruler of Capricorn) turns into Father Christmas at this time of year; or in this poem into Goatfish Woman.  For another feminine view of Capricorn, see last year's post Saturn's Gifts.  Meanwhile, here is an extract from 'The Road North' by Judith Thurley in A Wilder Vein (p. 134):

A river dreaming in the sunlight ... Powers of Place story by Jackie Cahi

 

There is no sense of ownership or even stewardship. The place belongs to itself, the river dreaming in the sunlight. Visitors who come in the right spirit are welcomed, gentled and let go again, back into their other worlds. JC

When I read these words describing her favorite healing water place by Jackie Cahi - a writer and filmmaker living in Zimbabwe - they sank deep into my own soul.  I haven't seen her river Pungwe but I hold places like it in my own heart. 

The last such place was hard to relinquish - here I have found the words to soften that.  Jackie's story first appeared in the June 2011 issue of Perspectives Powers of Place Initiative.  It is reproduced here with kind permission of Jackie and Powers of Place. 

Read the original newsletter here

The creators of Powers of Place believe that places are alive. I know this is so!  They suggest that when human beings believe that, and act in ways that respect and value what places bring, the partnership becomes a powerful force toward great good in the world. 

Don't think it will ever run out

Three poems of encouragement as the year begins ...

The Real work

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

~Wendell Berry

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Everything you see
has its roots in the unseen world.
The forms may change but the essence
remains the same.

Every wondrous sight will vanish
every sweet word shall fade.
But do not be disheartened.
The Source they come from
is eternal, growing, branching out
bringing new life
and new joy.

Why do you weep?
That Source is within you
and this whole world
is springing up from it.

The Source is full
its waters are ever flowing.
Do not grieve; drink your fill.
Don't think it will ever run out.
This is the endless ocean

~ Rumi
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One ship sails East,
And another West,
By the self-same winds that blow,
'Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales,
That tells the way we go.

Like the winds of the sea
Are the waves of time,
As we journey along through life,
'Tis the set of the soul,
That determines the goal,
And not the calm or the strife.

~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

New Year Blessing

The Cherokee New Year

[From "A Cherokee Feast of Days: Daily Meditations" by Joyce Sequichie Hifler.  Found on the website for Newati Herbals*.]

"If, like a Cherokee warrior, I can look at the new year as an opportunity to stand on new ground, then strength and courage are on my side. If I have waited a long time for everything to be perfect - and there have been moments, brief as they were, that filled my expectations - then I can face the challenges. I will remember that things do work out, bodies do heal, relationships mend - not because I said it, but because I believe it. But it is time to make things right, to stay on the Path. As water runs fresh and free from the woodland spring, so new life and meaning will bubble up from my own inner source. I will be still and steady because there is nothing to be gained by showing fear in a chaotic world. I can turn from ignorance and prejudice toward a light that never goes out."

* Early in December while in Eureka Springs, AR, for my partner Joe's birthday, we came across Nuwati's herbs in a native american shop there.  I'm always interested in local ventures like this - see my series of blogs posts on Vision Spa Retreat about the role of spa products in sustainable spa culture. We've been using their Bath Bags in our woodfired hot tub and I've just finished a retreat week using some of their teas as support.  I can recommend them!

For a story about a Cherokee visionary see White Eagle frees the waters on this blog.

Inspiration: Do you have a quest?

The extract below describes so perfectly the watery quest that I found myself on a decade ago now.  I called it 'Aquaest: a quest for the wisdom of water'. I saw this as a quest to discover the meeting place between worlds (conscious and unconscious) and to re-establish precious links with Nature.

Water, the most shape-shifting of elements became the perfect facilitator of my journey. Water is as much a part of our language as it is a part of our bodies and our planet.  In the ancient Sumerian language, the first letter of alphabet, A, was the word for water and also signified regeneration.

Water provides us the means to communicate with each other, with ourselves, with our planet and with the cosmos - and to inspire change.  Here craniosacral therapist Candice Marro is writing about her own healing art and the challenges inherent in learning that.

The extract is from an article published in the Cranial Wave Magazine (2003).  It can be read in full on The Craniosacral Therapy Education Trust (UK) website.  You'll find another extract posted on my website for Aquapoetics: Creative Aquatic Bodywork - Oceanic craniosacral arts.

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First tell me, do you have a quest?

Do you want to explore the moving waters of your existence? Do you like to dive deep into the unknown? Do you have in your heart nostalgia for something you can't name?

Then, open your eyes, take a deep breath, widen your attention, listen, feel, sense, taste, smell and prepare yourself. A mystery is waiting for you; something is waiting to engage with you, something that you can't imagine, you can't create, that you can only discover. You may be afraid to answer this call, you may prefer to skim the surface of the water, its uncomfortable but familiar fluctuations and its predictability. You may prefer to stick to your symptoms, resistance, identification, complexity for at least you have got used to them. You may argue that this is as good as you could do anyway, it is as far as you could go, as you are not equipped for deep exploration. And what lies beneath? Is it worth the diving, the risk and the letting go? You’re attracted to this unknown, this darkness, but you keep coming back to your familiar surroundings.

This is familiar but you feel lonely, isolated, fragmented and tired to be pushed from one wave to another, to go from one experience to another without finding the sense of it all. When you think you’ve managed to get some stability, when you think you are in control of your life, when you think you can explain and fix things, a force and the play of its groundswell takes it all away from you. So you get more and more tired of fighting, losing, gaining and losing again as you try to grasp emptiness. You keep a smile on your face, but despair and fear are ruling in your heart. You wouldn’t admit it but you're lost. Can't you see that this world of shapes you cherished and believed in is ruled by impermanence only?

So start your quest - use your grief and anger to find the strength to explore new layers. Deepen your breath, slow down your pace, get grounded and start your journey with a fellow explorer who is also not satisfied with the answers given so far and who wants to go deeper.

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Inspiration: The deeper we dive

The deeper we dive, the less we mind upsetting waves.
Robert Augustus Masters (Aug 18th from web)

This beautiful image created by A. Andrew Gonzalez appears on Robert Augustus Masters' website.  The same image was used by the editor of Shamans Drum Magazine Tim White to introduce my article on the shamanic aspects of aquatic bodywork 'Dancing in Healing Waters'  (issue 62, 2002, pp. 17-27).

Noticing this, immediately reinforced the resonance I felt with Robert's work when I discovered it.  Robert A. Masters is a writer, psychotherapist, and spiritual teacher whose approach has an unswerving honesty and firm groundedness that always refreshes my own efforts to live a deeper life.

Under the heading 'Guidance for a deeper life' on his website, Robert says:

What I share here is crafted from over 30 years of deep immersion in – and equally deep work with – human nature and evolution. I’ve had my successes, but it's been my failures that have most deeply instructed me. Some of my most powerful teachings have arrived when I‘ve been down on my hands and knees in the mud.

When I too was down on my hands and knees in the mud, and wondering what to make of the strangely glittering persona of someone I loved who seemed to have thrown me there in his place, an essay by Robert Masters helped me to clamber onto the banks again.  He wrote of 'spiritual bypassing'*.

Spiritual bypassing is the use of spiritual belief and/or practices to 'rise above' or otherwise avoid dealing in any significant depth with our unresolved wounds and related emotional and behavioral problems....

Spiritual bypassing is a dehumanizing practice, however much it may talk about and believe in light and love and compassion....

The greater the pain of our unresolved wounds, the greater are the odds that we - if we are invested in being 'spiritual' or being seen as 'spiritual' - will manifest some form of compensatory self-inflation (however humble its robes), whether it be metaphysical grandiosity ('You created your past ...') or self-proclaimed transcendence of personal issues ...

I was one who minded 'upsetting waves' (see opening quote), and sought so much to calm things around me that I myself became becalmed on a dangerously silent sea.  It was the unnerving calm before a storm that apparently came from outside and seemed beyond my control - because I had not honored the currents of my own life.

Once as a teenager, I sat watching the sunset with my peers on a beautiful beach.  An older woman had joined us who wanted to befriend these barefooted youngsters.   She said 'Oh, the ocean is as still as a mill pond' but it was wild and choppy that night.  None of us wanted to put her right, since we felt her loneliness.

Loneliness often makes us fearful that if we reveal our true selves, or speak our truth, we will not be loved.  And many of us have been wounded in our self-revelation by a person we have loved.  My wounding gave me the gift of walking for many months in shadowy places.  But darkness  is where light glows.

I recommend Robert Masters writing to you.  And the mystical art work of A. Andrew Gonzalez. The image above seems to me to convey the energies of both Fire and Water.  It's a combination that recurrs in my explorations on this blog (see for example Creativity: Fire+Water).

You may also be interested in this post on my Aquapoetics website - Trance, dreaming, and aquatic bodywork - in which the work of another Robert Masters (Robert E.L) is described along with more from Robert A. Masters regarding the dream state.

More excellent writing on the subject of spiritual bypassing (a term actually coined by Charles Whitfield, author and long-time recovery counselor) which references the criticism of alternative therapies by science can be seen here: Spiritual Bypass by Bruce Bibee.

*Robert A. Masters' next book will be on the topic of Spiritual Bypassing - now published, see below.

Spiritual Bypassing: When Spirituality Disconnects Us from What Really Matters
by Robert Augustus Masters

Creativity: Fire + Water

'From the alchemy of fire and water below to the divine light entering from above, the figure in this card is literally 'possessed by' the creative force. Really, the experience of creativity is an entry into the mysterious. Technique, expertise and knowledge are just tools; the key is to abandon oneself to the energy that fuels the birth of all things.

'This energy has no form or structure, yet all the forms and structures come out of it. It makes no difference what particular form your creativity takes - it can be painting or singing,  planting a garden or making a meal. The important thing is to be open to what wants to be expressed through you. Remember that we don't possess our creations; they do not belong to us.

'True creativity arises from a union with the divine, with the mystical and the unknowable. Then it is both a joy for the creator and a blessing to others.'

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From the Osho Zen Tarot, this interpretation of the Major Arcana Tarot card 'Empress' appeals to me in my ongoing search for a good way to combine these two elements - Fire + Water = Creativity.

The card came up  this week when I tried the online reading sample that you'll find here (if you feel the need for some transcendental support also).  Share if you like!

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Being a bridge: Nan DeGrove

Oh, I understand!  You were being a bridge.
Well, that's nice, bridges are important.
But you know, the only problem with being a bridge
is that you, yourself,
never get to cross over.

Nan DeGrove

I discovered this quote in Stephen Buhner's book The Secret Teachings of Plants which continues to be a revelation and inspiration to me.  The quote brought me up with the shocking lurch that indicates something significant.  I did not discover until I came to post it here, many weeks later on the eve of my birthday, that Nan DeGrove is an astrologer.  And that provided another 'ahah' moment since astrology has become an increasingly valuable source of understanding for me.  Esoteric studies of water, plants and planets converging.  Me being a bridge and yearning to cross over.

Stephen Buhner quoted elsewhere on this blog: Prairie dogs cry for rain

 

Note:  Several people have confused this post with indicating that this website is Nan's.  Please note that it is not and I am afraid I do not have contact information for her.  I love the quote though!  Sulis

An underground stream of spirituality: quoting Brad Kochunas

A beautifully articulated account of the qualities (astrological and elemental) of soulful spirituality, with water as a central image, from 'Elemental Spirituality' by Brad Kochunas in The Mountain Astrologer, #136, Dec./Jan. 2008

I wish to offer for consideration the possibility of an underground stream of spirituality that has been poorly articulated and frequently overlooked.  This approach, like water, moves downward toward the lowlands, the lonesome valley, the shaded glade, the dark wood, the shadowed path, the vale of tears.  This is a perspective viewed through water and earth imagery that our spiritual traditions have often ignored.  It carries more languid, meandering, sinking, and brooding images.  In contrast to the spirited yang experience, there is a more pronounced soulful, yin quality to the shape of this perspective.  Neptune, in its natural relationship to the sovereigns of earth and water (the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Saturn, and Pluto), reflects a harmony of purpose and  a willingness to descend to the dark abyss.  The relations suggest a more soulful spirituality reflecting attachment, humility, sensuousness, patience, realism, depth, and embodied life.

Often this path begins at a point of personal failure or catastrophe, when we no longer measure up to the fire and air values so infused in our Western culture, and we have given up the challenge of the spiritual climb.  It has been characterized as the dark night of the soul in Christian mysticism and the night sea journey into myth....In this plunge away from our well-ordered, well-lit, and well-controlled lives, we are open to the world, made vulnerable, wounded, and inferior - no longer rising and floating but, rather, falling and sinking deeper into the solitude of our being and the flow of life.

.... we ignore the invisibles of repressed and forgotten water and earth at great peril....A true materialist loves the material world and is a disciple of earth and water, cherishing the things of the world, repairing not despairing, recognizing the sacredness of a living Cosmos.  In this sense, then, it seems prudent to affirm a more soulful spirituality, one that walks in the vale, allowing us to see the necessity of tears and sorrow, to embrace the loam of mortality, and to esteem the treasures of darkness.  When our spirituality no longer promises paradise but plants us firmly in the present, and our astrology no longer predicts the future but immerses us fully in the moment, then our lives, in tune now with the rhythms of soil and sea, may truly blossom.

For more on the challenges of Neptune, see also the poem Neptune has a Heart by Sulis (Sara Firman)

Washing a rock

 



Washing a rock, one finds rocklike presence within.

“Zen Dust, Zen Sweep” Dominique Leigh, Mothering Magazine.


Ursula K. Le Guin  on rocks:

In general, rocks aren’t living in the same way or at the same pace that we are. But you can find a rock, maybe a big boulder, maybe a little agate in a streambed, and by looking carefully at it, touching it or holding it, listening to it, or by a little talking and singing, a small ceremony, or being still and quiet with it, you can enter into the rock’s soul to some extent and the rock can enter into yours, if it’s disposed to. Most rocks live a long time. They’ve lived a long time before we pass them, and they’ll live a long time after. Some of them are very old, grandchildren of the coming to be of the earth and sun. If there were nothing else to be known from them that would be enough, their long age of being. But there is much other knowledge in rocks, there are things that can be understood only with the help of rocks. They will help people who handle and study and work with them with pleasure and respect, with mindfulness.

Always Coming Home by Ursula Le Guinn, p. 309

[The above quotes were gratefully received from Susan Wiseheart, a fellow rock lover!]

A note on collecting rocks

The urge to collect is the natural response of the human psyche to an aesthetic object that speaks directly to it, stirring memories that lie deeply within.  Collecting confirms the indigenous belief that the human psyche reads and understands symbols and that attraction to beauty is a function of psychic awareness. 

Malidoma Patrice Some. The Healing Wisdom of Africa.

In nature there are so many things that attract the eye and elicit the urge to collect and arrange - flowers, leaves, twigs, stones, feathers, seeds - and rocks.  Andy Goldsworthy's natural and ephemeral outdoor sculptures are an extraordinary example of this. 

Whilst we should take care not to do damage by picking wildflowers before they can seed or removing fossils from special reserves, many items are just calling to be noticed and appreciated in this very human way.  It's also a way to remember a wild place you've enjoyed.

Here is a 'Stone Walk' from a book called The Artist Inside by Tom Crockett which contains many intriguing ways of cultivating your creative self.  I used this often with guests at my previous retreat and many of them went home with rocks that they (much) later wrote me about!