Beautiful Disaster

Where there is pain, there is comfort. Where something shatters, something forms. Where darkness presses down, light rises. You, in your great despair, take notice. While you are plummeting, Angelic forces are lifting you up. While in the midst of turmoil, out of the corner of your awareness, you will see and feel and sense the beauty in your disaster.

Nothing is ever completely bad or wrong or more than you can handle. Signs and omens of utter goodness abound in the center of a whirlwind, in the center of a life in transition. In a torrent of tears and confusion, keep one eye open and half an ear tuned. A savior will call on the phone, a bird of exquisite color will alight outside your window, money will suddenly manifest in your washing machine. Signs of grace and truth and mercy will shower themselves upon you in your darkest moments, shower you until you notice even one of them.

If you lose something, you will always gain something, though it be in a form too subtle to see through your tears. Keep crying. Keep cleansing your vision and one powerful moment between sobs, the light of mercy will shine through and you will know. You will know that nothing painful is as it appears to be. You will know that the lessons being learned through the grief and the sorrow will shape you into a more eloquent human being. A more capable human being. A human being who knows that love is ever present for everyone. That love is always the beauty in the disaster.

A Flicker of Wisdom

Yesterday morning I had blood on my hands. Again. It wasn't my own. It belonged to the yellow-shafted flicker I lifted off the pavement in the first stages of my journey into work. I thought the flicker was dead when I approached it. It lay on its side, one brown eye staring at the sky. But its head moved as I lifted it. I immediately started talking quietly as I carried it to the roadside. I squatted on the grass, shielding it from the wind of the passing vehicles. The flicker was injured beyond repair, but its heart kept beating beneath my fingers. It held on and it suffered. I cradled it and I talked.

I told the flicker how beautiful it was and that is was one of my favorite birds. I thanked it for being an important messenger. I told it every time I saw one of its kind I knew the healing energy of Love was at play in my life and any intensely felt emotions were cleansing me of all that might stand in my way of that Love. I told it that Angels of Mercy were here at the roadside, ready to usher it home. And still its heart beat on.

I quietly implored it to please just let go. Let go, let go, let go. There was no need to stay, no need to suffer, just let go and fly free. Fly free in lands more beautiful than this. But it stayed. Bleeding into my hands, moving its head, ignoring my pleas.

I searched for a soft, sheltered spot to lay it down, and let its own will be done. I chose a tree next to tall grass and laid it at the edge. I folded a large leaf and placed it under its head, hoping it would comfort. I whispered, "Don't stay long. They're waiting for you. Let go, let go let go."

I drove on with red-stained hands. 20 minutes later, just as I arrived at work, a single white balloon slowly drifted skyward in the west. I stood and watched the balloon until it was out of my sight. The flicker whispered in my ear, "I'm flying again. I'm free. And Graciel, let go, let go, let go".

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

"It is not physical solitude that actually separates one from others; not physical isolation, but spiritual isolation. It is not the desert island nor the stony wilderness that cuts you from the people you love. It is the wilderness in the mind, the desert wastes in the heart through which one wanders lost and a stranger.

When one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others. How often in a large city, shaking hands with my friends, I have felt the wilderness stretching between us. Both of us were wandering in arid wastes, having lost the springs that nourished us -- or having found them dry. Only when one is connected to one's own core is one connected to others, I am beginning to discover. And, for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be refound through solitude."

- Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

The Feminine Life-Line

Lately, I have come across younger women who lack the skill of befriending other women. They view other females, especially in their own peer group, as competition for men, for attention, for elusive kudos. They alienate the very beings who will someday be their only life-line to maintaining sanity. The need for that lifeline may not come for years or decades, but it will come. In one form or another, one tragedy or another, one loss or another. If young women have not sought the support and friendship of other women, have not developed the needful skills of listening and being available, when their world crashes or their men can't relate, their misery will skirt the brink of the unbearable.

Because in the end, as designed by a Force much wiser than us all, women are encoded to nurture, protect and rally in support of anyone or anything in need of compassion. Women in touch with themselves possess the strength of warriors. Strength that cannot always be measured, but can always be felt. Strength that creates impact. Strength that creates change. Strength that heals and restores.

I am alive today because of the strength and compassion and the buckets of love poured over me by my women friends. Were it not for the rally of the various-aged women I have befriended throughout my adult life, I would have succumbed to the insanity of illness, trauma and the demise of relationships. Do not think this excludes the needful energy of men to create life-saving balance in the world of a woman, especially this woman. But the deepest understanding and compassion travels along the invisible threads of the divine feminine energy. Those threads, when woven together through laughter, sharing and genuine trust, over time, create a reciprocal shield that can bear all things and pull us back from the brink.

Women in touch with themselves are needed to befriend the women who are not. Younger women who have not yet felt the necessity of building a feminine support system, who have not experienced deep trust, who have never been taught there is no need for competition are waiting. Waiting, consciously or subconsciously, for the divine energy they were born into to lift them up. To show them the way. To offer them compassion so they will know how to give it. To teach them how to respect the divine energy within them and channel it, as needed, to save the world, one woman at a time.

American Junk

A Single Color

In our life there is a single color,

as on an artist's palette,

which provides the meaning of life and art.

It is the color of love.

Marc Chagall

Connections

I'm fond of the unusual. I'm fond of daring. I'm fond of adventure. I'm not so fond of normal. Unusual adventure, therefore, has occasion to land on my doorstep. It knocks, dares me and off I go, chasing the improbable, and welcoming the new. Mostly, my adventures are harmless, with knowledge gleaned and fun had by all. But every once in a while, I become enchanted with unknown territory and end up dancing with the devil. That's when connections come in handy.

I have connections with seen and unseen Forces. I pray and meditate and talk with angels. I serve others and serve nature and serve the God of my choice. I stay connected to the energy of Love, the most powerful Force, through the giving of love. I stay connected with every positive wish, every act of mercy and every gesture of caring I bestow. I am no saint, but I give love and build connections because it feels good and right to do so. Because as I give so shall I receive.

So, having offered mercy and love and intervention with a genuine heart, over the course of time, when I'm dancing with the devil, my connections kick in, yank me off my feet, trash my dance shoes and put out the fire. My connections, seen and unseen, intervene before my adventures go awry.

I can recognize and receive intervention because I have given intervention. Mercy because I have given mercy. Love because I have given love. In my connection, lies my protection.

Little Deaths

Life is full of little deaths. Each little death, or forced opportunity to let go of that which is clung to, has a message of how to live more fully. How to find the good in the bad. How to forgive and forge ahead. How to see through the eyes of love.

Last week was a busy week for little deaths in my life. It began with a bird in the road, hit by a car, injured, but moving. I scooped up the bird, and cupped it in my hands. It's right wing was broken and bleeding. I held it for minutes, talking to it and telling it how sorry I was that it was going to die, but that I would make it as comfortable as possible on the grass. I asked angels and faeries to attend its last breaths and usher it softly into the next life. Before I tore myself away from the still-breathing bird, it spoke to me.

It told me to stop flying so low to the ground. It told me to raise myself up to the level at which I am meant to exist and meant to soar. It told me that flying too low will injure my wings, injure my wonder and deny me the opportunities of a life in full flight.

Days later, a young grey squirrel was run over by a car ahead of me on the road. I saw the squirrel dash out into traffic and disappear under a tire. I pulled over and ran for the squirrel, lifting it up in the midst of its death throes. One little eye, split like a grape and protruding, was the only visible damage. In the midst of my whispers of how sorry I was for its pain, mercifully, its heart stopped beating. I carried the young squirrel to a grove of trees and laid it at the base of the largest one. As I curled its thin tail over its paws, it spoke to me.

It told me to choose wisely before I rush into anything. It told me things and opportunities that are young and beautiful and seemingly full of promise are not always meant to last. But that there are gifts and and there are moments of grace within every opportunity that comes along. The gifts and the graces may not lie in its duration, but in the intensity of its short-lived beauty.

In order to fly higher and choose more wisely, in order to live fully and love fully, my weighted self-worth must be lightened in a series of ongoing little deaths. A little death to give life to forgiveness. A little death to give life to wisdom. A little death to give life to love.

{Click on http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=2315290 to see the beautiful photos and story of the death of the barn swallow.}

Saved By Love

In the end, our precious world will not be saved by guns and brute strength and missiles at the ready. It will not be saved by diplomatic handshakes dressed in suits, nor will it be saved by dogmatic scriptures that promote intolerance. In the end, our precious world will only be saved by love. Served up, dished out and ever abundant. In the end, or before the end, it will be the responsibility of women to serve it up, dish it out and pass it on. It will be the responsibility of women to save the world with our God-given instincts to nurture and heal and love.

Before women can save the world, we must first save ourselves. We must find the buried strength within our cells to respect ourselves and act on that respect. Even if no one around us is offering respect in our direction. Even if we have been falsely taught we are less than. Even if it takes a very long time.

Education, through books, the Internet and organized classes, is key to recovery and empowerment. So is the support of others~ friends, family, groups and the enlightened men who see the inherent strength of the female. Once we are empowered, or even just on our way to empowerment, we can then offer our respect and love to anyone who may need it, in the quantity we are able to give it. One by one, two by two, and three by three, the world will begin to feel the effects of this most powerful energy of love.

Not every woman need participate, and many will be unable. But if enough feminine hearts are joined, each singing her own tune of love, slowly, slowly the world will be transformed. The darkness may never fully retreat, but it will wield much less power. Because love will ever be the victor. Ever be the answer to poverty, disease and abuse. Love will join minds and hearts to create previously unheard of solutions for the ills of the world.

Love, the supreme creative force of the human species, can only be unleashed on the world through the heart of the feminine energy. The heart of the Daughters of God. Let us begin to serve it up within ourselves. Let us begin to dish it out to any who need it. Let us begin to encourage others to pass it on. Let us begin to save the world.

The Uncrowded Path

My life is not extraordinary. I don't win prizes. I don't save lives. My personal masterpiece is not forthcoming. But I do walk a different road than many. It is an uncrowded path that requires faith in a Higher Power to keep my feet on some sort of solid surface. Without much company on this path, I have occasional moments of doubt as to the next best decision and next best footfall. I can pause in mid-step when other opinions contradict my instincts, and my safety and sanity seem to be in question. It is during these pauses, one foot unsure of releasing its ground to take the next step, that I must remember who I am. I must remember my core truth.

My core truth says that human beings are inherently born good and worthy and deserving of love. My core truth says that human beings are born equal in the eyes of God. We are each a unique, impossible-to-be-duplicated loving expression of that Higher Power. And we each have choices as to how we express that uniqueness, including the unique choice to not express.

My core truth says I am much happier when I am expressing who I am, even if that expression rattles those who love me. Because to deny God-as-It-expresses-through-me, is to deny the vast opportunities for joy in this smorgasbord of life. To deny joy is to deny God.

In my uniqueness lies my safety and my sanity. In my uniqueness, along the uncrowded path, lies my solid ground. From that solid ground, all my decisions and my choices are correct for the continued expression of God as myself. It is the same, my friend, for you.

Rock On

Papal Mojo part 2

Scandal...
Celebrating the arts.
Indulging in sugar addictions.
Playing the Good Shepherd.
Hitting the sauce.

Papal Mojo

Papal bodyguard...for dangerous missions of mercy.
Eternal Beverage Meister Hoping to wipe the "4th Crusade" slate clean...
Nature-lover
Member of the Solo Mile High Club



Lothar dei Conti of Segni, aka Pope Innocent the 3rd, our fearless, 6" tall action figure of occasional ill-repute, has decided to come out of the contemplative's closet and resume saving the world. Innocent has been recharging his batteries and firing up the Papal Mojo to launch his most ambitious projects to date.

On June 6th, Innocent will undertake a whirl-wind tour of Bogota. Being a lover of cultural diversity, and madly passionate for flowers, Inny has packed his bags to roam the rose farms of Colombia and hopefully, fingers crossed, have a personal encounter with Our Lady of Everything on the Catholic continent.

And... starting immediately, Pope Innocent the 3rd will be taking your prayer requests for salvation, redemption and cures for hangnails. Write to Inny at: innocentprayers@yahoo.com. In his quest to unite the world and save the world from itself, Innocent the 3rd will be lighting candles and personally praying over all reasonable and unreasonable requests. Need more romance in your life? Ask Inny. Need a new guitar? A new wig? A new-to-you vintage Winnebago to travel the countryside and offer your own brand of salvation to the masses? Ask Inny. He's got Papal Mojo at the ready, just for your benefit...and lots of penance to pay for that 4th Crusade.

For The Love of Romance

I once fell in love with a 4 year old cat. When my heart tumbled, she was in the bottom row of ASPCA cages at the local pet store. Her eyes captivated me, as well as her big, pink ears. After buying food for my 2 cats, I said good-bye to Miss Pink and said a prayer for her speedy adoption. I cried the whole way home.

3 weeks later, needing more cat food, I found Miss Pink still on the bottom row. I fell on my knees in front of her cage. She had waited for me to come to my senses and realize I belonged to her. Because true love should never be ignored, adoption proceedings started that day. Bold-faced lying and bribery were part of the proceedings, as my residential 2-cat limit had to be circumvented. Within days, she was adopted by a kind friend and handed off to me in the pet store parking lot. I snuck her into my home and named her Romance. 10 years later, the love affair continues.

As with all successful love relationships, compromise and sacrifice must be offered. Tomorrow, I will sacrifice my summer wardrobe on behalf of an outrageously priced tooth extraction for my dear Miss Pink. A molar is infected, causing pain and the pronounced deterioration of her little heart. Why spend stupid sums on a 14 year old cat? Because I owe her. I owe her for every moment of joy she has blessed me with. I owe her for every motor-boat purr and every tear she has let me drop on her coat. No new skirts or sandals or summer beads are worth the exchange for a love of mine to be in pain. For the quality of her remaining days to be anything but the best I can give.

We are here for each other's salvation. Human, animal, plant and Mother Earth herself. If it is in our power to ease pain and offer love, we must not shirk that sacred duty. We must not turn our backs on golden opportunities to save our souls through service to others.

Clearing Clutter Continued

Dear Don,

I'm clearing more clutter. I uncovered my studio table, recycled a mountain of paper, emptied drawers and weeded through my music collection. I moved things around and rearranged. Again. Call me obsessed. Call me insane. I can't stop this quest for zen, this quest to lighten my inner and outer load. This morning, while brushing my teeth, I got more answers as to why I continue clearing. Whoever gave me the answers wanted you to know as well.

I was told we are constantly evolving. We are constantly changing. We are meant to never lose sight of our dreams, never give in to stagnation of soul and spirit, never cease to uncover our glorious, individual essences of God. But the world is heavy and our duties are heavy and we can easily slip into waking unconsciousness where we become numb to our beautiful gifts and talents. Where we cease to be aware of the changes within.

When we have changed and evolved, through good seasons and bad, we need to weed out the inner and outer representations of our lesser-evolved selves. Because we are not the same anymore. We are more open to new opportunities, new adventures, new avenues to bliss. If we have let go of who we used to be, 3 years ago, 3 months ago, or even 3 weeks ago. Shoes, dishes, music, artwork, clothing, dusty collections, tools, and general crap we haven't used or worn or acknowledged in too long, all represent our lesser-evolved selves and are holding our new selves in an old pattern. Holding our new selves back from moving forward. Because that general crap is no longer symbolic of who we are right now. That crap is no longer facilitating our evolutionary path to the bliss and the dreams and the talents we are meant to offer right now. Yes, the shoes may still fit, the tools may still function, the dishes may still be pristine, but if they are not a true reflection of who we are in 2007, they are literal and figurative dams stagnating the flow of our lives. Our ever-evolving lives. Our purposeful and peaceful lives.

Don, it's about letting go of who we were in order to embrace, at a full run, the fabulous beings we have morphed into. We can only know and embrace those beautiful beings if shackles and shoes of former selves have been weeded out and put to the curb.

While There Is Still Time

If there is something that needs to be said, say it. If there is something that needs to be done, do it. If you have a dream, pursue it. If great adventure is calling, answer the call.

If you are holding back, holding on or holding in, let go.

Give hugs. Give praise. Give all you've got.

Practice kindness.

Offer forgiveness.

Recognize grace.

And never, ever, withhold love.



Because tomorrow, the next hour and the next minute may never come. For Christopher, the 45 year old, charismatic man and father to Hannah, whose funeral I will attend tomorrow, the end came unexpectedly and swift. Those that knew Chris are aching for one more minute, one more word, one more laugh, one more chance to bask in his sunshine and tell him how much he meant to them. Because we all assumed we would have plenty of time. We all assumed wrong.

Vow to say it, do it, and pursue it. Let go of grievances. Let go of fears. Offer your best self to the world, while there is still time, still breath in your lungs and still so much love to give.

Beauty Lives Everywhere

Sea Obsession

Lately, the sea is calling me. And I live no where near it. Being a grand lover of woodland landscapes, fresh water creeks and leaf-litter carpets, it confounds me, this new and sudden obsession with the sea. Its colors and textures and sounds and treasures. Pale blue sea glass. Conical shells. Sand in my shoes. Salted, wrinkled fingertips. Meditative, repetitive foam-capped waves. Sun and wind and odors of wetness. In my waking dreams, I am lying on the shoreline, baptized repeatedly by the flow and the ebb. Welcoming and releasing, birthing and dying. Surrendering to each cleansing surge and retreat.


Unlike the compressed safety of the woods, the sea is wide open. There is no where to hide when standing on a shoreline. There is only exposure and vulnerability and the need for daring to face the unyielding elements. To face the storms and not be dragged to the bottom of the final frontier. To survive and thrive and wring happiness from a storm-soaked heart and mind. This is the message of my obsession. This is the challenge I have asked for as I seek spiritual growth and inner strength. To know when it is time to exchange the woods for the sea and witness my evolution in the face of high winds and unruly waves. To expose myself on the shore of the unknown and come away knowing I was never vulnerable to begin with. Because everything is survivable when faced in the wide open. When faced head on. When faced with the truth in my heart.

"Stop hiding", calls the sea. Be willing to risk exposure. Be willing to risk the previously unthinkable, vulnerable adventure. To risk the great love, the great dream, the great release of old wounds. "Stand on the shore, lie on the shore. Just be willing to show up and get wet", calls the sea. It asks me to be willing to face what must be faced, then marvel at the treasures that wash up at my feet.

COEXIST

Ironing With God

Yesterday, fueled by rare domestic inspiration, I ironed. I am overcome with the need to remove wrinkles from my wardrobe or table linens on a seasonal basis at best, and yesterday the season was upon me. Now, every summer t-shirt is crisply hanging from a wooden rod in my closet, neatly arranged next to my newly pressed summer pants. I gazed at my accomplishment at length, knowing full well the likelihood of a repeat performance of this wrinkle-free zone may take an act of God. Or an act of desperation.

Not desperation for perfectly smooth cotton, but desperation for Universal wisdom. It seems, while ironing, my Higher Power dropped by for a Universal chat. It took advantage of the quiet, meditative state I was in, turned the volume down low on my Nora Jones CD and sent streams of assurance, understanding and inspirational pearls into my brain.

I ironed as long as the inspirational one-sided conversation lasted. It lasted long enough to finish my summer wardrobe. It lasted long enough to calm my nerves. It lasted long enough to achieve a deep sigh of relief in the center of my heart.

My Higher Power told me that chaos is a means to cut through the fear that holds me back. That chaos is actually a direct path to my betterment. That vulnerability exposed in the chaos is needful for me to birth a new way of living. That my ego will, in the end, submit to the changes it fears the most.

My Higher Power told me that patience is needed for anything worthwhile to manifest. It told me to not pull up new growth by its roots and for pity's sake, stop questioning if what I've planted really is growing. It is.

My Higher Power told me the only one I have to trust, ever, is myself. If I trust myself, I will only attract trustworthy people into my life. My Higher Power reminded me, again, that all answers lie within my own heart. Because my heart is mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually connected, in every chaotical nano-second, to the Source, the One, the Mother-Father God. Connected to the Higher, Omnipotent Power that cares enough to direct the growth of each blade of grass, each sea creature's fin, each feather, each bone, each follicle of fur, and each moment of my life. My worthwhile life. My sacred life. My life of spectacular grace.

My Higher Power told me to be still more often. To iron more. To meditate more. To make myself more available to the ever-present streams of Universal wisdom, assurance and inspiration. Not only will my wardrobe improve, so will my inner peace.