May and Elixir Vitae

It’s the month of May on a warm overcast day. I wanted to get to the river’s edge with my dog, Belle, before the time of the perfume of tiny yellow flowers comes to a close. All along the Rio Grande, which is less than a little trickle in most places during our long drought, thankfully we still have cottonwoods and fruit-bearing mulberry trees and they are dripping with delicious edible berries just now. But it is the Russian olive trees in bloom that I didn’t want to miss, part of the understory of the forest, which we call in Spanish, bosque (pronounced boss-k). The Russian olive's leaf-out and flower almost simultaneously and so from a distance one can only detect the soft sage green leaves. Sensing a subtle scent, I approached the first one with a hopeful expectation.

Yes, yes, there were tiny flowers, some already dry, yet a few still very much alive. As we walked deeper along the trails there were many more and I was not disappointed. The flowers are so small individually, the circumference of an eraser head with the most delicate lemon yellow petals, many thousands upon thousands on each tree. Their aroma scents the whole of the bosque and permeates the air with a delicate fragrance that I adore.

Belle splashed along the river’s muddy edge as I smiled at our shared joy. Picking the darkest  ripest mulberries off branches and taking it all in like an elixer vitae, there is nothing like springtime when everything is in renewal. 

The topic of our habits as artists is in my awareness today, specifically, how to shift from the customary manner with which we work in order to perhaps arrive at a new place. How can we break the spell of the familiar? Some tendencies are worth savoring like the scent of the forest each spring, others may just be an automatic propensity that doesn’t bring us to any fresh feeling of aliveness. And I am pretty certain that that is one of the main reasons we create, to touch into the spark of life.

Revisiting Rick Rubin’s book, The Creative Act, there is a long list* on habits not conducive to creativity including:

Impatience

Feeling you don’t have the energy it takes

Believing you are not good enough

Abandoning a project when it gets too difficult

Romanticizing negative behaviors or addictions

Believing a certain mood or state is necessary to do your best work (have felt this one many times)

and another one I know well, distractibility. 

And everyone’s favorite, procrastination.

May the season of renewal rekindle your best tendencies to create. May the new life emerging, the scents of flowers, budding potential be a catalyst for you.

*From The Creative Act, pg.139

The Firebird

 

A friend of mine went to the ballet last weekend in NYC and saw The Firebird (French: L’Oiseau de Feu.)  I didn’t recall the story and didn’t know that the music for this ballet was composed and orchestrated by Igor Stravinsky, so I did a little research and watched an exquisite production from 2016 online, Return of the Firebird, by Andris Liepa performed and filmed in Russia’s Mosfilm Studios. When the ballet originally premiered in June 1910 with the Ballet Russes company in Paris the production met with much acclaim and today it is still considered a masterpiece of music, dance and storyline. What struck me most upon reading about the ballet is the way Prince Ivan rises above challenges and the gifts of support that come when he connected to nature, where in the enchanted forest he meets the supernatural Firebird. 

Based on Russian folk tales, the concept was proposed by the poet and ballet lover, Pyotr Petrovich Potyonkin. Inspired by the 1844 poem, by Yakov Polonsky, A Winter’s Journey: 

And in my dreams I see myself on a wolf’s back

Riding along a forest path

To do battle with a sorcerer-tsar

In that land where a princess sits under lock and key,

Pining behind massive walls.

There gardens surround a palace all of glass;

There Firebirds sing by night

And peck at golden fruit. 

While the motif of the Phoenix, a Greek and Egyptian symbol of resurrection that burns and rises from its ashes is similar, the Firebird differs somewhat. She too rises and overcomes challenges but it is through her support of another, Prince Ivan, who spares her life upon meeting her, that the Firebird represents treasure and the magical aspects of renewal through relationship to nature and other. The idea of helping spirits always intrigues me and especially in the realms of birds. 

From a shamanic perspective, everything is alive. The feathered, the furred, the scaled  ones; the seawaters swelling with the moon’s phases; the wind passing through autumn’s yellow cottonwood leaves; snowfall in the mountains, All That Is has its own natural frequency or state of resonance with everything else. From the perspective of physics, we exist in a vast electromagnetic field, and through that expanse, so too our individual hearts are linked. Some call this the web of life. 

When Will Taegel, who wrote the book, Walking with Bears, lost his bearings in a small canyon, somewhere in northern New Mexico along a dirt road on route back to Albuquerque, he stopped and took a moment to take in his surroundings.  Off to his left in a pinyon pine, a bright blue bird appeared. It flew off to another tree, inviting him to follow along:  This elusive guidance was not from the invisible world but the very visible. Such a fusion of the invisible and the visible seemed to be a hallmark of primal wisdom. 

Astonishingly, the blue bird led me directly to a numbered highway, …I mused that I now had powers beyond common sense, reason, and even imagination in connecting with a natural order underneath the disorder of my ordinary life.

Guidance is always available when we align to it, powers great and small can be helping spirits to us all. The tale of The Firebird is that kind of magical encounter: found treasure, ally, support in Mother Nature, guiding us underneath the seeming disorder of ordinary life. 

Finding Balance Within

 

photo credit: Lisa Kessler, Boston 

On a summer morning as I was doing a few minutes of yoga on my patio, I noticed that my body was curiously moving into a kind of involuntary dance. Oddly, I felt a bit like a marionette, some subtle outside force seemed to be gently directing my strings.  My right arm lifted up perpendicular to my right side, I observed myself pointing my index finger as if it were the nose of a gun. I played along and closed my left eye as I aimed over an imaginary barrel. Another similar movement followed, I observed my left arm pull back on a make-believe bow and arrow, my torso and left shoulder turned to my left with a particular erect sense of posture as my eyes focused toward an invisible target. 

Then came the action of a quick thrusting forward, my right arm stretched as in a fencing or jousting position, my knees bent slightly outward. I felt fiercely intent within and yet light on my feet.  These momentary gestures became a bit of a game, one after another. As my body shifted again, I reoriented as if I held a knife in my right hand, in a stance of aggression and unlike anything I am familiar with in my current female oriented incarnation.

Strangely, my thinking mind was not a part of this process. Who was pulling the strings?  Perhaps some subconscious guidance connecting me to understanding my own balance, I do not know. But, as I relaxed into this odd mid-summer dream I noted another shift of movement arising from the left side of my body. I was in a duet with my own body. Softly, a gentle rocking motion began to sway my hips. I leaned a bit to the left, cradling an imaginary form within my arms, as if nursing a baby. Though I hoped none of my neighbors witnessed these spontaneous expressions rising up, this patio pantomime was genuinely instructing me of many things. Shiva and Shakti are the universal aspects of the masculine and feminine as they are expressed in Tantric cosmology. There is not Shiva without Shakti nor Shakti in the absence of Shiva. Together they embody the One.

I thought I understood this on an intellectual level but during and after this sequence of movements, I had a full body inner comprehension. We hold the mystery of life -energy within our cells; we know that when we transmit a smile, show kindness to another, actualize frustration, or express anger. We embody both the giver and the receiver when we engage our energy patterns. It doesn’t matter whether we are male, female, trans or non-binary, we all have varying degrees of these yin and yang qualities within us. These attributes are simply words to describe archytypes more than gender.

As the world turns, there is great unrest in the Middle East and it is easy to fall into fear, and to lose our balance, serenity and sense of safety when purusing the headlines. In the Holy Lands, profoundly significant to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, at this time there is zero sense of calm and order. Imbalance seems to be leaning entirely toward the unhealthy dominance of one side, let's call it the yang principle. In Traditonal Chinese Medicine, too much yang typically manifests as increased heat/activity causing high fever, anxiety, and anger. Calming practices are what is needed to restore balance. 

Cove Acupuncture in East Hollywood, Los Angeles has this to offer in terms of descrbing these principles: 

A healthy body is a body in equilibrium, with equal parts yin and yang. We get out of balance when we have too much or not enough yin and yang. There are four basic patterns of imbalance in the body (there are actually many more, but at their most basic...):

Yin Deficiency: too little yin in the body. This is characterized by thinness, dryness, a slight fever, malar flush (rosy cheeks, chin, and forehead), and night sweats (among other symptoms). Extreme yin deficiency can be seen in wasting diseases, including cancer and AIDS. Yang levels are normal, so fever is low grade.

Yang Deficiency: too little yang in the body. This is characterized by heaviness/overweight, excess dampness (phlegm, edema), feeling cold, and having a pale face. Patients with yang deficiency may also have slow digestion and loose stools. Because yin levels are normal, the patient only feels slightly cold. Yang is the motive force behind all types of metabolism, so metabolism is slowed in yang deficient patients.

Yin Excess: Similar to yang deficiency, but heavier, wetter, and slower. The patient will feel more cold; edema will be worse. Yang levels are normal, so the motive force is still there, but it is handicapped because it has to move greater amounts of heavy yin.

Yang Excess: Too much heat in the body. At its extreme, this is seen in high fevers, including hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola. Less extreme yang excess can be characterized by restlessness, anxiety, and fidgeting (as well as skin rashes, burning stools, heavy sweating, and a fully red face). Yin levels are normal, but prolonged yang excess will burn away yin.

How can we restore balance within? From the outset, the one thing we have control over is our response. We do not--contrary to popular belief-- need to be reactive. We can find peaceful practices such as walking in the woods; going to a large body of water; hiking in the mountains; establishing a regular meditation, there are various forms; eating healthy nutritious food; and definitely avoiding the things that tend to scorch our serenity. May peace be with you.

Sacred Moments

They say timing is everything and this morning seemed to underline that declaration. I don’t like to keep a clock in my bedroom anymore, I prefer the inner call to waking as opposed to a harsh sound. On rare occasions it is necessary to set an alarm but not often, usually I wake when I wake and that’s early enough.  When I retired last night I thought about getting up to view the full lunar eclipse, the Blood Moon, in the early hours before dawn. I don’t know how this alignment can be so accurately predicted but I knew it would be in the viewing path of New Mexico and scheduled to peak between 4 and 5 am. Cloud cover was in the forecast and so I went to sleep not expecting much of a show or even that I would be up. 

But all my better angels were guiding me awake repeatedly: at 9 pm when the HVAC went off like a jet engine unexpectedly, I got up and looked at the clock on the stove then fell easily back to sleep. Out from under the cozy blankets at 2:30 am, again I couldn’t resist looking at the digital numbers on the stove and then once more I laid my body down. At 4:30, something pulled at me to get up and look at the clock...I quickly dressed for the cool night air and went out to see what I could see.

Black skies over head and a brick-red button floating in the western sky above the buildings next to me. Clear skies and visibility, the eclipse was at its peak. Smiling all the while, delighted to have this rare and amazing view seemingly all to myself.

An impression of grey, soft shapes that I guessed to be Sandhill cranes moved gently northbound amongst the stellar and lunar exhibition. They appeared to disappear. Then the first birds began to sing their melodies before the clock struck five. I watched as the dusty red planet with just a hint of light on its side, gave way to the crystal white beneath the shadow line until the clarity of her fullness was revealed. The velvet curtain pulled back, all the while she seemed to expand and shine brighter as she dropped lower towards the horizon. I am grateful for this experience of wonder with Father Time and the Earth, Moon, Sun, matchless, miraculous moments. 

Shamanic teacher and writer, Sandra Ingermann recently wrote in regards to the worlds we are straddling in these tumultous days:

Are you choosing the world your mind is moving you to or the world your soul is moving you to? The way of life you choose is what you will live. And it is all a matter of choice. 

Let us stay with the soulful! 

On Dreams and Creativity

When Carl Jung first separated from his mentor and colleague, Sigmund Freud, he was overwhelmed with images that came to him during that transitional time. In December 1913, Jung allowed himself to reenter one of these images, he fell down a cliffside within his mind.  He landed in the ‘muck’ (this important first time when he embodied a dream image) with his feet first and sank in up to his ankles. Jungian, Robert Bosnak, has noted this entry into Jung’s dream-world imagery physically connected what he fell into with his feet as more than symbolic. No bones were broken in this fall, nor did he die, but landed upright. His dream imagery became fully embodied. Jung considered dreaming the reality of the soul. He said, in an interview from 1959, that as a young man his first choice of study was archeology. But he chose to excavate consciousness instead, specifically the realms of the soul, rather than artifacts of history.  

If we re-enter our dreams with deep body awareness, we may land into greater awareness of our soul’s desires. Shamans have been traveling into the dreamtime for thousands of years, bringing back guidance to search for water, where to find plant medicine to heal the sick and to recover fragmented soul parts. Dr. Bosnak feels the Body/Mind conundrum exists because we have denied the reality in between the two. This is the energy of the trinity. By way of our dreams, imaginations, works of art and shamanic practices, we can be in beneficial dialogue, in union with guidance. Our dreams are a place where we might connect to the collective unconscious, but also, I believe where we imagine the next move of our existence individually and interrelatedly. Using our imaginations as a tool for healing through the immense changes underway on our planet is an important part of our embodied evolution.

In our Zoom calls during the Covid time, a group shared their dreams and embodied those creative images. Bosnak mentioned the idea of negative capability in reference to staying with the unknown as someone navigates a dream, journey or memory. The poet, John Keats originated the expression in terms of our ability to be in the not- knowing mind: "capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact and reason …” It is one of the important aspects of working this medicine, we learn to be okay in the unknown, trusting in a Higher Power to show us the next right step. 

A deep as night blue fills my awareness.  I am with my mother. We are dressed in indigo. We are walking together down an unpaved road, shoulder- to- shoulder. Love joins us. We are in a village or town and in my mind’s eye, I spy a piece of white partially wrinkled paper.  

We walk past a man who is in a very heavy wooden container.  It is some kind of a vessel for transport though there are no horses and I don’t understand how it can move. (But this is a dream, so anything is possible.) Carved with large sculptural patterns on the sides, in a manner that could be Indonesian, the man in the vessel makes it known that we will not be taking a ride with him in this strange vehicle.  I feel slightly reactive to this rejection but walk on with my mother in search of a poem that is already written.

It was the first time I had a clear, fully formed dream memory of my mother since she died. I had the opportunity a few days later to share my dream with Robert Bosnak during the Jungian Friday night online gathering. We had been meeting for almost a full year during the Covid quarantine and after.  On this particular day he was in Hobart, Tasmania, an island off the southeast coast of mainline Australia.  He was overlooking the harbor from a rooftop while on his laptop. 

   My friend Lisa was on the Zoom call along with about thirty-five other people. I was admittedly nervous as I retold my dream, though it was a kindly group, still, sharing something private unnerved me. Robert patiently guided me to feel into the dream imagery again, first taking a moment to be still, then telling the dream as I recalled it:  I am touching the fabric, the dark indigo that we were wearing—long robes or dresses from another century.  Sensing the warm- hearted emotions shared with my mother, I feel into the deep love in my heart expanse and the great happiness to be walking by her side once more.  The white paper which I believe indicates ‘the poem already written’ is apparent in my mind’s eye. 

    In actuality, I was feeling a longing for creative expression after the difficult and most challenging few years since she passed. But the boat, or the vessel that was in service for transport was not for us to board. We would not be going with the man. Robert asked me if this was a problem. “Yes, but only a momentary disappointment.”  He says a boat in the Hobart harbor had just left the dock as I said this,  “The boat is not for you.”  Instead, we went the way of walking, shoulder- to -shoulder, along the dirt road in the atmosphere of indigo.  I am safe being with my mother on our quest. Robert said, “Perhaps you are on the road less traveled.”  

    He asked me, How does that feel?” I said, “It feels like oxygen.” He nodded, yes, “It is creative oxygen.” I breathed into my heart expanse and it felt like love.