Day 5 The ABC's of Advent, Letter E

Ok, so this is a little bit of a downturn...it's time to put up the Christmas tree--while I may long to celebrate Advent and it's quiet waiting, I'm snapped back to the reality of living in this world. Jim's gone for the tree--now I have to scrounge into the little space under the stairs and pull out the dusty boxes. It feels to me like reaching back into the past and bringing out all the old memories and trying to live there again.

In her book Walking in This World, Julia Cameron talks about "'growing up in the fun house,' where our soul's aspirations are mirrored back to us in a distorted and distorting fashion".

That's how I feel right now--walking that fine line, called the Edge, between what I long for and what is...

This is where I long for the Light...

Day 4 The ABC's of Advent - Letter D

I almost kicked myself for not doing this page yesterday, but I'm still trying to trust the Muse, who's biggest job seems to be teaching me that "timing is everything".

I've known I wanted to use Darkness for my D word, but somehow it just didn't click yesterday. With the weather teasing "snow", and the pots on the stove bubbling turkey gumbo, "darkness" just didn't fit. And I woke up this morning, knowing why.

I've learned over the years to befriend the darkness, knowing that it's the womb that gives life. I've learned not to be afraid of the darkness as much as I used to be. And I've learned that waiting is part of the "it" of befriending darkness.

But this morning, I woke up knowing that at the end of darkness comes DAWN. And part of what I'm waiting for is the beginning of something new that comes with the dawn.

The pieces of poetry on the pages are from a poem I wrote in October, entitled:

The End of Winter's Long Night.

The long night is nearly over.

The edges of morning sun's rosy dawn

creep into night's black sky,

and I am left tired to the bone.

It has been a long winter's night,

but I live.

My hip hurts,

but my heart is free.

And I limp.

I no longer stand tall with ready answers.

My hip is out of joint,

and I lean--

listing like a broken down sailboat.

What I was yesterday is only

a discolored spot on a wall,

a shadow,

a distant memory.

My feet are no longer tightly fitted

in shoes of certitude.

I walk with bare feet now.

And I lean.

But the long night is over,

and I live to see a new day.

Only one thing is certain now--

the Life Giver walks among us.

(Genesis 32.24-31 and Song of Solomon 8.5)

Day 3 The ABC's of Advent - Letter C

My C words for Advent are compassion, community, and Christ-mass (made that one up).

Someone told me a long time ago, that in Scripture, one of the words that compassion comes from is the same word as "womb". Growing up, compassion was described as coming from the "bowels", but when I heard the "womb" thought process, it made much more sense of me. There is something about feeling someone's pain or circumstances from the womb. A mother knows.

I reacently learned of the Charter for Compassion, and was reminded again that compassion is at the center of ALL religions, including my own. Just imagine, if we all could remember that we are "one", and if that "one" human community could act always from a heart of compassion for each other and the planet itself, the Christ-Mass would always be sung. Let it begin in me.

Day 2 The ABC's of Advent - Letter B

I woke up this morning about 4:30, with "visions" of art journaling pages dancing in my head. Today, December 2, my Letter B's of Advent are "breathe", "breath", "blow", and "beautiful". One of my all-time favorite hymns is Breathe On Me. I haven't heard it for years, but I heard it clearly in my deepest parts this morning as I woke.

The purpose of my art journaling the ABC's of Advent is to look for "light"...as Ruah Spirit blows her sweet breath on my heart, "sunshine fills its inmost, with not a cloud between."

I have my "Light" for today.

Blessed be.

Day 1 The ABC's of Advent, Letter A

A is for Advent, Adventitious, Adventure, Adventuress, Adventurous, and AUDACIOUS!

Christmas hasn't been my cup of tea for a very, very long time. I want that to change, to shift in some way. Recently, Andy mentioned in one of his sermons, that this ISN'T Christmas season, it's ADVENT season, the season we wait for Light. Something in that comment settled deep in me, and somewhere inside, I felt a shift coming. So, I've waited. I thought it might help to make some soul collage cards about Christmas, but that just hasn't happened--my "stuff" kept getting in the way. So, I waited some more. For several years now, art has been my prayer, my therapy, my tool for healing. Images are transformative, so I've felt that my answer would be found in art some way, but I didn't know how, so I kept waiting.

Yesterday I went to Hastings to buy magazines for Soul Collage, and I found this wonderful little book on art journaling. I spent time looking through it last night, and reading through some art journaling blogs, and something "felt" right--this is it. But how do I start?

I've journaled for years, and I've even tried keeping some kind of journal using art, but nothing's every clicked. Then, this morning, I woke up with "the answer"--at least for now. This is December 1st. Perhaps I could do an Advent alphabet, using words to jump in. I love words, and this seemed like a good idea for me.

So, I rushed into my studio and rumaged through some drawers looking for old sketch books that might work. The first one I came to just happened to have 26 pages. Wow...this is meant to be. So, here I go. These are the first two entries in my new journal for Advent 2009. I'm looking for Light. I'm looking for a shift. I think maybe this just might be a tool for me this year. I'm ready!

Intuition - The Zygogenesis of Partnership

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel in the night;

also my heart instructs me.

Psalm 16.7

Animated by something other than reason, the seed planted
becomes fully alive in the heavy soil of Night.
Consciousness breaks like Day through what appears as
Darkness and Death, fully and completely
energizing the seed, bringing same to
fruition. What has caused this apparently dead kernel to
germinate, exploding root Downward into
heavy, heaving earth?
Intoxicated with an undeniable
joy, this suddenly alive
kernel, once dead, reaches for new Life.
Limited only by its own deeply-held pattern of truth held in the
matrix of Time and Eternity, this kernel
nudges with life, also Upward, as if driven by some
olfactory sense toward the Light, breaking ground into a
profusion of form: a flower, a tree, an answer
quickly coming with no explanation. The mind and the soul finally at
rest, the heart
stilled.
Time has become a haven, the
ulterior motive of the All: to teach the patient act of seeming
vanity, simply to
wait,
xeno,
yielding only to the familiar but unseen Source of it all, the true
zygogenesis of Partnership.

Relating to God

Last evening a group of my spiritual soul sisters and I got together for dinner, a concert, and a pajama party. What a delight--but at 60, my body doesn't quite last as long as it used to. By the time the question of the evening was posed, "So, how are you relating to God today?", it was 5 glasses of wine, and far too many hours too late for me to respond.

But on the solitary drive home this morning, I had time to ponder my relationship to God. How am I relating to God today? Much the same as I have been over the last 10-12 years. My perception of God has changed, but God has not changed. I think that's finally sunk deep into my soul.

I lost God about 6 years ago, and I panicked. But over the last year or so, I've found my way back home. The God I know today is the same God I've always known. The only thing that's really changed is my "picture", the way I see God. God is no longer a "being" as I am a being; instead, God is Being, the Ground of all being, the Source of all being. God does not give life; God is Life.

And I still relate as I've done in the past, by staying awake, by paying attention, by taking note, by listening closely. I haven't prayed much with words for many years, but I do practice stillness. When I sit quietly in centering prayer or meditation, all my parts come together, and I can hear--softly in the temple of my soul, the voice of God. When synchronistic acts line up and the eyes of my understanding gets it, God shouts, and I hear. My worship method has changed from singing songs, to simply noticing how my heart lifts, like a large flock of birds lifting simultaneously from the pasture and soaring in beautiful pattern through the bright blue sky. My heart soars with them, in unison, as God and I delight together in the beauty of Creation.

Is God energy? Yes, no, maybe--God is infinite. No one word can define. Is God me? Is God you? Yes, no, maybe--God might be me, God might be you, but God definitely is more. God exists without me, but I don't exist without God. One thing I know--God isn't "he", nor "she"--dispite our distaste of the thought, I rather believe God to be "IT", in me, outside of me, around me, through me, part of me, and apart from me. To know God is to know my true Self. To know my true Self is to know God.

Should I worship this "Energy"--how can I not? Worship is a response of the heart to something more--I don't plan it, nor do I "do" it, but instead, it does me. I was created to worship--remember those vast flocks of birds lifting up into the sky and flying in pattern? How can I keep my heart from following?

To me, worship isn't a song of notes and words, but a gesture of recognition that Something More has caught my heart and given me wings.

I am more sure today than ever before that God is. We are in partnership, God and I. I was born to "see" God, to "know" God, to worship God. And I was born, like those birds, to fly. Even though gravity pulls my earth suit downward, my spirit flies because God is, and we relate.