Look to the stars

We've had some clear cold days and nights here on the Central Oregon Coast. One of my favorite things to do is star gaze. There are times when the Milky Way is particularly clear, vast and breathtaking to behold. There are many places in the world where the human populated areas make the night lights so bright you can't see many stars. But, here on the coast on clear nights, you can see forever! I love it when a shooting star happens. For many years I have been a student of the ancient peoples and their art and ruins. I devour any books I find with pictures and information on the great gathering places our ancient ancestors constructed that seem to be heavily design for star gazing and marking the movement of the heavens in relation to earth. To our surprise, we have discovered their knowledge of the heavens and cosmos was far advanced of what we think they should have been able to know. It occurred to me the other night while looking up into the heaven that making eye contact with these patterns of lights in the sky could be very important to the evolutionary journey we humans are experiencing. I have spoken in past posts of stars in our bones. The very matter, the elements, that makes up the cosmos, also being in our physical bones and flesh is now being confirmed by scientists. But what if there are codes embedded in our DNA that are being switched on due to starlight exposure and the movement of the cosmic dance of the stars? What if there is a "little timer" set within our very DNA (especially within the so called "junk" DNA) that is affected by our awakening, our consciousness, our self-reflectiveness, our wondering and new awareness, our "a-ha" moments? What if the increasing vibrational frequencies we are able to achieve when we focus on positive thoughts and feelings more often than fear and doubt, anger and hatred; what if when we choose compassion over judgement, love over indifference; what if all our choices to dance and laugh and sing rather that choose our old, past "poor little wounded me" dark places, what if this is switching on an irreversible transfiguration in our species, one person at a time? What if?... I don't know about you, but maybe I'll be devoting more of my time to star-gazing, just in case it means something like that.

Here comes the sun!

After low, these many days, we finally get some sun! It seems we have had one storm right after another, so when even a small amount of sunlight peeks through the clouds, my soul is on it like bees to honey. As if on cue, a surprise arrived in the mail today to help celebrate the sun. One of my customers sent a thank you gift of a Rose window she made. As soon as I hung it in the window, the sun took this as an invitation to wow me.

I have been thinking that perhaps this is a way the Universe is waiting for the invitation from our species to expand to a higher frequency of being, just waiting for us to notice and say yes to the possibilities. When there seems to be fear and worry all around, either about the war or terrorists, the economy spiraling downward, or even what poor Britney is up to now, these are all distractions that can take us from our joy. What I find when I am busy creating and playing and enjoying myself, I feel I'm vibrating at a higher frequency. This , in my opinion, is what is necessary for the whole human race and for the entire planet, our solar system and beyond, from a cellular level outward: that we maintain a higher frequency long enough to reach the evolutionary jump point that is our destiny! You know how magnetic love can be, how attractive joy is. We all want to go that way. There is a great pull going on for our attention. Will it be the petty little tyrants that want to drag us down with their fears and angst or are we going to reach for the stars? Remember, we are made of stars, so as long as we don't get distracted we have to choose for the stars...It's who we are!

What would Love do?

I watched quietly over the months she lived next door to our little shop, observing her comings and goings. Single mothers have a lot to contend with and she seemed to do her best to give her little son a happy, safe home. She kept to herself, so I never heard her story. As each of the holidays approached she did her best to decorate and celebrate with her child. She had Halloween decorations which ended up blowing into the bushes. For a while, there was a king sized mattress and box springs with a "free" sign on it parked outside the door. I worried that all the rain coming down would make it unsuitable for anyone to sleep on. I found myself entertaining little "ninja thoughts," ok, they were judgements, about how trashy things were looking around her door. She bravely tried to decorate for Christmas putting little snow flake decorations in the tree in front and somehow the tree didn't look as sad and lonely as the little house appeared. One day, about two weeks ago she very quickly moved out, leaving unwanted "free" things in little stacks under the tree. As one wind storm after another blew in, these little stacks of cups and saucers, a coffee maker and other "left-behinds" began to become broken, unsightly and trashed. Each day I became more and more focused on the trash, and less and less compassionate towards the one who had left in such a hurry. Finally, this morning as I sat in my parked car beside the curb and very near the mess, I found myself praying a silent prayer for the whole, sad scene, both outside and within. In the quiet of that moment, Grace descended upon me and I heard the words loud and clear form in my heart-space: "Kathryn, what would Love do?" Instantly I knew what needed to be done. I donned a pair of work gloves I had in my car and got a black plastic bag and cleaned up the whole area. With each shattered piece of glass, tea cup shard and half buried Halloween decoration, I drew a heart around this lonely little place and around the dear soul who had last lived there. I knew the best and only right thing I could do was help a sister in need do what needed to be done, that she herself was, for whatever reason, unable to do. I found waves of love go out from me and surround this place. A little beauty wanted to blossom where Love had created a space.

I am in gratitude for all the ways I have been supported through the hard things I have had to do in my life. When the chips were down, I always had many helping hands to get me through it. I realized it made me obligated to give back, to "pay it forward" for someone else who may have needed just a little more support than she had. I just hope the next time there is an opportunity to reach out and be love in action, it doesn't take me so long to get a clue...sigh

Faithful waiting and tending has it's rewards

There she was, just waiting for me to notice. Each morning when I have fixed my one, perfect cup of coffee, I make the trip to the window sill to see if the orchid has bloomed. I have been waiting for a good 3 months from the time I noticed that the strange looking tendril that had begun to grow, didn't look the same as the other ones that were air roots. I don't know much about orchids, nor do I particularly remember when this one became a member of the household. (I think it came when friends came to visit Cindy before she died, which was five years ago.) This poor little plant sat for a long time on the window sill. I would water it faithfully, but it never grew or seemed to change, or in any way respond to my ministrations. I one day moved it to a window overlooking the ocean and from that time on, the leaves, all two of them, began to imperceptibly grow. So, every day as I went to look out at the world with my one, perfect cup of coffee, I would talk to the orchid and try to encourage it. After a while it looked like it needed a bit bigger pot of bark. I decided to put the new plastic pot inside of a delicious maroon colored pot to dress it up a bit. I remembered my brother, who is a genius at growing orchids, once saying that you put the water in the outside pot and the orchid would take the water in from the bottom. So, anyway, I did that. Soon the orchid began to put out this tendril and I thought that since it was growing way out beyond the rest of the other more "naralie"looking tendrils, that it had to be a flower stalk. Sure enough, little buds began to appear and little by little and ever so slightly they plumped up. Watching this dear little soul has helped me learn a little bit more about patience. There is no way to make this thing move along any faster, it has just taken it's own sweet time. Then, just yesterday, it happened. Almost when I wasn't looking, it unfurled one of it's buds and surprised me. It's the faithful waiting and careful tending, somehow deep inside knowing that what I do matters, that one day does show up and delight. I found that I didn't go about this with the usual approach of reading up on or taking classes and fortifying my faith with some outside illusion or expertise. I just believed that if I paid attention and loved this little mystery in a pot, that one day, the little shy soul would open up and sing her song. I guess this is how some of my best ideas come about too, by just doing the faithful tending and care, waiting with an innocence and a surrender to the process. I wonder if any of you have noticed that about people or projects, ideas or notions that you believe in that one day when you least expected it, surprised and delighted you with beauty, or awesome wonder? I think that is possibly how it works with The Creator, too. I'm almost positive that we each have caused THE HOLY ONE, from time to time, to blurt out: "O My God! Awesome!

Catching Dreams together

One of the emerging themes for me this past year has been the power of the dream and the dream carrier. Without the dream to move us forward we would forever stay stuck and never grow to our greatest potential. Many times nightmares, one of the many dreams we would rather not look at, tend to be the most powerful dreams for moving us forward. It is what we fear most that shows us our greatest strength, in the end.

To celebrate the power of activating new dreams and visions for ourselves and our world, I was inspired to create dreaming bowls.

Dreams and visioning have long been a way that great ideas and projects have become a reality in our lives. The dream starts as a longing or seed Idea that wants to be born in us and wants to become a reality for a greater good in our world. Some dreams take their time becoming manifest and need a place of incubation within us. Having a place to hold our emerging dream helps make the dream feel more real because it seems to occupy space outside of us. Thus, the dreaming bowl was created. I have found that the very act of creating the dreaming bowl project and making them available to others has sparked more dreams being manifest.

Around the Winter Solstice each year I make a series of luminarias, little lanterns that hold a candle. I have shared about this project in an earlier post. I found myself making some of the luminarias that also have become dreaming bowls. This is a combination of the dreaming bowl and the luminaria. Each dreaming bowl has a different saying on it about carrying the dreams we have. I never know what dream saying will emerge but just let the Spirit inspire me. On one such dreaming bowl/luminaria came the words: "You are here to birth your dreams...Push now!" This is just what I see happening in the lives of those of you who have joined the Hearthtalk circle. Not because you joined this circle but, because now, by your joining, I get to visit your blogs and see how you are pushing to birth your dreams. You are the ones who have "put your feet on the road to greatness." Not the kind of greatness we may hear about on the nightly news, but the quiet way you reach for the stars in your own lives. I am so grateful for the dreams you carry and the way you ignite new dreams and visions in me. It is awesome to sit around this Hearth with you.You may not realize this, but it shapes the next projects I create. Our world is blessed by the dreams unfolding in all of us and the way we are catching dreams together.Thank You for your lives!

Putting it in perspective....

This is just what I needed! A dear friend of mine sent me a bunch of pictures taken from the Hubble Telescope as a way of wishing me a blessed Solstice. I'm sure you can goggle this to get an address for seeing more of these awesome and breath taking visions of the many mind boggling ways the Creator likes to play, dance, shimmer and dazzle us. There is this wonderful quote in one of the Sufi mystical writings, though I don't know the reference for it, that goes something like this: "I was alone and longed to be known and so I created the Universe." Wow! Having a mere glimpse of the bigger reality out beyond my little sphere of influence and concerns always puts it all into perspective for me.

The other day I was listening to a news clip in which some woman from Iowa was being interviewed about her concerns as they related to the many presidential hopefuls making a last ditch effort to persuade voters before the primaries. She said: " I'm just not willing to have any more of my tax dollars going to pay for someone Else's child to have a hot breakfast before school each day..." I could not believe that kind of stingy thinking still goes on in this world. Of course that thought alone ( about the stingy thinking) was a bit judgemental on my part, but while I'm at it, I suppose that same concern would not also extend to the farmers in her state who are getting farm subsidies to grow corn. Then I got into a small snit about how pervasive corn by-products (they call it the cornification of America) are within our way of life. These are the little Ninja thoughts that can pop out of no where and push me off kilter. One sneaky thought can lead into another and before I know it I'm on a roll. So, when I opened up my e-mail and found these wonderful pictures, it was a great way to just let the awesomeness of these photos take my breath away. As I contemplate the wonder of the vastness and glory out beyond the little point of light that is our world, I am grateful there is something beyond my petty little concerns that the Creator is ever tending to. Let this be our response to this moment: Glory be and Be the Glory!

Oh, the stories we tell ourselves......!

I've been really brooding over this entry, trying to decide if I dare bring up the subject. (I have been told almost from the beginning of my life as a nun:" You're not what we expected, you're not what people outside will be expecting; you're going to blow a few minds...but you are just what we need right now. What a breath of fresh air!") So, I guess it should come as no surprise to some when I say that the whole Christmas story, be it the Santa Clause version or the Away in the Manger version, just doesn't work for me and hasn't for about the last 15 years. Do I believe in Jesus? Yes. Is the Christ the Center of my life? Yes. Am I committed to the Church's mission of encouraging, affirming and working towards the full development of the human person? Yes to all of this. It's the stories we tell ourselves about how it all came about and mostly the way we have woven this elaborate tapestry that is coming unraveled for me. Suffice it to say, many scripture scholars and educated, thinking people of the 21th century would say that the so called virgin birth, wise men, angels and shepherds congregating around a humble stable on December 25th 2000 years ago is probably just a story. Though I firmly believe there is a Santa Clause and have been blessed over the years by the lavishness of this much loved Christmas Spirit, decorating my house for this season or even the shop where I sell my work, in the traditional symbols of a North American Christmas is just plain not working. It's been years since I have had a traditional Christmas tree. The Nativity set has been appropriately parked on one of my library shelves and stays up 365 days of the year. What do I do about this season of the year while the rest of the world goes crazy decorating for Christmas almost seconds after Halloween is over? As you may have noticed, there is a decidedly weighted theme in my blog entries: It's all about the LIGHT.

About this time of the year, approaching the Winter Solstice and darkest time of the year, I spend about a week creating Luminarias: little containers that hold a candle. They often have dancing figures, spirals and stars cut out of them. This is the story I tell myself and others:

Divine Creator knew well in the making of Sun and Moon and the casting of their seasonal waxing and waning, that there would be a period of increasing darkness that would cause the people to lose heart and huddle in fear. Divine Creator sent forth messengers of Light in the guise of strangers, humble and plain, to uplift the people and bring them hope.

It was said that anyone who welcomed such a messenger would be blessed with prosperity and all good gifts. A custom developed among the people to place lanterns and lights in the windows and along the path to the door as a sign of welcome to these great Beings of Light.

This is one such sign of welcome and blessing. May this luminaria honor and inspire the Messenger of Light within and all around you! O shine, shine, shine O radiant Image of The Divine!

It is not that Christmas can't be Christmas. The simple stories we tell ourselves may have been easier to wrap our minds around in years gone by when we were children and our world was a lot simpler. But, once there is an awakening to the More of it, These stories, sweet as they may be, are just not enough. I have asked people not to give me any gifts because I feel I have too much stuff. Each year I look for new ways to express the dawning light within and the gracious hospitality I believe I am especially called to tend to at this time of year. It is certainly a time of hope and a time to unwrap the many surprises life gives me. What I have enjoyed most as I share with people my thoughts and feelings about Christmas, is hearing how others are also weaving the tapestry anew with fresh symbols and ideas and special food recipes that help to extend the warmth and hospitality of celebration of Emmanuel, God with us! I look forward to your insights and inspirations.