Restoring the Balance - 2004

Recently I was asked to submit an article about what I feel is the most significant ritual/theatre event I've ever done with the "Masks of the Goddess" collection. "Restoring the Balance" was performed in Tucson in 2004. I felt like publishing the revised article, with the photos, in my blog. I'd love comments, if there is anyone interested in the subject matter. And as always, I'm very grateful to the amazing beings who collaborated to make it happen.

Restoring the Balance

A Ritual Theatre Celebration of the Great Mother

O Great Mother Goddess,

we call on you now.
Rise up from your roots. Hear us, our voices of pathos.
See our dancing feet, how we beat out your rhythms.
With our hearts, we drum you back.
We are staggering toward you.
Will you run one hundred steps to us?
Will you spread your mantle of peace?

This is the sack of our offerings:
We give up our greed to feed the needy.
Here is our lust to restore compassion.
We release our hatred to stop the killing.
We forego our vengeance to discover balance.
We scorn our fears, to rebirth love.
We tread softly to bring back forests.

And Mother Answers:

No more no more no more!
I have sent you shining planets
to help you remember.
Mars and Venus beg you to reconcile.
From the depths of space, Sedna appears,
a planetary avatar to stop you in your tracks.
Time is ended, truth be told.
Release, forgive, restore.
Remember Me in all of My forms.
I will bring light to your shadows
and make you whole,
if you will call on Me.

Erica Swadley (2004)

In 2004, deep in the cold depths of space, a new planet was discovered beyond Pluto, which astronomers named “Sedna”. Why Sedna, I wondered? What meaning does the story of Sedna, Ocean Mother to the Inuit people of the Pacific Northwest have for us today?

My own mythic journey to Sedna began in January of 2004, when I had an exhibit of my masks at the Muse Community Arts Center in Tucson, Arizona. There I met Grey Eagle (Kenneth M. Jackson), a native American ceremonial storyteller living in Patagonia, Arizona. Grey Eagle told, and collected, stories from indigenous peoples around the world, including those of his native Northwest.

It is no small irony that the Inuit are among the first human populations to be displaced by global warming. As the western Arctic coastline recedes, they are losing their villages, while pollution and over-fishing has contributed to the loss of their livelihood. I felt honored when he offered me a version of Sedna, which he received from Inuit activists when he lived in Alaska.
Inspired by Grey Eagle’s gift, a group coalesced to create a performance for the Global Art Project, an international arts network founded by Katherine Josten MFA. Central to our ritual would be the story of Sedna.

The Story of Sedna

Sedna lived with her father by the cold northwestern sea. Fearful for her father’s welfare, she refused all offers of marriage until one day a handsome man came to woo her.
He promised Sedna a better life if she would marry him and he promised to send provisions to her father as well.

But Sedna’s new husband was really a raven, disguised as a man. Instead of a better life he took her to a desolate island. When Sedna’s father came at last seeking her, he was furious. Taking his daughter into his kayak, he paddled for the mainland.

But Raven, learning of her escape, caused a great storm. At last, Sedna’s father, overcome with terror, cast his daughter from the boat hoping to save his own life. Sedna clung to the side of the boat and would not let go, begging her father to save her. In desperation, he cut off his daughter’s fingers and hands with his knife.

And so Sedna sank into the ocean, and as she fell, her severed fingers became the fishes, the seals, and the whales. It’s said that Sedna still lives at the bottom of the cold Northern sea, in a house of bones, attended always by her undersea children.

As Grey Eagle wrote,

“Sedna is cold and naked. She is covered with a tangle of hair that she can't comb. And it’s also said that all the broken taboos, all of the sins of the people who live in the above world, also fall to the bottom of the sea, collecting on Sedna's body. When the accumulation is too great, Sedna sobs in pain. Then the sea creatures leave the shore, and gather to comfort her.”

When the “above world” no longer remembers the Ocean Mother's sacrifice, the Inuit believe they have fallen from grace, with dire consequences. Because as Sedna suffers, so must they.

Erica Swadley as "Sedna's Shaman"

Grey Eagle continued: “Then people know it's time to gather, time to publicly confess their broken taboos. The men, remembering the name of Sedna’s father, do a long dance of contrition. Slowly dancing, they sing a song of remorse for the sins done by man to women, to earth, and to her children. At last their shaman purifies herself to take the dangerous journey to the underwater world where Sedna lives. She gathers fine sand with which she lovingly cleanses the filth from Sedna’s body, and she combs her hair. And she offers Sedna prayers of respect and love she has brought with her.”

Rites of “at-one-ment” are necessary to reconcile the above and the below world.

“When Sedna is at last comforted, her sobbing is no longer heard in the waves. The sea animals end their vigil and offer themselves again as food. And the people are inspired to return Sedna’s gifts by making better life stories to live by.”

Myths are “life stories“, templates upon which religions and civilizations are built, and individual lives are imbued with meaning. How can we create “better life stories” for today, life stories that speak of inter-dependence instead of inter-conflict - life stories that can prepare us for a sustainable future? Because we are dancing the future into existence by the stories we tell.

Our stories collectively are our continually evolving cultural mythos, a mythos that crystallizes the ways we perceive ourselves within the living body of the world. Contemporary earth scientists have increasingly demonstrated that our planet is a vast ecological system. James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis, with the Gaia Hypothesis, proposed that the Earth is a self-regulating organism - alive, interdependent, and conscious - affirming the ancient wisdom of Inuit storytellers. The myth of Sedna remembers the need for reciprocity and accountability in our relationship to our Mother Earth, to Anima Mundi.

Restoring the Balance and the Divine Feminine

"Myth comes alive as it enters the cauldron of evolution,
itself drawing energy from the storytellers who shape it."

Elizabeth Fuller,
The Independent Eye Theatre

When I initially met with participants to plan our ritual, as in previous events, dancers used the the Masks of the Goddess collection as tools for invocation. As contemporary “Temple Masks”, the masks were charged with this intention.

At our first meeting, I put the masks in a circle, asking members to choose a mask that spoke to them. With drum and a guided meditation we shared a “shamanic journey”. Afterwards we discussed our experiences, and could determine which members of the group felt strongly called to “dance with a Goddess”.

Community Altar

Another way of looking at it might be to discover which masks “wanted to be activated”. In traditional cultures, tribes not only petition the Gods to speak, but sometimes the Gods themselves “express a desire to be present” in various oracular ways. In contemporary Santeria practice, for example, dancers “volunteer” to be possessed by the deities as a form of community blessing. Masks, dance, and ritual are thus viewed as co-creative, a means for the other worlds to briefly enter our own. Invisible hands, collaborating on the weaving of story and blessing.

Lastly, our invitation included the hope that diverse cross-cultural “faces of the Mother” would emphasize the universal significance of this event, and the universal need to heal the degradation of the feminine. Katherine Josten, who chose to dance the role of Sedna, is the founder of the Global Art Project, a network linking artists around the world. As we prepared our performance, Katherine observed that:

“The work of our group is not to re-enact the ancient goddess myths, but to take those myths to their next level of evolutionary unfolding. Artists are the myth makers. It is time for us to create the next chapter, to join the energies of Goddess and God. Time for a reconciliation of that which is within and without. The integration of male and female must occur in order to bring balance to the earth and human consciousness. A dialogue needs to occur so the pain of both may be brought to light and transmuted.”

Mana Youngbear as "Tara"

Katherine expressed reasons why we called our ritual "Restoring the Balance". Restoring balance to the divided human spirit is what the work of the Goddess is truly about now. The Great Mother has been banished from our world by a mythos that has taken away divinity from women and by extension, our cyclical, embodied existence within the world of nature. How can there ever be peace, when we are a humanity whose very psyche is divided against itself?

Kathy Huhtaluhta as "Corn Mother"

As our cast grew, Katherine Josten was joined by Erica Swadley as “Sedna’s Shaman”. Erica is a shamanic practitioner and therapist. Quynn Elizabeth, founder of the Institute for Shamanic Arts (and Earth Tribe TV) in Tucson danced Kali. White Tara from Tibet and Amaterasu Omikami from Japan were performed by dancer Mana Youngbear.

Artist Valerie James, who founded the Los Madres Project in Amado south of Tucson, invoked the Virgin of Guadalupe. The Cherokee Corn Mother, Selu, was performed by Kathi Huatahluhta, and Spider Woman was performed by Wiccan priestess and dancer Morgana Canady. Nations Hall became a theatre in the round, with a community altar/installation as part of the event. We were fortunate to be joined by Will Clipman, Jeff Greinke, and Alan and Audry Smith, as well as Saami chanter Kathi Huhtaluhta, who together composed music for each segment. Our storytellers were Paul Fisher and Sammi Alijagic.

A few weeks before our performance, we learned that a new planet had been discovered by NASA researchers beyond Pluto, which astronomers called “Sedna”. Although the planet was found in November of 2003 by astronomers David Rabinowitz, Chad Trujillo and colleagues, “Sedna” was publicly announced on March 15, 2004. For our cast, rehearsing our performance, this extraordinary synchronicity made us feel that we were, somehow, part of a larger telling.

Restoring the Balance was performed at Nations Hall Theatre in Tucson, Arizona on April 9th, 2004. We closed with Morgana Canady’s performance of Spider Woman. Standing at the circle’s center, she gradually wove a Web of cords with the audience. And for that brief moment over 300 people were joined by the strands they held.

Spider Woman (also called Thought Woman by Pueblo peoples) is a cosmology myth that is especially significant to me. It’s said that Spider Woman (also called Tse Che Nako, the Thought Woman) spun the world into being with the stories she imagined: a creative power she passed on to all of her descendants. Among the Navajo, to this day, a bit of spider web is rubbed into the palms of infant girls so they will become beautiful weavers.

Perhaps I've received a bit of this blessing as well, because since 2004 I've been inspired to spin webs myself. In 2007 I brought Spider Woman to Michigan as a Fellow at the Alden Dow Creativity Center at Northwood University, and in 2009 I have the privilege of being able to explore the theme further at the Henry Luce Center for the Arts at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. )

After our performance, biodegradable cords from the Web were distributed among members, and scattered throughout the desert, symbolically extending our Web, and its blessing, beyond our small community to a greater world. And as part of the Global Art Project (which partners groups and individuals) photographs, letters, and a video about “Restoring the Balance” were sent to AFEG-NEH-MABANG Dance, a dance group from Limbe, in Cameroon, Africa.

As Grey Eagle wrote in 2004,

"We have heard this sacred story together. And now we can close with:
That’s the way it was.......and that’s the way it is."

AFTERWARD: The Surprising

To me, meaningful ritual is what anthropologist Victor Turner described as “communitas”: a collaboration within the group, with community, and, if it has potency, in a conversation whose mythological roots go far back into the past, and forward into the imaginal future.

To enter fully into ritual space is to shift consciousness, to undertake a mythic journey. Masks aid the traveler by performing the function of “threshold tools”, or “limons”. In his article “Pilgrimages as Social Processes” (1971) Turner wrote that a “limen” or a “liminal state” is a doorway that enables actors and ritualists to enter into a sacred space, a pilgrimage center.

By entering the magic circle they enter a fertile realm wherein the deities, the ancestors, the power animals may be encountered, may be spoken with. And by leaving behind the mundane world to enter the mythic realm, transformations of spirit and personality are possible.

I remember a conversation I had with artist Ann Weller (in 2001) about preparing for her role as the Dark Goddess. With her community in Willits, California, she created a Millenium ritual in 2000 to symbolically transform the violence of the past century.

“I felt ridden by the Dark Goddess when I worked with her" she told me. "But the work was ultimately impersonal. I was, truly, a brief vessel for an immense archetypal intelligence manifesting within the drama we created. And yet, embodying the Dark Goddess did bring personal change. You can't work with sacred theatre and not be changed in some way."

Within the charged, liminal arena of ritual space it was believed that spirits and deities could enter this dimension, blessing and communing with those present. I like to think that there was a last blessing given to us in the form of some inexplicable “spirit” photographs that occurred in the event's documentation by photographer Ann Beam. I know Ann, and believe they are completely authentic. To me, these images are an unexpected and mysterious pentimento, another layer to our collaboration.


A photo of Erica Swadley, performing the role of Sedna’s Shaman, seems to have two distinctly separate faces. Quynn Elizabeth, who was invoking Kali with her dance, was the subject of the most dramatic photographs - in some images, with her back turned to the photographer, an inexplicable, goat-like form appears behind her.

I have since learned that in the traditional worship of Kali in India, goats were sacrificed to the Goddess. Some of those I’ve shown the photos to suggested that a “spirit goat” materialized in the photograph as a symbol of our offering. We did not have a “goat” to offer the Goddess when we invoked Her, so one was perhaps ethereally provided for us.

When I looked at the “goat” photo I recalled the ancient Hebrew ritual of the Scapegoat.

When deemed necessary, this ritual was performed for the well-being of the tribe. A litany of all the sins, troubles and sorrows of the time was recited, then “laid” upon the back of a goat. The goat, a beast of great merit, was then released into the desert to symbolically bear these burdens away. A cleansing had occurred and a new cycle could begin. Not unlike the rituals of the Inuit, the act of naming the sins and broken taboos helped the tribe to return to psychic and emotional balance, and to a more harmonious relationship to the Sacred.

In the modern world, we have generally lost meaningful ritual, and, as such, we rarely have significant ways to collectively regain “at-one-ment”. To "attune", not just to each other, but to a greater continuity of being. We scapegoat each other, we scapegoat women, we scapegoat the Earth without awareness. We have no ritual cycle of prayers and dances and confessions that create purification. We have no tribal shamans to help us bear our “better life stories“ to Sedna in the World Below. There is no “symbolic goat” to carry our sorrows into the chaotic wilderness of the collective unconscious, to carry our negativity into the desert so we can begin again in a new way.

I have no explanation for Anne’s photographs except what they mean to me, as producer and co-creator of the event. Nor can I prove that the photos are authentic, although I know that they are. For me, in the aftermath of our own “Restoring the Balance” I feel they are a blessing.

Lauren Raine
2004 (revised, 2009)

References:

Grey Eagle (Kenneth M. Jackson), (2004) “The Story of Sedna”, unpublished article.
See, Gordan Ekvall Tracy Memorial Award for Ethnic Performers (1995), (www.ethnicheritagecouncil.org/awards/tracieWinners.html)

Weller, A. (2001), excerpt from interview with Lauren Raine.

Fuller, E., The Independent Eye Theatre, www.independenteye.org.
Excerpts from interview with Lauren Raine, 2001

Beam, A., (2004), Photos are with permission of the artist.

Swadley, E. “Invocation of the Great Mother” 2004, hanumom@swadley.us.

Josten, K., MFA, Journal excerpt (2004). www.global-art.org

THE GLOBAL ART PROJECT, Tucson, Arizona 1997 to present. www.global-art.org

ALA MANKON CULTURAL AND DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION, A.M.A.C.U.D.A. Traditional Dance Group AFEG-NEH-MABANG Dance, Limbe, Republic of Cameroon

Turner, V.W., Ph.D. (1975), DRAMAS, FIELDS AND METAPHORS – Symbolic Action in Human Society, Edition: 5, Cornell University Press, 354 pages, article on page 166

Smith, Alan and Audrey, Rainbow Didge (rainbowdidge.com)

Clipman, W. (www.willclipman.com)

Greinke, J., (www.jeffgreinke.com)

Huhtaluhta, K., Sami Records, (www.samirecords.com)

Quynn, E., The Institute for the Shamanic Arts and Earth Tribe TV (earthtribetv.org)

James, V., Las Madres Project, (www.lasmadresproject.org)

Youngbear, M., Willits Young Actors Theatre, (willitsyoungactorstheatre.org)

Twittering, frittering - a curmudgeon view

"I would like to share a few thoughts with you
about an activity that clearly marks the end
of civilization as we know it: Twittering."

Mr. Modem (Richard Sherman)
From Smart Computing, August, 2009 Issue

We know the benefits, indeed the stupendous global transformation the Internet has brought. The entire World Wide Web, like the Akashic Record, at your very fingertips. The Greatest Library the World Has Ever Known.

So now I'm going to make a few ornery comments about the "down side" of the internet. I submit that I seem to become a Curmudgeon whenever it's about 115 outside. The solution is to spend as much time as possible in movie theatres and in libraries. As time goes by, I'm getting better at napping, eating breakfast and lunch, meditating and doing my homework in such environments. So while browsing in air conditioned splendor at the library, I ran across Mr. Modem's article about the new internet rage, "twittering". Mr. Modem goes on to note,

"Twitter (www.twitter.com) is a free service predicated on the question "What are you doing?" By composing short 140 character messages, you can share with the entire world that you are standing in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles, eating a tuna sandwich, or watching your dog chase its tail. If compulsively posting such digital drivel is not enough of an incentive to get out of bed in the morning--which is, of course, another event you'll want to share with others--you can also follow the mundane activities of other peoples' uneventful lives--including celebrities. At no time in the history of interpersonal communication has the phrase "get a life" been more appropriate."

Like I said in my letter to him (below) I think this man is on to something.

Dear Mr. Modem:

I just ran across your article in SMART COMPUTING about the "Twitter" phenomenon. I want to tell you that I think you are a Prophet.

I love your call for articles about how the internet has changed in positive ways peoples lives, and look forward to reading some of the entries.

But lately I feel increasingly alienated by the diminishment of communicative skills because of the internet. Having ranted about how we're becoming a "face book world", I'm sure Twitter brings us one step closer to spitting not long words at each other but fast, efficient, pixels. Although I've given in and appear on Facebook now, to be honest, I find it depressing. I used to have friends I exchanged letters with, even phone calls. Now I have "friends" who share 10 word one-liners with me and 500 other "friends". This is about as satisfying to me as eating a plastic donut. On a good day, I get group emails of cute sayings, which make me feel that I am dear to someone on the list, along with, of course, 50 or so others......in my darker, paranoid moments, I worry that the world has become obese with fast food and fast talk, substitutes for something more nourishing.

Your funny article "Twittering or Frittering" in the August, 2009 Issue of Smart Computing made me laugh. But it also made me wonder if we can no longer distinguish the difference between Quantity and Quality.

The Peace Corps

Village in Benin

I attended a Peace Corps recruitment gathering here in Tucson - really inspired me, although it also gave me much to think on before I submit my application. I would say that about 1/4 of the people at the meeting were over 50. First, let me say what I'm inwardly asking myself........here I am, about to take a grueling ESL teachers course before I leave for D.C. in August, and I'm beginning the almost as grueling application process for the P.C.

Am I out of my mind? Probably. You've heard of the "Mid-Life Crisis"? What would one call this?

I've been able to educate myself somewhat by a few fantastic blogs - one, Arabiandrum.org is a network for PC blogs throughout the world, and is excellent if you want to read the thoughts, struggles, and meanderings of volunteers. I've enjoyed reading many of them, although I have yet to find a blog by a volunteer over 30, which bothers me. Where are the grandmothers who look like Jane Goodall I saw tromping through the tundra in the recruitment video show? I await their (hopefully encouraging) words of insight.......

Here's another excellent source of information - a blog for the writings of present and past PC volunteers (Peace Corps Writers).

I confess, I have some real regrets that I did not take advantage of the opportunity to join the Peace Corps when I was younger. What I am concerned about is not so much whether they can use me, or whether I would find the experience rewarding, but whether it's something too strenuous for me. Living in an isolated village in Benin is out of the question. However, living in Roumania and teaching at the University (as some PC are), or having a small apartment in Morocco with electric and hopefully running water......would probably seem luxurious enough to me.

PC in Roumania

I'll be exploring this further. It seems very strange, to be opening this possibility, this door, after a lifetime in the arts, mysticism, mythology. And it is also a kind of circle, as I remember being a teenager in Kabul (where my father worked for U.S. A.I.D.) My first job, at the age of 16, was sorting mail for Peace Corps volunteers at their office in Kabul.

Am I nuts? At an age when so many people I meet are taking up golfing (and boring me to death with their stories about grandchildren and endless physical ailments)........I want to teach English in Mold0va? Work with children in Zambia?

Our Lady of the Saguaros

There are unexpected poetics along the trail, Sanctuary for the asking, and sometimes the Goddess appears at unexpected moments.

I felt like sharing this Shrine, with its Madonna standing at a trail head (or, at the end of the trail, depending on your perspective) near A Mountain in Tucson. A Mountain (which might be more appropriately called "A Hill") is an extinct cinder cone that features a large "A" on it's pointy side. The "A" came to special prominence in 2003, when patriots painted it red, white and blue as George Bush prepared to invade Iraq, and anti-war protesters painted it green in the middle of the night. For about 6 months, you never knew what color the "A" would be, but eventually the patriots won and it remains a garish red, white and blue.

At any rate, there is a wonderful trail nearby that people like myself take early in the morning. It rises gradually among a grove of saguaros, and affords a wide view of Tucson, and the sunrise among the Catalina Mountains.


I don't actually know what the shrine is called, but I call it "Our Lady of the Saguaros". Because, as you walk up the hill, you pass chapparell, medicine plant, sage, and impressive Saguaros. Native people called them the "fingers of God", and indeed, they often do seem to be making Mudras, telling slow stories about time, heat and the desert, if one can only find the means to read the sign language they speak.


Right now, having bloomed white flowers in April and May, their tops are crowned with pear shaped fruits, which the birds are tearing open to eat. It's quite wonderful to see those red tops, and masses of finches and doves gathered on the tops of the desert trees, happily feasting.

Here's another little poetic.

A Barbed Heart I discovered taking refuge among the Palos Verdes, the "green trees" of the desert.



May all Barbed Hearts find refuge among green groves.

May we all find "Our Lady" (by whatever name) waiting for us at the end, or beginning, of the Trail.

Lithographs from the '80's

"A House of Doors" (1986)

I found this portfolio recently...........a series of Lithographs I did in the mid 1980's. I find I still enjoy them. The entire collection was called "A HOUSE OF DOORS", and they were all photographic imagery collaged and worked on lithographic stones. The editions were about 10 each.

Some rooms diminish, some rooms compress.
Rooms can be tricky.
What I chiefly remember
are doors.

I live in a house of doors.

"Leda and the Swan" (1986)

"Day of Radience" (1986)

"When Rain Sang" (1985)

I Remember
White dresses I wore.
I can't remember the girl's name.

"Funny", she said
"How time takes the names out of things,
and bleaches the rest kind of transparent."

Funny. Chiefly,
I remember doors.

"Streetcar" (1986)

"Sybils" (1986)

Wonder Boys (and Girls)

Last night I was watching one of my favorite films, Wonder Boys, based on the novel by Michael Chabon.

It stars Michael Douglas, who has left behind his roles as sex god and warrior cop, to become the rumpled, often stoned professor Grady Tripp, a novelist who teaches creative writing in Pittsburgh. Unable to finish his second novel, which has grown into a vast meandering tome of thousands of aimless pages, he is in the middle of a divorce, and is having an affair with with his boss's wife, who is also the Chancellor of the university. His chaotic life becomes further complicated by one of his talented, eccentric students, played by Tobey Maguire.

Towards the end of the movie, a car door flies open, and Professor Tripp's manuscript flies out, a white snowfall of typed pages, into the Allegheny river, hopelessly lost and fluttering nicely downstream. That part always gets me..........I usually rewind it. It's a moment of commedic loss, but also a kind of amazing grace. After that, everything else falls apart as the dishevelled professor ultimately finds his
way into a more authentic life.

I read a fabulous quote by Laurie Anderson recently in which she described herself as an "anthropologist" after a journalist asked her why she had chosen to work at MacDonald's and at an Amish farm. She explained that she was always trying to learn about new ways of living, new cultures, and found immersion the best way to keep her creativity and curiosity enlivened.

So.......I guess I'm leading up to something here. I'll indulge a ramble until I find my way.

I’m sitting at borders bookstore in Tucson, the only coffee shop I’ve found that does not have a piped in rock and roll station. I resent background noise, and find what is usually offered harsh, angry, ugly, screaming, painful, complaining, or hyperactive. These energies are constantly broadcast. Is there a restaurant or coffee shop that plays Gamelon, or Chopin or even "easy listening music" anymore? Nope. At any rate, you can think here. It is also beautifully air-conditioned, and since it’s 108 outside (a reasonably pleasant June day in Tucson)……….

Every time I come back to Tucson in high summer, my higher functioning seems to immediately cease. I become stressed, irritable, unable to think clearly, and I tend to enjoy venting as much road rage as I can get away with, probably because I lack both a radio and an air conditioner.

Good fore-giveness practice.

Listening to my coffee clutch pal rant this morning didn’t improve my mood. J. is a true contemplative, who meditates daily, has a PhD and lives a very simplified life in a van that runs on biodiesal. Which is probably uncomfortable in the summer, and may be why his usually fascinating discussions about religion were today punctuated with denunciations of what he considers the hypocrisy of just about everyone, from Muktananda’s sex addiction to Sai Baba being a pedophile to Joseph Smith’s 50 wives to what he considers the Dali lama’s fake smile. Whew. That was exhausting. I hope he feels better tomorrow. I've had such rants myself.

Good fore-giveness practice.

I’m about to take a 6 week intensive course that will end with me receiving an ESL teaching certificate. This will be grueling, and no doubt I'll be twice as old as everyone else there. I'm doing this because next year, Great Spirit willing, I want to do volunteer work, and this would be a useful skill to take to the table. I'm also unemployed now, so some means to earn income is a good idea. I'm even applying to the Peace Corps. I'm also considering asking Dana Dakin if she can use me in Ghana in some way – and I am also considering volunteer opportunities in Morocco and Nepal.

All of this, of course, scares the hell out of me. I've spent so much of my life alone in studios, within the self-absorbed life of an artist. What if I get malaria? What if all there is to eat is yams and overripe bananas, or worse, monkey jerky? What if they have a revolution, and no one believes my story that I’m really a Canadian (should I get maple leaf earrings and a matching hat?) What if I have to share a dorm room with a Baptist missionary who aggressively worries about my soul? What if there are really, really big spiders? Would that test my own faith?

What if I get to meet aids orphans, what if I get to teach girls how to read or draw, what if I fall in love with a whole village.……and never want to return to this life? What if ……….

You see, I’ve had this dream about joining the Peace Corps, and going to Africa, for 30 years. If it’s ever going to happen, now is the time to put it into motion. And perhaps, to be candidly honest, sometimes I am weary of living in a "facebook world", a world where friendship seems to mean you share one paragraph group emails with 500 people, a world I've become increasingly out of step with. I say this as I sit here surrounded by laptops and cellphones and earplugs. Everyone is going a thousand miles an hour. I can't touch anyone anymore at that speed.

In some ways, I'm not unlike Professor Tripp. My magnus opus could flutter into a river somewhere, on the Camino to Compostella maybe.........and I'm not sure I'd care all that much, or if anyone would notice for that matter either. Impermanance. I really don't know who I am anymore.

Which might not be such a bad thing. There's a big world out there.

The Questions of Maat

"In Ancient Egypt, it was said that in the Underworld Maat waits before the door all souls must enter. She holds a scale and a feather. Maat weighs hearts, and none may pass until they have answered her questions, and their hearts are as light as the feather of truth. Can each answer "yes" ? How heavy is each heart? Because to dream a new life, to be born again, you must know the life you have lived, forgive and be forgiven." **

I want to say how touched I am by those who so kindly sent me their good wishes in comments for the last entry.

It's been said that we don't live our lives - life lives us.

Arriving at 60 is a tremendous passage for me. I remember meeting Dana Dakin, founder of Women's Trust in Ghana, who said that there were three life passages: first you learn, then you earn, and finally, you return the gifts you've gained to the future.

Certainly, I feel the "lightening" that comes with transit into my 6th decade. I have the urge to get rid of things that weigh me down, aren't relevant, demand my attention in some way. Old love letters that just make me sad, pretty dresses that no longer fit and probably never will, dusty boxes of mementoes, weary assumptions, heavy handed beliefs, habits of mind that once were useful, but now are boringly repetitious. I see that most of my assumptions are erroneous, block my vision, and are probably unfair to somebody, somewhere, including myself. Unused possessions require care, require storage, require energy, require memory. Time to light-en up.

A reporter once asked Pablo Picasso, at 90 or so, what he thought, after such a long and distinguished career, his greatest work was. He immediately replied "The next one."

I've been reading a wonderful book by Natalie Goldberg on writing and Zen, called "Writing Down the Bones". She tells of meeting the writer Meridel le Sueur. In her eighties, Meridel told her that she lived nowhere. She visited people and places, writing wherever she was. The elderly writer asked Natalie if she knew a place to purchase a used typewriter. When she is ready to leave, she said, she will give it away so she doesn't have to take it to her next destination.

Now that I understand. Why should one wish to lug a typewriter around, or a bulky suitcase, or for that matter, an old grudge, a worn out storyline, or an exhausted persona?

This is the lightening of the heart and mind called for when we reach the "Return" phase of our lives, whether that occurs at 30, or 80. The balance that the Goddess Maat demands when she weighs hearts at the passageway. Maat's name, literally, meant "truth" in ancient Egyptian. Her questions do not "damn" those who wait before the door....but without answering them, without finding the truth of one's life, no passage to other realms is possible. Maat's questions are the questions each soul must answer sooner or later. "Who have I not forgiven?" "What have I done that I cannot forgive myself for?" "What part of my life story have I not been able to forgive?" "What am I unable to let go of?"

I am always stunned by the wisdom found in language we so unconsciously take for granted every time we open our mouths. (and each language has its singular depths of meaning). In our English usage, to "fore-give" is to do just that - to give the energy forward. To the future, to the unknown, to new possibilities of good relationship and shining creativity, high adventure. As well as the evolution of wisdom and full circle compassion. When we don't fore-give, we're left dragging around psychic baggage, grey thought forms, stories told so many times they have lost any semblance to the truth.

I am not saying that fore-giveness is not a complex process. Sometimes it involves working through unconscious layers of experience, telling our story over and over until it can be seen, and sometimes we need help to do these things from wise or impartial listeners. But ultimately I believe fore-giveness comes from being able to gain a wider perspective, the Soul's perspective. Being able to see the broad weave of our lives, the ways we were challenged and deepened by our experiences, our betrayals, our failures, our losses, our ignorance.

I remember years ago there was a man I was attracted to. The eros of my experience fueled enormous creativity in me. His considerable talent inspired me as well. And because I had a lot of half-baked, naive ideas, and did not know how to confront him, he also had a lot of fun manipulating and humiliating me, probably, just because he could. I still cringe when I think about it. But until I was able to fore-give him and myself, I was unable to see the gifts in that experience. Had I not met him, I would not have created what I did. And I also probably would not have moved through naivete I had outgrown, and more importantly, a "victim" template I was deeply entrenched in. Ultimately, he empowered me. That's the paradox of Maat's Truth.

Raukkadessa is a Finnish term Kathy Huhtaluata uses in her Saami inspired music. It means, she told me, "beyond love". I find it profound - because even love, as we experience it, can be a veil, impenetrable in the present moment, and beyond is something beyond the pairs of opposites, beyond time itself. Beyond love is the the soul's love, the greater pattern.

A Buddhist once told me that we should cherish all sentient beings, because, from the perspective of reincarnation, any sentient being you meet has at one time or another been your mother, brother, lover, enemy, has been your food, or has devoured you.

One thing is certain. When we don't fore-give, we are unable to move fore-ward, because we are stuck in the past. And from my perspective, one of the wonderful things about having had the privilege of achieving the maturity of 60 years, is that one has the means and experience to finally know just that.

The rest is just practice. Carrying water, and chopping wood.

** This was from a 2002 performance I did with Dorit Bat Shalom, Mana Youngbear and Valerie James in Oakland. The actual questions of Maat are in various translations - we recited some of them in the background, in English and in Hebrew (since we lacked a native speaker of ancient Egyptian) while a dancer performed in the mask of Maat.