Poetry

“Our deepest fears are like dragons, guarding our deepest treasures.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

I love Rumi, Emily Dickinson and Longfellow. Who can turn away from anything written by Kipling or Dickens? Who hasn’t read Poe, Shakespeare or Whitman? We had to in school and I wasn’t a fan. I never understood it.

Whereas, now, I am profoundly moved by poetry. In my very recent youth, I found it too esoteric. However, I have found there is a beauty to the cadence, symbolism and energy of scant words used in abstract and metaphorical ways that intrigues me these days. I believe this has to do with the freedom plus the wisdom having lived this long bestows me. Moreover, I find poetry attracts and calls to me even more than story occasionally when melancholy or frustration hits.

Perhaps it’s the depth and the power of poetry. Or the rhythm and sound of it. Maybe it’s the way words are used so differently and put together in seemingly haphazard ways that all of a sudden make sense to me.

Who can dispute Rumi’s love of love and life? Do not feel lonely, the entire universe is inside you or when describing his being smitten with, no one knew who was the lover and who the beloved.

Alone in her room, failing time and again to publish her poems Emily Dickinson writes, I dwell in possibility and to live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.

If you haven’t read Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, you are missing out. He wrote outstanding epic tales in lyrical form like The Song of Hiawatha and Evangeline.

I would recommend re-visiting these poets and more if you have never enjoyed them before. I believe there was and is a certain maturity and level of introspection that all this chaos of the last few years (not to mention the verbal and physical violence and brutality that is all around us as if it was normal) have helped us seek if even a little, self-reflection and awareness. Poetry will make sense of it all for the exact reason that innocence denies the dark and poetry transforms it for us.

Writing

I am excited about joining a new course that starts in January and lasts for 6 months. I have been hestitant to sign up because it will take commitment, consistency and discipline. I am not the picture of a structured or orderly life so I have been procrastinating making a decision. This writing course will demand I look inside deep and long as well as take much of my time. Therefore, I am being accountable to you, dear blog reader, even if it’s just me. I have tried in the past to write and made progress until I was given unwelcome criticism. Being thin-skinned is one thing but realizing it at this age is different.

How would my life had looked if I had more emotional regulation? What would I be doing if I had had the confidence? Where would my writing be now if I had developed a strong sense of self? What would my relationships feel and be like if I had learned to set boundaries? For that matter, if I had known what my boundaries were?

It’s now or never at this point, so I am diving in. Even if I don’t publish, I know I have a manuscript waiting to be birthed, a memoir perhaps, to sort it all out.

Living your best Life

“If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be”. – Maya Angelou

Oh Maya! Always on point and a reminder for my spiritual path on earth.

The ideal Authentic path for me would be to live with integrity, intuition, intelligence, intention, inspiration, involvement and with an Itinerary. I fail time and again to hit and check off all these boxes, but this is the dream. This is what would make me amazing.

To live with integrity is to do the right thing even when no one is watching.

To live with intuition is to listen to my gut and my first impulse for kindness instead of over analyzing with my logic or inner censors.

To live with intelligence is to check in with the present moment and not allow future tripping or distortion of reality by believing propaganda or lies.

To live with intention is to know right from wrong and follow the path of goodness.

To live with inspiration is to imagine a world of love, trust and respect for all sentient beings and Mother Earth.

To live with involvement is to participate and add to community, connecting with others, being of service and helping not hurting the collective.

To live with an itinerary is to actually have a plan and a timetable.

“Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud” – Maya Angelou

I can at least endeavor to make someone’s day. That is amazing too.

Lessons in Chemistry

This Goddess book club novel we read last month was conceived and penned by Bonnie Garmus who was inspired by her mom, a nurse who became a housewife in the 1960’s. Elizabeth Zott is a chemist when women scientists were unheard of and marrying and settling down with kids was still as always during patriarchal societies, the mistaken yet eventual goal of every female.

There were so many themes in this one book; autism, the metaphor of rowing as a team, misogyny, the ability for a woman to define her own future, sexual assault and its traumatic consequences, discrimination, the arrival of daytime television, death and honesty to name a few.

It was a fast paced read because of its superb sarcastic and humorous writing and its original and imaginative use of point of views even from a dog who won my heart. I had never read anything so powerful yet wholesome and nurturing.

If you haven’t read it yet, no worries, it continues to hold its place on the NYTimes bestseller list and is now adapted into a series on Apple Plus TV.

Ken Follet

I first encountered this author’s bestseller, A World Without End, in a used bookstore ensconced in the Lake Arrowhead library. The back cover intrigued me with its content description. Moreover, the 1000 page tome was a steal at fifty cents. It would be years before I actually opened it up and read it. It took me a good year since I left it up in the mountain treehouse and only read it when I stayed there.

Wowza! This epic tale set in the 14th century is a historical novel with events like the Black Death, start of the Hundred Years War and peasant uprisings. Apart from that it portrays how people lived, worked, farmed, ate and fought. It’s a memorable story set in another time with a cast of characters, events and plots intertwined with an authentic view of the human condition in that era.

After finishing it, I looked up the author and found out I read the second in a series, so of course I purchased the first book, The Pillars of the Earth, and just turned the last page, finally, this weekend. Since we moved to a more remote area in the San Bernardino Mountain Range, it resided by my nightstand up at Sunset Ridge, our new to us, mountain home and snowmeggedon of 2023 prevented me from making it up the hill for around 9 weeks last winter. Hence, between the move, the sale of the cabin, and the weather, it took me about one and half years to finish this almost 1000 page book as well.

I am as deeply satisfied and was as entertained with this historical novel as I was with the afore mentioned title ( the 2nd in the series). These stories stand alone but it would have been helpful to have read them in order. Nonetheless, this incredible saga takes place in 12th century England wherein the building of a cathedral and all its woes, wars, architectual designs and labor troubles are depicted in the mythical town of Knightsbridge. Some real-life moments in history include King Stephen’s reign and the battle of Lincoln and the tragic murder of Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury. Like most historical novels, there’s romance among protagonists and evil villains of the worst kind.

Both books reminded me of the times we live in still with better plumbing, medical/technical modern advances and grooming habits but the same brutality of war, hateful factions vying for power, twists of fate and civilian suffering.

I am eager to read the next in the Kingsbridge series, A Column of Fire, considered more of a thriller set in the English 16th century, wherein the power shifts not between religion and monarchy with the masses caught in the middle and taking sides but the factual divide between the Catholics and Protestants. Taking place during Queen Elizabeth’s reign, surely this will be another fascinating read.

I am ordering the heavy tome tomorrow! Watch for my review in another year!!LOL!

Good Goddess Reads

As I prepared and researched for Goddess Initiation 101, I re-read a few books and discovered some new texts that were of interest.

I resurrected Sierra Bender’s acclaimed Goddess to the Core and found all my flags and highlights still worthy of re-reading, plus. This book was invaluable to me back in 2010 when I was writing the script and sequence for my final. Not only did we hand in a lesson plan with full details but also had to give the lesson to our peers in the class. It was harrowing but exciting too! I added an essential oil blend and picked some Cure music to give it a bit of oomph. I remember practicing and practicing in front of whoever would watch me so I could feel less intimidated and memorize the sequencing and pose instructions.

Of course without The Body is not an Apology by Sonja Renee Taylor, I wouldn’t have found my rage and insulted self nor the deep, radical self love we all deserve and I needed to even think of creating this course online. Invariably, she prompted me to read plenty of books that delve into colonization and ingrained systems that degrade others. This book is even on my audible and we have a small group of women that study it, paragraph by paragraph.

These two books were vital in my structuring and the why of the course; Holding Space by Amanda Dobra Hope – a guide to supporting others while remembering to take care of yourself first and The Book of Ceremony by Sandra Ingerman – Shamanic wisdom for invoking the sacred in everyday life.

If you are interested in knowing more about these great goddess reads, leave a comment below.

Yin/Yang

One of my favorite things is to write with my hands around a pen and hear it scrape across the paper. Even gel pens have a sound.

I can’t imagine dipping into an inkwell just as the younger generations can’t imagine hours of practicing cursive. I am glad my kids were exposed to cursive handwriting before it stopped being taught in schools. It will become a lost art just as pretty journals and day planners become an extension of one’s creativity and more like a hobby.

It’s the pull and push of life. The friction and the smooth release. The tension and the languid exhale.

Y6 -Day 11 – Puzzling

For Christmas recently, my friend P sent me a puzzle of baby Yoda in a Santa suit. That got me on a tear and I have since put together many puzzles of 100-750 pieces and been gifted a felt puzzle wooden table that you set up on a slant with 4 drawers to parse out however you want to organize your pieces. I prefer making the frame first and then assign pieces to each drawer according to color.

I have since that day also gifted puzzles and we are sharing them once solved for the next person. One thousand piece puzzles await in a drawer for that day when I feel I have some experience and success behind me.

Meanwhile, so far after around eight completed puzzles, have lost one piece in just two. They are like socks. No one knows what happens to them. They just disappeared.

Y6 – Day 10 – Goddess Book Club 2023

Book club has changed and grown. We started before Covid and then went on zoom and now we just stay online since we have some out of the area participants. It’s just easier. We try to read women writers about women’s issues usually. Therefore many of the books we read shine a light on how marginalized, difficult and unfair our female ancestor’s lives have been.

Our first book of the year was “The Bookwoman of Troublesome Creek”, by Kim Michele Richardson. A lovely written book about the hardships endured by the Appalachian mountain folk of Kentucky and the existence of blue people therein. I don’t want to give anything away but if you like books and have never heard of the blue folk of Kentucky then this is one well researched historical novel on your list.

Our February title was “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan” by our own CA author Lisa See who joined our discussion on zoom and added much rich background info to how she researched the book, visited its historical location and even interviewed villagers with a translator to get precise memories and data so she could spin her tale around the true events. This was an extremely well written and prose like account of a secret language Chinese women once used many centuries ago. Her explanations were invaluable and we were all unanimous we want to read another one of her books next year.

We are so lucky to have writers who investigate little known facts, ferret out detailed experiences and circumstances so traditions we could have lost forever are made real to us the reader via skillfully creating stories around them so we can examine, digest and discuss amongst other trusted women; our thoughts, feelings and even our dedication to making it better in some small or large way just by our having our Goddess Circle Book Club.