Archive for March, 2010

This morning I not only see the silver lining I can actually feel it. 

Yesterday, the United States House of Representatives passed universal health care. Today, much of the fear that had been plaguing so many people in this country has shifted.  Against all odds, and almost in defiance of reason, the immobilization and concern that are hallmarks of fear have been replaced with a call to action and optimism.

Why?  Because Life has its own agenda.  And as the saying goes, “Man plans and God laughs.”   There’s a parable that’s instructive here:

A horse and cart were being driven down the road when the horse tried to veer off to one side against the wishes of the driver.  So, she lightly pulled on the reigns and the horse returned to the original path.  Moments later, the horse once again veered off the road and this time the driver jerked on the reigns much more aggressively.  Reluctantly, but quickly, the horse resumed the direct path. Finally, on the horse’s third attempt to stray, the driver cracked the whip. Whereby, the horse immediately, and thereafter, stayed on the straight and narrow.

We have had countless “tugs on the reigns” as we, as a nation, have strayed from the direct and intended path.  To each of those we have responded in a way that returned us to where we needed to be… but only temporarily.  We are a “stiff-necked people” with a short memory, it seems.

So, yesterday, we received a miracle! 

The House of Representatives, at least 219 of them, cracked the whip…and while that was not their intention, God was laughing.  For the miracle of passing universal health care is that it has awakened a sufficient amount of people to conscious evolution that we have reached the tipping point.  Now, enough people understand what tyranny looks and feels like.  Now we can actually begin to move in the direction of real change… toward individual freedom, personal responsibility and the kind of oneness that reveals the perversion of socialism and other political systems that purport to speak and act for the best interest of the people.

The best interest of the people is best spoken and acted by the people.  Yesterday, 219 of our elected officials ignored that Universal Law in a push to pass the law of universal health care.  They’ve declared victory.

Listen.  Can you hear that sound?

God is laughing.

    

There will be a lot of trash written about Sandra Bullock’s apparent embarrassment by her allegedly unfaithful husband.  I’d like to take higher ground and use her pain to heal. 

What I want to heal is the tendency for so many women to think that someone other than themselves, who through their own inner strength and guidance, got them where they are.  Most women understood exactly what Ms. Bullock was doing when, upon receiving the Oscar, she thanked her husband for “watching her back.” 

We women yearn for that feeling. To know that when we’re tired or have done the work of two…or more…people, that “he” will there to pick up the mantle.  That no harm will come if we are one day too tired to be so alert and competent.  I think such a desire must have its roots in the fabled knight on the white horse that has been in our collective consciousness for several thousand years.

The problem is that fables are fictions and need to be viewed in that light.

In addition, personal power is tricky business.  It resides within us… its not bestowed from someone or something outside of ourselves.  And when you give it away, as Sandra Bullock did in accepting the Oscar, someone can take it with them when they leave.  Or even before… as her allegedly unfaithful husband has now seemingly done.

Sandra Bullock, and all of us, don’t achieve excellence because someone else makes it possible.  We achieve it through internal fortitude, God-given gifts, and an unwavering passion to get where we want go.  And while its nice to know that others along the way made contributions to our efforts, its dangerous to think that anyone other than God “watches our back.” 

>Whether, in this particular instance, the facts as alleged turnout to be
true or not, the prototype of a woman feeling unworthy of claiming the
fullness of her own power, but instead bestowing it upon another less
worthy who earned it not, is a valid one.

We are all “at risk” in this journey called Life.   Feelings of security and protection, however, come only from a deeply held knowing that we are loved and guided always by that which created us.  Such love and guidance is never conditional and, consequently, is unshakable by anything or anyone… not least of all a woman whose body is adorned like a billboard hawking merchandise.
>
Our standard creates our experience.  Sandra Bullock is a gifted actress who has chosen roles using great discretion and skill.  Now, hopefully, she will choose her men the same way and change her experience.

Its a lesson for many women and advice worth considering. 

Our history has been selectively written for as long as we’ve been writing it, with the most selectivity occurring around the deliberate exclusion of the Divine Feminine.  There are more examples than I have space or time for here, but let me point out a few:

1.     Archaeological artifacts subjected to carbon-dating have identified worship of female deities as far back as 10,000 years B.C.E.

2.     Cleopatra spoke 9 languages, inherited a bankrupt country and turned it profitable, allowed women to be property owners and granted citizenship for meritorious service to the country.

3.     Victoria Woodhull, not Geraldine Ferraro, was the first woman to run on a Presidential ticket… and she ran for President!  Her V.P. running mate was a freed, black slave, Frederick Douglas.  It was 1872. Woodhull was also the first female stock broker on Wall Street.

But let’s revisit the archaeological finds for a moment.  Somewhere between 10,000 B.C.E. and the compilation of the Hebrew, Christian and Muslim religious writings, those female deities were unanimously and deliberately written out of our heritage… or at best relegated to minor, and sometimes troublesome, characters.

There is a spiritual (and I believe also religious) adage that goes “As above so below.”  Following that logic, what we see manifested here, in our world of matter, must necessarily exist on higher spiritual planes. 

So, here’s my understanding… and my dilemma.

But for the amoeba, wherever there is reproduction in the physical world, there exists a male, a female and an offspring.  If you’ll allow me, more commonly thought of as a father, a mother and a child.  Not once have I ever heard anyone say that an offspring was created by a male and a holy ghost. That being the case “below”… why is it that for 2000-3000 years, or more, we have been repeating and perpetuating a creation story (“as above”) that ignores and even denies the existence, role and contribution of the female?

I like to play with words.  Its a lifelong pastime.  Yesterday I was thinking about all of this and the word “mother” kept going around in my mind.  As I was pondering “why” this obvious omission of the Divine Feminine pervades our history, I was asking “why” when the letter “y” suddenly inserted itself in the word mother… between the “m” and the “other”… so it now read “my other.”  And I paused.  “My Other.”  The Father, the Son and My Other (Mother)!!! 

Much more plausible, isn’t it?

We are living through troubled and transformative times.  We need all the help we can get.  Even someone as near prophetic as Glenn Beck has been on unfolding events, was asking yesterday on-air where is a contemporary George Washington to lead us out of this mess. Beck then said, “Where is he? Where is that leader?”  Immediately followed by my yelling at the radio, “Or she Glenn…or she!”

Yes, we need help.  To that end, I have looked around thoroughly and cannot find one holy ghost anywhere.  But we have a globe populated with Mothers.  If we are pressed for time and cannot re-write the history books, perhaps we can make history instead by resurrecting to full status the Divine Feminine and the necessary contribution She was intended to make, and the role she was designed to fulfill, in maintaining the ongoing balance and harmony of all existence.

Now, I also have an issue with the whole “Son” thing… but that’s another blog, isn’t it?

I’ve always been a believer that Nature has a great deal to teach me.  Now I have to add that history does, too.  I’ve been following the relationship between President Obama and Andy Stern, President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and quite frankl>y that relationship is, at best, disturbing. 

The President, Mr. Stern and SEIU have a long and entwined history that has generated a lot of mutual indebtedness.  Mr. Stern has a lot of White House access.  The Union, in the form of Mr. Stern, wants universal health care and they want it now.>  SEIU has a “chit” its calling in from the President for having donated $27 million dollars to his campaign.  Mr. Stern has not been shy about making that clear.  One need look no further to understand the White House’s push to force passage of health care legislation and impose it upon a nation where 52% of the population oppose it.

Its made me think about some historical figures.

Pharaoh, for one.  You know, the one of Moses’ fame who liked having organized labor do his dirty work and whose sweat kept him and his cronies in total control.  Or the Pharisees, also of biblical notoriety who, along with the Sadducees, corrupted the Priesthood of ancient Israel and are those who Jesus railed against when smashing their money-changing tables for doing business in his Father’s house on the Sabbath. 

When special interests get too close to corrupt power, much perversion is done both in the name of good and the name of God.> 

I think we’re there.

History is replete with similar analogies. And Nature is replete with as many “corrections.”   Flood, famine, tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruption… Her list is lengthy.  Of course, there’s always that brief lull, or pause, between our awareness of the problem and Nature’s need to act on our behalf.  Its in that pause that we get the chance to self-correct… which much less overall trauma than if left to Nature.  At times we have seized that moment.  More often than not, we have not.

What will we do now?

We are in the pause.  You can feel it because things are speeding up and slowing down… all at the same time.  Its a moment… our moment… to self-correct.  We can now make some important, and at times difficult, decisions… or we can abdicate responsibility for what we know in our hearts is wrong.  Seriously wrong.

The choice belongs to each of us.  Step up or step down.  One way leads to higher ground.  The other leads to…. well let’s just say that in a difficult economy that continues to spiral out of control, ark building might soon be a very lucrative career choice.

I hope not.