when i get to the other side

THE DRESS

September 16 will be the one year anniversary of my mom's transition into Light.  She has been making her presence known for the past few days.

Last week, I went to lunch with daughter #1 who is getting married next October.  She wants to get married in Italy.  Mr. Friendly has been struggling with that request, understandably.  It's really far from here and you can't drive there not to mention the (ahem!) cost.  Note to 50-somethings:  save your money!  Last July, daughter #2 got married.  Mom was alive then.  She could not attend the wedding, but she bought THE DRESS.  Daughter #2 was a vision in it and Mom was delighted to gift it to her.  

When Mom died, she left me a small inheritance.  Since daughter #1 has been talking wedding in Italy, I've been saying, "And Mom will spring for the dress!"  That felt right and fair and I know Mom would be doing that herself if she were still in her body and had her hands on her check book! 


Back to Mr. Friendly and the balking.  Daughter # 2 visited San Antonio week before last for my birthday.  Over dinner I said, "We have to talk wedding with your sister.  I need details."  So, she and I grilled Daughter #1 over chips and salsa.  Daughter #1, who NEVER drinks at all, had two Coconut Margaritas (yuk! but like I said, she's not a drinker).  Daughter #2 had two real Margaritas.  I had too many glasses of iced tea.  But we got to the crux of it:  Daughter #1 is worried that she'll send out the "save the dates" and Mr. Friendly will flake and not actually spring for the Italian wedding.


Okay.  Now  we're getting somewhere.  And you're wondering what this has to do with Mom?  Back to lunch last week with Daughter #1.  It dawned on me that the price of a dress might go a long way toward a trip for two to Italy (did I mention that THE DRESS was a vision?).  I mentioned this possibility with some trepidation as Daughter #1 has a clear vision of what an Italian wedding looks like and I wasn't sure that the dress could be forgone.

I worked up my courage and after lunch, I ventured the plan:  I (Mom and Granddaddy too, to be fair, as he died 29 days after Mom last year and also left me a small inheritance) will give you the same "dress-money" as we gave your sister, plus a little so, no matter what, you can go to Italy and get married there.


She loved it.  She said, "That feels really good (knowing now she can go and if Mr. Friendly cowboys up for non-essentials like a dress, a photographer, a small reception, so be it).


As soon as I told her, tears began to stream down my face.  As I said, "I know Mom will like this too," I began to bawl and so did Daughter #1.  The whole truck filled with super-powered love, the kind that swirls and lifts and zooms around.  I began to shake.  I knew Mom was there and dancing a jig!  Daughter #1 hopped out of the truck, renewed with hope of her dream coming true.  

Now that's a grandmother's dream too, right?  So, just in case I had any doubt that Mom was totally "IN," on the way home the scent of Pine filled the truck.  That's the scent she and I agreed her Spirit would have, if she had a choice.  I'd sensed it over and over again, first on the morning of the day she died and then for weeks after her transition, but I haven't sensed it for some time now until that day last week.  Wow.  I began to cry again,  these tears a brew of bitter-sweet melancholy and joy.  I do miss her so.


Even though I have not sensed the aroma of her Spirit much lately, all sense that I do get of her is deep peace and assurance.  Last night I was aware of her Spirit in meditation.  I was feeling down.  I spoke to her, asking for "help."  A few seconds passed and then a song by Walela came to mind from a CD I'd given her a few years ago and which I played some during her memorial:  "And when I get to the other side, I'm gonna put on my wings and fly...."  Wow.  I wasn't thinking of that song at all and then there it was in my head, just that line.  I smiled.  "So, did you put on your wings and fly?" I asked.  The thought, "yes, yes I did" came back.  "Good," I said, "Good."  "Can you hear me?"  I asked.  The thought, "yes, yes I can."  "I really need some help," I said.  The thought, "I am here, but I am not The Christ.  Pray to The Christ."  

Ahhh!  She's still working on me from "the other side" and she's still here for me as she always said she would be.  

Apparently, the veil really is very thin.

Creativity Crawls

New poem yesterday morning:

creativity crawls in slow motion like the
snail up the
doorjamb of my day

her antennae the drum major
her shell the big bass drum

her underbelly a million feet marching

pop the popcorn
drag out the chair
line the streets

a parade is passing!

I sat on the back step with a cup of coffee, the door flung open.  I wanted to be outside, but it was drizzling, so this was as close as I could let myself get to wet.  I sipped, letting the brown brew purge the sleep from my sluggish head.  Wildlife, especially insects, were unperturbed by the rain and busily went about their doings.  At my right shoulder, a snail crawled up the doorjamb.  They seem to multiply and show themselves after a rain, and with all the rain we've had in South Texas this season, snails are everywhere.  So, I almost turned away uninterested.

But I have been re-reading Joy's Way, A Map for the Transformational Journey: An Introduction to the Potentials for Healing with Body Energies in preparation for another Healing Touch class.  The M.D., Brugh Joy, who wrote the book thirty-some years ago writes, "The initial task in awakening is to begin to ask whether there is more to experience in any given moment: then to conceive that there may be more; then to experience it; when it is experienced, to conceive that there may be more; and thus to go into the cycle again indefinitely (p. 16)."

So, because the snail had attracted my attention, and because the words "creativity crawls" had flitted through my mind, I asked, is there more?  This is a crucial moment, not only in the transformational process, but in the writing process.  I got my journal.  Well, I don't have a new one and the last one is spent, so I grabbed a used one from the shelf.  The last entry was dated November 25, 2009 (one month after the funerals of both my parents).  Serendipitously, that entry is also about creature beings!  AND it is about the ability to really see them.  It is about the ability to really see.

Upon our first meeting, an acquaintance who also happened to be a psychic, had asked whether I'd ever "seen" my power animals.  We'd been discussing the sensory ability to smell the scent of discarnate entities.  I'd said, "No, I haven't seen my power animals yet." I assumed she wondered if  I'd seen them in visions or as shape-shifted entities.  I didn't even think about how I see them in the apparent world or during Dreamtime.

I have done some Shamanic Journey work and have drawn my spread of nine totem or power animals from the Medicine Cards: The Discovery of Power Through the Ways of Animals.  These represent the medicine I carry on this Earth Walk.  All but one of the animals that appeared in my spread are common to this area, so I am aware when I see those particular creature beings, but I sat right there and told the psychic asking me that I'd never seen them.  Harumph!

Apparently my mules wanted me to become even more aware of their presences and messages, because within days, one of them appeared to me in a dream:

a beautiful yellow-brown hawk flew over my head, circled me a few times, then landed on the ground beside me.  I said "Look!  Look!  There it is!  Isn't it beautiful?"  I had been telling someone about power animals when the hawk instantly manifested above me.

A few days after the dream, I saw a sign in a place I have frequented for thirty years that read, "If nothing changes, nothing changes."  It made me realize, again, how long I've been playing a "victim's" role, allowing the energetic imbalances and apparent dysfunction of individuals whose lives touch mine to knock me off balance.  I came home that day determined to paint, to be true to my highest Self, to be the most expanded version of the Self I have been created to be.

I blocked in a copy of a recent sketch, thinking I would paint something to enter in an upcoming contest.  But, no matter how I worked with it, I couldn't force my will onto the canvas.  So, I stepped back.  Turned the piece upside down.  Sat down to stare.  Behold!  I saw the image of an animal taking shape.  As I began to pull the image out, dog appeared!  A smiling, yellow Labrador.

Immediately, I went to the Medicine Cards to read about Dog Medicine:  Be loyal.  Be your own best friend.

Yep, you guessed it.  Dog is another of my power animals.  My totem for the Above Direction:  "teaches me to honor the Great Star Nation, guardian of Dreamtime, my access to other dimensions (Medicine Cards, p. 20)."  And Hawk?  My Eastern Totem:  "guides me to my greatest spiritual challenge, guards my path to illumination (ibid)."


Back to the dream:
I was asking to do work that I really didn't want to do, work that wasn't my work in the world. I knew the two women owners of the gymnasium where I applied for the job.  I was playing me, in my present Daydream circumstances, feeling lack and grabbing at any work to get income. I thought, "this job won't really help me.  It won't empower me.  It will only take me away from my art and my writing and use up all my energy and time."  I knew I didn't really want the job, but I was going through the motions of getting it anyway. Repeating a pattern. But Hawk circled overhead.  "Circle your life and view it from a higher perspective.  Grab an opportunity that is coming your way.  Discern the hazards that bar me from my freedom of flight (Medicine Cards, p.45.)"

Wow! So what does it mean to me to fly?  How does having power feel?  What does it look like to be my own best friend? Can I look beyond appearances of lack and see abundant supply without falling into damaging patterns and belief in fear and lack?  WhooAhh!  Talk about being guided to my greatest spiritual challenges!  Talk about needing to see from a higher perspective!

As for snail?  Well, there's no medicine card for snail.  But yesterday morning, I think she spoke for herself.  And apparently, she has plenty of power!

this is how it goes is finished!

Click on the image to see all nine painting sessions and the finished piece!  TA DA!

 

 

 

 

C

I Take It Back

Well, I may let a cosmetician thread my eyebrows.  Got a hair cut and (ahem!) color today.  I look fabulous except for the eyebrows.  Too thick.  Too dark.  Don't match my hair.  Yikes.

Is this even spiritually relevant?  I think so.  I let you know.

I'm fickle.  I'm freckled.  I'm graying and I have wrinkles.  Attractive.  Right?  Right!  All of the above is attractive.  I'm whole.  Period.  And everything counts.  All of the neurosis, all of the profundity, my youth, and my aging.  All of the projects I start and don't finish.  All of my accomplishments.  My understanding and my misunderstanding.   The way I love and when I do not love.

Accepting myself as I am without judgment is my practice.  Being playful is my practice.  Letting go.

So today, when I went to the salon for a hair cut, I thought I might let the gray show, just get highlights of blond.  When I told the stylist, she raised a questioning eyebrow. Maybe not, I thought.

Two things happen:  1) I tell myself the story that there are certain ways of being in the world that are "holier" than others like not wearing makeup or letting my hair be natural, not dyed.  You know the look:  like a yogi, clean, dressed in all white, shining from the inside out.  2)  I get confused.  I think, If I don't wear makeup, wear 100% cotton all-white clothes, eat healthfully, say the right mantra, and let my hair go natural, I'll be holier, more whole, less contrived.

This thinking means that I have attached APPEARANCES to the Holy and its manifestation.  If appearances made one Holy-Whole, white organic cotton would be flying off the racks!  People would be texting each other:  now trending-white organic cotton!  We'd be having burn parties for colorful clothes, chanting in circles around the fire, our bliss unable to be contained.

Unfortunately, it's not that easy to get bliss.  Let's face it, being fully human is innately paradoxical.  Besides, it was the "shining from within" that really attracted me anyway.

The trick is the "without judgment" part.    Can I embrace myself as I am with all my perceived fallacies and limitations and love myself completely anyway?  If I do, I'll shine from within. Only then, can I do the same for you, for the planet.

I dyed my hair.  I may have my eyebrows threaded (assuming it's not painful!).  I might even eat sugar and let an occasional explicative slip (last night they flew out of my mouth like fireworks after I stepped through a spider web and thought it had landed in my hair!).

I am no less holy-whole for it.  Because I AM NOT MY BODY.  I AM NOT MY MIND.  I AM NOT THE JUDGE.  None of us are.  I may be a mirror for you.  I may be your greatest teacher because of  who I am and how I live.  You may learn acceptance and forgiveness because of me.  Who knows?

In the meantime, I get to do what I want to do as long as it does no harm of which I am aware.  I have decided, again.  I will change my mind often and with great conviction.  So there.

Playing with posts

Instant gratification and I are like this: visualize fingers crossed here.

So.  This being Independence Day (Happy Birthday USA), I am figuring out how to blog (write) which is what I really want to do and not repeat myself or have to update six web-sites!  I want to put my thoughts on virtual-paper and be done with it.  I want to be "connected."  I want to keep up, show my pictures, find new friends, and, to be honest, gather readers.  All of these are payoffs for social networking in cyberspace. I hope.  So I'm in.  Finally.  After coaxing from many friends and family and much resistance.  I'm in.  All the way in.  Sucked in as one friend put it.


And that's what I don't want. 

I'd rather be gardening, like yesterday.  Mr. Friendly and I collaborated on a mulching project.  I'd weeded the farthermost section of our backyard one more time.  I'd spent several hours in the mud, fighting mosquitoes, sweating.  I did not want to do it again.   Ever.

I convinced Mr. Friendly to help me.  We loaded the pick up with a yard of "living mulch."  This mulch, I understand, is full of compost so it will not only act as a heat barrier and hold moisture, it will also continuously feed your plants.  And your weeds!  So we put down a poly-something-or-other barrier that will act as a weed block and probably still be there when our grandchildren are having children!

We perspired together.  Got filthy together.  Jumped into the pool to cool off together.  And fell into bed exhausted.  Not together exactly because Mr. Friendly snores.  The fifteen linear feet of happily weeded, blocked, and mulched garden looks fabulous.  We agreed to do the same to the rest of that garden.  Wow!  That only took twenty-eight years.  Progress!

Anyway, today here I sit at the computer.  One, because I wanted to check in with my cyber-community and two, because I'm so sore I can hardly stand up.  However, I never want to sit here for long.  So, bear with me as I navigate the enigma of how to post in one place and have it magically update everywhere.

I'll keep you posted. Ha!

New Poem Today

outside the cyclone fence 

surrounding the space i call home

havoc-happenstance

horrific predictions

(the end is near, again!)

but here in the Cicada's drone-

a long, dry, hum

a rhythmic, Shaman's rattle speaks:

take off your shoes

bare your feet

put your back down

let the earth's spine silence your mind

(it cannot help you now)

only the slow roll of ocean

healing her own wounds

she-a forgiving teacher

repeats:

keep the peace

keep the peace

keep the peace

          D. Ellis Phelps, 2010

 Surfing twitter after the British Petroleum oil well began spilling oil into the Gulf, I read a comment in response to Obama's notion that rage against BP is counterproductive.  The comment, paraphrased, asked, "What am I supposed to do with the rage?"  

I've been thinking about that.  And today, a question arose from the ether as I wrote in my journal:

"Did the oil vomiting from the earth's core cause the people's rage?  Or did the people's rage cause the earth to vomit oil?"  

If you are wondering what I mean, read Love Thyself: The Message from Water III (v. 3) by Masaru Emoto.  His research indicates that if all of us: individuals, priests, ministers, rabbis, gurus, healers, and people of all faiths would turn our thinking away from rage and distress over the apparent problem in the ocean and literally, prayerfully send the energy of loving-kindness to the water, holding her in our thought in Light and claiming her wholeness by the power of All that is Holy, we could, on this physical plane, by the focus of our thought change the chemical make-up of  each Chrystal of water and help the ocean clean itself up.  Even better, if we gathered at her shores from all around the world en mass in this effort, we would make an even bigger impact toward her healing.  

The converse is also true.  If we continue to focus our attention on the problem with rage, we are causing it to worsen.

Of course, I want British Petroleum Company and all governments and scientists around the world to cooperate toward finding a scientific and or mechanical solution to the challenge, but I cannot stress how important it is to our well being as a species and to the well being of the planet that we join our minds in this way.  I think this distress, and others like it over the past years are powerful opportunities for us to learn the lesson that we are One, that we are Divine Beings, that connected to our Source, we have the power to heal each other and the planet.

And most importantly, that disconnected from Source, wandering around unaware, allowing our thoughts to focus on negative appearances HAS POWER!  ALL THOUGHT HAS POWER with actual, real-time, physical results.  The choice we have is how we use our power.  And we are using it whether we are conscious of it or not.

I have not asked this before, but now I do.  Please send these thoughts forward into the Universe to everyone you know.  Send them by email, tweet them, text them, speak them to friends, hold them in your heart, and most importantly, think them.  Do it right now.  

Settle back, breathe deeply, relax, invite Spirit, set your intention to do no harm, and send loving-kindness to yourself, to each other (even those with whom you are at odds), to British Petroleum Company, and to the waters.  Bless All with Divine Intelligence, Harmony, and Peace.  

This is what we can do right now, from our own space, every time we think about it, every day until and after the "new apparent problem" is solved.  Because this is how we solve the real problem.

If you choose to join me in tandem practice from where you are in this effort, do so at 5:00 PM Greenwich Mean Time or 12 Noon Central Standard Time daily for five minutes.  

And so It Is.  Aho!

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Walking the Woods Together

                                          Self-Portrait with/by Artist Sarah Dinn Dunckel circa 1999


I've been hibernating.  It hasn't helped.  But I think the worst of the dark energy I've been experiencing is over.  For now.  This kind of being possessed or beside mySelf, makes me quite humble.  It makes me understand "salvation" anew every time it happens. 

In fact, ever since the media dethroned Tiger Woods over his sexual indiscretions, I've been wanting to out myself.  I mean, let's just get the whole story out there so "my fans" can make up their minds about me right now.  I don't feel like waiting until you hear it on the news (now that's not entirely likely since I'm neither a star, a politician, an athlete, nor a priest, but you're following me right?).  So here goes.

The truth is, I'm completely human with deep flaws.  I have profound thoughts and sick ones.  Sometimes I feel fearful, depressed, morbid even.  Sometimes I'm sure that All is Well.  I'm more balanced than not most of the time these days.  But I have done drugs (not for thirty years) and delightfully so.  I've drunk too much and driven that way (also not for thirty years, in fact I haven't had a drink at all for that long) and thrown up lots.  I've kissed someone underage and given them pot.  I've kissed another woman (well, actually we were girls then and figuring out how to kiss among other things).  I've kissed a cousin or two (almost lost my virginity to one of them).  I've had multiple extra-marital affairs (another not for thirty years-as you may have guessed, being faithful comes along with being sober).  I've posed naked for a photo shoot.  I'm rather proud of this one.  The young photojournalist (who is now an Episcopal priest) was doing a project for a photography class at UT (that's the University of Texas at Austin-I'll give you the details so you don't have to dig).  She made an A!  My boyfriend and I had the hottest sex ever for days after.  Whew!  I'm glad that's out.   I've screamed profanity at my husband and children and even slapped them all a couple of times.  That's really ugly.  Sometimes, I'm really ugly.

The deal is:  I know it.   And I know, it is only by God's grace that I am as sane as I am today.  I learned what I lived growing up and I've been re-learning ever since I realized  (again by God's grace) that I needed to re-learn.  These days, when I behave badly ( like having a bad mood or a temper tantrum), I ask for forgiveness and expect to get it because I know how to give it.  Believe me, I get as much opportunity to extend forgiveness I as do to ask for it.  And the deal is:  I know I deserve to be forgiven.  So do you.  So does Tiger Woods and on and on and on.  All of us deserve forgiveness.

The trouble is that our culture doesn't nurture the forgiveness concept.  It nurtures the crucifixion concept.  No one is looking in the mirror.  As a culture, we are sufficiently numbed up and distracted by caffeine, tobacco, sugar, alcohol, food, and the Internet and ALWAYS plugged-in to music or texting.  We don't have time to look in the mirror.  We are available to each other 24/7 but not available at all, really.  Especially not to ourselves.  But just you wait until we see someone ELSE doing something wrong!  Kill!  Kill!  Kill! We scream to the rulers.

So you're wondering why I'm ranting about this now?

It's because I've been having a debilitating, unbearably human month or so and I've been feeling ashamed.  I couldn't face you.  I couldn't write about what was wrong (I didn't know what was wrong, how could I write about it?).  I couldn't even paint.  Because still, in my heart of hearts, there is a huge part of me that cannot self-forgive, the part of me that doesn't want me to have this kind of experience, the part of me that wants your approval.  The part of me that is sure you will not like what you see if you see me standing here just as I am, undone and naked in the woods.

When I named this blog, I had every intention of being that authentic with you, of trusting you that much, of trusting the Universe that much.  I didn't.  I confess.  Will you forgive me?  And the next time I disappear for days at a time, will you come find me?  We are, after all, walking these woods together.  And I am hoping that some of you, at least, are out here naked too.