Well... I've Been A Long Time Gone...

... and a lot has happened in that time...

the boy and I were homeless - in Seattle, on Vashon Island and back in Seattle... though we never had to sleep in the van or in a shelter, thanks to loving people in our lives, old friends and new...

we are now in transitional housing - we have a warm, dry, comfortable house to ourselves with our cats, with a big yard full of tall trees, in a beach-side neighbourhood just a bit north of the Seattle city limits.   And we have some breathing space to rebuild our lives here, seeing the courts said I couldn't take the boy back to Australia to live...

found out a while ago that the people the boy's father hired to represent him and give evidence in court on his behalf were FATHERS' RIGHTS people.... wondered at the time what was the hidden agenda being played out, given the weirdness of these peoples' actions and attacks - now I know... I didn't stand a chance against them, especially without an attorney representing me...

and I have to say I am seriously pissy that total strangers, with an anti-woman axe to grind, have managed to interfere in our lives so much!  There are things to be done about that - all in good time...

have pulled back from much of the social activism I was doing, including this blog, obviously!   Much of what I was seeing going on in the world and was dealing with personally, was making me angry and bitter and cynical, and using that anger to fuel my social justice advocacy, and having that arena as a place to vent my resentment, wasn't working any longer... I had to step back and focus on our own immediate environment and needs...

and I have been doing a second go-around with breast cancer... After a year of dithering and playing around with alternative ideas regarding treatment, I finally put my hand up for some neo-adjuvant chemotherapy to shrink the tumours prior to surgery and radiation... it hasn't been much fun and the novelty really and truly has worn off!  

and we have been doing unschooling stuff with classes on basic electronics, geology, astronomy and chemistry... and the boy started Aikido three months ago, loves it and has already earned his yellow stripe... he's aiming for a black belt, he tells me...

looking forward to the arrival of daughter number 2 in December, staying for a month... Haven't seen her for almost 10 years...

and so very, very grateful for all the kindred spirits in our lives, who have loved and supported us, and continue to do that, as we are walking this path... 

speaking of this blog... am kinda committed to getting it back up and running... I notice that on many older posts, the embedded videos no longer work - Youtube pulled them for various reasons.... I don't have the energy right now to go and find new pieces to replace them, and I probably never will have the motivation!   Sorry about that!

To Every Thing There Is A Season...

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; 

a time to kill, and a time to heal; 

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

a time to get, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

a time to rend, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

a time to love, and a time to hate;

a time of war, and a time of peace."

~ Ecclesiastes 3. 1-8

 

Ch-Ch-Changes...

 

Everything we touch, we change...

 

We take in energy constantly, and although this is how we feed, this energy is never destroyed.  Through us, it is transformed.  It changes states.  It resonates to a higher level...

Yet every birth is accompanied by struggle and pain... 

 

Every rebirth is just as painful. It may seem that we bring destruction, chaos, and turmoil to all those around us.   And in a sense we do.  But the changes are always for the better, even though the initial change may seem terrible...

Change is terrible. It tears away what we've grown comfortable with.  It destroys what we find familiar, stable, and simple, leaving uncertainty in its wake...
 

But to face uncertainty and to thrive is to become stronger.  Everything must change or die.   We are active participants in this universal mystery...

Every person that we come into contact with, no matter how casually, is altered... 

 

Wherever we go, change will follow... 

 

Our dynamic spirits stretch out all around us, and the wake we leave in our passing is like ripples on the ocean.   Only the ripples we cause can become tidal waves..

As beings on a threshhold state, we are living embodiments of the dynamic complementarity that keeps the universe in constant motion.   This is our burden...

 

Yet this also is our purpose.  In the grey area between two polar opposites lies revelation... 

 

We feed upon all around us.   Yet we can also harness that energy to heal... 

 

We tear away and bring destruction, yet we also nurture new growth.  This is our nature, the mystery of who we are...

There is no rebirth without destruction...

 

Light only blinds without shadow to throw it into relief..

 

Understanding comes from balancing all these things within the Self...

 

We are that Balance.  We affect it, and it affects us...

 

We are facilitators of the universal flow...

 

We must accept this, and never fear to move with that flow...

~author unknown

 

 

LYRICS:

 

I still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time

I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don't tell t hem to grow up and out of it
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Where's your shame
You've left us up to our necks in it
Time may change me
But you can't trace time

Strange fascination, fascinating me
Changes are taking the pace I'm going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Oh, look out you rock 'n rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Pretty soon you're gonna get a little older
Time may change me
But I can't trace time
I said that time may change me
But I can't trace time

 

  

Kali Rising...

...in the world without and the world within...

Kali: The Dark Mother

fearful goddess

with a heart of a mother

 

By Subhamoy Das,

The love between the Divine Mother and her human children is a unique relationship.   

Kali, the Dark Mother, is one such deity with whom devotees have a very loving and intimate bond, in spite of her fearful appearance.

In this relationship, the worshipper becomes a child and Kali assumes the form of the ever-caring mother.

"O Mother, even a dullard becomes a poet who meditates upon thee raimented with space, three-eyed, creatrix of the three worlds, whose waist is beautiful with a girdle made of numbers of dead men's arms..."  

- From a Karpuradistotra hymn, translated from Sanskrit by Sir John Woodroffe

 

Who is Kali?

Kali is the fearful and ferocious form of the mother goddess.  She assumed the form of a powerful goddess and became popular with the composition of the Devi Mahatmya, a text of the 5th - 6th century AD. 

Here she is depicted as having born from the brow of Goddess Durga during one of her battles with the evil forces.

As the legend goes, in the battle, Kali was so much involved in the killing spree that she got carried away and began destroying everything in sight.

To stop her, Lord Shiva threw himself under her feet.   Shocked at this sight, Kali stuck out her tongue in astonishment, and put an end to her homicidal rampage.

Hence the common image of Kali shows her in her mêlée mood, standing with one foot on Shiva's chest, with her enormous tongue stuck out.

 

The Fearful Symmetry

Kali is represented with perhaps the fiercest features amongst all the world's deities.   

She has four arms, with a sword in one hand and the head of a demon in another.   The other two hands bless her worshippers, and say, "fear not"!

She has two dead heads for her earrings, a string of skulls as necklace, and a girdle made of human hands as her clothing.   

Her tongue protrudes from her mouth, her eyes are red, and her face and breasts are sullied with blood.   

She stands with one foot on the thigh, and another on the chest of her husband, Shiva.

Awesome Symbols!

Kali's fierce form is strewed with awesome symbols.   Her black complexion symbolizes her all-embracing and transcendental nature.   Says the Mahanirvana Tantra: "Just as all colors disappear in black, so all names and forms disappear in her".   

Her nudity is primeval, fundamental, and transparent like Nature — the earth, sea, and sky.   Kali is free from the illusory covering, for she is beyond the all maya or "false consciousness."   

Kali's garland of fifty human heads that stands for the fifty letters in the Sanskrit alphabet, symbolizes infinite knowledge.

Her girdle of severed human hands signifies work and liberation from the cycle of karma. 

Her white teeth show her inner purity, and her red lolling tongue indicates her omnivorous nature — "her indiscriminate enjoyment of all the world's 'flavors'." 

Her sword is the destroyer of false consciousness and the eight bonds that bind us.

Her three eyes represent past, present, and future, — the three modes of time — an attribute that lies in the very name Kali ('Kala' in Sanskrit means time). The eminent translator of Tantrik texts, Sir John Woodroffe in Garland of Letters, writes, "Kali is so called because She devours Kala (Time) and then resumes Her own dark formlessness."

Kali's proximity to cremation grounds where the five elements or "Pancha Mahabhuta" come together, and all worldly attachments are absolved, again point to the cycle of birth and death. 

The reclined Shiva lying prostrate under the feet of Kali suggests that without the power of Kali (Shakti), Shiva is inert.

Forms, Temples and Devotees

Kali's guises and names are diverse. Shyama, Adya Ma, Tara Ma and Dakshina Kalika, Chamundi are popular forms. Then there is Bhadra Kali, who is gentle, Shyamashana Kali, who lives only in the cremation ground, and so on.

The most notable Kali temples are in Eastern India - Dakshineshwar and Kalighat in Kolkata (Calcutta) and Kamakhya in Assam, a seat of tantrik practices.  

Ramakrishna Paramhamsa, Swami Vivekananda, Vamakhyapa, and Ramprasad are some of the legendary devotees of Kali.  One thing was common to these saints - all of them loved the goddess as intimately as they loved their own mother.

"My child, you need not know much in order to please Me.

Only Love Me dearly.

Speak to me, as you would talk to your mother,

if she had taken you in her arms."

I had a very personal experience with Kali, many years ago when I was training to be a workshop facilitator for Women 4 Women (W4W) in Australia...

It was one of the most intense experiences of my life... It felt like I was losing my mind... and what it came down to, in the end, was accepting the Kali energy in my own being... stopping fighting her, denying her; honouring and accepting her while at the same time setting the boundary that I would make a conscious decision as to when and how I would allow her energy to manifest in my choices and actions...

I realise now that this past ten years' journey with my son's father has been one long saga in recognising, owning, integrating and using the power of the goddess Kali as she is embodied within me... 

Time to own my power and get real...

Under Pressure...

The more things change, the more they stay the same...

... tick tock... tick tock... tick tock...

2/3 Done...

Move yesterday went relatively well, considering my state of unpreparedness...

Thanks to wonderful friends Chris, Charra, Brant, Cecilia and Paul, 2/3 of the furniture and boxes are gone, with the rest being done in slow time this week and a final push next Sunday, though I've paid our share of the rent until the end of the month...

Spent last night happy in the house we are minding for the next few months...

Though it will take a bit of getting used to the multiple clocks chiming cheerily on the 1/4 hour, the 1/2 hour, the 3/4 hour and the full hour!!!

Woke up today, very tired and quite sore... I feel old!

Will bring the cats and more of the food over this evening...

Lots of reflection happening in the process, and lots to write about...

But that's going to have to wait for a day or so, until I move my computer over... 

Since we're no longer 'living' at the old address, the housemates have turned the heater way down low, down to 55F in the daytime, and my fingers are too cold to type much...

The lovely owner at the house we are minding, has the thermostat set at 72F for the daytime... 

I'll be paying for the oil and power we use, but it's so nice not to have to argue about what's a reasonable temperature for comfortable Seattle winter living...

And one of the former housemates has just come through the family room (at the old house) to ask if I intend to use the internet here for much longer, implying I shouldn't because I'm no longer paying for it... I said no, I've  organised internet service at the new house starting tomorrow... I'll offer $5 for my share of the internet over 7 days, if they like!...

This morning, I've taken care of about half of the administration/personal business stuff related to moving house...

I try not to think about all the hassle and the circumstances that have surrounded all these moves in the US...

Otherwise, I just get plain pissed off... and that doesn't get me and Connor anywhere...

I Need...

... another 24 hours in every day...

So much thinking, so much feeling, so much 'knowing', so many insights falling into place, one after another, all branching and connected, connecting my internal and external worlds and needing to write them out of my head... and that takes time...

So very exciting, as though a log jam has just been dynamited and cleared, though I don't know what was the exact moment and means of smashing through the blockage, and it was a lot more subtle than "smashing" anyway!!!

And so much to do to keep this change moving forward...

I either need to stop sleeping, or to reclaim my capacity to stretch 'time' ... 

I need sleep, so will have to stretch 'time' - at least in my reality... 

And that might be a challenge, as 'time' appears to be speeding up and the events occurring within 'time' are more concentrated and intense... 

And that is all as it should be, seeing where our co-created journey is taking us as a species/consciousness and as a planetary being... we're being asked to stretch ourselves, un-limit ourselves, as we birth a new reality...

Namaste...

For Ellen, Sarah & Callum - Christmas 2010

To Ellen, Sarah and Callum...

Seattle Christmas

 

Brisbane Christmas

We Miss You and We Love You

from Mum and Connor

What A Wonderful World?

How can these two such very different realities exist in the same time and space?   

All this, just so we can learn about the illusion of duality and separation? 

The Wonderful World:

LYRICS:

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They're really saying I love you.

I hear babies cry, I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll never know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world.


The Movie:

Real Life:

We Don't Know How Lucky We Are...

Seriously, we don't know how lucky we are...

Despite some challenges, we  - my son and I - still have a warm, dry roof over our heads, healthy and plentiful food on the table, clothes on our backs, transport, access to education, medical care and technology to gather information and to communicate with others...

I am grateful for these blessings as well as:

• my healthy, happy children
• our friends 
• our cat companions
• relative peace
• relative freedom of thought, movement and speech
• relative choice
• time to use as I please

We are some of the relatively few fortunate human beings on the planet...

If you're reading this, you too are one of the privileged...

What are you grateful for, in your life?

What do you take for granted, as your right?

If it's your right, surely it's also the right of every man, woman and child alive?

New Zealand comedian John Clarke as his alter ego Fred Dagg, addressing the United Nations...
(the clip contains cameos from some of New Zealand's better known personalities, including a Prime Minister...  brownie points - and a chocolate fish! - if you go to the comments section and name as many people as you can)

Lyrics:

The New Version

Source: Album: Fred Dagg (Anthology) Released 2000

At the dawn of the day, in the great Southern Ocean
Where the world’s greatest fish was being landed
And the boat they were pulling it into was sinking
And the sea was quite lumpy, and the weather was foul
And the bloke with the map was as pissed as an owl
And the boys called out “Maui, ya clown, let it go”
In the noise he reached down for his grandmother’s jawbone
 and he winked at his mates and he said
“Boys, we don’t know how lucky we are”
“I have a feeling I have stumbled on something substantial.”

 

We don’t know how lucky we are
We don’t know how lucky we are
We don’t know how lucky we are
We don’t know how lucky we are

I was speaking to a mate of mine, just the other day
A bloke called Bruce Bayliss who, lives up our way
He’s been round the world on an 8th army do for a year, more or less
I said “Describe the global position, Bruce”
He said “Fred, it’s a mess.
We don’t know how lucky we are in this country.
We don’t know how lucky we are.

We don’t know how lucky we are
We don’t know how lucky we are

There’s a guy I know who lives in town
I see him about once a year I suppose
He’s had a coronary since Easter
He’s got a haemorrhage in his ear
He went bankrupt a couple of weeks back
And now his wife’s left him too
I said “You’re looking hot mate,
You’re looking clear, what are ya gonna do?”
He said “We don’t know how lucky we are
To live in this joint mate"

We don’t know how lucky we are

We don’t know how lucky we are

So when things are looking really bad
And you’re thinking of giving it a way
Remember, New Zealand’s a cracker
And I reckon come what may
If things get appallingly bad
And we’re all under constant attack
Remember, we want to see good clean ball
And for god’s sakes, feed your backs

We don’t how fortunate we are to have that place
We don’t know how propitious are the circumstances.

We don’t know how lucky we are, mate
We don’t know how lucky we are

We don’t know how lucky we are, get it right
We just don’t realise how fortunate we are
We have no idea, the luck, we possess, collectively
We just don’t know how lucky we all are. Full stop.

 

The Original Version

Source: "Fred Dagg Live", performing at the Christchurch town hall, about 1975.

I was speaking to a mate of mine
just the other day
A guy called Bruce Bayliss actually
who lives up our way
He's been living in Europe
for the year, more or less
I said "How was Europe, Bruce?"
He says "Fred, it's a mess"

We don't know how lucky we are, mate.
We don't know how lucky we are!

I was down the Plough and Chequebook
the night before last
There's a guy down there on the floor
with his brain at half-mast
I said "You're looking really bad mate
your eyes look like strings"
He says "Get me an eight will you please
I can't see a thing"

We don't know how lucky we are, mate.
We don't know how lucky we are!

Me stock agent's got a beach place
where he spends most of his days
His wife bit the dust down there last year
got eaten by a couple of crays
And his two littlest daughters
got killed by a whale
I said "Are you going down there this year mate?"
He says "Fred, right on the nail"

"We don't know how fortunate we are to have that place
We don't know how propitious are the circumstances Frederick"

So if things are looking really bad
you're thinking of givin' it away
Remember New Zealand's a cracker
and I reckon come what may
If things get appallingly bad
and we all get atrociously poor
If we stand in the queue with our hats on 

we can borrow a few million more
 

We don't know how lucky we are, mate
We don't know how lucky we are

We don't know how lucky we are, mate.
We don't know how lucky we are!

 

It's Been A Hard Week...

 

It seems it's my time to break some more old, unhelpful patterns and face up to shortcomings that sabotage my capacity to live a full and abundant life...

“Who ever battles with monsters had better see that it does not turn himself into a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” - Nietzsche

John Henry Fuseli - The Nightmare

I've been fighting (for quite a long time) internal grief about loss in my life - loss of innocence, self, family, roots, connection, belonging, home - and most recently losing the home I created 2.5 years ago for myself and my son. 

I've also been fighting my resistance to change, to acceptance of the reality of our situation, and feeling a sense of despair at what's going on in the outside world and not wanting to participate in that paradigm any longer...

All of which have left me feeling stuck, paralysed, not knowing what to do for the best, nor willing to take any steps forward...

I've been feeling like I've been straddling the abyss... one foot in my old life wanting to hang on to that, the other foot in my new reality knowing that the old patterns will no longer work - not for who I am now or for the world that is coming into being...

But I'm frozen in that place - I can't go back to the old but I'm feeling too scared, that I don't have enough momentum, to jump into the new...

I'm not confident there's a safety net there to catch me, even though inner guidance says there is, that there's nothing to fear, that the fear is False Evidence Appearing Real...

For many of us, the inclination is to resist change until the pain/discomfort of a situation becomes unbearable... 

Well, life has this (nasty) little habit of pushing us into a corner and forcing change, if we won't go there voluntarily.

I've been 'hiding' from the world and from success... I've been spending all my time, energy and focus on social and education activism, working to change things on the outside, hoping to avoid having to change things on the inside.

I know what I've been doing is valuable and has had an impact - people write and phone me from all over, they stop me in the street to thank me for what I'm doing, people across the globe read this blog... 

And for me, the panic, pain, discomfort is around financial shortage... I haven't been getting paid for spending all of this energy and time and my efforts to "save the world" have left us financially impaired... 

There are other factors in that financial equation over which I have no control, but I'm the one who's been making the choices about what I focus on and how I spend my time...

This past week, I finally ran out of wiggle room and now I need to get 'real'  - find/generate/manifest meaningful quantities of income immediately... 

I need to acknowledge my responsibilities to myself and my child, "save" us first, stop waiting for others who owe us energetic and financial debts to "do the right thing" and step up...

I need to acknowledge, own and put right those areas in my life and those relationships where I'm out of financial and energetic integrity with others...

I need to feel the grief I've been avoiding and keep moving forward anyway...

Sometimes all that's needed is the recognition and owning of what's going on for the shift to happen; more often though, what's needed is action in line with the new understanding - and that's the bit I've been avoiding...

But the cost of being an ostrich in this particular situation, is more than 10 times the cost of dealing with some of these issues when they first arose - an expensive (but obviously necessary to get the understanding!) experience...

And I need to soften towards myself in that... 

Healing from the wounds that have brought me to this place inside first takes awareness and then love and time.

We're all doing the best we can with what we've got...

If we could do it any better, we would...