Creativity and Spirituality: the Enduring Path

In this love affair called Life
I am too often a silent partner,
Hiding – in fear of what?
Could it be joy
of such an exquisitely simple nature
I mistook it for a dream.

The cynic’s shroud.
When did I first try it on?
Long ago when I gave up
on fairy wings and dancing slippers.
That wonder of being sparkling always
Beneath the comfortless shroud.

I am only beginning to understand the nurturing power of destruction. For so long I destroyed without knowing the cycles.
Why are ants and bees more wise than me?
The rose bush is a master teacher, knowing when to bloom and when to simply be. Yesterday, I cut back her dead blooms. She did not argue. There was nothing to protest. It was time to let go.
And bloom again.
Thank you, I said, holding her wisdom in my heart.

This is an invocation for a teleWorkshop on the Crone that I recently gave. Crone is an archetype as well as active energy within our bodies and our psyches. When I asked her to speak, this is what she said:

I come to teach about death and life, about letting go and moving on. 
I come to teach patience and the knowing that letting go and moving on happen on their own time table.
I come to awaken the energy of Crone within you.
I come to give you yourself in me.

I am a place of deep mystery, fertile beyond imaginings. I am proactive by nature and not without judgment. My judgment is righteous and built on experience, faith and compassion.

I am a fierce fighter for life, beauty and love. 
I create sickness, fear, rage and insanity. I destroy that which no longer serves swiftly and fearlessly. Although this may frighten you, know that my will is driven by compassion.

by Patresa Rollinger
She called. And like a child runs to its mother, I came. “I have to go down to the lake.” I blurted as I pushed away from the dinner table. The urgency in my voice told my husband more than he wanted to know: that he would be packing alone for our impending move until I got back.

I grabbed my coat and hat as I ran out the door, across the deck, down the stairs and onto the trail that led downhill, between Manzanita bushes and newly budding oak trees, to the lake that bordered our property.

She was so pretty, so young.
I envied her wake-up skin and uncombed hair that only made her more lovely.

I went to pay."Your name is Emily," she said. "Mine is, too. When you opened your wallet to pay, I saw your name."

We laughed. "Such a popular name now," I said. "When I was a kid, I was always the only Emily."

"I know." She smiled. How could she know?  She was so beautiful and young with her wake-up skin and morning uncombed hair. I missed my beautiful young self. Every morning I stare at my wrinkles and graying hairs that I can no longer count.

We chatted about being Emily. "The most popular girl's name for the last seventeen years," she said. Seventeen. She hardly looked more than seventeen. I paid for my coffee and left.

The yearning for youth and its beauty flowered like a dying rose.
And I said, "What have I forgotten?" To my amazement, the answer flowered like a lotus.

You are Emily.
She is you.
All is one.
You are she.
You are you.
You are old.
You are young.
You are dying.
You are born.

The flower grew beyond my being, embracing me. And yet, my mind still yearned.
 

Lately, the rhyme has been coming back to me with an understanding that became quite visceral the other day. I was walking my dog on a beautiful trail and paused on a bridge overlooking the reservoir. The sky was a brilliant blue. The branches of the bare trees held the stark beauty of winter; it seemed to me that the branches were reaching skyward in prayer.

Me, My Mother and My Daughter, Natasha

I can't go, I told myself. I can't face this...
My mother died in early December. She was 91 years old, living in a nursing home and slipping rapidly into dementia. On a late Wednesday afternoon, she was taken to the hospital with an infection that had came on quite suddenly. The doctors felt that without intervention, which she had made clear she did not want, she would die. Still, when I got the call, my first inclination was, I can't go to the hospital. Not tonight. Long Island is too far away and I am exhausted. I was exhausted. It all brought up too much "stuff" around my mother and our very difficult relationship.

Changing my mind....
I told my sister, I would come in the morning. My sister accepted my decision, but I knew she needed me. I heard it in her voice. I called her back and said I was coming. My husband offered to drive me to the hospital, but I insisted it would be better for him to stay home with the dogs... so we didn't have to worry about them. And I knew this was a time for me, my sister and my mother...