Morning Light

©2014 Mary-Lynne Monroe

Early one Sunday morning, I went for a walk down a deserted road and saw the light and shadow playing games with each other across the hills. The bright, crisp sky and the early light brought more than a smile to my lips. I felt like dancing.... even did pick up the pace of my step a bit to accommodate the feeling I had deep down in my gut. That wonderful feeling of a day of freedom.

morning light
shimmering
gleaming
creating shadows
pulling from the depths
of the dark night
the dew
and shadow
and freedom
growing as it moves
across the land
deepening
beckoning
coaxing all it touches
to sing

What time of day do you like? How do you feel about the morning light?

A Suitcase Heart

They should tell you when you're born: have a suitcase heart, be ready to travel.

~  Gabrielle Zevin

As a lover, reader, writer and dreamer of myths, the concept of a 'suitcase heart' strikes a chord. Whether my physical body moves from one place to another or my etheric body flies in the dreamtime or my psychic body journeys when I write, my heart is ever ready to travel. The gypsy call has sounded ever since I was a child. In the fifth grade, we had an assignment to write about our lives. Mine was titled "My Travels through Life" even though I was only ten at the time! My family went on a two-week traveling vacation every year. It was from these adventures that my childhood biography was written.

Through the years, some of my adventures have been simple day trips ~ to the Coast to wander the small towns, skiing on the Mountain, visiting a friend living in the woods, windsurfing on the River. Others have been longer and farther afield ~ a week in California, three weeks on the East Coast, ten days in Ireland, then days in China, ten days in Israel and the Occupied Territories. One, longer still, a year living in Egypt ~ with side trips to Turkey, Jordan and Palestine. I continue to look for places to go ~ waiting for the right timing and the movement of my heart in the direction of travel.

Many of my journeys have also been in the dreamtime as well as in shamanic practice. These journeys often leave me slightly off balance as I discover and uncover a new, deeper center. I remain open to the continuing adventures!

Where have you traveled? How have you gone? What is your favorite trip? Do you want to continue to travel? Where are three places you would visit? Do you have a 'suitcase heart'?

Drawing The Devil

The Dragon Tarot by Nigel Suckling

This morning, I decided to draw a card from The Dragon Tarot deck. My query was "a strength for the coming week." Every now and again as I was shuffling the deck, I found myself asking for a "theme" for the week. I redirected my mind back to the "strength." I wound up with two cards..... for my split questioning? or because the cards themselves stuck together as I drew them? Does the reason matter? Not to me. I figure if two cards arrived, there was a reason.

The Devil was card #1 ~ the "strength for the coming week." What a card to draw! In the guide book for the deck it reads:

Whether or not you are fully conscious of it, your or someone in close proximity are already bound to some self-destructive attachment that can only end in tears. It is time to listen to your own inner voice of wisdom and a way out will soon become clear. The misfortune threatened by this card is not a force of nature, but a consequence of choice.

When I began reading the entry, I was thinking: Didn't I do this last week? I thought I was past this. Please don't keep it happening.

Then I read the last two lines and a new realization dawned. This card is a strength if I let it be that. If I listen to my own intuition and not second guess it or follow a course of action because I'm worked up about something. The results this weed are "not a force of nature" but open to be different according to what I choose to do. The 'strength' is awareness; an opportunity to stay awake to self-destructive attachments. I can choose how things will turn out.

Have you drawn a card randomly from a Tarot deck? What did you draw? What did it mean? Did it help you move forward? or make you freeze in your tracks? What other form of divination do you use or have you used?

Un-Becoming

This is one of those uncredited or anonymous quotes that free floats on Facebook and Pinterest. It's also one of my current favorites.

I've spent many days, weeks, months looking at what I needed to become or how I needed to be in the world. How do I improve my ability to..... [fill in the blank: be in relationship, be a friend, work better, make money, live more easily in the world, etc. etc. etc.] I'm sure these ponderings, workshops, classes, meditations were all helpful in their own ways. I returned over and over again to doing something in order to become, well, honestly, I'm not sure what, only that whatever 'it' was, I'd be better being or doing 'it.'

Then I read this quote. The world went TILT and I went with it. 'Un-becoming' was a totally new concept to me. Not changing or improving or even letting go. More of an unraveling of what I learned and what I've been. It felt like a mulligan, the chance to re-do my beingness in the world. What freedom! Yet ~ as I said ~ everything shuddered as it shifted.

In every group setting in my adult life where we've discussed how to be in the world, the comparison to child-like trust and understanding is always mentioned. Every one. Yet not one of them suggested that perhaps we needed to un-become. Not only to unlearn or let go of things that no longer serve us, but to shift our being to that more innocent, loving, trusting phase of our lives. And in that process, to recognize that we were truly meant to be (something) in the first place. Something/Someone important. The original blessing of our life on Planet Earth, right here, right now. Something I am extremely grateful to recognize in this moment.

What do you believe about your life? What would un-becoming look like for you? How does it feel to think about un-becoming?

Self-Righteousness

A friend re-posted this prayer/image on Facebook ~ and I recognized it was speaking directly to me ~ to an encounter I had at work that very day.

One of my co-workers is incredibly upset with me though I'm not totally sure why. It has something to do with my challenging information that person put forward. Or at least, it was perceived as a challenge. I believe I meant it as questioning what seemed limited information, but not intending it to be personal. However, it apparently happened some time last year and I've forgotten the details ~ and even whatever the event was or events were.

All that said, the co-worker is currently extremely upset with me... to the point that every comment I make is either ignored or taken personally and reacted to with vehemence. I've been feeling put upon and wronged ~ in other words, self-righteous, because I've forgotten whatever happened and my co-worker has not.

The particular day that this was posted, we had had an encounter which I felt was more of the same. My self-righteous woundedness showed its rather unattractive head and I acted out that wounded aspect ~ though not in the presence of that co-worker. I spent the day rather uncomfortably ~ something niggling at me that my behavior needed a cleansing more than a whitewashing.

When I arrived at home at day's end, I went for a walk. My usual way of dealing with difficult issues is to carry on a conversation with the person (actually my personal version of that personality) and finding a nugget of what the core issue is for me. I did that on my walk. Two things surfaced: one was that my co-worker's opinion of me is none of my business. Whatever that person believes about me is not ME, but a reflection of that person. That opened me up for the second piece, which surfaced later ~ probably because I was feeling less wounded and defensive. That was my self-righteousness. What I was feeling, how I was reacting, also had nothing to do with my co-worker. It had everything to do with me, with my insecurity, with my pride, with my sense of self-importance.

I would like to add two more aspects to the prayer in the picture: a mind that seeks the truth and a voice that knows when to be silent and when to speak.

How do you handle your moments of self-righteousness? What parts of the prayer speak to you? What else would you add to the prayer?

Choices

"God must act and pour himself into you the moment he finds you ready. Don't imagine that God can be compared to an earthly carpenter, who acts or doesn't act, as he wishes; who can will to do something or leave it undone, according to his pleasure. It is not that way with God: where and when God finds you ready, he must act and overflow into you, just as when the air is clear and pure, the sun must overflow into it and cannot refrain from doing that."

~ Meister Eckhart

Before anything else, my disclaimer: I generally don't use 'he' God language. However, I am quoting Meister Eckhart and that's the language he used. Think about this in whatever terms feel most comfortable for you.

How amazing! I have free will ~ I can determine my actions or inactions. They are governed by my 'pleasure' ~ simply put, my own personal choice. If I want to stay home in bed until past noon, I can do that. If I want to sew a dress for myself, I can do that. Everything is governed by my choices.

Yet according to Eckhart, God doesn't have that same opportunity to choose. If God finds me ready ~ whatever that may mean ~ God must act. Like the river rushing to the sea ~ encountering rocks and a drop off, it becomes a waterfall or a set of rapids. The river has no choice. It can't say, "No, I don't want to do this now." It can't wait until later or change what it does or where it goes. It becomes a force that acts because it IS...... not because it chooses.

I've never thought of God in those terms ~ acting in certain ways due to His very nature. It's a thought I will continue to ponde

How do you experience God? What do you think is His nature? What do you think about His actions?

Grand Cardinal Cross

Between yesterday and today, a Grand Cardinal Cross has formed in the heavens. From all that I've read, it's a doozy. I guess that's in the nature of a Grand Cardinal Cross.

If you know the symbols in the picture, you know that Pluto is in Capricorn opposing Jupiter in Cancer AND Uranus is in Aries opposing Mars retrograde in Libra. Those four signs are the Cardinal Directions and the planets currently in them are highly influential. The nature of the Cardinal Cross is one of movement, the kind of getting up and doing something or going somewhere movement. This one has change coming through in spades ~ which will make it difficult to avoid. Our test? How we handle all the energy. Because Mars is in retrograde, it might be advantageous to simply go with the flow for the time being rather than begin anything too quickly. The cardinal nature of the cross will move things forward anyway. After Mars slows and begins direct movement (May 21st), then take the plunge to move on!

I am not an astrologer. From my perspective, an event in the sky as large as the Grand Cardinal Cross is decidedly worth noting... and worth taking into account as I move forward with plans and changes of my own. I have never been of the belief that whatever is seen in the stars is inevitable. My belief is that I can use the information to better understand what is happening or to be aware of and awake to the energies of influence. It's about the power of knowledge and of choice.

What do you believe about astrology? How do you use information like this? Do you want to know what's going on in the heavens?