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Following is the transcript for the speech I gave for the 2022 Phoenix Take Back the Night virtual event on April 7, 2022. You can watch the video here.

Hello. My name is Suzy Jacobson Cherry, and I would like to begin sharing my story with this poem. It is called “Regret.”

When I was young

I was afraid

Boys were a mystery

But I…

I knew myself

And I was sure that I was the

Ugliest, most undesirable, fattest

Person to ever walk the earth, all

Five foot, three inches

one hundred and ten pounds of me

and no boy would ever

ever want me

but oh, how I wanted one of them

I wanted to be loved and cherished

Forever and ever, so badly

That when the first one came along

Who declared his undying love

For me, in tears, I fell head

Over heels, heels over head, and

Straight into the bed

Of terror

Oh, it took a couple of months

After wedding bells

For him to destroy what little self

Esteem I had, only a few months

To tear out my heart and my soul

And shove them into a closet

Where they cowered in fear

In those days there was no name

For that thing that I did with the

Wire cutters, the knives and the scissors

To my arms, but I

I knew that the only way to release

My fear, my frustration, my anger, and

My …

Hope less ness

Was by rending my very flesh

Until the day

After eight years I gained the courage

To rescue my heart and my soul

And walk away

I have no regrets about those years,

For me…you see,

Today, this day, I know who I am

I know I am beautiful

I know I am sensual,

I know my strength and my power and

My control over my future

And I also know that girl

That girl, who at 15, 16, 17, 18…25

Did not know who she was

Did not know she had power

Did not know she was beautiful

I know her, and I know her loneliness

I know her fears and I recall her tears

For her, I have regret

I regret the loss

Of her innocence

The loss of her dreams

And the loss of her years

To the legacy of tears

For these things…

For these things,

I have regret.

When I wrote that poem in 2010, I thought my greatest and first trauma at the hands of others was this marriage, this abuse that took me by surprise. When I became a victim, I truly had not known that someone who professed their undying love could turn from lover to tormentor, from beloved to dreaded. I did not know that I would lose a child to CPS in 1978 because I was unable to find myself in the darkness. I could not protect her because I could not protect myself.

By 2010 I knew full well I had not been alone in my experience and I had begun to think of myself as a survivor. By then, I had been writing my first book, a fictionalized memoir about my experiences called Phoenix from the Ashes for years. When I started writing it in the early 90’s, I was so angry that I punched the keys on the small manual typewriter I was using so hard that they would pop off and fly into the air. Writing was cathartic but it also forced me to question my own part in my continuing torment and anger. If I didn’t release the anger, I knew I would eventually implode.

Forgiveness for my first husband came in an instant one afternoon in the late 90’s. By then I had been married and divorced twice more. I had borne three more children, whom I was determined to raise in love, acceptance, and wholeness. I had set the book aside for a time and was focusing my attention on my children and my spirituality. I was not thinking about my past or how I had gotten to where I was, living with a friend, caring for her children, my children, and the house because I was afraid that I could not hold down a job. Chronic pain from what had initially been diagnosed as rheumatoid arthritis but was eventually declared to be fibromyalgia had forced me to quit my government job. I was struggling once more with my identity. Was I really a survivor? Was I spiraling back into invisibility? Then one day as I walked across the kitchen, I found myself stopping in the center as I felt a weight being lifted from my shoulders. I was no longer angry at my first husband, and I recognized in that moment that the fathers of the children I was now raising did not deserve the residual anger I harbored for what I had endured before I ever met them.

Within a couple of years, I went back to school at ASU. I earned my BA with a major in Religious Studies and a minor in Anthropology in 2003. I was 45 years old, and it was time to readdress the book I had been writing. I brought the story forward a bit, brought it up to date, and asked a couple of others to read it for me. When they pointed out how angry the writing was, I was able to see it too. Anger was not the message I wanted to convey. I wanted to share my story with others who were in similar situations, so they would really know they weren’t alone. With the help of supportive friends, I reworked the book until I felt I couldn’t do any more, and released it as a chapbook which I shared with anyone who wanted it. I felt as if I was answering a Call from the Divine whenever a reader came to me to share, cry, and thank me for sharing my story. For a while, I thought I had truly become that Phoenix who had risen from the ashes of her previous life. I pushed forward, working a full-time job, going back to school for my Master of Divinity, and raising my three kids with the help of my parents and my small circle of single mom friends. My friends and I, we relished our individual strengths and our ability to be all things to our children while secretly dreaming of finding that “One True Love” who would come into our lives to share our burdens and love us unconditionally. We didn’t know then that our One True Love is ourselves.

When my current husband came into my life it was a bit like a fairy tale. We had been friends long ago when we were both married to other people – he to his first wife, me to my second husband. We’d dropped into one another’s lives periodically later, first in person, then through MySpace, and finally through Facebook. Now, we had finally discovered that we loved one another. At first, I was elated, like the young woman I had been when I first met my abuser, before I knew who he really was. As time went by, I began to realize that perhaps the Phoenix had not truly risen from those ashes. I found that I had emotional responses to things he said and did that were not only inappropriate but completely out of proportion. I kept them inside while outwardly talking with him about open communication and positivity. I devised ways of envisioning myself taking that old baggage and putting it outside of myself, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. He had no idea how many times things he said or did would trigger me, and I didn’t understand why it was so. I was determined to make this marriage work in spite of the challenges of the transition from a single parent family to having a new adult in the house. I was thankful there was only one child still at home. With the power struggles between my son and my husband, and my own need to have control over everything, I think we are very lucky that we will soon reach our 11th year together.

My chronic pain had become almost overwhelming at times, my brain was foggy, I was not able to think critically or quickly. I was fired from a pastoral internship that was already my third attempt at ordination in a large mainstream denomination, and I was laid off from my secretarial job at a church. I don’t know exactly where we would be today if I hadn’t gotten a job working in behavioral health after that. In my new job, I was able to use my experiences to help others. I began to feel that while I do not believe that things “happen for a reason,” we can use reason to make new things happen. I had coworkers who had been in some similar situations as I had, including being females in the military. When I began to meet more women who had been in the military and discuss our experiences, I began to remember what had happened to me. I connected with the VA and started counseling. I was already over the age of 60 before I realized that I had been raped, not once, but twice, when I was in the Air Force. Both were date rape. The first time was when I was still at tech school. I had been “roofied”, which was why my memory of the time was so mixed up. The second time was on Guam before I started dating the man who would become my first husband. At the same time, I was being sexually harassed by a higher ranking, older, and much bigger male coworker who would corner me against the wall. I was so intimidated, I had no idea what to do, so I endured it. For all these years, I had felt guilty, believing I was at fault for what happened, and I had put those memories so far inside that I didn’t realize how that first experience affected me and my relationships with men and people in authority for years to come. Counseling helped me understand that by the time I met and married my first husband, I had been damaged spiritually and emotionally. I was already a victim before I became his victim. I also came to know without a doubt that the day I made the decision to leave him and made that a reality was the day I became a survivor. After I left him, instead of seeking out a therapist, I partied. I worked in the world of rock-n-roll in Phoenix and Hollywood. For a couple of years, I made some extremely foolish decisions and got myself into some dark and dangerous corners, but I got through them. Now I better understand why I made those decisions.

I also understand that part of my strength and my ability to survive stems from the fact that I have always held on to an element of hope and a resiliency that comes from being open to new ideas and experiences. I am still learning and growing, and I know that I always will be. It isn’t that I haven’t had dark moments where I wished it was all over. I have. It isn’t that I don’t sometimes still get a little caught up in the negativity of my past experiences. I do. It isn’t that I’m not sometimes afraid. I sometimes am. What it IS, however, is that I have a strong faith in my ability to overcome the challenges I encounter. I am not afraid to try new things. Most of all, I think, it is that I am no longer afraid to explore the darkness inside myself and to bring the hidden memories into the light. Having a good counselor through my Cognitive Processing Therapy has helped me to realize that it’s okay to find out where I am vulnerable. It’s okay to admit being human.

Somehow during all of this, I completed my Master’s program when I was 53. I was ordained in a small inter-spiritual denomination by leaders who could see my potential when even I was unsure if I was worthy to hold out my hand to others. Don’t ever let anyone tell you it’s too late to do something you have always dreamed of doing.

My book, Phoenix from the Ashes, has been available on Amazon since I completed another reworking and added resources in 2013. It was the book that led my daughter – the one I lost to CPS – to find me in 2019. She sought me out on Facebook through a relative she connected with after having a DNA test through 23andMe. It was a poem in the book, written at her 11th birthday, that convinced her she had found the right person. Our meeting and the connection of her family with ours has been one of the greatest lights to come out of the darkness.

If you’re interested, you can probably find the book by searching my name, Suzy Jacobson Cherry, on Amazon. If you do, I hope it speaks to you. I want you to know, though, that it is only part of the story. There is so much that I didn’t share, because I was afraid of the consequences of truly opening up. Everything in it is true, but the names have been changed to protect the innocent, and it is very, very far from being the whole truth. There is much that I didn’t share, because even I didn’t know the whole truth. I’m no longer afraid to face the shadows. Maybe one day I will pull them all into the light.

Finally, I want to remind you – all of you – that you will be okay. You are strong. You are part of the light that illuminates the way for others who find themselves in the dark. I want you to know that even when we are at our darkest times, there is always hope and a path to life. Though we may think we are alone, we truly are not. If we pay attention, if we listen, we will hear the stories of others that will help us to see the cracks in the darkness. Once we find the light, we must share our stories to help those who stumble into the dark to find their way. For me, it is important not to think, “why did this happen to me?” but “how can I use what happened to me to make my life and the lives of others better?” You are here tonight because you know that there is always hope. I am proud to share this moment with you all.

Thank you.

Current Location: Mesa, Arizona

I'm listening to Joan Baez singing "Diamonds and Rust," a favorite of mine forever. But it's got me thinking.

When I hear that line, "My poetry was lousy, you said," I think of so many male poets I've known over the years who, with a wide swath said, "girl poetry sucks," or something along those lines.

More than that general thought is the memory of K. K was a poet I dated in the mid-80's in Phoenix. He was an 11 East Ashland poet, a punk/rocker from the Mason Jar/Impulse/Metro/Crash days. In fact, I met him at the Impulse, where he worked. When he got fired, I took his job. K and I were an emotional roller coaster heading for a crash. Much later I ran into him at Willow House. Almost fell into the trap again, but fortunately I had grown some by then. K was that male poet. The one who says, "girl poetry sucks."

I dunno, maybe he wanted to be Bob Dylan.

I wrote more than a few "girl poems" inspired by him, all entitled, "K," and numbered in order of the time I wrote them. Whenever I read them at an open mic or as a feature poet, I never said his name. I once read a couple of them at Willow House in the mid-90's, and a woman came up to me later and identified him by name. Strange, isn't it?

Well, many years later I wrote a poem about him, one in which I imagined all the Bob Dylans and K's in the poetry world, driven mad for their disdainful treatment of one too many "girl poets."

I thought I'd share it here.

The Madness of K – A "True" Story

In catacombs they gathered,

Children of the desert night

Beneath the college campus

The lost ones found delight

She had known him as a lover

From the moment that they met

Into the darkened bar she walked

An act she should regret

For once across the threshold

A new sensation filled her loins

He stood alone behind the bar

Bottles jangling like old coins

She meant to play it businesslike

She came to sell the band

But when she walked into that place

Her mortal soul was damned

Her thirst for him insatiable

He hungered for her soul

He drew her in, he knew her name

Her desire would take its toll

Two poets lying beneath the stars

She heard his words like pearls

His worship of the masculine,

Disdain for works by girls

And now in college catacombs

She recalled the day she died

Their mingled blood ran red and free

His love for her descried

Bathed in blood and alcohol

In tears and rain and mud

She freely gave her tender flesh

And shared her lover's blood

Now he without a place to go

And she without a life

Had found each other once again

By fate or by device

He grasped her now to take her

Down forever to his lair

She reached up gently, carefully

Wrapped her fingers in his hair

He gasped, his long beleaguered mind

Had forgotten female touch

His cold blue eyes like devil's rain

Held little and missed much

She pulled herself up close to him

Her tongue upon his skin

She opened up her lonely thighs

And begged him to come in

He held her close and breathed a sigh

Forgetting what he'd done

She whispered vapid girly poems

And bade him closer, come….

In dark and dreary catacombs

She left him there, undead

Midst pools of ink and alcohol

His poems ripped to shreds

Now late at night he wanders

Through the desert city's streets

Quotes Kerouac and Ginsburg

Mutters lines from Poe and Keats

But sometimes in his reverie

He finds he knows the words

To a poem he finds a puzzle

As he quotes it to the birds

He likes the way the poem sounds

Like a ribbon the chants unfurl

It's the story of his own demise –

And it was written by a girl!

© 27 August 2008
By Suzanne B. Jacobson

Current Mood: amused
Current Location: Home
Current Music: Joan Baez

It's like a pregnancy, only at the end of the nine months, instead of a baby, I am planning to welcome a brand new life -- of retirement!

Well, semi-retirement, really. I'll be 62 and able to draw on my Social Security. I'm not foolish enough to think I can live on that amount, so I have plans to continue working half time, or whatever it takes to make just what I'm allowed to make over my Social Security income.

I'm really looking forward to it, because I will be able to focus more time on writing, marketing my writing, and building the rites of passage/ceremony "business" that is Brigid in the Desert, the little interspiritual church I pastor. I don't really think of it as a business, not really. Still, the weddings and blessings are sources of income. Oh, and art. I've been doing some experiments in painting with oil pastels, but I expect I'll be working with acrylics again soon.

Maybe as I work on the writing, art, and "ministry," there will be income from them and I'll be able to work less and focus more on those things I've been dreaming of doing for so long.

Maybe we'll win the lottery and I'll be able to start that sooner rather than later. Either way, I am very much looking forward to it. In other good news, by then I'll have a new hip, and be able to walk normally again. At least, that's what I'm hoping. I miss going for walks and hiking.

Oh, and most importantly, there will also be a new grandbaby before I retire!

New birth, new life. It's a good thing.

Current Mood: contemplative

The other day I was thinking about the different points in my life where I might have changed my trajectory forever. I supposed one might say that we make choices every day that change "what could have been" into "what will be." However, there are some moments that, in retrospect, could have been very, very good choices or very, very bad choices. For instance, I left the Air Force and got married to the man who became my abuser. If I had remained in the service, my life might have been much better in many ways. Later, when I was serving in the Air National Guard, I considered returning to the regular Air Force. My husband wouldn't allow it. What if, when I decided to leave him, I had taken that step instead of just running? Where would I be today?
There were opportunities for divergent paths during what I call my "Kerouacian" or "Rock-n -Roll" days, as well. These are the two I was really thinking about a few days ago. I was pretty much partying out the eight years of abuse I had lived with during that first marriage, and was pursuing a perhaps poorly thought out dream of working in the Rock-n-Roll business in Phoenix.
The first of these two opportunities arose one night at a club called The Impulse at Indian School and 24th Street, just across the street from the once-famous Mason Jar. I was working as a kind of clean up person while also helping book bands into the club. At night, I got to attend the shows for free, and pretty much had as much alcohol as I wanted, which seems, in retrospect, to have been far too much. One night, there was a band booked into the club that played a kind of World Beat music. The group was comprised of a couple and a few other members, who played all kinds of instruments. I don't remember the name of the band. I recall that I was impressed with their talent and I loved the "hippie-ness" of their attitudes and their clothing. They traveled in a van, which I remember as being painted in psychedelic colors and patterns. This may be one of those "fill in" memories, where I think the van should have been psychedelic. After all, it's been a very long time, and honestly, it's not integral to the experience. I thought these were really cool people, so I found myself chatting with the woman who fronted the group after the show. We talked for some time, as the van was being loaded with their instruments. Just before they left, the woman invited me to join them. I remember that I laughed and said I couldn't play any instruments or sing or anything. She said, "We could teach you! Come along! It will be a great experience, and you'll love it!" I didn't think she was serious, but she started to pull me toward the van. I laughed again and told her it did sound like fun, but I wasn't ready to take that kind of leap into the unknown. At that, she got in the van, they headed out, and I went in search of some friends to end the night with.
The second of these "opportunities" came while I was living at 11 East Ashland, an alternative art gallery in Phoenix just off Central and Virginia on, of course, Ashland. I've written about this experience in my book Phoenix from the Ashes. While I lived at the gallery, I helped out by organizing poetry readings for art opening nights. While wine and cheese were served inside the gallery with the art works, I hosted the reading on the stage in the back yard. I was writing some angry works in those days, and had created a persona I called "Elf Witch." One night, as Elf Witch, I was onstage reading a speech I had written about the importance of art and anger in a post-nuclear world. After my reading, I introduced other poets as they came up to read. It was a good night, all around. After the reading, I was approached by a couple who told me they wanted to film me performing for a video they were making about hardcore poets of Phoenix. I was taken aback. I had never thought of myself as hardcore. They told me I was to be the only female poet featured on the video. I took this to be a great compliment. After talking to them for awhile, I agreed to come to the place where the said they were filming. I never went. I don't know exactly why, but after they had gone, I got a strange feeling about it, and chose to forget about it.
I was in my late twenties when these two incidents occurred. I was a vulnerable young adult who had survived eight years of abuse and the loss of a child because of that abuse. For years, I thought I chose not to follow up on these invitations because I was afraid. Perhaps I was, but perhaps it was less fear and more an intuitive awareness that things were not right. In those days, I had not heard of human trafficking, really. There was this illusory shadowy thing I had heard someone mention in my teens called "white slavery," where women were kidnapped and forced into prostitution by criminals. It seemed a far away thing that happened to only a handful of people.
Today, more of us are aware of the danger of being duped into going places with dangerous people and ending up in the life. Were these incidents the innocent invitations they seemed to be at the time, or was there a darker purpose behind them? Was I just a frightened little girl afraid to take chances, or was I unwittingly wise in following an intuitive awareness? I am unlikely to ever know the truth. I know I've never seen a video of hardcore poets in Phoenix. Perhaps it does exist, and I haven't come across it. Perhaps they were just nice people who really did like my work enough to invite me to read. In that case, I am proud to have been invited. Perhaps the girl in the band really did think I would be a fun addition to their group of hippie musicians, and her invitation was as innocent as I took it to be at the time. Again, I am flattered by the offer.
There are many points in our lives where we can take wrong turns, and many where we can take turns that will make our lives better. We never take a straight line from birth to death, for at each juncture we choose, even if we think we have made no choice. I sometimes wonder what life might have been like if I had, say, gone back into the regular Air Force, chosen a new field, and stayed in until retirement. Then I wonder, who would I have become? Would I be the same as I am today? Probably not. What if I had chosen to jump into the van with the musical strangers who seemed so cool? Where are they now? Or, what if I had shown up alone at some warehouse in Phoenix to shoot a video dressed up as Elf Witch? When I imagine it today, I image myself walking into a dark place, with no escape.
I have no regrets.

*Note: I would like to think that both of the Phoenix invitations were legitimate opportunities that I passed up, because I don't want to think ill of anyone I've encountered. If the people involved recognize themselves in this story and want to touch base with me and tell me I missed a couple of fantastic opportunities and my imagination has run away from me, I'd be pleased.

Current Mood: pensive
Current Location: Home

I left behind my Livejournal because I thought LJ was dying. I received a message not too long ago that they had deleted my account due to non-use a couple months ago. Still, an author I follow still uses her LJ and just backs up here.

I'm spread out pretty thin, but I like to have different places to do different things. I write so many different kinds of things, but I don't keep up with all the sites I have on a regular basis. I should. I would if I had more time, but you know, there's the day job. And there's family. Sometimes I feel like I'm doing my day job (in behavioral health peer support) on my days off with certain family members. Time is at a premium.

DreamWidth is really like my LJ in that it's the place I write these weird kinds of thoughts that don't fit anywhere else. I don't even know if anyone reads them. Truthfully, I don't know if anyone reads anything I write online, but I keep doing it anyway. After all, there's the site for the church I lead as a Universal Anglican Priest, Brigid in the Desert, which is really just me and a handful of people who sometimes join me in spiritual conversation, or me providing pastoral services in the community like weddings, blessings, and such. Then there's the page that I call the Pastor's Blog, which gets waaay behind, in all honesty. Connected to that are pages with sermons I've given and reflections I've written that weren't necessarily presented in a sermon-like way. Then, there's my poetry blog, and the blog where I put recipes and thoughts on diet/nutrition, and some old short stories that really belong somewhere else, but that's where they are because that's how I started it. I wonder if I should move them here.

I love this page, because it has some of my best stuff that just didn't fit anywhere else. It's kind of pretty, too. I wonder what will happen to it when the day comes that I'm no longer here to keep it up, at least somewhat.

I've recently heard poet Donald Hall, former Poet Laurete of the United States, in an interview he gave a number of years ago to NPR. In the interview, he talked about how he expected that one day he would no longer exist and he would be forgotten. Well, he passed away this week, which is why the interview was replayed. He discussed the sense he had that others feared being forgotten, and worked hard to create things that would live on after they were gone, but that he just wrote what he wrote because it was there to be written. In a way, I'm like that. There's stuff inside me that demands to come out, to be written, but sometimes it just doesn't. I know I won't be on the earth this time around forever...we never are. I know I will be remembered by my children, and I hope by my grandchildren. I will be lucky if anything I've written lasts beyond my corporeal days. I wonder sometimes why it matters to me...or if, in fact, it really does. My real desire is to sell more of my work and know while I'm still here that I am writing something others wish to read.

Well, I'm a self-publisher, which is something I could not have done when I started writing, and made the choice not to spend money, time, and emotion sending in works typed up on old typewriters only to receive back rejection letters ad nauseum. I did that with a couple of pieces, and honestly did have some of those published, though I made little money for them. I think my decision not to play that game was partly laziness and partly fear - not of rejection, but of not being able to survive as a "starving artist."

Then, when my life turned course with the advent of children, it was definitely overwhelmingly a fear of not being able to care for them. Perhaps it would have been different if I'd chosen men who had the same kind of work ethic I was raised with, who trained for trades and got good jobs, and who loved me enough to figure out how to keep me in their lives. Perhaps then I could have raised children and written for a living. Then again, maybe not. It's futile to imagine a different life than the one I have had. In fact, when I do, I am certain I would be a totally different person than I am today, and I'm pretty happy with who I have become. Would I still be me if I had been married to one man, actually knew what it was like to live a middle class life, had a nice house in a nice neighborhood, and was a "soccer mom?" Or on another train of thought, would I still be me if I had stayed in the Air Force, gone to college earlier, gotten into a lucrative line of work, and not gone through the struggles I've had because of the choices I've made?

Probably not. I might not have even had the same children. Life is a collection of the results of random choices, often made on the spur of the moment. Between me and my clients, there is only the difference of one choice here, another there, which when made offered me the hope of a roof over my head and food in the fridge, albeit paid for paycheck-to-paycheck.

So today I work without knowing if I'll be able to retire in five years, write when I can, and hope my kids forgive me for not being a middle class soccer mom who could provide them with the amenities of a suburban life, including a father who brought in the pay while I baked cookies and wrote while they were in school.

I'm thankful for the time I do have, and for my current husband, who is supportive of my sometimes planned and sometimes sudden desire to run off to a poetry reading or coffee with a friend. I do write, and I do publish, and I do stand up in front of strangers and share my soul on occassion. I even get to draw and paint once in awhile.

If I had not made the choices I made, if I had not become who I have become, I would not be in the job I'm in today. It's not lucrative, but it's helpful to others. In fact, I consider it in some ways an extension of the ministry I have with Brigid in the Desert. I guess, when it comes down to it, I'm pretty lucky. How many other women can say they've raised three good, caring children; have a loving, late-life spouse; are helping other people; are a published writer, an artist, AND a priest?

If I'm forgotten soon after I'm gone, well, so be it. Life is good.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: Home

No one could mistake this blog for an influential resource. I don’t follow the stats here, but I suspect the readership is pretty low. I’m not a known blogger, but I do keep a handful of different blogs going because I love writing when I have time. Also, like most everyone else, I like to share my thoughts about things that are important to me. I have blogs on spirituality, poetry, food and creativity, and this blog. This particular blog is where I come with thoughts that don’t quite fit into the themes of the others, although once in awhile the themes could cross over.

Today, I want to discuss a book I recently read. The collection of short stories, Spent Saints & Other Stories, was written by Brian Jabas Smith.

In full disclosure, Smith and I have been acquaintances since 1986, when I was a wanna-be rock promoter and Brian was the singer in one of my favorite bands of the time, Gentlemen Afterdark. I was living in an alternative art gallery called 11 East Ashland (named for its address off Central Avenue in downtown Phoenix) and coordinating poetry readings when I became “Suzi plus One” on the GAD guest list. Plus One was always my good friend and partner in the pursuit of the rock lifestyle, K. The two of us were an enigma in the music “scene” of the mid-eighties. We liked and worked with bands in both the heavy metal/glam genres and the alternative/punk scene. We mixed our metaphors and our clothing styles. We met Henry Rollins at an afterhours club called “Crash” and described ourselves as “Heavy Metal Valley Thrash Punkers of America, like fer shure, F’n A.”

We liked what we liked and maybe we were confused because we were both probably suffering from PTSD from our equally violent first marriages that we had escaped just months before we met each other through a mutual friend.

Today it’s not unusual to find that a person can enjoy a range of artists from Elvis Presley to Elvis Costello or Metallica to the Ramones or even Nuclear Death to Thai Pink. At the time, though, we were the strange ones in cut up black tee shirts and spandex, multi-colored asymmetrical haircuts, and painted faces. We loved it. We yearned for more. We promoted shows. We organized shows.

We went to every show we could, especially GAD shows, wherever they took place. A good many of them at the once famous Mason Jar.

Later, returning to Phoenix after a brief foray in California and a lifetime becoming almost normal in Texas, I returned to the poetry thing and discovered Brian Smith’s new band, Beat Angels. I went to see them once or twice. Over time, I lost track of Beat Angels, of the music scene, and of Brian Smith.

Until one day, I saw an article in the Phoenix New Times. It was a memorial for GAD member Kevin Pate, written by Brian Smith. Beautifully written, heartfelt, and honest; I knew then that Brian was a writer. He had been a staff writer for the New Times, but I had missed that somehow.

The next time I heard of Brian, he was writing for the Detroit Metro Times; then he was suddenly back in Arizona, in Tucson, writing for the Tucson Weekly. Glorious articles about the people he meets, the things that make people who they are; the hard times and the joys of the people who live hard lives. Real people; tough people. Brian knows them. Brian is them.

Spent Saints is proof that Brian Smith knows the hard times and isn’t afraid to admit it.

I’ve lived an entire lifetime denying the experiences that this book dredges up in me. Oh, I don’t mean literally denying them as if someone suspected me of lining up white powders on mirrors and questioned me. No, I mean denying as in simply leaving those experiences out of the stories I tell about my life. I’m fortunate, you see, because those experiences didn‘t take me as deeply into the dark places that they take so many. Not because I was any better, any different; I once saw myself on a precipice between dark and light, and teetering, wanted to choose the dark.

Instead, for a long time, I simply didn’t choose. Walking on that dangerous ledge, fearful of falling, I kept myself safe only by the fortune of noncommittal. That ledge kept me safe from the immolation of addiction; it also kept me from the attainment of worldly success.

One can only recognize what has saved them or held them back from the perspective of hindsight. Many never achieve such insight. It’s taken me years of introspection to realize that the life I lived was mine by choice. It took Brian Smith’s stories of Spent Saints to awaken me to the value of that life.

Spent Saints should come with a trigger warning or two. It’s been years since I had a personal interaction with mind altering substances. It’s not as if I’ve forgotten that part of my life; in fact it now informs me in my day job working in behavioral health. Yet, as a peer, I see those experiences from a distance; it has no effect on my vagus nerve. Fight or flight is not triggered.

These stories, though. These stories are an emic experience; reading them is like being there. Again.

I attended a reading at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe a couple of weeks ago. Singer Cait Brennan performed. Barry Smith played his haunting original violin music, and Brian Jabas Smith read a story from Spent Saints.

Those who know me well know that I am a survivor of 2nd & 3rd degree burns on 60% of my body. It was 50 years ago, but the memory is deep. I can’t watch people on fire, not even pretend. Nobody thinks to warn about it.

The story Brian read at Changing Hands? It involved fire. It jarred me to the bone.

And when I read the rest of the stories, so did they.

If you want to understand some of the people who struggle with addiction, with poverty, with depression…read this book. It’s a tough read, but worth every word.

You can purchase the book from the publisher, Ridgeway Press, here.

Current Mood: thoughtful

When we go to a funeral or a memorial service, what do we mourn, besides those who have gone?

We cry at memorial services, even when we have not known the one who died very well, sometimes even if we have not known them at all.

Do we mourn the loss of this one beautiful life, even when we have not known the one who lived it?

Do we mourn for the emptiness left in the lives of others, though we may not know them intimately?

Is it possible, just a little bit, that we mourn something of ourselves that we have lost?

Faced with death, do we see our own mortality, and regret opportunities lost, the choice that was not made, the love that was not sought?

Faced with the mortality of others, do we grasp at our faithless moments, recalling times we could have done a good thing, but did nothing?

Hearing the story of the life of one who has died told by those who have known and loved that person best, we notice the times in their lives where they made good choices, took right turns, lived completely and utterly faithfully.

Yet even they must have taken a moment at a funeral somewhere along the line to think, “I should have done that. I should have been that kind of person.”

They were not perfect in this life, nor shall we be. Not yet.

I wonder, if the person we mourn were standing in the room with us, would they know how many caring hearts their life inspires?

I wonder, do they know that the best of them inspires the best in us?

Certainly, I know that one day, I want my life to inspire others.

I want them cry at my memorial, whether they know me or not; not because funerals are sad, or that my life is so pitiful.

I hope I can live my life from this day forward in such a way that only goodness is inspired by the story my loved ones tell.

I wrote the following in answer to a prompt for an Edx class I'm taking called Spirituality and Sensuality: Sacred Objects in Religious Life. The prompt was about what makes a place/space sacred.

{9} The Gallery: Poetry, Art, and Sacred Space

{9} The Gallery is a small open door along Phoenix's Grand Avenue - that's the busy inner-city adjunct to US Highway 60, which connects the East Coast of Virginia to Arizona-just-short-of-Quartzite half an hour east of California. Walking into {9} on the second Friday of the month, you'll find half the floor covered by white wooden chairs surrounded by paintings and other visual art by local artists.

In the back, past the bathroom, you'll find the counter. Purchase your coffee or tea, hot or cold, and peruse the shop. You might discover the perfect gift to buy - a chapbook, a greeting card, or perhaps a print created by locals. Take your time, but be ready to sit as the hosts for the evening's event arrive; the chairs will fill quickly. Settle in, sip your tea, be ready to listen. Maybe even be ready to witness. Will you share?

As I listened to Stephen Cramer's poem, "What We Do” for about the 4th time, I realized that indeed, {9} is a sacred space. It is sacred for a number of reasons, and the objects within reflect those reasons. The walls are adorned by interpretations of the world by artists who dare to apply their visions to canvas or other media. Aficionados of art both dark and light make this a sacred place. They come and they hold open their mouths at the wonder and the audacity of each new interpretation of a world that is both beautiful and ugly.

Fans of refreshment in this desert place find an oasis within which to rest weary bones and feast upon the artwork and the baked goods brought in from the restaurant down the street. {9} is a sacred space each hour that it is open for the interaction between human and human creation. Tonight, though - tonight it is made even more sacred for the sounds that will be aroused here.

On the second Friday of each month, the poetry series "Caffeine Corridor" meets at {9} The Gallery. Poets from across Arizona make the pilgrimage to hear the words of one or two featured writers and to share their own works at the open reading. This is a mixed reading; traditional poets and slam poets gather together; there is no contest, only open acceptance for the diverse nature of the spoken word.

While {9} The Gallery is made sacred by the presence of creativity, art, and the interaction of people with that art, these Friday night readings bring a great depth of holiness to the place. You see, the Caffeine Corridor series has had a number of homes over the years. It has met in coffeehouses and tea houses as well as in other galleries.

It isn't the presence of visual art that makes the place sacred, any more than the presence of a cross, statue, or other iconography makes a church building sacred. Even the poetry itself does not make the place particularly sacred, for to read a poem by oneself is different than to hear it read aloud. It is the community - the body of artists - that makes it sacred. These nights, when poets gather to partake of a communion of words, are more sacred than a gallery full of paintings but devoid of observers.

Each place brings a different kind of experience into that sacredness. Like the Orisha, who "rides" each dancer or each drum differently, the experience of poets is different in different surroundings. Some coffeehouses bring with them the sound of cappuccino machines, others are in alleyways beneath the flight path of the local airport. The experience differs depending upon the combination of poets - is the one who takes suggested word combinations in an attempt at humor present? Is the one who taps on the bongo while reciting her words in the mix? What about the one who speaks each piece from a different space on the floor or the poets whose words seem to be jumbles of unrelated syllables or the ones whose poems come in perfect iambic pentameter?

These are the variables that make the place where poets gather sacred. These, and respect and admiration shared through the snapping of fingers, the clapping of hands, or the loud, raucous laughter of listeners sharing the experience together.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: At Work
Current Music: Silence

Toward the end of 2014, I picked up my old-school journal and started writing. The last time I wrote in the book I picked up was mid-2010. It had been more than four years since I’d taken pen in hand to write my thoughts and dreams into a book!

I’m not sure why I did it. In fact, it seems like I was driven to it for a day or more before I finally did. When I did, what I discovered was amazing.

There’s something magickal about writing in cursive into books. The words flow from mind and heart through hand and pen and spill onto the pages like aqua vitae, water of life. The flow can open doors that have closed in our lives and allows our spirits to move out of stasis.

I had been shutting down, curling up, becoming stagnant, or even worse. The evening I picked up my pen and dug that journal out of a drawer was the beginning of a kind of rebirth. I blogged about it at my pastor’s blog at Practicing Perfection when I realized how much I need regular time in a liminal space and discovered that a journal can be that space, sometimes.

A journal is a place where the heart and mind meet the physical. It interprets dreams into potential realities. It is a diary…a day planner…a prayer book…a spell book. It is a place to ponder, and I have been pondering. I am ready to begin exploring new meanings out of old awareness.

I am ready to renew my relationship with some of my old gods and goddesses; the archetypes of my heritage and my psyche. Soon, I will be sharing some of the thoughts I have on the relationship between myself, the Christ, and the ancient ones.

When I started blogging at this site, I was a full-on practicing Pagan with an affinity for the god of my ancestors called Thor. Note my screen name: Thunarsdottir. Daughter of Thor. I have never been a polytheist, but rather a panentheist who considers what most people call “God” to be “All That Is.” Process Theology was the first theological understanding that explained what I believe about God in any way that made sense. I was thrilled to learn about it when I went to seminary.

I always thought of the “mythological” gods and goddesses as cultural expressions of a given culture’s understanding of “All That Is.” On a personal level, I interpret them in a rather Jungian way.

Now, I find myself considering what this can mean for me as an Inter-Spiritual Priest. How does Thor walk with Jesus? I have no doubt that he does. How can that awareness help others in their spiritual walks? I have no doubt that it can.

Current Mood: content
Current Location: At Work
Current Music: Woody Guthrie

Lately, I've been realizing how much time I've lost in being busy. My children have grown up while I was busy. My mother passed away while I was busy. My friends and I have grown apart while I was busy. My siblings and I have grown older while I was busy.

I seek to simplify my life. Quite awhile back, I wrote about the idea of minimalism, and whether or not I could do it. I decided I probably couldn't become a complete minimalist, but that I was working on cutting back on things. I'm still cutting back on things. I still have way more than I need. I need to cut back on more than just things.

I need to whittle away at my busy-ness, too.

Now, I'm seeking time to work on that. It seems ironic, I suppose, to need time to gain time...to be less busy. Yet, that's exactly what I need. I need to have time to know what I'm doing. I need time to take steps to arrange my calendar better. I just need a little time to make more time.

I'm seeking a few moment's silence every once in awhile so I can figure out where it is I'm careening forward towards.

I know at my age many are putting on the breaks, expecting a quiet retirement, but I'm simply not ready for that. I'm heading somewhere carrying my late-earned BA and even later-earned M.Div., grasping my Ordination papers along with those and hoping they somehow weave together into a magic carpet flying to somewhere that I can make a difference. I can't stop scheduling things like weddings and writing deadlines even though I'm busy trying to earn a living at a lovely stopping off point while I earn the first unit of my Clinical Pastoral Education.

Out of all of this, what will come?

When it comes, will it be too late?

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: At Work
Current Music: Ambient Noise of the Office

A Wanna-Be Hippie Reasseses Her Stance

“This ain’t the Garden of Eden/There ain’t no angels above/Things ain’t what they used to be/And this ain’t the Summer of Love”
– Blue Oyster Cult, 1975

For my birthday this year, my daughter Betsy gave me a copy of Hippie by Barry Miles. This book is interesting and filled with information about the multitude of movements that happened in America and Britain from 1965 to 1971. It was a tumultuous, terrible, deadly, inspired, mystical, and hopeful time.

During it all, I was in my formative years, watching the war and the riots on television. I am of the first generation to grow up with television for my whole life, yet I had no idea what kind of Happenings were going on.

The Summer of Love and Woodstock are but idealistic dreams of my teen years, something I thought I would have wanted to be part of if only I’d known about them at the time. Of course, I learned over time that there were dark secrets hidden under the floorboards of these utopian dreams.

In fact, there were so many things happening during those years, there is no way to extricate them from one another. The flower children of San Francisco, the poets and musicians of New York, the rock bands of Los Angeles, and the London Underground emerged separately yet are undeniably connected. Woven through these growing pains of youth were the horrors of war, near and far.

The Vietnam War, the confrontations between police and protestors and hippies, the race riots, rape…all of these were violently wrapped around visions of hope represented by flowers and bright colors of youth at a Be-In.

In this book, Miles brings all these aspects of the times together, giving the reader an overview of a decade, illustrated with photographs, newspaper clips, advertisements, album covers, and posters. It seems to have everything…almost. One Amazon reviewer laments the lack of any mention of the Jesus Freaks. Now, the Jesus Freaks are one group I recall from my own experience. It does seem a shame that they are missing from mention, at least by name. Peter Max doesn’t even get a sentence. I, however, notice something more important missing.

Throughout the book, we read of the great poets and artists who influenced the various movements or who became a part of them. Of all the poets, artists, and musicians who are mentioned, only a handful of them are women. Two female singers stand out – Grace Slick and Janis Joplin. Singer Marianne Faithful gets a nod, but only as a girlfriend. One female visual artist is mentioned by name – Yoko Ono. Perhaps she was more than just the “girl who broke up the Beatles” after all! Finally, there is not one mention of a female poet in the book. Not one.

I’ve been pondering the reason behind this. Does it mean that there were no excellent female poets of the time? Of course it doesn’t. Denise Levertov, who attended a 1963 conference with Ginsberg, was writing during these times. Anne Waldman broke out in the 1960’s, and is considered an integral part of the latter Beat movement. Lenore Kandel’s book of erotic poetry, entitled The Love Book, was deemed pornographic and was censored in 1966. Adrienne Rich was an anti-war activist and feminist, and is one of the most highly read poets of the 20th century. Susan Polis Schutz was a peace activist and poet.

These are hardly the only female poets who were actively writing and involved in the movements of the 1960’s. Besides poets, of course, there were many amazing writers of all ilk including singer/songwriters like Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez. This book mentions these two in passing. Of course, Miles would be remiss if he didn’t discuss William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, and their influence on what was to become the Hippie generation. However, mention of other writers who emerged from the scene, like Maya Angelou and Beatrice Sparks would have been welcome.

Of course, I do understand that it would be impossible to include everyone who created or was created by this volatile era. It became more explosive as the decade wore on. Hippies made way for Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies. Violence on campuses and in the streets, Charles Manson’s “Family” sneaking into homes and killing people in hopes of starting a race war…the sixties started with violence and ended with violence. Of all the female writers and activists of the era, Miles chose to dedicate a full page to only one – Valerie Solaris, the founder and sole member of S.C.U.M. (sometimes said to stand for “Society for Cutting Up Men,” though Solaris denied it). Solaris was a radical lesbian feminist whose manifesto was published in The Berkeley Barb in 1968. What made her – and her manifesto – important was an act of violence. In 1968, she shot and wounded artist Andy Warhol, who had agreed to produce a play she wrote and promptly lost it. She demanded payment, so he hired her to act in a film for which he paid her $25, according to information I found on the internet. When another publisher, Maurice Girodias, promised to publish her work, but retain all rights, she felt that they were all conspiring to steal her work. Solaris also shot art critic Mario Amaya, who happened to be with Warhol at the time. She would have taken a shot at Girodias as well, but he was out of town.

Interestingly, I had never heard of Valerie Solanas until reading this book. Yet her angry anti-male manifesto reflects the darkest frustrations of women emerging from a June-and-Ward Clever, Ozzie-and-Harriet fantasy. It is fodder for conversation – what did she say of value? Was anything she wrote intrinsic to the women’s liberation movement? While Solanas’ attempted murder of Warhol (some call it an assassination attempt) may not be as “important” an event as the Manson murders, it seems that it has some value in find a real understanding of the times…and a true understanding of those times is something I need.

I have lived most of my life imagining the Hippie life as a utopian, perpetually cool, idealistic commune of sunshine and flowers. I wished I’d been there, that I had not been only 11 the year of Woodstock. It’s been a wistful fantasy, wishing I’d been to anti-war protests and Be-Ins, instead of the Happenings of my own life, which seemed to pale in comparison. The view that I’ve had has been skewed, in spite of having met many who not only lived it, but were willing to admit it. Some of them, very young, had romanticized the Haight-Ashbury scene and went there, flowers in their hair. Yet, by the Summer of Love, the coolest street corner in America had begun to degenerate into a seamy district of junkies and teenage prostitutes.

I met a lot of once-upon-a-time Hippies later, when I lived my own Happening at Venice Beach in 1987, twenty years after the Summer of Love. Many of them were disillusioned, flowers wilted, innocence lost. One was an eternal space cadet, insisting he was Jesus, and not like “Jesus is all of us,” but the man himself. One had blown his mind so far that he sat, nodding knowingly, as another young woman told him she was not ready to go live “at Jerry’s place up north,” because she and her friend were so busy creating a new solar system, and were having trouble with one of the planets. Some, addicted and stuck like an old vinyl of Three Dog Night’s “Mama Told Me Not to Come” slept along the piers of Santa Monica, next to wounded Vietnam Vets with PTSD, spending their days begging for quarters to buy the next bottle of whatever they drank or a dime bag of smack.

There were those who had truly idealistic ideas for creating a better world. The ones who were honestly dedicated to caring for the planet and one another grew up and opened natural food stores, grocery co-ops, neighborhood gardens. Across the United States, spiritually oriented dreamers who had been in some way part of the Hippie movement helped usher in the New Age. 1987 was the year of the “Harmonic Convergence.” It was part of my Happening, and many of those with whom I connected during that time truly dreamed of a better world. The Age of Aquarius, as had been predicted, would be the dawning of peace, love, and harmony.

Yet like the Hippie era twenty years before, the New Age movement of the 1980’s was only one aspect of a complicated time. Alongside the spiritual growth and outreach, the recognition of pluralism, and the move toward acceptance of cultural and socio-religious differences emerged new kinds of music, fashion, and art. New names wove in with the old, eventually supplanting all but the biggest, most popular bands from the early days. Punk, Glam, New-Wave, and Heavy Metal…and that’s where I came in.

Timothy Leary’s popular 1960’s mantra, “Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out” transformed into Ian Drury’s “Sex and Drugs and Rock & Roll.” Looking back over these subcultures of youth and young adulthood, certain similarities stand out to me. These mantras mean the same thing, down under. Beneath the psychedelic tie-dye patterns, the Victorian velvet beauty of both boys and girls. Like dust-bunnies under John and Yoko’s Peace bed, beneath the spandex, big hair, eyeliner, and Aqua Net® runs a theme of patriarchy, power, and rape culture.

As I read through Miles’ book I noticed that all the photographs of Flower Girls and Hippie Chicks depicted thin, fresh-faced young women. This tells me that these women mattered more to the chroniclers of the era. In the book, women other than the handful of singers and artists mentioned were girlfriends or wives, most were unnamed. One wonders if the photographers bothered to ask the names of most of the women. This was a time that is often referred to as the “Sexual Revolution.” One wonders whose revolution it really was. The Gurus of psychedelics touted group sex and called it enlightenment. They gathered women around them like harems. Yet, rarely did they seem to listen to the thoughts and ideas of women. The only poetry deemed worth reading or listening to was written by men, the same men who either hated women or loved too many of them without ever really loving any of them.

Twenty years later, male musicians and artists slept with stoned underage groupies, dated exotic dancers, and those who were married rarely shared that information. Drugs developed for medicinal purposes began to emerge as “date rape drugs.” Pop songs by females or groups headed by females glamorized dressing for casual sex at the expense of the woman’s own identity. For instance, in 1984 the pop band Animotion sang “Who do you want me to be to make you sleep with me?” MTV showed the average size, regular girl that she wasn’t sexy enough. Only the tall and thin could pull off skin-tight spandex pants and a crop top with spike heels.

On the other hand, there were a number of strong female singer/songwriters who faced the challenges of relationships head on. Singers like Pat Benatar, Annie Lennox, and Aimee Mann dealt with domestic abuse and independence. Yet even in the telling of such stories it was evident that girls’ art was somehow judged as beneath that of the boys’. Aimee Mann and her band ‘Til Tuesday sang “Voices Carry,” a song that to me spoke of verbal abuse. In the video for “Voices Carry,” the male partner confronts the female about her time rehearsing, calling her music a “little hobby.” Those of us who had lived in domestic abuse found solace in the songs and videos that showed us the strength of the woman who was “walking…walking out the door!” In the world of Heavy Metal, female artists were rare. Included in the handful were Maxine and Roxy Petrucci of Vixen and Lita Ford, who kept her nails short, played lead guitar and eventually sang with Ozzie Osborne. On the lighter side, Cyndi Lauper wanted to have fun, and Madonna introduced blatant sexuality, materialism, and brilliant marketing to girls for generations to come.

From my vantage point of thirty years out, I can see the blazing path that the women of the 80’s rock world opened for the females of today, yet back under the belly of the beast, I recognize manipulation of the market by the powers that be, whoever they are. Heavy Metal is still dominated by males, lyrics are often hateful and patronizing (“I like your pants around your feet”), and when a female fronts the band, it’s most often symphonic rock, and she is supplementary to an all male band. It’s still news when a woman is the lead guitarist or the band is all female. Generally, it seems as if girls and women continue to be marketing tools, one night stands, play things to be used and put away or left behind when the game is done.

It is little different in the worlds of poetry and art. There are thousands of fabulous female poets, some of whom are quite famous, yet still the names I hear dropped as the greats are Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kerouac, now with the addition of Bukowski, all of whom have been accused of misogyny, and perhaps rightly so. While this doesn’t take away from their talents, it certainly gives me pause, particularly in a world where I have heard the words, “girl poetry is not worth reading” come from the lips of lesser writers.

After all these reflections, I come back to the question that brought me here. Although Barry Miles coffee table book Hippie is a fairly exhaustive exposé of the youth movements of the mid to late 1960’s and very early 1970’s, there is little reference to the work done by females, particularly in the areas of poetry and visual art. Is it simply because a crowd of 7,000 would not fill a hall to hear the works of female poets at the time, as they did for William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Adrian Mitchell, and a host of others, all of whom were male?

We’ve come a long way since the 1960’s in many ways. Yet in the area of the arts, where talent and appeal should trump gender, there are still few females who come to mind as “household names.” One would think that there has been progress, when the whole country mourned the recent passing of poet and author Maya Angelou. One would think…until one finds that there are some who would detract from the value of her work by debating – just days after her death – her right to call herself “Doctor” based on having received around 30 honorary degrees over her lifetime.

By the way, I am a girl poet. I have written a lot of crap that’s not worth reading. I’ve also written a few things that are worth reading. Pretty much like any other writer, even the men.

In Mind

There's in my mind a woman
of innocence, unadorned but

fair-featured and smelling of
apples or grass. She wears

a utopian smock or shift, her hair
is light brown and smooth, and she

is kind and very clean without
ostentation-

but she has
no imagination

And there's a
turbulent moon-ridden girl

or old woman, or both,
dressed in opals and rags, feathers

and torn taffeta,
who knows strange songs

but she is not kind.

Denise Levertov, 1964

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Office at Home
Current Music: Silence

I decided to go ahead and sign up with Linked In. Not sure why, but for some reason it seemed expedient at the time. I became a member of a Linked In group for "Spiritual Writers." The first post I read was one man's question about how, as a spiritual writer, one reaches atheists. This one question led to a thread that was unbelievably argumentative between some rather more conservative Christian writers, some Buddhists and Universalists, and a couple of Christians who are more pluralistically minded. It sure veered away from the original question! Nevertheless, after reading through all the arguments, tedious as some became, I wanted to post my answer to the original question. Once I did, I realized that what I had to say was at the core of my personal understanding of the Gospels and what it means to be a follower of Jesus. It really has nothing to do with what religious tradition we choose to grow in. It explains why I could consider myself a believer and follower of Jesus even when I walked with Wiccans and Pagans. It explains my discomfort when faced with the multitudinous arguments about which "religion" is the best one or the right one or the only True one. I really believe that religion is a construct of humanity. It can be a useful tool for spiritual growth and service to humankind. A particular religion is not, however, the only way to realize our connection to the Creator and to one another. Within Christianity, no particular denomination is the only way to follow Christ. While some denominations stress the sacrifice of Jesus and blood atonement, others stress the resurrection of the Christ and the hope of eternal life in God, and yet others stress the teachings of Jesus in light of social justice. Are any of them fully wrong? Are any of them fullly right? Are any of them any more right than other teachings that are parallel to those of Jesus? These are rhetorical questions, by the way...my own thoughts as I struggle with the foundational structure of my own chosen denomination, the Gospels, Paul's writings and all the things I have learned of other belief systems in other cultures and the shifting understanding of Spirituality and "God" as something that transcends all understanding and all structure. Anyway...this was meant to be a simple introduction to my sharing of the comment I made on the post. So, here it is:

I have come to believe that while the so-called "Great Commission," recorded as being said by Jesus (but not called by that title in the texts) to preach his Gospel (i.e., the good news that it is possible to find the "kingdom of God" in this life and there is hope for all in the transcendence of death etc., etc.) and to make disciples in all the world DOES NOT mean to bash people over the head by proselytizing our particular understanding of what has come to be known as "Christianity." I believe that He meant for the Apostles and the disciples to teach others to live as Jesus lived and to follow the ONE commandment that He gave: to love the Lord with all our heart, all our soul, and all our strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves. If we just followed that commandment, all other commandments would be followed by default. Not only would we be an example of Christlike living, but we would change the world. Jesus also said that whomever is not against Him is for Him (Mark 9:40). Therefore, it would behoove those who find their spirit enlivened by one of the many forms of Christianity to simply live as Jesus taught, and stop making enemies for Him. The more "atheists" and others are beat over the head with judgment by those who call themselves "Christian," the more they will choose another path, be it a "spiritual" path or not. Whichever it is, they will grow in antipathy against Jesus, all because His so-called followers cannot live the life He taught them to live.

Therefore, just write with your heart and live by your faith. All else will fall into place.

That's just my view of it, of course.

Current Mood: hot
Current Location: sweltering office chair
Current Music: None

I recently read William E. Connolly’s book Pluralism, in which he introduces ideas that challenge time as a linear succession of specific events that are fixed in history. Connolly proposes that memory and anticipation are linked to the perception of time. His ideas are drawn from the philosophy of Henri Bergson, who proposed something to the effect that time and duration can only be perceived through intuition. “Duration,” Connolly writes, “is this rapid flow back and forth between several layers of past and future anticipation as a perception.”[1] In a given moment, a memory might be called up, and in the reconsidering of the event, the future might be different than it might have been had the memory not been dredged up. The way Connolly puts is that “Duration is the flow of time as becoming. It is waves of memory protracted into a present unfolding toward an altered future.”[2]

These ideas are not new to me. Until the past few years, I had not heard of process theology, but many years ago, I read Stewart Edward White’s The Unobstructed Universe and Jane Roberts’ The Seth Materials, as well as a number of other “mystical” texts that explained time in a non-linear fashion. Time is not static, but is fluid. The past is affected by the present, and the course of the future can be changed. This isn’t something tangible, as if one could physically go to the past and change the future à la Back to the Future; rather, it is a spiritual endeavor. It is a construct of memory and perception. Consider this personal example: a female graduate student is writing a final paper while her spouse of less than a year plays guitar in another room. The music being played was written some twenty years before, when the two were friends, married to other people. In hearing the music, the student is virtually transported to the time in the past when she first heard it. She reassesses the memory, for now the music that was played in the past has a new connection to the present, and the future is thus changed because there is a new emotional response associated with the original time when she first heard the music.

Burgson wrote his papers on time, duration, and free will in the 19^th century. He was not alone in his thinking. As I readdress this line of thought, I discover connections between Burgson and the Golden Dawn, mysticism, theosophy, and me. In my little bit of research, I discovered something that sparked a memory. I vividly recalled reading a book when I was in my late 20’s by someone named Maitland. It was a book about Isis Mysteries. I understood little, but it was old, and it occurred to me that perhaps the Maitland was related to me somehow. I have always heard that everyone named Maitland or Lauderdale were related, and Maitland was my mother’s maiden name. Sitting at my computer from the vantage point of 2012, I was transported to a small room on Venice Boulevard, just a block from the boardwalk at Venice Beach, curled up on a mattress, cup of tea beside, reading this ancient book that I had borrowed. I felt the cloth binding, inhaled the musty scent of yellowed pages. I turned the pages, hardly understanding the archaic language of 19^th century occultism. I closed the book, and it was gone. I had given it back to its owner, determined to find a copy I could have for my own so I could decipher the puzzles of this mysterious Maitland.

For a moment I sat balanced on a wall between the 21^st century and my own past. I sensed that time had changed and though a mystery was solved, a new one had been created to take its place. Edward Maitland was a writer, humanitarian and a hermetic mystic. He is somehow, though distantly and thinly I’m sure, related to me. What does this knowledge mean? Is my future somehow altered by the visit to my past? Perhaps it is, at some level. I am certainly not a different person because of it; but I have no doubt that I am changed, ever so slightly, by the introduction of this new information. When I, the graduate student, was transported back to a moment when I first met my husband under circumstances that could not have foreshadowed our marriage so many years later, I knew that something changed. There was a new emotion attached to the song that hearkened back to the first time I heard it. That emotion, of course, was the love that I feel for my husband today. Now that the memory of that very first time is imbued with the emotion from today, I can never go back to the original experience. It is new, it is different, and it changed everything.

Time is not a dimension. It is a becoming. Each memory becomes a new moment. Each moment, we become something new. Each day becomes a new expectation, and each thought becomes a new reality. Standing once again on the border between times, I am aware of my becoming as a reality filled with wonder and awe, helping others to find their way into a new eternity. I expect it. I am becoming. I am being. I am.

[1] William E. Connolly, Pluralism, (Duke University Press: Durham and London, 2005) 101

[2] Ibid, 102

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: Home Office
Current Music: Air Conditioner

In my Wiccan/Pagan past, I read tarot cards for friends, and at one time was even a "Telephone Psychic" using the Mythic Tarot deck to answer people's questions. Earlier this year, at the beginning of Lent, I began to think of The Tower. You see, the symbolism of the card is about life changing: breaking down old ways of seeing things and interpreting events. It's about realizing that something drastic has to happen sometimes before we can move on. I think that the time people spend in prayer at Lent is about that very thing. As we look into ourselves and see how we can actually change the way we respond to the world physiologically because of the way we respond psychically (or emotionally or mentally or whatever other non-physical word you feel most comfortable with), we tear down our old walls. We allow ourselves to flow out of the tumbling bricks. The Tower is surrounded by a moat of stagnant waters. When the bricks fall and the gate crashes down, the moat cracks and the waters return to the greater waters, becoming something alive again. We are all finding new ways of being alive.

As I write this, I can't help but think of its appropriateness for Lent. It matters not that most "Christians" don't think the Tarot is "appropriate." This card is all about Lent. It's all about sacrifice and resurrection. And each of us, as we seek to learn about ourselves and how we can help others with the things that we learn here are undergoing a time of sacrifice, splaying open our hearts and laying them out for all to see. After that, what can there be, but resurrection?

Current Mood: chipper

I light no candles today. I will celebrate with family and friends; I will smile and laugh as I help hand out Easter baskets at the community party at the church. These things are temporal, they are of this world. Though I will be fully present at these events, I must not forget that today is a day of darkness. Christ has descended into the land of the dead. He has not yet risen into this world. I need to remember what life was like before Christ. For me. For us all.

Taken literally or figuratively, the story of Christ is the story of triumph over spiritual death, over the attitudes of those who would destroy my happiness and my hope – even if that be me. Stories of dying and rising gods have given hope to people throughout history; the Egyptians had Osiris, the Sumerians had Innana, the Greeks had Persephone. Each of these stories reminds us that there is a time of darkness before dawn; someone must overcome the powers of death that there might be new life.

For me, Jesus is so much more than these stories, for he walked this earth teaching his followers to live as He did, revealing the Image of God in the Love that He both lived and died for. The story of Jesus’ life shows us that there are things worth dying for, and they are not the things of this world, but the restoration of the Image of God in our hearts and our souls. His life is an example of the life God desires for us – a life of servanthood and giving; a life of standing for what is right; a life of sharing God’s Love with all. His life reveals to us that though it is a simple life, it is not an easy life. In the end, however, it is a life worth living.

Today is a reminder that the darkness must be embraced and lived through before new life can break through into a new day. Tomorrow we will remember that though our Master Teacher Jesus died, he died that the Christ might be revealed to the world. He died that the Holy Spirit might be known to those who accept It. He died to show us that there was more to life than the temporal desires of our bodies.

Tomorrow, I will light the candles.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: Home
Current Music: None

The following piece is an article I wrote for the May, 2007 issue of the "Gold Canyon Ledger." It's dandelion time again, and I thought it would be appropriate to share it with you. Enjoy...

In Deference to Dandelions

We live in a schizophrenic world. It is impossible to reach the end of any day without the need to multi-task, to pile duty upon responsibility. On the one hand, we are bombarded by media messages that we are not good enough if we don’t achieve a certain level of financial success, weight loss or a wrinkle-free existence. On the other hand, we are reminded almost daily that we should “stop and smell the roses.” Often, we are left frazzled and confused – when are we to smell these roses, and more importantly, where are we to find them? Many of us are bemused by the assertion that we have access to said roses when we can’t even leave the freeway of daily life long enough to fill the tank with the gas we’re working so hard to afford. Who has time to water the roses? Mine died a week after I put them in the ground. Roses are accessible to a privileged few. Perhaps the rest of us need a different metaphor.

I contend that we should consider the dandelion. I once heard a woman named Zsuzanna (Z.) Budapest say that the dandelion should be the official flower of the women’s spiritual movement. Like the women who struggled to gain a voice, this buttery beauty is often misunderstood. While my friend Z. was concerned with the spiritual plight of disenfranchised women, I think that the dandelion is a great symbol for the people – both male and female – who bring an organic, natural and constant beauty into a world that is in perpetual flux.

Lovers of lush lawns often believe that the dapper dandelion is a weed. Those who wistfully wish for the verdant velvet of grass beneath their bare toes are sometimes disturbed by the punctuation of yellow-heads. I, on the other hand, love them. The dandelion is not a desert plant, but neither are the imported water-guzzling lawns she likes to populate. No matter where the dandelion is transplanted, she takes hold with vigor. To the aficionado of well-groomed lawns and patio furniture upon close-cropped grass, the dandelion is an enemy. It is a plant to be contended with, killed or otherwise dispersed until the next riot of yellow amasses against the establishment of landscaped perfection.

Unlike the rose, the dandelion has no thorns. It is smooth and simple, never to be distrusted. Dandelions will grow anyplace. Quietly, without the assistance of human hands, they flourish with little bravado, but much notice. Like those of us who work hard for a living, those who handle the tasks that some folks may not even realize must be done, the dandelion is a survivor. They cannot be stopped. For every dandelion killed, a thousand others float upon the wind. A generation may lose ground, but the species continues uninhibited. Dandelions are free. They need no one to plant them, to nurture them or to force them into propagation. When their time comes, they dance upon the wind and toss their children to the earth, where soils blanket them with love.

Dandelions are loving siblings. Their roots are not too deep to accept change. Underground, they hold hands, extending their reach even to the outer circle. There are no homeless dandelions, no friendless yellow-tops. Dandelions are nurturing. We can eat them. They are gift from Mother Earth. Even as they reach to one another beneath the rich, cool soil, they reach to us. They can be wine, they can be salad. They smell nice and their brilliant gold will brighten up the day like a drop of sunshine fallen to the earth.

Dandelions. Like them, we must be flexible and open to change. Like them, we must hold hands and extend our friendship to one another. Like them, we must dance upon the wind and toss our loving to the world, dedicate our children to God’s good green earth. Like them, we must accept the nurturing of God, so that we may learn to nurture our own and others, even as they do. Dandelions. They should be the newest symbol of Hope.

DAN-

DELIONS

the dandelion

is yellow, is soft

like butter on your chin

she is the fluffy thing you can

hold in your hands on any summer

day. And when she is done, she

will send out little angels to float

like clouds upon the warm

and gentle winds. Dande-

is our sister.

Suzanne Jacobson

Current Mood: amused
Current Location: Work

Last semester, I took a wonderful online class called "Christian Spiritualities across the Ages." At the end of all the reading and reflection, I wished that it would have been possible for all of us to get together and discuss the readings over a good meal. I suspect we'd be talking long enough to shut down the restaurant. Over the semester, we went through a mini-time-machine, meeting many mystics along the way. As I wrote the final reflection, I envisioned us as a group called "Bill and Ted," who just had an "Excellent Adventure" gathering up mystics from the past. I thought, what if we could, like Bill and Ted, hop into a phone booth at the Circle K and go back and get our favorite Christian Mystic? Who would each of us pick? When we gathered back at the mall, who would be with us?

At the end of my reflection, I just had to thank my classmates - my sisters and brothers - for sharing that Excellent Adventure with me. And I especially thanked our professor, Andy, for being our Rufus. It WAS Excellent!

Across the semester...Across the Ages...I seemed to find a common thread between all the spiritualities, no matter how different they might have seemed on the surface. I even found a piece of that thread in John Calvin. I certainly found it in our Little Sister Therese of Lisieux; I found it in Origen and Hadewijch and even in Hildegard. That thread, of course, is the Holy Spirit. It is God. All of these people have sought to understand who Christ is - and who they are in relation to Christ. They have sought to find their identity in the universe, and they found it in God. So many of them seem to me to be describing the same thing; the same kind of experience. It's just that because of their cultural framework, their historical social location and their understanding of how the world works, the way one describes the experience is often very different from the way another describes it. Many of us have had some kind of experience that led us to desire to immerse ourselves in the awareness of God; but the way I describe it is very different from the way you describe it.

Although the class I took was restricted to Christian mystics, I can’t help but consider how the mystical experience in other traditions is similar in many ways. As I begin reading for a new class with Andy called “Your Brain on God,” I am discovering that spiritual experiences within many traditions or outside of religious tradition altogether may manifest in similar neurological responses. It poses interesting possibilities to ponder.

In the meantime, I decided that if I could go back in time and invite an ancient mystic to hang out with me for awhile, I'd get Brigid. Why? Because like me, Brigid straddles the thin line between Christianity and Paganism. Because she and I could collaborate on a cool God-poem…and because she could provide the beer...

Who would you bring back?

I have this vision of God in which God is not something separate that creates separate individual creatures. In my vision, God is a River, rushing and rumbling at the surface and flowing thick, steady and swiftly in the depths. The River is flowing toward some unknowable Ultimate, which is also God, reaching a delta and flowing into that Ultimate as if it were an Ocean. The waters are not silent; from them comes a neverending song beyond beautiful; the sound of nature, the sound of breath, the sound of creation. In the waters of the River there exist all possibilities of sentient life, all possibilities of past, present and future, and these manifest as creatures in time and space, like rocks that break the rush of the water, displacing the River for a time. These creatures - human and otherwise - do not exist separate from the River, but are wading in the Water. They seem to be static - but it's an illusion - when they are done poking their heads out of the water, they will resume the eternal flow of the River toward the Ocean. Many - perhaps most - of the creatures are unaware of the River - their feet are deep in the undercurrent where it's dark and they cannot see. The River seems to beat against them, the rapids frighten them. Some of the creatures, however, begin to recognize the River. They want no longer to displace the Waters, but to flow with them. They hear the song that resonates from the depths of the Ocean - they long to be part of it - to return to the Waters from whence they came.

These who desire to cross the delta into the eternal Ocean will submerge themselves in the River. They let go of the concept of separateness. They become the River. They flow swiftly and actively toward the Ocean, and when they have reached the Ocean, they are immersed in the very Is-ness of God.

I am a manifestation of possibilities; a blockage in the flow of the River that is God. Even my describable concepts of God are manifestations that block the eternal flow; the more I struggle to name and describe what God is, the more I block the flow of God that surrounds me. When I let go of concepts, God is free to flow through me. When I am "empty" of preconceived notions of God and of life, I am a cup ready for new tea; a chalice prepared for new wine; and when I am filled with God, I am not simply a conduit for the flow of God, I am part of the flow of God. I am the River; I am eternal.

Current Mood: contemplative

Occupying Bethlehem

Joseph and Mary had walked a long way from Nazareth to Bethlehem to be counted in the census. No matter what time of year it really was, we know that it was a dark night and the city was filled with strangers. Aliens. The inns were full and the innkeepers were turning away latecomers. Each year, when we hear this story, we imagine that Joseph and Mary were the only couple seeking shelter that night. We picture them walking door to door along lonely streets, searching for one place where they could stop for the night. “Silent Night,” we call it. But, I wonder…was it really silent? Were the streets really empty of all but this one couple?

I find myself wondering as I wander through this Christmastide about all those others who must have been turned away. Joseph and Mary weren’t turned away because they had no money. According to tradition, Joseph was a skilled tradesman; humble he may have been, but it is unlikely that he was poor. No…scripture is clear that they were turned away because “there was no room” (Luke 2:7). There was no room because “All the world” was called to the homes of their ancestors to be counted. Generations of children of Bethlehem were returning because of the decree for a census. Surely, there were others who were left without a place to stay that night. Surely, Joseph and Mary walked by others camped along the roads – men, women, entire families gathered around fires or huddled together in bedrolls to keep warm on a cold desert night. Among them, it is certain that there were those who were poor. Certainly, among those who gathered in Bethlehem that night, there must have many who were discontent with having to be there; angry for the inconvenience thrust upon them by a Roman Emperor and carried out by a Roman Governor.

When Mary met with Elizabeth a few months before, she echoed the words of Hannah with her song of freedom and hope for the oppressed. “He has put down the mighty from their thrones;” she sang, “and exalted those of low degree” (Luke 1:52). Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah, prophesied that his child, John, would be a prophet, going before the Lord who would “give light to those who sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:70). These are words of hope for a people who labored under the oppressive rule of an Empire. These words reveal the need of the Hebrew people for relief from the burden of supporting the rich at the expense of the poor.

They worked hard for their income, only to pay high taxes to support the opulent lives of the Roman rich, sometimes unable to provide for those where were ill and handicapped. Those who could not work had no choice but to sit on street corners and byways, begging for a few coins in order to feed themselves or their families. How different were these people from those who today cannot afford health care for themselves or their loved ones? How different from those who are unable to find work and find little to help them through the dark times?

When Joseph and Mary finally found shelter, it may have been in a barn among the animals; a place where there would be shelter from the weather and perhaps a little privacy for Mary to give birth to her baby. We really don’t know if they were sent there by a kind innkeeper or if they simply slipped into the warmest place they could find. They may have simply stayed in a crowded home among relatives, where there was not a bed left to lay a baby down to sleep. Scripture does not provide these details – everything we think we know comes from years of oral tradition and more recent depictions in books and film. We don’t know if Mary, Joseph and Jesus were the only people who laid their heads in the straw during their stay in Bethlehem, or if there were others who spent their nights throughout the time of the census sleeping someplace nearby. Perhaps others shared the same space where the beautiful new baby slept in a food trough or perhaps they rolled out blankets on a hillside. Whichever it was, whoever was not able to find a room to stay in camped out for the duration of the census. How long must it have taken for the Romans to count their subjects and calculate how much money could be made? How long must it have taken for the oppressor to count the oppressed so they might assess what threat there might be during a revolt?

Scripture tells us that Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem for purification according to the Law of Moses, which is about 40 days after the birth of the child. Did they return to Nazareth first? It seems unlikely to me. Jerusalem was only about six miles from Bethlehem – but 65 from Nazareth. Their trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem had been an 80 mile trek, and had taken anywhere from four days to a week. It’s unlikely they went home to Nazareth before heading the Jerusalem. It seems more likely that they would have stayed in Bethlehem awhile, either because of the time it would take to respond to the Emperor’s decree or to allow Mary to recuperate – or both.

No matter where Mary and Joseph stayed – no matter how long they stayed – I am certain that there was conversation around the reason they were in Bethlehem in the first place. Was Joseph discontented that he had to bring his very pregnant bride on such a long and arduous trip along dangerous roads just so the Romans would know how many Jews they had under their thumbs? Was Mary upset that though she carried the Light of Hope within, the poor, the ill and the suffering were forced to take a costly and likely unhealthy trip?

The Hebrew people outnumbered the Romans, yet the Romans and their appointed cronies most certainly held the bulk of the wealth and power. There must have been rumblings among the people gathered in camps along the roads of Bethlehem and in the homes where generations gathered during this time. Such rumblings, when heard of by the Romans and their supporters, must have stricken a little fear in their hearts. The scriptural tale of the Wise Men’s visit to Herod and Herod’s subsequent decree to kill all male children born at the time of Jesus’ birth illustrates this fear. Did the Jewish leaders who conspired with Rome hear of the gathering of Shepherds and the news of Angels? Did they fear the people more because their voices were being heard by the likes of Wise Men from afar? Did they hear scraps of news out of context and misinformation contrived to keep them on the side of the Empire and to look upon their own people with derision?

It wasn’t over with Jesus’ birth; the camps at Bethlehem broke up after the end of the census, but the poor and the hungry still gathered at street corners, begging. We know that many anti-Roman leaders rose out of the crowds to fight for freedom. We know how Elizabeth’s son John grew up and began to gather together groups of followers as he awaited the leadership of his cousin, Jesus; and we know how the story of the beautiful baby boy in the manger’s life among the people ends. He became a rabble rouser and a freedom fighter. He dared to model radical love for his people. He performed miracles; he served the poor, he healed the sick, he taught women, men and youth alike, he loved the children and he spent time alone with God. He spoke out against tyranny and oppression of all kinds, and he turned over the moneychanger’s table at the temple. He died for the truth and in his living and in his death, he provided the highest example of living an honest life that has ever been.

When Mary and Joseph came to Bethlehem, the city was under the control of the occupying Roman army. The Hebrew people were forced to gather in the streets to meet the demands of an Empire. Jesus was born among the displaced people of Israel; he grew up understanding that whatever peace they had in their lives was at the expense of the people and under the control of the Roman leadership. He grew up to stand up for those who were bent under the burden of governmental control and the demands of the rich. About a week before he died, Jesus led his disciples into Jerusalem. He was accompanied by his followers – not only the twelve apostles, but a much larger group of those who heard what he had to say, who had seen his miracles and had been shown that it is possible to love your neighbor, including the tax collector and the Samaritan. The group that Jesus led into Jerusalem Occupied that city from the day they entered until after his death. They dispersed into smaller groups; they feared for their lives and some even denied knowing him. But on the day they entered, the very people who had once been forced to Occupy Bethlehem chose to Occupy Jerusalem.

This Christmastide, I choose to Occupy Bethlehem. I choose to recognize a Bethlehem that was not so silent, but that was filled with the cacophony of people who gathered against their will, believing that one day they would be set free of tyranny and oppression. I choose to hear the laughter of those who found peace in the hope they had for the future. And for a moment, I choose to hear the “Silent Night” of Bethlehem. I choose to hear that eternal silence that comes just after a new baby is born, when everyone holds their breath…

…and the sigh of relief and the awakened hope when they hear the joyous sound of the baby’s cry…

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: Home

What is the nature of Love? Is this not the crux of our spiritual pursuits? Not the question of having love or being loved in the popular way of romantic love, but Love itself? Is it something that overcomes even the thoughts that keep us focused on ourselves? That thought, upon awakening, that encourages us to curl back up and go back to sleep rather than drive to the food bank to volunteer? When we roll over once, then pop up and go, despite wanting to stay abed? Is that Love?

Is it Love to sit in conversation with the homeless man, who is really quite educated and rather intelligent, not just placating him, but really listening? Or is it Love when you sit in a group with four women who don't speak English, only understanding a few words here and there, but smiling when they do and hugging when you or they leave?

Is it Love to lie quietly, listening to my husband...listening to him breathe, and wondering?

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: Home
Current Music: Birds outside the window

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In Silent Meditation

Stuff I Think About When Nobody's Looking

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