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Winter Solstice and Dancing Lights (Homage to the Goddess)

ByElizabeth

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How wonderful to be given a day to stay warm indoors with the lights of the solstice tree dancing.

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    I’ve had more than one yoga/meditation teacher who has suggested that in order to make true spiritual shifts, it is necessary to pick one path (theirs) and stick to it.  I agree with that up to a point.  If we just stay on the surface of lots of different things, it will be hard to go deep.

    Nonetheless, living in a multicultural nation of immigrants and working in a field where being open to diversity is in my mind a job requirement and having grown up with the multifarious influences of New York and both Jewish culture and Quaker practice, it would be hard to think that sticking to a single-sourced spiritual path could be possible for me.  Better then, perhaps, to go deep by also looking broadly and openly.

    In that regard, though I do not consider myself a Buddhist, I often find Buddhist teachings instructive.   This article by Pema Chodron on working with chaos seems particularly useful for me today.

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    The Goddess(es) and the Green Tomatoes

    ByElizabeth

    When someone tells me I need to see the Divine I can get anxious that they mean I’m supposed to see whatever that person thinks is “the Divine.”  I don’t think anyone ever should be required to do so by anybody else.  I am, however, all for being reminded to see the divine if such exhortation is to look on whatever I encounter with the most gratitude and compassion and wonder I can muster.

    Here:  two kinds of tomatoes with two versions of the goddess (Tara and Uma (a/k/a Parvati)).   I had only a large tomato or two per week throughout the summer; with the equinox passing, the vines are for some inexplicable reason now abundant.  I will either be making a good sauce in October or pickling green tomatoes, depending on how soon we get a frost.  Or perhaps both.

    the goddess and the tomatoes too the goddess and the tomatoes

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    Archimedes

    ByElizabeth

    “We all know that distance gives perspective. Archimedes said that if he had a lever long enough and a place to stand, he could move the world.” Anodea Judith, Waking the Global Heart.” (Willow Street Yoga book club reading for March–meets the third Sunday of each month; I will let you know what is the reading for April).

    Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

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    Moksha

    ByElizabeth

    I have a set of cards that I keep on my altar that are designed to be used for contemplation.  There are about fifty cards, each of which has a sanskrit word and its meaning.  Just as one gets a fortune cookie randomly or picks a tarot card from a deck, but the message often seems right on point, the word that arises from the card picked from the stack often seems uncannily timely.  Early Saturday morning, after not having used the cards in a few months, I picked a card from the middle of the stack to see if it would help guide my contemplation and meditations as I was getting ready to say good-bye to Becky. The word on the card I picked blind from the middle of the stack was “moksha” or liberation.  In classical yoga, moksha does carry with it the implication of being liberated by transcending body and mind.

    Later on Saturday, when I was on my way home from teaching for the appointment with the vet, I stopped at the metaphysical supply shop for a piece of rose quartz (to use in a ritual to assist with the transition and loss that a friend taught me).  At the check out were “dolphin saying cards.”  There was a sign next to the cards inviting customers to take one for free.  The sign also said that it was not necessary to take the one at the top.  The cards were face down; I did not look for a particular saying.  I dug a few cards down, and the one I selected read:  “freedom has its roots within yourself.”  In other words, “moksha” for the second time on this day, when I was facing with Becky her transition of the spirit from the body.

    Was it a message?  Was it a coincidence?  I do know that I knew when it was time, as I did with Henrietta.  Becky just did not want to be embodied anymore.  When I held her in her arms after she stopped breathing, she was released and relaxed in a way she had not been in months.  That the signs were saying “moksha” resonated with Becky’s power and connectedness.  I hope that when I am ready to go, I will truly understand moksha, that I will be released.  It is so resonant of Becky’s life, for all her quirks, that she was still teaching me even as she was dying.

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