Grounding The Storm

Sept. 29/03 – Essay for Psychology of Religion Class with Dr. Paul Antrobus

Throughout my life, Spirit has been my only anchor. Whenever I thought I had solid ground in this earthly experience, Spirit would sweep through my perceptual and physical experience with Storm energy. In the exact moment of destruction, Spirit would create a new paradigm of experience for me to explore. I have always been guided by the crystal clarity of spiritual understanding. Instruction is found in every person I relate with, with every book I read, with every animal or natural phenomenon I dare to accept into my beingness. Challenged by the accountability of my inner spiritual guides I take action to co-create my life. If the action I take is wrong, Storm sweeps through my life to lead me further along my path. If the action is correct for my path, Storm sweeps through my life to evolve me further. There is no right or wrong I begin to understand; there is only the experience of Spirit manifested in the ebb and flow of my existence.

In the rare times that my inner stillness meets my actions, I feel Spirit's full power flowing through me. When I am attached to my physical and emotional experiences I feel Spirit's power pulling me to find the faith to lead me back to my stillness. When I feel lost in the mental creations of myself and the world, Spirit brings me the experience of my own judgements in order to see every aspect of creation that is from within myself. I am created by Spirit's Storm energy and I am that very same energy.

Like a tornado sweeping through the prairies, I ground myself to the physical paths of different religious experiences as the chaos of Storm sweeps over me. In the center of peace, Storm shows me the different methods allowed to humans to experience this Energy of Spirit. While in the eye of Storm, my intent leads me to a direct experience of Spirit in a specific religion's form. As I begin to relate closely with the form, the rest of the Storm's cycle moves over me and sweeps me to remember that Spirit has no one path, but many to explore and acknowledge.

So I now trust the path that Storms through my life. I have now come to learn that Spirit's path for me is Process – I will never be able to find security in any one path or other man-made ideology. I am always challenged to keep my human sanity within my human body. To do this I use the rocks and crystals of the mineral kingdom. Recently, the plant kingdom has opened up and helped me stay within my physical body. Yet, even these are only tools Spirit allows me to anchor my mental need for security on.

Meaning is everywhere and in everything, showing me the relationships I need to be in. My purpose in life is to bridge the diverse understandings of Spirit and challenge people to move beyond their limitations created in judgements and recognize the Process within their lives. Our wholeness as human beings is already achieved and only needs to be uncovered; covered up by the ideologies and judgements and belief systems of man-made securities, the wholeness of ourselves is waiting to be rediscovered. As children we knew wholeness naturally. As we grew up we became schooled into the illusions of differences and now must unlearn these teachings and reconnect to the unity of this world and its many dimensions. Returning to relationships, we as the human race can then continue further into experiencing Spirit as a whole.

The best way I can explain in linguistic terms the nature of my ground is the no-ground of Storm. A storm is made up of energy that then reacts with matter. Spirit moves through the four elements – earth, air, fire, water – and using a combination of two or more of these elements creates the experiences that connect the moments together into a whole time-line within the space of our human understanding. All is Spirit; even in experiences where humans have judged the experiences to be separate of Spirit, Spirit exists.

My challenges in life are not finding my ground in spiritual experiences, but how to find within myself a way to operate in the everyday world of illusion. Many times I feel that I have to lie to myself in order to relate to the world. The openness and communion of Spirit leaves me alienated from acting efficiently within the everyday world at times. Even the language we use is inefficient to convey the spiritual processes of living. Yet, trusting that everything is perfect from a spiritual perspective, I stay centered within myself and strive to find the balance of my spiritual guidance and direction with the detached observances of my self-perceptual illusionary world I must operate in.

Understanding the Storm

Oct. 27/03 - Essay #2 for Dr. Paul Anthrobus in Psychology of Religion

    The ground of my being and my world of understanding is Storm. Anchored in Spirit, the Storm's cyclical processes sweep through my life continuously. My purpose in life is to experience the Spiritual Storm, ground it into an expression that can help bridge understanding and awareness into the experiences of other people's lives. I cannot do that unless I first am aware and understand my own experiences.

    Life actualizes through cyclical processes that cause change, both within my Self and without, creating effects that set the reality of my experience. Spirit has been my only anchor since I was very young, if not earlier than this life cycle itself. Spirit directs Storm's energy, which is made up of the relationships between the elements of earth, air, fire, and water. I am made of these Spiritual elemental energies - earth my body, water my blood, air my breath, and fire my spirit – thus I am the Storm connected to the reality of Spirit's Storm in this plane of existence of life on Earth. Understanding the symbolic meanings for myself helps me understand the world and my place in it. Using symbols that have been given to me in mystical experiences, I communicate and relate these symbols into the comprehensive processes of my life.

    These mystical experiences arrive with various degrees of intensity. Some of the most pronounced and paradigmatic experiences have created a continuous process of active meaning in my everyday life, thus transforming my whole world of being. My definition of a religious or mystical experience is one of heightened cognitive and emotive-kinesthetic reality, where timelessness and spacelessness is pervaded with pronounced clarity that allows the sensation of at-one-ness with all aspects of diversity within the experience of being whole within the process of its unfolding, without dualistic distinctions of separation. There is a selflessness, a no-otherness, with no active effort added to the unfolding. It is a heightened "it is as it is", a perfection without the distinction of perfectionism. No words could communicate the communion of synergistic dynamics within the experience. It has to be experienced.

    Within my definition, both cognitive and emotive-kinesthetic are used to describe the reality of the mystical experience. Gordon Allport emphasized the cognitive in an experience and William James emphasized the feeling (Wulff, 585). Both need to be included since the whole being experiences a transpersonal moment of intense awareness. Awareness is on all levels of being, not only on a cognitive or on an emotional level. Experiences like these affect the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels of a being, bringing a higher intuitiveness, a higher clarity of reality to everyday existence.

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    When I was a child I remember only the confusion of neglect from the people within my family. Each lived within their own private universes, wound up tight within their own realities to really communicate with each other, let alone a young child. I could not understand the chaos and the abandonment I felt, especially when I could step outside and feel the unity within nature, with myself fitting perfectly as a part of that world. Growing up in Ontario, I lived between the suburbs of Toronto and the countryside of the Kawarthas.

    There was a sharp distinction when I was a child between nature and the world of people. I preferred to spend my time in nature. In nature I felt the proper order of the universe through various degrees of mystical experiences that occurred. I could lie on a boulder and feel as big as the boulder, as high as the grasses blowing in the wind, yet smaller than the tall pines and the immense sky above them. The pine trees whispered lullabies to me as the wind would caress my concerns away. There was one time when I merged with the wind sweeping through the long grasses. Like a spider's silk that can connect and catch everything in its web, my life in nature was connected with the Web of Life. This unity and sense of belonging kept me sane for the first decade of my life and gave me a heritage that I could recall and pick up again when I was older.

    My childhood contained love in a very abstract and distant form. Without blame, I can now look back and see how neglect has become a generational heritage passed down from one generation to another in my family. With no parental skills, with very little interpersonal or social skills, my family did the best that they could, usually with the help of cigarettes and discardable or controllable relationships. Like those before me, I learned skills that helped me relate to the other human beings around, first with my family and then the larger population.

    Through example I learned how to hide and how to be seen. Solitude has never been a problem for me growing up. The adults in my family always bragged about how well behaved I was as played well by myself; I always had a storybook or paper and pen with me. At the age of four I was writing simple stories and reading children's classics, providing me with a rich inner world of experience and wonderment that I did not have in life. These stories also opened me to the devic kingdom of nature. In nature I could lose myself in how the process of life grew out of the death and decay on the forest floor, co-existing and feeding off each other. Relationships and patterns were clearly meaningful and I have always seemed to have an inner teacher that gave me direction and guidance that I would later understand as my inner intuitive Allies. Unfortunately this rich, subjective experience of nature highlighted the deficiencies in my family relationships. I could hide in nature, yet I also needed to learn how to be seen.

    I learned wonderfully. I learned to speak 500 words, really fast, so that 50 could be heard. I learned to create tangible objects with my hands to give the adults something to focus on, to direct the little attention they could afford in a comfortable way towards me. Most importantly, I became super-sensitive in the translation of the unconscious language of family and group dynamics and I became a master controller of individual and group energies. As my younger brother and cousins started to arrive, I became the protector and manipulator of their young worlds. I unconsciously took on physical and personality traits that would allow me to fit in to my family's world; reading and making crafts and handiworks like my Nana at a very young age; laughing and duplicating my mother's sense of humour; a need that was a constant desperation to search for something outside of myself, that would better myself and my situation like my aunt; the silence that can be broken by the lash of angry words at any moment, as well as the way of keeping people, especially those of the opposite sex, at a safe distance, both of which was utilized by everyone in the family.

    I grew up with an extended family, yet everyone was alone. Loneliness, insecurity and confusion were the mainstays of my emotional existence. I lived most of my younger life between two places in Ontario, yet I never knew where I would be living the next day, or who with - my Nana, my Mom, my Aunt or mixtures of them together. My dad had left before I was three and I had blamed my mother because of the only memory I had of him and what she had done within that memory. My mom actually became my masculine role model, along with my aunt, and my Nana was my feminine one. Male was strong and independent, while female was weak and incomplete. Papa, Uncle Billy, and Uncle Glenny were always floating on the peripheral at the whims of these strong women. Even with the women's weaknesses, their active control of my surroundings in an unemotional and detached way showed the strength I would have to gain to survive. I was always told I was too emotional and weak, but very intelligent and creative. These became part of my character, along with the projections of each member. I always heard that I never finished what I started, that I was naïve and that I should not be like my mother. I became wrapped up thinking that I was no different than my mother, except that I could never harden my heart. All this shows that the control of my inner world came out of the control of my outer world; the women controlled where we lived, whom we lived with and when we moved where. I would start school every year at the same school in Scarborough; my Grade 1 teacher called me "an Old Penny that is always turning up." As I grew older, the moving around became worse when my mother decided to travel west to find work. Instead of moving within two places, sometimes she would take my brother and me with her all over the country. Within two weeks to a month, after starting school, she would send us back to my Aunt or Nana.

In grade 5 I went to six different schools in three different provinces. I gained excellent communication and oratory skills, but only for introductive and immediate purposes. I never stayed long enough anywhere to learn how to handle intimacy, discipline, or conflict. To deal with all of this, I had my inner world of imagining the future, but I disconnected from nature and the belief in the spiritual beings I played with as a child. I started smoking cigarettes at nine years old, with them becoming the only intimate and long-lasting relationship from my childhood.

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    Cognitively, I did not even know that Spirit existed or was active in my life, let alone that I was in fact connected. My Nana had gone to a convent school in Saskatchewan. Growing up, her religious upbringing was neglected to the family bible locked in a dresser drawer in our country schoolhouse in Bobcaygeon. Religion was not part of my upbringing, yet I longed to understand the inner dimensions of myself that drove me to be so different from everyone else I knew. One day I was caught with the family bible and had seen my name in there, connected with the others in my family. Papa was fuming and told Nana. I remember yelling the question that received no reply: "Aren't I part of the family?" I was grounded to my room after a spanking with the unanswered question floating around in my mind. I came to my own answer; I did not fit in. It was not only the fact that I was not a part of the family, but also that we as a group must not be a family. No one in my family talked, or touched, or shared anything like I read in books or seen on TV about families. The next day I was given a little red New Testament bible and allowed to go "searching" with my aunt, as spirituality was dirty and seen as a weakness.

    Searching is what my mom and Nana always said about my aunt. She would go from one denomination to another searching to find a way to meet her many needs. My aunt took me to my first Sunday school service. The topic was "God Is Love" (1 John 4:16). I loved it, until we were taken back upstairs and listened to a sermon about hell and damnation. All through my Christian experiences over the next few decades I still could not understand how they could believe in the rewards and punishment of heaven and hell. Thank goodness I had stuck to the first teaching of God is Love.

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    The experiences of my childhood formed the foundation for my life lessons and spiritual unfoldment and evolution. Spirit and Spirit's Storm always moved through my life even when I denied my Allies and inner guides, as well as other spiritual messengers. I closed myself down and looked towards both self-improvement systems and religious institutions, thus denying the natural way I had within myself, in order to try to fit in to mainstream society.

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    The mystical experiences themselves tend to transcend the limitations of words. To use words, no matter how descriptive or metaphorical, I have to make decisions about what was within the experience and what was not. Because of the static tendency of our grammatical structure, the wholeness, the cyclical process of the timeless NOW and the spacelessness within the experience becomes no longer fluid. The only way for me to describe these experiences would be to reduce them to analogies of Storm to represent the unity of process and duality and the Web to represent the interrelatedness and inclusiveness within the experience. The space between the experiential parts and me is nullified in these experiences and creates a problem in trying to find words without using the object references that our whole language depends on. The only way for me to truly relate these experiences is to give a form of experience to others; anything besides experience is belittling representations made through my perceptions and the analysis from outside the experience. This would then hinder any complete understanding that I would want to communicate to others.

    Because of this, instead of going into detail that will not communicate my personal mystical and religious experiences, I will relate them to the pertinent questions that affect my life.

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What gives me a sense of identity?

    I identify with the guidance of my internal spiritual allies and with the clarity of spiritual experiences that guide my way. Usually if I feel fear, I know that a growth spurt has arrived. I remember the fear I felt my first philosophy class. I hated going to that class, with every emotion being activated and producing stress throughout my whole life that term. Yet, that class has made me focus more on concrete thinking, planning, and execution, not only in my writing but also in everyday life. That class showed me that a part of me was out of harmony when I thought I was balanced.

My sense of identity is found in the stillness of my meditations or in my smoking, unfortunately. I have made several attempts to quit and have lost even more power, integrity and volition to that outside influence every time. I can fast without food, water, sex… yet I cannot go past 16 hours without a cigarette. My reaction to being smokeless has much of my identity wrapped into having that crutch I picked up at nine years old. Smoking is the one thing I have not been able to let go of, even with Spirit's direction and urgings to do so.

Other features I choose to identify with by finding meaning in them are:

• I identify with being a woman influenced by the moon and her cycles
  
• I identify with being a woman whose sexuality, sensuality, nurturance and balance mirrors that of Gaia, our Mother
  
• I identify with my creations, even as I let them go
  
• I identify with my skills as a writer
  
• I identify with my desire of being open to knowledge, especially of experiences – the true teachings
  
• I identify with my ever changing relationships
  
• I identify myself as Tina living in Regina and going to university, for now.
  
• I identify myself as Aya, having red hair, an elemental mage of the Irish Mulligan tradition, and following these tribal ways
  
• I identify myself as Asiniy Atayohkan Iskwew and Wapimostos Iskwew, following the Cree traditions of my children
  

These last identities are constantly evolving and changing within the web of my existence and within the understandings of Storm. These are the boundaries of my games through life.

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Am I on purpose for my life?

Yes. I came here to actively clear and clarify Spirit as a part of this realm, not separate from it. The secular and the sacred are one. People have had to separate them in order to understand them, like every other separation of duality found in our ideologies. Yet instead of seeing them as separates competing, I must first actively clear myself and clarify Spirit's influence in the dualities of my own existence. By first bridging the complementary natures of duality within myself, I then can move outwards and begin to help others who are ready to do the same. I cannot judge who is ready, but must wait for the direction to come in each moment. The chaos of Storm supports the center of stillness and the center supports the outside cycles. Bridging the light and dark aspects in myself is my main purpose right now as I continue through university to learn the tools I need to more easily accommodate those understandings in others and to learn how to accept the diversity of Spirit myself. Through mystical experiences I have been shown the four A's: Awareness, Acceptance, Accountability and Action. Through the use of these four principles in self-assessing myself daily, I can find balance within myself and with the world around me.

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How do I know I am on purpose?

The religious experiences are the mystical guideposts that show me that I am on my path. When these stop, I know that I have wandered from my path and my purpose. Shortly after a realization and an assessment of where I have disconnected with Spirit's guidance, the experiences continue.

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How do I make daily decisions and are they separate from religious ones?

    When I was younger I allowed whichever system of belief I was in to dictate to me what was right and wrong, good and bad. I would make judgments against myself, against my family and friends and against strangers. I would start saying "Never" and Spirit's Storm would sweep through so that I would have the other side of the experience that I had judged. This eliminated most of my earlier judgments and helped me stabilize the direction of my life processes. If I adjusted my judgments to a newer form, Spirit's Storm would spiral through with a new situation within the old context or framework. Building on the past, deeper lessons and individual gains helped me return to the wholeness of myself. As William Blanchard is quoted to explain "peak experience is in reality an 'all-directional' moment of free creativity that is genuinely dangerous to a person's identity… the familiar world and even the self are thrown into question, so that the individual has nothing to hold on to"(Wulff, 629). Dangerous within Storm's boundaries, the center is the safest place to be and the mystical experiences are the keys to understanding how to maintain that center within the process of change.

    These heightened mystical experiences taint the secular, everyday world with heightened connectedness and clarity of Spirit's process within it. Self becomes less important to the process and the anchor of Spirit's Storm in movement. The challenge is to stay in the center of the Storm and help others experientially bridge their way through the Storms within their lives, to connect to their own center. This is a hard challenge because I have to remain calm and centered within my own personal Storms as Spirit has me move them through their Storms, whether I am to be a passive support or another challenge to help them move to their center. Either way, Spirit asks me to use both my Light and my Shadow to help bridge the distance between the other person's sense of reality and their purpose.

    My purpose can only remain pure if I am constantly re-assessing myself daily with intensive Spiritual clarity. The spiritual direction within tells me how to live my purpose in each moment. If I have an emotional involvement, I have to step back from the situation and clear my intentions by taking a personal inventory on the following:

1. What am I emotionally reacting to?
   
2. What judgments have arisen that I must become aware of and must change to "I" statements to clarify my response-ability
   
3. How can I take ownership of these through forgiveness and/or understanding?
   
4. What actions must I take to heal this reaction so that I can respond to the situation better?
   

My emotions evaluate if I am 'doing' my purpose (doing is off-balance) or if I am 'living' my purpose. If I find myself 'doing' my purpose, I must move inwards to explore my beingness before moving outwards once more.

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Awareness is the first key to the transcendence of the mundane world of existence. By seeking a spiritual awareness that involves clarity and courage, the past is translated by using the totality of life experiences to re-invent a healthy centeredness within the Storm of life on Earth. "Attending alertly"(Antrobus, 25) leads me into accepting the dualities found within my ideologies. I can integrate the complementary natures into the wholeness of my being. Taking action from the center of Storm allows me to be accountable for myself and for the world I create. This leads to a reciprocal responsibility with all energies found in existence and leads me back to the Source of Spirit's Storm.

Bibliography

Antrobus, Paul M. Ph.D., Listen to Your Life: Awareness Workshop Seminar Manual.

Regina; U of R. 1989.

Fadiman, James, and Frager, Robert. Personality and Personal Growth, 5^th Ed. New

Jersey; Prentice Hall. 2002.

Wulff, David M., Psychology of Religion; Classic and Contemporary, 2^nd Ed. New York;

Wiley. 1997.

*** Personal journals and every book I have ever read, every person I have ever talked to, and

every inspiration I have ever received from Source and its many Allies.

Being the Storm

Nov. 24/03 - Essay #3

Centered in myself, in the eye of Spirit's Storm, I see the actions of the world and how I interact and interrelate with it all. As my emotions activate, tossing a piece of myself from the chaotic process of my life into the center of stillness that is my being, I rise to find the crystal clarity of awareness to recognize the illusions that produces the fear within this process of life. Gaining strength in the center of stillness I become more of the 'I am' of Spirit.

From a childhood of powerlessness and neglect, I rise internally to meet my own needs. Where I could not understand or interact with others, I gained the direction to understand myself. Where I could not communicate my feelings and needs because they were not heard, Spirit flourished. Feeling alone and worthless within my family, Spirit in nature became my companion. Like Jung, I was " mistrustful, remote from the world of [people], but close to nature, the earth, the sun, the moon, the weather, all living creatures, and above all close to the night, to dreams, and to whatever 'God' worked directly in (me)" (Rosen, 28). A purpose and drive took hold of me to experience Spirit within every possible dimension of my being, and to use Spirit as the center of the chaos and the powerlessness I felt around other people. Slowly, I stood within Spirit in the center of the Storm.

Storms fascinated me as a child. The moment of destruction and creation constantly transformed the landscape around me and became my analogy of life. George Kelly, in his personal construct psychology, recognizes that our conceptual "constructions of the world determine our experiences of the world" (Fadiman, 384). Storm is my personal construct that accepts both the stillness and the chaos that is within me and allows me to freely accept change in my life.

Earth is solid, grounding, and easily torn away in a Storm. The centeredness of having a home base, the schoolhouse in Bobcaygeon, was torn away from me when my mother moved our family out west. My home base was totally eliminated after Nana died and Mom sold it. I had no physical ground from that moment on.

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Storms are constantly moving, constantly shifting, and always out of human control. By attaching Storm to Spirit, I have found a way to transform my hopelessness, my loneliness, and the powerlessness of my childhood into an understandable path of self-actualization and full of personal purpose within the matrix of life. Erikson's third stage of Psychosocial Development speaks of the development of the sense of purpose as "the vital virtue" of this early stage in life that allows one to form and work towards future goals with "courage… uninhibited by the defeat of infantile fantasies, by guilt and by the foiling fear of punishment"(Wulff, 377). By recognizing Storm, I gain awareness of the chaotic constancy of change. If I grasp at a part of my life to 'damn' it to remain the same, I ride the roller coaster ride on the periphery of the Storm, getting bruised and banged around by the processes out of my control. Instead of grasping I am learning to relinquish to the unity found within duality – my calm center within the Storm of life. Seeing clearly from the center of my beingness in communion with Spirit, I can see through the illusions of chaos and see the interconnectedness of all phenomena and how my mental views of it, as well as my judgments, transforms the reality of it.

Spirals found within Storm's energy help me follow my own personal cycles in my body, my mind, my emotions, and in my spirit. By seeing the macro organism of Storm, I can more deeply understand the micro organism that is "I" and understand the cyclical processes within my own life. From Bohm's theory of the holographic Universe's enfolding order and unfolding realities (Talbot, 46) I begin to see and experience my life and my connection more fully. Standing strong within the knowledge of my own personal meaning, I am less likely to be whipped too and fro within the Storm's path. If I am off-centered and find myself in the chaos, my internal knowledge reminds me of the processes leading my life back to myself. I become more fully accepting and accountable for myself and the concepts of the world I live in.

The center of the Storm is calm within the balance between my polar judgments of good/bad, right/wrong, and light/dark. Slowly as these judgments lift I am able to take more of my life within the boundaries of my sacred space of stillness. The process of my life reflects the stillness within myself and casts the Storm's boundaries further from my deep spiritual center. 'I Am' meets 'Who I believe I Am' more fully and more harmoniously, without the clash of unconscious reactions and interpretations to and of the world around me.

Can I walk within Spirit's Storm for me? Trusting outside myself is hard and has proven painful if I attach my trust to humankind. Yet, sensing and knowing my own inner spiritual core that sits solid and centered within me allows me to trust that Spirit is also working similarly in other people's lives. I begin to more fully trust Spirit working through other people and I learn to release my expectations of the human beings themselves using this clarity:

Clarity is the perception of wisdom. It is seeing with wisdom. It is being able to perceive and understand the illusion, and to let it play. It is being able to see beyond the activities of the personality to the force of the immortal soul (Zukav, 228).

 

Detachment from taking things personally is still a challenge, but I simply recall how I have acted inappropriately out of fear and how I have found acceptance through claiming ownership of my own strengths and weaknesses. Storm reminds me of the strong definable characteristics of centeredness surrounded by the clutter and frenzied activities where the elements combine with each other. Wind controls the velocity and direction of Storm and reminds me to be grateful for the long, slow breaths of life that helps me retain my centeredness, moves me through the feelings of my weaknesses that strengthens my core foundation of being in a body and at-one with the world around me. Being at-tuned allows me to flow through my processes and reclaim my own heritage from within rather than from the world.

Wind mixes well with water and helps me reach deep into the childlike essence of my adult self and allows me to nurture the memories I carry of childhood and transmute the trapped energy of unmet needs and disappointments into flowing energy that I can use to meet my contemporary demands and future goals. To unlock the past brings a feeling of ownership in the present and a solid foundation to build a future on. Because of a moment's action, time becomes more cyclical and accountable rather than linearly lost to the past.

Being centered allows me to connect to the motivations and the warmth of Spirit's fire. Warmed by love for myself, I can spread the fire of Spirit from the starting point of self-love to a blazing fire for all of humanity and the world. My desires, motivations and goals become fueled by the internal passion for life as I live to express Spirit more fully on this earth's plane of existence and beyond. Centered in Storm I can identify clearly my own ambitions for me, rather than the social roles delegated to me; I can transform my world from within and become an example of stillness. Living in the center of Storm, I can view the Storm of my own creation, bringing the Light of awareness, the expansiveness of acceptance, the solidity of accountability, and the fire of action to my actualization process and to those who I touch by example.

Others may look at a Storm and only see the chaotic, highly energized, frenzy and not understand the view from the Eye. To me, Storm is about the complementary, dualistic aspects of life that provides the diversity and uniqueness of life's experiences. These may be chaotic from a controller's viewpoint, but are essential for the unfoldment of freedom, response-ability and the beauty of life. The shadow highlights and can define the light that is cast from the flame of a candle and a dying snowflake wets my lips and quenches my thirst. The flexibility of a willow can only be seen when the wind is strong and attempts to break it. I breathe my ancestor's air into my nostrils and know that my children's children will breathe the same breath. For every parting, Storm swirls through to create a new beginning, without separating the spiritual connection that makes each of us interdependent. Every kiss, every laugh, every tear and every word of encouragement or despair is swirled into Spirit's Storm to cascade into the world of my making. As I stay centered, experiencing what comes my way from within or from without, I then add to the matrix from my centered view of Spirit manifesting itself in my life and the lives of others. I allow myself to follow my purpose and live within my own personal power. As Caroline Myss expresses:

We have within us a relentless congenital desire to explore our own creative abilities, to develop our individual power and authority. This desire is the impetus behind our striving to become conscious. The universal human journey is one of becoming conscious of our power and how to use that power (110).

 

 

References

 

Fadiman, James, and Frager, Robert. Personality and Personal Growth, 5^th Ed. New

Jersey; Prentice Hall. 2002.

Myss, Caroline, PhD. Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing.

New York; Three Rivers Press. (1996).

Rosen, David, MD. The Tao of Jung: The Way of Integrity. New York; Penguin Group

(1997).

Talbot, Michael. The Holographic Universe. New York; Harper Collins. (1991).

Wulff, David M., Psychology of Religion; Classic and Contemporary, 2^nd Ed. New York;

Wiley. 1997.

Zukav, Gary. The Seat of the Soul. New York; Fireside. (1990).

Sibling Frolics

Mom use to work well into the evening every night and I use to have to race home after school to take care of my little brother. Moving from a country schoolhouse in Ontario to a small apartment in Edmonton made me resentful at times. Not about looking after my little brother since I always remember having that responsibility but of having no freedom to choose activities or settings in which to be a kid. The small apartment was dull and drearily white compared to the sunshine and greenery of Ontario's rolling hills and sparkling creeks.

 

Roy and I use to fight and bicker with each other constantly and one night I was sick of it. I told him to try an experiment with a knitting needle that was lying on the floor. Usually we played with Miss Prissy, our white kitten using the knitting needle to have her run around the whole living room, yet this night I thought it would be more fun to see how shocked my brother would be and maybe he would stop pestering me.

 

So I pointed to a light socket and told him to put the knitting needle into it. He had no problem with this and jumped up, scooped up the needle and, faster than I realized it happened, jammed it into the electrical socket with a resounding 'ZZap.' He flew back landing on his ass, his fingers on his right hand smoking as he held his palm wide open, a burn line engraved deep in his palm.

        -not finished

A Wave in Time

    The timelessness of sadness rides so close to the surface as a small moan builds a wave that seeps for expression. My parfléche stretches, yet my head hurts to let the weeping out. I loosen the knot on my heart; expression stops without the use of a physical cork. Healing will take time.

***

 

Time. Time to take responsibility and to go through the withdrawal that pulls sadness around me, cloaks me in my comfortable womb of pain where knowledge turns to wisdom. I can cry with the world of experience salting my tears.

***

 

Time. Time to empty myself and wait to be filled, trust that universal spirit will fill me with anything better than the dreams I have of myself.

***

 

Time. Time to surrender the limited version of my worldly self and await the awareness of Who I truly am. A foglight sweeps through the mist of my tears as I see lovers in a boat holding hands, the spring of eternity floating before their first kiss. The fruit of spirit moistens their untouched lips, separating the wavering veil of illusion that floats between the physical reality of their touch and the spiritual hope of their connectedness. Time calmly pauses in this threshold moment as the winds of desire awaken their hearts and teases the fears hidden in the deep crevices.

***

 

Time. Timelessly my boat floats forward as I pick up the fishing pole of my personal history, check the rig for snags and knots. Clear, I cast out into the far waters, my hook heavily baited with the guilt and shame of my womanhood. The shades of red bob deep in the water as the current pulls at the string of regrets, resentments, and feelings of undeservingness that weighs the line. A small shiver breaks the water as my mind releases the heaviness of my heart into the last movements of an accurate cast.

***

 

Time. Time floats away as my breath crystallizes into airy vapour. Fresh energy fills my lungs, flows into my blood as I breathe deep, the uneasiness of my identity far away in the void created between water and land. My body rocks with the waves of memory, times where I found myself, only to cast myself away again into the turbulence of everyday reality. Waves of clutter break upon the stillness, at a moment's loss, attracts old games of failed temptations with new faces. Yet still I

***

 

Time. Time in this moment, I understand. To flow with universal spirit, the sadness of time and experience must be released. To begin the unknown process of surrendering to the current of my own emotional physicality, by letting go of judgments, of self-definitions, and of control, seems hard to imagine. Only by leaping out of my boat and into the unknown can I hope to find the wave that will support this change.

***

 

It's time. I throw my rod, remove the layers of clothes that dress my parfléche and pull my prayers within my breath. Hope sways me forward, undulating my body into my depths. I break into my own waves as the boat drifts away. A surge of fear pulls me under, suffrocates my senses, convoluting my body into the womb of existence. All identity breaks and I am left only with the concepts of Spirit in my heart; the Druids, the trinity goddess, Yahweh…. The cognition shimmers within that these are only Spirit symbols I swallowed with my self-pity. The wave of these thoughts swell larger and larger until all breaks away. In the void of darkness, of the stillness that stands before I am, the light shines through, crests the darkness; the pulse of Universal Spirit, the All That Is swells, buoys me on the surface, breaks me with shaman's humility. My parfléche empty, I float comfortably on unconsciousness.

***

 

Time. Time is irrelevant as I open my eyes to the break of dawn. Laying on the crystalline beach, I feel my feet touch the rolling tide, water's breath inhaling and exhaling life through movement. My hair fires the tiny crystals in the sand as I raise myself on my elbow, my eyes locked on the orange hues bleeding throughout the lavender sky. My finger twitches and my attention sweeps to my other hand, clamped tight. Unlocking my grip, my heart surges as the double-terminated quartz crystal courses warmth through my naked body, electrifying my new found perception.

A Genderless Creation Story

Panentheism is where God is both internal and eternal to creation, both one entity and multiple, an unpersonified field of energy that manifests in all forms. In order to understand God, personification must occur, yet no sex must be attributed, thus the use of the plural pronoun 'They' in this story.

 

God, in wonderful diversity, walks the galaxies, fulfilled with the enjoyment found in the play of light on the darkness of space. The stars were bright stepping-stones for Their feet as They meander around aimlessly. Thankful and whole, God still feels an emptiness of sorts.

 

God sits on a planet and feels the emptiness in Their heart. They meditate on the stars in front of Them and see how they pulse outwards and inwards with God's mighty breath. Relationship, They think. We have nothing to relate Ourself to. The brightness of the stars has the darkness of space to exist with. We are One, but have no experience of Ourself. A relationship is needed.

 

With this intention, God blows a hole in the fabric of space in front of Them. Blackness abounds and space is all there is. God breathes again, sending Their Light intention forward into space. The solar system and the Milky Way, the stars and constellations, swirl into the vibrating pattern of Their breath.

 

God looks through and sees that this is good, and They breathe in. Yet, still the emptiness continues. 'Who are we to make another grand universe?', They asked Themself. We have done this before and now it is not enough.

 

God looks on and Their desire becomes clear. They stand up and walk into Their created space. Tingles of excitement vibrate outwards, pointing the way to the third planet from the sun. With the warmth of the sun on Their back, God sits on Mars and looks at the mass in front of Them. Breathing outwards, They create the atmosphere, with God's unity blanketing the earth.

 

God breathes inwards as They look on and see that it is good, but still the emptiness within pulls for expression.

 

Once again, God expells a breath that separates the waters of the earth from the waters of the sky. God's excitement crackles with electricity as the northern lights light up, ebbing and flowing waves of colour with every breath They take.

 

Their intention sure, God wills the waters of the earth to part. Land forms to compliment the waters. They breathe in and feel this is good, but again, is not enough. Their desire to create is paramount and Their intention manifests a bursting forth of vegetation, on land and in the sea, every living plant from seaweed to towering tree.

 

God's drive of passion still aches as They see that, this too, is good.

 

God stands up and steps onto the surface of the earth. Walking on the land, They see the potential this paradise holds. They wander the land, aching for Their creation to satisfy the longing within.

 

God breathes out as They walk, and every animal becomes known on the land, as well as the fish that swims in the sea, and the birds that fly in the sky. Their heart leaps for joy, yet still They feel incomplete, even with all that God has created.

 

God walks on and comes to a sand-duned cove beside the sea. Sitting down, God releases some sand through Their fingers, thinking of how all the stars in heaven did not fulfill the desire to have a relationship with Their creation. Again, They grab another handful of sand, allowing the granules to trickle down as God sits and ponders on all the vegetation, the animals, the birds and the fish, and still longs for a form to relate to.

 

As the sand trickles down, Their intention forms the sand into the various human beings of the world. Breathing out, God animates Their likeness with Their spirit.

 

"Welcome to God."

"Who am I?" One human stands on shaky legs and looks around.

They breathe in as They speak: "You are the creation in which We are fully pleased. We bless you to multiply and enjoy this paradise that We have created for Ourself. What is ours is now yours, so that We may enjoy. We share this world, to explore our relationship with it, and to explore your relationship with Ourself.

 

God breathes out and then in; They feel complete while we have been continuing the breathe ever since.