The Woman of the Woods

SoulCollage® card - The Woman of the Woods

She instructed me

to come to her,

told me that if I did,

she would train me.

When I asked how to find her,

she said to come to the woods,

and I would be found.

So, I followed a path through

dense redwoods, and arrived at

a cottage in a clearing.

She stood outside, as gaunt

and skeletal as I remembered.

In front of her stood a fire pit.

 

"The first thing you have to do,"

she said, "is to learn to sit

with the fire."

 

"What kind of training is that?"

I thought.

But I sat down near the fire.

And do you know,

I could not stay with it?

Either I got up,

or I wandered off

in my mind.

 

She shook her bowed head at me.

straight white locks swinging side to side.

"I am an old woman, not a child,"

I snapped at her.

"You have no idea

what old is," she said.

 

"I tell you, you must be with the fire.

Once you can attend,

once you can carry it with you at all times,

once you are incandescent,

then we can begin."

Facing the Storm: SoulCollage® and Poetry

 In these times of so much grief, anger and suffering, it feels self-indulgent to post about my small life.  But, our lives do go on, along with our emotions around the bigger picture.

Today I want to talk about one of the beauties of the SoulCollage® process.  You put a few images together that have drawn you to them, and often you have no idea what the joining of them truly signifies until you work with the card later.  Somehow, this simple, enjoyable activity manages to get to what is truly going on for you, on both superficial and deeper levels.

This is my most recent card:

When I picked up the central image, I saw the figure as naked, vulnerable, and heading into a ritual, perhaps one of initiation.  When placed on the background, he hugely dominated it.  On the original photo, he did not loom so large.  It's a little hard to see here, but there is an additional image on the bottom of some ruins.  I didn't know at the time why it was necessary, but when I added it, I felt the card was complete.

I've sat with the card on my writing table/altar for some weeks now.  Finally, a short poem came, and it helped me to deepen my understanding of what the card meant.  Here it is:

Facing the Storm

Like Inanna,

I have had

one thing

after another

stripped away,

and still,

I descend.

Naked. Vulnerable.

And yet,

I breathe

up strength.

I rise,

shoulders back,

confronting an

electrifying lightning

storm that

crashes onto

the far landscape.

I stand on

my ancestors’

shoulders, on

the earth

that holds

me up, on

my native abilities

to persevere,

and on

the necessity

to yield.

There are so many powerful storms facing all of us now.  All I know is that art and poetry are important as we go on.  May we be held.  May we persevere.  May we yield.

A New Poem: Balance Is Everything

In the dream,

I had a

sacred calling:

to be a

mask carrier,

one who

could handle

the most holy

of objects.

Two rival tribes

warred constantly,

but one

kept winning

as it held

many more

of the 

sacred masks.

And so,

I removed

some of

their masks

and brought

them to the

other tribe.

I woke up

before seeing

if the wars

stopped, but

I knew that

the power

was equalized.

 

The thing is,

I’ve come

to realize

that balance

is everything.

 

The Navajo live

by ceremony

and Hózhó,

harmony and beauty.

 

The Balinese wrap

their altars in

black and white

checkered fabric,

symbolizing balance.

 

The Hawaiian way

is ho’oponopono,

with reconciliation and

forgiveness at its heart.

 

We cultureless ones

long for that,

for a long exhalation

of relief.

 

How to return

to the center,

where we might

find calm and

the blessings of

a balanced life?

How can I,

how can we,

be sacred

mask carriers?

 

SoulCollage® card - The Mask Carrier

Navigating Mystery, Part 7

I learned something else from my illness - that my brokenness and the world’s brokenness are no different.  We in the dominant culture are broken because the culture is broken, insupportable, and based on power and greed. Society raises us, raised me, to be disconnected from the earth and from other life forms, and we then go on to wreck the earth. We live in dark and desperate times. 

This summer,

water use in our dry

northern California

will be restricted.

My little pomegranate tree,

only two years old,

just burst out with

three deep red flowers.

Last year the tiny fruit fell off,

too heavy for the spindly

young branches to bear.

I don’t want the baby tree to die

from lack of water, so I will

catch shower-heating water

in a bucket and save the liquid

from steaming artichokes

to dribble onto the dry soil.

 

The rains do not come, cannot come.

No rain to evoke sadness

or a flow of memories, but sadness

and the ghosts of memories arrive.

What comes from the sky is dust,

what water arrives is in our eyes.

Looking up for omens and comets,

we struggle to see, to hear something,

to wait for a message, to change.

And still, I love the earth.

The earth Is not the world.

The world of drought and fire,

floods and reckless storms

is of our making.

Our tears are salty and insufficient.

The blown dust and ash clog our eyes.

Yet despite all the horror, all the brokenness,

the redwoods and pines draw up

and display their good green life.

The earth still and always reminds us

to keep on, to love anyway,

to sit down with our ancestors’ ghosts,

to keep telling the stories.

The earth has everything, bears everything –

us, the trees, the life-giving waters,

the myriad other beings.

With all that we have done to her,

can we do any less?

 

How to figure out what comes next, what to do to heal the earth, what to do to heal this fear?  While I wait, I pass a little time each morning by drawing a SoulCollage® card.  The card becomes a guide for the day.  Interestingly, the card I drew today is of a woman in a dark place full of pomegranates.  She is bent over, peering into a cauldron.  The cauldron belongs to Hecate, who is a guide for Persephone and Demeter.  She is also the goddess of the crossroads. 

SoulCollage® card - Hecate's Cauldron

Sitting here is like being at a crossroads, trying to figure out the way to go.  Waiting and writing, writing and waiting, it is essential to trust whatever flows from the pen onto the page. 

 

Here are the words that come: Real fear is necessary when you are in danger; anticipating or imagining danger and going into fear is self-torture.

A New Poem: Falling

Our front door (visible in this photo) is down an outdoor flight of stairs, as we live in the lower unit of a duplex on a hill.  

I've been worried about the grandkids on the stairs ever since we moved in.  The two who live upstairs often run up and down, but wouldn't you know it?  I was the one who fell.  It was a doozy - headfirst down some number of steps (I don't really know where the slip actually happened.)  I was really fortunate in that no bones were broken and I didn't get knocked out.  Just nicely banged up and bruised.  This was a few weeks ago, and I'm fine now, and, boy, am I careful going down now!  An experience not to be repeated.

Interestingly, afterwards I was in a Zoom meeting with about 25 other people, and it turned out that six of us had fallen recently.  It set me to wondering what was up with that, and in such dark times that we are living in.

And so, this poem came.

 

Falling.

We are all falling.

A trip

         on a tree root.

A headfirst dive

         down a staircase.

Carrying groceries.

         Or crossing the room.

 

We are all

Falling.

Birds are falling

         to the ground.

Whales are falling

         onto the shore.

Bodies are falling

         from missile strikes.

What does it mean,

         all of this falling?

Will there be time and a way

         to rise back up, or

Will we sink down, down,

         going down with the ship?

Will we sing

         as we go?

 

A card falls out of the deck,

Landing face up on the altar.

It is the card

         of Gratitude.

If we land there,

         our hearts may

Fall

         open.

 

SoulCollage® card: Gratitude

The Beauty of the Process

 If you saw my last blogpost, you’ll recall seeing this SoulCollage® card:

 

To recap, I made this card to help me overcome my fear of the statistics around my cancer diagnosis.  I have struggled to come to terms with the methods and nature of the western medical establishment in which the disease is treated rather than the person.  But this is just backstory, as you’ll see.

 

Here’s one of the beauties of SoulCollage® - while the process of making these collaged cards is very simple and a lot of fun, whether done alone or in community, it also can generate far greater insight than you might expect. There are basically two ways of making cards: have an idea of something you want to make, something you’d like to include in your deck, and look for images to capture that; or just pull images that you’re drawn to and see what evolves.  I always thought that the second method yields the most surprises.  Often, you don’t understand the import of what you have made until after (sometimes long after) you’ve made it.  But with this most recent collage, which was clearly created with a specific intention, the same kind of surprised awareness arose well after the fact.

 

Let me explain. The young woman’s image at the top of the card was cut off a photograph of her rock climbing.  I wanted a picture of a woman overcoming some difficulty, and this picture seemed ideal.  And so, I placed her practically climbing over the doctors who formed the lower background. On one level, this clearly achieved what I intended.  Mission accomplished. 

 

I selected the photo of the field of sunflowers for the lower background because it was full of life and new growth. As the sunflower is the chosen image of life and hope for sarcoma patients, it embodies even deeper symbolism. (And this was before the invasion of Ukraine and all the resulting sunflower images, but another synchronicity, for sure.)

 

The doctors are in their operating room, peering down at the little figure on the bottom left – me: small, bald, and fatigued from their ministrations.  April was the month I was diagnosed, and so I included the calendar page along with numbers representing the awful statistics concerning this disease. 

 

I will say I did feel some strength and resolve after completing the card.  But it didn’t end there.

 

A few days later, I sat with the card again, and another realization leaped into my mind and practically bowled me over.  Truly, the woman is no longer a rock climber.  I succeeded, as SoulCollage® inspires us to do, in giving the image an entirely new context.  She is now picking flowers in a field.  She is leaning over to pluck one.  Oh. My. God.  She is Persephone!  Of course she is!  And the medical establishment sits in the underworld beneath her.  Well, I have obviously been on an underworld journey.  And yet, the little me in the corner holds a big bouquet of sunflowers.  She will arise.  I have.

 

But is Persephone about to be pulled down like when she first picked the flower?  Or is She in this field during one of her subsequent annual ascents?  The card does not say, but in SoulCollage® we let the image speak.  What the woman said when I first made the card and before I understood Her significance was, “I am one who has been at the will of the medical system, for good and for ill.  I am one who has climbed out of the mindset that I have to be one of their statistics. I am one who chooses life and who refuses to be intimidated by their statistics.”  So, knowing this, I can be assured that we are viewing one of Persephone’s returns in the Spring.  She and I have already been down there.  There will be other descents.  But not now. 

 

And what about the central doctor?  Is he then Hades?  That’s a tricky question.  We can never approve of Hades’ actions in abducting Her, but is He evil?  What a terrible job He was assigned!  I can’t blame Him for not wanting to bear it alone.  Sadly, in the ancient times of the myth’s origins, Greek marriages were often conducted in this manner, or at least without the women being consulted, yet alone giving consent.  I do not condone his methods, even so.  But it is also true that through this awful act, Hades made Her a powerful queen. Her life and purpose drastically changed, and who can say whether this was a good thing or bad?

 

But back to the doctor – he did save my life (and I truly love my surgeon who called me “my miracle patient” and who, interestingly, was born in Greece). He, unlike Hades for Persephone, was not the cause of my troubles.  But he did drastically change my life.  Then he, they, western medicine, left me in this place.  My surgeon gave me the chance. If I want to be truly healed, I must use what they can offer but also take it into my own hands. I’m the one who can harvest the sunflower.

 

I have always tried to imagine Persephone’s story forward, beyond what we’re told in the myth.  It is up to Her to choose how to proceed.  Hades offers Her tremendous power in all the realms. I like to believe She took it on.

 

What the card does not show, and so perhaps I need to make another one, is that there is community.  I may often feel alone, and in many ways my suffering and path are all my own, but as the sunflowers grow together, connected, in the field, I am not alone.