Clockwise

I always start my hula hoop in a counterclockwise revolution because it comes more naturally, and this morning was no different.  I like going left.  At one point, I made a mental note to myself to switch directions at the start of the next song.  As I started the hoop going right, the word “clockwise” came into my head and I imagined a clock with its numbers in a circle around me, just as the iPod on random shuffle chose to play “Clockface”, my favorite piece on the Drum Devils CD (featuring my husband George!).  “Clockface” features idiophones only and no membranophones. The piece begins with slow, sonorous bells ringing, appropriate for a Sunday morning.  I maintained the clockwise direction through most of my workout, in tribute to this pleasing synchronicity. 

A short while later, when I paid for groceries at Trader Joe’s, the card reader displayed the usual question about whether I would like “cash back”.  I hesitated, knowing I had spent my last two dollar coins on a snow cone for Daniel the day before, and I always like to have some small amount of cash in my pocket. Illogically, I decided instead that I would stop at the Credit Union ATM on Eisenhower on the way back to Daniel’s baseball practice, and so selected “No”.   On the way out with my bags I thought to myself, “That was silly---it’s the same money; I’ve just added another errand to my day.” 

Just as I made the right turn into the Credit Union, a large van coming from the other direction sped up and got in ahead of me, and I thought “Oh, he’s in a hurry, he wants to get to the machine first”.  But then the van’s driver pulled over to the side and allowed me to go first, pulling up behind me just as I was collecting the cash and receipt.  Okay.

As turned right out of Credit Union and continued toward the ball field, an unexpected thing happened: about 20 feet in front of me, a mother duck and 9 or 10 tiny ducklings launched themselves off the curb into my lane.  I came to a halt and waited for them to make their waddling way across the seemingly immense two lanes, apprehensive that the driver pulling up behind me would not see the situation and start leaning on her horn, or worse, drive around me and collide directly with the duck family.  But nobody was coming the other way; the driver behind me must have seen the ducks too, and waited patiently. The ducklings made it to the other side, safe from harm at least for that day and that moment.  As I continued my journey, a lump developed in my throat. 

When the ducks appeared before me, it felt emblematic, like a dreamed event with a meaning inside.  It was as if that chance to be present, to be kind, that opportunity to notice and make a place for those small creatures in this busy world, had been engineered.  A sequence had been set into motion, possibly as early as the right turning of my hula hoop:  I instinctively didn’t do the obvious and easy thing when prompted for cash back.  I was on the clockwise part of my journey, returning, making all right turns.  Even the odd example of the van getting in ahead of me and then stopping to make way for me seemed to fit into the chain.  It felt, if not quite scripted, compelled---a sequence of right choices and right turns that would culminate perfectly into my being right there when the ducklings and their mother tumbled into the roadway.

Juniper

Juniper

Leaf

       I watched one leaf fall

       Oak or maple, red or gold

       Though it was summer

       Our calico is gone now

       Green-eyed, pink-nosed Juniper  

       The ginger cat cries

       Missing their combat, that warmth

       Now chases shadows

       At dawn birds clamor outside

       So I open our windows

       I want to hear them

       The comfort of another

       We are older too

       One of us will be left here

       When the other falls too soon

Hula Hoop

The hula hoop is my dynamic medicine shield.  It revolves while I evolve.  I’m dislodging  stunting or combative energies within myself, and liberating the good, kind and loving soul I was meant to freely be.  Guidance is abundantly available.  The more focused, active inner work I do, the more I find confirming synchronicity occurring, intuitive nudges appearing in my dreams, people coming into my life who can really help me see, and reminders in the form of situations that appeal to my ineffective energies and patterns.

Inside the circle, I made a space for the energies that I want to nurture and encourage.  These are my meditations, what I pray for:

Respect; self-respect; kindness; encouragement; tribute; faith; generosity; truth; honesty; honor; challenges that create growth; dreams; family; tribe, community; love; friendship; listening; speaking from the heart; practice; creativity; song; dance; work; responsibility; health; nutrition for body and soul; appreciation of beauty; joy.

Outside the circle:

Manipulation; deception; aggression; scapegoating; self-deprecation; dishonesty; abuse; codependency; addiction; depression; grasping for external validation; absorbing contempt; reflecting contempt; adding to confusion or panic; reactionary, fearful thinking; rage; impatience for answers, or “pushing the river”.

If I invite such energy into the circle, and I surely will, I must acknowledge it, pay attention, and listen to the story it wants to tell me. 

Eden

   
 
          Out here

          We listen to crickets and frogs

          Not pure silence

          In there

          The child is restless

          Approached by the ape

          Whose wide mouth howls

          An accusation of horrible blame

          The child has seen this

          Visitor of dreams

          Out here the day’s humidity

          Has left us breathing rain

          And we feel close to soil and skin

          Inhabitants of earth

          And not like men

          In there the child emerges from a depth

          Clings to what remains

          Of teddy bear and Spiderman sheets

          Smelling of salt and sand

Voice

When I was little, I recognized that a wiser voice spoke to me, a neutral, genderless voice that would make guiding statements---in particular warnings, like “That’s not true,” or “Don’t believe that.”  This voice appeared in my dreams regularly, but was also quite active during waking hours in my very young years (up to age 6 or so).  The voice kept me company when I played by myself.  I spoke to the voice, my imaginary friend, and it spoke back, played along with my games and enjoyed my ideas.

As a teenager, like many solitary, hormonal creatures I struggled with anxiety, low self-esteem, boredom verging on paralysis, unquenchable passion and longing, obsessive infatuations and contempt for my lot in life.  I drank coffee and smoked cigarettes.  I wrote lots of poetry, some of it authentic, some of it inflated and false.   I couldn’t sleep for nights on end.  Then one night I noticed that there was a murmuring going on, like a river, underneath my conscious thoughts, and I decided to shut off my mind and listen.  As soon as I was sufficiently quiet, I could hear fragments, statements, breaking the surface, almost like the auditory version of dream symbols; in this current of voices, the guiding voice would predominate, then fade, then return; soon the phrases would be linked to speakers, longer stories would develop out of the fragments, and this creation would lull me to sleep.  I still use this technique when I have trouble falling to sleep.

As I grew older, into my twenties and beyond, I became less aware of the guiding voice; I would hear/sense instead a sudden intrusion of a word or phrase when I had physical contact with someone.  It would be the same voice, but it would be something about that person.  This latter expression of the voice, the “received word”, has been an uncommon occurrence but intense when it happens.  A woman from human resources was handing out the paychecks; her arm touched mine, and I heard/felt the word “pregnant”.  I asked her about this possibility, and she said no, laughing.  The next day, the same woman came and whispered in my ear: “You were right!  But I didn’t know yesterday!”   Another time, a massage therapist named Meredith was giving me a back massage; I told her that I used to be good at guessing a person’s astrological sign.  She invited me to guess hers, and just as she was pushing into my back I felt the word “Cancer” pushing into me, quite forcefully.  So I said it out loud, and Meredith replied “That’s right!”   At that moment I didn’t feel that I had so much “guessed” her sign as that it was provided to me with a great deal of irrefutable emphasis.

I don’t believe the random data I received regarding people on the peripheries of my life was significant information---that is to say, the content (this person is pregnant, that person is a Cancer) was not important; it didn’t alter the other person’s path or choices.  What feels significant, rather, is the energy of the voice itself, demonstrating that it can, when it chooses, tell me something objectively, verifiably true about something seemingly outside of myself; in so doing, this voice is getting my attention, reminding me that it can tell me reliable truths about myself.  I could and should attend to this intuitive voice when it speaks.  Perhaps because I had stopped attending to it, listening for it, the voice was forcing itself into unguarded moments.  Saying “Hey you! Remember me? Been here all along.  Right here.  Trust me.”