Sunday, September 23, 2007

Presence, or, Past/Present/Future

Over the past few days I have been noticing how my thoughts increasingly reach out towards home--Bloomington, my kitties, my own bed, my morning routine, and so on. This comes in startling contrast to my immersion in the flow of the present moment for all these weeks,, mostly at-one with the Now. As I notice my mind shift gears, I also sense how my emotional connection to others changes. I begin to grow impatient and judgmental, in a mild, but very real can't-wait-to-get-out-of-here mood. Then, when I pay attention to such bifurcation, I can alter it, let it go, move back into awareness, at-oneness with what IS going on, rather than anticipating the imagined, glorious near-future when the trip is complete!

This new contemplation of how I split myself into two when I focus on the future,so that the present (and the presence) gets short shrift, feels utterly familiar, and no wonder. This state of existing in my mind, outside my actual experience, is exactly the way I lived for over six decades. Only in the past few years have I turned my attention to the great task of learning how to continuously bring myself back to the this place, this moment, right here and right now.

Looking back on this trip--and this is also a new state, for not only am I beginning to look forward with longing, I am also beginning to look backwards with nostalgia--I realize that this trip itself has done exactly what I had hoped it WOULD do, surrender my mind to the living river of life. And as such, it has been a total blessing. Even the various tests (all of which by the way, for any astrologer reading this, occurred during the weeks when Pluto was at or near its station, turning to go direct exactly conjunct my natal 27 degree Sagittarian Sun)--including the rogue wave and rogue dog attacks, and the washing machine flood (see earlier blogs)--I see now all as grists for the mill of learning how to stay in the presence no matter what--including experiences of extreme shock. In none of these three situations did I panic, leave my body, act dithery and dysfunctional. So in that sense I do feel "proud" of myself.

But of course, this "pride" of mine is what I have to watch out for most. With a fiery Sagittarian Sun int he first house of my chart now being crossed by transit Pluto, arrogance is or can be my middle name. So an even greater teaching has been given by the third test--the flood--a lesson in humility the awareness of which I ask myself to always remember.

Meanwhile, since I last posted here I have "done" two more book events, one in Tucson and the other in Phoenix, both with the usual strong energetic field surrounding them, allowing for an unusual vulnerability and intimacy among participants and a greater depth of discussion than usual around death, loss and grief and their gifts. And, as usual, both these events were also precisely and uniquely themselves, with the Tucson event seemingly slow and stately, almost formal in tone and the Scottsdale event more lively with participants primed for not only death and grief but also very much open to and wanting to experience the energy of the Crone. I take this "preparation" among the participants as an outgrowth of the venue where we met, the wonderfully goddess-blessed home of Sara, a woman who has been working with ancient female energy for decades as a teacher and consultant.

This morning, my hostess Win and I went to a riparian preserve and sat by a pond where we watched a snowy egret stand and wait for many minutes and then suddenly lunge that long neck for a fish--plus many species of ducks and other birds as they landed and took off on the water, calling to one another, all in concert with the waving of the sun and its play with the clouds and the many different types of desert plants and trees. A never-ending symphony in sound and color and light and movement, so very beautiful and serene.

This afternoon, 2 to 4 p.m., the final book event in the Phoenix area, here at Win's house. Then I drive back two hours to Tucson and Scott and Todd's house for the evening, before driving four hours tomorrow to Silver City New Mexico and my second-to-last evening event there.

Yes, onother indication of my return to future-orientation is that I have begun to count the days, and the events, that remain until the completion of this odyssey. As of Sunday afternoon, I'm three events and four days away from the blessed three-day drive from Albuquerque to Indiana. A drive with no interruptions, no people, no conversation, no intensity! I may not even use the radio. I may not even listen to a book on tape. I may just indulge in silence, and more silence, and still more. Right now I imagine I will head like a speeding bullet straight for home. Or maybe not. Maybe, by then I will have surrendered once again to the presence and instead wander back like an animal, nosing around as I proceed, slowly, savoring, at-one with the process that yields the goal.

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