Posts
It is common in some cultures to make a gift of something that has been complimented. I recall seeing most clearly with my former in-laws who brought the tradition with them from Ethiopia. I also recall reading it was prevalent among some other Native African and Native American tribes. It has always felt right to me.
Five or six months ago, I purchased a green tourmaline ring that caught my attention. It's a brilliant display of four slender, beautifully cut, flourescent lemony-lime green specimens. The first few times I wore it, I was a bit self-conscious because it's huge. To be honest, I feared I had crossed over a little early and would soon find it appropriate to wear it with leopard-designed tops, gaudy broaches and super-bright lipsticks.
The constant compliments, especially from guys, let me know it was just my usual disinterest in anything that draws attention, even positive. When I wore to the family Thanksgiving meal last week, I'd become accustomed to folks commenting on it.
My mother, evidently, was seeing it for the first time. She didn't just comment once or twice, but several times. Since I was consumed with when the turkey would be carved, the spread laid and when we'd be getting to the blessing of the food which is the preview to the eating of the food, I answered her questions about it politely and completely, but didn't recall until later how large her eyes had been as she twisted it to and fro round my finger to get a better look.
This morning she's coming over for Reiki and a crystal grid healing. We'd set it up on Thursday. Now that my uncle, an aunt, my grandmother and a cousin have shared their healing experiences with me to others, I'm starting to get requests. Pretty soon I might be ready to accept paying clients. For now, though, I'm enjoying the slow and steady confidence building occuring with healing family and friends.
My mother and I set up the healing session for today...in an hour, actually. Yesterday, as I got dressed, that ring seemed to scream out, clean me and let her have her have me a while.
I'm delighted to share that it didn't even cross my mind to hesitate. I trusted that it must be the right thing to do. It was then that the full measure of her interest last Thanksgiving came to mind. So I obeyed.
Last night, in preparation for such an early session, I was reading up on a few crystals and techniques so I'd make the best use of the session and time. I went and read up on Green Tourmaline since it had heard what I hadn't, that she belongs to my mother, at least for now. Of course, it was spot on for everything going on in her life right now. I feel so blessed that the universe uses me.
As I get ready to offer it her, I'm appreciating why some cultures created the custom in the first place of offering to others what they comment upon enthusiastically. Not just a comment, mind you, but enthusiastic "Wow, that's really, really nice." Sometimes we're just conduits. Things don't have legs. The wind can sometimes carry things to their destination, and accidents can happen where just the right thing falls at just the right time in just the right place to be found by just the right person.
Sometimes, though, we're the angels that move mysteriously to connect others with what belongs to them. Temporary custodians.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Driven to Write 2
I've got two spirits hanging around with me, delightfully so. One is Alice Dunbar-Nelson, though she's been less prevalent in my consciousness than the newest of late, my great aunt Lucinda Gray. Blog readers of the past will know Alice as the early 20th century author, suffragist, speaker, etc. whose life story I intend to eventually tell in either a biography or historical fiction (a novel with close attention to the details of the subject and era.)
My great aunt came to me a few weeks back, while I rested one evening after becoming suddenly tired. While I lay there, I heard the name as clearly as if any voice had used the air waves to transmit the words, "Lucinda." I knew it was the name of the character I'd been toying with starring in fiction for a while. Just that morning or the day before, two characters dropped into my consciousness with great clarity: a grandmother and grandchild.
The name Lucinda was the name of the grandchild. I even recall being my usual self and arguing with the inspiration, "Why would I name a character Lucinda, I don't even like that name." The character assured me it wasn't her first choice either, but the name was non-negotiable. She added that she prefers Cindy and has been called Cindygirl, Lucy on occasion, and that her preference now, for the book, was Luzca.
I liked Luzca and agreed to keep the name Lucinda. A few minutes later I literally zombie-walked to the computer and typed up a few pages that came out in "the character's" own voice.
I'll have to do what I said at some point and outline all the random coincidences that occured over the next few weeks. The highlights include:
*A huge writing pad I special ordered for my classroom arrived on the very day I suddenly felt the urge to start the story boarding, the outlining of the characters. It is indeed a coincidence since the paper was in my car, but I came home, realized I wanted to write and was ready to run out to the office store to buy the paper...and then remembered there was some in the car.
*I have a writing buddy with whom I share works in progress. It had been a while since I sent anything, so I thought the least I could do was flesh out the story's characters and type them up into a spreadsheet of sorts complete with their birthdays, significant circumstances, astrological signs too, and so on.
*I went looking for authentic names of African-American men of a by-gone era and found an old family reunion album. While searching through the names, I stumbled on Lucinda's name. That was when I first learned she was more than a character. There were innumerable details in the "story" that I thought I invented that matched the details in this album I've read no more than once, maybe twice. If twice, a glance through and no serious study because, truthfully, it is my father's side of the family, he died 13 years ago, and I was never ever close to that side of my heritage.
*Then six days after learning Lucinda was real, six days after promising herself and myself that I would indeed get in touch with that side of my family, though I have never in my life extended myself to them and have only been in there presence at my father's funeral and then at my grandmother's three years later, ten years ago and two functions a few years prior to my dad's death at his dignified pleading insistence...I am giving a workshop and am placed next door to a cousin on my father's side. Lucinda wasn't worry that I might flake on calling them, she arranged it to be impossible to ignore them.
*I visited for Thanksgiving and learned that Luzca, Aunt Cindy, was extremely close to my grandmother, and that my father was her absolute favorite of my grandmother's twelve children.
And those are the highlights.
The entry under Driven To Write is the prior blog entry.
I'd love feedback. Please click on comment. It will come to my email first, but then, if you don't ask otherwise, I will post it for anyone to read. Thanks for reading.
My great aunt came to me a few weeks back, while I rested one evening after becoming suddenly tired. While I lay there, I heard the name as clearly as if any voice had used the air waves to transmit the words, "Lucinda." I knew it was the name of the character I'd been toying with starring in fiction for a while. Just that morning or the day before, two characters dropped into my consciousness with great clarity: a grandmother and grandchild.
The name Lucinda was the name of the grandchild. I even recall being my usual self and arguing with the inspiration, "Why would I name a character Lucinda, I don't even like that name." The character assured me it wasn't her first choice either, but the name was non-negotiable. She added that she prefers Cindy and has been called Cindygirl, Lucy on occasion, and that her preference now, for the book, was Luzca.
I liked Luzca and agreed to keep the name Lucinda. A few minutes later I literally zombie-walked to the computer and typed up a few pages that came out in "the character's" own voice.
I'll have to do what I said at some point and outline all the random coincidences that occured over the next few weeks. The highlights include:
*A huge writing pad I special ordered for my classroom arrived on the very day I suddenly felt the urge to start the story boarding, the outlining of the characters. It is indeed a coincidence since the paper was in my car, but I came home, realized I wanted to write and was ready to run out to the office store to buy the paper...and then remembered there was some in the car.
*I have a writing buddy with whom I share works in progress. It had been a while since I sent anything, so I thought the least I could do was flesh out the story's characters and type them up into a spreadsheet of sorts complete with their birthdays, significant circumstances, astrological signs too, and so on.
*I went looking for authentic names of African-American men of a by-gone era and found an old family reunion album. While searching through the names, I stumbled on Lucinda's name. That was when I first learned she was more than a character. There were innumerable details in the "story" that I thought I invented that matched the details in this album I've read no more than once, maybe twice. If twice, a glance through and no serious study because, truthfully, it is my father's side of the family, he died 13 years ago, and I was never ever close to that side of my heritage.
*Then six days after learning Lucinda was real, six days after promising herself and myself that I would indeed get in touch with that side of my family, though I have never in my life extended myself to them and have only been in there presence at my father's funeral and then at my grandmother's three years later, ten years ago and two functions a few years prior to my dad's death at his dignified pleading insistence...I am giving a workshop and am placed next door to a cousin on my father's side. Lucinda wasn't worry that I might flake on calling them, she arranged it to be impossible to ignore them.
*I visited for Thanksgiving and learned that Luzca, Aunt Cindy, was extremely close to my grandmother, and that my father was her absolute favorite of my grandmother's twelve children.
And those are the highlights.
The entry under Driven To Write is the prior blog entry.
I'd love feedback. Please click on comment. It will come to my email first, but then, if you don't ask otherwise, I will post it for anyone to read. Thanks for reading.
Driven to write
Below is the write-up that is the first piece inspired by my great aunt Lucinda. She provided the inspiration and the initial words. I take responsibility for the structure, style and tone.
_____
There is a veil that exists. Most humans never cross it. Not while breathing air, anyway. It takes enough energy, concentration and security to navigate the seemingly all-encompassing reality of this world.
Most folks of most religions can entertain the notion that babies are born with spirits that come from some other place. These spirits may or may not have communed with other worlds, with other spirits, with other dimensions up until they take their first breath and agree to cross the veil, to live only from their senses. The veil is nothing more than a choice to ignore the experiences and perceptions which are not filtered first through the sensory organs we’ve accepted as the primary, if not sole doorway to consciousness.
A handful of babies never fully grasp the contract entered into by virtue of being born, the agreement to deny the immaterial. They continue interacting with their spirit partners, angels and guides, for months and sometimes years. They remain oblivious to their spirit’s faux pas in the land of the breathing.
For most, bright lights grab their attention soon enough, loud sounds distract them. By-and-by they learn to rely on their physical senses like the rest of their incarnate species.
That none of the adults around them see what they see or hear what they hear makes the eventual loss of connection to these others a virtual certainty. There is no one to validate or acknowledge the perception of beings as brightly beautiful as any crystal chandelier with songs more melodic than the greatest classical compositions. Seeking the coos mother bestows on mirrored behavior, the child ceases to see what everyone else appears to be ignoring. “So that’s how it’s done around here," the child asks herself. "We ignore those pesky little non-breathers. Must not be good for anything.”
But in a few rare cases, a defect occurs in a child’s biology. A woman births a child, usually a daughter, who fails to learn how to turn off those other senses, the ones that connect to other beings and other dimensions. It'll pass daughter to daughter to daughter until the line is extinct. These glitches quickly and inevitably extinguish themselves as part of nature’s plan. At least until such time as the conditions are ripe for a world full of them.
It is even rarer to find a male with such a connection. It is as if the Y chromosome permits a greater resistance to whatever neurological functioning enables the mind to release the spirit and soul to traverse the veil, to choose to see without the eyes.
One in ten thousand born will maintain sporadic contact across the veil, most often through random occurence. In one or two of these, the occasional crossing stimulates a conscious curiosity. A fascination is sparked that propels development and tolerance of the extra-sensory world. When a man and woman both carrying the same glitch marry there is a chance for a one in one hundred million human being to be born who is entirely incapable of learning to see a veil between the two worlds--one perceived by the sensory organs and the other perceived by spirit. We call these damiana.
…
It’s tough to inhabit the space between worlds while still anchored in the limiting illusion of time and space. Damiana are not lost souls. They are not homeless. Their problem is that they easily inhabit too many homes. Just as comfortably as their eyes perceive the brown of a pear, their tongue revel in the juices beneath the lip tingling texture of its rough outer peel, just as effortlessly, they perceive the vibrant energy emanating from the picked pear their peers perceive as lifeless. The worst of them commune with the pear to ask permission before consuming or moving it. In a word, they are crazy. They are perceived as crazy.
And that’s where I come in. Not just me, but all spirit guides, ancestral or otherwise. Just as they are standing at the edge of this great abyss of groundless living, we blow a gentle wind that pushes them over the edge into a freefall that ensures their eternal freedom, their independence of thought and the resulting certainty that they will complete their life objective.
***
There is a veil that exists. Most humans never cross it. Not while breathing air, anyway. It takes enough energy, concentration and security to navigate the seemingly all-encompassing reality of this world.
Interacting with the various forms and beings whose homes are chiefly in dimensions beyond the third is a mind trip. Drugs are the most common route, though a handful of these have the unpleasant side effect of ripping a permanent tear into the veil, making it impossible for the crosser to live wholly in any dimension. Holding on to the experiences that follow a chemically induced crossing is difficult. What was momentarily experienced as accurate glimpses into another world dilute over time to become left over delusions sprung from hallucinogenic moments.
The result is greater faith in the world of the five bodily senses. Dabbling in crossing the veil wreaks havoc on our tenuous sense of security, making concentration on earthly matters all but impossible afterwards. Life can become uncomfortable.
The discomfort and unfamiliarity then too easily breeds ignorance. Ignorance too often begets false feelings of superiority. The fear and ignorance of what lies on the other side of the veil leads many to believe that their flesh-filtered experiences are more real, more significant, more of God than angels, spirits and the rest of the unknown. Human consciousness, trapped in a prison of linear thought, filtered through the prism of fear and doubt, is reality.
Dimensions are simply a reflection of where we place our consciousness. Like the ventriloquist who throws her voice behind a ball one minute, under a table the next. Consciousness can be thrown into a dot, into a line, into a human form, into a thought form or directly into Heaven. Crossing the veil, moving through dimensions is nothing more than shifting consciousness from one location to another. Be the dot. Be the line. Be your form. Be now. Be here.
Consider time travel this way. The popular mediums of science fiction almost always depict it as via an elaborate technological contraption. Mind, body and presumably soul are all simultaneously transported elsewhere: To the same world, just at a different point in time. Linear forward or linear backward are the only options. In the rare instance that time is not a closed linear system, only human choice in human form provokes change, for better or worse, depending on the plot.
When is the world ever changed in fiction by the mouse that chooses to forego the cheese in the trap, preferring a slightly lengthier sensation of hunger to the fate that befell the housemate, rotting ten feet away, his nose one-quarter inch from the prize. The exterminator is eventually called. The assistant flirts with the neighbor. Children are born. A few move. A town is founded three hundred miles away, a new sport created, a new contraption invented for the new sport, acres of timber felled, trillions of gallons of fossil fuels burned. The choice of a mouse changes the lives of all. Though, yes, it was a human who set the trap, who called the exterminator. Nonetheless, the mouse has his part…and spirits, and angels and thought forms have theirs. Humans are not the sole players.
Time is not solely linear. Time travel requires only a heart tuned in to the rhythms of the universe...and the will to do so. It is our heart-directed consciousness that is capable of traversing time and space. The physical body is no more likely to cross time than the chair, couch, ground or other object on which you sit or lay reading. The physical body belongs to the physical world and is bound by physical laws. The only vehicle capable of interacting with any other dimension, time included, is the spirit. The spirit is boundless: Unbound by linearity or sight or sound or a room or a body or the present. Spirit is all present, all dimensions. Time is subject to the dictates of spirit, not the other way around.
***
In Heaven, we have a motto: “It’s no one’s job to save the world. If everyone would do the job they’re assigned, live their best life, the world wouldn’t need saving.”
*********
_____
There is a veil that exists. Most humans never cross it. Not while breathing air, anyway. It takes enough energy, concentration and security to navigate the seemingly all-encompassing reality of this world.
Most folks of most religions can entertain the notion that babies are born with spirits that come from some other place. These spirits may or may not have communed with other worlds, with other spirits, with other dimensions up until they take their first breath and agree to cross the veil, to live only from their senses. The veil is nothing more than a choice to ignore the experiences and perceptions which are not filtered first through the sensory organs we’ve accepted as the primary, if not sole doorway to consciousness.
A handful of babies never fully grasp the contract entered into by virtue of being born, the agreement to deny the immaterial. They continue interacting with their spirit partners, angels and guides, for months and sometimes years. They remain oblivious to their spirit’s faux pas in the land of the breathing.
For most, bright lights grab their attention soon enough, loud sounds distract them. By-and-by they learn to rely on their physical senses like the rest of their incarnate species.
That none of the adults around them see what they see or hear what they hear makes the eventual loss of connection to these others a virtual certainty. There is no one to validate or acknowledge the perception of beings as brightly beautiful as any crystal chandelier with songs more melodic than the greatest classical compositions. Seeking the coos mother bestows on mirrored behavior, the child ceases to see what everyone else appears to be ignoring. “So that’s how it’s done around here," the child asks herself. "We ignore those pesky little non-breathers. Must not be good for anything.”
But in a few rare cases, a defect occurs in a child’s biology. A woman births a child, usually a daughter, who fails to learn how to turn off those other senses, the ones that connect to other beings and other dimensions. It'll pass daughter to daughter to daughter until the line is extinct. These glitches quickly and inevitably extinguish themselves as part of nature’s plan. At least until such time as the conditions are ripe for a world full of them.
It is even rarer to find a male with such a connection. It is as if the Y chromosome permits a greater resistance to whatever neurological functioning enables the mind to release the spirit and soul to traverse the veil, to choose to see without the eyes.
One in ten thousand born will maintain sporadic contact across the veil, most often through random occurence. In one or two of these, the occasional crossing stimulates a conscious curiosity. A fascination is sparked that propels development and tolerance of the extra-sensory world. When a man and woman both carrying the same glitch marry there is a chance for a one in one hundred million human being to be born who is entirely incapable of learning to see a veil between the two worlds--one perceived by the sensory organs and the other perceived by spirit. We call these damiana.
…
It’s tough to inhabit the space between worlds while still anchored in the limiting illusion of time and space. Damiana are not lost souls. They are not homeless. Their problem is that they easily inhabit too many homes. Just as comfortably as their eyes perceive the brown of a pear, their tongue revel in the juices beneath the lip tingling texture of its rough outer peel, just as effortlessly, they perceive the vibrant energy emanating from the picked pear their peers perceive as lifeless. The worst of them commune with the pear to ask permission before consuming or moving it. In a word, they are crazy. They are perceived as crazy.
And that’s where I come in. Not just me, but all spirit guides, ancestral or otherwise. Just as they are standing at the edge of this great abyss of groundless living, we blow a gentle wind that pushes them over the edge into a freefall that ensures their eternal freedom, their independence of thought and the resulting certainty that they will complete their life objective.
***
There is a veil that exists. Most humans never cross it. Not while breathing air, anyway. It takes enough energy, concentration and security to navigate the seemingly all-encompassing reality of this world.
Interacting with the various forms and beings whose homes are chiefly in dimensions beyond the third is a mind trip. Drugs are the most common route, though a handful of these have the unpleasant side effect of ripping a permanent tear into the veil, making it impossible for the crosser to live wholly in any dimension. Holding on to the experiences that follow a chemically induced crossing is difficult. What was momentarily experienced as accurate glimpses into another world dilute over time to become left over delusions sprung from hallucinogenic moments.
The result is greater faith in the world of the five bodily senses. Dabbling in crossing the veil wreaks havoc on our tenuous sense of security, making concentration on earthly matters all but impossible afterwards. Life can become uncomfortable.
The discomfort and unfamiliarity then too easily breeds ignorance. Ignorance too often begets false feelings of superiority. The fear and ignorance of what lies on the other side of the veil leads many to believe that their flesh-filtered experiences are more real, more significant, more of God than angels, spirits and the rest of the unknown. Human consciousness, trapped in a prison of linear thought, filtered through the prism of fear and doubt, is reality.
Dimensions are simply a reflection of where we place our consciousness. Like the ventriloquist who throws her voice behind a ball one minute, under a table the next. Consciousness can be thrown into a dot, into a line, into a human form, into a thought form or directly into Heaven. Crossing the veil, moving through dimensions is nothing more than shifting consciousness from one location to another. Be the dot. Be the line. Be your form. Be now. Be here.
Consider time travel this way. The popular mediums of science fiction almost always depict it as via an elaborate technological contraption. Mind, body and presumably soul are all simultaneously transported elsewhere: To the same world, just at a different point in time. Linear forward or linear backward are the only options. In the rare instance that time is not a closed linear system, only human choice in human form provokes change, for better or worse, depending on the plot.
When is the world ever changed in fiction by the mouse that chooses to forego the cheese in the trap, preferring a slightly lengthier sensation of hunger to the fate that befell the housemate, rotting ten feet away, his nose one-quarter inch from the prize. The exterminator is eventually called. The assistant flirts with the neighbor. Children are born. A few move. A town is founded three hundred miles away, a new sport created, a new contraption invented for the new sport, acres of timber felled, trillions of gallons of fossil fuels burned. The choice of a mouse changes the lives of all. Though, yes, it was a human who set the trap, who called the exterminator. Nonetheless, the mouse has his part…and spirits, and angels and thought forms have theirs. Humans are not the sole players.
Time is not solely linear. Time travel requires only a heart tuned in to the rhythms of the universe...and the will to do so. It is our heart-directed consciousness that is capable of traversing time and space. The physical body is no more likely to cross time than the chair, couch, ground or other object on which you sit or lay reading. The physical body belongs to the physical world and is bound by physical laws. The only vehicle capable of interacting with any other dimension, time included, is the spirit. The spirit is boundless: Unbound by linearity or sight or sound or a room or a body or the present. Spirit is all present, all dimensions. Time is subject to the dictates of spirit, not the other way around.
***
In Heaven, we have a motto: “It’s no one’s job to save the world. If everyone would do the job they’re assigned, live their best life, the world wouldn’t need saving.”
*********
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Luzca is real
What a story. It turns out that Luzca is the true spirit of an ancestor. A great-aunt to be specific who was named Lucinda Gray. Before I found her information in an old book tucked away in a drawer for over ten years, I'd already made the primary characters of the novel she is inspiring her and her grandmother who was to be clearly called GranGrae. Turns out GranGrae is Gran Gray and real too.
Gran Gray is listed in the family tree as a fully Native American which explains a whole bunch. Her son, my great-grandfather was a pastor among other things. Spiritual matters are in my blood it seems.
In the next couple days, I'll be editing a blog that will be an edited compilation of emails I've sent that show how Lucinda is influencing my writing, interacting with me and affecting her presence in my life.
Of note:
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the US. I have not been in touch with my father's side of my family. He died thirteen years ago. I saw them all at his funeral and then a subset three years later at my paternal grandmother's funeral over a decade ago.
There was one instance when I ran into an uncle who teaches math in my same school district several years ago, but that has been the extent of the contact.
Last Saturday I was doing a workshop on my book, the non-fiction parent primer on California Schools at a district-sponsored event with over 40 presenters and some twenty colleges represented. My room was in the farthest building, the farthest corner at the end. That, by the way, is exactly where I had kept the family reunion booklet that included the only reference in my home to "Aunt Cindy" aka Luzca--in the furthest most corner of my bottom bookshelf on the side of the split drawer that is furthest away from where I sit and type.
There were no attendees at 8:00am when the first session was to begin. The halls were empty. So empty, so lifeless, that after setting up I took the time to see who the competition might be, who else was presenting. I notice a name that sounds vaguely familiar. The first name is a bit unique. It sounded like a cousin. A quick check of the last name and sure enough it is a cousin from my father's side.
Wow! It was only the week earlier, six days prior, that I had uncovered Lucinda Gray. When I did, when I saw all the parallels between the story line that I had laid out for my fictitious Luzca and GranGrae, I vowed to get in touch with my paternal relatives. That was on the Monday before the Saturday workshop. Of course, I put it off, did nothing, and wouldn't have any time soon left to my own initiative.
I glance back down at the program. I'm in disbelief that while I sit at this workshop that I had previously determined was gonna be my last workshop connected with my first book, a connection to Lucinda is there too.
Unbelievable. Forty presenters, a huge spread of rooms that span three two-story buildings. My cousin is in the next room.
That Luzca!
She's serious. The first words out of this cousin's mouth. "You have to come over for Thanksgiving." With two feasts to attend already, my initial response was not affirmative. It took a few minutes to appreciate that this was not optional. I had failed to follow through and email or call as I had promised Luzca I would. No worries. She already had the whole thing planned anyway.
I'll wait till after tomorrow's reunion to post the edited emails. More coming.
...and why did I finally begin to blog tonight? I'm finally knuckling down and attempting to get on paper some of this novel I seem to be channeling more than writing. And as I do, the tone begins to stand out. It is Lucinda's own voice describing our lineage, the tradition of connection to spirit, the crossing of dimensions, the melding of worlds.
Too fascinating.
Gran Gray is listed in the family tree as a fully Native American which explains a whole bunch. Her son, my great-grandfather was a pastor among other things. Spiritual matters are in my blood it seems.
In the next couple days, I'll be editing a blog that will be an edited compilation of emails I've sent that show how Lucinda is influencing my writing, interacting with me and affecting her presence in my life.
Of note:
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the US. I have not been in touch with my father's side of my family. He died thirteen years ago. I saw them all at his funeral and then a subset three years later at my paternal grandmother's funeral over a decade ago.
There was one instance when I ran into an uncle who teaches math in my same school district several years ago, but that has been the extent of the contact.
Last Saturday I was doing a workshop on my book, the non-fiction parent primer on California Schools at a district-sponsored event with over 40 presenters and some twenty colleges represented. My room was in the farthest building, the farthest corner at the end. That, by the way, is exactly where I had kept the family reunion booklet that included the only reference in my home to "Aunt Cindy" aka Luzca--in the furthest most corner of my bottom bookshelf on the side of the split drawer that is furthest away from where I sit and type.
There were no attendees at 8:00am when the first session was to begin. The halls were empty. So empty, so lifeless, that after setting up I took the time to see who the competition might be, who else was presenting. I notice a name that sounds vaguely familiar. The first name is a bit unique. It sounded like a cousin. A quick check of the last name and sure enough it is a cousin from my father's side.
Wow! It was only the week earlier, six days prior, that I had uncovered Lucinda Gray. When I did, when I saw all the parallels between the story line that I had laid out for my fictitious Luzca and GranGrae, I vowed to get in touch with my paternal relatives. That was on the Monday before the Saturday workshop. Of course, I put it off, did nothing, and wouldn't have any time soon left to my own initiative.
I glance back down at the program. I'm in disbelief that while I sit at this workshop that I had previously determined was gonna be my last workshop connected with my first book, a connection to Lucinda is there too.
Unbelievable. Forty presenters, a huge spread of rooms that span three two-story buildings. My cousin is in the next room.
That Luzca!
She's serious. The first words out of this cousin's mouth. "You have to come over for Thanksgiving." With two feasts to attend already, my initial response was not affirmative. It took a few minutes to appreciate that this was not optional. I had failed to follow through and email or call as I had promised Luzca I would. No worries. She already had the whole thing planned anyway.
I'll wait till after tomorrow's reunion to post the edited emails. More coming.
...and why did I finally begin to blog tonight? I'm finally knuckling down and attempting to get on paper some of this novel I seem to be channeling more than writing. And as I do, the tone begins to stand out. It is Lucinda's own voice describing our lineage, the tradition of connection to spirit, the crossing of dimensions, the melding of worlds.
Too fascinating.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Luzca, Alice and I...and preparing the way
Yesterday, I purchased together a piece each of moldavite, aragonite star cluster and sphelerite. While I am still working on Alice's book, I have come to embrace my desire to live as a writer. I am grateful to a member of the London-based African-Caribbean healer's group who offered a perspective that helped me seize and own that truth for my life.
In the meantime, though, another book I have wanted to write for two years is also being developed simultaneously. This week, on Tuesday night, I was given the name and a few details of it's main character, Luzca.
The following is an email sent to a buddy about it all:
On the moldavite, which comes from Bohemia (Czech Republic):"Because its energies are so powerful it's a good idea to keep it near you a lot when you first get one and to meditate with it regularly. Whenever moldavite is used in meditation it is recommended that a grounding stone: black tourmaline, hematite, tiger's eye, smoky quartz, red jasper, or obsidian, be placed by the feet for grounding purposes.
Special warning: You will find in time that more and more things seem to be unnecessary: the relationship you're hanging on to because it's comfortable and you don't like to be lonely, for example. You may find it more and more important to be honest with both yourself and others."
And it suddenly becomes so fascinating and apparent why I had to get all three together. Why those three. I read up on the aragonite--it's grounding, especially emotionally. And then combine it with the truth-telling spheler-something. It all adds up.
What is most fascinating to me is the way I get prepared in advance for these major shifts. Watching that particular movie, In America, and having what was really a rather violent reaction to it. I was actually hyper-ventilating. I wasn't afraid of it, but I was alarmed.
Did you ever see Amistad? The dark, tall and entirely masculine...just found his image
djimon hounsou
...
This is from the movie I watched that night. The girls family lives in the same run-down complex. They are immigrants living in New York. The part in the movie that beat me up was when her father is confronting his demons and fears and, in a fit, accuses Djaimon's character of being in love with his wife. By the way, Djimon's character is such a contrast...he is shown angry and yelling and then at other times, gentle and tender.
Right at that moment in the movie, being accused of having an interest in the Irish wife, Djimon responds with...."No, I am in love with you." He speaks it strongly and softly. Then he builds up to a crescendo of emotion adding, "And I am in love with your woman. I am in love with your girls. I am in love, even, with your anger. I am in love with anything that is alive." By this point he is screaming with a depth that only such a raw hunk of African masculinity can pull forth from a human diaphragm.
And my soul shivered, then it quivered. Then I hyperventilated and went back to the time as a child when I longed to be held. Something about the vibration in his voice, I don't doubt it. What event in his own life he pulled from to carry the scene, I can't imagine. Whatever it was, it came through loud and clear, and my heart resonated with the despair, anguish and hopeless resignation. And it literally shook the injury out of me. That was the exorcism.
And when it was all over, some ten to fifteen minutes later, after needing to imagine myself swimming deeply in the Caribbean, embraced, held and caressed by the salt waters, I was able to recall the reality of my need, desire and singular purpose to experience love at a soul and spiritual level I had ceased to acknowledge consciously or experientially.
The scene ends with the Irishman calmly, quietly announcing, "You're dying. I'm sorry." And all the clues that he has aids are confirmed.
The very next day, yesterday, the universe stirs me up to visit the farmer's market to buy those three stones.
Within a few hours after placing the moldavite in a jacket pocket, I am excited about coming home to attend to Luzca's story. I know details are coming. I know I'll receive them. Hours later when I arrive home, I walk in the door and wish I had long, wide sheets of paper to do a story board. I've never done one before. I've seen images of them, maybe in movies or on a special about screenwriters or story-editors.
I decide it is so necessary for the story-plotting I'm about to, that I'm willing to turn around, get right back in the car and drive to an office supply. As soon as I turn the nob, I remember that just before our staff meeting, a couple hours earlier, our school secretary told me the easel paper I ordered had arrived and that I should put in my car to take back to my classroom, at a different site from where we meet. The universe had supplied the exact paper I needed. As usual, I didn't notice it until it made sense, until I knew what to do with the support.
And I set there with the writing buddy crystal I wrote about earlier, the moldavite and some others and let details about Luzca, her grandmother, her great-grandmother and great-great grandmother come to me. I realized after I sent you that email about channeling Luzca's character that this is story I said I wanted to write at least two years ago, after I'd done the DNA mapping.
The time it takes to prepare the way...
In the meantime, though, another book I have wanted to write for two years is also being developed simultaneously. This week, on Tuesday night, I was given the name and a few details of it's main character, Luzca.
The following is an email sent to a buddy about it all:
On the moldavite, which comes from Bohemia (Czech Republic):"Because its energies are so powerful it's a good idea to keep it near you a lot when you first get one and to meditate with it regularly. Whenever moldavite is used in meditation it is recommended that a grounding stone: black tourmaline, hematite, tiger's eye, smoky quartz, red jasper, or obsidian, be placed by the feet for grounding purposes.
Special warning: You will find in time that more and more things seem to be unnecessary: the relationship you're hanging on to because it's comfortable and you don't like to be lonely, for example. You may find it more and more important to be honest with both yourself and others."
And it suddenly becomes so fascinating and apparent why I had to get all three together. Why those three. I read up on the aragonite--it's grounding, especially emotionally. And then combine it with the truth-telling spheler-something. It all adds up.
What is most fascinating to me is the way I get prepared in advance for these major shifts. Watching that particular movie, In America, and having what was really a rather violent reaction to it. I was actually hyper-ventilating. I wasn't afraid of it, but I was alarmed.
Did you ever see Amistad? The dark, tall and entirely masculine...just found his image
djimon hounsou
...
This is from the movie I watched that night. The girls family lives in the same run-down complex. They are immigrants living in New York. The part in the movie that beat me up was when her father is confronting his demons and fears and, in a fit, accuses Djaimon's character of being in love with his wife. By the way, Djimon's character is such a contrast...he is shown angry and yelling and then at other times, gentle and tender.
Right at that moment in the movie, being accused of having an interest in the Irish wife, Djimon responds with...."No, I am in love with you." He speaks it strongly and softly. Then he builds up to a crescendo of emotion adding, "And I am in love with your woman. I am in love with your girls. I am in love, even, with your anger. I am in love with anything that is alive." By this point he is screaming with a depth that only such a raw hunk of African masculinity can pull forth from a human diaphragm.
And my soul shivered, then it quivered. Then I hyperventilated and went back to the time as a child when I longed to be held. Something about the vibration in his voice, I don't doubt it. What event in his own life he pulled from to carry the scene, I can't imagine. Whatever it was, it came through loud and clear, and my heart resonated with the despair, anguish and hopeless resignation. And it literally shook the injury out of me. That was the exorcism.
And when it was all over, some ten to fifteen minutes later, after needing to imagine myself swimming deeply in the Caribbean, embraced, held and caressed by the salt waters, I was able to recall the reality of my need, desire and singular purpose to experience love at a soul and spiritual level I had ceased to acknowledge consciously or experientially.
The scene ends with the Irishman calmly, quietly announcing, "You're dying. I'm sorry." And all the clues that he has aids are confirmed.
The very next day, yesterday, the universe stirs me up to visit the farmer's market to buy those three stones.
Within a few hours after placing the moldavite in a jacket pocket, I am excited about coming home to attend to Luzca's story. I know details are coming. I know I'll receive them. Hours later when I arrive home, I walk in the door and wish I had long, wide sheets of paper to do a story board. I've never done one before. I've seen images of them, maybe in movies or on a special about screenwriters or story-editors.
I decide it is so necessary for the story-plotting I'm about to, that I'm willing to turn around, get right back in the car and drive to an office supply. As soon as I turn the nob, I remember that just before our staff meeting, a couple hours earlier, our school secretary told me the easel paper I ordered had arrived and that I should put in my car to take back to my classroom, at a different site from where we meet. The universe had supplied the exact paper I needed. As usual, I didn't notice it until it made sense, until I knew what to do with the support.
And I set there with the writing buddy crystal I wrote about earlier, the moldavite and some others and let details about Luzca, her grandmother, her great-grandmother and great-great grandmother come to me. I realized after I sent you that email about channeling Luzca's character that this is story I said I wanted to write at least two years ago, after I'd done the DNA mapping.
The time it takes to prepare the way...
Sunday, October 14, 2007
The Master Key
The newest thing in self-improvement in the U.S. is The Secret. Even Oprah's pushing it.
The last blog entry included a quote from Alice's diary. Around the time of that entry, she was also writing about something called the Master Key and a system toward helping improves one life. A little digging while I was reading through the collection of her papers unearthed that full reference to the book. I've looked it up and just discovered that it is the same book that they claim The Secret is founded upon and references. One pop-up advertisement claims it is even the very book that caused Bill Gates to drop out of school and start his company.
I shouldn't be surprised that Ms. Dunbar-Nelson was, once again, ahead of her times. I'm off to buy this book and check it for myself in just a moment.
Also, regarding that diary entry excerpt, I went to the very park and reservoir which she refers to. I traced her very steps. The reservoir is just as soothing and placid, though there were no stairs since construction was taking place on one side of it. I had to climb a couple enbankments to reach it. From there I went back down and sat on one of the benches. The benches were a bit modern, so they were in no way the very equipment on which she might have sat. And there were modern swings in a children's play area that no doubt post-date her diary entry.
It was wonderful to just sit there and try to imagine what she might have felt, what the scene might have been like at that time. I likewise visited the block on which her old home was located. Oddly enough, there was a single building from that era that remained entirely in tact. The neighborhood is now Wilmington, Delaware's civic center, but one lone building sat in the middle of a parking lot, dating back to the original sructures. She had lived at 916 French street for a while, this building was 914. It's a lawyer's office now.
More details of the book were presented to me through the research.
On the flight there, the first of the new Tera-mai Seichem Reiki symbols dropped into my consciousness. Zonar suddenly appeared in my mind's eye. On the plane ride back to Long Beach, I used this symbol to help clear out a lot of psychic debris. It was quite powerful to watch it do its work. Funny how the universe works.
I can see how uniquely appropriate and important it was that I use that symbol for the mental housecleaning. Reading through Alice's papers kicked up a lot of dust in my own mind. The more I study her, the more I learn about myself.
How amazing it is that the universe brought to me enough extra cash this summer to enable me to both take that trip and receive the new TeraMai-Seichem attunements that are coming in handy to help me with the process of writing this book.
I'm also sleeping with a Chrysanthemum Stone. These are credited with helping one find one's true path and to have the courage to live it.
One reader, wrote after reading the last entry that I should start not delay in starting this book. The encouragement she offered when I asked her to say more was invaluable. I think that sometimes, because I seem to go after what I want and to get it, my friends and family underestimate the value of their spoken support and encouragement to me.
I would love to be a writer. And by that I mean, to earn financial support enough to make that my primary contribution to the planet. For teachers, there is nothing so enticing as the security of that promised pension after 30 years of service. I have to be ever so careful to balance not leaving a sensible investment in my future with the pursuit of my dreams.
The funny thing is that Alice loved politics so much that she left her job one too many times to attend a rally and when she returned the new principal succeeded in having her fired. She never recovered from the loss of that steady income. She had taken it for granted and failed to appreciate in time that it was the means to her being able to do the many political, social and artistic activities she craved. Financially, she never quite recovered.
I'll plan on keeping my day job. In the meantime, I will put my heart and an equivalent of a sustained sweat into this writing business. Oh, and I'm off to buy this book Master Key book, too.
The last blog entry included a quote from Alice's diary. Around the time of that entry, she was also writing about something called the Master Key and a system toward helping improves one life. A little digging while I was reading through the collection of her papers unearthed that full reference to the book. I've looked it up and just discovered that it is the same book that they claim The Secret is founded upon and references. One pop-up advertisement claims it is even the very book that caused Bill Gates to drop out of school and start his company.
I shouldn't be surprised that Ms. Dunbar-Nelson was, once again, ahead of her times. I'm off to buy this book and check it for myself in just a moment.
Also, regarding that diary entry excerpt, I went to the very park and reservoir which she refers to. I traced her very steps. The reservoir is just as soothing and placid, though there were no stairs since construction was taking place on one side of it. I had to climb a couple enbankments to reach it. From there I went back down and sat on one of the benches. The benches were a bit modern, so they were in no way the very equipment on which she might have sat. And there were modern swings in a children's play area that no doubt post-date her diary entry.
It was wonderful to just sit there and try to imagine what she might have felt, what the scene might have been like at that time. I likewise visited the block on which her old home was located. Oddly enough, there was a single building from that era that remained entirely in tact. The neighborhood is now Wilmington, Delaware's civic center, but one lone building sat in the middle of a parking lot, dating back to the original sructures. She had lived at 916 French street for a while, this building was 914. It's a lawyer's office now.
More details of the book were presented to me through the research.
On the flight there, the first of the new Tera-mai Seichem Reiki symbols dropped into my consciousness. Zonar suddenly appeared in my mind's eye. On the plane ride back to Long Beach, I used this symbol to help clear out a lot of psychic debris. It was quite powerful to watch it do its work. Funny how the universe works.
I can see how uniquely appropriate and important it was that I use that symbol for the mental housecleaning. Reading through Alice's papers kicked up a lot of dust in my own mind. The more I study her, the more I learn about myself.
How amazing it is that the universe brought to me enough extra cash this summer to enable me to both take that trip and receive the new TeraMai-Seichem attunements that are coming in handy to help me with the process of writing this book.
I'm also sleeping with a Chrysanthemum Stone. These are credited with helping one find one's true path and to have the courage to live it.
One reader, wrote after reading the last entry that I should start not delay in starting this book. The encouragement she offered when I asked her to say more was invaluable. I think that sometimes, because I seem to go after what I want and to get it, my friends and family underestimate the value of their spoken support and encouragement to me.
I would love to be a writer. And by that I mean, to earn financial support enough to make that my primary contribution to the planet. For teachers, there is nothing so enticing as the security of that promised pension after 30 years of service. I have to be ever so careful to balance not leaving a sensible investment in my future with the pursuit of my dreams.
The funny thing is that Alice loved politics so much that she left her job one too many times to attend a rally and when she returned the new principal succeeded in having her fired. She never recovered from the loss of that steady income. She had taken it for granted and failed to appreciate in time that it was the means to her being able to do the many political, social and artistic activities she craved. Financially, she never quite recovered.
I'll plan on keeping my day job. In the meantime, I will put my heart and an equivalent of a sustained sweat into this writing business. Oh, and I'm off to buy this book Master Key book, too.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Crystal Color brings on crystal clear
This morning I woke up so excited. It's the second time in two weeks that I reached for a different crystal...a crystal that I had sitting around in my room here or there, but hadn't held or meditated with in quite some time. And in each of the two instances, I had new awarenesses come to mind. Fantastic.
Last night it was a lepidolite massage-tool shaped crystal that sat on a nightstand for weeks. Before that, it sat for months with a host of others that I choose from each morning, deciding which one or two to place in a pocket.
It was gonna be tonight's selection to hold as I went off to sleep. My mind started drifting to my favorite scene, an oceanfront location. I can't remember if I was just walking along a shore cliff or had placed myself on the outskirts of a town, or which specific surroundings, but in an instant, I saw this beautiful electric blue. It had properties that don't exist in colors we see with the eyes. It was practically alive. It's the color of the perfect sea and sky. It isn't turquoise or baby blue, but some lively mixing of them with electricity, life itself, and the peace of heaven all mixed in together.
I spent several moments straining my mind to recapture that particular color, that new and strange quality of life that came with it, was inherent in it.
Oddly though, it wasn't entirely pleasant as an experience. It kind of hurt when I tried to hold on to it. Go figure. Imagine a thumb being pressed just between your eyebrows a little too strongly and a little too long. I guess I was really straining my third eye chakra to hold it in my mind.
I knew immediately that it wasn't on the usually visible spectrum of light for the physical human eye. If you're not sure what I mean, think dog hearing. There are sounds that while perfectly natural and normal, lie outside the range of most human beings ability to process within our physical framework. Likewise, there are light frequencies, colors, that are outside the developed capacity of either our eyes to perceive or our waking mind to process, or both. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_light)
The blue I saw was one of these colors. Years ago I had a dream of visiting pyramids...well, not so much "visiting" as being part of a long procession required to pass by them in some parallel "dream" world. The colors of the pyramids, of the stone were incredible. The only word that comes close to capturing what these shades of gold, brown, violet, and rust were like is VIVID. Vivid implies life, doesn't it. The colors were alive.
Color is light. Light is alive. It could be. We're alive. We are just an accumulation of particles. Light is particles.
You're thinking, "Wait a second, no, light is a wave." Fine. But did you know that modern physicists are proving what metaphysicists have known, that there exists a duality at the tiniest levels of existence. Electrons, quarks and light itelf are composed of smaller material that can transform instantaneously from wave to particle. Waves and particles, they are the same thing material being expressed differently depending on the circumstances or context. Amazing stuff.
Color is explained to be light vibrating at different frequencies. Not that this is to be a scientific treatise or anything...but red's wavelength is longer and frequency shorter than, say blue, with a shorter wavelength (arc) and therefore a faster frequency (http://www.usbyte.com/common/approximate_wavelength.htm).
The links are in case you wanna know more.
Which brings of to the new perspectives.
A few weeks ago I experienced words as alive. I was reading Dostoevsky's The Idiot and saw them literally dance themselves off the page from the way he wrote. From there I decided to return to the classroom as a student to learn more about the stories, novels and writing so that I can be fully participatory and cognitive in the process when my muses inspire me with the story/biography/novel I intend to complete sometime in the next several years. (Not being funny when I say "years", just being honest about how long it might take to do all the steps involved in preparing myself, the subject, and the final form.)
Back to last night. Before going to bed and picking up the lepidolite, I was reading Alice Dunbar-Nelson's diary. (She's the subject of the book for blog-readers who don't already know.) In the parts I read she is going into detail about her fascination with the ideal, with God's beauty in nature. In particular:
"My head was stuffy after staying in the office until eight o'clock, so I went for a walk after coming home. Out 11th street, quiet and broody under the trees, with pleasant homes; across the 10th Street Park and up the stairs to the reservoir. It was heavenly up there--lovely water, soft grass, the clover leaves shut tight and shedding the dew; the moon big and red gold, hanging over the trees and matching the electric lights around the banks. Boys and girls enjoying themselves after the fashion of kids. I hungered, dreaming over the loveliness of it all. And I tried to think through this conception of INfinite, Omnipotent Good, within me, around me, ME. I went downstairs and sat on a bench in the park near a weeping willow tree, bending over the skating pond. It was as still as if it had been painted. And I tried to understand inspiration by the law of attraction."
She goes on to say more about a particular book and concept on God she was reading. Oh my GOD!!! I just went to quote the day and year, to provide to the reader for effect. And I was the one affected. It was August 21, 1921. 21, 21. My birthday. There are no coincidences, only fascinating clues by the universe to help us guide our way.
And that confirms what inspired me this morning. I woke up clearer about what I want the angle to be in her story.
She was a historical figure. She was Paul Laurence Dunbar's wife, he America's first noted and celebrated Negro poet. She was a suffragist, working tirelessly to get the 19th Amendment passed to ensure voting rights for women--black men had it after slavery, but women of any color had to wait till 1920 here in the land of opportunity. She was an author, poet, educator. She was a survivor of physical abuse. While participating at a rally/protest, she was beaten with a club by DC police. After a drunken binge, Paul came home one night and nearly beat her to death. (That was the last time she saw him.)
She was part of the Harlem Renaissance, a guide and way-paver for the younger artists. The love of her life was her 3rd husband with whom she ran and operated a black newspaper for her home state. She was a columnist of note and an early member of the NAACP. She was light enough to pass for white and often did. She struggled to be less bigoted against her own kind than those who were bigoted against her.
And my story about her, my interest in her, the focus of my book will be primarily about her struggle to understand her place in the universe. That is what ultimately consumed her. That is what consumes me.
That is why her spirit chose to partner with me.
Now, I can see what she is hoping will be conveyed in a book about her. She longed in life to be more than black, more than a woman, more than a shell. She wanted to be an expression of spirit, to connect with it, merge with it, experience her full right of existence as often as possible. She worked so devoutly in causes battling sexism, racism, any limits-ism, I suspect, believing it might one day lead to her freeing her own soul.
And one day, three years and two months ago, I met her spirit during a history grant. I was, at the time, likewise trying to embrace and engage and experience the fullness of my soul and my spirit. I had just months before begun A Course In Miracles. I had been on the journey before the book. I stayed on the journey after the book.
I wondered, seriously wondered, why Alice would call upon me to venture into writing about her life. I'm no serious historian. I'm no great writer...yet...either. And this morning it makes sense. Like her, I hunger for spirit. I want to explore it and write about it.
Oh yes...I will write our story.
Pictures of Alice Dunbar Nelson:
Last night it was a lepidolite massage-tool shaped crystal that sat on a nightstand for weeks. Before that, it sat for months with a host of others that I choose from each morning, deciding which one or two to place in a pocket.
It was gonna be tonight's selection to hold as I went off to sleep. My mind started drifting to my favorite scene, an oceanfront location. I can't remember if I was just walking along a shore cliff or had placed myself on the outskirts of a town, or which specific surroundings, but in an instant, I saw this beautiful electric blue. It had properties that don't exist in colors we see with the eyes. It was practically alive. It's the color of the perfect sea and sky. It isn't turquoise or baby blue, but some lively mixing of them with electricity, life itself, and the peace of heaven all mixed in together.
I spent several moments straining my mind to recapture that particular color, that new and strange quality of life that came with it, was inherent in it.
Oddly though, it wasn't entirely pleasant as an experience. It kind of hurt when I tried to hold on to it. Go figure. Imagine a thumb being pressed just between your eyebrows a little too strongly and a little too long. I guess I was really straining my third eye chakra to hold it in my mind.
I knew immediately that it wasn't on the usually visible spectrum of light for the physical human eye. If you're not sure what I mean, think dog hearing. There are sounds that while perfectly natural and normal, lie outside the range of most human beings ability to process within our physical framework. Likewise, there are light frequencies, colors, that are outside the developed capacity of either our eyes to perceive or our waking mind to process, or both. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_light)
The blue I saw was one of these colors. Years ago I had a dream of visiting pyramids...well, not so much "visiting" as being part of a long procession required to pass by them in some parallel "dream" world. The colors of the pyramids, of the stone were incredible. The only word that comes close to capturing what these shades of gold, brown, violet, and rust were like is VIVID. Vivid implies life, doesn't it. The colors were alive.
Color is light. Light is alive. It could be. We're alive. We are just an accumulation of particles. Light is particles.
You're thinking, "Wait a second, no, light is a wave." Fine. But did you know that modern physicists are proving what metaphysicists have known, that there exists a duality at the tiniest levels of existence. Electrons, quarks and light itelf are composed of smaller material that can transform instantaneously from wave to particle. Waves and particles, they are the same thing material being expressed differently depending on the circumstances or context. Amazing stuff.
Color is explained to be light vibrating at different frequencies. Not that this is to be a scientific treatise or anything...but red's wavelength is longer and frequency shorter than, say blue, with a shorter wavelength (arc) and therefore a faster frequency (http://www.usbyte.com/common/approximate_wavelength.htm).
The links are in case you wanna know more.
Which brings of to the new perspectives.
A few weeks ago I experienced words as alive. I was reading Dostoevsky's The Idiot and saw them literally dance themselves off the page from the way he wrote. From there I decided to return to the classroom as a student to learn more about the stories, novels and writing so that I can be fully participatory and cognitive in the process when my muses inspire me with the story/biography/novel I intend to complete sometime in the next several years. (Not being funny when I say "years", just being honest about how long it might take to do all the steps involved in preparing myself, the subject, and the final form.)
Back to last night. Before going to bed and picking up the lepidolite, I was reading Alice Dunbar-Nelson's diary. (She's the subject of the book for blog-readers who don't already know.) In the parts I read she is going into detail about her fascination with the ideal, with God's beauty in nature. In particular:
"My head was stuffy after staying in the office until eight o'clock, so I went for a walk after coming home. Out 11th street, quiet and broody under the trees, with pleasant homes; across the 10th Street Park and up the stairs to the reservoir. It was heavenly up there--lovely water, soft grass, the clover leaves shut tight and shedding the dew; the moon big and red gold, hanging over the trees and matching the electric lights around the banks. Boys and girls enjoying themselves after the fashion of kids. I hungered, dreaming over the loveliness of it all. And I tried to think through this conception of INfinite, Omnipotent Good, within me, around me, ME. I went downstairs and sat on a bench in the park near a weeping willow tree, bending over the skating pond. It was as still as if it had been painted. And I tried to understand inspiration by the law of attraction."
She goes on to say more about a particular book and concept on God she was reading. Oh my GOD!!! I just went to quote the day and year, to provide to the reader for effect. And I was the one affected. It was August 21, 1921. 21, 21. My birthday. There are no coincidences, only fascinating clues by the universe to help us guide our way.
And that confirms what inspired me this morning. I woke up clearer about what I want the angle to be in her story.
She was a historical figure. She was Paul Laurence Dunbar's wife, he America's first noted and celebrated Negro poet. She was a suffragist, working tirelessly to get the 19th Amendment passed to ensure voting rights for women--black men had it after slavery, but women of any color had to wait till 1920 here in the land of opportunity. She was an author, poet, educator. She was a survivor of physical abuse. While participating at a rally/protest, she was beaten with a club by DC police. After a drunken binge, Paul came home one night and nearly beat her to death. (That was the last time she saw him.)
She was part of the Harlem Renaissance, a guide and way-paver for the younger artists. The love of her life was her 3rd husband with whom she ran and operated a black newspaper for her home state. She was a columnist of note and an early member of the NAACP. She was light enough to pass for white and often did. She struggled to be less bigoted against her own kind than those who were bigoted against her.
And my story about her, my interest in her, the focus of my book will be primarily about her struggle to understand her place in the universe. That is what ultimately consumed her. That is what consumes me.
That is why her spirit chose to partner with me.
Now, I can see what she is hoping will be conveyed in a book about her. She longed in life to be more than black, more than a woman, more than a shell. She wanted to be an expression of spirit, to connect with it, merge with it, experience her full right of existence as often as possible. She worked so devoutly in causes battling sexism, racism, any limits-ism, I suspect, believing it might one day lead to her freeing her own soul.
And one day, three years and two months ago, I met her spirit during a history grant. I was, at the time, likewise trying to embrace and engage and experience the fullness of my soul and my spirit. I had just months before begun A Course In Miracles. I had been on the journey before the book. I stayed on the journey after the book.
I wondered, seriously wondered, why Alice would call upon me to venture into writing about her life. I'm no serious historian. I'm no great writer...yet...either. And this morning it makes sense. Like her, I hunger for spirit. I want to explore it and write about it.
Oh yes...I will write our story.
Pictures of Alice Dunbar Nelson:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)