Sometimes experiments fail. And we can talk about that too.

It's been two months since I posted.  Whew, time kinda flies (but also kinda stands still).  I think about posting a lot, but generally don't for the same reason over and over ... I feel performance anxiety.  People really liked my last entry, I say to myself, what if this next one is dumb, or sounds whiny or isn't well thought-out?!?!?  And so I don't post.

I don't regret it, but it is kind of inauthentic to only post the feelings, thoughts, conclusions and impressions that I deem "worthy" of the audience.  After all, I have titled this blog a search for and experimentation with Truth - shouldn't failed experiments be included in my reporting as well as the successful ones?  I think so!  So without a long expose', I will shine a light on the past two months.

It's been really, really rough.  Not rough because I've been busy at the grindstone, but rough because I've been beating myself up about not being busy at the grindstone.  I would wake up, usually at about 1:30 in the afternoon, and think of how pathetic and inappropriate such a late hour was.  I'd not feel like going in to volunteer at the coffee shop, and feel like a withholder and feel unreliable for not doing so.  I'd sit around the house in my jammies all day, and point out to myself that I am the epitome of white trash.  Of course, just about anyone I'd talk to about this would look at me like I was crazy and say, "I don't judge you.  I don't think that about you.  I actually don't think about how early you wake up, what you do with your time, or how you dress at all...  You're fretting over nothing!"  Their comforting words would provide temporary solace, but of course, the only true acceptance we can ever feel has to come from ourselves... and I was my worst critic.

I also read a lot of fiction and watched a lot of TV.  Hooray for the Mistborn trilogy, the Hunger Games, The Three Musketeers, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Spartacus, The Walking Dead and so on.  I didn't like Inkheart that much though, and started reading Inkspell and just couldn't get past the first 80 pages because it was for too young of an audience...  This was another tool I employed:  fiction/TV mixed with some wine provided a perfect cocktail of numbness and "checking-out."  I don't regret this, but have beat myself up about it.  Of course, like with everyone else, no one else criticized me about it at all.  It was just my own self-reproach that gnawed at me.

I got better at it, but I did pendulum swing.  It became about being proud and defensive about all of it.  I LOVE that I get to sleep in and pity you because you don't!  Or I'm not so shallow as to care about how I look.  Obviously WE'RE not on the same level!  Ah, the snide nature of defensiveness.  I didn't actually say these things to anybody, but I shielded myself with the words.  Of course, no one was shooting arrows, so a shield was pointless.  All that happened was my self-criticism grew ... and became charged with anger.

I felt abandoned by God.  (In this blog post I'm going to call God "She" for the fun of mixing it up.  I have permission from God to do this.  The "God" I know has no gender.)  She wasn't fixing it.  Here I was, "giving up everything" and She wasn't doing Her part of the deal.  She's betrayed me again!

Do you know that I went through 48 hours of pure hell because I knew my bank account was short the $0.93 needed for an upcoming automatic withdrawal, and I had the $1 bill in my hand, but it was a weekend and I didn't know the PIN to my new debit card, so I couldn't deposit the $1 through the ATM?  I mean, it's pretty ridiculous in retrospect, but it sucked to live through.  I knew it was ridiculous too, but I feel trapped, bound, worried, and betrayed.  God said She'd provide for me ... why was even the simplest thing soooo haaarrdd!?!?

And finally, in the spirit of transparency, I awoke last Tuesday, and laid in bed for about 2 hours, finding comfort in the thought of death.  Death wouldn't solve my problems, I knew, but it would at least change the scenery.  For the record, I had no intention of actually seeking death, but I did start liking the idea of an "escape."

And then a cat snapped me out of it.

Well, the cat started the chain of events that did.  I was house-sitting for a friend, and needed to go feed her cat.  I'd just spent two hours in a class where I'm supposed to lead a spiritual discussion, that turned into two hours of me venting about my sense of betrayal (BTW thanks to my two special co-students for hearing me out and offering love and support!!).  After my class, I intended to walk into my friend's house, dump food in the cat bowl and walk out.  But instead, this adorable little furball named Duchess enticed me into an exchange: she'd get snuggled and loved, and I'd get someone to listen to me vent some more.  That got boring after about 30 minutes so I decided to play my friend's Game Cube while snuggling.  That got boring really fast, but the cat was simply too perfect to leave behind for the evening, so I looked at my friend's movies, and found an Abraham-Hicks lecture on video.  This is the last shot You've got, God.  I'll watch this for 10 minutes, and if I don't feel better, I'm done with You.

Four hours later (2 full DVDs of lectures), I couldn't remember how I'd even been so upset in the first place!  It was all Law of Attraction - I was focused on betrayal, so my life dished up more time and opportunities to fit into the lens of betrayal.  I was focused on justifying my anger, so I had an experience of ever-increasing anger.  And so on.  The only difference between Eeyore and everyone else in the Thousand Acre Wood is where the sad little donkey puts his attention -- his attitude -- right?  (Thanks FB friends for winning me over to the philosophical power of the Pooh stories!)  And I could believe it was real because the minute, while watching the DVD, I looked at my situation through a lens of maybe this is actually a fun experience, it started looking pretty fun.  And funny.

Then I read over the next few days Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue by Neale Donald Walsch, which is rocking my world, and helping me see that all of the negativity I was drawing from my "spirituality" was because I was kinda seeking the failure as a means to justify my anger.  I wanted to be angry.  I still do a lot of the time.  But I feel empowered to accept that there may be a better way.  Instead of seeing this life as a challenging task of overcoming the ego, Conversations with God has helped me to see it as my personal creation of a story of Ascension.  That has a better energy to it, right?  It even sounds ... (dare I say it??) ... fun!

So it's been a good week :)

It took about 3 days, but after conscious attitude shifting, and taking a little accountability for my life, and enjoying the mystery a little, and especially asking for help with an expectation of receiving it, instead of with anger for needing it, things started turning better.  I feel hopeful and even a little delighted, and the perceived entrapment has faded out.

And now I have that off of my chest.   

My Owl Totem Story

Oh, I tried to sleep tonight. It's already 5 AM and I tried to go to bed at 4, but I lied in bed feeling inclined to post my newest learning. Which will be my next post. This one is a shorty that comes first!

Several months ago I was given a reading where the Owl was identified as an animal totem for me. For those who don't know, an animal totem is a specific family of animal or species that has habits, adaptations and lifestyles that one can study and learn valuable lessons about life from. Any person can have a number of totems that either follow them through life, or that pop up for short periods to teach them something.

Now it's a long story, so I'm going to whittle it down, but it's fun and meaningful to encounter a totem in the wild. It's fun because it's like tangible evidence that the real, actual animal is aware of you. So! I've been thinking for about a week that I'd like to go sit in the mountains and see if I could hear or see an owl. I've never seen or heard one in real life that I can remember. I never really even remember seeing any at any zoos or anything. For the past week I've been glued to clips of owls on YouTube.

So tonight I went running on the Provo Canyon trail with my sister Crystal. I had my MP3 player on as I ran. We went late, and it got dark as I was running. When I turned back and met up with Crystal, I turned my MP3 player off and we walked the last mile or so back to the car. We were just chatting and then I heard it! "WHOOo hoo hoho hoo ohhoooooohoo hoohoo" Ha ha. From what I've watched on YouTube it sounded like Great Horned Owl!! Far away from us I think, but we called out and said, "YO! Come down here so I can see you!" He didn't come down, but that didn't matter! He TOTALLY was hooting for me. I'm so stoked because it wasn't like I went and sat in the woods and meditated on owls or anything - I was just out exercising and I turned off my MP3 player right before I heard the hoots. Cute, huh!?!?

I also tried to tempt him down by claiming I had a skunk with me, because skunk is one of my totems too, and is the favorite food of the Great Horned owls. But, it was a lie, so naturally the wise old owl didn't fall for it!

Yay?

Yay!

Adam and Eve - bringing shadow to LIFE!

Genesis 3: 1-7


1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
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2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden;

3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the Garden, God hast said: Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall surely not die;

5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

7 And the eyes of them both were opened ...

(Source - The Holy Bible, King James Version)


It's long been wondered what really happened in the Garden of Eden. What it really means. In fact, even the Rider-Waite-Smith version of the Tarot shows an undeniable reference to this on the Lovers card of the Major Arcana. The symbolism is undeniable, the man and woman, naked, with the woman standing before a tree wrapped in a serpent. Perhaps the angel behind them is Cherubim with his flaming sword (the Sun) protecting the Tree of Life (mentioned at the end of Genesis, ch 3).

Adam stands before the burning tree, Eden gone, representing what is often referred to as the "Fall of Man" (not the fall of Woman).

Just the other day I was talking with someone for some reason about the Garden of Eden and what it was all about. What's with the serpent (aka Satan?). What was he doing there? Why was he interested in tempting Eve?

I've heard possible explanations for it, but as I pondered it the other day, I had an idea come up for me. I'd like to share it with you.

The Bible states that God created all creatures and that "it was good." (Ch1, Verses 24-25). It specifically mentions "creeping things." That to me sounds like serpents. God intentionally put serpents in the garden, and when he did, he thought of them as "good." So why would a good creature, intentionally put into the Garden by the creator himself, tempt Eve to disobey? It doesn't make sense. Even if you don't take the scripture literally, the verses clearly insinuate that God only allowed in the Garden - in his "perfect world" - exactly what he wanted in the Garden. Briars and thorns weren't introduced until after the disobedience. If we assume that the Serpent truly was Satan, I can't see that he "snuck in" to God's sanctuary. He had to be there with the permission of God. And what is a sanctuary riddled with temptation and "evil". No, the serpent wasn't evil. He was the most "clever" but not evil.

Now the first five books of the bible were supposedly written by Moses. If I remember correctly (and I may not) these writings were carried around in the Ark of the Covenant. These writing didn't reach the European or American continents en masse, as books of religious doctrine hundreds if not thousands of years after they were written. In the meantime, cultures thrived across the planet that had no access to the Adam and Eve story. These cultures had their own interpretation of the symbolism of the serpent. Interestingly enough, snakes were often associated with fertility, birth, life and eternity. They also have access to hidden things, hidden information, and secrets. I'm not really seeing any culture that views snakes as evil, or vessels for the evil lord Satan. Source

So let's put two and two together here. A snake tempts Eve to eat the fruit, become mortal, introduce pain and suffering into the earth, lose her innocence perhaps through sex and be ejected from the Garden of Eden. Ok. And snakes have long mythology of being associated with fertility, birth, life and eternity. Sounds to me like one clever creature. Sounds to me like that creature's temptation served Eve to fulfill a commandment to multiply and replenish the Earth.
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Let's change gears. I want to return to the vision I had as I pondered Adam and Eve several days ago.

If I'm in a room, a normal room, let's say I'm in your bedroom, and I shine a really bright spotlight in the room, what happens to the darkness? Does it disappear? Think about it.

I argue that darkness does not disappear. It gathers. It gathers into deeper, darker shadows. The more light I shine, the harder it is to see into the shadows. The shadows in that room become impenetrable. Now if I take everything out of the room, and it's empty, sure, there will be almost no shadow, just feint shadows on the walls, but what good is an empty room? An empty room is beside the point. I want a fullfillinig room, so it has to have substance.

Do we agree that the shadow gathers into deep, dark shadows?

Now, let's say I take that light away. What happens to the darkness? It spreads all over the room. And there's always enough darkness to go around. All light WILL leave the room. There is such a thing as pure dark. There is no such thing as pure light, unless it is actively and equally shined from every possible angle, with no objects to block the light.

It's interesting about darkness, isn't it? And the more accustomed we become to light, the harder it is to penetrate and see into darkness. The less light there is, the more perceptible darkness becomes.

Darkness is like a teenager. The harder you fight against it, the more mysterious it becomes. But you can't leave it unattended or it will take over everything. You have to find a balance with it. Enough light so that you can function, but little enough light that you can look into it and see what's there.
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So let's go back to the Garden of Eden. Oh, everything in the Garden was oh so light, oh so bright. Everything was so bright and so perfect, that let's pretend darkness got cornered into one spot. Darkness was cornered into the holes of the earth. The rabbit holes, the gopher holes, etc. Now mythologically the serpent can be seen as a messenger from the underground. A messenger from the Earth. God (male diety) created Earth (female diety), to be the womb of his creations. Likewise, Adam (male) was given Eve (female) to be the womb of his posterity. Light (male) gives us an opportunity to see into the dark wombs of our souls (female) so that we can become enlightened and we can learn and grow. So the serpent, messenger of the dark underworld, crawls upon Mother Earth, once Father Sky has given his commandment, and approaches the woman. Says "Yo, if light keeps darkness cornered like this there will never be the power of life on this planet. You gotta let the dark (female) mingle with the light (male) so that this Earth serves it's purpose."

If Adam's rib had always stayed inside of his body, he never would have had a fertile womb to gestate his posterity. The rib had to come out. The rib becomes female. Likewise, the darkness of the Earth's womb had to be allowed to roam on Earth. Mother Earth sent her umbilical cord (serpent) to connect to her child (Eve) and teach her how to own her power as a woman.

Eve partook of the fruit, and instantly light and darkness existed in a balance upon the Earth! The seen and the unseen mingled! The unconscious - Adam and Eve's innocent souls - connected to their minds, their egoes, and they realized they were naked! It was like Eve plugged in and everything finally sprang to life AND death! What a miracle!

And for those of us believing this all has to do with sex, that's fantastic. Think about it: the light (phallus) enters darkness (womb) and the balance of the two, the partnership of opposites creates new life. Bingo!
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And so now we live in a world of darkness and light. We're on this crusade, it seems, to destroy darkness and live only in light. Sounds flat and boring to me. Not only that, we all know that darkness doesn't destroy, it just gathers. Is it any wonder that the world has lived primarily in patriarchal order for so many years? It is any wonder that pagan religions of Europe who celebrated the Goddess are considered "dark and evil" by patriarchal cultures - cultures obsessed with "overcoming darkness?" Funny! Darkness isn't here to be overcome! It's here to be explored! It's here to feed creativity (womb) and imagination! The most effective way of exploring darkness is by approaching it with some light. Balance. Balance. Balance.

As a woman, by the way, I am NOT insinuating that because women are represented by darkness that is makes them evil. To associate darkness with evil is to completely miss the point of this blog. Darkness is simply the counterbalance to light. Period. This association with women is cross-cultural anyways. In Greek mythology Apollo and Artemis were twins, with Apollo (male) ruling the sun, and Artemis (female) ruling the moon. Women's menstruation follows closely the cycles of the moons as well. And there's no missing the physiolocial fact that male genitalia is outside of the body (exposed to light) while female genitalia is hidden inside of her body (darkness). Etc, etc.


One last image that I'd like to share from the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot. The Devil card. Notice its similarities to the Lovers card presented above. Notice, if you dare, that both male and female are equally at risk of choosing bondage in life. It's not about the serpent. It never is. In fact, these two people could easily free themselves from bondage - their chains are not tight. But they are comfortable here, so comfortable, in fact, that they're naked - nothing to hide. These two have never had their consciousness awakened - they're still staring blankly off into space. I imagine this card representing Adam and Eve had they stayed in the Garden. Neutralized, simplified, unprogressing. If you stare too long at the sun, your eyes go blind. If you stare too long at the sun and go blind ... darkness wins and takes over. You lose light forever.
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God asks Adam and Eve what happened. Eve says "the serpent beguiled me." God curses Eve and the serpent. Eve is told to be accountable to her husband. Sounds like a perfect ending for a patriarchal story. Sounds like the reaction of a male diety. Does it change my feelings about the story? Nope. Our Earth carries the burdens of rainforests AND deserts. She lives in a constant balance of light AND darkness. She allows seasons of summer AND winter. All at the same time, all at once. In a perfect balance. Feel free to call that a curse, I call it a beautiful miracle, and I enjoy climbing her mountains and living in her valleys.


Her deep pains of labor, much like a woman's childlabor, is her opportunity to explore pain and sacrifice. Her connection to these depths are like the mysteries of the ocean. The serpent crawls upon it's belly, it's "curse," keeping ever in close contact with the womb of all life ("From dust to dust...").


Well, whatever. Call it a curse. That's ok. I'm still awed and honored to be a part of it!