The Blackness; the waning Harvest Moon

"That is not part of me" I say to the young warrior who is holding a lump of black rot in his hands.  He pushes the lump at me.
"No" I repeat. "That is not part of me."

I am knee deep in a lake, surrounded by warriors who are gathering pieces of me adrift in the water.  In a rather dramatic shamanic dismemberment, I have been shattered by a waterfall drop and these young divers are bringing back the parts of me that have drifted away so long ago.  

Yet, this rotted lump of black must clearly be a mistake.  THAT is not a part of me.

I resist again and in a flash, the goddess Kali has called the whole thing off. She is part mother, nurturing but critical; part warrior, irritated and aggressive.  Right now, warrior Kali is exasperated and she asks pointedly "Are you only made up of sugar and spice and everything nice?"

Her appearance is frightening yet so very familiar to me by now.  Her lips are red and glossy; not with lipstick, but blood.  Her own personal struggle with bloodlust is the very reason she resounds with me.  

"No, I'm not just nice. You and I both know that, but that black oozy stuff must be a mistake."  I try to think to my sins; clearly, none of them are THAT bad.  

As if she hears my thoughts, she says "You don't know how your actions ripple.  A small unkind word here. A bit I anger there.  Loss of patience.  And the worst crime is your indifference..."

The words settle over me and I cannot argue.  I know I'm a practiced veteran of indifference. I'm the three monkeys who avoid evil by covering their eyes, ears and mouth...except I forget to cover my mouth...

World events overwhelm me with their horrors so I choose not to acknowledge them.  Hunger everywhere except in my kitchen.  Do not see it.  Do not hear it. Innocent by ignorance, right?

The blackness floats toward me.

Kodachrome, the waning Harvest Moon

Fifty digital photos and I am still looking for the perfect capture of sea and tide.  The Buddhist is perched above me on this coastal rock, his face buried in a book.  He looks up at me and smiles, unaware of my inner frustration.

The waves form a pattern and I wait for the moment to hit that little round button on my new ever so clever phone. 
There!  Click. Fifty one.
Now. Click. Fifty two.  
Hmmm.  Timings off...
OK.  NOW. Click. Fifty three...

All at once, I am transported back to a trip to Maine with my family in the mid 1970s.  I am thirteen and have my Kodac 126 camera dangling from my wrist, an up grade from my old Brownie camera (which I would kill to own now).  Babysitting money and allowance have combined to grant me two cartridges of film- a whopping forty eight photos for a one week trip.  I am fully aware that more babysitting and allowance will be necessary upon my return to extract the images from the cartridges. 

Forty eight photos?  How did I ever decide what was worthy of setting my eye to the view finder and pressing down the button.  That "Kodak Moment" sign was yet to be in vogue, so I had to rely on my instincts.  Not too many photos the first few days.  Make it last! Make it last!  Followed by too many photos of something stupid on the last day...

Yet, the beauty of this primitive photographic system was that I was present every second of my trip.  I experienced the rocks and the tide through my eyes, not a camera's lens.  

AND I had to wait a week after vacation to see the results of my photo prowess.  No do overs. No obsession.  I wasn't musing over memories while still making them. 

I laugh, turn my phone off and wave to my spouse.

Moonrise Kingdom; the Full Harvest Moon

I shift in my seat, bored, as I wait for the show to start.  We had arrived early to claim a good seat, and time was moving painfully slow.  I glance to my right at my spouse and smile as I realize my pet name for him, The Buddhist, is spot on.  He sits calmly with his eyes open and his shoulders erect. By comparison, I fidget, shift, slouch and sigh.

A couple near us is making quiet conversation about someone named Sheila.  It creates a kind of white noise to the otherwise silent space.  More people arrive, find seats, and finally the house lights dim, if ever so eloquently so.

We are on a cliff, one hundred feet above the ocean, facing East in Acadia National Park.  The Buddhist and I are on camp chairs, but most others have stadium seats or blankets.  We all seem to be perched here for the same show: the Full Harvest Moon Rise, yet that can't be confirmed as there were no tickets, no posted show times.

Obscured from view by the cliff, the last of the sunset fades into the west giving the sky and sea a serene sepia tinge.  I grow expectant as I have never seen a Moonrise. In my usual haunts,the Moon must top trees or mountains for me to see it.  I wonder how it will begin and think to ask those around us if anyone has seen this before.  But the couple has stopped talking and the quiet is enveloping.  

The foretold time of the moon rise is at hand and both my partner and I scan the horizon for signs. Will it be a glow?  Or just a big shiny quarter rising from the sea?

Minutes pass, then tens of minutes, then a half hour.  Did the all knowing internet give us false information?  Are we missing some subtle shift to indicate that the Moon was on its way?  I gaze sharper, aware that no one else is moving or shifting.  I see a star, then several, as peace sweeps over me.  I note my stillness.  The impatience is gone.

As the sky blackens around us, a chill sets into my bones. I see a pocket of sky clear and there, briefly, is the Trickster Moon, already risen and going about its trajectory. The sky closes like a curtain.  The show was over before it had begun.

"There" I say, pointing.  The Buddhist nods, having seen it too.  Low clouds on the horizon, unseen in the changing twilight, had concealed the very thing we sought.

"That was beautiful" he says and I smile and agree.

Turmoil- The Start of a New Day; Chapter Three; waxing gibbous Harvest Moon

Turmoil...

in the streets and in our hearts. So much useless suffering...

OH! OH! I am so tired of being defensive and guarded.  (The shields won't take it Captain!)

About four weeks ago, I decided to start smiling. I started saying "good morning" to people and smiling at them when our paths would cross at door thresholds and such.  The result was that I was feeling more content and confident with each encounter.  I liked bringing them a small amount of recognition of their humanity. I even enjoyed when it caught some completely off guard and they would suspiciously scowl.  I loved the ones who thanked me.  I truly adored the people who smiled back.  

This idea came from my Buddhist who told me a story about how he chooses to consciously practice Loving Kindness Meditation while in the line at Starbucks.  He acknowledges each person in the store and soundlessly offers them the simple lines of the meditation.

May you be happy.

May you be free from pain and fear.

May you walk at ease in this life.

The Buddhist said that he could choose to lose himself in his phone as everyone else is... 

OR he could spread something immeasurable but valuable for others and mostly, himself. He spoke of how it was one of the high points of his day.  He felt joyful.

I think I saw him very differently at that moment.  He can be a complete a-hole at times, but he is consciously striving to be someone better.  AND that alone, could change the world...

So please, smile at me and I will smile back.  

It isn't a proclamation of my complete happiness...

It is simply me acknowledging the beauty in you.  

Being the Part, Chapter Two: The New Harvest Moon

So, I want to be a Hippie Goddess, earth connected and beautiful, 
LOVE oozing from every pore...
I Got the look (reference Chapter One)
Now what?

It is so very easy to be grounded and serene when I am in nature; so much less easy moving about my typical day in suburbia.   

What is it about being around strangers- human strangers- that trips our circuits and turn us into deaf and blind auto-trons?  (Scotty, get those shields UP now!)

For me, it is insecurity that I don't measure up. Not cool enough. Not thin enough. Not pretty enough. Not smart enough. Not successful. Not talented. Not the so many words that were uttered to me by insensitive family, friends, strangers or more than likely, just invented on my own.

Isn't it so uselessly cruel that everyone is wandering around in such doubt about their worth?  The less self aware take verbal stabs at others to bolster their perceived inadequacy while the rest of us remain unemotional and guarded. We are all in such turmoil.  Don't make eye contact...

And Yes! even him...that dude over there with the Armani suit and Rolex.  Maybe him even more as he is bolstering himself with his fancy possessions...

Wait, I do that too...Let's not forget Chapter One...feather earrings...

So, Yes, I am in turmoil too...
In the line at Starbucks...
In the food store...
At the small deli I love...
While I type this...

Looking the Part, Chapter One

Route 16 south is moving slow and I'm both anxious and wary of the start of my seven hour drive home. The traffic inches along this main street as I revisit my latest purchase, a large, antique Kali figurine.  I own that mix of thrill and dread; thrill that I will have her in my home to use in my spiritual work, dread at the credit card bill that will need to be defended to my Buddhist spouse.  

I take in a breath as my eyes watch the pedestrians swarm this tourist village. Color and textures flock by. Shorts, skirts, sundresses, jeans, a bathing suit with a sarong, and a business suit pass with their various owners. Long hair, short hair and pink hair.  Flip flops, cowboy boots, high heels.  

I look down at my own capris, dusty from the waterfall hike. I wish I had on the patchwork maxi skirt that I had packed.  I take a quick look in the rear view mirror (ah vanity!) and smile at the necklace I had decided needed a good home on a different trip. I'm truly an easy mark for well made unique sterling jewelry, but this pendant had an additional appeal- it housed a spiral seashell. A spiral seashell!  How fitting for an earth goddess...

I turn away and then audibly sigh at seeing the capris again.  I will definitely change at the next rest area...

And then I am struck by a thought...

Do I really define myself so simply that a skirt and a pendant can make me whole?  

Does looking like a hippie goddess girl result in me being spiritual?

I know the answer is no, but damned if I don't stop at that sweet Native American shoppe and buy those silver feather earrings.

After all, a girl needs to look the part, doesn't she?

A waterfall, a boy and me: Waning Scheherazade Moon

The little boy won't stop screaming to his mother for her to look at him. He is twenty five feet above his mother on a rock ledge strewn with fast moving water. How he got there I cannot reason as I had tried to move higher on this same rock face before finally accepting the rock where my ample ass now rests.  The mother waves and pictures are snapped. One of so many taken here.  Will it be blurry or overexposed? Perhaps the focus will be perfect but the whole scale lost in the lens.  Maybe a month from now the camera will sit in a case, in a closet, the whole sum of her son's accomplishment lost in data.

Yet, no.  The accomplishment occurred.  The boy rejoiced.

Recorded or not, reality happens.  Are we  present to experience it?  Or are we wondering how it will look on Facebook.

The boy rejoiced.