Re: A Bridge Across To Nowhere

[Guest guest]

dear -

hang in there! the Beloved u seek is w/in u - once u find him this pain will

cease, this torment - I know bec I have been there. not only once.

the poem is remin of Sylvia Plath - what a help the Muse can be. Powerful

poem.

may u find peace!

have u read Irina Tweedie's CHASM OF FIRE ?

we all love u - i know it's not the same.........

but anyway

't is so

the Old Lady

[Guest guest]

<< Your roses blooming...

like ANGER, in my garden.

Your moon, a sliver of poison,

thrust into my heart....

How dare you meet 'YOUR' demons...

In the sacredness of 'MY GARDEN'...

and then blame them on a serpent,

which you'd never known, but by me! >>

,

Your deeply moving poem was created by one who has tasted the pain of a

genuine and gentle love coursely rejected. It reminded me of something I

read recently in Jack Sanford's SOUL JOURNEY (1991), related a similar GARDEN

image. Here it is a small quote for you (p.139):

" One dream that occurs, insofar as I have been able to tell, only with those

persons who are paying attention to their inner life is one in which the

dreamer is tending a garden. In such a dream we have an excellent image of

caring for the soul. The soul shows that she is like a garden that, left

unattended, will choke with weeds, die from lack of water, or produce only

scraggly plants because they are diseased or deprived of nutrients. A

well-tended garden, on the other hand, is a special place, a place in which

Mother Nature and the gardener work closesly hand-in-hand. Only nature can

produce growth, but the gardener's loving and assiduaous attention to the

needs of the plants can make a crucial difference. This is a living image of

what is meant by the care of the soul: it is like the tending of an inner

garden. "

I have mentioned before here that I also like to keep a garden in the summer

months, under the heat of the Kansas sun, to literally connect me to the

lessons of nature - although I must sadly admit that my poor efforts are

often not as successful as I hope them to be. And while you probably don't

need encouragement, I nonetheless think it is a very healthful sign indeed

that you are in there, pulling those weeds and pruning those tender psychic

plants, that they may grow and thrive in your inner garden. I hope you'll

experience a measure of well-deserved happiness, knowing at least that those

of us who can see and enjoy the beautiful plants you are growing here are

with you 100%. Thanks again for sharing your poem.

Greg

[Guest guest]

Dear Greg,

>>Perhaps I made more out of the garden analogy than I

needed to. It just popped into my mind.<<,

I'm sorry. Getting ready to crawl back into warm,

cozy lurkdom. Back to work tomorrow.

I knew that your intention was to comfort .

Should have acknowledged that first. I meant to.

For me the garden metaphor is hinged to everything in the universe,

as is every " thing " . It's a perfect metaphor. Except for the weed part.

..

>>.We have taken this subject to a far extreme, already, but it

goes to show that we grow up with different attitudes about something as

simple and pure as gardening. They even fall into the realm of complexes I

suppose. But to go any further (e.g., equating weeds with shadow, or attitude

toward weeds with ego inflation), would perhaps stretch the analogy beyond

its capacity to hold a meaningful truth, it seems to me.<<<

Greg, please stay with me here for a moment...

We are in serious cultural denial about the very real threats to a clean

supply of

soil, air and water right now. Think of the recent heroic efforts of common

folks in

Seattle. There is also a certain market-driven arrogance and superiority that

prevents us from seeing that our human survival is utterly dependent on

nature.

An exploitative and dismissive attitude toward the feminine, closely tuned to

and

related in the cycles of nature, follows from that. It has taken years of my

life and

much analysis to recover from my embodied experience of that attitude, trust

me,

it's no picnic. Most women could attest to a similar experience. Hear 's

song

again. That is what she is up against. Huge denial of soul, of feeling, and

it is

everywhere.

is calling Rainbo (and I) to " more focus " , for example. We are a

focused

culture. A more diffused awareness, the feminine, is treated as something

that is

in need of correction. (sorry, , just thinking of Ritalin...and

children)

Focused minds, absent of feminine soul, are prevailing in the conquest of our

earthly garden. They uphold the status-quo. We don't have to list their

results.

An eco-psychologist might look at it this way,

(their approach includes a consciousness of environmental concerns

as a vital part of psyche...)

Without grounding in conscious awareness of our interconnection with nature,

a person possessing an excessive, demanding focus and critical certainty,

(NEGATIVE ANIMUS), minus a conjuntio or an openness to what

they perceive as a threatening, unformed nebulousness(ANIMA/SOUL),

might, for example, plant a " foreign " ornamental vine in his backyard.

(UNCONSCIOUSNESS)

The plant beautifies HIS garden, but it also escapes, overgrows and

chokes the native forest, (falling into shadow) causing other

plant extinction.(psychic death/death) This is happening all over the U.S.of

A.

Now the Collective Dominant Focus will inevitably declare the plant

a worthless, invasive, toxic pest; obscuring the wholeness/truth in the plant

AND the process of how it got here in the first

place.(denial/unconsciousness) Inorganic chemicals(

pesticides/anti-depressants) are then used (internalized into mater) to

destroy the " invader " .

We aren't separate from these events, systems theorists tell us, and we could

easily replay this scenario a little differently with a person instead of a

plant.

The will to power has brought us to a critical juncture. We remain, as a

society,

separated from the wisdom in nature and the full inclusion of the empowered

feminine values of interconnection that would serve to generate deep ecology

and

peacefulness.

For me, the acceleration of damage to the environment in the past several

decades,

the despair of so many of Earth's people and our collective psychic state are

naturally superstrung together...so, too are our incessant judgments,

diagnoses of the " worth "

and " value " of individuals and general suspicion of the " other " . All

semiotically

hinged to an economic structure that places the market as paramount and all

beings

evaluated in the scheme as to their worth as products or ranked against one

another in competition. This is not the practice of openness, or of the

sacred knowledge of the interconnection of all things, it is a conditioned

response to the collective negative animus/devouring mother. And it sucks, as

my kids would say.

The empowered feminine, both in men and women, a gnosis and

faith in the way of Sophia, GodMother, is always at work in people and

in nature. We receive Her in any and every type of experience of

unconditional love

and spontaneous trust, when we are accepted and beheld for no good reason.

Who on earth does not need to experience this? Name one person!

We are transformed, made whole in our being. (We still know our flaws very

intimately, thank you, so we don't need anyone to tell us what they are.)

But we are, for once, more than that. We are blessed with innumerable

blessings,

and we know it. Once touched, though, we yearn for Her to be experienced

by all people, especially those who are alienated and suffering, in communion

and harmony with nature. Our will to power is consciously placed in

co-creating the garden without violence, without hatred, without toxic

eco-systems and where beings

may live harmoniously. We party, make art, sing and dance the whole time

....HA!

As to the weeds- in the industrial inner city, with very high pollution levels

and sky-rocketing asthma in children, every single plant is a friend to be

treated

as sacred. We just see them differently.

Peace and thanks,

" You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. "

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 2/10/00 8:34:30 AM Eastern Standard Time, Sofia628@...

writes:

<< is calling Rainbo (and I) to " more focus " , for example. We are a

focused

culture. A more diffused awareness, the feminine, is treated as something

that is >>

Laughing, i can do focused, but with Neptune and Jupiter conjunct my

Mercury, daydreaming is a requirement to bring in imaginative ideas.

In many other cultures, to move slowly ... to be patient ... is considered

much more spiritual... more mystical ... this overdrive is perhaps less

of an asset than we may believe at first glance. There is a very beautiful

new book out called " The Mystic Heart " by Wayne Teasdale. It

is a book which broaches this current movement in interspirituality, these

intertwining energies, as we learn from each other on lists and

through email... one list i've been on for a long time exchanges

spiritual thoughts from various practices worldwide, is so beautiful to

be a part of this.

Once when very focused in high tech, i became ill, the first doctor i found

ssaid i was terminally ill, and I was furious with him and told him to go to

**** as he had not run specific tests for my illness and good not make that

diagnosis conclusively. I then went in search of a mind - body doctor and

was fortunate to find a physician who had just begun experimenting with

exactly this premise. A Harvard internist. Since I'd grown up with uncles

who were physicians and fully believed in this, I was very confident of being

able to do this.

The physician i found said, " no tests, " we will just work with you...

meditate and allow for daydream time, within two weeks i was healthy

again... i'd been diagnosed with something terminal. The Doctor's name

was Elliot Dacher, he subsequently wrote a book called " PNI " or

PsychoNeuroImmunology ... about how our thoughts effect our physical

bodies.

Of course, what works in the microcosm will work in the macrocosm as

well....

, it is a great pleasure to read your beautiful emails,

Much L*L*L

Annette

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 2/10/2000 7:34:31 AM Central Standard Time,

Sofia628@... writes:

<< We are in serious cultural denial about the very real threats to a clean

supply of

soil, air and water right now. Think of the recent heroic efforts of common

folks in

Seattle. There is also a certain market-driven arrogance and superiority

that

prevents us from seeing that our human survival is utterly dependent on

nature.

An exploitative and dismissive attitude toward the feminine, closely tuned

to

and

related in the cycles of nature, follows from that. >>

Good examples of what I was talking about.

Gene Baker

[Guest guest]

<< As to the weeds- in the industrial inner city, with very high pollution

levels

and sky-rocketing asthma in children, every single plant is a friend to be

treated

as sacred. We just see them differently.

Peace and thanks,

" You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. " >>

Dear ,

Thank God you are not " the only one " . The world sorely needs more dreamers!

I appreciate your comments and value your point of view (despite my obvious

and built-in patriarchal " hardwiring " ). I am still growing! I have given up

on perfection, but " wholeness " is a worthwhile and noble-enough goal for this

life. And your contributions here attest to the fact that we do affect one

another, and the collective unc as well. Thanks for taking the time and for

being lovingly patient.

I sincerely hope you will not completely disappear into " cozy lurkdom " . I'm

sure we have many fellow lurkers. I was one myself for over a year before I

somehow mustered the courage to find my voice. It is a voice which often

grates, I know, but it is the only one I have. Lurking, BTW, is fulfilling

only to a point. It is informative, but lacks more than half the real fun.

Like I heard someone say on TV recently: " those who can do, those who can't

watch. " The subject at hand was sex, of course, but the analogy holds here

too I think. Lurking is only fun to a point.

Good chatting with you though. I hope you will feel free to jump in at any

time. You make a wonderful contribution to our discussion here.

Agape,

Greg

[Guest guest]

Dear Cheryl,

>>I felt the breath of Sophia on my face as I read your entire post.

What IS this thing that wheedles at us, this thing that would beat

us all into submission <<<

Cheryl, I felt Her breath in your reply! So Good...

Have made shadow-art with adults and kids, the created shape

this misery takes is somehow so eerily familiar whoever crafts it.

Hannah Arendt 's idea of banality is so right on.

I agree the " thing " is the one who whispers " You're no good " .

Then there's always the ever-willing peanut gallery who concurs

with the " thing's " judgment, and we have it underlined for us

in red pen!

So we're all screwed, most especially the people at the very bottom,

who embody in the core of their being the experience of their

worthlessness in every despicable way. I mostly wonder how we have let

this happen and know that we created it in our dialogue.

But could we even conceive or imagine a new story where all were fed,

healed, had water and didn't kill each other? At heart, I don't think we

really

want to- we like our myths intact. We cling to old ways.

We always have. Ideals of spiritually purified heavenly perfection and

psychological

wholeness have also called their opposites to this moment.

But in the " hood " right now,

the big expression is " stop hatin " ...

It's beginning to be imagined in the most unlikliest of places!

They have resurrected Bob Marley's amazing " Redemption Songs " and are

playing it loud!

Wanted to share my first real experience of Sophia in my beloved

Uncle Bo, whose ankle was shattered full of shrapnel from

active combat in the South Pacific, and whose life was lived in

constant pain. He offered truly unconditional love,

the most beautiful man who ever lived,

and having that experience is a saving, lifelong gift.

His own mother died when he was 13, and he developed a

deep love for his mother-in-law, my grandmother.

He had the flu one Sunday, and my aunt went to church without him.

When my grandmother went up to check him, they spoke briefly,

and he closed his eyes, smiled peacefully and said " Oh, SO good..... "

He took his last breath in her arms. On the anniversary of his

death, three years ago, a beautiful, soft blond haired mutt

appeared on my porch in the middle of a thunderstorm and a deep

personal crisis.The dog wasn't even slightly wet, not a bit.

His name is Spirit, and he is the most wonderful, adorable dog who ever lived.

In Sophia, I have no doubts, and a million stories... Converts are the

worst...!

Thanks for encouraging words...

Bye

[Guest guest]

<< the 'tools' were in place and ready now, to CLEAN UP THE MESS!!

So this spring, I will have a garden like never before!! I already have

been looking around at the nurseries and designing my own 'landscape

plan'...haha!! I have also started on the 'garden' of my body and soul

in the last few weeks. Found a trainer and started working out

again...and boy, was i sore all over!! Rode 8 miles on my bicycle

yesterday. I have been eating right(lots of fruits and veggies) and am

starting to feel and

look better than I have in years!! Forty -one, is going to be a good

year for my poor ole body!! Looked into going to an excellent art

school here and will begin night classes in a few weeks to 'feel' if the

intuition to change my profession is right. I had considered going to

Law school for awhile, believe it or not(apptitude tests years ago

pointed this direction...haha), but another dream seemed to point in a

more creative direction. You all, around this fire, need to know that

your encouragement, love and support are really helping to bring me

around to center again!! THANKS SO VERY MUCH..i am grateful for your

presence!! >>

Dear ,

Your painful experience and the unvarnished genuiness of your response to it

validate, for me, the importance and joy of what we have here together.

Thank you for your courage in sharing (at the deepest levels) and the trust

which made a caring response possible. You are a beautiful person -

this I know without ever having " seen you " . And you tend two beautiful

gardens - one inside and the one outside. Glad to see you growing such

precious and sweet-smelling flowers in both. We enjoy the inner ones here.

Any man worthy of you will recognize your inner garden for what it is....and

he won't be driving a loaded dump truck . (That editorial comment may

offend the ears of some on this list, but I guess all it says is that some of

the nobler ideals of chivelry are not entirely dead yet - at least not in

this aging chaser of windmills.)

Love and happy journey,

Greg