Praying for rain during climate change

I am so aware that the indications of the approaching climate change disaster here in coastal BC are stunningly trivial compared to what many geographical regions of the globe are already facing.

Still, it is difficult to watch our salal dying 

as it is such an iconic plant species on this Canadian coast. 

And the beaked and step moss are struggling, and losing, 

against a dry, cold winter and dry spring.

Water levels drop daily, and there is not enough water in the cisterns 

to spend it unwisely replenishing the ponds.  

As one of the Journey Oracle card stories says

my friend

this is how they are

there is not enough food

one of you has to go

there is not enough food

manifestation

my friend

there is not enough food

survival of the species

my friend

one of you has to go

 

A strange poem that gives an unsettled feeling; 

everything is manifestation of causes and conditions, 

and we have caused this due to our

 conditional greed and delusion.   

So I think I will pray for rain.

But of course, Seafest is just a week away, and 600 people may want to come to a gourmet lunch in a fabulous oceanside setting with beautiful music to accompany their seafood delight.  But maybe not  if it rains. 

We humans are such a piece of work, I declare.   

How about rain soon but not on Saturday May 18? 

 If I pray for rain will the sky laugh at me? 

Is this conditional greed and delusion?

I think I'll send prayers of gratitude to be alive 

on such a beautiful, long-suffering Mother planet.

I learned this song many decades ago, and now it glows into my awareness:

The earth is my sister.

I love her daily grace, her silent daring,

and how loved I am.

All that we suffer, and all that we provide

and all that we know.

And I am struck by this beauty

and I do not forget,

what she is to me and what I am to her

The earth is my sister. 

The wind has shifted to the southeast.

Stirring a coolness along with the temple bells

outside the back door.

I think I go say thank you to whatever is coming.

Help making a difficult decision

The consequences of the decisions I make now will become the conditions that surround and shape my next decisions.  This is a fundamental understanding in Buddhist teaching, that everything is dependent for its origination on something else.  And now my difficult decision is about accepting an offer to work with a Buddhist teacher whose path and view are different than mine.

I am deciding to do a Journey Oracle card reading to help me understand the situation, and my experience surrounding this invitation.  Unlike many of the Journey Oracle readings that I share in this blog, I am going to do a one card reading for this topic to demonstrate how I sometimes use one oracle card instead of four when I work with the Journey Oracle. 

I love this card.  It is #22 in the Journey Oracle deck: the card representing Mystery.  How perfect for my one card reading.  I see a creature hanging upside down, perhaps a bird or bat, or maybe a spider. Brilliantly coloured rays move out to the rim from around the creature; the red ones are especially intense and out of focus.  This situation does have me feeling "upside down" with intense feeling tones.  This card is about finding truth, wisdom and has this message: a glimmering.

THE  SITUATION

This situation began by being not the place.

The prevailing energy of this situation is warm from the south.

The core energy pattern of this situation is brilliant.

The Mother of this situation is helpful.

The Father of this situation is radiating warmth.

           

 ALIGNMENT  TO  THE  SITUATION

Your relationship to the prevailing energy is as a hunter.       

Your perception of the situation is unbound.
The impact of your perception is strong colors for protection.

The connection between the core energy pattern and the situation

 is felt as dance.

The momentum of this situation is fed by being a safe place.

These are the Oracle pronouncements about my situation.  I am especially drawn to the first and last: being not the place, and being a safe place. Even though the overall impression of the situation is quite warm, I think these capture my feelings of uncertainty and  caution. 

To do a one card oracle reading I now turn the card over and look at the other side. This image represents my experience in this situation.  How fuzzy and unclear is that! Do I say yes or no?  Am I curious or resistant?  Why does it matter?

THE  EXPERIENCE  NAMED

A  GLIMMERING  

 THE  SITUATION  EXPERIENCED

my friend

this is how they are

there is not enough food

one of you has to go

there is not enough food

manifestation

my friend

there is not enough food

survival of the species

my friend

one of you has to go

 EXTERIOR  SUPPORT

An exterior or support system for the situation is feathered edges.

These are the Oracle's statements about my experience.  The poem about the situation experienced gives me a sense of foreboding but nothing very specific to reflect upon.  However, the Exterior Support of feathered edges feels like it says it is important for me not to think of the situation in terms of opposites: yes/no, go/don't go but rather with a softer focus.

When using just one oracle card, I now turn the card back to the first side and re-look at the image, this time pondering the third aspect of a Journey Oracle reading: the change that is calling me. In the process of dancing the card back and forth I changed the orientation, and so this is my view.  What a peculiar hybrid creature--a bird and a spider (with a tail?) The expression is also quite compelling--detached yet aware, focused, quiet.  Now the many coloured rays seem to be coming from the creature itself as if these are changing views or energies.  

CHANGE

 The power needed to shift this situation will be a sound of a drum chant.

Change will come by being in a hard place.

Your relationship to the change in this situation is haunting.

The moment of letting go into the change will smell of lavender.

The concern to be avoided within this change will taste of water.

 DIVINE  WILL

                       

The wisdom of being a quiet place will empower the transformation.

Completed transformation will be felt as a quality of sunrise.

DREAM  ON  THIS  QUESTION

Are you happy here?         

HOW  IS  THIS  AN  ANSWER

Energy

These are the Oracle's statements about change in this situation.  I am especially caught by two  statements: of how change will come by being in a hard place, and of the wisdom of being a quiet place.  How profound is the notion of being a quiet place instead of being IN a quiet place. I can choose what teaching I receive, and how, and when.  

Again I turn the card to its other side and look into the image for insight about the resolution to my situation. I am startled to see a relationship between two bird forms, where when I first looked at this side of the card I only saw fuzzy pink, grey, and red.  

The first bird is large and posturing with its wing and body stance.  Seems quite dramatic.  

The second, smaller bird, perhaps something like a penguin, has a smile.   But you have to look closely for it, above the faint red line that traces the edge of the downward pointing beak. 

The Journey Oracle story that is part of this card's wisdom is about seeing what is loved.  When the teaching is true and the teacher is honest, it is possible to see what is loved--everywhere. 

THE   RESOLUTION

A Journey Oracle fairy tale

SEEING  WHAT  IS  LOVED

A pair of robins built a nest outside a woman’s kitchen window. Back and forth the sleek, strong parents flew, and yet she did not much attend to the new life’s manifestation that might be curling inside that twiggy bowl. Then one day she saw a wee curving form and a flash of translucent orange greet an adult bird’s arrival. The gaping mouths wavering on rubbery stalks counted three, and from that moment the woman’s attention often rested on the little family.

The hatchlings grew until their jostling with each other for the offered morsels threatened to send one over the edge. The woman began to wonder what she would do if a chick fell out, or if the nest itself came down. She plotted how to keep the birds safe, but always stopped short of action because it seemed this is how they are, even when the chicks were so big that they would teeter on the edge of the nest, buzzing their wings like whirligigs, reaching out always to say there is not enough food.

One morning the woman saw a chick sitting on a branch near the nest, receiving a morsel from its skinny overworked parent. It was weaving a bit on its untrained feet and rebalancing frequently with wild flutterings. “How can this be?” The woman thought in alarm. “Surely it’s not time yet for the survival of the species story.” But she resisted trying to help and just kept watching. And then, as if someone said “one of you has to go”—all the birds were gone. No chicks were left in the nest, the one on the branch could not be seen, and the parents no longer came.

         The woman went outside, and saw a robin a distance away in the garden. Then another flew past in the yard. A third dropped to the ground at the edge of the forest. “Is that you, my friend,” she wondered, “or maybe your child?” Suddenly the woman was seeing what she loved everywhere.

Art as metaphor for life

I read this quote, "there is a difference between what we see and what we are aware of" at the beginning of  How To Read Water by Tristan Gooley.  I know there is a lot going on in art and in life that we either fail to notice, or choose not to notice. So in art and in life, what is the difference between seeing and being aware?

A dream image.  What are you seeing?

A horse running, a dog tied up, more horses inside 

a small fenced area, a woman picking up something,

 a tree, birds in a turbulent sky.

Our mind struggles to make a sensible story of this

and so we add in the impressions of our feelings. 

The horse is charging aggressively toward you.

The dog is friendly and secure,

but likely in danger from

being trampled by the horse.  

The other horses are in a cramped, small pen,

  when the entire area is also fenced. 

Why isn't the woman doing something 

about all this?

Why didn't she stop it?

So this is what we see, and this

 is what we either fail or choose not to notice.

Is the horse angry, or in a panic?

Is the dog really tied up?

The small pen has wire that only comes

to the horse's knees, so are they 

able to leave with just a little effort?

When we are aware of the feelings, assumptions and expectations we are bringing to a situation, we are able to do more than see it.  We are awake to what is going on, separate from our first impressions.  

Just like the messages in an oracle card reading require us to experience loss of comfort, heightened alertness and unexpected discoveries, we discover a depth and layering of revelation when we are aware of what we are seeing.  

Being aware of what we are seeing in art becomes a metaphor for being aware in life. And that awareness is able to expand and transform into meaningful action and self-knowledge.  

Illustrate a children's book

Here are some insights about illustrating a children's book based on a recent collaboration with Kathy Sager.  She has already published one children's book and runs a licenced day care from her home so she is the children's story expert, and I am the art expert.

My style of art does not lend itself to cartoon figures, and the biggest insight occurred when people liked the photo-realist animal images.

They felt that when children saw the raccoon in the book and maybe later saw a raccoon on TV or out the window they would recognize and relate better to the real animal.

I do not have children of my own and so did casual research by standing in the grocery store aisle or at the library looking at children's books.  I discovered that many books have pages of only one or two images against a simple coloured background, which I wondered if kids find boring.  Not much to look at while Mom is reading the story.  I decided to go for a more complex detail, with shapes that fit together like puzzle pieces. 

I really appreciated how Kathy created a story that had a problem: two sisters want to plant their garden but the winter snow is still on the ground because the warm sun has not returned.

And then the story has a way to solve the problem: their Mother tells them the legend of how Mother Reindeer flies to the sun on Winter Solstice to bring back its warmth. 

And then the problem is solved:  

the sisters dance in the returning sunlight,

and Mothers and Fathers 

take care of their children in the warm new day. 

One of my favorite suggestions was that children like to find recurring creatures, and also that it is interesting to have more than one story happening--one in the words and a second "back story" that unfolds only in the pictures. 

I am a Goddess Grandmother to Zyla, who is called Bug 

by her closest big people.  

And so Bug came into the story,

 and got to go for quite a ride!

She certainly made a fashion statement,

and had her own story to tell about her adventures.  

Of course there is lots more to learn as this storybook 

about Mother Reindeer 

begins to travel toward publication. 

So stay tuned, the Journey Oracle is on a whole new journey.  

Go on a meditation retreat

Here are some discoveries of things to do while on a meditation retreat at Birken Forest Monastery. No internet connection, no inquires for Journey Oracle cards or new drums to prepare for the webstore, so now what?

Celebrate mud? Glorious mud!

Sticky, slurpy, muddy slurry that glues itself to everything it touches. 

Precious start to spring and seeds lucky enough to drift and drop

 into its wake-me-up matrix of softened soil and life-blessing water. 

Celebrate doing just one thing at a time.

It is hard to just do one thing; to cultivate a moment free from all distractions.

There is only this cup of tea...no book, no journaling, no conversation, only this cup.

 

Celebrate just sitting. For hours a day rather than minutes. It is not easy to be only in the company of one's inner voice as it expresses a constant stream of likes, dislikes and delusions.  Especially when the intention of such sitting is to come to inner peace and quiet.

None of this is easy.  Perhaps this is the deep illness of our present times—we want everything to be easy. To quote David Suzuki, we worship the great god Relief From Inconvenience. AI makes it easy to have information about, well, just about everything but what is the advantage if we have no wisdom?

Seems like the device is now our significant other.  On a meditation retreat one's direct inner experience is the significant other.  Not an easy partner to warm up to.  But just like the transition from winter to spring—when we discover rigidity and so let our surface opinions soften, we let go of some of our preferences and prejudices.

The inner struggle to hold onto focus, and achieve concentration, 

can at times feel a lot like mud.  

Glorious mud. 

May my practice enable me to be one of those lucky enough seeds.