My imaginary life: Writer's Island

Earlier this week, I attended a lecture sponsored by a group interested in the future of space science, and they brought in a Nobel Prize winner who had helped to map some of what we think might be the history of the universe. It was fascinating, especially when he talked about how so much of what is in the world today is the leftover bits of exploding stars.

And I couldn't help but think then about what it is to be made of stardust, each of us, the air we breathe, the planet we cling to... we are the same stuff as those perpetual lights that give us hope in the dark night. Do we choose to take our place in the celestial dance?

The lecture went on to talk about a new telescope that is being built with origami folds to bloom like a flower when it is launched far into space, but I was still gliding on intergalactic winds, wishing I could bring the world with me into the star filled night.

My stardust hands
reach to you,
a similar galactic swirl,
child of the cosmos,
leftover debris
of a SUPERNOVA

Your sad eyes remind me
of drifting cold space,
eternities of darkness,
hoping for starlight
to shine through you
Illuminating a new planet

http://writersisland.wordpress.com/ Thanks to Rae for introducing me to yet another prompt...

Over at Quaker Pagan Reflections, there is a post that spoke deeply to me and to my condition. I've come to see my spiritual identity (not my religious identity, which I think is currently off on vacation in the Bermuda Triangle) as a reflection of the ways God is trying to work change in me. More and more, those changes have been happening in the quiet times and places, in listening and simply opening up the concerns of my heart rather than in anything I could remotely consider traditional prayer.

It has come with a feeling of vulnerability, as though that opening will not close. There is a saying in Judaism: the gates of prayer and repentence are always open. The traditional imagery of that saying is that they are always open in Heaven, before God's throne, but I've come to feel that each of us has a gate of prayer within, and that if we are aware of it, prayer becomes not a separate time or action, but a part of everything. The joy of seeing the trees waving in a spring breeze becomes a sort of hymn of thanksgiving, and the anxiety and sorrow I've been feeling lately also become a sort of shared prayer.

And I find myself wondering, also, if perhaps this tenderness is necessary to begin on the road to reconciliation and healing. I have two dear friends who are deeply tender over the rifts that are occurring in their faith communities. Recently, as this article discusses, there has been an increase in polarization as some religious communities deal with a rise in atheism and secularism. There is much in the article that I found at the least imprecise, but I think it illustrates the recent hardening of positions very well. As I have written about before, this rift has been very hurtful within the American Episcopalian community, and I find myself wondering how the community could come together to share that tenderness and hurt, not with more hurting, but in a spirit of communion. Similarly, I see so many divisions, so much hardening of the heart, that I wonder how the formal religions can keep the gate of tenderness and prayer open within them.

(And a special thanks to Christine over at Quiet Paths for the link to mull over.)

Breath

Many forms of meditation encourage us to be aware of our breathing.

Breathe the good air in.

Blow out the old air.

Breathe the good air in.

Feel the air moving through your lungs, giving life to your body, carried by your blood to every bit of you. Just as a fish is submerged in life-giving water, so we are submerged in life-giving air. We feel the spring breezes and the harsh winter winds. We cough and gasp when the air is polluted, and breathe deep when it is fresh.

From ancient times, the notion of breath and the notion of Spirit have been intertwined. Indeed, the word "spirit" comes from the Latin root word, "spiritus", breath, respiration. And from this root also comes the word "inspiration". We are infused with spirit, with breath, and from there, we create. And the really marvellous part of this is that each of us is individual - while we all breathe the same air, we each have a different way of living in our world, different expressions of our inspiration.

I believe that sometimes that Inspiring Breath is moving like a wind over the world and each of us tries to express that movement as best we can, in whatever way we can, whether in words, paint, actions, a smile...

Dancing in the shades of grey

Over at Quaker-Pagan Reflections, Cat talks a little about being Both-And, with regard to Quakerism and to Paganism. She mentions feeling inhibited from commenting on some posts, and also the feeling of being both a member and an outsider in two faiths. As I've posted before, Paganism has been an important part of my spiritual journey, as I suspect my current interest in Quaker community is becoming.

The memorial service I attended this weekend was Pagan and reminded me of how much I still love the small circle that nurtured me when I lived in Ohio. We have since moved elsewhere (Mid-Atlantic, Florida, the Western Desert states, the Northern Midwest) and yet when we see each other, that closeness is there again.

I have no idea what I count as, if anything. I've lost words to describe myself with, religiously. To describe myself as belonging to any one step on my journey currently feels false, as though I am denying the journey itself, the way the path has dinged me in different ways, the pain of changing communities and the joy of discovering new ones. I certainly can't call myself a Quaker - I'm not really a member of the community, nor can I call myself comfortably anything else. So right now, I'm going without a self-label on my spirituality. And I'm finding out where that leads me.

So far, it's led me to seek out spiritual community in smaller, simpler ways which is a good thing for me. It's giving me time to appreciate the various steps in my spiritual journey, and to listen to where I am being led.

Tonight, I fell into the sky

My husband likes to stargaze, and the two of us occasionally attend star parties at the observatory a few blocks away, but tonight he had an invitation to go to one further away, with the bait that we might see Mercury. Well, we did. Tonight, I saw 5 planets: Mercury, Earth, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter. Wow. And I saw stars, and a couple of man-made satellites. (The last was really ironic, since I kept spotting satellites when I was wanting to see stars.) And I saw 5 moons tonight, with 4 of them belonging to Jupiter.

As everyone looked though the various telescopes that had been set up, my husband and I got out our binoculars. Early in the evening, we had the best viewing of the bats and the fireflies that were about, and of course we could track things best, plus getting to see Mars and Saturn together in the same field. People with more impressive viewing equipment invited us to see things like binary stars, the rings of Saturn, the moons of Jupiter, and even the colors of stars.

But at one point, I reverted to the most basic observing equipment of all - I laid down on a bit of scrap fabric with a rolled up towel for a pillow and just watched the big dipper through the mist and haze that plagued the telescopes all night. I looked around, breathing the night air, smelling the grass beneath our feet, feeling the soft-rough texture of the grass, admiring the lacy spread of the trees surrounding our clearing against the midnight blue sky, and noticing the play of light on the cloudy haze. I watched the fireflies still signalling to each other even in the late hours, and I stood to look into the sky.

Oh, as I looked up, I felt the weight of my body, the anchoring weight of those binoculars and was grateful to them, as I looked into the sky, feeling that possibly only that cloud might prevent me from simply falling into infinity and becoming yet another point in the sky. Later, as the sky cleared, I again looked up, and was disoriented - no binoculars, no cloud, surely I was falling, and would have no hope of returning to myself if the One who took me from me did not return me correctly, and yet, what joy to dance among the stars, to spin in the cosmic dance, even as only a mote of dust. I was falling upward, into the sky, spinning in that infinite darkness that yet contains all those points of light.

Blessed are You, Ruler of the Universe, who has sustained us and kept us to this day.

I realized that this is the blessing that can never be said in vain. Some Jews wear new clothing on the second day of Rosh Hashanna - the Jewish New Year, so that the blessing can be said and not in vain, but each heartbeat, each breath, is a gift so precious that we could whisper, sing, and shout that blessing every moment and not have it be in vain. Tonight, I sit at this computer after falling into the vastness of the universe though the gift of returning, and my heart sings. Tomorrow, I am going to be a very sleepy fool, but tonight, I have danced with the cosmos.

Amen.