Nancy Lankston
I am not old… she said
I am rare.
I am the standing ovation
At the end of the play.
I am the retrospective
Of my life as art
I am the hours
Connected like dots
Into good sense
I am the fullness
Of existing.
You think I am waiting to die…
But I am waiting to be found
I am a treasure.
I am a map.
And these wrinkles are
Imprints of my journey
Ask me
anything.
~Samantha Reynolds
She finds herself in a place that makes no sense. The people around her do things, mean things, thoughtless things all the time. Why did they act this way? Where is the Love? She knew in her heart that Love was key – the juice of the Universe. But she couldn’t find much love here. Just confusion and fear and pain.
Spirit Bear 🐻 came to her and comforted her in this crazy place. Bear stayed with her for years, protecting and comforting her whenever things in this crazy place got too painful and confusing. But gradually, over time she got sucked into the confusion around her. She made the mistake of thinking that the adults around her knew what they were doing and she started trying to do what they did, act how they acted. Bear was still there close, but she simply lost touch somehow. 🐻 Bear slowly faded from view.
After years in this place, she acted like she belonged. She was still so confused but she pretended that she knew what to do. She forgot about Bear. And she forgot about the power of Love. She became caught up in vying for power and status and money.
But one day she looked around and saw how empty her life was. The power and the status and the money didn’t fix anything or make this place any less horrible, any less confusing. What was the point of all this?
She began searching for “the point”. First at church, then in meditation and spiritual books and healing modalities. 🐻 Spirit Bear drew closer then, but she didn’t really notice. She was too busy searching for “the point.”
One day in the midst of meditation, a beautiful, ethereal light being 🌟 came to her and showered her with love, so much love. She was left shaken and wide awake. Oh yes! Love was the point! She remembered now. She connected with this beautiful star being ⭐ many times and felt better. She began to write ✏, filling journals with thoughts and feelings about her life and all her questions about this crazy world. But sadly over time, she got distracted and pulled back into the chaos and craziness of the world again. She stopped writing. She stopped connecting with her star being. She forgot.
This remembering and forgetting happened again and again to her through years of living in this crazy place.
Then the dreams came. She dreamt of another life as a Native American woman who lost her love and wandered grieving until she was healed by Mama Earth 🌎. In this other life, Mama Earth taught her to open up and love again.
She dreamt of this other life again and again. She LIVED an entire other life in her dreams!
The dreams shook her to her core. And they loosened the grip the crazy world had over her. She wanted to know more about this dream woman and her life. She learned how to explore dreamspace so she could explore this other life, this other reality. And her Spirit Bear soon showed up there in dreamspace.
She wept when she saw 🐻 Bear again. She held on and melted into Bear’s fierce softness. She began consciously calling Bear to her every day. And she began taking her troubles and questions into dreamspace. There she found answers – specific answers that fit for her. She began to slowly unravel her confusion and get glimpses of “the point”, her point.
She began to 🖌 paint and dance 💃 just for the joy of it. And the more she did those things, the more she felt like herself – her real self. She began to sing 🎶, first humming then joyfully making up little melodies that she sang to herself. She remembered how much she had loved painting and dancing and singing when she first came to this place. She remembered. And she began to love again.
And one day while she was happily playing with paint, her star being ⭐ returned showering her with love – Big Love that cleared away even more confusion. And she could remember who she was and what mattered when she first came to this crazy place. She remembered her point. ❤
Image: Goldi Goddess by Nancy L
Today in the car, this song came on and I got the chills – literally! Apparently, it was precisely what I needed to hear. Which song? It was Love’s Divine by Seal, who is one of my favorite mystic songwriters:
Then the rainstorm came, over me
And I felt my spirit break
I had lost all of my, belief you see
And realized my mistake
But time threw a prayer, to me
And all around me became still
I need love, love’s divine
Please forgive me now I see that I’ve been blind
Give me love, love is what I need to help me know my name
Through the rainstorm came sanctuary
And I felt my spirit fly
I had found all of my reality
I realize what it takes
‘Cause I need love, love’s divine
Please forgive me now I see that I’ve been blind
Give me love, love is what I need to help me know my name
Oh I, don’t bend (don’t bend), don’t break (don’t break)
Show me how to live and promise me you won’t forsake
‘Cause love can help me know my name
Well I try to say there’s nothing wrong
But inside I felt me lying all along
But the message here was plain to see
Believe me
‘Cause I need love, love’s divine
Please forgive me now I see that I’ve been blind
Give me love, love is what I need to help me know my name
Oh I, don’t bend (don’t bend), don’t break (don’t break)
Show me how to live and promise me you won’t forsake
‘Cause love can help me know my name
Love can help me know my name.
by Seal
Every part of Mama Earth is alive and has a spirit; each blade of grass, pine tree, fox, flower, stone and drop of water is infused and flowing with spiritual essence and consciousness. Our Earth is a pulsing, flowing sacred system. And we are completely interwoven and interdependent with every other form of life in this system. All of life is interconnected; the idea that human beings are separate from other life forms is simply an illusion.
Our human actions have a huge effect on our Earth Mother. The history of human life is physically and energetically imprinted into the elements of Mama Earth. Her elemental structures hold our human stories of war and violence, love and connection, loss and pain; our Mother stores our history within her water, soil and stones. Like a great elemental library, the sacred body of Gaia “remembers” the entire history of life on this planet.
“Human history is a Gaian dream.”
~Terence McKenna
Although humans may have long forgotten the stories, Mama Earth continues to hold the history of all those who lived here before us. These traumatic imprints were created through human neglect and ignorance, and they can continue to haunt us for generations. When a piece of land holds a story of human aggression, loss, disconnection, trauma or suffering, those energies continue to impact the animals and people who live, work and interact with that place years later.
Without some form of balancing or clearing process, a traumatic event may continue to negatively impact the land and the people who live on the land years later. Mother Earth can stay ‘stuck’ in a state of imbalance for generations. But each of us can help our mother release old traumas and heal.
Whenever we consciously treat our Earth Mama with the love and respect she deserves, we actually help her restore balance and heal. And we heal our own relationship with this beautiful blue planet in the process.
Carl Sagan once asked, “Who speaks for planet Earth?” I believe it is time for each of us to speak out for Mama Earth.
“There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the earth.”
~Rumi
I attended a writer’s workshop near Seattle last week. I camped in a little tent in the middle of a beautiful forest. I was camping alone, but I didn’t feel lonely. The frogs of the nearby pond serenaded me nightly. I would lie each night in my tent beneath two huge old spruce trees and revel in their chorus. Here’s what I learned about frogs…
Frog timing is impeccable. Each night, one or two tiny frogs begin the frog chant and then another 2 or 3 will join in echoing the melody of the first perfectly. Then a third group joins, echoing the same melody. They join their voices and build a master symphony piece by piece, until their ultimate harmony rises and falls, undulating and echoing off the pond. Each masterpiece only lasts for one moment, maybe two. And then silence. Each serenade abruptly stops as if a maestro has cut the air with his baton to signal cease! Yet there is no maestro conductor on this pond. Only a few tiny green frogs magically harmonizing together.
At times, the nightly frog serenade would get so loud that I would literally have trouble thinking. But I was actually ok with that. Witnessing their creation up close was my compensation. It was fascinating to me that each frog sang out his piece of the symphony so loud and proud. I sensed zero hesitation and not an ounce of shame. One night as I listened to the symphony, I wondered to myself what I might learn from these little frogs. There had to be a reason my tent was positioned on the front row at this frog concert. It was too serendipitous to be an accident.
On my third night in the front row at frog symphony hall, I finally received the lesson frog was offering. I realized that I had been lying in my tent each night, debating with myself about how much of my story to write. I had been debating how much of me it was safe to share with the world. Meanwhile just outside, a tiny little frog sat on the muddy bank of a tiny little pond and bellowed out his song. He bellowed out his offering to the Gods with joy and gusto, night after night with little hesitation, Frog refused to be silent. He just belted out his creations for all the world to hear.
Frog didn’t waste time worrying about who was listening. He didn’t worry about what his audience would think of his song. He just sang his song night after night. He sang it with gusto. Maybe, just maybe I was lying there in a tent next to frog’s pond to receive a lesson in the art of expressing myself with joyful abandon?
Joyful abandon… I love the sound of that. Juicy green joyful abandon! I could definitely use more of that in my life. 🙂
—
A·ban·don əˈbandən/
noun – complete lack of inhibition or restraint
“There is nothing of significance that you can do by yourself.
Sustained ehthusiasm brings into existance a wave of creative energy,
and all you have to do the is ‘ride the wave’.”
~Elkhart Tolle
Every part of our Universe shifts and flows and creates with the energy of Tao, the energy of Source. The Tao is the energetic mother of all that is. This sacred flow thrums and buzzes with pure creative potential. And whether you realize it or not, this Source energy flows within you and connects you to all that is in every moment.
Every life begins in an act of creative flow. The sperm of the male penetrates the egg of the female… or is it that the egg allows the sperm to enter? Either way, the result is a merging of two separate energies into a completely new human being. In a single magical instant, the egg of the mother and the sperm of the father flow together and create a juicy new being.
“Creating is the essence of life.”
~Julius Caesar
And the joyful dance of elemental flow continues as we grow in size and complexity; in just 9 short months we literally transform from a tiny single-cell into a juicy baby human with a multi-celled miracle body. Flow is the creative “magic” that drives our transformation from one cell into billions of cells working in synchrony as one body.
We are like waves dancing with the shore; at birth we rise up out of the Universal ocean of energy. Then we dance and flow our way through our days here on Earth, until it is time to fall back into the Universal depths. We rise and dance. We subside back into the ocean.
Life is meant to be a creative flowing dance.
Every living being is wired to flow and sing with creation. Creative energies flow and drive this Universe. And creativity spontaneously flows whenever you connect with the Song of Soul within yourself. When you learn to align with this flow, you can create with grace and ease.
How much potent creative energy will course through you if you dare to reconnect to the flow you were born with? When we open ourselves up to more flow, more and more Soul expresses joyfully and naturally in our life.
“Creativity is the mother of all energies,
nurturer of your most alive self.
It charges up every part of you.
When you’re plugged in, a spontaneous combustion occurs
that ‘artists’ don’t have a monopoly on.”
~Judith Orloff
Connecting to the flow of Soul is wildly creative and joyful. It is also deeply healing.The word healing originated from the ancient Anglo-Saxon word “haelen” which means to be or become whole. Balance, resonate and heal are all words for the same concept.
In order to truly heal, we must reconnect to the deep yearnings of our Soul. True lasting healing is about transformation; digging in, and bringing flow of Soul to the surface. Healing happens naturally whenever we tap into the creative juice that flows through our core.
“Every creative act is also an act of healing.”
~Nancy Lankston