Loyalty was the Lesson

You probably have figured out for yourself by now that the reason we are human is so that we can learn, in this beautiful class room and playground, what it is to serve a Divine purpose. I came from a family with devinity in it's name, which may easily be an ironic and laughable coincidence, or, just perhaps, i a symbolic reminder of the level of power I am capable of holding and channeling. I get so overwhelmed sometimes by all these choices and gifts I've been given. I often feel as though, in order to 'succeed', I must produce, must create, must make a name. And that's when my ego goes flying out of my body, screeching with a piercing call, that yes! I want to be rich and famous!

Yes, I admit it! I'm a product of the culture I was raised in, and it only dawned on me yesterday that I'm a hippie; which, politically, means I believe that the ideals of peace, love and understanding through non-violent communication is an ideal worth staking your life's work on.

I don't know about the Romantic Nihilists, but the meaning to my life is earn a symbolic Ph.d. in this condition called humanity. What I know so far is that love trumps everything, everytime.

Namaste`,
Connie

Divorcing God

Last night I shared a meal with a lovely woman, Alexandra, who told me about an experience she had where she was asked to write a divorce decree from the God she was currently struggling with. Isn't that a fascinating and probably very productive exercise?
The most beautiful advise Christ ever gave was "love one another". It doesn't get any simpler than that. Those are three words that have traveled 2000 years and still hold the truth that if you will only attempt to love your neighbor, your friend, your enemy, your ugly step-mother, you're going to feel a lot closer to God, because in my book, in any moment that you are experiencing LOVE, that is the moment that you are in direct communication with God and all the goodness of Divinity can flow into and out of you via that conduit. As you receive, so you give. Annie Lamott, in Traveling Mercies, says that to "be loved is for giving and that for giving is to be loved." I know this is very simplistic, but I like my God that way.

The God I would like to divorce is the one that promises that my suffering will be rewarded in heaven. I divorce the God that says once I die my actions in one lifetime will determine whether I enter heaven or hell for eternity. I divorce the God that says women will always be weaker than men and must submit and obey their fathers and husbands and sons. I divorce a God you uses guilt to manipulate the masses. I divorce a God that uses anger to drive a point home. I dismiss a God who says love is only sanctioned for heterosexuals. I divorce a God who gifted woman with the honor of growing human life but would condemn them for choosing not to do so. I divorce a God who has only one son named Jesus who he loved so much he had him tortured and killed to prove his love to the rest of us who apparently, aren't really his children. I divorce the old and wizened, flowing white-haired Roman God image on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, male, reaching out to male. There's probably more....I'll come back to this and then I move onto the God I'm willing to marry.

Namaste`
Connie

Hope in the Ashes

The day we arrived in the Adirondacks for vacation a house burned down. I was present when the owner drove up and said, to the volunteer firefighter, "tell me that isn't my house". Her first question was "what about my dogs?". She didn't know that her three children were home as well. They were rescued, unharmed, by a neighbor.

Jimi Hendrix

I'm wearing a Jimi Hendrix/Moby Grape/Captain Spped t-shirt today (Target: $9.99). Susan Sandage, my accupuncturist, relayed her images and experience of Master Jimi in Cleveland, shortly before his death. She said he truly brought himself to performance. I said that I believed he was a channel of Divine energy and that he (and Elvis) were beings wih the power to shift, like platelets, existing paradigms surrounding and "protecting" then-current musical theory. God, a lot of people really HATED it. Although I was pre-teen at the time, his influence on me is quite profound. Hendrix was a hero, an icon, for a generation who was sick and tired of the black box their parents lived in. To a generation that detested war to the extent that a draft was put in place, Jimi shook things up with his otherwordly ability to make an electric guitar sing in a voice whose virbational waves are still pushing out into an expanding universe.

Jimi Hendrix was a man, and an icon for social change. He was a prophet with a powerful and specific message to western culture: get outside the four walls your've surrounded yourself with and experience yourself and your mind. The message was to take some risks, on all levels and break forth with a new energy never seen or "experienced before". The 1960's were a time a tremendous tumult and change. Young people said No Way to established morals and morays.

Eric Clapton was defined as God. Time magazine mused, "Is God Dead?" on one of it's covers. We watched the Vietnam War with a candor that no one under 40 can even begin to imagine. The truth and lessons held in those images projected into our homes every night taught us one very true thing: there is nothing more deadly to human spirit than the violence and chaos of war. War is ugly, brutal and deeply disturbing for all involved. It's time to move on and because it is men who have led us into war everytime, and women who have enabled the behavior, it is in fact women who are going to be the solution. I don't know how quite yet, but I've got some ideas and I'll keep you posted, ok?


The teachers of the 60's were artists and a couple of guys from Harvard, Ram Dass and Timothy Leary. Who are the prophets today? What is the message? Who are your teachers?

Namaste`
Connie

Lighten Up, Girlfriend

I'm stuck here in the Adirondack Mountains, sleeping in a rustic cottage, overlooking Upper Saranac Lake, nothing to do but sit on the deck and read or talk with friends and drink a rum and tonic and I think to myself: the problem with vacations is it provides me with way too much time to think and then my next thought is : Good God woman, LIGHTEN UP!

I have spent way too much of my life taking myself far too seriously. I look at my son Jesse and he is interested in one or two things as the 12 year old life purpose: what makes people laugh and how can I master the acoustic guitar without having to actually take lessons? Turns out he's pretty good at both of those things and it inspires the hell out of me!

This spring, for instance, I made a complete fool of myself and total mess of my marriage and family life. WHY? BECAUSE I COULD! Because, for some reason, I had the courage to jump off of a cliff when the impulse to have a wild and passionate love affair overtook my brain to the extent that I was no longer in control. It was like be possessed! Possessed by some wanton chick I've worked really hard at quashing in my adult life, mostly cuz I didn't want to turn into my mother. But what a gas it was, riding that wave of libido and adrenaline. Regular life is so boring in comparison and there in lies the rub! I see now how people get addicted to things that are not good for them...It's a thrill and it's exciting and hey, who cares if it's bound for tragedy, it's a big freaking reminder that I'M ALIVE!!

Grace and how it enters

Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh said something like this:

"Grace is what enters when we release the illusion that we are in charge of our lives."

I truly relate to this sentiment. I found that once I gave over to allowing Divine intervention to take charge of my life, the state of grace I entered into somehow colored all my past experiences, both pleasurable and painful, into new shades of grace that I had not recognized before. It's as though once grace was embraced, my entire life began to look like a state of grace, even ifI wasn't conscious of the gifts at the time.

For this I am deeply grateful.

Namaste`~,
Connie