Spark Bark

I may not be alone in this: I am unlikely to admit there is a problem until I know there is a solution. Now, it seems that the deeper I allow myself to become embedded in the solution, the more able I am to admit the scope of the problem.
Here’s a problem, and I don’t like it. I am the citizen of an Evil Empire (CEE). I am also the beneficiary of a demonic system (BDS). I am also regretfully and inevitably racist (RIR). As if that weren’t enough, I am also a consumer of my fellow creatures (CFC). I have no moral standing that I can see. This seems like a good place to start.

So what’s the solution? Starting very inwardly, I might creep in under the wing of some strong angel that nestles me toward the possibility of becoming part of the solution, and thus, I am able to abandon the concept of moral standing. In favor of the desire to be part of the solution. The willingness to be part of the solution.

Okay, so what is the solution? Not the Big One– I don’t know that or know how to get there. My piece of it. What can I do? How do I be a part of the solution, the unique part that I am able to be?

For starters, recognizing the problem. Admitting it. Accepting that This Is the Way It Is.

That, I am sure, is a very good step. Then, I suppose, asking what my part in the solution can be. No, that may be going too far, too fast. I may first need to go deeper into that willingness. Being willing to be changed, willing to be less comfortable, willing to be stretched and formed.

And surely to register that willingness with the Powers, the Further Spheres. So the entire cosmos knows that I am willing to be changed, challenged, even transformed, for the purpose.

Then stay alert? Be attentive? Little nudges, small fleeting awarenesses that Here is an opportunity to Respond in a New Way? Something more authentic and true to where I am at the moment and where I hope to be? Can that be the next step?
And be open! There may be others around who feel the same way, and we might all flourish further with each others’ companionship. Float it out there.

That sounds pretty good for now. At least it’s a start. A start in a direction that feels solid, feels right. And a gentle floating that could, might, be welcomed as an invitation. Might be.

For a while in college, I was a biology major. I got to use a binocular microscope.  With that little wheel held by the fingers of my right hand, I was able to see the whole surface of the object of my study, and then, by turning the wheel clockwise, slowly descend down through the layers of the organism, layer by layer. 

I still use that mode of perception.  Look at the whole, big, very big, picture and then down through the layers to see how it all seems to fit together.  One of the Sisters at a nearby monastery turned me on to Beatrice Bruteau.  The first book I read led me to the second, God’s Ecstasy, and I have been stuck there ever since.  If we posit Being, just pure Being — and certain qualities of Being — from the infinitesimally small point of pure Being, this entire known universe develops/ evolves — I would say, dances forth.  For it is a dance,  a Dance of evolution. The smaller and simpler joining to create the larger and more complex.  Whatever doesn’t work is dropped from the Dance, and the smaller and simpler will go on to create a different, larger, and more complex aspect of the Dance.  What works persists and goes on to join with other members of the Dance to create more forms of Being. 

It’s a process.  We might say that Godde is a (or the) process of Being, a multi-dimensional, ever-evolving Dance of Being.  

What I keep seeing, and thus am writing to see if it can live outside my head, is a crescendo. Starting at that infinitesimally small point of pure Being, and then growing outward through all dimensions, toward……. perhaps its matching decrescendo? Drawing all back toward that infinitesimally small point? 

And we are in the crescendo– or decrescendo if you prefer, but let me stay with the crescendo for ease of the story, although you are welcome to flip it if you like.  We are unique energy events and unique dancings held within the many dimensions.  To the extent that we are participating in the life of the crescendo, we are as comfortable as we can be. To resist, to try to make the Dance go our way, is to deform the dance and invite misery all around. To participate – wholly – is the only satisfaction that endures.  

Surrendering to the crescendo.  Sensing its life and its trajectory, and becoming wholehearted participants.  We are, after all, its creations.  There is nothing inherent in us that is in disharmony with the dynamic of the crescendo.  Any problem is in my habits and between my ears. As I practice trusting the crescendo, the life, the dance of All Being, something relaxes in my lower back. This large perspective makes my daily life easier.  Whenever I feel myself getting snarled up, tense, or tight, I can remind myself of the crescendo and let go into it, trusting it, letting its life carry me, swept up into its dance. All it wants is its own way.  I might as well let it.

Thirty or so years ago, maybe in the mid-1990s, I had a sort of vision out on Plum Island, off the coast of northern Massachusetts. I had been mulling gender dynamics in spiritual developments in the Eastern Mediterranean basin over the past few thousand years. There on Plum Island, I “felt” the more feminine, egalitarian, earth-based systems– the horizontal — a few millennia ago breaking open for the upthrusting masculine, hierarchical, domination-based system:  the horizontal broken open for the emergence of the vertical.  I now “saw” the vertical beginning to crumble, as if a hose pointed upward had been turned off, and the last drops of water were falling toward the ground.  In response, I “saw-felt” the horizontal pulling itself together and beginning to rise.  Rising up the vertical until it was at the proportion of a cross, and there clicking into place.  At that crossing, a “new” dimension was opened, piercing through the crossing toward a less binary way of being. 

Today, I was walking up in the woods above this city.  From the Spark sessions [link to Events page], I have developed an affection for, and sense of affinity with, the mycorrhizal network, the interwoven mass of mycelium that connects trees in a forest, providing nutrients, medicines, and information.  Since my mind likes the easiest path to understanding, the principle of symmetry across scale, analogies, and metaphors is attractive to me. 

Thus, until someone convinces me otherwise, my work and prayer are based on the belief that there is a similar network to that in the forest floor, connecting all sentient beings, perhaps all beings, maybe all creation.  Like most things, it grows through appreciation. So, as I was coming down toward the pavement for the descent into town, I put some conscious appreciation into the network on which I was walking. 

And up it came like steam from a pond on a cool morning, like the horizontal rising up to catch the vertical. 

Five days a week, part of my morning routine is connecting with spiritual nodes around the globe.  This morning, for the first time, I added in connection with the spiritual nodes within some political centers. I felt something stirring. 

Now, in my descent from the Park and its woods, I felt the power from beneath, from the underside, gathering the horizontal and beginning its rise up to its right proportion with the vertical,  where the way can open for the deep healing-whole-ing so needed.  A new way of perceiving.

May we become open to all that is, to all the conceptual allies waiting for our appreciation in order to pour their gifts into our salvific endeavors. 

Little green men. Diaphanous lilac women. Angels. Entities. Extra-terrestrials. Discarnates. I hear from a friend who has friends that we (the human enterprise) are being helped in this time of stress by those from Away. Because they can’t (or won’t) override our “free will,” they are working through the planetary systems to rouse our consciousness. Working to rouse it to effective focus and willingness to engage in what is needed in these times. 

I had to run this through my christological “grid” to see if it could fit, rather like trying on Cinderella’s glass slipper. I’m glad to say it fit. Godde is the Source of all Being. We are all connected. It doesn’t matter where we call “home” in this ever-expanding, ever-evolving, multi-dimensional dance. There is nothing to keep us from sliding across the intervening conventions to lend a hand to a neighbor in distress or approaching distress. 

My understanding of the CHRIST, that it is a function of Godde, and that it manifested perfectly ( or perfectly enough) in my Lord, Jesus, allows for the existence of such entities from Away. Why not? Each containing a spark of CHRIST, if not precisely of humanity. And the spark of CHRIST would /could draw them to be of service to us and to our biosphere in our present (you supply the noun. I use simply “pain”). Also, it is a nifty planet with beautiful and challenging features. I can see being attracted to it, can’t you? 

So, how about my Man, Jesus? Here’s my current riff. He may have a closer affinity with these folks from Away than I can project. Certainly, he is respected by them. He may be the One who whistled them up and invited them in. I don’t need to know or even hypothesize (although I guess I just did). The point is, I think that I can dive further or deeper into being part of the solution of the present time, into encouraging and supporting others in finding their niche within the solution of the present time, knowing – or hoping – or believing – that my efforts have wide-ranging support. I am a tiny, unique piece in a vast multi-dimensional tapestry, being woven by the Great Weaver. Pieces from far away. Pieces from nearby. All being woven by the Great Weaver.

There is a strange relaxation in being precisely where one is called to be, exerting oneself to the fullest effort. Focused, alert. Fully awake, poised to shift if required, yet relaxed. May we all be drawn to our place. May we all be willing to support others in finding their place. May we all be all that we are needed to be in this time of – pain. May we all be willing.

New here? Start at the beginning!

Like a genie released from a lamp, he came billowing up from his just-closed grave. I noted and did not respond. In the next few days, I felt him approaching me, exploring, it seemed, the possibility of renewing and expanding the rapport we had when we were both incarnate. No. In the twenty or so years since I was last approached by a post-carnate, my schooling, training, and awareness of the potential dangers had not weakened. No. I love you, and No.

If you want to be in contact with me, talk with Jesus. Or His Mother. As I recall, you had no use for either of them while you were in the body, but maybe your perspective has changed. If you want to be in touch with me, get in touch with one or both of them. They can work it out as is best.

Jesus, I just referred him to You. When we consider what changes You have wrought in my life and understanding, I am sure that you can do what is best with him and us. Thank You. I trust You and Your process.

Within a day or so, I was brought to mind a mosaic, the living mosaic. I see this living mosaic as an icon for the solution for the sustainability of the human enterprise on this sweet planet Earth. We are each a bit of the mosaic: shell, pebble, a bit of glass, gem, a shard of mirror. Each unique. Each being refined. Each essential.

In the past year, during our Sunday Spark teleconference meditation sessions, the feeling has grown that there are others, not on the telephone, who are joining us. I now see that the Spark ‘work’ – claiming our sparks – may be beneficial whether we are in the body or out of the body. Our sparks, it seems, continue on for at least a while after biological death. The desire to affirm and connect with the sparks in others may continue. Defenses, bafflements, and distortions to which we are attached may persist. The willingness to be transformed may become more acute. If we are yearning toward our place in the mosaic, toward where we truly belong, claiming our personal spark offers a practical way to ease that movement. Whether we are in the body or out of the body.

So it seems possible that the dear soul who billowed into my attention that autumn afternoon is approaching his next lodging place within the mosaic, as am I. It’s a living mosaic, after all, every-evolving, multi-dimensional. Inclusive of those with and without bodies. All one beautiful, living mosaic. Ever-evolving. I don’t design it. You don’t design it. He doesn’t design it. We get to let go of everything that gets in the way and let ourselves fit into the design, participating in the life of the mosaic and becoming part of the solution. Together. In expanding rapport.

A friend has been coming to pray with me one or two mornings a week for over twenty years. It started because he loved his son deeply, and the son seemed to be battling addiction. Late last year, this son checked himself out of the local hospital against medical advice and was found a few days later, dead in the nearby woods with a bottle.

My friend was contacted by a psychic in another part of the country who believed she had been contacted by the son with a message for his Dad, He wanted his dad to know that he was well, resolved, and doing okay. 

 Later my friend began our prayer time together by wondering out loud whether his son might be helping folks still on the earth plane who had challenges like he had had. Maybe nudging them, sort of boosting them along. Might be, I responded.

Got me to recall what I know or have been taught about such things. First is, as I put it, Jesus is Lord of All. Second is what I get from the Old Testament: don’t consult or rely on folks who are ‘On the Other Side.’ And then there’s a teacher’s statement: “Just because you don’t have a body doesn’t mean that you know anything.” Okay, so where does that leave me, leave us?

 Do I think my friend’s son or anyone else on the Other Side can be helpful? Yes. Do I think it is okay to rely on that? No. I was deeply schooled in letting folks who are “post-carnate” get on with their process, whatever it might be. No clinging or leeching or adhering. Let them get on with their journey into that phase of the mystery. No dependence from us on this side. 

So if I feel an energy whiffling around, what then? My teacher taught that we could order: “Show your light or begone.” If they exist, they are creatures of Godde, so they have light to show. If not, well, they are errant thought forms and can disintegrate. Might it be more than that? Maybe. But I am not schooled enough to venture further. If someone is trying to tell me something, I refer them to Jesus. They can tell Him, and if He feels it is helpful and important, He will figure out a way to get the information to me. From Him, I am willing to accept. Not from anyone else. 

It’s a big, multi-dimensional dance out there. I don’t need to know more than that. I want to be effective and to be effective, and I need to be safe and to be safe; it’s good for me to be sticking close to the Man, the J-Man, and letting him do the work where it might be sticky for me. Then there are the saints. I have saints that I ask to pray for me. There are saints whose support I feel buoying me. So maybe, if I hear the hinge squeak, I don’t need to answer. But maybe I can let in the blessing.

I am sure he is praying for me. For several years before he died, I wanted him dead. He felt like a leech feeding off some liveliness of mine, and I wanted him off me. Never mind that I had leeched on him for years; I didn’t want him to leech on me. I tried shaking him off. He was not to be shaken. He adhered. So, wishing him gently dead, I let him. 

Then he died. 

I first missed him more than a year later. I was on a trip and wanted to talk with him once I got home about the startling moments. I realized that I wouldn’t be able to. I missed him. I felt it. Then, as if in response, I felt his praying for me. 

I don’t feel it as keenly now, and I am sure he still is. 

He let open a door for me, a door between my Experiences and the Church. My experiences were too . . weird… to talk about with most people, and certainly with any church people. Hush, hush, Martha. Pack it down. Never mind.

Then he came along. Although he came to offer spiritual direction for clergy members, he was willing, when I asked him, to be my spiritual director, too. Slowly a door cracked open. I let him into my confidence: the stories of the strangenesses that had been visited upon me. And some ongoing. 

Eventually, what flowed through the opening became less torrential. He introduced me to the Society of St. John the Evangelist. My tension eased. There could be a place for me in the church institution.

Now I am wondering. With his prayers, might he still be a hinge? Now a hinge for a door between this mortal life and – to be orthodox, the Communion of Saints – beyond? Opening a way between these two phases of Being for a more recognized and overt communion? 

I no longer feel a need to shake him off. Neither of us is now attached. We are lodged in different dimensions. Now, there may be a potential for us to work together as colleagues. He, from his post-carnate reality, is still a hinge, allowing a door to open between these two phases of Being, a door by which I may wait, watching for what might come through. 

I felt a nudge to engage the Letter to the Hebrews. I like a chance to tear apart Bible text – or any text. Most of my academic background was to that end and I don’t get to do it much these days. So with glad anticipation, I got out my big Annotated NRSV and prepared to dive in. 

It– the task to which I felt nudged—was not what I had expected. It seems that, rather than tearing into the Letter to the Hebrews, I was to pay attention to the direction it heads, its trajectory–and extrapolate. Where was the human relationship with the Divine, with Godde, before this? And where does it seem to be headed? 

For a while, our local UCC flew a large banner reading (something like) “Don’t put a period where God has put a comma.” Like that. The Divine, Godde, the CHRIST, the evolving thrusting dynamic of and through creation, did not cease with the “closing of the canon”- the determination of what was to be included in the sacred texts – nor did it begin with Abram. This dynamic is alive, ever-evolving, multi-dimensional, and is at work to awaken humanity (at least) to our right place and right size within its Dance. 

The Letter to the Hebrews, as I read it, sketches the trajectory of Godde’s revelation to humankind from Abram, up through the arc of the Judaeo-Christian tradition, to the time the Letter was composed, sometime in the early years of the Common Era. It was written to encourage folks not to slide back into earlier stages of the revelation, but to live into what they had learned of the further revelation through the story of Jesus. 

It continues, right? Godde will keep on revealing the truth to us of our true place and right size until we fully get it and accept it and are willing to live into it. We just need to open our eyes to see clearly and honestly. And encourage and support others in opening their eyes and seeing clearly and honestly. The whole trajectory. From each one’s unique perspective. If we do that, we can discover and begin to live into the life that Godde offers us, into what Godde is needing of us. 

A former rector at my church suggested that the church got into trouble when it quit following Jesus, and instead began to worship him. Good enough. But following Jesus is more than (although it surely includes) feeding the hungry, helping the outcasts and strangers, having mercy and doing justice, walking humbly with our Godde, and obeying the commandments. 

Following Jesus also means to be willing to act and live and preach and teach outside the gates, to stretch and be stretched in accordance with the ever-lasting purpose of Godde. The law that Jesus came to fulfill is alive, dynamic. It is fulfilled by living it, outside the gates if need be, beyond the comma. 

In the back of the Chapel at the Monastery of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, there is a small alabaster sculpture of Mary, the Holy Mother, balancing the child Jesus on her left hip. He is no longer an infant, perhaps a toddler. He reaches his left hand out in a gesture that now makes sense to me.

I’ve been visiting that Chapel for a while. It is what the Celts would call a “thin place:” things happen here. Here I have learned to hold my energy soft and open, with no expectations The Holy Mother has caught my attention, but Jesus on her hip hasn’t. 

My relationship with Jesus, well, it’s been humbling–and growing. Over forty years ago –in the era of Jesus Freaks–a friend confessed that she had been holding against Jesus the folks he hung out with –or who said they hung out with him. This got me to A Moment. I could let go of all the projections I had ever heard or read about Jesus. So I tossed out the challenge that if he is real, he can make himself known to me—as he truly is – if he exists. 

It’s been more than half my life since that challenge was tossed. The easiest metaphor is a snowball. One of the ones that roll itself, ever-growing, down a slope–when the conditions are right. Unnoticeable at first, with a few widely separate clues, then what could be the beginning of a movement. Recently things have been moving along with increasing weight and intensity. I’m grateful for those years of scant clues and subtle movement. I learned to pay attention and not jump to conclusions; to hang on and observe how things develop. Because of this lengthy apprenticeship, I now have the confidence to share my perceptions. 

Which returns me to the statue in the back of the Monastery Chapel. A while back I was there on retreat. It was night, my favorite time in the Chapel: everyone else has gone to bed, the lights are dim, and I have the place to myself—and whatever may happen. My attention was drawn to the child on Mary’s hip. The figure sort of lit up, and the gesture of the hand conveyed energy that felt, well, imperious. It wanted something. As I rested in its presence, it seemed that it wants to grow up. It is tired of being encased in the alabaster of conventional Christian understanding. It wants to claim life, its life, the fullness of the CHRIST life. This Child is more than Jesus. It is the fullness of Jesus’ purpose manifested two millennia ago: to awaken humanity to the CHRIST within all life and within themselves. Ourselves. 

Can we help the Child crack open the alabaster? Can we help the CHRIST grow up, in us and through us? Can we choose to recognize its fullness stretching to be known in everyone we meet, everyone we think of? Can we support it in becoming what it was (is) created to be? Can we? Shall we? Will we?

During a guided meditation in our Spark sessions, we refer to an aquifer of living truth undergirding all that Is. As an agent of transformation (which is what we are when we practice the spark concepts, whether or not we acknowledge them) I sometimes feel depleted. My spark isn’t depleted, but I am! Whether or not we understand ourselves as doing spark ‘work,’ we need access to resources that will nourish, sustain, and stabilize us in our efforts toward wholeness and good.

The aquifer of living truth is one of those resources. It is when we are immersed in truth that our efforts toward wholeness and good bear healthy fruit. In the spark work we have found that, if we feel our ‘tap roots’ impeded as we press down toward the aquifer of living truth, there can be a change in the atmosphere. The change is like the freshness we feel near a large body of water. 

This greeting freshness supports our pressing down toward the living truth. We grow confident that eventually, any impediments will disintegrate, that we shall finally experience immersion in the living flow of truth, and our full capacity to draw from it. 

I believe that mist is wisdom. 

Okay. Shift gears. In late 2010 I became aware of something I call the pilgrimage of love. It is based on a project led by a group called the Mothers in Gaza and has spread. A prayer: All-living, ever-loving Godde, You who breathe in us the Spirit of Your presence and desire of us only Your wholeness: we bring before You the pilgrimage of love, a communion of prayer through the underside. Form and flow through it as it is Your will, bless all within its embrace, fostering them in wisdom, strength, stamina, and joy, that it may embody Your desire and renew us all for Your service…… I have prayed this daily. I have felt it grow and deepen to include us all. It’s a field of energy, like the mother in raw vinegar or a placenta. But I’ve not been able to feel it as “connecting” as the faithful intention I pour into it might warrant. Until recently.

What I now ‘see’ is that this greeting freshness of wisdom, rising off the aquifer of living truth, is permeating the pilgrimage. The wisdom of the pilgrimage, which now includes all sparks, embraces all sparks. Wisdom embraces, affirms, and connects with the spark within each one of us, strengthening our sparks. 

With our sparks strengthened, we may now see that our defenses are not necessary, and let them erode. We may recognize our bafflement and let it be clarified. We may become willing to allow our distortions to be released. 

Now, for me, the prayer has traction. You are welcome to join.