November 15, 2016 – Dancing in the dark

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It’s a whole new world. Last week I wrote about how much we wanted the election to be over. Now for many it feels like the nightmare has just started. The world is a swirl of emotion, much of it being intensely expressed. So much has been written in the past week, that I’m faced this morning with the question: what is there for me to say – what is mine to add to it all? I’ve read plenty and the responses by Richard Rohr, Cynthia Bourgeault and Jonathan Fields, are those that I find the most resonant and helpful – in case you are still looking for wise words. But what I want to say feels more personal.

Early last Wednesday, just after midnight, my head on the pillow with sleep not anywhere close to coming (and it didn’t all night), I felt something within me rising in the dark – the dark of the room and the dark inside me. “We must PAINT ON!” I got up and brought my laptop back to bed, and wrote an email to the artists in our community – those who come to paint regularly at 537 Magnolia in Larkspur. I had the distinct intuition that the turn of events last Tuesday, was a catalyst – to re-commit to bringing what matters to us – light, loveliness, reverence – into the world around us. I spent Wednesday attempting to sort out what the deeper message was, how to understand it in a larger context. Where was the toe hold to lift us towards some positive gain? Then on Thursday, I woke with my heart feeling like it gained 50 pounds. I heard Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” driving in for the Thursday group and tears streamed down. The voice in my head said these are dark days for the feminine – not just for girls and women, for females, but for the energy and expression in all humans that is feminine: gentleness, care for each other, the capacity to receive – to listen.

Then by the wonders of perfect timing I had signed up for a retreat day on Sunday, called “The Heroine’s Quest,” about re-membering the feminine into the world. I learned how much of the story of women, of the feminine, has been one of being literally and figuratively dis-membered. We have re-membered ourselves over and over and over and OVER again – across all of time. So we are again now. I learned of a three part initiation into transformation that starts with lamentation – grieving for all the pain of the world; sacred tears, crying on behalf o those who cannot access theirs. The next step is dancing – dancing in the dark specifically. We dance with our bodies, with our brushes, with our musical instruments – we make beauty in the face of the demon, that would destroy us. Then comes transfiguration: water into wine. We take the mundane, the ordinary, and exalt it to the ecstatic. Which ends us up in another dimension altogether.

I learned that during the Crusades in Europe, when the biggest, most powerful institution – the Church – was brutalizing, cutting people to pieces, it was also the time when two shining examples of the feminine arose – light in the dark. One was the life of St. Francis of Assisi. He turned away from the structures of the church. He saw the church as all of God’s creation. He held sacred: the sun and the moon, the stars, the earth and her creatures. Franciscan spirituality is newly important in our world today – with the first pope, to take his name and preach love and care for those who need it most – including our planet.

It was also during this dark time that the final Cathedral in Chartres, France was built: Notre Dame de Chartres. There are many churches given the name Notre Dame in France – but this one was dedicated to the feminine – there are no noblemen, no kings or bishops buried within it. Before the workers started each day they gathered together in prayer, so they would have peace in their hearts, before they put their energies into building the structure.

Notre Dame de Chartres also has a labyrinth, that has been replicated all over the world. I learned that the labyrinth – a symbol of the twisting turns our journeys take – is associated with Ariadne in Greek mythology. Ariadne is also associated with dancing. The details of the myths are intricate and involved, and I don’t recall anything close to all that I heard, but I left the day knowing that we are in a cycle that has been repeated many times over in human history. No matter how many times it has been tried, the feminine is inextinguishable.

In the early hours of last Wednesday, I wrote that every dark time in my life has eventually revealed itself to be meaningful and purposeful. In time, I found those foot holds that took me on to a dimension that was unimaginable from where I stood before the dark took me over. For all of you who have a favorite painting of mine – Paris Roses, Twin Dahlias, Mid-Summer Zin, Blush, Douce, Firelight, Hallelujah, Eternal – know that none of these paintings would have come through me had I not been put between rocks and hard places by life. Had I not wanted children of my own so much, and had been denied them – both, I’d not be living this life.

I hold that this time has us all between a rock and hard place. The invitation is to go deep – into the dark – to weep if there are tears in us – then to find the gift in there and dance it – so we can bring it back transformed. I’m listening very closely to my intuition – for the messages that it might have for me – this is how the feminine speaks to us. We don’t know yet where this will lead us. But it is catalyzing something for us – individually and collectively.

In the meantime, I’m finding the place between reverence and irreverence that feels the most right. Reverence is needed even more this week than last. At the same time, I refuse to revere all the ugliness – my heart is broken that manipulation, bigotry and hate have won the day. But there would have been many others who would have felt angry and betrayed, had the results gone the other way. There was no real winning here. I didn’t wish upon myself to be a childless woman, and I don’t wish this division and derision upon any of us. But it is here now. And the opportunity is to use its transformational power.

And in the meantime, I continue to paint color and light, and to hold the space for those who come to paint on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. We start with paint, paper and water and with our brushes, bring forth new life – these paintings that have energies of their own. You are welcome to come join us if your intuition says that watercolor paintings are in you, and that learning the skills to bring them out now, is what’s needed. In any case, surround yourself with whatever might bring you back to hope, whatever reminds you of what is real, and what you will stand strong for in the coming days, weeks and months.

Thank you for reading – now especially – there is so much that is being put out to take in – I’m grateful you made space for me today.

With my love,

Cara