What Does It Look Like?

Before the drum even started,

  I felt the weight, heavy, pressing

  my body into the earth.

It is a rock

  under the full weight of the mountain.

  It is the cornerstone, bearing the mass of life,

  unburdened by the load, forever strong, breathing gently.

Pressed ever more deeply into the earth,

  Absorbing the heat, expanding, transforming,

  white-hot molecules excited, dancing, anticipating.

Then the explosion, hurling tons of boiling lava

  vertically, through miles of quaking, birthing mountain

  oblivious to, and unbound by, that unyielding force…gravity.

Erupting from the uterus of mountain turned mother.

  Spewing lava into the sky, breaking into a million bits,

  each impregnated with life, reaching for the stars.

Floating now, among the stars, quiet, ready, patient.

A shooting star pierces the blackness,

  it’s tail whipping through the million bits

  striving to stay abreast its mother, mixing

  with the million bits, imbuing the million bits

  with color and song and method,

  letting go, finally, of the star now gone,

  finding its home among the million bits.

A billion bits, heavy with life, falling from the sky,

  seeding the earth, the other planets, the universe.

  Burrowing deeply into the expectant uterus,

  drinking voraciously the rich nutrients…

Bursting forth as life,

  faeries, dancing, singing, playing, sexing,

  joyful, exuberant, zestful, laughing.

The hand of God,

  playing, creating, laughing, singing, creating…

Heavy, pressing down into the earth.

  Reaching the depths and the heat.

  Exploding out the mountain turned mother.

  Spewing fragments of life into the universe.

Dancing in the stars.

  Creating rainbows in the dark.

  Shining the light for all to see.

That…is what IT looks like.

Hands Reaching Through the Dark

'You will need to ask for help.'

Those words rose in my mind without warning.
  Another step in this journey that seems
  bound to end in my demise.

'You will have to ask for help.'

'Oh my god.'
  The shame, the embarrassment,
  the disbelief, the shock, the shame...
  that I couldn't care for myself,
  that I couldn't find a way to feed just one person,
  that I couldn't be the 'right' person for the job,
  that for all my effort, I couldn't 'get it right',
  that I made the wrong decisions at those critical junctures
  after trying so hard to consider and weigh and balance and
  make the 'right' decisions.

That I am a failure,
  that I am  not needed in this economy,
  that I am extraneous and unwanted,
  that I disappoint my aunt...and me...
  and my children.

All these emotions roll through me like ocean waves,
  drowning the calm and  peace I work so hard to craft,
  washing what little wisdom and faith I can muster out to a sea
  broiling, wind-blown and angry.

What is more devastating, I wonder,
  learning how to live in the next level of poverty, or
  learning how to live with the next level of self hate?

-----------------------

Last week, I was talking with a man
  who runs a food pantry to feed Portland's hungry souls.
  He shared with me a homeless man's thoughts.

'Homelessness is not about a loss of resources,' he said.
  'Homelessness is about the loss of relationships.'

Hearing those words, I felt my heart break.
  I couldn't speak after that, so stunned was I.
  After we bid adieu, I looked at the scratch pad
  scribbled with notes from our conversation.

Those words leapt out at me, dagger in hand,
  malice throbbing in anticipation, excitement...
  hungry for the kill.

Panic rose like bile in my throat
  as I searched frantically through my drawer
  to find the eraser.

To erase, to eliminate, quickly and forever,
  those words, this reality, the aloneness,
  the fact,
  from my life.

Those words gone from the page,
  I collapsed in tears and horror,
  bile filling my mouth and heart,
  stinking in my soul, choking me
  with hopelessness and panic.

The paper now white as new.
  Yet, the words remain etched
  on my heart, where no eraser can reach,
  seething, breeding venom, stinking...

-----------------

And, another rejection letter arrived.

I know the rejections before opening them.
  I can feel the precision of the laceration
  on a heart bleeding from all the other cuts.

And I wonder,
  is there a point at which healing is no longer possible?

Because, see, there aren't enough jobs to go around,
  and there are so many ways in which I do not match.
  But, I try to figure them out, to find how I can match.

Twisting myself this way and that,
  donning this, dropping that,
  acting so, acting not.

--------------

I didn't know why I came to Silverton.
  I knew how fragile I felt, how hard it
  would be to maintain myself.
  Yet, I came anyway.

I told myself I just needed to laugh,
  to enjoy the time with my friends.
  I held the ruse successfully the first day.
  But, the struggle of it wore thin the withering facade
  I had hobbled together.

And, the second day, it all unraveled.

'I'm too proud to ask.
  I'm too broke to eat.
  I'm too weak to bow,
  and too strong to bleed.'

Over and again, they sang those words,
  cutting ever deeper into the wound that was my heart,
  ripping through the tattered facade,
  leaving me naked, cold, shattered for all to see.

'Can you sing over me, words of comfort?
  Can you break through me, strong hands?
  Can you undo me enough to heal me?
  Take the weight from my shoulders.'

Exposed, I ran to hide my pain and shame,
  but they followed, paying no heed to the
  doors closed to my room and my heart.

They held me, loved me, prayed for me,
  cried for me...and would not let go.

'You will NOT be homeless', they said.
  'You are not alone.  You are not alone.'
  Again and again, they repeated those words.

At first, I couldn't hear the words,
  because they were not meant for me,
  because they were not real,
  because I couldn't accept them,
  because I really am all alone.

But, they wouldn't stop.
 Their presence and promise
  defied the reality I thought mine.

And suddenly, I understood why
  I went to Silverton this weekend.
  I came to learn that
  I am not alone.

Whatever unfolds in the next 60 days,
  I step forward in the promise that
  I am not alone.

Abundance Born of Poverty.
  The broken heart, beyond self healing.
  Hands reaching through the dark
  to touch, to hold, to heal, to love.

grateful, so grateful, so very grateful...

Searching for the Abundance Born of Poverty

Abundance Born of Poverty.

I'm supposed to write about that.
  Yet still, I sit staring at this empty white page,
  feeling the empty, broken space in my heart,
  blind to the abundance in this, my poverty.

Is it because I find comfort in the losses of poverty?
  Is it because I need to stand on the firm ground of
  'It's not my fault?!'
  Is it because I cannot see beyond my fear and rage?

Why can I not see the abundance?
  I know it is there.
  I really do want to believe Spirit.
  I really do feel I am being asked to give it voice.

Perhaps, my unwillingness, my inability, my struggle,
  to find this abundance is part of the story.
  Perhaps, by giving voice to the doubt, I can affirm
  the doubt that clouds all our hearts, and in so doing,
  open the way for Spirit to say,

'It is okay.  I love you.  I love you.  I love you.
  I love you in your doubt, in your struggles, in your disbelief.
  There is no part of you that I do not love or cherish.
  There is no part of you that I do not find room for in my heart.'

So perhaps, this is my first lesson in abundance born of poverty.
  My inability to believe is just one of the many faces of poverty.
  And, as I stand naked in this disbelief, I hear the words of
  undying, unconditional love...abundance beyond measure.

What Responsibility Have We?

It was easy in the beginning.
  There were flowers everywhere,
  and bees singing as they spread their bounty
  across the Lilly fields of my life.

Cloistered so far back on the American continent,
  that the 60s wouldn't arrive until well into the 70s,
  and the war would become real to me only
  as it crept into its closing days.

Memories, for me, didn't include the protests and songs.
  They included the Vietnamese families, 12-15 strong,
  women, men, children, grandparents, cousins,
  their indecipherable language and ways,
  the color of their skin, their short stature...
  so odd in this white Scandinavian community.

The church ladies, bringing over the food,
  Scandinavian food with a Montanan accent.
  The church men, lending hammers and saws
  to extend sleeping quarters into the garage.

How odd that must have been for a people
  accustomed to scant meals of  rice and greens and fish
  to stand next to those who moved as giants among them.

That was how I experienced the war..
  through those Vietnamese families
  all piled up in their small homes,
  a midst a sea of white people.

Did we require they go to my father's church?
  That I don't remember.  But now, looking back,
  I think how odd it would have been...to expect a
  people steeped in wisdom and teachings of Buddhism
  to attend a rural, Montanan church of the Protestant faith.

Did we expect that of them in return
  for our beneficent acts of hospitality?
  Did we feel called to save them from
  their own ignorant and savage ways?

Or did we find in them a people wise
  from the study of their own faith traditions
  and seasoned from the trauma of war?

Did we see them as allies and companions
  in a world gone awry, or as notches
  for our branch of giving and good deeds?

I was so young then,
  climbing trees and playing kickball.
  After the banquet honoring their arrival,
  their condition passed quickly from my mind.

It never occurred to me that they might have
  lived through hell, lost family, lost everything.
  It never occurred to me that Americans were
  the cause of their loss.

I was just playing kickball and climbing trees.
  Yet, do the sins of the father pass to the children?
  Do I carry the responsibility for the lives torn asunder
  by the acts of this nation?

What responsibility do we, the most wealthy nation on earth,
  have to our fellow beings in countries across this vast world
  who have suffered at the hand of our need for more or war?

You Don't See Me

What is more devastating,
  learning how to live in the next level of poverty, or
  learning how to live with the next level of shame?

I am here...see me?
  Look down.  Here I am, sitting on the curb.
  I live behind the facade of the American Dream.

I don't blame you for not wanting to look.
  I wouldn't either.  I wouldn't want to see the shame,
  the failure that I am.  I wouldn't want to see me.

Yet, I live with this conundrum...I must eat.
  And, I must find a place to relieve myself,
  for I cannot stop my bodily functions...much as
  I know that would make us both more comfortable.

And, I must sleep...somewhere.
  I must sleep.

But, this has all become so hard, you know.

The night is dangerous on the streets,
  so I must stay awake at night.  It is,
  you know, my survival.

But then, whilst asleep in my car that next day,
  I was roused by the tapping on my window
  of the billy club belonging to that policeman
  who told me,

'You are not allowed to sleep in your car
  during the day.  It is against the law.'

Long ago, I remember living in a house.
  It had a bed and I slept at night.  And...
  it had a bathroom.

I never imagined that I would wake each morning,
  wondering where I could go to the bathroom that day,
  if I would be allowed into the bathroom at the local store,
  or if I might be kicked out because my clothes were too dirty,
  or too smelly.

I never imagined that.

I never imagined that financial collapse would be
  such a cascade of loss, or that one slip could
  put me back...again...and again...and again.

And yet, here I sit
  on this street corner,
  in the rain and in my humiliation.

And, you don't see me.

Abundance Born of Poverty

Abundance Born of Poverty.
  I can't see it.  I can't fathom it.
  Perhaps, I'm not looking hard enough.

Or perhaps, I am not open to the
  possibility that there really is such
  a thing as abundance born of poverty.

I think that is the truth of it.

I can't see how abundance can be born of poverty.
  I know poverty's bairn, unrelenting hardship and oppression.
  I am meeting its kinsmen, anguish, despair, suffering and fatigue.

Yet, Spirit asks me to write about abundance,
  the one experience I have not yet had with poverty.

Typical.
  Spirit, in its ever cryptic and nonsensical fashion,
  asks for the seemingly impossible in the very moment that
  I feel least capable of, or interested in, deciphering its riddle.

A Mother's Embrace

My mother comes to me frequently these days.
  I am on my knees, head bowed.

She comes to me, reaches behind me
  and rubs my back.

She rubs my back and I cry.
  A shower of glistening sparkles rise.

She rubs.  I cry.

The pain, the fear, the loss
  dissipate upon her touch and float away.

She rubs.  I cry.

I feel safe.  I feel warm.
  I feel loved.  I feel wanted.

She rubs.  I cry.

Then, she holds my face in her hands
  and gazes into my soul.

Healing, love, peace.
  No answers.  Just love.

She rubs.  I cry.

The Light and the Promise

I have been avoiding You,
  so focused have I been on
  carrying out the plan.

Every moment, I have dedicated
  to its fulfillment.
  Waking and asleep,
  my mind worked it.

Yet, I hear Your call, once again,
  from the depths of my heart.
  It has been a persistent whisper.

So, finally I acquiesce to Your call.
  For the first time in months, I lit the candles
  and sat in silence to hear You.

I was at the base of the tree,
  and she came to me, the white-wolf-woman.
  She took my hand in hers and raised me up.

We walked the earth and the sky
  till we reached the black of universe.

There, she let go my hand
  and showed me the portal.
  'It is yours, if you wish,' she said.
  'Soon, the choice will be yours.'

The light, alone in the black, pulled me forward.
  I wanted it.  I want a release from all this.
  I want peace.  I want the grief to end.

So, I moved toward it.
  But then, out of the corner of my eye,
  I saw an elderly woman.

She was curled tightly on the ground,
  clad in rags and drenched from the rain.
  Her life force was weak and ebbing.

It was my choice.
  I could...can...choose the light.
  I am so tired from this life.

Yet, as I gazed at the light,
  I realized I was to hold the woman
  in my arms, to warm her body, to love her.

And, I was to deliver her soul to the light.

So, I took her in my arms, held her closely,
  poured my love into her broken heart
  and my tears onto her lifeless face.

And then, I carried her to the portal,
  to the angel that stood waiting
  with everlasting peace and love.

As the woman disappeared into the light,
  the angel held open the portal,
  waiting for my decision.

How easy it would be to slip into the light.
  How luring the promise of peace and wholeness,
  pure love, release from pain and fear.

The promise of peace and release from grief
  passed from the angel into my heart...
  even as I stood in the dark of life.

And, I realized,
  I am not yet done on this plane.
  There is more for me to do, to be, to live.

There are so many in so much pain,
  so many that yearn for warmth and love,
  so many that have none.

I can't take the place of one who
  truly is ready to step beyond.
  I must continue on this path...

...for now, anyway.

And, I do so armed with the
  peace and promise inherited by all
  from a Grace beyond our knowing.

The Epiphany That Wants to be Born

I decided that the worst thing that can happen to me
  is NOT that I end up homeless or without food.

The worst thing thing that can happen is
  that I turn this life circumstance against me.

The self-questioning, self-loathing, self-deprecation...
  All of that names the worst that could happen.

I really am not what the external world reflects back to me.
  I really am what shines forth from inside of me.

The life circumstance is bearable.
  I can handle whatever comes at me.

I am resourceful, frugal, insightful, smart, well-balanced.
  I have much experience handling difficulties.

I have come through much in my life.
  I have a strength inside that always carries me.

What's not bearable is the stress load I've been carrying,
  the internalization of society's blame for the circumstances of my life.

Somehow, I must dispel this illusion from my mind,
  for by assimilating it, I turn against my self and the blessing that I am.

There it is, the message Spirit wants me to learn.
  I can almost feel it, want to believe it, am reaching for it.

the American Mantra

There's a story I've felt called to tell.
  But, I've been frightened of telling it,
  for to tell it would be to expose me,
  my failings, my ineptness, my failure...

But, in falling prey to my personal vicious judge,
  I accept its brutal and vindictive pronouncements
  as real, as the definition of who I am.

Sometimes, I have the wherewithal to
  jump past this infernal and constant judgment-without-trial.
  And, in those fleeting moments, I remember

I am not that person.
  Those judgments are the very epitome
  of the socially-structured voice of this country
  against a large majority of its population.

Translated....

I have learned my lessons well,
  those lessons that have been pounded into me since childhood,
  those lessons that became embedded in my definition of me,
  those lessons that became the source and inspiration of my vision...

'I am independent.
  I am self made.
  I can be anything.
  I am responsible for my self and my life.
  If I try hard enough, study hard, work hard, give unrelentingly to my work,
  I will reap the rewards of my efforts.'

Sound familiar?
  Of course, it does.
  This is the American dream, plain and simple.
  I can hear the words over and again, the mantra
  in the background of my life, spoken from the kind man
  who lost everything in a country despoiled by war
  and found his way in America to happiness and comfort.

I believed him.
  I believed the story.  I saw him live it.  I lived it.
  I presumed it was my story as well.  I just presumed that.

So, I did what I was supposed to do.
  I worked hard.  I studied hard.  I worked harder, longer, unrelentingly, passionately.
  And, I believed.  I believed that my success or failure was mine and mine alone.
  I bought into it...all of it.

But then, life started to not make sense.
  Despite years of work and education and accomplishments,
  I couldn't find work.
  In denial and disbelief, I continued looking,
  now putting all my well-honed worker-bee, student skills
  into my new job of finding work...
  to no avail.

So, after careful evaluation of my circumstances,
  I decided that my skills were no longer marketable.
  I went back to school, seeking the new skills that
  would put me back on the track to the American dream.

Five years living and raising my kids in poverty...and a doctorate later,
  I sat at my computer, pounding out five-page cover letters,
  attaching them to my five-page resume and sending the
  package out to countless employers

none of whom regarded my application worth pursuing.

I had new skills though, which added to my previous set of skills,
  created a professional of significant potential.
  I combined this with marketing, persistence and various tactics to 'prove myself',
  and eventually landed myself part-time work.

Let me stop for just a moment to sit with the irony
  of the fact that after 20+ years as a professional
  and three advanced degrees culminating in a doctorate,
  I still had to prove myself.

Did you know that only 3% of women in the world
  earn their doctorates?

This all is not for the purpose of self aggrandizement.
  Believe me, I have internalized the American mantra
  far too deeply to ever presume I deserve work.

Of course, the part-time job eventually ended.
  But, I made the most of it, published papers and book chapters,
  consulted internationally with a premiere university and the United Nations,
  co-authored important and cutting-edge work on leadership...

That was 16 months ago.

And, what, you ask, have I been doing since?

I have been looking for work.

That's what I've been doing, looking for work.
  And mind you, I have considerable skills to bring to bear
  for this full-time endeavor.
  I have charts and plans and templates and processes
  out the ying-yang.

I have a list of 100+ jobs for which I have sent in
  six-page cover letters and a six-page resume.
  I have that list organized chronologically, by sector, and by job.

You want to know how to look for work?
  I can teach you.

You want to know how to actually get work?
  I haven't yet figured that one out.

Seems the algorithm my father...and America...taught me
  to achieve the American Dream
  isn't quite working.

And, of course, it must be my fault,
  my failing, my character flaws, me.
  Because it could never be a problem
  with the American dream.
  That would never,
  ever,
  even be considered.

Now, I am an incredibly frugal person.
  I live simply and carefully.  I recycle and reuse.
  I shop only at Goodwill and Fred Meyer
  and only for food and necessities.
  I no longer go out to eat or to the movies.
  I do not pay to exercise or to have fun.
  I got rid of 95% of my belongings, and rent out my home.
  I have been living in a room for three years.

I splurge only for my children and grandson,
  and those splurges have grown increasingly spare...and rare.

I lived seven years without health insurance.
  Of the many blessings I've been gifted, a strong body
  is one for which I can't even start to give enough thanks.
  It carried me through these many years, and failed me not.

But, ever aware of how easily I could fall from the meager table
  of opulent-poverty to destitution, I started changing my lifestyle.
  First, I stopped kayaking...because I might get in an accident and
  find myself with medical bills that a lifetime of payments wouldn't settle.

Then, I stopped the eye exams and switched eye doctors to
  find one that would fill an old prescription without requiring
  payment for another exam.  Unfortunately, the new doc is
  now requiring an exam and I don't have the money, so I live
  in prayer that these old glasses don't break.

Then, a tooth broke, clear down the middle.
  No dental plan, no dental work...period.
  Several years later, I found a way to address the problem.
  I worked in Viet Nam for a year and invested my earnings
  into dental work.  You see it's much cheaper there.

But, then I came home and the filling fell out,
  and another filling broke.  So, back to square one...
  hole in two teeth...oh I guess that's square one minus one.

Quick interlude...
  I tell this story not to get your pity.
  For God's sake, keep that to yourself!
  No, I tell it because I can.

For all the shit I've gone through the past decade,
  I have had the wherewithal to cope.
  I'm still standing.
  I will not give up.
  And, I've been gifted immeasurably
  in countless ways throughout my life.

I'm telling this story because of the many others
  who haven't been gifted as have I,
  for them,
  and for you.

Because, you see, material poverty
  is the child of spiritual poverty.

Material poverty cannot exist without
  a community that condones and supports it.
  And, a community that condones and supports
  material poverty suffers the plague of spiritual poverty.

In the end,
  we ARE
  all ONE.

What happens to one among us
  happens to us all.

There is a scourge in our midst,
  and it is not the poor person standing next to you.
  It a decrepit, deceitful story that entraps us all
  in its brutal grips, shaping our perception of reality,
  turning us against our own, teaching us apathy,
  and rewarding our collusion with its plot.

This is not about pity or feeling sorry for someone.
  This is not about charity or 'doing good' for 'those less fortunate'.
  This is not about doing your 'duty' as a Christian or a citizen.

This is about waking up to the shape of reality
  in which we live in this 'free' America.
  It is about uncovering the plot in this storyline
  and deciding we want to change it.

Because, there is one thing I still believe about Americans.
  We are smart and industrious and innovative and caring.
  If we can see the problem, we can fix it.

We just have to see it - really see it -
  be able to discern the storyline from the real story.

The real story is that we are
  ALL
  ONE.

We are community...every last one of us.
  And the fate of one
  IS
  the fate of all.

Is finding work the most important thing?

Casting Aside the 'Others'

Had a sudden 'knowing' yesterday.

I felt how vitally important
  it is for human beings to know
  they have something to offer this world,
  and to feel that the world values their contribution.

This need surpasses even the need for food and water.
  It ties one into the web of life on this material plane,
  sparks the synapses between that person
  and the community that welcomes her.

Being valued is fundamental, elemental, necessary for life.

So, when one's value is stolen through purpose or apathy,
  the breath of life is literally squeezed from that
  person's lungs, leaving an empty shell
  where once there lived a vital
  force of promise and hope.

In this country, an unemployment rate of 6% is considered 'normal'.  There are certain groups of people that are sloughed off from our economy and relegated to this 6%...aging, disabled, women, youth, African American, Hispanic...
And then, having stripped them of the opportunity to make valuable contributions to this life, we tell them they aren't worth living.  We cut their food stamps.  We walk past their outreached hands on the streets. We invent stories about how decrepit or deceitful or unworthy they are.  We tell them to 'pull themselves up by their bootstraps', conveniently forgetting that we stole their boots!
I have always railed against this injustice, in this country and others.  I have studied it, researched it, written about it, fought for change...and suddenly I realize that I have slipped into the category of 'Other'.  I am at the hand of the forces that try to steal your breath and deny your life force.
And, I know...these words I speak are not just an argument of politics.

This is about rising up and accepting our humanity,
  donning the amour of love and compassion,
  setting foot on the cold, hard realities
  that our economic system creates
  for many among us,

and reaching our hands and hearts
  to all beings, to all life.

It is no less than that.

Note to Self

Remember

The world that you perceive through your five senses
  is just the stage upon which you act.

What's important is the world inside,
  how you receive input from that stage,
  how you respond to it in your heart,
  who you decide to be on that stage.

Eagle - Why Did You Take My Eyes?

Had a vision.
White Wolf Woman came to me.

'I haven't seen you in a long time,' say I.
'Where have you been?'
'You sent me away, dear one,' she smiles.

She wraps her arm around my shoulder and we walk.
The field of grass is before us, and as we approach it,
the tall grass turns to shimmering gold.

Eagle falls from the sky,
hovers two inches from my face,
takes my eyes in its talons.

I am wrapped in a black shroud.
My body is lifted above the faceless mass,
passed from one to the other, above the crowd.

All is dark
I feel only the hundreds of hands
holding my body, moving it...
until we reach the cliff,
and they cast my body to the wind.

Dark, falling - why did eagle take my eyes?

Suddenly eagle swoops beneath me,
catches my catapulting body,
lays me in warm, soft feathers
surrounds me with powerful wings.

White Wolf Woman is there,
holding my head, embracing me.
Her tears fall gently into the holes
that once bore my eyes.

Eagle

I stole your eyes
because you were
defining reality by
looking outside your self.

Reality, the real picture,
is within you, and so
beyond this material world.

There's hate
and
there's allowing hate.

It's all the same.