Passage To Joy ~ accessing the capacity for joy

May 12, 2010October 29, 2015

Welcome!

It seems to me that ‘joy’ is a word that has become unfashionable and, perhaps, lost meaning for the modern age. My aim is to explore the meaning of joy, the ways in which we can develop a capacity to tap into joy, and the qualities of being that contribute to this capacity.

I invite you to comment on the articles that you will find here – simply click the post title to make sure you are in the full article and add your comments in the box at the foot of the page. Please join the conversation…and welcome!

(See also Why Passage to Joy?)

February 20, 2019February 20, 2019

The interconnectedness of all

Murphy’s Point; an overcast, eerily still autumn day. Our woodland walk, unbidden, becomes a meditation on the interconnectedness of all things.

Living rock, underpinning, defining, evolving so slowly that we perceive only inertia and stasis. Each metamorphic striation has a distinctive character, encourages colonization by different trees and plants. These, in turn, support specific populations of insects, birds, reptiles and mammals.

To walk through these micro-zones mindfully is to experience the web of life, woven in wonder!

Flakes of mica dust glitter along the path to the old mine . . .

Human habitation was defined first and foremost by the bounty of the earth. Whether in the fecundity of fertile loam in which to harvest wild plants or cultivate crops or in veins rich with mineral wealth, our lives too are shaped by rock; by what lies within and by that to which it gives life.

I am awed by this deep knowing of my own rootedness in the very fabric of the earth!

In our increasingly urbanized world, we set great store by ‘independence’. Surely it is no coincidence that depression and anxiety are so pervasive when so many of us live so distanced from the pulse of life; our disconnection leaches colour from our internal worlds, rendering us so very alone.

Trees at Thanksgiving

Here stand beech and maple
arms outstretched 
to cradle the embers of summer
that fall to the forest floor,
blanketing it in red and gold
against the winter cold.

Here groves of hemlock,
limbs hung low
to cherish the memories of darkness
that cling to swampen ground,
sheltering it from light and chill,
comforting, peaceful, still.

               ~ October 8, 2018 - Thanksgiving Day

A typical Ontario view at Murphy's Point; Shield Rock, trees and water

October 28, 2018October 28, 2018

The season of the Crone

This is the witching time of year, the season of the Crone!

In ancient times, the Goddess as Crone or ‘Queen of Witches’ ruled the autumn harvest festivals. Hekat in Egypt, Hecate in Greece, Latin Proserpina, Semitic Lilith with her sacred totem the owl, Celtic Cailleach, Welsh Cerridwen – these are just a few of the many manifestations of the Crone Goddess.

The words we use

It is interesting that many of the words we apply to Crones have been twisted from their original meanings to represent something vile, ugly or evil. Hag derives from the Greek ‘hagia’, meaning ‘holy one’. There is little agreement as to the derivation of witch, but suggestions include the ancient Indo-European word ‘weik’, which connects to religion and magic; the Anglo-Saxon witega, a prophet or seer; a relationship to wit, or wisdom; a root meaning ‘holy’ or ‘sacred’. Some people believe that the word Crone is rooted in the meaning ‘crowned one’, though standard etymology still has it as a Middle English term of abuse.

Halloween and Samhain

Halloween has its roots in these ancient traditions, particularly Samhain (pronounced SOW-en) Samhain is the most important of the Celtic festivals, the end of one year and start of the next.

It is a day on which to remember, to commune with and honour the dead. At the same time it was a celebration of the eternal cycle of rebirth.

It is a time of endings, of coming to terms with the many small deaths, the losses that are part of every life. But it is also a time of beginning, of transition and change. It is a time to go within, a time to come to know yourself, to celebrate the growth you have realized over this last cycle and release all that was in preparation for what will be.

Samhain night exists outside time and between worlds, deeply rooted in mystery and enchantment.

Visual exploration of the season of the crone — A visual exploration of the season of the Crone, October 2010, research for the Halloween ‘Crone’ I created

Crone nature

As an archetype, the Crone assists us in transition from one life to the next, leaving one level of our existence and entering the next, hence her association with Samhain.

I find this illuminating as to the nature of the Crone. For me it creates a sense of her as a midwife of the soul. She teaches us that sometimes we must let go if we are to move on.

Looking back at the my visual exploration of the crone in 2010, I love the idea of the season of the Crone as a time to harvest experience and to become a way-shower.

In her article The Ancient Crone, Anya Silverman describes the Crone as

an older woman who has learned to walk in her own truth, in her own way, having gained her strength by acknowledging the power and wisdom of the totality of her experience. She is “a wise old woman’.

A Crone is a woman burnished bright by an inner fire that sharpens both her wit and her intensity, her passion and her power.

Jean Shinoda Bolen, in her wonderful book Crones Don’t Whine, notes that ‘to be a crone is about inner development, not outer appearance’. She writes of the Crone as a potential,

much like an inherent talent, that needs to be recognized and practiced in order to develop. This wise presence in your psyche will grow, once you trust that there is a crone within and begin to listen. Then in the quiet of your own mind, pay attention to her perceptions and intuitions and act upon them. Crone qualities are the distinguishing features by which a crone (as a woman or an archetype) can be known.

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Crone qualities

As I embrace my own season of the Crone, I have been exploring and considering what Crone qualities I would wish to make manifest in my life. These include

earned wisdom
compassion without the illusion and sentiment of youth
non-judgement
inner beauty
confidence
honesty
authenticity
self-knowledge balanced with self-compassion
humour
courage

Jean Shinoda Bolen’s list has an earthy practicality that offers some useful guidance. She says Crones

don’t whine and don’t indulge their whining inner child;
are juicy – and what makes life juicy is being deeply involved in life;
have green thumbs – they nurture growth, weed well, prune and build strong boundaries;
trust what they know in their bones – they transform their bad experiences into wisdom and embrace mystery;
meditate in their fashion, developing heartfulness and nurturing inner life;
are fierce about what matters to them – a crone is a woman who has found her voice;
choose the path with heart, understanding that choosing one path means giving up another;
speak the truth with compassion, increasingly knowing when to speak and what to say;
listen to their bodies, responding to their needs and hearing the underlying messages between the emotional and physical body;
improvise, adapting to change;
don’t grovel – for approval, love, acceptance;
laugh together, the deep belly laughs that come from a well of feeling;
savor the good in their lives, knowing how fortunate they are still to be alive.

Embracing the role of modern Crone

In an awesome blog post, The Rise of the Modern Crone, Diana Frajman suggests that

It takes a woman with an understanding of two of the most basic of human needs to evolve into a modern Crone. Those needs are connection and community.

She suggests that it is only with an understanding of connection that wisdom can have an impact and goes on to define the role of modern Crone:

. . . This is an amazing time to embrace your inner Crone. More than ever the world needs the comfort and certainty that wisdom and experience from a life well lived can give. The voice of expertise and mastery combined with the sageness of maturity and wisdom assures us that there is hope. We need these enlightened guides to bring us safely into the future. That is the role of the new modern Crone.

What a challenge!

Meditating today, I remembered the sense of metamorphosis as I emerged from the stage of maiden to mother. I had a vivid image of pouring all the learning, the experiences, the insights from my life into a great cauldron set amongst the flames and brewing an elixir of transfiguration. I was aware of the Crone as the most powerful embodiment of the feminine, freed from earlier responsibilities and constraints, connected to mystery and a kind of primal wildness.

I am excited to embrace the season of the Crone, to discover in myself its potential and consciously to recognize and practice those ways of being that manifest it most fully.

September 5, 2018

Embracing the age of the Crone – a view from a distance

At 60, I definitely feel myself entering into the age of the Crone. Some definitions would say you begin to cross the threshold at 50. But it was at 44, writing a journalistic exercise about looking forward to a specific birthday, that I first welcomed the vision of this aspect of later life as a woman.

I am looking forward to delving more into what this means to me over the coming months, but I thought I would start with that early vision.

I’m looking forward to being 70. After that I will consider myself to be on extra time, with nothing owed and naught to loose. I will gleefully claim my freedom to ‘wear purple with a red hat that doesn’t suit me’[1].

At a mere 44, the milestone of my allotted ‘three score years and ten’ lies well beyond the horizon. But already I feel the first intimations of the influence of the waning crescent moon, symbol of the Goddess in her final incarnation of ‘crone’.

Perhaps bound up with our contemporary obsession with physical appearance, our pursuit of an illusion of eternal youth, the ‘crone’ has had some very bad press. The word invokes an image of an ugly, wizened, witch of an old woman, maybe embittered and very possibly evil. Is it any wonder that so many women run scared of the inexorable accumulation of birthdays?

I am not soaked in the spell of paganism, claim no great knowledge of its lore. But I willingly embrace its vision of the crone as the ultimate, most powerful manifestation of womanhood. She personifies wisdom, compassion and completion. Her closer relationship to death is not one of fear but a potent awareness of renewal.

So, when I reach 70, dressed in crone’s purple, I will cherish my wrinkles and wear them with pride and relief that youth’s vanity is done. I will breathe deep, walk slow and do nothing, joyously! I will undoubtedly ‘misbehave’ outrageously. I’m looking forward to being 70.

[1] Quoted from “Warning” by Jenny Joseph, voted Britain’s best-loved poem by viewers of BBC TV’s Bookworm

Gina Bearne, 2002

August 15, 2018

‘I see you’ – a path to intimacy with self and others?

We can neither see ourselves as a whole, nor can we truly conceptualize that in ourselves which experiences. The answer to the question ‘Who (or what) am I ?’ is by its nature a koan*. But perhaps it is a profound act of self-love to be able to affirm our emotions, our joys, our pain (emotional or physical) with the simple words ‘I see you’, without latching onto them and giving them power over us.

That loving acknowledgement can release the threads of attachment that so often ensnare us. It can enable us to own our darker thoughts and feelings, our shadow selves. We can experience what is as ‘real’, but within the context of the transience of all things. We can embrace the things we perceive as difficult or challenging and let them pass. We can also accept life’s gifts without clinging to them – these too will pass, yet the fact that we have experienced them will not.

One of the greatest desires of every human being is the longing to be seen . . . this is the miracle of love and friendship. (John O’Donahue in Four Elements)

It seems to me that when ‘I see you’ begins to permeate our way of being, it underpins all interactions. It is the grounding space that anchors each human encounter. We find it easier to enter the powerful place of deep receptive listening.

It is also the loving recognition of each creature, great or small, that crosses our path.

‘I see you’ directs us to the wellspring of love.

Unless you see a thing in the light of love, you don’t see it at all. (Kathleen Raine)

* koan – a paradoxical anecdote or riddle, used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and to provoke enlightenment

Who am I?

‘I am’, cries the wind . . .
the song that stitches together
the seams of my life,
its melody
a ribbon running through it.

Crackling flames
feed the fires of passion,
compel me forward,
agonized and exultant
and alive.
But it is in the still,
red coals
at the heart
of the fire
that wisdom lies.

Feet, firmly planted,
dig into the earth,
skip over fields
and frozen puddle-drums
and hot sand.
Odd that it is in
the dynamic of dance,
as my feet
leave the ground,
that I put down roots.

Held in the flow,
luxuriously floating,
buffeted, battered,
water brings me home
to the self
that is so much water,
as I learn and become
the depths
of its calm
that is and was and always will be.

‘I am’, cries the wind . . .
and the invisibility of air
surrounds me,
and I know ‘am’
as the invisibility of air . . .

“Who am I?”

July 2018
written during a retreat focused on Awakening Devotion and Heart Wisdom

May 14, 2018May 14, 2018

Connection and responsibility

A powerful circular experience of a breath meditation sitting on the ground on a glorious day blessed by a gentle breeze; the moments when the boundaries between my being and that of water, rock or tree blur into an acknowledgement of oneness, of connection – these are true moments of grace. They are only possible when the boundaries of ‘I’, of ego-self loosen, moments of ‘awareness’, of being truly awake; the inner experience carries such certainty, sounds a resounding ‘yes’. It all seems so obvious at that moment of awareness!

Such experiences shape the core of my being, make it imperative to live from a place rooted in mindfulness, integrity, wonder and joy.

‘all breath in this world
is roped together’
~ Hannah Stephenson

As we moved to this beautiful place, where nature gently loosens those boundaries on a regular basis, I was startled by the unexpected strength of a sense not of ownership but of stewardship of the land; of a deep love and great desire to do right by it and by all the beings with which we share it. This sense of responsibility underpins my life here.

Sharon Blackie writes of ‘the enchanted life’, which for me speaks to that sense of connection and responsibility:

“Enchantment. By my definition, a vivid sense of belongingness to a rich and many-layered world, a profound and whole-hearted participation in the adventure of life. Enchantment is a natural, spontaneous human tendency – one we possess as children, but lose, through social and cultural pressures, as we grow older. I believe that it is an attitude of mind which can be cultivated: the enchanted life is possible for anyone. The enchanted life is intuitive, embraces wonder, and fully engages the mythic imagination – but it is also deeply embodied, ecological, grounded in place and community. To live an enchanted life is to be challenged, to be awakened, to be gripped and shaken to the core by the extraordinary which lies at the heart of the ordinary.”

When we wake

All breath in this world is roped together!

Each breath has the capacity to shift
a stray lock of hair
and a universe.

Everything is bound
in an eternal dance
of particulate and elemental commonality.

It is always so,
but our experience of living
is not always so.

This is something we know
only in the moments
when we wake to enchantment.

May 2018

So what is the challenge of stewardship?

In terms of both outer and inner worlds, I guess for me stewardship is about doing that which supports and maintains healthy states of growth and being, all the while maintaining an awareness of succession.

Practicalities

When we first arrived here, we had a visit from Watersheds Canada looking to participate in their Natural Edge program); in the event, our shoreline was so healthy there was nothing they felt we needed to do! But it helped our understanding; we are careful to cut back rather than in any way ‘clear’ the steep bank down to the water, we do not use phosphates that may run off into the lake.

In our wetland, we try to encourage the cattails but not the phragmites; monitor where turtles are laying their eggs, again avoiding chemicals that may damage this habitat.

We have bat and bird boxes and feed the birds all year, but especially at times of particular hardship.

We retain dead trees and brush-piles for their importance as habitats.

We welcome the beings who share this beautiful place respectfully but without the desire in any way to tame them. With time, there is a growing sense of relationship, understanding, even intimacy (into me you see).

Most of our planting is of native species, particularly those supportive to pollinators, humming-birds and butterflies – we seek to supplement what is naturally here rather than unduly to shape or tame it.

We monitor our trees, making decisions as to which saplings to encourage and which to potentially protect from our resident beaver (whose presence in our bay most evenings currently delights us).

Inner stewardship

As to the inner world, hitting my head blessed me with the impetus to develop a much more regular meditation practice than previously (part of my prescription from a neurologist!), which I try to maintain. There is also, I think, a certain discipline required in truly noting and engaging with the world around you in a mindful and joyous way that is a part of nurturing the inner world.

I am trying to learn to say ‘no’ to being the person whose job it is to make things right for others all the time. I am also trying to learn that I don’t always have to say ‘yes’ to heading into every challenge full-tilt.

Sometimes it is enough simply to observe
and let the universe unfold as it should.