January 29, 2013
I Switched to WordPress
Hello, Readers ~
I have switched my blogging site to WordPress. The Address is: http://synchronicityjournaling.wordpress.com/ Hope to see you there! Blessings, All Ways ~ Jenna
January 18, 2013
Digging for Gold
Jenna's 'Golden Child' Collage |
I awoke one day last week with old
family issues pushing all my negative emotional buttons. I couldn’t remember a
dream that might have precipitated the whiny snippets as they played out in my
head, one after the other, “Why did so-and-so say that to me?” and “I am not
feeling a connection with that person lately. Is it something I’ve said or done?”
And “She could care less about me or she wouldn’t have treated me that way.” You might
know the drill: the poor little orphan that nobody cares about scenario that goes round and round in your brain. Such
thoughts, while thankfully rare and fleeting these days, go back a long way into my past. Normally, when this happens, I try to reason with myself that the
feelings have nothing to do with the reality I live today. However, this particular morning I decide, instead, to fully explore their origins and get to the bottom
of my recurring feelings of abandonment.
I begin by
dialoguing with that part of me that cries out for healing and connection to
the beloved child I once was, before family dynamics spiraled out of control and
set me on a course over time of doubting the bright, balanced, vibrant side of Self. As I embark on this inner work, I hold at bay the impulse to tell myself
how silly it is to even entertain thoughts of abandonment at this stage of my
life when I have a beautiful family of my own—four creative, fun, and talented
grown children, their spouses, and five beautiful granddaughters, all whom I
love dearly and have close relationships with. No, it is time for my heart to
catch up to what my head already knows. Until then, I will continue to feel like
the abandoned child in spite of evidence to the contrary.
I am aware that the work will
be difficult at times. And, that it will be worth the effort in proportion to
how willing I am to make the descent into Shadow lands of psyche to excavate and bring back lost parts of me that are valuable and needed for wholeness and connection to spirit. I start the journey inward by paying attention to what comes up in meditation,
dreams, and visions, as well as in events of meaningful coincidence that show
up in my life.
That night I have a Big Dream. In the dream, a large and ancient tree picks me up in its branches and takes me for a ride. I am frightened at first, but soon find the ride exhilarating. The dream is long and subject for another blog post. I will say here that its numinous content lent me much support to connect to my own Living Tree.
The next day I find myself on Sheila Foster’s website. I didn’t know how or why I wind up there (I was researching something a few days ago, but have forgotten what!) until I notice an essay Foster has written titled “The Golden Child” about her own inner work that is similar to my mine. In the essay Foster suggests certain things I can focus on to facilitate my own process, especially the positive memories of when I, too, was a Golden Child:
The next day I find myself on Sheila Foster’s website. I didn’t know how or why I wind up there (I was researching something a few days ago, but have forgotten what!) until I notice an essay Foster has written titled “The Golden Child” about her own inner work that is similar to my mine. In the essay Foster suggests certain things I can focus on to facilitate my own process, especially the positive memories of when I, too, was a Golden Child:
We
all have a Golden Child within us, a core of being that has remained utterly
pure and untouched by any trauma. So often, we become identified with the
trauma child, the one who suffered greatly, that the Golden Child falls into
the shadow. You may have a memory of a single moment, or times with a
grandparent, an animal, in nature, or alone as a child when this Golden Child
was present and you felt pure joy, fully present, untouched by anything painful
that has happened.
She suggests finding a picture, making art, poetry, or a collage that exemplifies
this Golden aspect of Self. I decide to create a collage that includes a
picture of me at four-years old—a happy, much loved little girl, nestled
between her two older sisters. The picture brings back a time of happiness and
unity before divorce, chaos, and rootlessness becomes the norm in my family of
origin. The other pictures in the collage ‘speak’ to me of healing, protection,
vitality, and inner growth.
A few days later, I am perusing dream websites and come across an artistic rendition of
a dream and quote by Alissa Goldring that also advises me further in on how to proceed:
The Hidden Child by Alissa Goldring |
Dream
of the Hidden Child
“I see a child hidden behind a mask, her tiny hands reaching out form
under heavy robes weighing her down as she feebly seeks help.
The image reminded me of a Noh play where stylized characters gesture in infinitesimally slow motion and a gong echoes an eternity of timeless silence.
When I painted this dream, I understood that this was a baby part of myself long buried under layers of roles, expectations and fears, feebly seeking help. The dream was a cry to myself to shake off oppressive conditioning and be free.
As you picture this dream in your mind's eye you may sense that you too were once such a child whom you still carry within yourself in ways unique to you…” ~ Alissa Goldring
The image reminded me of a Noh play where stylized characters gesture in infinitesimally slow motion and a gong echoes an eternity of timeless silence.
When I painted this dream, I understood that this was a baby part of myself long buried under layers of roles, expectations and fears, feebly seeking help. The dream was a cry to myself to shake off oppressive conditioning and be free.
As you picture this dream in your mind's eye you may sense that you too were once such a child whom you still carry within yourself in ways unique to you…” ~ Alissa Goldring
I am beginning to get the message that the
universe supports me in my quest to connect with the healthy, enlivened parts
of my young self that will help me heal from unwanted bouts of abandonment feelings
in adulthood.
Then some really intriguing information comes
to me today in the form of a picture of a woman with a golden heart and a quote by Elizabeth Peru that a friend shares on Facebook:
IMPORTANT 24HRS
COMING UP: How are you feeling? There is so much mental activity right now. Earth
is currently being buffeted by a solar stream (with the chance of big flares
from the sun today, Tuesday, January 16) and we are being taken back to our
younger years, REFLECTING on who we
used to be (and still are). We are being prodded in a BIG WAY to give up the
old wounds. You don't need to take them forward in your life. Just accept what
you have kept hidden about yourself and ALLOW it room to come back out and show
you just how much stronger you are when you stop denying your strengths. You
know what I mean. So use this influence to propel you out of your FUNK. OK? The
universe helps you strongly right now. Take the help, it's there for you. ~ Elizabeth
Peru
That post couldn’t be more
explicitly about my own inner process even if it had my name written on it! I
think that my decision to do the work of retrieving and releasing is all my idea, and come
to find out there are currently Galactic influences at work in my own and other people’s
lives. Which means that this blog post is probably relevant to some of what you, dear reader, are
going through as well. If, like me, you have been in a ‘funk’ and
are feeling the inclination to go digging into that treasure chest of the
unconscious to retrieve the Gold of Self that has been buried or lost over time, know
that you are being supported 100 percent by a loving and responsive universe. The time is Now.
Happy digging ~
Jenna
January 8, 2013
Our Place in the Family of Things
This past Christmas, I created a homemade wedding album for
my daughter, Julie, and her husband, David. On the front page, before the
picture sections of the book, I included one of my favorite verses by poet Mary
Oliver:
Wild
Geese
You
do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Julie and David loved the album and were touched by the poem
that always seems to speak on many levels to those reading or hearing it for
the first time.
That following Sunday, we all went to the Unitarian
Universalist Church in Berkeley—a rare event for me to join Julie and David at
their church (it had been a couple of months since I'd last attended).
After the traditional opening words to the service, the
first item on the agenda was a reading and enactment in dance of the poem “Wild
Geese”! I was touched beyond words by the performance.
Ostensibly, I attended church that morning because I wanted
to hear dreamworker Dr. Jeremy Taylor’s talk after the main service. True. But
the universe had it’s own plans for me as well, a meaningful gift of grace, if
you will, where the world offered itself
to my imagination and called to me like the wild geese. It is fitting that
the service itself was organized around the theme of Grace.
Poetry, like dreams, visions, and synchronicities are
living pools of water in the drier ground of my secular life. In the West and
increasingly in industrialized cultures in the East, there is a tendency to
live life from the neck up, numbed out to the body, heart, and spirit of the
world within and around us. We’ve developed science and the intellect to the
near exclusion of other ways of feeling and non-analytical knowing. Forgetting
that we are always and inextricably part of the deeper mystery of the world
that speaks to us on many levels, we often deny the few messages that do get
through to our consciousness. How
refreshing it is when a synchronicity appears in striking ways like the example above or
in subtle ways through a passage in a book, music, nature, a scent, a touch, or
an overheard conversation, and we take time to understand its meaning for our
life.
The message for me that morning at church was to trust completely that
I am enfolded in a loving, intelligent universe that announces over and over to
me—through the ‘still, small voice,’ a big jolt, or an inner aha!—my perfect place in the family of things.
December 22, 2012
Merry Winter Solstice Holidays and a Blessed New Year!
Though my soul may set in darkness
it will rise in perfect light. I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful
of the night. ~Sarah Williams
Tree Mandala - Rios de Vida |
It’s been a crazy year…personally, culturally, and internationally. But here we
are—according to the wisdom keepers of ancient traditions, we’ve been given the
opportunity to move into a galactic epoch of new vision and positive change.
Yesterday, the world didn’t end, but something has
definitely shifted. I can feel it, and others around the world can feel it: a
tiny seed—amidst all the brouhaha—of partnership between peoples and nations
and the earth. The Age of Aquarius!
They say that we are moving out of a strictly materialistic
view of reality, making room for the magic, mystery, and spirit that has been
missing in our lives. I believe it is necessary for us each to hold this vision
in our hearts —a seed star of Light to help us navigate the Dark—until it is fully
birthed into our minds and deeper psyches and then, hopefully, becomes reality on
a worldwide scale.
Yes, I do hang on to hope as we begin to unravel the tangle
of suffering occurring on every corner of our beautiful/troubled planet. The
reason I can see my way through the maze of darkness to a more positive future,
is because of the millions of light workers in every corner of the earth today…the
artists, storytellers, music makers, dreamworkers, humanitarians, teachers,
wise and holy women and men, ordinary people who are making a difference, and aware
parents who are raising healthy, happy, and heart-centered children; the
carriers of the new Torch.
At this time of year when the Earth Mother sends her seeds
deep within to protect them from the chill winds all around, may we also protect
and nurture our creative plans and dreams, each in our own way, awaiting the
perfect time to bring them to fruition.
If you are receiving this message, I behold the Light and
Love within you…I know you have made a difference in my or someone else’s life.
Because of you, the world is a better place, and for that I am grateful.
Jenna
December 20, 2012
The Wisdom of Animal Voices
Fledgling by Jeanie Tomanek |
Archetypes, I am told, are instinctual psychological patterns of behavior within our
collective unconscious. However, an archetype remains 'merely' a potential pattern of
behavior until an actual event or experience in an individual's life activates its
energy in the psyche. Once activated, these energies become so powerful that they shape the way we
perceive the world. And, while archetypes are considered to be collective drives, they are experienced and expressed by each of us in our own personal ways. We connect to animal archetypes—known as totems—through synchronicities, dream
encounters, active imagination, close encounters in nature, mythology,
and art—as evidenced by this powerful painting entitled “Fledgling” by artist
Jeanie Tomanek.
According to indigenous peoples around the world, animal totems are
sources of power and wisdom for a human being. A person’s totems (we can have more than one) are
the animals we feel the most attachment to through the archetypal qualities they invokes in us, and are those that appear most often to us to impart their
lessons. Several of the better-known animal archetypes are Crow/Shape-Shifter,
Coyote/Trickster, Snake/Change, Owl/Death, Elephant/Trail Blazer, and Hawk/Far-Sighted.
Each of these animals can also represent other archetypal energies in a person's psyche besides
the ones I’ve listed here from my own understanding and experience.
For years, I have encountered animal totems in my waking and dreaming
life. From these experiences, I feel connected most closely to the energies of Crow,
Hawk, Wolf, Bear, Dolphin, Elephant, and Dog. When an event of synchronicity
with Hawk occurs—for instance, I am in a muddle about a situation, turning it
over and over in my head as I walk along, and all of a sudden I become aware of
Hawk circling overhead—I know immediately that I need to step back and look at
the problem from a ‘higher perspective.” That there is something
I’m missing of importance in my myopic view of the situation.
A friend of mine and I are
both Crow people, but we experience its totem energies in different ways. Crow
brings my friend messages on her path on a regular basis and has been
instrumental in guiding her to her “true purpose in life.” Crow talks to me primarily during times of
transformation and transition, as when a loved one is passing from this realm
to the next.
Since I personally experience totem energies most often in
events of synchronicity, I’d like to share a cluster of meaningful coincidences
that occurred around the archetype of Owl.
My brief connection
to the Owl archetype began to take shape the day I read author Frank Joseph's
account of the huge pre-Incan Owl-headed figure carved on the side of a
Peruvian cliff: “With its right hand it points at the sky, while its left hand
gestures toward the ground, implying the soul’s flight from Earth to
heaven.” The image fully caught my
imagination, and I made a mental note to visit this ancient site if I were ever
in that part of South America.
The next afternoon, my friend Anna’s son Michael was
pressure washing my back deck when a baby owl came to perch by him on the
privacy fence surrounding my yard in St. Petersburg, Florida, where I lived at the time.
The young bird sat there for several minutes amidst the noise and spray
of the machine, watching Michael work.
We both found this incident strange since neither of us had ever seen an
owl before in our suburban neighborhood. That, and the fact that owls are nocturnal
and rarely make an appearance in the daylight hours, made me count this as a
synchronicity connected to my reading about the owl etching the day before.
When reflecting on the meaning of this coincidence, I realized that the idea of
the “soul’s flight from Earth to heaven” could well be applied to Michael’s owl sighting since his father, Keith, had died just 10 months earlier. Later, when I told his mother about the event, Anna
stated that she didn’t know if Michael’s owl experience could be construed as a
soul message from his father, but that there was definitely a connection
going on since she had placed a wooden owl on Keith’s headstone, unbeknownst to Michael, as a protection
from negative energies just days before!
A few hours after beginning the writing of this blog post, I
checked my email to find that I was sent a link to a website, www.herstangeangels.com.
There I found these words and picture of Owl:
Art by Elena Ray |
“…When women were birds [...] We knew our greatest freedom was in taking flight at night, when we could steal the heavenly darkness for ourselves, navigating through the intelligence of stars and the constellations of our own making in the delight and terror of our uncertainty.” -T.T. Williams
These voices of Owl remind me at this time of Winter Solstice 2012 that within the Dark is the seed of Inner Light; within the archetype of Death is Rebirth.
May it be so!
Ciao,
Jenna
December 11, 2012
Sharing Our Stories
There
is an almost sensual longing for communion with others who have a larger
vision. The immense fulfillment of the friendships between those engaged in
furthering the evolution of consciousness has a quality almost impossible to
describe.
~ Teilhard de Chardin
There are a couple of things I find agreeable about
Facebook: connecting with kindred souls
and the delicious stories of synchronicity that come out of our sharing. Both of these types
of communication happened just the other day on my friend R’s Facebook page. Before
I tell the story of the exchange that occurred, I must add that R and those who
took part in the discussion on her ‘thread’ are, like me, believers that the
universe and everything in it is alive with consciousness. Because of this, we are constantly being guided along our paths, especially,
when the messages we receive are paid attention to and reflected on over time.
In the interest of brevity, the conversation from R's Facebook page that I’m sharing below
has been shortened with much of it excluded. This in no way discounts all the
sage advice and heartfelt sharing by everyone who actually commented on the thread:
R began the post: “Making peace with all
that is today...again, some of you may recall that last summer I lost my only
crystal...an Amethyst shaped like an athame'...and it was when the green Moth
landed on it that I found the stone. Two days ago while meditating, I had a vision of my amethyst [necklace] shrinking
in its silver cage. After coming inside and looking in the mirror the crystal
was gone...I’ve cried and feel as if a part of me is missing, as I’ve been
wearing and using this piece for ~20 years. It has my energy imbedded within
it. Where did it go? Did it actually transmute? And why? Rhetorical, really. I
need to stop now and accept that it’s gone...I mean isn’t this just another
lesson about letting go? But I keep asking myself why this one crystal? Out of
any of mine, I could care less, save this one. It feels like I’m missing a part
of myself. I should let it go or trust it will return. But not hang on to it or
anything...this is destructive and negative. But isn’t it good to let my emotions
out...to process the loss? I cave, and I give in. I surrender it all to
Spirit...”
CV commented:
With the hand open wide, enjoy that
which floats in and sits upon it and with gratitude enjoy its presence and when
it floats away, only know another opportunity is now held in the very hand that
still remains wide open.
JT commented, sharing a remarkable synchronicity: “I don't know jack about crystals, or have
too much sentiment for objects in general, but I own a Buck #104 hunting knife
that I bought with money from a paper route when I was 10 or so. It was a
prized possession and was a constant companion for work and play. At some point
in my late teens, I misplaced it, and I was disappointed. Some 15 years later
while searching a junkyard for parts for my ford truck, this black leather
sheath fell from beneath the rotted seat of a completely stripped chassis. It
contained a knife—a buck #104, in fact. All at once I remembered stripping
wires while working on my older brothers 72 Ford F-250 years prior, as he was
preparing to sell it. That was the last I saw it. This was my brother’s truck
and my Knife!! Now reunited, it currently slices apples and peels oranges at
lunchtime while I’m on the job. You never know what can happen, so don't
project the loss into the future.”
J commented:
Big hugs to you, R. About 10 years ago I had a gem stone necklace (a string of
beautiful stones) with a perfect amethyst crystal suspended within a gemstone circle
as the centerpiece. It was an original, made by an Indian woman in
Michigan...One of a kind. I loved that necklace and put much of my energy into
it, too. I was house sitting for a friend one year, went away for the week-end,
and when I returned, it was gone. Its disappearance caused me much pain until I
came to the decision, like you, that it was a lesson in letting go. I figured
that for whatever reason someone needed it more than I did at that time. It
still hurt, though.
CV commented:
“Whenever I have been confronted with losing an item, and I have sunk low
regarding its loss...in that feeling like a prized possession was stolen,
taken, misplaced, or just no longer mine...I felt worse. [...] I have found that when you
get open, as J perfectly illustrated above, that suddenly, there is 'purpose' in
the beloved piece moving onto another and then instead of feeling loss, you
feel quite well and relaxed again in a state versus suffering […] So maybe, each
thief was a saint in disguise for me [...] in whom I needed to become.
R responded to all: “You all are beautiful...thank you...I knew by sharing this I’d feel so
much better...and I do. I love you all […] And, C—what irony—in meditation, I had a
vision of it literally shrinking and gone. There must be a purpose in all of
this. I’m so glad you all shared your stories with me...”
May all our stories be so spirit-charged
and helpful to others and ourselves in our quest for meaning in our lives.
Ciao,
Ciao,
Jenna
December 1, 2012
Dreaming Future Events
Chogyam Trungpa |
The
significant events preceding this dream are typical of the way that synchronicity
works in my life. First, about six months before the dream, a psychology
professor at the university I was attending told me about Naropa Institute, a school
in Boulder, Colorado that he felt would be the right graduate school for me to
attend. My interest was piqued, but I didn’t investigate Naropa at that time,
being busy with my newly acquired position at Wayne State University as a
research technician.
A few weeks later, my cousin called from California, and suggested that I read Meditation in Action, stating merely that it was written by a teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. My job and the 200-mile drive between where I was living to where I attended the weekly meetings at Wayne State precluded my looking into the book as well. Several months passed before a friend also suggested that I read Meditation in Action, this time stating the author’s name, Chogyam Trungpa. The second suggestion by my friend in Michigan to read the same book my cousin in California had recommended finally got my full attention.
Between
my decision to read the book and actually reading it, I had the above-
mentioned dream. I wasted no time in purchasing Meditation in Action, and discovered while reading the author’s
credits that he was the founder of Naropa, the same school I had been gestating
thoughts about attending for my graduate studies!
As
the above story illustrates, our experience of inner reality and its external
counterparts are intimately connected. I grew up knowing that the world I
perceived with my physical senses was only a portion of total reality. As a
child, inner space was where I integrated external experience with internal
knowing. It was the safest space where I could incubate and protect my emerging
selfhood. I knew the power of imagination and myth from the vantage point of
being an active participant. My ‘childish’ ego and unconscious were connected
in such a way that the energy from their union charged my life.
After
years of schooling and taking in the cultural values of the West, I began to
lose much of the natural intuition and imagination of childhood, replacing these
with the skill of information gathering, ultimately becoming over-identified
with ego. My study of psychology became a quest to understand the ‘science’ of
mind according to the prevailing paradigm of the times: objective research and
testing of neurological brain activity.
It
didn’t take long before I began to look for some sign of spirit within the
science of psychology and, finding it sorely lacking, started to wonder if I
were even in the right field of study. It was around that time that I
discovered the works of C.G. Jung and Jungian writers like James Hillman, June
Singer, Barbara Hannah, Jean Houston, Thomas Moore, and bid farewell to the
upholders of psychology’s behavioristic status quo, like the Cognitive
Psychology professor who gave me an off-hand compliment after my senior
presentation, “A job well done, Jenna! In spite of your reliance on the
theories of Carl Jung et al.”
I
never had the opportunity to attend Naropa’s Transpersonal Psychology Program because
when my real life husband became sick and died of cancer the following year, I
was thrown into the role of sole support of our young family. But the seed had been planted to learn
in an atmosphere that combines the best of scientific method with ancient soul-making
activities such as meditation, ritual, active imagination, story, dance,
art, music, and dream and shamanic journeying. My vision of finding
a graduate program where my multifaceted spiritual self could communicate with
my lover of information self was fulfilled when I found Atlantic University’s Transpersonal Studies Master’s Program 12 years later.
From
this future perspective, I feel that I can interpret the opening dream and the synchronistic
events leading up to it as guiding me into contemplative practices and the transpersonal
work I love. I've finally found satisfaction for the longing to combine spiritual awareness and psychological studies in a way that mere scientific research and collecting of concepts
and ideas never could.
Ciao,
Jenna
Ciao,
Jenna
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