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,

Jenna

Dreaming Future Events

Chogyam Trungpa

Twenty years ago I had a dream in which I stood in a long hallway lined with many doors. Behind each door that I opened stood the same aged man. I thought him to be a Wise Old Man although we hadn’t actually spoken to one another. After I’d opened and closed all the doors, the man came out into the hallway and offered up his name as Chogyam Trungpa. He explained that he was my husband’s “ordained teacher,” but that he (Trungpa) was having a difficult time convincing him of this. He intuited that this was the result of my husband’s displeasure over seeing the same person behind each door. I agreed and explained to him that my husband likes variety and the repetition of seeing the same person behind each door could only serve to irritate him. Trungpa laughed heartily and said, “If your husband understood the multiplicity of my true nature, he would know that I only appear to be the same person behind each door.”

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

Moments of Grace: Giving Thanks

This Thanksgiving week I am in Florida, sitting in a Hospice center with a dying friend. As many of you know, tending to the needs of a loved one who is nearing the end of life is a blessing and an honor.  But it can also change quickly into feeling like a curse, depending on the levels of fear, anger, denial, and pain being experienced by the person coming to terms with their dying.

The day before yesterday was a good day. From the moment I walked into the room where my friend lay, until I left several hours later, there was a feeling of lightness in the room that was not there the day before, nor the day after. As I entered, S raised her head and smiled angelically in greeting; the dark imprint of fear and anger that was there the evening before erased from her features.  We connected in ways that I’d hoped we would again before her passing: quiet talk of shared memories and pleasant camaraderie, even a few moments of honestly facing the facts of her demise as we discussed  the slowing of bodily functions, the body’s way of shutting down and bringing closure to life in the here and now. There was an air of peace that felt like sheer Grace as we explored this letting go as I gently rubbed her feet. Gone for the moment were the usual feelings of intense panic, anger, and sadness over her multiple losses of personal control, unfulfilled dreams (she had never written that book she had meant to write), and having to leave all that is dear to her in this life.  Not that I judge those feelings as bad.  Who wouldn’t be thrown into despair when facing a dread disease like cancer? But, thankfully, while it has ravaged her body and at times darkened the thoughts of my friend's mind, cancer has not destroyed her beautiful spirit.

Just hours before this day of blessing, I was wondering what I personally could do to brighten S's remaining days; to make her last hours memorable.  Intention sent. Problem solved!

That morning I walked in to my friend’s Hospice room to find her not only more lucid than she had been in a while, but infinitely more cheerful as she asked if I would read to her from the newspaper (it had been weeks since she had shown any interest in the outside world). Disregarding everything  except the editorials she loves, I read to her while she smiled and dozed happily on and off. Later, she shared her fear of being judged by her Hospice caregivers when she couldn’t perform simple functions like going to the toilet and holding her own glass of water. Being in Hospice care is an exceptionally vulnerable position for my fiercely independent friend to be in. She, who had chosen to never marry and who had earned her Ph.D. in psychology as a young woman with little help from her own dysfunctional family, had not relied on others for much physical or emotional support in her adult life. Once out in the open, her concerns about being weak, needy, and insignificant, as well as her fears about the Hospice staff, didn’t take long to resolve. This helped her to move on to her biggest challenge: moving through the process of physically dying. Blessed day! She really seemed to grasp that it was time to let go and let others lovingly care for her as she had done in her counseling practice for so many others.  

Ah well, that was then and this is now. Today is not such a light-filled day. But S is not back at ‘square one,’ not by a long shot. She has spiraled up to a higher plane as she circles back to confronting her fears, anger, sadness, and loss of control. As they say in the 12-Step Program: one day at a time. And as I say at times like these: one minute at a time. Each step forward reminds me as a caregiver to give thanks for those special moments of grace, the ones that connect my friend and me, heart to heart.  Two mortal beings, facing the same ultimate fear of dying.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Jenna

 

Elections, Shift Happens, and Revised Thoughts About The Villages

In a few days we will have the results of the presidential, congressional, and local elections, ending a ridiculously polarized and contentious campaign season. Although the stakes are high in all our minds, I for one am ready to smooth down my ruffled feathers and have the election over with. A few weeks ago I voiced my concerns about the outcome of this election to a Wise Woman, author and healer I am graced to know in Berkeley where I live, Carolyn North. Carolyn put the whole fear-of-negative-outcomes thing in perspective for me. She told me that the way she deals with her own fears and desires to have things go a certain way is to look at the Big Picture and the deeper history of world events. That way she sees ‘above the fray’ to witness how systems blossom and decline in cycles, sometimes up and sometimes down, from an individual and cultural perspective. We must have confidence that the wheel will come around to healing of the earth and her systems again and again. As for those of us who are currently concerned about future generations and the kind of culture and ecosystem we are leaving for our children and their children, Carolyn believes that we have opted to ‘be here now’ at this pivotal point in time to help birth into the world a new paradigm of joy, unity, and partnership. Try as we may individually, this shift might not happen on a collective level in our lifetime. But, our intentions, beliefs, and actions will eventually shed light on the future—as sure as day follows night. Carolyn has presented this and other inspired ideas in her most recent book, World Shift Happens: Facing Down the Fear, and Waking Up the Mind. I highly recommend this and other books by Carolyn to all who are willing to“open [their] minds and hearts to new ways of thinking and being.”


And so, the pun “shift happens” brings me around to a synchronicity I experienced shortly after writing my last blog post titled “What Gives Life Meaning?” I wrote that rather unflattering post about a retirement community in Florida called The Villages while I was visiting family and friends in another part of Florida. On the first leg of the trip back home to California, from Tampa to Philadelphia, I ‘just happened’ to sit next to a woman from…you guessed it...The Villages! We struck up a conversation right away, even though I personally tend to be more quiet and solitary on airplanes. However, B’s sweet demeanor and openhearted conversational style was infectious, and I found myself talking with her for the full two and a half hours, or so, of the flight. We chatted about our families, aging, retirement, change, and just about everything under the sun, which (no pun intended) brought us around to her having just moved from the family home in Pennsylvania to Florida, at The Villages. Right then I thought, “Uh, oh, the universe is going to give me a lesson here. Better listen up!”


A lesson it was! B is the farthest thing from my stereotypical image of the kind of person who might move to The Villages…she is not a golfer, hasn’t joined any game clubs per se, and 100 percent welcomes diversity in her life. She shared with me the fact that she has a gay son and her relief that the people whom she told that information to in The Villages community in which she lives all seemed not only unconcerned, but also welcoming! This included the lesbian couple she met at the pool one day. B also told me of finding a sense of personal meaning in the peace and natural beauty of The Villages, and how uplifting it has been for her since she moved there. As I'm sure it is for others, no matter what their inclinations toward golf and other reasons were for moving there.


Yes, universe you can consider my meeting B a point well taken about not making snap judgments. It has opened my mind to another way of perceiving the world from a higher perspective (as Carolyn advised) than the one I find at the tip of my own nose. I have even accepted an invitation and am looking forward to visiting B and her husband at The Villages the next time I’m in Florida! That all being said, this meaningful coincidence doesn’t diminish my love of Berkeley and the lifestyle I feel so comfortable with here, it just adds to my understanding of others' choices, and for that I am grateful.


Ciao,

Jenna

Information about Carolyn North: Carolyn North teaches movement and sound for healing, and writes about consciousness using the metaphors embedded in her own life. She is the author of 13 books on cutting edge subjects such as Synchronicity, the Chakras, Conscious Dying, Crop Circles etc. Her books include: - IN THE BEGINNING: Creation Myths from Around the World; - ECSTATIC RELATIONS: Love Stories From the Field; - SERIOUS FUN: Ingenious Improvisations on Money, Food, Waste, Water and Home (ISBN: 978-1844095407), and now WORLDSHIFT HAPPENS! the sequel to Serious Fun.


Carolyn’s website: http://www.CarolynNorthBooks.com/

What Gives Life Meaning?

Talking with a friend a few days ago about retirement (loving it!) brought up the subject of the Florida retirement community The Villages, and how that kind of living holds no appeal for me. Perpetually, playing golf, cards, and various other ‘fun’ activities to take up time in retirement is not my thing. My friend pointed out how people in a similar, older Florida community near where she lives have developed a thriving metaphysical community in the midst of their retirement village. Good point! Still, the thought of homogenized living makes me feel claustrophobic. I like to see things out of the ordinary and not too predictable. Where I currently live, I enjoy the experience of colorful Rastafarians, hippie coffee shops, and people of all races and persuasions, including roving bands of twenty-year olds (we don’t live too far from UC Berkeley).  I love the clatter and creativity of young kids in the home and neighborhood in which I live. My writing, dream and synchronicity work, and spirituality all thrive on such diversity.

A few days after our conversation, as meaningful coincidence would have it, I came across something written in The Essential Guide to The Tarot by David Fontana:

“One of the most pressing needs as human beings is to find meaning and purpose in life […] without it, life is no more than a random biological machine […] There is always the sense that there must be more to life than passing the time as pleasurable as possible, and that just beyond the horizon there is something more important and ultimately more satisfying, which all too often we fail to find. Modern research shows that the most affluent communities are far from being the most contented […] We need to look for a spiritual dimension for our fulfillment – to a deeper level of our being that contains the true secret of our identity” (pp. 15 and 16).

Yes, it feels good to have my feelings vindicated!

But, don’t get me wrong. I’m not denigrating the thoughts and feelings of those who choose a different lifestyle than that which works for me. As they say, and I do believe, different strokes for different blokes.

Signing off by wishing folks in The Villages their own personal ‘hole-in-one!’

Jenna

The Heart of the Matter

“The heart is a living symbol. With conviction, we speak of the 'heart of the matter' to refer to something essential or central without which an issue could not exist.”

~ from the article “Heart” ARAS - Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism

8Ch.251 – A bear’s lifeline, starting from the heart, is depicted here.

Textile: trade cloth, with trade beads, sinew. USA, ca. 1900 A.D.

Today, I opened an Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS) article titled “Heart” that Jungian analyst Steven Parker shared with those of us who visit his always-interesting Facebook page, Jung Hearted. Attached to the article was a copy of an reproduction of a Bear totem that I've included here. I immediately recognized this ancient totem as similar in meaning to a recent Bear totem/symbol from my own dreaming. 

Back in mid-July I had what I consider to be a Big Dream, one that I will ponder its deeper meaning in my life over time.

In the dream, titled “Heart to Heart” ~

We – a bunch of people, including my son Dylan and his wife Angela - are in a house in the woods. I go to the front door and attempt to open it. Blocking my way are several black bears. I close the door and call for everyone in the house to come see the bears, because it is highly unusual to see bears in this part of the country. In fact, I had never seen a bear this far south in Michigan before. Before the others make it to where I am watching through the window, one of the bears pushes the door wide open. I attempt to close it, but the bear’s strength is too much for me. I run into the interior of the house calling to everyone to go into their bedrooms and lock the doors because now a bear is in the house. In one bedroom with only a curtain for a door are two young children, totally unprotected. I grab them and run to a room with a door. We make it inside, but as I attempt to shut the door and lock it, the bear pushes it open and grabs my left hand and wrist. I am frightened, but Bear’s long, sharp claws don’t break the skin as he holds my hand so he can get in. Because of this gentle handling of my arm, I realize that this bear and I can be friends. I begin singing and crooning to him and smoothing down his facial fur. Soon I'm experiencing love instead of fear, and feel the love from the bear in return. Bear and I begin to communicate telepathically. He tells me that he’s a maverick in his group, and that he broke into our house because he was lonely. After 'talking,' we go out into the main part of the house. Eventually, Dylan and Angela and I walk Bear into the woods so that he can go back to his life in the wild. We stop at a wilderness store to get some provisions at the beginning of our journey. A woman shows me a map and asks if we are going to all the places on the map. She seems very impressed if we are. I tell her that it’s not my map…but I am interested in what all the symbols mean on it. Bear and I step outside for the sake of others who are uncomfortable with a large black bear in the store. I know on some level they think he is my pet, but Bear is not tame. His home is in the wild. After we go on a walkabout together, he will be returning there. Soon, Dylan comes out of the store carrying an over-sized drink that he’s bought to share with everyone…water, I think. I ask Bear where he finds water in the wild when he’s thirsty, concerned that he will have enough to keep him healthy. (EOD)

Upon awakening, I felt a deep gratitude to Bear for connecting me to my inner wildness - a longing for my own instinctive and natural life rhythms - that has been breaking into my conscious awareness since I retired two years ago. When I talked to Dylan about the dream, I discovered that he and Angela had taken an impromptu trip to the west rim of the Grand Canyon after visiting her father in Texas, and that Dylan had expressed a wish, before the trip had even begun, to see a bear as part of his wilderness travels! 

 Alas, no bears were encountered during their travels except those in my dreaming. That in itself is a gift of meaningful coincidence; one that leads me to hold fast to my belief that connections of the heart cross all barriers of time and space. For, while my night dreams of Bear provided a heart connection to my own inner longings, it also connected my mother’s heart to the waking dreams of my son. 

In my opinion, synchronicity doesn't get much better than that...

Ciao,

Jenna

Healing the Sacred Divide

At the top of my 2012 gratitude list is Dr. Jean Raffa’s book “Healing the Sacred Divide: Making Peace with Ourselves, Each Other, and the World.” I’ve been following and enjoying Jean’s blog “Matrignosis” for the past few years, so when she announced that her latest book had been published and was available, I decided to take a gamble and purchase it. Gamble? Ha! The book is a veritable treasure map, pointing the way to psychological, emotional, relational, and spiritual healing.  Jean shows us where we’ve been, where we are, and where we can be on the Path to Wholeness if we are willing to look within and challenge some of our cherished beliefs that have been blocking humanity’s journey for the past several thousand years. While this inner exploration may feel uncomfortable at times, never fear. Jean is a seasoned guide who uses her own and others experiences of Jungian psychology, mythology, dreams, imagination, and personal revelation as solid markers along the way to lead us to a place where spiritual probing, personal meaning, and relational unity are all healthy signs of consciousness evolution.

I’m also pleased that the book relates to my own pet project: synchronicity journaling. In the Prologue, Jean begins with a nightmare she had about the Lone Ranger when she was 10-years of age (You’ll have to read the book to find out what happened in the dream). The Lone Ranger is a metaphor that Jean returns to throughout the book. It heralded her tendency throughout much of her life to wall off her feelings and ‘go it alone’ emotionally, living out her fantasy of being the perpetual stoic Heroine. This tendency showed up early in her life after experiencing extended absences of her beloved father as well as the childhood wounding caused by her parent’s divorce, followed three months later by her father’s death. According to Jean, the Lone Ranger motif is discussed in all three of her books: The Bridge to Wholeness: A Feminine Alternative to the Hero Myth, Dream Theaters of the Soul: Empowering the Feminine Through Jungian Dream Work, and Healing the Sacred Divide.
The main motif of Healing the Sacred Divide, however, is the meaning of the symbol known as the mandorla. In Jean’s words a mandorla is “where our power to set ourselves apart yields to a dawning awareness of what we share with ‘other’[… ]a holy place of healing where miracles occur.” The visual of this symbol is the almond shaped place where two circles meet as depicted on the cover of her book.  Jean writes that according to Jungian analyst and author Robert Johnson, “The mandorla binds together that which was torn apart and made un-whole—unholy.”  She adds, “The mandorla is creative synthesis, a symbol of partnership, conflict resolution, healing, and peace-making” and  “a radical middle path to God.”

With these pieces of information about the book - the significance and meanings of the symbols of Lone Ranger and the mandorla - you will soon see how they tie into the synchronicity I am about to relate.

I read all but the very last section of the book a few nights ago, and decided to savor the end for the next morning. That evening I chose, instead, some light entertainment (or so I thought) in the form of Netflix movie. I deliberately picked one that looked rather lighthearted titled Smoke Signals. According to a reviewer, “This was a funny, gentle movie (no cartoon violence or excessive language) that made me think, but not too hard!” Lord knows why I ever trust those reviews; they are almost never on the mark!
In fact, the movie is intense. It is about a couple of Indian kids on a reservation. The one, Thomas, loses his parents when he was an infant - in the very beginning of the film - to a house fire. The other, Victor, lives with a drunken, unavailable father who winds up leaving the family altogether when Victor is 12-years old.  I don’t want to tell too much about it in case you want to watch this fabulous film; suffice it to say that I cried many tears at the end (a bittersweet blend of happiness and sadness). But, here’s the clincher: I found out during the closing credits that the movie was based on a book titled “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven”! There is also a remark by one of the characters in the film about Victor acting out emotionally like the ‘Lone Ranger’ toward the end of the film as well.  I didn’t get the mandorla connection until the very last words were spoken, but when I did, it hit me over the head in some of the parting words, spoken by Thomas, who played the Trickster ‘other’ that helped to heal Victor’s emotional ‘Lone Ranger'

How do we forgive our fathers? Do we forgive our fathers for leaving us too often or forever when we were little? Do we forgive our fathers for marrying or not marrying our mothers? For divorcing or not divorcing our mothers?

Wow! That is what I call a meaningful coincidence! And another synchronicity within a synchronicity: my parents’ divorce and my father leaving our home when I was around 10-years old traumatized me as a kid, too. The combination of the book and film helped to heal part of that wounding.

How does the seemingly magical alchemy of synchronicity work? I don’t know, but I surely do feel blessed and grateful when it happens.