Moon Eyes

Seven minutes: My eyes have changed from gaudy kaleidoscopes to half-moons

that witness the world as a dream.

There is an angel in my hair

who guides my fore-thought, my wisdom,

my knowledge of body and the pearls

that rest within it.

Enigma angels offer questions

and warn me of

my Pharisee tendencies,

my judgmental stance,

my narrow focus at the hem of

the Jehovah angel, who has sternly restricted my breath.

Have no fear for there are flowers, and the devil with the pitchfork

is small like a gnat.  Mama Angel love me, make me feel loved and blessed.

Make my moon eyes trigger the flowers.

The Scent of Violets

The Scent of Violets

My palms form a tent

over distant cities as I pray

and I want violets to rain down,

and to smell healing oils

instead of sulfur,

and see angels pour the waters of peace

from their place of mythic origin,

no angels on backs of apocalyptic horses,

no plagues, nor rumors of war,

no masquerades of death,

and to hear that myths of sacrifice

are no longer allowed by the laws of Heaven,

the testing of Abraham eased from human memory,

of Isaac in peaceful slumber, no vengeful Lord

waiting to see how far a father will go,

no knife raised above any altar.

no offering of children to slaughter,

no cruel jokes of a jealous god,

not even a scapegoat desired,

and for prayers to rise to Heaven

on the scent of violets and answers given

as rain falls silently to a quiet Earth.

From my chapbook Threshold, Meeting of the Minds Publications

Mary Magdalene Got the Message

This picture depicts the stereotypical view of Mary Magdalene: drama queen, hysterical, perpetually grieving, and piling on the guilt from her randy younger ways.  See where living naked in a cave in France will get you?

During my workshop on the 21st, this is the image we’re going to release and walk toward the fact she may have been the one who knew Jesus best, who really understood his message.

What excites me about The Gospel of Mary Magdalene is that, from what I gather from people who have studied it for a long time, the gospel speaks of the nature of Eternity, the kingdom of heaven on Earth, and how to become more complete, fully human even in small glimpses within the limitations of our ego.  Some of us, Rumi, Blake, Saint Francis,  the enlightened beings who we have never heard about, somehow get through the ego trap and live/lived in Eternity while in the mortal body.

Cynthia Bourgeault speaks of the alignment of the vertical axis with the horizontal, present time and Eternity in sinc.  She theorizes that Mary Magdalene stayed with Jesus in a visionary state during the time he died and was resurrected, during the time of the “harrowing of hell” in which his work to liberate human beings was occurring.  She got his message.  We are free and eternal and that our suffering results from our attachment to matter, our bodies, and our egos.

But this does not mean that matter is not real, in a Platonic sense.  The world is not a projection from the ideal, but rather an important part of the existence of God.   Our egos though get misaligned by projections and clinging.  Bourgeault speaks of the NOUS, the part of us, the kernel we all house that is the conduit, bringing divine energy into our lives, and thus the world.  She calls in “the eye of the heart,” and “the homing beacon between realms.”  We activate it by prayer and meditation.

One of the first things Jesus was called was ihidaya, meaning “the single one.”  Jesus’ parting message in the gospel is:  “The Son of Humanity already exists within you.”  Mary Magdalene understood this and knew “when the heart is aligned with its eternal image, abundance cascades forth from the place of that origin, infinitely more powerful than the scarcity and constriction of this world.”

Christianity then becomes more than an acceptance of faith, but as a practice in purification of  the heart and living in the faith that God and good are ever-present.

Quotes from The Meaning of Mary Magdalene by Cynthia Bourgeault, Shambala Press, 2010 pages 50, 51, 52, and 55.  I don’t know how to do superscripts!

Mary Magdalene Workshop July 21, 2012

The Archetypal Mary Magdalene and Modern Metaphors

Alethea Eason, of Cobb, author of the novels HERON’S PATH and HUNGRY will facilitate a workshop on Mary Magdalene in Carey Hall at St. John’s Episcopal Church on Saturday, July 21, 2012, from 10 a.m. until 2:30 p.m.

An overview of the program will include the Gospel references to Mary Magdalene as disciple and apostle, the conflation of her image as whore and penitent by Pope Gregory I in the 6th century, the Eastern tradition of Mary as hermit and penitent, and other legends and popular references.

“The workshop will be a creative experience, rather than a lecture” said Eason. She will also look at the apocryphal Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and popular author, theologian, and mystic Cynthia Bourgeault’s research on Mary Magdalene.

A St. John’s parishioner and vestry member, Eason is a writer, teacher, and free-lance editor. She has taught in elementary schools in California and Chile for more than 25 years, as a reading specialist and classroom teacher.

The suggested donation for the day’s program is $10. Participants should bring a brown bag lunch. Coffee and refreshments will be provided.

 Please call 707 355-0553 for more information or email Alethea at aletheaeason@gmail.com

Forgiveness

Last Sunday, a week ago,  Gail and I went out to the Bogg’s Bog, a wetland the Nature’s Conservatory protects.  Summer had come down in the beat of a day. Needles in the grass  bloomed and stuck to my socks. I thought of rattlesnakes.  The tules, within just a few warm days, were now brown, and the water in the marsh had already receded to where only birds can reach.

Redwing blackbird sentries surrounded the nesting area. These birds were a military force, the males  in uniform with the red chevrons on their wings.  They vigilantly protected their breeding grounds from predators and kept the females within its confines, forcing them to stay with their eggs.  Canada geese honked in the distance.  We could see them resting far off.  They breed here during their long migration, something that I hadn’t realized.

When we first arrived, Gail and I sat on a log in the shade and just listened.  We told our stories to each other.  I shared what I thought was a bit of darkness on my soul, but brought to light with a trusted friend, with the words spoken over the colors that were descending with summer so that they rose with the bird talk, I realized that there was no darkness, just confusion and missteps.

Yesterday I went to Mary’s.  To get there, you have to walk down six or seven switchbacks on her path.  It’s steep and makes me winded each time I climb back up.  But the descent is wonderful, and you wind up at her wooded house, built circa 1940, that rests right on the shore.

We sat on her porch and listened to the water lap and watched the birds fly and settle in the oaks, skirt the lilac, buzz around the feeders, and swim in the shallows.  What a feast . . . we traced one call, a single note that kept repeating, from her deck and up to her bedroom window where we found  a male mountain quail  hiding in the upper branches of  the scraggly oak tree.  Black head and top knot, gray body.  The females were foraging below him.

We looked down from her window and found a mallard and his mate paddling in the water right at the shoreline.  A Bullock’s Oriole flew by. We went back to the deck to follow him as he flew up to the taller trees.His bright orange belly caught the afternoon sunlight; he and the tree leaves shimmered gold.

The finch’s necks were bright yellow, and we caught the iridescent red of a few hummingbirds.  Then as we sank down in her lawn chairs, a pelican circled.  Even when he was several hundred feet out on the lake, we could see the profile of its mating bump protrude like a big pimple on his nose.  It will be there through the end of next month and then disappear when the mating season is over.  There were two small birds doing a mating dance of sorts, the circled around each other too fast to know if they were hummingbirds or finches, or some other species.  They rose twice while we were there in a small whirlwind of joy.

Mary and I shared a few hours of grace. I’ve thought a lot about grace for most of my life; I’ve only experienced it in small amounts on a conscious level, though I know if I became more centered I would be aware that I am actually drunk on it.  My reality is  steeped in it, as is yours.

Grace is found with the quiet mind.  My monkey mind is the absolute monkeyish.  If I “heard” this correctly, Course in Miracles says that we continue to crucify Christ with our thoughts, our lack of forgiveness for ourselves which then creates tension with the world.

Brother James commented to me: You are loved  . . . and now I can’t remember the adverb.  Passionately? Exquisitely?  If the world experienced that love, would the kingdom of heaven, which is here already, form solidly among the shadows?  We could touch it the way Thomas did Christ’s wounds, find that it is real, and that we have always belonged.

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The Seven Minute Mary

My favorite Bible story of all is Mary’s meeting the Risen Christ in the garden.  A love story of all Love stories.  I highly recommend Cynthia’s Bourgeault’s  The Meaning of Mary Magdalene:  Discovering the Woman at the Heart of Christianity as a fascinating take on how much Christianity needs to honor her and make her presence felt in our worship and meditations.  For a very different read, try one of my favorite novels The Passion of Mary Magdalene by Elizabeth Cunningham which left me both joyful and hopeful, where the body, sex, compassion, and mystery are celebrated.

I’m finding “seven” minutes as I write these blogs are becoming more and more metaphorical.  I’m coming to my almost daily writing saying, if I stay with it for seven minutes, then maybe a small miracle will occur.  And it seems as though they are occurring.  This picture took me more than seven minutes tonight . . . but I did it fast without that awful editor in the back of my mind.  I used colored pastels, so here’s something close to the original.  Mary has a little work done, but not much:

Mother Eve and The Garden in My Body

This morning I dreamed that I was pushing away an unwanted sexual force, a rape, and I had strength to do it.  To my surprise, I looked down and found I had male parts, but just as suddenly I started to shed my skin.  I ate it,  feeling it nurture me, until I had what I needed inside.  My skin kept peeling. The more I pulled, the more whole I felt.  I  transformed again into a woman.  I felt a sensuality to the core, my heart opening as though a Georgia O’Keeffe flower blossomed with lily folds and pure white desert light.

I often wake with anxiety.  This morning, there was a deeper peace, a peace within my body.

Mother Eve whispered her garden wisdom.

Jesus With Shades

 My faith has been my shadow all of my life.   I find it hard to reach my heart sometimes . . . a lot of the time.  Faith for me has been a debate.  I’m a Christian in the Annie Lamott school of faith.  I simply love Jesus.  God, however, I’m not so sure about.  Never felt too cozy with him.  Doctor Bob at Central Baptist in Anaheim had a lot to do with this, I’m sure. 

 I loved Bible stories in Sunday school and the songs we sang.  I loved the alliteration of “I’ve got the faith that baffled the best of the Buddhist, down in my heart, down in my heart . ..”  I didn’t know what a Buddhist was, but all those bs made me giddy.  Then occasionally Mom would take me to church, and I’d listen about hell and how I was probably going there because how could I believe enough, be good enough, and what was this thing about Jesus in my heart? I’d pray so much and never  felt that rush of assurance or peace I heard people talking about, despite crazy Dr. Bob.

 I was a worrier by nature, came by it honestly from two Virgo parents.   Since my dad yelled a lot, somehow I think I got him, God, and maybe Fred Flintstone (who reminded me of my dad) all mixed up together.   I do have to give Mom credit.  When I was really little . . . four? . . . she stormed out of the adult Sunday school after listening to how voting for Kennedy was a bad thing because he was Catholic.  She voted for Nixon anyway, but she didn’t like being told what to do by a church. I’ve wondered why she let me continue going there.

I never knew there was another kind of religion until I was much older,  a kinder Christianity.   I knew there were Jews because my mom’s cousin Juanita married one.  Mom was  impressed by his manners because when he came to visit once, he made his bed.  And we were practically Catholic.  My dad was a retired cop from Detroit.  Every three months the retired cops who moved to California and Arizona would meet in Garden Grove for the Sunshiner’s Club.  This can’t be true, but it seems as though we were the only non-Catholics in the bunch. 

 When the Sunshiners got together, and during the heyday there might have been sixty retired cops and their wives who came, after the meeting . . . I’m not sure what they did for official business during the meeting . . . the real business came down.  Lots of poker and drinking.  We lived in Anaheim, so the party always ended at our house.  I was a “late” child, a surprise.  My dad had a vasectomy, and then my mom found out she was pregnant two weeks later.  He was almost fifty when I was born.  I loved the police parties because I was spoiled rotten at them in the middle of the smoking and drinking and cussing and the quieter talk of the women in the living room.  Everyone smoked except my Mom.  I sat on laps and took sips of beer. 

  My parent’s best friends were the McCauleys, an Irish/Italian couple, and the Buyaks, Polish and Mexican.  My dad had been a sergeant, Mr. Buyak, a patrolman, and Mr. McCauley, a lieutenant.  We rarely ate meat on Fridays because we shared meals so often with them.  As mediocre Baptist (and never official ones), we didn’t do grace. But when they came over, they did.   “Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen. May the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.”  I heard this prayer more than any other  while I grew up. 

 There were lots of shadows here, as well.  I last saw Mr. and Mrs. McCauley, whom I called Aunt Jean and Uncle Gerald when I was sipping from beer cans,  a week after Bill and I married.  We were in southern California  . . . my honeymoon to Mom’s house.   Mrs. McCauley was dying.  Always a small woman, she had shrunk to the size of a child, trying to breathe. The walls in their house were yellow from tobacco.  A true believer in Purgatory, she was terrified to face what she thought was before her.