Personal Myth 4: The Return

The Return, by me

I think it's time to conclude this series. My four-part creation myth ends with the mystery of what death might mean. I don't pretend to have any answers about life after death, but I feel that it works best in my life as an alchemical step within a greater process. As a necessary part of life on earth, death allows for the recycling of materials, and this can happen on a variety of levels, not just the biological level. The place that is most rotten within us is the very place that can lead to new growth and new life!

What happens to us personally after we die? I leave that for others to say. I once had a dream, though, in which a girl cast a spell on a two lovers: their hearts crystallized into the stars, and their bodies dissolved into the night sky.

Star Cleaner's Reunion

from The Starcleaner Reunion, by Cooper Edens

Apparently, I'm going through a star phase right now. All of my posts on stars reminded me of my favorite children's book: The Starcleaner Reunion, by Cooper Edens. I was surprised to see on Amazon how little it is read or appreciated. To me, it captures the magic and wildness of childhood. Indeed, this seems to be Edens' goal: "I'm trying to break the dualism of the classic tale. My stories embrace the philosophy that these two worlds exist simultaneously—the real world is a dream and the dream world is real. Because of this, there are no classic quests in my books. I don't have people going away to the dream world and returning to reality."

The story is about a child who joins an angel in cleaning the stars, which have been forgotten and are now dull. But there is a catch at the end—the stars might not really be in the sky . . . 

Food for the Soul: Soup from the Sea

Mermaids by Carlo Chiostri
via Melusina Mermaid

The year I lived in Korea, I ate seaweed soup (미역국; miyeokguk) many a morning. Returning to the states, breakfast cereals seemed so insubstantial by comparison, so from time to time I've made myself seaweed soup for dinner/breakfast. I recommend making it for dinner and then recycling it for breakfast one morning. You can always eat it with an egg if soup feels too much like dinner on its own.

Once you find the seaweed (usually packaged dry), the soup relatively easy to make. Grab a handful or two or seaweed and soak it covered with water in a mixing bowl  until it grows back into its luscious silky state (20 to 30 minutes), and then rinse. (This is important! I sometimes rush this step and end up with gritty soup; this is not a play of textures that you want.)

Boil water or beef broth or fish broth in a pot, and season with garlic and soy sauce or fish sauce. Add in the seaweed to cook, and maybe add some rib eye sliced into tiny chucks or add mussels or leave it plain. You don't have too cook it long, just 30 minutes or so.

Add sesame oil at the end, to further heighten the silky texture of the seaweed. Serve with rice.

Give thanks to the ocean heart for its nourishment.

"[The sea is] the blue heart of the planet—we should take care of our heart. It's what makes life possible for us."
    —Sylvia Earle

Imitating the Habit of Twilight

Untitled landscape, by Rabindranath Tagore

I've been feeling at odds with time lately. I say 'lately' not because my racing around is an entirely new feeling, but rather the same old feeling has been stronger the past few weeks, despite my best intentions to slow down. I know I'm partially making up for a few weekends of missed productivity, and I know I'm also being too concerned with getting everything done.

John O'Donohue has gave a fantastic interview with Krista Tippet of On Being, where he described stress as "a perverted relationship with time." A harmonious relationship with time, in his view, is being a subject within time and seeing the "deep heart" of time, which is possibility and transfiguration. It's such a beautiful thought, to see time as our invisible friend instead of our cruel tormentor. 

John O'Donohue also has a beautiful blessing for "one who is exhausted." Here is the end of it:

"Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time."

Happy Valentine's Day

I Opened My Heart, by Rob Ryan
Via Emma Hill

Celebrate the day by opening your heart. What better way to center yourself in harmony with the world?

Postmodern Hymn: Brother Sun Sister Moon

Let's continue on with medieval Christianity, shall we? (Seeing as my last post was on Hildegarde.)

"Brother Sun Sister Moon" isn't really a postmodern hymn, because it was written by Saint Francis back in the day. What makes it postmodern is Donovan's singing of it, and the layer of 60s earthiness that Zeffirelli added to the film. I think this is appropriation and reinterpretation at its best.

This song comes from the movie of the same name, and Brother Sun Sister Moon is one of my favorite movies ever. You must watch it if you haven't already!

The Way of the Bodhisattva

"Bathers," by Georges Barbier?
via Orbs of Zenith, via mpt. 1607

"When you look at others think
That it will be through them
That you will come to Buddhahood.
So look on them with frank and loving hearts."
    —The Way of the Bodhisattva, Shantideva

There must be thousands of opportunities to do this in a single day; maybe I can choose to do this just once!

The Voice Project: Songs for Forgiveness

Voyage Home, by Joe Carr

Have you heard about the Voice Project? It began with surviving women in Uganda singing songs to call their sons back from war, to let them know they've been forgiven. Now artists are recording cover songs in support of the peace movement. 

Check out the LA Ladies' Choir singing "Hallelujah."

Walking Meditation

Maiden Crone, by Bonnie Wildwood

The great teacher Thich Nhat Hanh suggests that we try walking meditation while holding the hand of a child.

I would also suggest visiting an elderly relative or friend and walking with them. I visited my grandmother this weekend, and going at her pace, stopping with her to smile at the people we passed by, and remembering that growing old and frail is a natural part of life were all great lessons for me. 

Recipe for Transforming Bitterness

Bitterness is a very dangerous sentiment. It can build up quickly until your heart is a pickled, shriveled little thing. It's something I truly fear, so you can imagine how thrilled I was to discover this recipe for transforming bitterness in one of my latest reads.

Excerpt from Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta, by Joris Hoefnagel
via rbs of Zenith

Transforming Bitterness

Ingredients

• bitterness
• pessimistic outlook
• frozen anger

Procedure

1. Settle into your life and the moment. Breathe.
2. Taste the raw ingredients and accept the onslaught of yuck.
3. Combine your life with the lives of others, dogs, flowers, bugs, and moon. It helps to do this with a curious frame of mind.
4. From this creative life energy, open your life to eternal possibility.
5. Your heart should now be a little more springy, like a cake.

Excerpt from Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta, by Joris Hoefnagel
via nends

Cosmic Dancer

The Dance, by Esti of Pintameldia

There's a beautiful paper called "Dancing in God: The Relevance of Ritual for Conceiving the Divine Today," by Curtis Thompson on the University of Chicago's Religion and Web Culture Forum page.

The challenges, as Thompson sees them:

• to address daily practices often considered unreligious
• to confront dis-ease with being embodied, i.e., translate the divine back into nature

The modalities of dancing:

• pantheism's dancing heart: the dancer affirms God's presence in everything
• panentheism's dancing mind: the dancer affirms God's transcendental embodiment, interdependent from the world
• pantranentheism's dancing soul: the dancer affirms God's transformational presence and her partnership with God

The conclusion:

• "To allow the dancing heart and the dancing mind and the dancing soul to coalesce in a full-bodied dancing in God is to join in the sacred dance of the cosmos."

The Tree Inside Her, by Esti of Pintameldia

Read the article for all the juicy details. This summary is simply meant to inspire an attitude of frolicking, leaping, and generally joyful living!

Vulnerability

El Corazon, by Elsa Mora

I watched a fantastic video on TED today, on vulnerability, which reminded me of a major theme that Pema Chodron speaks about—the beautiful act of opening our hearts to others and to life. I'll let her say it in her lovely eloquent way:

"When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it doesn't have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space."
    —Start Where You Are, page 126, via lotus in the mud

Girl in Heart House, by Elsa Mora 

The Great Heart's Ocean

Dear mind, such a traveler, always moving

like a fish looking for the sea,

while the great heart’s ocean waits all around and outside it.

How can you live outside this love?

     —Rumi, trans. Coleman Barks

via To the Best of Our Knowledge

Touching the Earth

A while back, I listed to Touching the Earth, by Thich Nhat Hahn with Sister Chan Khong. It was a beautiful experience.

What I love is something as simple as bowing and touching your head to the earth can be very transformative, because you invite the transformation that occurs within the earth, from death to life, into your own heart.

New Mexico Triptych, by Frank McColloch

In Chanting from the Heart, Thich Nhat Hahn says that touching the earth "helps us return to the Earth or our roots, and to recognize that we are not alone but connected to a whole stream of spiritual and blood ancestors." By touching the earth, you "breathe in all the strength and stability of the Earth, and breathe out to release your clinging to any suffering."