Being a Light for Someone

Big Dipper by Barbara Blasius McHugh (2015)

buy and look at her paintings

Polaris Statistics
Also Known As: Polaris A, Alpha Ursae Minoris, Pole Star, North Star
Distance From Earth: 430 light years
Constellation: Ursa Minor
Star Type: F Class Supergiant
Mass: 4.5 x Sun
Luminosity: 2,500 x Sun
Diameter: 44 million miles (70 million km) - 50 x Sun
Temperature: 5,700C (10,300F)
Age: Unknown Rotation Period: 119 days

Citation: https://www.solarsystemquick.com/universe/polaris-star.htm
 




This past week we finally had an evening to see the stars.  It has been raining a lot, enough to bring the Ohio River to flood stages--the highest in 25 years--(my basement now has a small puddle in the center).  That night, I quickly survey the northern sky, and there it was the strongest point of light, the North Star.  Okay not the strongest, researchers rank it as fifty.  (How to find the North Star   http://earthsky.org/tonight/use-the-pointers-to-find-polaris)

Harriet Tubman, photograph by 

Horatio Seymour Squyer,

1848 - 18 Dec 1905 -

See it at National Portrait Gallery

When I think about the North Star, I always associate it to Harriet Tubman.  She used the North Star to guide herself to freedom.  Once freed from slavery, she returned thirteen times to the south and rescued other enslaved people.  Each time, Tubman risked her life and freedom, and she continued using the bright North Star as her compass.  I want to believe she used this same North Star spirit to be the first woman to lead an armed assault during the Civil War.  The same bright spirit in the suffrage movement. 

Harriet Tubman was a woman who made a difference in people's lives then and now. 

Sarah Brown (1846 - 1916)

Learn more about Sarah

In her novel Mapmaker's Children, Sarah McCoy links the past and present together by paralleling two women's stories around a doll’s head. The reader learns of the characters (Eden and Sarah) struggles around infertility and how they become a beacon for other people in their lives.

The past narrator is Sarah Brown, daughter of abolitionist John Brown. McCoy uses Brown's personal letters and historical documents to support Sarah story. Sarah, we learn is also an abolitionist and an artist. She used her art to create cryptic picturegrams (maps) to help enslaved people find their way north to freedom. Historical evidence shows that some of her maps were hidden within dolls. McCoy uses the doll as a device to link her two character.

Eden Anderson, is the present-day character. She and her husband have moved into an old house in West Virginia in hopes to save their marriage. Eden is grieving over another miscarriage. The reader learns that this has become a cyclical: hormone injections, invitro-fertilization and miscarriage. She is the one who finds the doll’s head in the root cellar.

McCoy quickly shows us that Sarah also struggles from infertility due to an illness. As a result, Sarah chooses to never marry and devotes her life helping others. Thus, becoming a gifted mapmakers for the Underground Railroad.

Eden’s path to be a light for another isn’t clear cut as Sarah’s. For Eden, the pattern must be modeled by others.  In turn Eden's acts aren't great as Sarah's, but they do make a difference in the lives she touches.  

~~~

Oriflamme
by Jessie Redmon Fauset


“I can remember when I was a little, young girl, how my old 
              mammy would sit out of doors in the evenings and look up at 
              the stars and groan, and I would say, ‘Mammy, what makes
              you groan so?’ And she would say, ‘I am groaning to think of
              my poor children; they do not know where I be and I don’t
              know where they be. I look up at the stars and they look up at
              the stars!’” —Sojourner Truth


I think I see her sitting bowed and black,
Stricken and seared with slavery’s mortal scars,
Reft of her children, lonely, anguished, yet
Still looking at the stars.

Symbolic mother, we thy myriad sons,
Pounding our stubborn hearts on Freedom’s bars,
Clutching our birthright, fight with faces set,
Still visioning the stars!

~~~

I have always been taught that one of my roles on this earthly plane was to serve.  I don't envision that my work will be as dynamic as Sojourner Truth, Harriett Tubman, or Sarah Brown.  But, I can do small things.

This past week I was called up by a friend.  Her niece had suffered yet another miscarriage.  My friend was looking for resources.  See, I too had experienced several miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy.  My friend was concerned, because the doctors had not offered any mental health care.  I was able to provide several support groups and a Japanese (Buddhist) ritual that helped my spirit.  I believe that day I was a shining star for my friend.


Artual:  (ART + Ritual)


Recipe for Stjerneskud: Danish Shooting Star open sandwich

1. Sliced, toasted and mayonnaise smear rye bread

2. one leaf of lettuce

3. fried fish fillet (your choice)

4. pile of shrimp

5. pile of steamed asparagus

6. wedge of tomato

7. garnish with lemon and dill pickle twist.


Mary Chaplin Carpenter: Between Here and Gone

Mary Chaplin Carpenter: We're all Right

Big Dipper: a vessel needing filled up

Little Dipper by Mira Scott, buy see her paintings

“Our body is a sacred temple/A place to connect with people./As we aren't staying any younger/ We might as well keep it stronger.” ― Ana Claudia Antunes, The Tao of Physical and Spiritual  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9351609-the-tao-of-physical-and-spiritual

“Your body is home for your breath, your mind, your soul—how can you treat it like the sacred container that it is.”— Kristin Diversi  https://wanderlust.com/journal/author/kristindiversi/

“This is the time of the great weaving of women…To get her deepest truths, a woman doesn’t ascend but rather descends.  This is why she has feared herself where both her yes and her no, her strength and vulnerability create conditions for her whole self to be both leveled and raised up simultaneously as a vessel of the fiercest feminine power imagined. – Alisa Starkweather

  

In Max Dushu’s article about Xi Wangmu, she describes how the goddess gains her power from the dipper stars.   I’ve been contemplating this idea this week; what if this is a metaphor?  

A dipper is a ladle or a scoop by definition.  It could also be define as a vessel or container to carry a solid or liquid.  In this discussion, I'm talking about Xi Wangmu’s power.  And, what if the dipper was within Xi Wangmu?  Thus the dipper stars are there to remind us where she gets her power: within.  Maybe the dipper stars remind her to take time and refuel this power?  

My body is considered a sacred vessel and it too holds my power.  But, unlike Xi Wangmu, I don’t take enough time to refuel.  I give and give—depleting my energy.   And, if I do refuel it -- most often it is with junk.  Junk being: candy, reading a no think novel, or binge watching tv.   

~~~

blessing the boats

By Lucille Clifton (1936-2010)

(at St. Mary’s)

my the tide

that is entering even now

the lip of our understanding

carry you out

beyond the face of fear

may you kiss

the wind then turn from it

certain that it will

love your back     may you

open your eyes to water

water waving forever

and may you in your innocence

sail through this to that

```

Girl at Duck Pond, Paula Modersohn-Becker
See it at Museaum Belvedere

As you know, it’s that time of year again.  LENT.  LENT: 40 days of being solemn and reflecting and giving up to make space for the divine moments.    The word originates from Anglo-Saxon Lenten, meaning “spring.” or getting ready for spring.  This year, as in the past I will not be giving up, but bringing in.  I will be continuing a Lenten Season based on Candice Benbow’s article of how women already give-up.  

This past year, my sacred vessel doesn’t need to be emptied any more.  Turning it up-side-down, there isn’t much left.  I’ve worried about my son’s health issues, coped with my own health issues that haven’t gone away, worried about my dad’s health, worried about my friend who is homeless, worried about finances with a child in college, worried about yet another job responsibility added to my overflowing plate, worried about the working conditions of my job…worried about…  Then there are the worries from outside my home and are from my community and my country.  Each worry has taken a drink from my sacred vessel.  The D*** news gets worse each day. On the day of love (Valentine's Day), marked with tragedy. 

Friday, I cried at the computer.  My origami stars next to my desk reminded of my words I wrote on them.  Strong words.  Inspired, I choose one word to fill-up my vessel during Lent.  Spontaneous laughter.   

I promised to laugh – belly laugh—the kind that causes tears to run down my cheek and leg. 

ARTUAL (Art + Ritual)

This week I am working on those projects that have a little bit to go.  One is a tie quilt that needs its binding sewn and the other a pullover sweater that I knitted (I’m changing it into a cardigan).  Both have been drinking from the vessel by not being completed. 

Now is the time. 

Your quest – find those creative projects that you haven’t completed.  Do it now.  

Update: 2/19/2018:  Finished up a tie quilt by asking C over for an afternoon craft day.  Then watched a funny movie on Hulu.

Update: 2/21/2018:  I laughed at the Black Panther.  It was because of my age and the jokes were related to my experiences as an older woman.  Most of the audience didn't know Grace Jones.  (Link to her singing Slave to the Rhythm)

Losing Course

Big Dipper Pole Star / Ursa Major by Kasia
See and buy her artwork

“The great safeguard of society and of domestic life was, that opinions were not acted on. Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.” ― George Eliot, Middlemarch

“Don't stay in the harbour and miss the greatness of the sea. Just because everyone else is anchored, doesn't mean you have to be.” ― Joyce Rachelle

“Once conform, once do what other people do because they do it, and a lethargy steals over all the finer nerves and faculties of the soul. She becomes all outer show and inward emptiness; dull, callous, and indifferent.” ― Virginia Woolf

               

My mom gave me her eye look.  It was a sly sideways glance as she unloaded the grocery items onto the conveyor belt.  Her eyes were slit and her lips: an unmovable red line. 

I put the paper back into its metal slot next to the candy and gum.  The tabloid showed a space alien with large enticing eyes.  I was compelled to buy it.  The alien stood shaking hands with President Jimmy Carter in the Oval Office, both had a friendly smiling and looked directly at the photographer.  There was another photo showed a space disk flying away in the evening sky with the Washington Monument in the background.  The paper was like the previous weeks warning:  space beings were meeting with federal officials and the public was being denied access to these talks.         

“They steal your money with that trash.”

I tried to explain how my classmates were talking about the aliens and I wanted to read the article like they did.  I didn’t want to be weird and not know. 

“Pure rubbish.”  Mom said in a harsh whisper that only I could hear.  

Mom was a nurse who worshiped the scientific method and grew up during the duck and cover Cold War/McCarthy era.  “Question everything before believing,” was one of her ideology.  She stated that this newspaper offered no proof that there were aliens.  The photos?  Mom pointed to the handshake.  Jimmy Carter’s hand didn’t match up right and the picture looked vaguely familiar to her—most likely stolen from the Associated Press.  “Tell your friends they need to use their minds and not be sucked in to believing.”  She probably ended this conversation with her usual “if your friends jumped off the bridge would you…” statement.

  

This week I was reminded this grocery store interaction.  What is truth and what could derail me from my North Star Intentions I hold for the year.

A friend sent me two Ted Talks: 1) Gary Kovacs talk about behavior tracking.  2) Eli Pariser talk about algorithms that explains how my conservative family members have been eliminated from my Facebook feed.  

My friend’s message continued discussing their alarm at how the internet is creating a personalized bubble for me.   It – the internet or those who make big bucks off this type of spying  – has been filtering what it thinks I/we need to see like craft coupons from Michaels or spiritual retreats with white only sisters or cheap hockey tickets.   She wanted to know if I was concerned. 
Yes, it made me upset to learn that this algorithm function was eliminating what other interests I have (spiritual retreats with sisters who are from all traditions and races or cheap baseball tickets or new running shoe coupons) or what I may find uncomfortable (how to talk about racism with a covert racist). 

My friend followed with the National Public Radio’s article on Russians were infiltrating into normal everyday types of conversations.  She proposed: could they (an unnamed source) create chaos by infiltrating the issues she felt dear too (i.e., environmental, women’s rights, child abuse, sexual assault). 

I assured her that we could see through it; we were smart with graduate degrees.  However, it did cause me to wonder about how the internet was filtering my view of topics?   Or, influencing my ideas or tailoring a small circle of friends who agree on everything.  Or, how the internet algorithms and bots taken me off course?  Meaning fogging my sight of my North Star?  I wonder how I could stay vigilant. 

Yesterday, I was looking at my feed on Facebook and up popped a headline “Look who voted no on the Violence Against Women’s Act Tuesday.”  My first gut reaction was anger, next more anger because I hadn’t been notified that this vote was happening.  After all this emotion, I realized that some of the faces were no longer in the senate.  I almost was pulled onto a bandwagon from these outside influencers.   Derailed from my North Star place.

~~~

The Stars Align by Sherry Harridence, Acrylic. 
See and buy her paintings 

Under on Small Star

By Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012)

My apologies to chance for calling it necessity.
My apologies to necessity if I'm mistaken, after all.
Please, don't be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due.
May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade.
My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second.
My apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first.
Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.
Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.
I apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths.
I apologize to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep today at five a.m.
Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time.
Pardon me, deserts, that I don't rush to you bearing a spoonful of water.
And you, falcon, unchanging year after year, always in the same cage,
your gaze always fixed on the same point in space,
forgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed.
My apologies to the felled tree for the table's four legs.
My apologies to great questions for small answers.
Truth, please don't pay me much attention.
Dignity, please be magnanimous.
Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train.
Soul, don't take offense that I've only got you now and then.
My apologies to everything that I can't be everywhere at once.
My apologies to everyone that I can't be each woman and each man.
I know I won't be justified as long as I live,
since I myself stand in my own way.
Don't bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words,
then labor heavily so that they may seem light.

~~

Artual (Art + Ritual) 

Last week, I talked about my new year's focus: that which makes me feel alive and nurtures my heart.  I wrote affirmations around the following phrases:

I am
I create
I allow
I see
I cultivate
I manifest
I believe in the possibility that

What I noticed about my affirmations were key words that really struck home.  Such as magical moment, laughter, joy, higher view, love, connection, divine presence…  these words struck directly to my Polaris Star -  the point within my heart.  That place where my true self lives; a place that isn’t influenced by the dipper stars scooping and pouring through the seasons.  That place that doesn’t have a care about Facebook feeds or space aliens.  I quickly decided that the words had more power than the affirmations.  

I decided to create something to remind me of this heart place when I am at my desk.  What I came up with was a jar filled with origami stars.  Within each star is written key word or phrases.  I am hoping that this will remind me to not be swayed.  I've included a how to picture for making the stars.  

Wishing on a star

Big Dipper, Karen Elzinga, see and purchase her art

“Life is a dream, what you make of it is reality.” S.T. Holmes

“There's no point having wishes if you don't at least try to do them” - Sally Nicholls, Ways to Live Forever


“I've wished for things and never really had the chance...It's time to stop dreaming and do something about it. You've got to know what you want, then...go.” - Deb Caletti, The Six Rules of Maybe


It is unusual that I get to see anything "cool" during Ohio winters.  Last Wednesday morning's lunar eclipse was no exception.  I got up early hoping to see the full moon turn red as lipstick, but the skies were clouded over and the weather station predicted snow.  The moon didn't appear nor did the stars.  I was relegated to watch the eclipse via NASA internet streaming.     

This month I'm switching to another aspect of Xi Wangmu: the Big Dipper.  I learned to identify this star pattern in Girl Scouts (NOTE: a pattern not a constellation, but part of one).  It was probably a requirement for a badge and I was into acquiring badges.  What fascinated me, and still does, is how the seven stars move around the fix point, the North Star (Polaris).  Each season being in a different position of scooping and pouring out.       

It was the Phoenicians who showed Greek astronomer Thales, (600 BC) how they used the the Little Dipper to navigate the sea.  Thales in turn showed the Greek sailors a new way to steer by the stars.  When I look up at the Dippers on the occasional clear winter night, I wish my life could be as easy as following the Polaris star.  

~~~

The Falling Star
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

“I saw a star slide down the sky,
Blinding the north as it went by,
Too burning and too quick to hold,
Too lovely to be bought or sold,
Good only to make wishes on
And then forever to be gone.”

~~~

I have been re-thinking, what do I need in my life to make me happy? Yes a yellow mustang convertible would be fun, but would I be happy. Similarly, It would be nice to have a mansion in the woods, but would I be happy? My annual intention setting is different this year. I have scaled it back to: what do I need to be happy. With this in mind, I answered the following affirmation statements.

I am
I create
I allow
I see
I cultivate
I manifest
I believe in the possibility that

What I realized from this exercise, I needed to move, dance, twirl; and I needed to express more joy and love.  The mansion didn't appear.  Instead, I need to manifest spontaneous laughter.     

These are what I am wishing for this year.  These are my intentions.