Hope - One Extraordinary Day

I love books. Real books. Hardcover. Softcover. Well read and worn. Brand new off the shelf. Just books. I may someday own a Kindle or another new high tech machine to read if I am on a trip, but at home...I want the real thing. Here is why:

This morning I went to put away some books I had removed from the man cave and taken into our office. As I was rearranging the books on the shelves to make room for these new ones my eyes rested upon a couple of titles, so I pulled them out. One was a book I read in 2004, 'The Dance of the Dissident Daughter' by Sue Monk Kidd. This book mirrored my own journey from Christian tradition to the Sacred Feminine. The other book was a book given to me by a woman who touched my soul just by being in her presence and who allowed me the gift of being with her on her death journey. The title is 'With Open Hands', by Henri J. M. Nouwen. I have not read this book. I have quite a few books on my shelves that have yet to be discovered by my eyes and spirit.

I open the one given to me first and begin to read. It is a book about prayer. Deep prayer. True prayer. I thumb through the pages, filled with a lot of beautiful black and white photos which make a stunning impact upon my spirit. I stopped at page 84 when my eyes saw the word 'hope' in the first line. It made me excited, because I have named this year of 2012: My Year of HOPE.

The words on the page speak of praying with hope. "Hope gives you a new freedom which lets you look at life without feeling dejected. this freedom comes through in the words...

                                   

                                    Hope means to keep living

                                    amid depression

                                    and to keep humming

                                    in the darkness.

                                    Hoping is knowing that there is love,

                                    it is trust in tomorrow

                                    it is falling asleep

                                    and waking again

                                    when the sun rises.

                                    In the midst of a gale at sea,

                                    it is to discover land.

                                    In the eyes of another

                                    It is to see that he understands you.

                                    . . . .

                                    As long as there is still hope

                                    There will also be prayer.

                                    . . . .

                                    And God will be holding you

                                    in his hands."

"Whenever we pray with hope, we put our lives in the hands of God. Fear and anxiety fade away and everything we are given and everything we are deprived of is nothing but a finger pointing out the direction of God's hidden promise which we shall taste in full."

Then there is a full page photo of two women hugging, reminding me of how much I would love to be able to hug my oldest daughter right now and tell her that nothing will separate her from my love. My eyes brim with tears, for these are words that pierce my heart, and I sing...

"My life is in You Lord

My strength is in You Lord

My hope is in You Lord

In You, it’s in You

I’ll praise You with all of my life

I’ll praise You with all of my strength

With all of my life, with all of my strength

All my hope is in You"

Written by Daniel Gardner

I needed these words today. I needed these words today. I needed that picture today. I am humbled and grateful for HOPE.

Then I picked up the other book and thumbed through it's beautiful pages, marked here and there from my reading in 2004 ... 8 years ago. Yet, as I read the portions I marked, I marvel at the words I thought were important back then ... they are just as important today.

My hands stop on page 88, in the middle of the page the words I wrote in the margin jump out. "This is where I am now 5/15/04." Almost exactly 8 years later I read these words and my soul remembers where I was then and feels where I am today.

"Initiation is a sacred disintegration. Despite it's pain, we carry the conviction (often only faintly) that even though we don't know where we'll end up, we're following a soul-path of immense richness, that we're supposed to be on this path, that it's required of us somehow. We move in a sense of rightness, of lure, of following a flute that pipes irresistible music."

"...I carry the sense of belonging on this path, but I knew nothing of the intensity I was about to enter. I only knew I had waked and was entering a place where the old concepts, and values no longer fit. The vista of the Great Transition."

"When landing in a place like this, usually the best thing to do is be still, be quiet, gather one's wits. Inside I felt queasy and alone, ... When a woman starts to disentangle herself from patriarchy, ultimately she is abandoned to her own self. She comes to an unknown place where she must let the old way of being woman die and the new way come forth. During initiation the new female potential - that rambunctious girl-child who was conceived and birthed inside during her awakening and who really had been there all along - starts to grow and develop into the woman she will be."

I did go through a deeply intense disintegration/integration beginning in 2004, when I entered Seminary. I spent those years disentangling myself from the patriarchal, male dominated world in which I had grown up in and lived in for so long.

I went through another huge shift again in 2009 when I experienced the migraines which brought on the stroke like signs, finding my way in the stillness, in the quiet, being alone with myself, getting reacquainted with all that is spirit in me...truly it was a stroke of insight as written about in Jill Bolte Taylor's book, "My Stroke of Insight, Peace is Just a Thought Away." I got very used to 'Being Still and Knowing that I AM.'

Yet, today I find myself in the middle of the most enormous shift of my life cycle. All that I knew before is passing away, old thought patterns, old habits, old defense mechanisms, they are all dissolving into ashes at my left foot. And what is coming in on my right side is a totally new way of thinking, of feeling, of responding, of BEING. It is a place where I stand, in my own feminine power, and say in no uncertain terms, "Life ain't gonna be the same baby." It is as if my energy grid, all the energy that makes up this persona of Charlotte, is being rearranged, and the spirit of who I am is standing here watching it all unfold, and all I can say physically is....WOW.

I needed these words today.....they are Creator's way of letting me know that I AM exactly where I am supposed to be.

But there is more . . . .

 

singer-songwriter and instrumentalist Adam Young



I go to type this posting, and I am trying to find the image posted at the top, I run across this image. I click on it which brings me to Adam Young's blog, his entry for May 2 is entitled "Garden Party." I read it and immediately feel a bond with this guy, who is from Owatonna, MN., the town we lived in before our 2003 move to Arizona. Plus he speaks about singer/songwriter Ricky Nelson, who I had a huge crush on when I was young. I get halfway through the blog and there is Adam Young's rendition of Rick Nelson's song, 'Garden Party'. And I get it, just like Adam did...I understand about living your life under the microscope. From his blog:' Rick’s son Gunnar wrote, “After a lifetime of pretending to be a character he wasn’t — wearing the sweater on Monday on the set of Ozzie and Harriet after being a real rock star on the weekends — he was writing and performing for his own pleasure and satisfaction.' I needed that song today. Please see his whole blog here:       

 http://owlcityblog.com/2012/05/02/garden-party/



For me the Owl City image has three Spiritual pieces to it.

1. First is the word OWL. In native terms the Owl represents wisdom...which settles into my spirit that even if I doubt it, I am walking in Wisdom. (plus, Owl is my youngest daughter's Spirit Guide)
2. Second, Here's Hope jumps out at me meaning that HERE is hope. It doesn't say, There's Hope, as if Hope is somewhere over there, somewhere I have to go for hope. No, Here is hope, right Here inside of me. I have all I need within me, because I house Spirit. Hope is here NOW. Hope resides in me.
3. Third, the words I AM. Huge strong words I AM. I AM that I AM. the I AM presence which lives in me rises up and knows that I AM right where I AM supposed to be.

By now I am really grateful, for all these connections that I have been given today, and I begin to type this post. I feel myself again singing My hope is in You, so I look up the song on YouTube and play it as I am typing. I am jazzed. Air around me is buzzing, the energy level is so high it is hard to sit still. The song stops and I clicked on the next one in line and went back to typing. What words do I here? "Lord, you have told me who I am. I am yours". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjhxOv9YDag so I click on the YouTube tab and see that it is a song by Casting Crowns. I read the video's description and what words do I see?  

 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" 1 Corinthians 5:17

Which brings me full circle back to all the old HAS passed away and all that is

new HAS COME NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After a lifetime of pretending to be someone else, the never stand up for yourself woman people in my life want me to be, I am living in this NOW moment being all I was meant to be. My given name, Charlotte, is from French origin and means STRONG. (In German it means Free...I like that too) My Native name, White Wolf Woman  means a woman who runs with the wolves, strong and free, nurturing and loving, the total package, strong woman standing free in the light and glory of Spirit.

I AM woman, hear me ROAR!