Hello dear friends,

Many things are shifting right now.  Many good things are ending, and many good things are in process of becoming.  Much of the time, we can point to all sorts of things going wrong in our lives, but right now I want to focus on a few joys.  (I’ll spare you the rotator cuff woes and the challenges of cortisone and spring migraines . . . )

The books in the photos above have all been really important to me lately, even though I’ve finished only The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt.  I’ve had the privilege of discussing this book weekly with a great group of friends since January, including my dear spouse (yes, this is what we do for a date!)  In this time of elections, I strongly recommend taking a dive into this book if you’ve ever had the thought about someone “You’re such a smart, good person —- why are you so deluded in your politics?”  It REALLY helps one understand how we make moral decisions about politics and religion, and why good people can have such different ideas.  It also offers strategies as to how to talk and listen to others in ways that are constructive, respectful, and that even have the potential to change people’s minds.

Devotions by Mary Oliver arrived this week, and I’m so looking forward to this last compilation of poetry from one of my most favorite writers.  Wild Mercy is hot off the press.  I’ve read several of Mirabai Starr’s books, and can’t wait to explore women mystics, especially some I’m not yet familiar with.  Doesn’t it have a great cover?  Christian McEwan’s World Enough and Time is wonderful in helping one to have the attitudes of “enoughness” and “spaciousness” (my word for the year) in a world which is moving too fast and seemingly asking way too much of us each day.

For the past two months, especially, I’ve felt quite busy, overly so.  I’ve been balancing okay on the surfboard of my days, but very much been hanging on by my toes in the wild ride.  Many good things came up this year, and it was too hard to make a decision on what to cut out so I did all of them (which isn’t a great way to live a life, but a great way to have an exciting season!)  I audited two university courses, one on Classical Islamic Thought, the other on Sufism (Islamic mysticism).  I’ve always been interested in how we humans live out our spiritualities, and never before had the opportunity to learn about Islam, in person, from a scholar I respect.  There’s been the book group on The Righteous Mind, my own Story Circles (small groups on different topics which I facilitate), and a huge influx of opportunities for reading my poetry in public (which means the stimulation of writing more poetry).  I also supported my painting teacher, Shiloh Sophia, in her online course with the Shift Network on “The Dance of the Critic and the Muse”.

But now that several of these projects have finished, I have freed up 18 1/2 hours in my weekly schedule (including the driving time getting to these opportunities).  I am SO EXCITED to transition to other great things to do, like rest and read!

Are things shifting for you in your days?  Is it time to assess how you invest (not necessarily “spend”) your time?  I’ve found that though we so often say we HAVE to do it all, we usually do have more choices than are immediately obvious.  Choose, to the extent possible, how you invest your days, for of course this is how we spend our lives.

With much love and many blessings,

Cat

“Calling All Angels”  acrylic on canvas, (c) Cat Charissage, 2019, a.r.r.

Hello Dear Friends,

Today feels like a hinge:  the weather here has just broken from a very long very cold snap to something that maybe feels like spring might be possible; it’s the New Moon today;  and it’s Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, which is the 40 day preparation time for Easter in the Christian calendar.

Today I offer you a recent poem that also inspired the painting above.  I think most of us have had the feelings I’m trying to describe in the poem.

May your month go as well as possible, with new possibilities everywhere you look!

With much love and many blessings,

Cat

Calling All Angels

— Cat Charissage (c) 2019

At 2 a.m. old fears come to visit:

coulda, shoulda, mighta, oughta. . . .

and then old wounds join in to sing harmony.

Scar tissue may be strong, but it sure can ache. . . .

At 2 a.m., before I’m totally drowned by

fear, memory, pain,

I yell out my prayers:

sometimes they’re addressed

“To Whom It May Concern,”

other times, “Anyone out there?!?”

But last night I started with

“Calling all angels. . .

Calling all angels. . .

Help?!

Now would be a good time to show up!

Calling all angels!”

And I see, in my mind’s eye,

A flock of ravens alighting in the trees.

At 2 a.m. they are nearly invisible. . .

In fact, I’m not sure they’re there at all. . .

I mean, ravens don’t fly in flocks

at 2 a.m.

And ravens aren’t angels, either. . . .

Usually. . . .

So what do I want?

A white dove hovering over my head?

What it if needs to poop?  Right there and then?

Face it, don’t you ever wonder about those kinds of things too?

I mean, life’s like that sometimes, right?

But I’m particularly partial to ravens.

Discovering the wisdom of my First Nations neighbors

who call raven Trickster,

trickster who brings light,

the light of consciousness,

the light of wisdom,

the light to see.

What an apt reminder of what we really need,

What an apt reminder of God. . .

How many white doves have you seen lately?

But how many ravens, or their crow cousins, have you seen?

I like that:  God amongst us, crows everywhere,

Ravens amongst us, God everywhere

Black as a night with no moon,

The black of night dreams, of pure possibility.

Possibility amongst us, possibility everywhere?

But in my vision after calling all angels,

It’s full moon lunacy,

the ravens alighting in the trees.

Not one raven, but many, plenty, more than enough.

Ravens reflecting pure gold,  pure treasure.

Wait —- ravens aren’t golden.

They’re probably not there.

Maybe the trees are just winter bare,

The gold I saw just trickery

conjured by hopeful despair. . .

Probably.

Ah, but, maybe they are there

holding possibilities,

bringing light,

bringing plenty, bringing more than enough.

Maybe the angels did come to call,

answering, with possibilities from the fertile dark,

my plea

“Calling all angels!”

There were a total of seven of them; you can see some of the others in the yard of the house across the street.

Many of you know that I have a “thing” about deer, and have written poetry about them.  Today was a day when I had to make a big decision, and soon after I’d made the decision, the deer showed up.  I’ve NEVER seen deer in my front yard before, much less looking in through the window at me.  Perhaps he was curious about the deer skull and antlers in the window.  The skull with antlers was a gift from my hiker in-laws, who had found it in the coulees around here.  When they found it, bees had built a hive in the skull cavity.  Bees and deer —- ah, the symbolisms multiply!

A wonderful afternoon.

photo credit: Teri Petz, http://www.worksofbeauty.ca

Hello dear friends, on this cold day on traditional Blackfoot territory, on the New Moon just two days after Imbolc, Candlemas, feast day of St. Brigid, and Ground Hog Day!  An auspicious time, for sure.

Today I offer you my most recent poem.  I hope it adds to your wonder at our weird, marvelous, suffering world:

Dinosaur in My Living Room, Sunshine in My Heart

Have you ever realized that everything,

and I mean EVERYTHING

in the universe is the same set of elements

mixed together in a myriad of ways,

breaking down, coming together in new combinations,

moving together and apart, in some bizarre cosmic dance?

As someone who doesn’t like my food touching on the plate,

that’s not immediately an attractive thought.

I hear my mother (and now my spouse, and

increasingly, my son) saying

“Don’t worry about it.  It all get mixed up in your stomach anyway.”

And visions of supper thrown into a blender dance in my head.

Yuck.

But I digress. . .

Think of it:

At the Big Bang (don’t you just love those

serious scientific names that physicists use?)

at the Big Bang, everything,

all of material reality,

every atom that is,

is compacted together  (like my supper in the blender. . . . )

And then,

at the self-appointed moment,

or at a word from the gods,

what has been squished, the singularity,

dislocates into movement and pattern.

and to make a long story short,

here we are!

I saw it yesterday in my living room:

I saw the atoms and molecules,

sand (that is, silicon chips)

and dinosaurs (the plastic made from oil made from decayed carbon life forms)

all coming together, creating THIS computer on

the stool next to dear spouse’s favorite chair.

Dinosaurs re-formed so that I can not only touch them, now,

but reach into the internet to learn about them.

And those dinosaurs were formed from the plants, the other animals,

the dirt they ate,

and the plants grew not only from soil

filled with little bugs, stones, and metals,

but from the sunshine itself

nourishing the plant through photosynthesis.

This Chromebook holds the water of millions of years of rainclouds

nourishing the plants nourishing the animals that decayed,

making the oil that makes the plastic of the black lid of the computer.

And someday, if we’re lucky,

future humans will salvage the elements of this computer

out of recycling centers or landfills

to make those flying cars we were all promised

in the visions of the future —- just like the Jetsons!

Maybe. . .

Yesterday, I saw the sunlight pour into my living room

illuminating the trees within the couch frame

and the dinosaurs and sheep

in the nylon and wool upholstery.

Then I thought of the air I breathe,

how the very molecules now circulating in me

might have circulated in the breath of those dear dinosaurs

now in the computer and the cushions.

Atoms that I breathe in may have been breathed in

by Jesus, by the Buddha,

by Jack the Ripper, by Genghis Khan. . . .

No, I don’t live in a cosmic blender

But in a cosmic dance

creating, destroying,

coming together, falling apart.

Recombining in new forms

that so easily hide

the dinosaur in my living room

and the sunshine in my heart.

— Cat Charissage, (c) 2019, a.r.r.

collage, Cat Charissage (c) 2019 a.r.r.  with artwork by Rima Staines

Dear Friends,

Happy New Year on this first New Moon of 2019.  I’ve chosen the word Spaciousness for my Word of the Year.  I’m speaking here of an inner contemplative spaciousness where I go for depth, not the shallows or the simply  urgent.  We shall see. . . .

As I’m putting 2018 to bed and prepping my journals, files, studio, and inner self for 2019, I thought I’d show you my collection of journals for 2018.  Remember I told you that I’ve started a new journal on the new moon of each month?  Here are the results of that practice for this year:

My journals include not only my writings and daily schedules, but copies of my artwork and poetry, doodling, smashed in images from the internet that I love, and copies of selected emails that I’ve sent.  They are the chronicles of my everyday life.  Each journal is 9 in. by 12 in., and about an inch thick.  Here they are on the shelf (including my 2017 journals as well):

I’ve been so happy that several opportunities to share poetry have opened up here in Lethbridge.  There is the now monthly Open Mic on the 4th Thursdays at the Owl Acoustic Lounge.  Shaw Cable is filming those to show on their cable channel here, and also at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M9VHrOeCZY&t=74s.   If you follow the links you will find 3 of our sessions.  New ones are added as they become available.  Out of this, the host of our Open Mic nights was offered a radio program!  Teri called it “For the Love of Poetry” and I was honored to be her first guest:  https://www.facebook.com/jessfm/videos/2093527114041007/.  I thought I’d also share with you one of my new poems.  It’s a good reminder for me in these dreary days of winter to live with as much gratitude as I can muster.

May your days be filled with as much grace and fullness as you can handle!

With much love and many blessings,

Cat

ORDINARY DAY                                                  Cat Charissage

I show up with pen and paper anyway

Even with nothing to say.

The muse might be visiting — but not with me.

Any good ideas anywhere?  I look around.

Nope.  Just an ordinary day.

My tummy full from a hot breakfast, plenty of protein.

The quiet house, warm.

The comfy bed calling me back to its embrace.

Wet hair, drying after a hot shower.

My ordinary:

Good food — plenty.

Indoor plumbing — reliable.

Central heating — cozy.

Water — hot at the tap, enough to pour over dear body

Over and over and over again.

But only a few centuries ago,

These were not so ordinary,

Not even for kings and queens.

And not so ordinary even now,

For children in refugee camps,

For migrants walking a thousand miles towards safety,

For the homeless, here in Lethbridge, sleeping under the overpass.

My ordinary day is really not quite so ordinary —

My ordinary day of warmth, comfort, enoughness.

Extraordinary, isn’t it?

Dear Friends,

The above quote from Dalai Lama, “Don’t let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace,”  has been rolling around in my thoughts for many days now.  I’m recently back from two weeks of trainings with Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, a wonderful environment where almost all of the participants are extraordinarily compassionate and aware humans.  It’s no exaggeration to say that when times get rough, I think of my fellow learners and am uplifted, knowing that each of them are doing good work in the world and continuing on despite discouragement or seeming ineffectiveness.   Now back in the “real world”, which should definitely be called the “UNreal world”, I struggle with the noise and anger around me  —-  and stay off FB and the internet unless I focus right on whatever it is I’m looking for.

So, how to NOT let others’ behavior destroy our inner peace?  For me, it’s checking in daily with my deepest self, asking where and how I can help, acknowledging where I myself need help, and listening to all within me that I may not otherwise be able to know.  The photo above is of my new journal for this New Moon  —  a collage of paper and images that I’ve saved from dear memories.  The left side of the photo is the back cover of the journal; the right side is the front cover.

When I was away, I had a dream that I had been invited to lead a Centering Prayer group.  I accepted, and as the church’s custodian was showing me around the basement room where we’d be meeting, she pointed out a button that she said did something very  interesting:  it moved the entire room around, as though the room were a ship and I could steer it anywhere I wanted.  The participants arrived and we started the silent meditation.  I smiled to myself, pressed the button, and gently steered the room, including all of us participants, right out of the church and into the beautiful yard.

It felt as though I was bringing myself and the people with me out of the box and into a spacious place of life and wonder.

So my journal cover for this New Moon reflects my understanding of my dream.  My past, on the back cover, is moving into my future where I “include and transcend” (an idea I got from Ken Wilbur) that which once defined me and move into something new.

As we move into the holiday season, especially here in North America, I wish for you that you retain your inner peace and move into a spacious place of life and wonder.  Mindfully and intentionally.

With much love and many blessings,

Cat

Our Lady of Compassion, acrylic on canvas, (c) a.r.r.  Cat Charissage

Dear Friends,

On this Canadian Thanksgiving and new moon, I am deeply grateful that I personally know so many deeply good women and men who stand for justice, kindness, and compassion.  I’m also deeply grateful that I am among some of the richest people who have ever lived on this planet, including kings and queens of only a few centuries ago:  I have clean water, indoor plumbing, hot water on tap, and central heating.  (Not to mention the medicines I need to keep alive and well enough.)  And, I am fortunate that, even though I have very little “disposable” income, that I can go into a grocery store and buy whatever we need —- not even having to add it all up before I reach the cashier to make sure I have enough money to pay for it.

This has been a rough couple of weeks for many women and men.  I’m remembering way too much:  the Anita Hill testimony, all the stories I heard when I worked at the sexual assault center (and since), all my own stories.  I have two quotes that are giving me great strength today.  May they strengthen you, too:

“My heart is moved by all I cannot save:  so much has been destroyed.  I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.”             —–  Adrienne Rich

“Within your reach, be what you wish to see in others.  Focus on actions and prayer/your spiritual practice whatever it might be.  Join like-kind with a plan, and especially illigitimus not carborundum, don’t let the bastards grind you down.  Mockery and lies are not new.  They are old.  The difference is we can see them very very clearly now.  Plan accordingly.  Turn anger to fierce action.  Swords to plow blades to plant a new land.  With love.”                —- Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, in comments on her FB post yesterday

May we all be blessed as we plant a new land,

With love,

Cat

“New Moon” (c) Cat Charissage, 2018, a.r.r., marker and acrylic on paper

(inspired by artwork by Carolyn Scrace)

Dear Friends,

On my mind and heart these days, in the busiest time of the year for me, is how deeply important it is to still sit in the darkness just before the new moon.  My Story Circles are starting, and the first meetings of the year need extra planning to set the right tone and environment.  As well, I’m attending a retreat for Spiritual Directors in Calgary next weekend, and preparing for two trainings with Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes in Colorado in the last half of October.  The only way I can manage any of these activities is through good planning, thoughtful pacing, and a healthy enough immune system!  And still there are many very good activities I’ve said no to.  One form of abundance is having many options, and abundance is always wonderful —- it’s also frustrating, because all of us have limits, some of us more than others, and it’s impossible to take advantage of all the good things that are offered.

For many of us, September is the new year — going back to school, getting the kids to school, making sure family calendars are up to date with new activities.  Oftentimes the only way to have downtime, meditative time, recovery time is to plan it in our calendars and writing it in permanent ink!  So I do, and invite you all to plan some unplanned time, too.

The photo is the cover of my new journal for the month.  For the last year or so, I’ve been starting a new journal each new moon along with setting an intention for the month and bringing it into form through artwork.  Cycling along with the moon helps me notice the earth’s natural rhythms a little more.  I’m also interested in discovering whether my own rhythms resonate with the new beginning of the new moon, increase up to the zenith of the full moon, and fall back as the moon is “eaten away again”.  So far, I can’t tell whether my natural rhythms echo that of the moon.  Yet thinking in terms of a lunar month has proved to be a good and healthy way to do some planning, some tracking, and some of the personal projects that so often otherwise get forgotten in the overwhelm of daily life.  Thinking in cycles rather than galloping along in linear time (the soundtrack in my head is playing the “Da-da-dum, da-da-dum, da-da-dum-dum-dum!” of the Lone Ranger theme, Rossini’s “William Tell Overture”) is more like relaxed breathing than the holding of your breath as you’re concentrating deeply on accomplishing something.  Life-giving rather than risking passing out!  It’s not surprising that many forms of meditation focus on the rhythm of the breath.

Another note on my journal-keeping:  besides meditation/silence, it’s my most important depth-dimension (i.e., spiritual) practice.  I craft my own journals from watercolor paper that I’ve pre-painted backgrounds on while listening to the silence or talking and painting with friends, and I paste into the pages my to-do and ta-da! lists, notes from family and friends, and copies of newsy emails I receive or send out.  Dear spouse calls it my extreme mindfulness sport — but it really helps me appreciate my life, all that I do, and is a loved container for new ideas and art experiments.  Oftentimes our journals are used only to dump our negative emotions into, so for me, including just about EVERYTHING in my life reflects back to me the full richness of life.  It also helps me track when things fall apart, and whether the overwhelm has to do with taking on too much to do or with conditions entirely out of my control.   It’s also interesting to note the days, months, or even years when I haven’t collected my life’s ephemera and reflections.

I’ve been keeping journals of one kind or another for more than 45 years.  It’s wonderful —- except when it’s time to move and I have 10 extra banker’s boxes full of them!  Do you keep a journal?  Has how you’ve done it changed over the years?  How do you store them and deal with privacy issues?  I’d love to “talk journals” and hear what’s worked for you.

So breathe, live intentionally, and dare to be as happy as you can!

Much love and many blessings,

Cat

Dear Friends,

Remember that tomorrow, August 23, is Open Mic night at the Owl Acoustic Lounge from 7 – 9 p.m. in Lethbridge.  I’ll be debuting 2 new poems, and anyone who would like to may read their own original poetry (up to 5 minutes’ worth).

See you there!

Cat