Dear Friends,

As of this afternoon (Wednesday) at 2:30, on this new moon in October, I have finished the first draft of my book Making Meaning Making Soul: Nourishing Your Inner Life as a Political Act! I am so pleased, but also rather daunted by all the work yet to do! I plan to review and revise it until it’s as good as I can get it, then send it out to my beta readers who will provide feedback for me (if you’re interested in being one of my readers and offering feedback on one chapter of the book after it’s revised, please let me know!), then I’ll do another revision incorporating the feedback, and then, I’ll work on figuring out how to get the book out into the world. It’s 362 pages long right now, and represents one helluva lot of work distilling four decades of thought and experience!

The book has two parts, one part giving all kinds of reasons why investing 20 minutes a day in contemplative practice, that is, in practices that nourish our inner lives, is deeply helpful to any person whether they come to their inner lives with a religious outlook or not. Contemplative practices help us to tune in to ourselves, explore our values and how we’ve acquired those values, relax, find what gives us deep pleasure and meaning, and examine how the world around us pulls us in such a variety of ways that may not be in integrity with who we really are, what we really want, and what we really believe.

The other part of the book contains dozens of practices that one can do in 20 minutes or less to bring us back to our true self. These practices are divided into five different categories of Word, Image, Dream, Silence, and Embodiment. “Word” refers to the practices such as collecting quotations or poetry that are meaningful to us, journal writing, responding to prompts that help us explore areas of life we may not have considered very deeply, as well as other practices. The “Image” chapter includes ideas to help us notice and examine the images that we’re bombarded with every day, whether in advertising or in images of the “good life”, simple exercises in art making, color, and mark making to create small havens of beauty, and collecting images that inspire us. “Dream” includes collecting and examining both night dreams and day dreams, and helps us to notice and deconstruct all the stories we sometimes take for granted in our lives, as well as how to imagine new stories for us to grow into. “Silence” looks at the many ways to bypass words and stories to clear out space for peace, rest, and new creativity to arise, including various ways to meditate. And the chapter on “Embodiment” asks us to consider who we are as physical bodies, where we begin and end, how we are interconnected with all that is around us, and invites us to experience that interconnection in ways we may not have thought of before.

These practices are helpful in healing the wounds that so many of us have suffered, and helpful in our healing the world around us. The book is for both beginners and more advanced practitioners, for both people who would describe themselves as spiritual or religious as well as people who want nothing to do with a religious point of view. As true humans, there is more to us than the everyday, and we face deep challenges to the earth’s and our own survival. This book can help us become conscious of just how many resources we have within us, and help us to know what is uniquely ours to do and to be, for justice and the good of all of life.

With much love and many blessings,

Cat

Hello dear friends,

Happy new moon here in September of 2021! The calendar turned and I am immediately busier than I’ve been all summer. Fall is here with all its possibilities and obligations. To me, it feels as if I lost this summer —- a month in the hospital burn unit, then another month convalescing will do that to a person! Though my burns are almost healed, I’m still running at a lower energy than before. I don’t know if I’ll slowly return to more energy, or if this is my new normal.

Regarding my book, Making Meaning Making Soul: Nurturing an Inner Life as a Political Act, I have just moved into the first draft of my final, 10th chapter: “Do Not Lose Hope: Breaking for Freedom”. It’s been a challenge for me to get back into the routine writing most days — momentum is so easily lost; so difficult to build up again. Once I complete the first draft of the whole book I will be editing it to be the best I can make it, then sending it out to select readers who I hope will carefully read a chapter and give constructive feedback. Once I incorporate the feedback, I’ll be looking to publish it. I don’t yet have a plan for that, whether I look for a publisher or try self-publishing. If any of you have any advice, contacts, or info on that, please let me know.

This painting, Winged Heart, is what I produced this summer. It now hangs over my new comfy recliner chair that I inherited from my dear mother in law. It’s hard to put into words what this painting means to me. If I could have said it in words, I would have written a poem or essay instead! The red energy, left over from the underpainting, reminds me of the spirit which burns with passion. The white rose in the heart speaks to me of the Spirit of Love which lives within all and which can bring us all together. “My” winged heart desires to connect with all those who I come into contact, who are symbolized by all the figures in the gold field. It speaks of my desire to be of service to and to connect with those around me, offering the best of who I am, with ease, all based in the deep passion of my heart and spirit.

Here’s to all of us juggling life, loves, health, and the new opportunities of fall,

With much love and many blessings,

Cat

Here are some photos of the painting in process:

Hello my dear friends,

It’s the New Moon, and time for intentions for the waxing moon! Here’s mine: “I have peace about time, and a quiet confidence that I will finish my book in perfect timing, that there is no conflict between caring for myself and doing what I need to do. I focus on what is best to do and to be in each day in each moment.”

Burnwise and healthwise, I am healing, though much more slowly than I would like. Yet, the nurses who come to change my dressings say that I am healing so well, and so quickly! Methinks I have an unrealistic view of what is possible! My burns still hurt, and I’m still quite tired and easily aggranoyed (aggravated and annoyed): my burns itch as they heal, I’ve been covered in perspiration because of the oppressive heat, my jewellery annoys me, my bandages annoy me, my hair band annoys me, my hearing aids annoy me, and the fibro pain and sciatica have come back “home”! But other than that, I’m fine! Actually, I am so very glad to be here to tell the story, and to be home and healing.

I’m making an attempt to get back to my writing tomorrow, with the goal of a couple of hours of writing on most days! It took me almost two weeks to tidy my study up from the blizzard of “STUFF” that my guys had put in there while I was in the hospital. Trying to find places for books when all the places are full is especially challenging. I think I’m ready, I hope I’m ready, to get back into a bit of a routine. I actually went out by myself twice now —- though when I got into the car there was a panicked moment when I was afraid I’d forgotten how to drive. But I did remember, and all went well.

I made it home in time to attend our Owl Poetry Open Mic at the end of July, and I had written a few poems to debut there. I’ve included all four of them here, and I hope they give you a sense of what the last six weeks have been like in my life.

I hope that the rest of your summer is filled with just the right amount of sunshine, and just the right amount of people you love,

With much love and many blessings,

Cat

The Most Unexpected July

[Cat Charissage, July 2021]

Surprises happen.

I wasn’t planning on spending July

In the Foothills Hospital Burn Unit.

But trying to finish one more chore before going out for dinner —

Finally!  First time since lockdown —-

As I was pouring herbal infused oil and beeswax,

Just off boiling,

Into jars for precious First Aid Ointment,

The gallon and a half of boiling oil jumped

Out of the pot and baptized me —

Practically immersed me —

The beeswax glueing the hot oil to every part of hair, hands, 

Blouse, skin, pants, and feet.

Then slipping, I fell into the ointment.

Intended to be healing, but too hot to handle,

Instead it seared my flesh 

Shock.  Pain.  Searing pain.  Pull me out of the oil!  Quick!

Clothes off, get to shower, water too hot.

Bring pans of cool water, please!  Fast!

Oh my God!  Pain. Pain. Pain!  It hurts so bad!!

911.  Call 911!  Call 911!  It hurts so bad!!

Life Renewing, Rebuilding

[Cat Charissage, July 2021]

Three weeks watching dear body heal.

Life renewing, rebuilding,

Skin buds forming,

Looking like little mushroom forests colonizing the burned flesh.

Hands peeling, then hand skin peeling again, and again.

New pink flesh — so sensitive.

So exquisitely sensitive.

Deeper burns — lakes of oozing yellow fluid

On red flesh shores.

Disgustingly fascinating, 

Until I remember that’s MY breast!

That’s MY stomach!

That’s MY thigh!

Oh MY!  Oh MY!  Oh MY!

The call for surgery.

Dear body, trying so hard to heal, needs some help.

Sew together the skin over yellow canals,

Graft some skin, donated by my dear thigh,

Cover the oozing yellow lakes.

The first and greatest surgical success is that I wake from the anesthetic

To heal some more.

It’s hard to keep this good woman down!

My People, My Beloveds

[Cat Charissage, July 2021]

I saw the beauty, the blessing, the possibilities of Facebook, of email.

A short post, then an update,

And waves and waves of beloveds released their prayers, their healing energies,

Washing over and over and over me.

Thank you, I need this,

Thank you, you remember me,

Thank you, you care!

Thank you, I need this,

Thank you, you remember me,

Thank you, you care!

I calm.  And then I wonder.

Why?  Why so much pain?

Pain on top of pain on top of dear body living with pain

For so much of my life.

Why so much pain?

And then more pain?

No answer.

No answer.

Why?

In that direction madness lies.

Crawl back from why.  Crawl back from that edge.

Does it help, or does it just hurt more 

To know so many have suffered so many do suffer even more

Much more than I?  Why?

Don’t ask why! Don’t go there!

Crawl back from why.  Crawl back.

Know the love.

Rest in the healing energy.

Lean on the prayers.  Lean on the love.

Thank you, my beloveds, thank you.

Heart open.

Witches Heal.  Witches Burn.  

[Cat Charissage, July 2021]

Witches heal

Witches make potions

Witches burn.

Me, the descendant of witches and healers,

Making herbal ointments, even today,

From common weeds, common plants.

What we need to heal is around us.

What we need is surely around us.

I won’t be burned at the stake anymore,

But, a slip of the hand,

Too heavy a load,

Perhaps a bit of neuropathy,

And six liters of oil and beeswax, just off boiling,

Pour over my hands, my arms, my breasts, 

My stomach, my side, splash into my hair.

And then the slippery floor pulls me down

And I sit in burning oil scarring my seat and my feet.

Burned.  All over.

Even today, witches make potions,

Witches heal, 

And witches burn.

And witches rise,

Scarred, and strong.

Hello dear friends,

Happy New Moon, the first moon of summer! What kinds of energies are starting for you? I’m working on Chapter 9 in my book, the 2nd to the last chapter. It’s on Embodiment, and it’s here that I’m realizing that the working title of the book, Making Meaning, Making Soul: Developing an Inner Life as a Political Act, is just right. It’s when I think about, feel about, listen from the inside of my physical self, that I know how childhood trauma has formed so much of who I am, and who so many are. I explore how the structures of power in the home echo and compensate for the lack of power outside of the home. How silence and cooperation is enforced. How the status quo has been built out of certain numbers of us living in captivity, “held” by those who love us. The auto-immune issues as one consequence, chronic pain as another, and yet other issues are the consequences, but also the scars that are the badges of surviving, and thriving, and not colluding in silence and hiding. For so, so many of us, we’re doing pretty damned good, all things considered, and in pondering who we are, what we’ve been through, and what we want for all our children, are creating a new way of thriving in this toxic world. Another political consequence of embodiment is the color of my skin. How I am seen and treated, how my body is seen and treated, is charged with meanings that have participated in the sufferings of those with a different amount of melanin in their skin. So much to write about, so much to listen for.

I did this small 8″ by 8″ painting this month — witnessing to how much sitting in silence it takes to make sense of the blobs of intuitions and insights that swirl around us, hiding in plain sight. It is daring and it is a political act to put into words what is inchoate in our flesh. I started with the intuition that I was in the middle of something — something having to do with my life force and the blood of my flesh:

Then came the blobs, and shapes:

And then finally the words that helped me know what the painting was about:

Dear friends, know and grow, grow and know. Be willing to sit in the no know, the not knowing. It’s not fun, but it’s wondrous to experience what Walt Whitman said “I am large. I contain multitudes.”

With much love and many blessings,

Cat

p.s. I was interviewed by the New York Parrot Literary Corner a little while ago about my poetry. Have a listen:

Dear Friends,

THE “& MORE”: Coping with the Pandemic Blues has really been a chore in the last couple of months! I just want to go out for coffee with a few friends —- please?!?! Because I could so easily enumerate what was wrong with life, I decided to make a little accordion book of 100 plus things that are going right in my life. Number One of which is that I and my family are well and we have enough of all that we need.

I had no idea if I could come up with more than 100 things to be grateful for, but it was actually very easy. And I did feel better after I made this little book. I started with some basics that I used to teach Liberty about: that because we have indoor plumbing, central heating, and hot and cold running water, we have a more comfortable and “richer” life than kings and queens had only a couple of centuries ago! And it really is a blessing that our electricity is reliable enough that we notice it only if there’s a very occasional blackout.

I totally recommend making your own little book of Gratitudes. Now it sits on my bookshelves, in front of a few hundred books (another gratitude!), and reminds me that these, too, are true in my life.

THE BOOK CHRONICLE: I HAVE FINISHED CHAPTER EIGHT out of 10 chapters! I keep chugging along, following the plan that I put together at the beginning of the project. This was the chapter on SILENCE, and it includes a dozen ideas for entering silence for both beginners and the more experienced, for people who consider themselves spiritual and those who who just want a renewing rest. Here’s a couple: I start with a basic sitting practice, then describe 3 or 4 ways to meditate, but I also talk about sitting and watching a snow globe settle after you’ve given it a good shake. Or if you don’t have a snowglobe, putting a tablespoon of dirt in a jar of water and giving that a shake. It takes awhile for it to become calm again, and that’s a good metaphor for how our inner attention and our nervous systems work.

My favorite part of the chapter was coming up with a variety of postmodern and very secular koans to include. Koans, as you probably know, are from the Zen Buddhist tradition and they are short statements or little stories that are not rational nor logical, but that if you meditate on them, may very well help you to bypass all that right-brained activity and have a sudden realization. It feels like a flip into another way of thinking/being, almost as though your brain just got out of a car wash! So here are two I included: “I ask my friend, ‘So are we crazy or intensely sane?’ She replies, ‘Yes!'”; or, “When there’s no place to go, how do I get there?” And here’s one that’s a little more serious: “‘Good God!’ screamed the woman as the bomb dropped from the plane.”

The next chapter is on reflective practices from the point of view of Embodiment, where I’ll talk about knowing, resting, and abiding in our physical selves, which are too often limited and achy and not working quite right. Then the last chapter will pull it all together where I assert that developing our inner lives is, indeed, a political act that just might “save the world” in the only way it can be saved, each one of us at a time. With the emphases on “one” as well as “us”.

With much love and many blessings,

Cat

Dear Friends,

Happy New Moon! Only another week to the Spring Equinox —- the year moves on, the heavens spin. The pandemic continues. Sigh.

I’m in Chapter Seven of THE BOOK. It’s about Dreams, nighttime and daytime, and the stories we tell ourselves. So much I want to include —- so much I have to leave out! The Book is already close to 200 pages, and I have 3 1/2 more chapters to do. I’m sure editing will cull lots; but on the other hand, I may remember way more that I wanted to include.

The whole book, Making Meaning, Making Soul is about the inner life, and how cultivating an inner life clarifies our values, our power, and our commitment to creating a world where all of us can have a home and all that we need to thrive. So, cultivate your inner life and change the world!!! We need more than superficial changes or new laws or environmental legislation here and there. Our challenges are great, and things may get much worse, to the point of breakdown of all systems, before we rebuild from the bottom up. We can’t navigate the future with a mindset of the past; it’s guaranteed not to be sustainable. So I’m hoping the book will have encouragement and instruction to use even the hardest of times to grow, cultivate, and then curate the world we want to live in. High hopes.

On a personal note, my old ways of being, of writing, are not sustainable in my life now. I used to be able to encourage myself (make myself? force myself?) to just sit down and crank it out. The writing came out good enough, sometimes even quite good, and the job got done. But I don’t live like that anymore: I don’t WANT to, and my dear body won’t let me! I have to write this book with the same spirit that I am advocating throughout the book: to live reflectively, to be exquisitely conscious of myself and my world, choosing my actions in the light of what I can do to help, and what I can do to care for myself in the same way I would want any person, any beloved child to be cared for.

That means transforming my relationship with time, and that’s just not an easy thing to do! I have to step out of self-imposed deadline, step away from cracking the whip and driving myself to produce (to produce the book and the half dozen other “very important” projects I’m involved in!) To trust that treating myself lovingly WILL translate into a fountain of abundance filling up and spilling over, even if the fountain is a very small one. Productivity, speed, greed, and striving are false gods, though you wouldn’t know it from our culture, nor the evening news. My social media feed and email bring more and more and more, and much of it is important and even helpful, due to my skill in choosing good people, good organizations, and good scholarship to hear from. In trying to get a handle on all this, I haven’t written on THE BOOK for a week —- and that’s actually been a very good thing! I’ll get back into a good rhythm soon.

Meanwhile, we carry on, in all senses of “carry on”, living, loving, resting, investing our energy into nourishing ourselves and others. Tell me, what is your relationship with time? How do you live a reflective, intentional life?

Much love and many blessings to you,

Cat

Hello dear friends,

I’ve been posting on Instagram rather than here on this blog, but decided to copy out my latest post to include here:

The Book Chronicle:. Halfway through Chapter Six! But it’s been minus 28 degrees here, so I had to take a break and paint some wildflowers under a full moon! Thought I’d tell you about all the work before the writing. Well, first I had to live my particular life and learn a few things. Then about a year and a half ago I started to write down any ideas I had of what I wanted to say to people, one idea to an index card. I have index cards everywhere! Once my pile got to be over six inches high I read and reread and reread the cards some more. Like ideas went with like, and categories were formed. Then some tentative chapters suggested themselves and slowly, with more rereading, a structure for the whole book began to appear. All through this, every new idea was written down. Then I took a chapter and reread those cards for maybe the fifth time. Then started to put them in an order. All through, I imagine various of my friends, including you, sitting next to me saying “Hmmm. . . Looks interesting. What’s it about?” And finally, I tell you! Like I’m writing you a l o n g email. I hope you get to read it sometime soon!

Hello dear Friends,

I know I’m not the only one who is weary of covid-19 and the restrictions needed to bring transmission rates lower, but at least I have time to paint! This is another donated old canvas that needed about 4 coats of gesso before I could paint my own painting over it. It had a lot of textured paint on it, with a very strongly textured line horizontal line almost 1/3 of the way from the top edge. I thought I would use the canvas as an experimental abstract painting, and I wish I had photographed the first few iterations of the painting. Nothing seemed to be working, though I did like the blue-green layers where the figure’s head is now. I had used a thin brush to draw a curving line over the colors I had laid down, and then realized that I had inadvertently drawn a profile of a face. I decided to go with it, and the painting became more figurative than abstract.

The woman’s face seemed to be peering into our world from another world, and the roses painted themselves. I think I was thinking of the stories of Our Lady of Guadalupe and how in the midst of a gloomy winter, when Juan Diego brought the image of the Lady on his tilma (cloak) to the bishop, asking for a church to be built where the Lady had appeared to him, fresh roses fell out of the tilma onto the floor. It was the miracle, after three visits to the bishop, that convinced the bishop that Juan Diego actually had seen Our Lady.

That image appeals to me — the promise of roses in the middle of winter; the promise of blessings coming when so needed in the bleakest of times. With the division of the canvas into sections by the previous textured paint, I saw the red roses as coming from the other world, almost in potential, then being transformed as they take on full definition in this world. To me, this somehow portrays how we live in this everyday world at the same time as we live in a spiritual world, and sometimes the worlds leak into each other in surprising ways. My teacher and mentor, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, speaks often of those of us who endeavor to live consciously in both worlds at once, and I like to think that beauty and blessings and goodness can move back and forth between realities.

Her hair is made up of DNA Strands of the “Living in Both Worlds” life, and is filled with stars, symbols, messages in code. When one lives in both worlds at the same time, life is blessed with golden light, though sometimes we don’t see the light as it flows behind us, benefiting those who are around us, even if we can’t see it ourselves.

This painting symbolizes much for me: making something new from a canvas meant for the garbage, starting out with one intention but going in another direction when seeing something new (seeing the face profile), DNA strands encoding instructions for life, blessings with elements from many stories (the roses). Even the White Rose has more symbolic reverberations, as it was the name of a student movement of young people in World War II Germany who protested the Nazi regime. Sophie Scholl, her brother, and several others were executed for their activities, but live on as examples of the courage to speak truth in oppressive times.

Sometimes, though, one just can’t explain it all in words. If I could have, I wouldn’t have needed to paint it.

Happy New Moon, this week before the Solstice when for those of us in the northern hemisphere the sun comes back. After Dec. 21, each day will have just a little bit more sunlight, bringing us out of the cold and snow into a new planting season. I hope you can take a few days between now and the new year to rest, hibernate, reflect.

Much love and many blessings to each of you,

Cat

Dear Friends,

At this new moon, today is a grey sky, there are ugly remnants of snow and ice left from last week’s blizzard, and it’s the middle of November, the cruelest of months. We’ve got about 3 years of Canadian winter to look forward to until green leaves appear again. Thank the heavens for paints and books!

The painting was intended for my innards, and for the world. I painted it just after the election was (tentatively?) over in the U.S. The canvas is one gifted to me by another artist who had painted over it twice. I then painted over it in heavy body paints, several coats, to add to the texture. I liked the feeling that my intention was being placed on a canvas with lots of experience, lots of things it has already gone through. Kind of like me.

The gold sweeps from the woman’s hair up and then around the chaos, and then up and around the cosmic egg. Movement, blessing, creativity. I tried to get that in the photo of it, but my present skills just couldn’t pick it up. The crescent moon will be just like in the painting in a few more days. Looking forward to MORE than just 3 years of winter!

From intention:

To details:

Feel free to borrow the sentiment, if needed. Much love and blessing to each of you. Thank you for being in my friendship group; thank you for your support.

Cat

Happy New Moon dear friends,

About a week ago, I was chatting (on Messenger) with some friends who were sharing some Facebook posts that were claiming some wild facts that were very seductive. I could feel the provocation intended, the desire to know if those facts were true, the yearning that they were pointing to a conclusion that I would dearly love. In other words, I felt myself get sucked in. I spent a couple of hours that day talking about it all, and my attention was totally rivetted.

Being that it’s the October before the November election in the U.S., there were many posts claiming all sorts of October surprises. I’m not a big FB person at all, but I couldn’t avoid it. The newspaper that I do read had its own pile of seductive “maybe” stories (maybe true, maybe not. . . ) Recognizing propaganda whether intended or not, I decided then and there that I did not want my attention hijacked with all the different attempts to manipulate my psyche. I’m now on day 6 of a 101 day media fast and, instead, devotion to my inner depths. I allow myself to look at the headlines on the front page of the newspaper, and that’s it. Instead, I am focussing on depth and practices that will help me towards wisdom (hopefully). There really are only a certain number of hours in any day. This will take me into mid January. And by then I hope I will have discerned exactly how much of the chaos and frenzy I want to allow in.

I used to think it was my moral duty to be as well informed as I could reasonably be, so as to make responsible decisions about not only voting, but choosing which issues I would expend my energy and resources on. I haven’t shifted on that, I’ve just given up the idea that FB and most media available to people will tell me the truth. Oh, some may sincerely try to, and some media is definitely more accurate than other ones, but I’ve come to believe that the only truth I can be assured of in a news item is that somebody, somewhere, wants me to think that something happened somewhere, at sometime. And that the more frenzied the reporting, the more I wonder what’s going on that the frenzy is distracting me from.

I’m learning more and more to focus on what is within my reach. Who are the people and the issues around me that I might actually be able to help, to influence in good ways? I try to pay attention to the truths I see right around me, and leverage my energy into real help and action rather than anxiety and argument about issues I cannot personally influence whatsoever —- such as an election in another country. There are so many what-if’s; I’ll wait until the dozens of what if’s manifest into something I can personally do something about. I already have a handful of issues I deeply care about, and keep myself informed about them through actual people and organizations I know, and contribute when I can.

I believe deeply in freedom of thought, and we can’t have that freedom if the noises of (dare I say?) brainwashing are screaming all around us. I’m walking away from it, as much as I can. Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll find out who won the election even if I never read a newspaper again. (I swore off of TV news long ago, refusing to participate in “if it bleeds, it leads”. Seeing the effects of war, neglect, and cruelty assaulted my nervous system, and I want to remain able to act and speak, not silenced by vicarious traumatization and the craziness of a video of terrified children followed by a commercial for dancing batteries or ring around the collar laundry soap.)

We all need to assess how much “news” (gossip?) we need in our lives. At least consider whether limiting your intake to perhaps one report a day might be enough. Consider exchanging doomscrolling for a little silence —- and find out what you really believe, what kind of world you’re ready to work for.

The energy of the New Moon helps us to develop new habits. Just saying. . .

With much love and many blessings,

Cat