By now, all aspects of life have been altered or halted. The world as we know it has become radically different as we attempt to get a handle on this disease and stop the rising number of deaths each day. We are enduring trauma on a global and individual level. Trauma carries a myriad of emotions; anger and grief sometimes being the prominent two. And with the rising uncertainty paired with the increasing amount of trauma and grief we are all experiencing, we need to find ways to talk about our feelings, share, and move forward.
Continue reading “Creating Spaces for Grieving and Receiving by Anjeanette LeBoeuf”
One of my favorite trainings I have received on my spiritual pathway is with Aloha International. I was ordained as an alaka’i (Hawaiian spiritual guide) in 2016. I began studying Huna intensely in 1997. In 2015, I personally met and studied with our Kumu Kupua (founder and shamanic guide) Serge Kahili King. I love the Hawaiian way as it is gentle, loving and teaches us to examine our beliefs, life practices and thought-patterns in a way which heals our wounds and nurtures our lives in many beautiful ways. Huna means secret but not as something we can’t share, rather something that is hard to discover or grasp like the mists of the sea. Dr. King, however, makes it easy and I am happy to share some of his teachings here.
A couple of days ago after an exhausting day of chores I lay out in the sun in my snow pants against the tree I call the “Mother Pine” because she shelters so many creatures from birds to bears. It was late afternoon and the sun was sparkling like a cracked diamond through a myriad of branches over my head. I closed my eyes and listened to an evergreen symphony. The songs produced by pines and other conifers as needles sway and touch soothed me. How much I loved the sound of light winds slipping through the trees.
Imagine that you are a young mother of three from Syria, and that after fleeing your home with your husband and family, you arrived in Lesbos and have been waiting for months to have your asylum papers processed. You don’t know when that will happen, it could take more than a year, you have been told. You are staying in a tent with other families because the containers are full. You have no privacy. When it is cold you are cold, and when it rains you get wet. You try to keep your family clean and healthy, but there are not enough toilets and showers for everyone. In addition, you are afraid to leave the tent at night because some of the men without families drink too much and harass you and the other women. 
In times of stress, I like to count syllables. It soothes me the way the click of knitting needles might soothe others. Finding rhymes is also calming. Below are poems in forms that require syllable count and/or rhyme, the last three written recently. I hope you are all sheltering well.
I have always loved Lent and Holy Week. When I was young, I enjoyed the challenge of fasting. Holy Week was the powerful culmination of it all, so I would try to make the fast even harder then, like a sprint at the end of a marathon. Chocolate quickly got boring, so once I gave up all desserts. Another year, I gave up lying. (I’m a PK – Preacher’s Kid; enough said.) And then there’s the famous year sometime in my 20s when I decided I’d better give up swearing. (PK, remember?) Both my sister Trelawney and my husband just love to remind me of how I literally swore while walking out of the Ash Wednesday service. And didn’t even notice. And when they finally explained why they were laughing at me, I, of course, immediately cursed again. Sigh. Well, I respond each time, that’s why I decided to give it up in the first place!
Canadian Geese have been on my mind a lot lately. This past winter I have missed the skeins of geese that fly back and forth up and down the river appearing every single morning like clockwork. In Abiquiu when winter turned to spring I noted that the geese were behaving in much the same way the Sandhill cranes did before they migrated, splitting into pairs or groups of three and flying erratically. I was puzzled. I didn’t recall witnessing such behavior before this year. I wondered about migration patterns. Were the geese shifting their flight patterns too? Or perhaps the small groups I saw were staying year round? Some days it almost seemed as if these water birds were confused by something.
She looked away and stared out the window, trying to hold back the tears in her eyes. “The tents,” she said and shook her head looking down at the ground. The tears were coming, but softly. I asked her what the tents represent. She shrugged her shoulders and said into the camera phone: “The bodies I guess. They don’t have enough room for the bodies.”
Feminism and Religion 