dream stream

I reached into my creativity this morning and whipped out the following drawing and accompanying poem. I'm unsure what either has to do with my memoirs. I suspect I'm being kissed by my often-buried art fairy. My prim-n-proper self doesn't let her out to play that often.

If pink were fish

. . .and dreams streamed

Would the stars still sing?

Prayers

I'm in the midst of rewriting the sections about my convent prayer life. Too young to have committed myself to such a rigorous lifestyle, I didn't appreciate the effort it took to learn to pray. It only seemed to me that we had to pray far too often; spend way too much time at it; all with very little result. God remained completely unreachable--something no amount of prayer would change. What I learned from spending hours in communal prayer was that God didn't seem to care a whit about ordinary girls like me. An opinion I didn't share with a single soul.

My Own Sacred Self

Photo belongs to Breema Center

The nunly part of me indulged  herself over the weekend by attending a three day Breema workshop at Breitenbush Hot Springs. My entire being imbibed the forested atmosphere, the sounds and sight of the nearby river, the creatively prepared vegan food, the total quiet of sleeping in the woods, and the total immersion into the bodymind experience of the workshop.

I was much too young to appreciate the hours of silence and the long retreats that were imposed upon my restless, eager self in the convent, but I’ve since attempted to replicate the elements of silence and focused solitude. Sometimes I wonder whether my longing was due to my years as a nun or an inborn inclination toward quiet that cause me to seek it out. In either case, I cherish the opportunities I’ve had to lose myself in such places as Esalen, Breitenbush, alongside the river in the Colombia River Gorge, and in the desert regions of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.

Communing with Mother Nature in whatever form it takes replaces my former need for Church and formal religions. Instead, I approach divinity through Mother Earth and ultimately through my own sacred self.