Culture and Responsibility

In one of my last classes an exercise was proposed that would allow us to experientially participate in our own healing, and in that of our partner. With the pronouncement that cognition, or understanding the source of our pain wasn’t enough, our instructor said that the purpose of this exercise was to create a lived experience, both emotionally and physically, in order for healing to take place.

We could choose to be either “mother” or “child”. I chose to be the “mother”, as this is a role I am more familiar with being the oldest girl in my family with nine younger siblings. All “mothers” were to gather in another room for instructions. We were told that we had three children and a husband who was upset about losing his job. We were therefore to be visibly hostile toward the baby, with an attitude of not wanting it. For many of us this was very difficult to hear, and I felt afraid for the babies. The instructor’s response to our outrage was to say that the intention of the exercise was healing. I felt I had no choice but to go along with it.

I sat down next to an older man who had been instructed to lie helpless—only being able to move his head slightly left or right—an infant of about two to three weeks of age. I didn’t look at him, and projected anger, which was easy to do since I didn’t like how the exercise was set up. I focused on the baby who was lying there so helpless and terrified. At some point it was announced that we were now “good-enough” mothers and could hold the baby and give it love with our eyes. That was such a release for me as I rushed to make up for what I had done. My baby was so responsive and receiving of the love. I stroked him and held him, looking adoringly at him, and he was so happy.

After the exercise, I wanted to be alone and went to my room to think about it. I was still very upset, and I finally realized why. I felt I had been betrayed by the school, by the teachers and was at first angry with them. Then I got angry with myself for allowing it to happen. I had betrayed myself, and my principles by going along with the exercise and the subsequent deception and betrayal of the baby.

I thought about times when I just went along with what an authority figure told me. “It’s for the best. It’s for the good of the whole. It will be healing for you in the long-run.” Abdicating my own responsibility and leaving the decision to others, I notice makes me angry and resentful. I still make the same mistake though—like when I accepted my role as “angry mother” and knowingly hurt that poor “baby” in the name of healing. However, I have not given up on learning or changing. I am not interested in blaming someone else, or the “establishment”. I am willing to take responsibility for my own actions and the resulting betrayals as well as successes. And I am committed to self-care, acknowledging that I would speak with my instructor about this experience and register my feelings in the situation.

Afterwards, I told my friend and she said . . . “but . . .” and went on to explain how it had impacted her. It was an exercise in the schizoid characterology after all, meant to uncover those early fears and rejections. She said that since I don’t have an overabundance of schizoid issues I should go along with it for the sake of the others who do. This sounded like more of the same to me—let someone else decide what I needed. I said again, that’s why I decided to look at it as an anger/betrayal issue, especially of myself. This was what I needed to learn from it.

What would I do the next time, I thought? I decided that I might even do the exercise, but I would do it with my own permission, and not just follow blindly. The whole point of the exercise was to create a “felt experience” in a safe environment in order to allow one’s self to let go of the mind’s hold on past wounds and events by actually feeling them and then bringing them into the present. This was something that I believed in, and by taking responsibility for my actions, I would experience exactly what I needed for this to happen.

Cosmic Rainbow

black void before the light
molten red around iron core
orange-in [origin!] of creation
bursting forth in yellow light
green growing, winding, swirling
toward the opening blue sky
into the vast, infinite indigo of space
decorated with white stars that expand ever outward
into the no-thing-ness of the black velvet void


This is my neighbor and sister, Doris Kennedy, who paints the intuitive reality
of quantum physics and the space between the space between the space.

God Is Afoot

God is my foot
as I dance upon the tables
of the money changers
The tables of gold--altars of selfish gods
are altered as I dance.
Molten gold turns cents to sense
as I find myself in the presence
of the Beloved
(I like presents)

God is my hand and my body
and my being.
Whirling in the molten sunlight
I rise in joy, in ecstasy
As I too become molten, the closer
I get to the sun.

Unlike Icharus, as I melt,
I find my wings.

(dedicated to Samantha, whose youth and wisdom
are an invitation to dance)

I want to take hold of my life and LIVE!

"I feel the Core Star Energy in each cell of my being. Like dancing sparkles, only better, more brilliant, more expansive. I feel each cell bursting into light --one here, one there--like popcorn in the microwave. Increasing in momentum--pop, Pop, POP--my cells are exploding, first one and then another, cascading throughout my body like Great Falls, Virginia, where all the streams from the hills meet in one rocky place and find their reason and purpose to flow together into oneness. I have met my sister and we are one illuminating light together: creating love, peace, healing Breath!" (written on day 4 of the week's experience, during a writing exercise at the Barbara Brennan School of Healing)

Needless to say it was a great experience. Before I signed up (which happened very quickly and unexpectedly) I had asked: "Our daughter has married and moved out; I've lost my job; Dad is passed and Mom is all settled in her new place; I have spent enough time contracting and having space and am now beginning to feel sorry for myself--what is it that I need to do for me?" I was immediately brought to the Barbara Brennan School of Healing. Definitely the place to uncover my wounds and heal, while at the same time being filled up in order to give.

Normally I would have asked: "What is it that You would have me do?" The new focus of my question has created new clarity and perspective that is uncovering my power. No, that is the way it is expressed easily, but power is misunderstood and too often abused. A deeper way to say that is that I am 'feeling my life': its past with all my wounds, difficulties, and confusion; its present with all my insecurities, fears, blocks and regrets; and its future with all the love that I want to pour out of my being in partnership with the Beloved, all my potential to realize loving relationships on this Earth and Be who I Am.

Now my head goes back to the last two blogs about pursuing goodness and allowing myself the freedom to be me with the accompanying responsibility, good results, and discipline to learn the harmony and flow of the Principles of Creation. This new place is balancing that headiness with the heart focus of letting myself drop or sink in to the awareness that I Am already, and it is enough.

Pursuing Goodness (part 2)

Freedom wasn’t the only criteria for goodness or wisdom however. I also discovered that there is no free will without responsibility. I alone am responsible for my actions. No matter what I do alone, or in conjunction with another, the freedom to act meant that I was responsible for the results. If the results were positive I could rejoice. Often I found myself hurting other’s hearts. The freedom that I thought I was gaining by acting on my beliefs showed me instead the harsh reality of my immaturity. The pursuit of wisdom was an on-going process stretching out before me for the rest of my life, if I had the courage to learn the hard discipline of being responsible for this freedom.


I was discovering that in order to create a reality and a path based on these principles one needed the same discipline and rules that creation lived by naturally. One of the most important points for me was patience. It takes time to grow and change, and growth can be measured by looking at the development of my relationship with myself and with others.

That was when I realized that there is no freedom without actual results—and those results bring about my own personal transformation and growth. In pursuing wisdom, in looking for a Path to wholeness, I discovered that the Way itself was not the question, nor the answer. In religion, the one leads to the All leads to the One. In science the atom leads to the Universe leads to the no-thing-ness. As the Japanese poet Basho writes, “Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.” Every day of my life I must recognize the question and the answer of who I Am, being at home and one with myself, while being in relationship and in oneness with all those around me.

As I got older I had another invaluable insight that helped me understand my own individual pursuit of wisdom toward the greatest wisdom of being good. My connection with God, although a strong base and stable support, was not enough. True creativity on the path towards goodness did not happen alone, but in union with another, and then in community. I prayed, “God, let me understand how to have right relations with all beings.” With this I was led to the study of Earth Literacy.

In nature I saw in practice the value of diversity, cooperation, mutual respect and long-term commitment. I experienced unconditional love, patience and forgiveness. It was obvious that these were values that humankind has a hard time remembering, and wisdom that our connection with everything around us could teach us. “Creation waits in eager longing for the sons of God to be revealed.” (Romans 8:19) Earth offers us her gifts and we are only now beginning to realize that we have squandered them.

It dawned on me then that the path toward wisdom I was on was not my own, but one the whole human community was following. Some of us have achieved freedom from want, hunger, and the elements, but has it led to goodness and responsibility? Our innovations have led to advancements in technology, medicine and industry, but many of these efforts have not been made in a disciplined way—they have not taken into account the principles by which the rest of creation has lived and thrived. This we see in the results around us.

My efforts were not for me alone, but ones that had to be made in concert with the rest of humankind. As my own understanding of community grew, so did my desire for like-minded individuals who also believed in the goodness and the need at this time towards responsible living. Having this support was necessary if the impact was to be felt worldwide.

However, I did not want to become part of another social movement, protesting this or that. For a long time in my life, I felt that in order to change I had to fight. I had to fight against the pattern of society around me in which I did not fit. I fought against my parents and my church because I didn’t fit in their pattern either. Trying desperately to fit in to a society that had different beliefs and values than I did because I wanted, I needed to belong, I fought against myself as well.

What I found in nature was peace, as I felt the interconnection of each unique piece, none more valuable or powerful than the other, each fitting into the cosmic scheme, each being themselves, offering themselves for the greater good of the other, and adapting and evolving to find their place in the universe. This reflected the difference between domination, resistance or oppression, and creativity.

At this point I recognize that creatively for people to become themselves there must be cultural development and understanding that leads us back to our relationship with Mother Earth and Father Sky, with all uniquely valuable beings in this physical realm from the smallest bacteria to the largest galaxy, and with the myriad beings in the spiritual or other-dimensional worlds that also wait in eager longing for humankind’s next step in the pursuit of wisdom. It was at this time in my life, then, that I was led to study at Wisdom University.

It is in our culture that we hold our beliefs and morals, our thought patterns and our fears. Our culture is what gives us our symbols and our stories, from being chained in a cave to finding our way into the light on the mountaintop. It also produces the consequences that we see around us, many of which are the result of the fear that holds us back from achieving greatness. This greatness, as I see it, being a product of wisdom, is in the creativity of wholeness, when people realize that problems are larger than themselves, and begin finding the answers in community. Paul Ray aptly labels these pioneers the Cultural Creatives, and it is within this interconnectiveness that I am in the process of discovering my unique contribution.

Pursuing Goodness (part 1)

Why did God make the sun to shine,
If it doesn’t shine
All of the time?

Why did God make the men who sin,
If in sinning
They turn away from Him?

My first thoughts of God appeared to be deep and transcendental. Writing this poem in elementary school expressed just some of the many questions I had about life, God and religion. I grew up in a Catholic family, the oldest girl of eleven, with one older brother. There were eight boys and three girls. My mom was a nurse and my dad an electrical engineer. We were taught that the Catholic religion was the one true religion and that family mattered.

Another question that bothered me was about the reality of hell. I had my first experience with death at the age of eight when my uncle, my grandmother and my young cousin all died within a month of each other. My mom must have handled communicating this to us very well, since I have no memory of a fear of death. I remember going to say our last goodbyes to an open coffin. I still recall vividly Uncle Willie, with his bright, thick, white hair and florid complexion, looking so peaceful and content in death, as in life. That was no surprise to me since I was told repeatedly that he was a good man and therefore would find his place in Heaven.

After that month of an outpouring of familial love, I began questioning the logic of Hell. If God truly is a God of love, I asked, how can He possibly condemn any of His children to Hell for eternity? Even the worst person on Earth can find one person who will love and forgive him—most likely his mother. If, in all our frailty and selfishness, we humans can find it in our hearts to do that, how can a God of infinite love deign to condemn someone forever? I could understand punishment, but not eternal damnation. Slowly I was working my way beyond the thresholds of Catholicism.

Then there was the question of Jesus. Following years of grammar school questions, when I entered high school and continued to question, not my faith—surely there was a God with whom I had a very close relationship—but the details, that were to be believed unquestioning—my mother resorted to asking her sister, who was a nun, over to the house on a regular basis. “If God is God, and Jesus is God, why do we need Jesus?” My aunt’s answer to that was a short: “Don’t worry about it. As long as you believe in God, that’s ok.” At that point I decided to find my own answers, taking courses in Hebrew, learning the ancient philosophers, and studying early Christian history.

Outside of school I would stop and talk to anyone who stopped me. Since I was in New York City, and it was the ’70s, there were innumerable groups vying for my attention—from the Hare Krishnas, the Seventh Day Adventists, the Mormons, Scientologists, to the Moonies. I visited Baptist churches, Jewish synagogues and Hindu temples. I worshiped with Buddhist, Christian and Shinto. I read Siddhartha and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, along with the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls. I threw the I Ching faithfully, but I never did get into the reading of Tarot cards.

In the end (or perhaps it was the beginning of the beginning), when it came to following a Path, I did what I always did—I asked. I asked God. I threw it out there to the Universe in all its vast wisdom of the ages—and, for the first time in my life, I got no answer. I had always gotten very clear answers before. Do this; don’t do that; listen closely; lighten up; always the guidance was substantial and resonated deeply within my being. This time I pleaded, I demanded, I cursed, I ranted, I threatened, I begged, and the answer I received was always the same. “Anne, it’s up to you. It’s your choice.”

I didn’t want it. I didn’t want the freedom—or the responsibility—to decide what was right or good for me. I wanted to be told; I wanted to obey; I wanted to follow. God never let me off the hook. That was when I started piecing together what the meaning of true freedom was. There is no freedom without my deciding and then taking action. Sitting on the fence made me a prisoner of the circumstances. Following someone else’s beliefs was no better. Even just pronouncing my own belief in something without acting upon it daily was not freedom, but a life dictated by the precepts of others. I must recognize the truth in my own heart, what was right for me, at this time, in this place. Then, putting my whole heart into it, I could say that I was leading a good life.

Wisdom as a Way of Life

The next paper I had to write for my PhD was about what “Wisdom as a Way of Life” means to me. What I first came up with was that wisdom would be the knowledge and insight that my experience and intuition has taught me as I delve beneath the surface of life. Explaining this in terms of the ideals and beliefs that I have and then relating the thoughts and feelings that I experience as I try to live my life as a reflection of these ideals, was my first goal.

The discoveries that I make in living a wisdom way of life are grounded in a belief system, but are substantiated through practice. Therefore, I whole-heartedly agree with philosophers when they say that wisdom is a pursuit rather than a possession. I also agree with Emerson who writes “all my best ideas were stolen by the ancients.” As a result, I wanted to rely on the expression of my heart, rather than the creation of an essay of ideas for my paper.

But I started with an overview of what I believe: At some point in our development human beings lost an intimate connection with the Beloved along with the habit of seeing the pattern of the whole. Thus, we look for knowledge, for principles, both scientific and spiritual (or religious), to explain our purpose and our longing for Oneness. However, unless we rediscover the wisdom that comes with relating to the Beloved, unless we come to reflect the harmony and goodness that is the Source and pattern of creation, we will not be able to achieve our own potential.

When we go back to our roots, to our connection with the Source, we discover the true wisdom of our own creation and belonging. This wisdom is reflected in the principles from which the very universe was created. One such principle is what Brian Swimme calls “allurement”—the simple attraction of one for another with the purpose of creating something more diversified and whole. The essence of allurement—which began with the out-breathing of the Big Bang, and the in-breathing of gravity—wraps us in an ever-expanding spiral of relational giving and receiving. This is the moment when we are touched and embraced by the very universe itself—a moment of grace, Thomas Berry calls it—one we can recapture every day. That is our responsibility.

I believe the most fundamental characteristic of this world is allurement, or in our case, love. Love is unselfish, always thinks of the larger picture, and is always living for the sake of others. This is the nature we were created with, and developing this kind of character is something that we have yet to attain. To relearn this original ideal and heart of love we must develop it within the experience of a truly loving family. We not only lost our connection with the Beloved and with nature, we also lost love—our ability to love as parents, as children, as brothers and sisters, as husband and wife.

Actually, contemplating the idea of wisdom further, I began to entertain the notion that wisdom is not knowledge at all. In my perception, knowledge is based on the understanding of the principles and laws that manage and maintain the physical or substantial world, and the spiritual or insubstantial, perhaps other-dimensional, world. Our experience of these worlds (and this is not implying that there are two distinct worlds, but rather two aspects of the same world) helps us express these principles in scientific and spiritual terms.

Practicing, or putting into action what we have experienced, helps us live in harmony within the structure and pattern that makes up the whole. Remembering is the groundwork or foundation for our experiences that connects us with our roots, with our inheritance, and gives us a sense of place within the schema of the cosmos.

However, wisdom is beyond knowledge or experience or remembering. I believe wisdom is embraced during that moment of awe that comes with the openness to receive the wonder and greatness of the universe. The heart of wisdom is the realization of I Am as I open to receive the love emanating from the Heart of the Beloved, believing that I Am, in all my individuality, also in Oneness with the Source. Living beyond the boundaries of control or understanding, a wisdom way of life exists within the flow of creativity that is the source of love, life and lineage.

This is wisdom, as I know it. The only thing I can be sure of is that I know nothing from myself, but I can, at moments, be open to the whole, for I have the stuff of stars in my lungs, and the lava of love in my veins, and I have surely felt the Beloved’s kiss in the early morning mist and in the wonder of my daughter’s love.