Author: Lia Wilbourn

Totems

After an otherworldy dream last night, I was told to “follow my nose”, again. The voice spoke up at various times today – choose a different thought, a different way of responding, a different way of expressing myself; if even the slightest change in nuance, if even with just one word, and see. So I listened and did what it said.

Later in the day I was driving to pick something up, and on my way the voice said, “go that way”, so I took a detour. As I drove up the steep hill I happened upon a sign ‘Unitarian Universalist Church, this way’, so I followed the arrow on a steep right turn further up. “What a nice surprise, I didn’t know this church was out here” I thought. The gate to the driveway was open so I went through and up, just to see the view from the top of the hill. Empty parking lot of course, all doors closed as I figured, only signs of love.

Then I drove back down to the gate, and in the five minutes I’d decided to get out of my car at the church and look around, someone had closed the gate, and padlocked it. My car and I were trapped and the sun was about to start going down. I looked back up the hill towards the church and in the distance saw an elderly man, with a dog. I drove back up to him thinking “oh please let him be an employee,” in hopes he’d be able to let me out. No he was just a neighbor on a walk, he said. He didn’t notice the gate close either. He could walk around it, but no car could get out.

I was about to turn my car around to go back down to think about what I could possibly do or if there was a number to call. But before I turned, “can’t see, is your dog near my car?” as I didn’t want to risk hitting it. He said “dog? oh no, that’s a coyote, see look there he is”. I turned around and saw, very close, standing on the edge of the hill, the first and only coyote I’ve ever seen in Marin. He looked at me and, almost as fast as I got to contemplate him, then he took leave of us over the edge and out of sight. I knew then, ah, that’s why I came up here, and that’s why the gate closed me in, and that’s why that man was here; so I could see that coyote. I was freed from the iron gate ten minutes later. The how doesn’t matter.

Then I came across this poem by David Whyte:

RUNNING TO SEE THE MOON

I will become
the madman running
to see the moon
in the window,

the hawk
I saw tracing the cliff edge
above the river.

I will be the man
I have pursued all along
and finally caught.

I will be
all my intuitions
and all my desires
and then I will walk
slowly down the steps
as if dressed in white
and wade into
the water
for a second baptism.

I will be like
someone who cannot
hide their love
but
my joy will
become ordinary
and everyday
and like a lover
I will find out
exactly what it is like
to be the happiest,
the only one in creation
to really understand
how much,
I’m just
a hair’s breadth
from dying.

Waking Up to Mars

The day we awoke to a dark red, ashened sky a couple of weeks ago, I was asked to write from a one word prompt – Beauty.

Beauty

“Oh my God it’s so beautiful”, you are so beautiful, we are so beautiful. These words ring through me when I’m asked about beauty. Instant gasp, dipped in a reservoir of feeling that surpasses the body.

The dog that is God that I’m taking care of now, my little big gift of love, the greatest task I could think of; to be the guardian of such a sweet, calming spirit. Of course he takes care of me is the trade, an unspoken understanding in each other’s presence. I sit here in the most comfy chair imaginable, in someone else’s house I’m also taking care of.

This unexpected welcome, another light in the storm all around me, made mostly of wood; the essence of family, my family the trees that never let me down. I grieve for my giants who honor me with oxygen and protection, the hundreds of years that some of them have lived. I breathe in and taste their ashes, as I will for my loved ones when they die.

There is a fireplace here, to the right of my comfy chair as Teddy dog sleeps in my lap, and I realize I’ve had this. I’ve imagined a living room just like this, a place I’ve been in my mind that represents all that I’d love to find. I notice what I’ve been given, if even so fleetingly, and say thank you again to life.

As I lay my head back to rest it in the chair, Teddy lightly snoring and vibrating through me, in robe and socks, herbal tea to my side, ready to sip, I look out the window to the morning fog outside. Just white grey and green, only the trees can be seen, the survivors.

How many survivors of uglyness there are, all of us living and bursting through it. The unstoppable grace of forced surrender.

I’ve barely listened to music in the last few months, so strange and unlike me, as quiet soothes me now more than ever. Everything has changed, as we all ask, who am I really? But all I need do if a cry is in order, which it is almost daily it seems, is play ‘Let it Be”. Without fail every time, that same sensation, being smacked and shakened by beauty. A sound, a vision, chest expanse of feeling, and there it is again. A vastness of wisdom that hovers outside my thinking mind, touching something else to bring the tears.

What is it? There is no way of understanding while we remain here in this life, where it comes from that is without words to describe. That instant reaching down into the cellars of truth that pierces the heart and floods awe through.

Today I wonder why so few things pop up when I’m asked about beauty. Maybe it’s because I’m so moved all the time lately. A bluebird just hopped onto the deck outside! You see? The tightness of fear that I feel in the world, in the masked faces and shares and voices everywhere, in the expression of “help I don’t know what to do”. Such acute awareness of Living. There’s no turning back and no clear way forward. So we float in the smoke of limboland, in the tension of suspension above quicksand below.

I saw a man trying to break another world record, this time being the first to go highest of all. Up up in a balloon to the ceiling of Earth, then just past the borderline and into the stars. The breath of the trees was no longer there, as he floated on the precipice of space and no air. There he was, holding on now with just one arm, above the abyss of the planet below. Basecamp through his headphones says “anytime”, and suddenly, he let go. Just a man free falling from the great unknown, into his own arrival, down, down, down. As we all hold our breath, for a parachute that shows the way.

This is my life I think, as I watch him fall. Will he land? Will he survive? I don’t know, but I do. He touches ground, he made it. “We made it through” we will say, on the other side of all this. I don’t want to forget, the beauty of purgatory, as I hang in the clouds with the world and cry.

Stop and Listen

Stop trying to find your purpose. “But how will I find it if I don’t try?” You’re living it right now.

Stop trying to be positive all the time. “Then I’ll go crazy and be surrounded by darkness!” How do you know? When you have a day or two to yourself, just let the awful, exhausted, depressed,  sad feelings come up, and cry it out if you can, for as long as it takes for something new to come in. It’s trying to, but your insistence on denying your dark feelings isn’t letting it.

Stop comparing, with anyone else or with who you think you should be. “But how will I do anything, then I’ll just do nothing!” Really? You’re doing something now, by listening to me.

Stop trying to impress people. Stop needing to be understood. Just express who you are, just to yourself, or to the world. Or don’t.

“Ok, now what?”

You’ll be happy in moments and then you won’t. You’ll suffer in moments and then you won’t. You’ll fall into despair and then something will change. You’ll be renewed with faith, then you’ll start yet again.

Deaf to our own whisper that knows, drowned out and hidden, in webs of contradiction, by everyone else’s voices, and the false critics of our own, incessant talking and asking, criticizing and doubting, stifling the wisdom that’s hidden in plain sight.

The whisper waits, inside the heart, outside the barriers, for a break in the thunder.

And there it speaks, breathing relief, into the form that houses it’s grandeur:

“You don’t know the power of You, but I do,
I am here and I will never leave,
in every thought and every feeling, I know who you really are,
you don’t need to be anything else at all,
it’s ok, be afraid, discomfort won’t kill you,
it’s ok, go insane, you won’t really, I’m with you,
your Light is brighter than a million Suns,
if you die in this instant you have already won,
however you are is perfectly You,
When the moment arrives, you’ll know what to do,
it could be tonight, tomorrow or next year,
but you’ll always be free, I will always be here.”

You let go and accept, “thank you, I feel you near”

The whisper responds “now, here’s an idea…”

Blinders

Blinders

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”- MLK

I’ve been disappointed, though not surprised, at a handful of acquaintances in the “spiritual”, “life coach”, “manifesting” world, all of them white, who call themselves independent thinkers, even progressive, and are actually buying into some of the Trump/Far Right Republican talking points. At first, these have included that having to wear a mask (to help prevent people from dying) is a ruse/plot to control us, hearing things like “Big Government…Bill Gates…pedophile rings…Jeffrey Epstein’s friends (hello, Trump was one of them, when asked about Ghislaine Maxwell he said, twice, “I wish her well”. Don’t get me started.)

This has devolved into “well really, all lives matter because we are all One…just move on from slavery and stop playing the victim…drop your story…just be happy…you can heal yourself…you can never really be harmed”. There’s a term for it now because it’s become so prevalent, GasLightworker.

Yes, most of the pharmaceutical companies are not to be trusted. The power of the mind to heal is a real thing and is actually possible. Love is the answer. In the big picture, everything is working out as it must. We can change our perceptions about our pasts and our futures. Miracles do happen. But that doesn’t mean we get to impose our privilege soaked, spiritual heirarchy mindfuckery onto those who are knee deep in struggle, pain, crisis.

It is insulting, diminishing and disrespectful not only to them, but to those parts of ourselves that have suffered too. No matter how much we improve our ability to feel good, our shadow follows us everywhere. It has a purpose, let’s honor it and the lessons it’s taught us. Acknowledge it’s wisdom to change us; to remember our wounded child. It remains there not to torture us but to free us, so that we can truly be “of service”.

We must, always, put ourselves in other’s shoes who are less fortunate than we are. Then help in any way we can, big or small. Self Mastery is not just standing up for love. It is standing up TO intolerance, hatred, and most insidious, indifference.

What’s especially dangerous about this slippery slope of denial in the “spiritual/personal development” community right now, is the slow dismissing and dehumanizing of the “less evolved”, the poor, the suffering. This is part of what contributed to the rise of Nazi Germany. We must nip this in the bud now when we see it, by not being silent, when those in our own circles show signs of “other”ism, classism, and of course very subtle or blatant racism.

The silence I was met with a few days ago, when I confronted a racist comment in a facebook group I was invited to (“a place for conscious, deep discussions”), was beyond eye opening. That person’s comment remains without anyone else denouncing it.

We didn’t come here for “I got mine”, or to just be “Divine”. We are here to be Humanity too, and to take care of our fellow Earthlings who inhabit it. Therein lies the rub, our greatest challenge.

By shutting our eyes and ears to others pain, be they human animal or non-human animal, to deny our own dark feelings, to stop ourselves from being affected by the world, so we can maintain our “high vibration” and “manifest prosperity”, is to eventually end up in a spiritually bypassing gated community with other people exactly like us. In that mansion, we stop growing, learn nothing, and betray ourselves in the process. That’s not abundance, that’s death in disguise.

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Lost and Found

A few weeks ago I had a nightmare. In it, I was that person I’ve been running away from my whole life. You know the one. The person you don’t want to be, the one you dread lives inside you, the one you don’t want anyone else to see. The one, in our worst moments, we’re terrified we might end up becoming. The “failure” who looks back and sees a pile of regrets. That is the person, the nightmare, that I was living in this dream.

I was in some drab, dark house with vague people around me and a long hallway. The feeling was that I was a “loser”. (To me there’s really no such thing, but nightmares take no prisoners.) I had zero self esteem, hated my job, myself and my life. (If ever there was a time to be confronted with our worst fears, a Pandemic fits the bill).

Someone asked me to foster a litter of newborn kittens, just for a few weeks, then they would come back for them. All I had to do was take care of them until then. I said yes and put them in a room at the end of the hall.

In the next moment, it was three weeks later and suddenly I realized “oh my God, the kittens!”. I had completely forgotten about them the entire time, as soon as I’d shut the door. In that moment was the most heartwrenching pain and realization, they had all starved to death, and now I had to go see what I’d done. I ran down the hallway crying and screaming “Nooooo! I’m so sorry!” I opened the door, horrified at what I would find. There were large pillows and sheets and blankets everywhere. I didn’t see any of them and started frantically throwing the pillows off and looking under the blankets.

And one by one, they each crawled out from under, toward me, alive! Tiny little malnourished meowing things, but oh Holy Glorious Day they were alive! I swooped each of them up, smothering them with kisses, “oh god my dear little one I am so sorry, thank you for living for me”. Then I woke up, crying tears of joy and relief. Relief that they survived, that I didn’t cause their deaths, and of course that it was all just a terrible nightmare. I wasn’t that person after all, who was so ashamed and guilty. Thank you thank you thank you. I had another chance.

We’ve been battling our worst case scenarious throughout this Age of Quarantine, in a limbo between worlds. The time has come and we can feel it, something huge is being birthed. It is now upon us. Yet Quarantine is our holding pattern, between the old self and the new.

In real life, there has been a stray kitty showing up on occasion around my block. I hadn’t seen it, but about six months ago my housemate had been woken up every night for a week with scratching at her window. She caught a glimpse of what she thought could be a kitten, as it was small, and it would run away each time she’d open the window. We had to get the landlord to install little animal resistant rubber spikes to the roof tiles near her window. After that, the kitty did not return. When I mentioned it to my neighbor, she said it sounded like the same cat that she occasionally sees on her back porch. It would run whenever she got near it.

I secretly hoped I might come across it myself sometime and try to rescue it too. Well, a few weeks after that nightmare, I was in my living room about to do my exercises. I’d resolved to have this daily practice during the lockdown, my dancer training, my yoga, my rituals, and had brought my computer to the dining room table for the videos I use for inspiration. When I opened the computer, I was facing the front window to the lawn and trees out front. And when I looked out, I saw a cat in a tree! I instantly went out to it, doubting it would come down, could this be that same cat I’d hoped to see?

I walked towards the tree, I called up to it, “hello there sweetie” and it meowed back at me. Then, lo and behold it came running down the tree and right over to my feet. A scrawny, and quite exotic looking little thing. It reminded me of a lynx, it was gray and black, with white chest and paws just like my own cat, and a white streak on it’s forehead. I picked it up and it did not struggle but instead just let me hold it. I thought, “ok, you’re coming in with me”. I had a feeling it was a she.

She jumped up on the kitchen counter and looked around, but when my housemate’s cat suddenly screeched and lunged at her, she ran into the pantry closet and hid in the corner behind some grocery bags. She had turned her back to me, facing the wall, and hissed and growled at me when I got close. “I’m sorry, I know you trusted me, and now you think I’ve betrayed you”. I put my housemate’s cat upstairs in his room, put water and food down next to kitty and closed the door to let her relax. I texted my housemate a picture, “oh yes, that’s the cat!” she said. I then put ads on Nextdoor and Craigslist and asked a bunch of neighbors if they were missing a cat. No, I waited overnight, nothing.

I’d gone back several times to check on her and she later stopped growling and let me pet her. I felt bonded to her already and was starting to feel a sadness that I couldn’t keep her. If my housemate’s cat wasn’t here, my own cat is a gentle soul, I likely would have. The next day I took her to the Humane Society, who’d assured me they’d check for a chip, and if nobody claimed her she’d be put up for adoption. They said they wouldn’t euthanize.

I put her in my cat crate and we got in the car. As we drove, I talked to her and sang to her “it’s all going to be okay”. When I parked, before going in, sitting in the car, I let her out of the crate and took her in my arms. She held on and nuzzled into my neck and shoulder, while straightening up and looking out with bright eyes at the big wide world; comforted yet dying to explore it.

I took her in and put her on the counter. They scanned for a chip, there was none. I filled out the intake form and asked if they could let me know what sex it was. They’d take her inside and the vet would check. “And do you think she’s a kitten?” I asked. “No, she’s fully grown, she’s just small”. I then said goodbye to her, and let her go, into a protected world of tameness. Now she was safe, but I’d taken something sacred away from her. They came back to say, “she’s a girl”.

The next day, I saw they’d posted a picture of her on the website, under ‘lost and found’. There she was, being taken good care of by loving humans. I’ve looked at her photo a lot since then, wanting to absorb her fierce, adventurous, mysterious energy into me.

My lucky number, the number I constantly see in moments of significance, and my birthday number, is 22. When I got back to the car that day and looked at the receipt of her intake form, on the top right corner there it was. She was number 22.

I rescued her from the wild. But did I? Is that what she wanted? I’ll never know, and part of me wants to take her back and set her free. She rescued me, from a fear I no longer need. Thank you sweet, beautiful creature, for showing up just in time. For leading me into the new wild, the new frontier, with grace, innocence and strength. Your spirit lives in me now. I will need it. And I promise, I will use it.

White silence

I live in Marin County. I love all the nature and beauty of the land and I happened to score a very affordable rental (for the Bay Area) years ago. It’s a very wealthy and very white place, with some pockets like Fairfax and others that are known as being progressive but, overall, same old predictable leanings in an area like this. The stark contrast is Marin City, where there is a large black community, living in government subsidized housing; just over the hill and just an exit away from Mill Valley, Sausalito and Tiburon, where luxury homes are everywhere.

I was out driving in San Rafael today, a slightly more diverse town, and saw a group of protesters marching down the street chanting “I can’t breathe!”, with a police escort in front and behind. Traffic was slowed down alongside them as they walked and I drove over and started honking my horn in unison with their chanting.

And folks, almost nobody else was honking. Possibly the easiest, no effort whatsoever way to show support, and you can’t even honk? The defeaning silence of the people in the cars spoke volumes. The black man at the head of the march was looking out at the cars, waiting to hear honking, waiting for solidarity, and he was met with practically nothing. If that doesn’t say it all, I don’t know what will. Not just disappointing and infuriating, heartbreaking.

Those without a voice

There’s a million things I can post about on social media right now, and I know that posting about the plight of animals and the consequences of our actions regarding them can get a collective “oh please, yawn, there’s so many other things to be talking about right now! This is not the time!”

It’s always the time to talk about compassion. We feel compassion for the elderly, the sick, the dying, those who are losing everything, those in the deepest stress and fear of their lives right now, these things that I am feeling on a deep level too. I have a lot of fear too, I’ve been suffering in certain ways too. No one can know the pain in another’s heart. And I hurt for all those around the world who are suffering. And thank God we are finally talking about the things that really matter to us. And if ever there was a time to say “I don’t care anymore how people are going to react to what’s in my heart and what I need to say, no matter how it’s perceived, get over yourself!” it is NOW.

This issue is just one of many passions, there is so much to love in this world, so much beauty; the beauty of animals is one of them. And they are also (like immigrants, like prisoners, like the homeless, like the poor and disenfranchised) the forgotten; dismissed, hurt and thrown away. I’m not a mother, and in lieu of my own child, animals pierce my heart just like a child does. They are innocent, they feel joy, pain and fear too. They just want to live, be free and be with their families.

What is so yearned for in these times is being honest about how we feel and what we’re going through. To say what we must say because it’s more painful not to. is  The planet needs you to be who you are, now more than ever, so that others can know that they can too. Love your fellow Human, reach out and give to your fellow Human. Love your fellow Earthling too.

And please stop eating them, and their milk that was stolen from their babies, as their babies were stolen from them. You can do this for a variety of reasons, for the environment, to prevent another pandemic, for your own health, but to do it for them is the true calling of love. The peace of knowing that you’re doing no harm, and helping Mother Earth and all its inhabitants to heal, is a great relief and empowering strength that no taste pleasure, convenience or cultural pressure can give you.

(art by Lynda Bell)

Spring

When we hit rock bottom, we start to hear the questions we’d never allowed ourselves to ask. And we decide to finally say them out loud.

If healthcare costs for Covid 19 treatment is waived, why do we have to pay for cancer treatment, or any other healthcare costs at all?

If vote by mail is implemented because of Covid 19, making it easier for all of us to vote, why shouldn’t we do vote by mail in every election?

If Amazon or WalMart or other slave labor should suddenly provide their workers with paid sick leave, protective gear, and a liveable wage (because we now realize that how they are treated affects ALL OF US), why shouldn’t all employers have to offer paid sick leave and liveable wages?

If we didn’t like our work, our lives, or our ways of being before, but didn’t change because we were too afraid of what would happen if we did, why did life require a pandemic to force us to think (and FEEL) about that?

Because we weren’t listening, too busy with distraction to hear our own voices.

As I sit here watching the birds taking off, and the trees in the breeze, and the clouds slowly moving across the sun; despite the crazy, despite the death, despite the pain, despite the fear; why do I hear them whisper that this is the best thing that could have happened to the world?

Because the terrifying, unpredictable, beautiful Unknown, in all it’s glorious potential for change, is better than the sleeping numbness of the same old predictable known.

Spring is here, time to wake up.

Masks

I sense that all of us are intensely craving, more than ever, the need to be REAL. So many little hints in people’s posts of their pain but we’re too afraid and feel too vulnerable to talk about it. So many stifled tears in the dark.

Spirit can only suppress it’s nature for so long. The Mask is suffocating us. The dam is breaking. I want you to know – if you’re hiding from life, and yourself, I get it. Most of us are, sometimes or mostly, in one way or another. I see you and love you. Who the hell are we and what the hell is going on?

I’m giving less and less of a shit about how I’m perceived. Whether we’re in a dynamic and positive phase, “manifesting”, and sharing it, and yes let’s be real, wanting recognition that we’re ok after all; or if we’re in the darkest pit imaginable, we all just want to be loved.

We don’t actually know where to go, what to do or who to be. But we’re not supposed to. How could we? That’s the play. I have ideas but who knows. All I can do is put one foot, one voice, one feeling in front of the other. And yet, I’m in my own corner. When it comes down to it, as much as we all want community, friends, loved ones, you need yourself more.

Express something you’re afraid to but must, because it hurts not to. Admit something you’ve long ignored. Turn to your own self too, in love and mercy. I’ve had some beautiful days and terrible nights. And so it goes. I suffer and I rejoice in all of it, goddamn it all to heaven.

newborn

Remember, you can be lost in stuckness, avoiding everything
adrift in mazes that go on forever
mourning the kid you were
disappointed and middle aged
a frump among the accomplished
“who took the wrong turn and ended up here?”
finding no solace in supposed freedom,
slamming the brakes in despairing compulsion
but then,
you stop hiding inside your own mind
and venture down to the body that knows
and feel that sadness screaming to be felt
“take me in please, stop locking the door”,
ok I’m crying, long and hard
and that baby, pushing to get out,
bathing in sorrow
wailing for years to finally be born
takes it’s breath and exhales relief,
remember, your baby needs air
don’t leave it inside in the dark.

(art by Katie Berggren)