CreativeMythologyCreating Personal Mythology

Banks Peninsula

It has been five weeks now since I began at YMCA Wainui Park in the position of Catering Manager. My son drove me out there the day before I was due to start. As fate would have it we ran into a little difficulty on the way. An accident on the hill to Banks Peninsula meant traffic would be held up for two hours. We decided to take a back road. Though I later discovered the accident had had tragic consequences the choice to take this road less travelled seemed an inspired choice. The day was clear and we had views all round for miles stretching to the south and west.

Looking South from Southern Bays Road

Since then it has been full on. With groups requiring catering almost back to back. It has only been the last two or three weekends that I’ve been able to take a some time for myself . There have been moments of grace though. The quiet time first thing in the morning when I’m able to connect with the beauty of nature that surrounds me. The silence punctuated by bird song and the wind through the trees. I had a couple of friends visit yesterday and as I showed them around they commented that everywhere they looked both at Wainui and on their trip from Christchurch seemed picture perfect.

That is the way of nature. There is perfection as we look not only closely at the plants but also at the panoramas of the bigger picture. What is it within us that seems imperfect? Creation takes time on the physical plane. Each second, each minute, each hour, each day is a step towards a perfect life. And each moment can be perfect within itself if we are both mindful and heartful in whatever it is we are doing.

Rhythm is important. During those first five weeks the tempo was intense. And now, the season over, I am finding it difficult to find a new step. Last week it felt like a pause between songs. It was like coming away from The Who concert. From the raw power of the music to ordinary life outside the stadium. That inner space that had been moved by the intensity of the music had to rediscover the pace of the everyday. And the concert was only 2 hours long. I’ve been working with that intensity 9+ hours most days for 5 weeks with the odd days respite here and there.

I’m finding a new rhythm this week. Making to time to work on my blog. Allowing work in the kitchen to develop a new pace. In the past I discovered that coming in to a new environment required time to tune into the tempo of the place then once that happened the work began to flow and more of who I am came to the fore. This change from being super busy has had a similar effect.

Talk of rhythm and tempo brings to mind the oral traditions in the times before we had written language. I imagine that the bards, the keepers of the histories, had a highly developed sense of the musicality of words which enabled them to commit large amounts of their history to memory. And I’m sure that once they got into the flow of communicating to their fellow men what was simply information in lyric form the rhythm and tempo would take them beyond the mundane to flights of fancy and into a mystical realm where they would begin to add a mythological context to the histories.

In essence the mystical experience enabled the bards to experience their God-Self. The God within. I acknowledge we all carry the seed of the Divine within us. What is it that brings us closer to experience ourselves as divine? The ancients first attributed divinity to elements of nature, to their external reality. Over time the attributes became internalised governing aspects of themselves that are seen today as forms of intelligence and yet they were seen as being somehow governed by these “god” manifestations.

Howard Gardner describes seven attributes of multiple intelligence : linguistic, logic-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily kinesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal. These can be seen manifest in the characteristics of gods described not only by ancient cultures but also in the important personages of the Common Era – masters, saints, mystics, philosophers. Their inspiration derived from experience in nature, or by seeking the silence within.

It is this space that I feel close to as I look upon the view from the deck surrounded by nature’s beauty, experiencing the silence early in the morning or late at night and allowing that to nurture my soul. Although this encounter is more immediate in rural and wilderness areas I’ve found a deeper appreciation for those green areas within the city when I’ve visited on different occasions.

I’d love to share the photos I’ve taken over the past weeks as I’ve explored my surroundings and those I’ve snapped on visits to Christchurch. Unfortunately each time I go to load photos into the post the program closes. Its frustrating and rather than seeing the beauty that I bring to the page I hope you’ll take the time to encounter the divine beauty that is waiting for you wherever you are.

Blessings

Tweet This Post

Water Lily

The day we commemorate the birth of our blended nation, New Zealand.

On February 6, 1840 the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. For more information.

The words blended nation set off some insights for me as I thought about these times of blended families. When two divorcees come together to create a family each bringing with them their children. The insights were around the dysfunction that can happen under these circumstances. And the birth of the nation was not much different. There was dysfunction. Two cultures coming together and the expectations that each felt had been inherent in the Treaty had different connotations when considered in the language each was written in. There was the Treaty written in English as well as the Treaty written in Maori, the language of the people native to New Zealand before the English arrived.

What the Maori interpreted from their translation, was different to what the English interpreted in theirs. Much like the difference in values that might be expected in the joining of two families considering each was originally bought up in a different environment. And it has taken time to get past what has been at times an ugly relationship. War, disease and repression have been manifestations of the misinterpretation of the original spirit of the document. We are still working to iron these out and make reparation for the ignorance and misunderstanding that brought injustice and heartache to the Maori.

Today I came across this beautiful sculpture prepared by a Maori carver, Riki Manuel, to honour the opening of the new Christchurch Women’s Hospital a few years ago.

Mother and Child

This aspect shows the child open to the world while the other side depicts a beautiful shyness with the child peeking out from behind the mothers legs.

That shyness, that innocence is a wonderful way of approaching anything new, without staunchness, without an egoic superiority, but with a coy interest in seeing how another is present in their reality and hoping that will be reciprocated as that other views us in a similar fashion. Through that coy interest we hopefully gain an appreciation for the other without having to change them to fit our world view.

It is a magnificent day here and I’m experiencing the sense of being led rather than leading and the absolute perfection of what I was led to along the way.

I returned via my beloved Botanic Gardens and was amazed as I walked across the lawns there my mp3 player going, headphones on, taking in some great Kiwi music. Out of the corner of my eye I spot a woman rocking a baby in her arms seemingly moving to the rhythm of the music that was running through my head. There was sense of disbelief, so I had to check in with the music again and I wasn’t mistaken. A wonderful sense of the oneness of all things in that simple moment. Wish I’d had taken video and added the music to it. But perhaps I’d never have gotten that synchronous moment to come together as it did then.

Botanic Gardens - Rolleston Avenue lawn

Today has been a great example for me of doing what I love and seeing the perfect unfold through doing that. I spent time this morning going through my email, looking at the site I’ve been working on, feeling uninspired until moved to hop on my cycle and get out enjoying the freshness, the peace, the beauty of how life is manifesting away from the house and neighbourhood.

Inside the canopy

I guess this picture encapsulates that feeling – although there are times I enjoy being inside at my computer there are other times when it becomes an obstacle to full enjoyment of life. There’s always a ray of sunshine waiting whether literal or figurative.

Just to round the day off perfectly for a good Kiwi bloke we have the first day of the IRB Rugby Sevens in Wellington and a One-Day International Cricket Match with our traditional rivals across the Tasman, Australia.

Absolute Blessings for me and for you.

Tweet This Post

Somehow the pictures don’t capture the wonder of the day.

Tweet This Post

This concept of otherness didn’t seem to be present yesterday. One idea I was pondering was needing to honour this blogging process at the end of the day rather than the beginning. The idea that I’m spending half the day working on the blog of the previous day shortens the time being able to experience the intention of the current day.

This may require being more conscious of and then journaling my dreams.  Dreams haven’t been embedding themselves in my awareness lately. The ones that are the most vivid I tend to remember. Then there are the smaller dreams that make a sort of cameo performance – I remember them in the morning but have forgotten them by the end of the day. I read somewhere that dreams are the psyche’s way of working with what is unresolved within us. I guess the vivid dreams are the more interesting things not resolved while the ‘cameo’ dreams are perhaps less interesting. Both can be equally important to the unfolding of the soul journey.

Having said that I do remember a dream from early this morning. I encountered a man, a friend I worked with over 15 years ago. As well as being a chef he also had a great mind too and could quote Shakespeare and many other poets. He was a example for me that though a chef and really focused in the physical, work wise my soul could also be further nurtured through other arts as well. I hadn’t been in contact with him for a few years though I was aware that he had Parkinson’s disease. In early January I was informed that he had passed away late last year a shell of his former self through his struggle with the disease. I experienced him in my dream as being younger than I remember him. Vibrant, brilliant, gentle, smiling. Still with that beard that he seemed to have forever though I only knew him for a few years.

Beards seem to have become a thread in my life. In the face of the dislike of beards from family and friends I have persisted with my beard. I shave it right back when it begins to look unruly and let it grow right back again. I tell people I’ve just become lazy. Who knows it may be more than that. I know I’m fascinated by the Greek God Oceanus who is depicted with a beautiful beard. I encountered him when I took a shamanic journey, a guided interactive meditation, to meet my daimon. I felt his gentle and playful nature.

At times thought to be the origin of all things, this is the god of the backward-flowing river Ocean, which bounds the earth and from which all rivers flow and every sea, and all the springs and wells.

Oceanus

I’m fascinated by the description of the backward-flowing river. Is it about always returning to our source? Acknowledging that at times the soul journey requires a backward step? Is it about feeling the energy of Earth flowing upwards through our bodies, after all Gaia was the mother of Oceanus and so intimately connected to him.

He always seems to have a troubled, yet gentle air about him in images. That gentle quality is indicated by his refusing to enter the conspiracy of his siblings to destroy his father Uranus. There is compassion in his nature. I feel that gentle but troubledness within myself.

I mentioned the daimon in The Soul Part 2 in conjunction with this sense of otherness. The deities of any of the pantheons, Greek, Roman, Asiatic, Norse, Celtic are all originally nature deities or have evolved from them. It is when I take time to be in nature and away from my urban existence that I feel the sense of this other that is also me. This other seems totally at peace with himself.

Thomas Moore mentions something similar in his audio retreat Soul Life. He recounts a story by Mircea Eliade that when he experienced this “otherness that was also himself” there was a sense of profound happiness.

Moore also mentions W.B. Yeats who felt he’d be fencing with this other back and forth, back and forth, neither one seeming to gain ascendancy. For me that begs the question – Is there a need for any ascendancy or is it the honouring of the process that is unfolding that finally allows this other to be at peace within the psyche?

I return to not having this feeling of this otherness about me. I’m not sure whether that means that all is right with my world. Am I exactly where I need to be without needing my soul consciousness to fence with me or needing to inform my innerself that I’m essentially happy.

I noticed when I was at work that there was a difference to the atmosphere of the place. Some of the staff there the previous day weren’t present. The sense of finding my feet was less and a sense of urgency had faded.  I still felt nervous and though there was less assistance at service time I managed ok, finishing earlier than I had on Saturday.

I enjoyed connecting with these new people and to feel the energy of their personalities. It takes me back to the uniqueness of each person’s experience and how they contact the world. To see how they relate to each other, to listen to the banter that unfolds among them gives a sense that they’re enjoying what they’re doing and being together.

Blessings

Resources:

Thomas Moore
Soul Life:How to Nourish and Deepen your Everyday World. Available here
Thomas Moore’s site:Care of the Soul

Greek Myth: Oceanus

Tweet This Post

It didn’t seem much of a day for humility. Frustration. Projection. Anger. Fear. Even though I began it by doing something I love. Early morning bike ride to a forest by the sea. I had hoped to ride it in the dark. Was loving my bed too much.

At that particular place, doing that activity I am at peace with myself. Sure there’s physical exertion. But my inner self is in love with it all. Even falling off. Now that’s definitely a way to experience humility. That’s what happens when I ride a new track. One I’m unfamiliar with. Not all the time. Yesterday though. Lucky the soft sand. I rode a couple of new tracks yesterday. The one I fell off on and another. On that one riding felt quite sluggish and bumpy. I didn’t like it.

The forest’s grown up since I was away. It’d have to be a few months now since I was there. I don’t like it when things change and I do like it as well. Biking around yesterday you wouldn’t believe there’d been a huge fire a couple or three years ago. Nature had reclaimed what was taken away by the folly of humans.

The scent of lupins, of the native broom, of pine filled the air. I hadn’t seen that much broom since I was a child. (I think the council decided it was a noxious weed and sprayed it to death). What does that say about them? I loved it back then. It was great to fall in love again. Its easy to feel humility in the face of nature’s splendour.

After the new stretch of track on which I felt sluggish, I rode into a piece that seemed unfamiliar, although I knew I was close to the end. I picked up speed even though it could have been a little messy if I’d come off. I felt for a few moments that it wasn’t me that wanted to go faster but the bike itself. As if it was more familiar with the track than me.

I always write after I’ve been to the forest on my bike. Somehow I see the ride as having significance to the soul’s journey to consciousness. There’s a humility within that. That while life may seem complex, the simple things experienced fully evoke blessing and awaken our soul.

The track is the track even though it has new additions here and there. Life gifts us with wonder when we take a new path. I didn’t take the route home that I’d taken there. Wish I’d had my camera with me. Could have photographed the big black mother duck with the three black ducklings, and the three yellow ducklings. It was beautiful. Two of the ducklings, one of each colour were struggling to keep up with the others I stayed and watched their journey to the water. Fascinating to watch. They made it!

I got home and of course you understand how that went from my previous post.

Humility in the face of the power of nature. Humility in the face of the power of our own internal processes. Awareness of the moment. Bless it. However it manifests.

There is a sense of eternal peace in humility. The presence of perfection in all that is.

Working with Creative Mythology what are the elements of our stories that point towards our perfection? In sharing them do we evoke love, laughter and a sense of beauty. The counterpoint between our inner voices of perfection and imperfection creates the harmony and balance of our lives. How can it be otherwise than to fully feel both dark and light without being seduced by their glamour.

Blessings for today.

Tweet This Post