Our
Mother must return to balance….
Our
Mother is out of balance. The world cannot continue like this. There is a new
world coming. The old is passing away. Our Mother must return to balance. – Mayan spiritual leader,
Chichicastenango, Guatemala, July 2009
Then
I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth
had passed away, and the sea was no more. – The Apocalpyse of John, 21:1
We had all seen the movie with John Cussack complete with
the 21st CE techno-marvel version of Noah’s Ark. The world was going
to end in cataclysmic disaster and only the American techno-wizard Noahs, a few
select animals and, of course, their obligatory military rulers would survive.
A new world would emerge from the ruins of the old and the chosen people –
Americans, of course - would now rebuild this new earth under its new heaven.
The Mayan spiritual leader had seen the film, too. And
she smiled when she told us, “Yes, the world is going to end as we know it. But
not like Hollywood has told you.” She continued, “Our Mother is out of balance. The world cannot continue like this.
There is a new world coming. The old is passing away. Our Mother must return to
balance.” When pressed about details (Would Florida go under water? Would
California fracture off the San Andreas Fault and slip into the Pacific? Will
the magnetic poles reverse?) she simply smiled and said, “You will see.”
We sat largely in silence on the microbus as we returned
from the Mayan spiritual service in the woodlands not far from Chichicastenango
in the Mayan Highlands of Guatemala. There we had observed the ritual building
of the fire, the systematic placement of candles made of red, white, black and
green waxes into the flames as well as various aromatic leaves and branches. We
had watched this moving liturgy complete with periodic explanation of what was
being done and said. And we had joined in the final prayers for Pachamama, the
Mother earth, all of her life forms and for an awareness of the connection of
our own human life form to the matrix of life in which we live, move and have
our being.
It had been a deeply spiritual afternoon. And it left
understandings that would continue to inform my life long after I had returned
from Guatemala. Indeed, many of these very same words would be repeated to me
almost verbatim by Amayra descendants of the Inca in Bolivia the very next
summer.
A
Day of Remembrances
On the morning of December 21, 2012, I found myself suddenly
awake at 5:00 AM, unable to return to sleep. The morning’s news on my iPad was
full of hype about the end of the world and the hysteria – not to mention the
parties – that attended it. But in the back of my mind, something was telling
me that this shortest day of the year, this end of one solar revolution and
beginning of the next, should be marked by something more than hype.
In my own life history this was already a special day for
me. My only brother was born a year after me on this day. St. Marge, our loving
mother, remembered that day as “the coldest day of 1954 in Ft. Myers, Florida”
(in contrast with September 1 of the previous year, “the hottest day of 1953”
on which I had been born across the state in West Palm Beach). I have always
felt sorry for birthday impaired folks like my brother whose birthdays often
get ignored in the hysteria of the great consumerist orgy to which Christmas has
largely devolved. So I make a special effort to remember the annual feast day of
my brother’s nativity with a present and a card if not dinner and a party.
December 21 is also the day I was ordained into the
Episcopal Church as transitional deacon in my home parish of St. Philips, San
Jose, CA. The Gospel was read in five languages that night, an honor song was
sung to me by an elder member of our American Indian congregation and our
bishop brought my then-partner, now-husband Andy to stand with me in front of
our parish for a standing ovation of thanks for his role in my getting to that
place. The lessons for the Feast of (Doubting) Thomas the Apostle used that
night were appropriate for new deacons. It was a glorious evening in the St.
Philips’ tradition.
I am also keenly aware that solstices have always been solemn
occasions for my Celtic ancestors. I thought back to the incredible spiritual
power I had experience at Stonehenge during my visit in 1983. This morning the
descendants of faithful people who had long gathered amidst the still-standing
stones on that desolate hillside – some no doubt my own distant relatives - would
gather once again to watch the sun rise between the upright megaliths.
One
door closes, another opens…
When
one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully
upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us. – Alexander Graham Bell
With all of those thoughts rumbling around my head at 5:00
AM, it suddenly dawned on me that a day like this should be remembered with
intentionality and celebrated. And so I searched the internet for any
observances of the solstice in Orlando. To my surprise, there was such an
observance at a local independent coffee shop just down the street. I quickly
rose, showered and headed out into what was a very cold morning for Central
Florida.
The observance began at 5:30 in an open lot adjacent to
the coffee house. A fire blazed in the center of the lot and blankets and
chairs had been mercifully provided. The fire lent some merciful if modest warmth
against the fierce northwest wind. Periodically a shower of sparks would whirl
out of the fire making it impossible to sit too close. The back side of this
cold front was blowing away the near summer weather of the previous week and
reminding us that this was, after all, the first day of Winter even here in
Central Florida.
The organizer of the event began by asking the 30 people
gathered to voice their intentions for the observance (and thus of the new
year, the new era). Most offered the expectable
prayers one might expect in such a gathering: peace, new ways of being human, a
new awareness of Mother Earth. While I shared their concerns, my own
intentions, which remained in the silence of my heart, were much immediate: to
find the new locus for my life calling where I could devote my remaining life
energies to something that mattered. One door was closing in my life. Where did
the new door lie? How could my life make a difference?
“To
what are you calling me now, O Holy One?”
And so we lapsed into silence awaiting the rising of the
sun at 6:11 AM. Our officiant had asked us to note the irony of being intentionally
still and silent in a world of constant noise, motion and distraction, a world
that was busily rousing from its slumber and coming to life all around us. And
so I sat in silence, my focus on my breathing interspersed with awareness of
the vibrant colors in the sky overhead, the erratic and swift movements of
flocks of birds joyously singing the new day into being and the sounds of
rumbling school buses enroute to the nearby elementary. All the while, a very
cold north wind whistled in my ears beneath the hood of my sweatshirt.
(continued)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The
Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
If the unexamined life is not worth living,
surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth
holding.
Most
things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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