A Triumph of Life Force

Red Cedar at Adam's Point
CC Jean Stimmell: 9/5/15

Eastern Red Cedar growing horizontally

out of a tiny crack in ocean rock armor:

Heroic triumph for the Life Force
coursing through us all.

Language of the animate earth

Garden Spook
CC Jean Stimmell: 9/5/15

“To our indigenous ancestors, and to the many aboriginal peoples who still hold fast to their oral traditions, language is less a human possession than it is a property of the animate earth itself, an expressive, telluric power in which we, along with the coyotes and the crickets, all participate. Each creature enacts this expressive magic in its own manner, the honeybee with its waggle dance no less than a bellicose, harrumphing sea lion.”

Nor is this power restricted solely to animals. The whispered hush of the uncut grasses at dawn, the plaintive moan of trunks rubbing against one another in the deep woods,” * or the menacing glare of brussel spouts.

*quote from Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology, David Abrams

Cormorant Synchronicity

Back on September first, I wrote a blog entry, In Praise of Cormorants, based on a dream I had containing the vivid image of cormorants "still as statues, striking poses like seasoned models." While that image accurately describes their behaviour when drying out their feathers, I have never been able to capture it, up close and personal, with my camera.

Today, less than a week later as we walked along the edge of Great Bay, a cormorant roasting on a buoy granted my wish: In quick succession, as we stood transfixed, she put on an amazing show. The following photographs are just a small sample of her whole routine. Click on the individual images to make them bigger to better enjoy her artistry and advanced yogic skill.

To my way of thinking, these majestic, primitive birds personify the spiritual notion of "Grace": the experience of awe, gratitude and unconditional love when you are in harmony with yourself, with others and with the creative power that creates the cosmos. It is the harmonious integration of your body, mind and spirit with the way of nature.* It is the way of the Tao.

* What is Grace?  http://www.artofgrace.org/whatisgrace.html

In Praise of Cormorants

Montage from a vivid dream 8/31/15 
CC Jean Stimmell

Montage from a vivid dream I had

Strange, feverish, images flash across my brain

like a neon lit Time Square on speed.

Desperately attempting to sort, one after another,

painting masterpieces for an art school final

into an arcane, dewey-decimal system, the kind

that gives academics and curators wet dreams–

I flunk badly.

Jutapositioned with a second slide show,

accompanied by Rolling Stones blues,

of brilliant black cormorants, still as statues,

striking poses like seasoned models.

Unlike Olympic divers– or curators and academics–

the cormorants do not give a sweet shit

how many points they get.

Traversing that mythological realm between shore and sea

Face-to-Face with Nixie, the Shapeshifter
CC Jean Stimmell: 8/28/15

Wandering along a deserted section of Great Bay, imagine my surprise when I came face-to-face with the most amazing apparition. I discovered, after doing some research, that I had stumbled upon Nixie, a female German water-fairy. Though often described as human-shaped, Nixie is a shapeshifter and can assume any form, including that of an alluring horse.  Nixie comes on shore to dance with humans but she is not harmless: she can also use her music to lure people into the water so she can drown them. Nixie offers assistance to women in labor but also steals children and replace them with changelings. Thus, it pays to be on your toes when you traverse that mythological realm between shore and sea.

Bones are more important than you may think…

Offering to the gods
CC Jean Stimmell: August 21, 2015

Mircea Eliade reminds us modern Western folks– addicted as we are to rational thought and mathematical algorithms –why bones are so existentially important, something traditional  cultures have always known because, rather than being cognitively divorced, indigenous people are intimately held within the embrace of mother nature within the web of life.

"Indeed, for the hunting peoples, the bone symbolizes the ultimate root of animal Life, the matrix from which the flesh is continually renewed. It is starting with the bones that animals and men are re-born; they maintain themselves awhile in carnal existence, and when they die their "life" is reduced to the essence concentrated in the skeleton, whence they will be born anew according to an uninterrupted cycle that constitutes an eternal return. It is duration alone, time, which breaks and separates, by the intervals of carnal existence, the timeless unity represented by the quintessence of Life concentrated in the bones. By contemplating himself as a skeleton, the shaman does away with time and stands in the presence of the eternal source of Life."[1] 

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[1] Mircea Eliade, Myths, Dreams and Mysteries: The Encounter Between Contemporary Faiths and Archaic Realities.pp 83-84. Also see http://www.depthpsychologyalliance.com/forum/topics/dreams-bones-the-future-a-dialogue-by-russell-lockhart-paco 

Facing My Shadow

Facing My Shadow
CC Jean Stimmell: August 2015

While meditating, I had a startlingly real, dream-like vision of being chased by a malevolent presence until rubber-legged and exhausted, I was able to run no more. To my immense surprise, when I turned around to face my fate, I found out the dreaded enemy was me, my split-off, vulnerable, frightened-to-death self, in need of understanding, compassion and love.

My experience is similar to what happened in a masterful, mythological fantasy written by Ursula Le Guin, I was first exposed to in graduate school 20-years ago: Ursula’s protagonist, Ged, was also being relentlessly pursued by a fearsome presence, yet when he finally turned to face the shadow, Ged discovered they were both one:

“Ged took hold of his shadow, of the black self that reached out to him. Light and darkness met, and joined, and were one.” [1]

Through the voice of Ged’s friend, Ursula goes on to say: “Ged had neither lost nor won but, naming the shadow of his death with his own name, had made himself whole: a man: who, knowing his whole true self, cannot be used or possessed by any power other than himself…”[2] Ged gained this power because he was no longer divided against himself; he no longer has to live in fear of being punished by higher powers who turn out to be, when confronted, only phantom shadows.

I take this daydream vision, as well as several of my recent dreams, as a sign that the armor of my ego is softening and starting to crack open, opening up the possibility of entering a higher consciousness and a deeper spirituality. But I know full well not to take anything for granted. Nothing in this world is certain and, in order to allow my fate to unfold, I must maintain a total commitment to “not knowing.”

As the Jungian analyst, Barbara Sullivan, wisely says,  “We need to find ways to swim in the murky waters of our lostness rather than getting out of the water to live in certainty."[3] My goal is to dive ever deeper in the waters of my emotions, not get out!

I have written a lot about this in my blog, my journey to descend from the tender-dry, joyless, abstracted certainty of the thinking mind to immerse myself in the Waters of Life: my emotions, my body, my sense of place within Mother Earth’s embrace.

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[1] Ursula Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea, p. 179

[2] Ibid. p. 180

[3] Barbara Stevens Sullivan, The Mystery of Analytical Work, Weavings from Jung and Bion, page 29