DIVINE INTERVENTION

For many years now folks of all kinds have come out of the closet on their beliefs and or personal experiences with Angels or some Divine Being that intervened in their life at some critical moment.Doreen Virture wrote a book and does workshops on Angels, making them very credible.She also produced cards with words on them to help develop a deeper personal connection to your Angel. 

I was raised Catholic and as children we were told to save room on our school chairs for our Guardian Angel. We each had one , that was just our own special Angel. Our little eager minds easily accepted this idea. Wow how special we all felt, but once I entered the higher grades there was no more talk of invisible little Angels by either the nuns or my parents. They just seemed to fade away with the tooth fairy , Santa Claus and the rest of those childhood betrayals.
The message was , leave those childish ideas behind if you want to fit into a mature society. Those ideas once revered and accepted so easily were now cause for humiliation if you dared to still believe beyond a certain point. 
Even though I still find words like Guardian Angel, Faeries ect difficult to use in adult company I can not deny the many incidents of divine curiosities and interventions that have happened in my life. Many witnessed by others as well. They came in many forms, never appearing quite as portrayed in the movies.Many are too personal to write about but one I found playful and was witnessed by a good friend and my son, then a child. It is  a lovely story .
Samantha, was looking to buy land in North Carolina and she , I and my 6 year old son, Antwan, took a short road trip from Atlanta to the area she was interested in.Before getting to the land we met a man on the road who told us that very nearby was a fabulous waterfall in a remote area that we must see. We were in that magic go-with=the =flow attitude so we agreed . We went to the land that Sam was interested in first and by the time we reached the waterfall is was late afternoon. It was deep in a canyon , on private land and it took us almost an hour to walk to it.

 Well worth the adventure, the falls were spectacular .We all agreed they had a very magical feeling. Antwan stripped off his over shirt and frolics on the rocks in from o the falls. The visual was stunning. Rainbows played off his blonde hair and all around him. We commented that he looked like a fairy playing in the colors. It was truly etherical









The sun was setting and we decide we must go now to make it out before dark. We hurry down a very narrow path lined with thick vegetation on both sides. Half way out Antwan notices he has left his favorite bright blue over shirt behind.


 We stop to assess the situation. If we turn back now we will not get out before dark and the path could be very dangerous . He is so upset that we decide to risk it. We turn to retrace our steps and there on the narrow path we just walked is the shirt. We are all stunned. I ask Antwan if he is sure he did not have it with him and just dropped it. He is 6 and of course , I know he did not think to take it along but I ask. "No, he says , I just thought of it now.
                                               
                                               Suddenly, we all start laughing .

 It seems so absolute clear to us that the fairies have brought it to keep us out of trouble. We simply thank them and leave. Divine Intervention plain and simple.

Frieda and the Guad.

Mexico adores two women. One is a spotless, miracle producing, virgin and the other a bisexual, uni-brow who drank and smoked heavily. Strange heroines. Both involved with men named Diago. Hummmmm.
I always have found the idea of Virgin woman producing off spring to be as weird a concept as any distorted sexual view of w omens nature. I have been contemplating the distance between these female icons for over  two years of living in Mexico. I knew little of either of them before coming here.

It seems that Frieda was as wild as The Guad was pure.


 Do Mexican men visualize their women somewhere in between? 
I suspect Mexican women walk the line of polarity.
Does he want the sweet purity of the Virgin? The one who can lift him from his poverty mindset to the heights of recognition.
Do the "Roses" she gives him verify his worth?
If he "prays"to her will she deliver the fruits of his loin, bearing him the golden prize, a MALE child.
And if not , can he denounce her purity and feel justified in her joining the ranks of the beaten? No guilt there.

Or should she be strong enough to be the "wild " Frieda? How can he live with that? Could he accept his wife's bisexual nature, her drinking,her passionate art?
Her SUCCESSES?

I believe these two women offer the far ends of the spectrum of polarity. Because there is such strong worship of the one there must be the other.Where there is light there must be darkness.

And I ask, is it possible to live in the glare of the bright white light or the deepest darkness?
Do real women need to be on this spectrum. Is this WHY the world is so out of balance.. 
I can only say , that as a woman I feel the need to balance all the aspects of my nature and hopefully that will affect the world. 



I also hope these unbalanced stories of woman fade like distant memories of cultures that were on a path to evolution and moved beyond them to higher levels of thought.

What Women Do

 I did not know Bill well but I knew Zihna. He had been her whole world . Now he was dead. Quite a few years older than she, Zihna knew it would happen one day but this was the day. She called his children and together they kept vigil until he died in her arms at 4:30am Saturday morning.He went peacefully.

 One of her friends had suggested that there be a gathering of women to prepare his body for cremation. At first , Zihna was not sure she could do this but the idea seemed right. She said yes and called other women friends to join her in this ritual. Five women gathered at her house then headed to the funeral home together. I joined them in spirit in Mexico. Two women had no experience with ritual and three did, yet when they gathered each woman had known just what to bring, and was open to her role . Kathy was told to bring towels. Instead she went to the local you-can-get-everything store in their small town, She purchased small white wash cloths, and purple ribbon. She has small copies of Bills photo made and wrapped the wash cloths with Bills photo on top and tied it all with the purple ribbon. Deb is an award winning quilter. She purchased nine yards of a gauze-like fabric and hemmed it so that they could wrap the washed corpse in it before cremation.She also made an elegant altar cloth and gifted it to Zihna after the ceremony.
Val brought 2 white feathers and blessed each woman's hands by touching them before they began to wash Bill. Zihna brought the wedding candle that graced the marriage ceremony.
I am lighting the candles on the altar I created in Mexico. Mexico is known for elaborate Day of the Dead rituals and altars are common in the streets. There are many elements easily available for creating amazingly lovely altars.

On a walk during the afternoon, I gathered wild flowers. It is the rainy season in the high desert mountains and there are tiny wildflowers to weave into a circle wreath. I often used this technique to quiet my mind in Wisconsin where wildflowers were plentiful in the summer. I asked for a sign, something from Bill or Zihnas helpers to be able to offer her. As I walk past a store the Simon and Garfunkel song Bridge Over Troubled Waters is playing. It is rare to hear American music. I think this is the sign and hurry home to look up the lyrics.

When you're weary 
Feeling small 
When tears are in your eyes                            
I will dry them all 

I'm on your side 
When times get rough 
And friends just can't be found 
Like a bridge over troubled water 
I will lay me down 
Like a bridge over troubled water 
I will lay me down 

When you're down and out 
When you're on the street 
When evening falls so hard 
I will comfort you 
[ Lyrics from: om/s/simon+and+arfunkel/bridge+over+troubled+water_20124580.html ] 
I'll take your part 
When darkness comes 
And pain is all around 
Like a bridge over troubled water 
I will lay me down 
Like a bridge over troubled water 
I will lay me down 

Sail on Silver Girl,                                                                   
Sail on by 
Your time has come to shine                                                
All your dreams are on their way 

                                               

 See how they shine 

If you need a friend 
I'm sailing right behind 
Like a bridge over troubled water 
I will ease your mind 
Like a bridge over troubled water 
I will ease your mind

YES THIS DEFINITELY WAS THE MESSAGE. Zhina had looked to Bill to always be by her side and yet now it was her time to Sail on Silver Girl . Her time had come to shine. And Bill was telling her he would be sailing right behind to ease her mind.
I filled a small glass bowl with water and placed it in the center of the flower wreath. I dropped 4 heart shaped stones (one black, one red, one white and one pink) into the water and floated small white jasmine blossoms. I surrounded the wreath with rosemary and tamarind seeds.

 Along side the water bowl I placed a small ceramic skeleton woman , dressed elegantly waiting.. Mexico is filled with these skeleton figures. They freaked me out at first but after I learned they are an honoring of life and a reminder of how short it is I relaxed and enjoyed the humor of them.





I took some photos and emailed Zihna the words to Bridge over Troubled Water, hoping that she might see some inkling of a connection to Bill . During the night the sweet scent of rosemary mixed with jasmine floated into my awareness.

The next day one of the ladies at the ceremony emails me. She tells me that they all honored my being with them in spirit. Zhina asks some grandchildren to play sing Bridge Over Troubled Water at Bills funeral.
After the ritual they perform they create a talking circle to express their feelings about being called to do this sacred circle. 
For two days I lit the candles and  then I clear the altar. It has served its purpose and I cleanse it with sage smoke. It is complete and 
we women have done what women do.

Trotsky in Mexico

I don't know why I wanted to go to this movie. Was it because my son is dating a Russian woman and just returned from  three weeks in Moscow and St.  Petersburg? Was it because I was once friends with Stalin's daughter, Svetlana? Or because I was now living in Mexico? Whatever the reason, I certainly was not prepared for the depressing analog of revolution on a world scale that passed before my eyes. The movie chronicled happenings all over the world at the time Trotsky was welcomed into exile in Mexico.
 All I saw for 80 minutes were photos of men slaughtering each other. And all I could think was how much women need to be returned to power.

Women are the bringers of life not the destroyers of it.

After birthing a son I was determined to raise him with a new paradigm, a new perspective on his role in society. His father was a "soft" male drawn to spiritual and humanitarian ways rather than football ,politics or war. Although we were not together as a family, our son was growing up surrounded by males of this nature.
All the men who were strong male figures to him were intelligent, sensitive, kind,gentle. and humorous. The other children he was friends with were creative,noncompetitive types. 

Yes , he did play war with fake guns.. The guns were sticks from the 200 acres that surrounded our house.There was something in the innocence of it that did not concern me.

 Later , I read an article on this in a respected magazine on parenting. It said that it is important to the make energy to do this kind of PLAY. This allowed these tendencies to express as play so that there would be no need to express this in real life. Men play out aggression and hormones by killing and hating, instead of with little plastic soldier men. I allowed my son fake guns, army guys but balanced it with a male doll called Buddy, skateboards, and lovely children's books with heart energy. Balance seems to be the answer to everything. When I thought I would never know how to parent, a neighbor suggested it was easy. " Just check in with your heart on everything and you can not make a mistake." He was right.

As a woman I am a life giver.

 I consider my son a new male.

 Yes, neurologically wired differently and also exposed to a balanced life with violence stayed in the world of make believe.

He is my gift to the new world.

 epilog:( from an recent email from a friend:
Dear friend, we just had some few days here with Antwan .We enjoyed he and his girlfiend and were happy to have a chance to reconnect peacefully with no hurry. Antwan has always been such a wonder for me. He is one of the most harmonious and free spirit I have met in this life. You and Randy did a great job to let him grow as he wished.