I don't know why I was so called to this ritual. The river and its many sand bars were a big part of my life for 20 years. I spent quiet summer afternoons with friends,swimming, talking and picnicing.
I spent solitary time dancing on sand bars.
When my son was young, we spent hot days diving off sand bars, into unusually deep waters surrounding them.
I played Frisbee and catch the ball with dogs that I dog sat for. I ate watermelon, and watched late night bonfires with friends. Yes, the sand was an integral part of my experience.
A moment came when I began to envision a uniquely personal ritual.
At a Christmas party we were discussing an enchanting movie called, Calendar Girls, a true story about how a few middle aged women posed nude for a calendar, to raise funds for a friend who has cancer.
We all laughed and hypothesized about our own ability to do such a thing. Most said they could never do it for any reason. But a few brave souls said yes . There was a photographer present and he suggested that he would love a project like that and offered to do the photos for free. That seemed to be the end of that.
As summer approached I began to mildly contemplate what month I wanted to be in the calendar and just what my project would be.Instantly, the sand came to mind.
Symbolically, sand speaks of change and impermanence. I remembered watching the Tibetan monk, who once lived next door to me, create a magnificent sand mandala. Each grain of colored sand is laid down gently to create an exquisite, intricate ancient design that is almost unimaginable. I asked the Lama why did his culture do such a laborious, tedious and labor intensive art form in sand??? He said, " we use sand as a sacred teaching tool of impermanence." When the mandala is completed after many weeks of work it is simply swept up and the sand is set free in the flowing waters of a near by river. It is symbolic of the constant shifting of forms. No matter how hard we strive for stability and the safety of permanence it is not the true nature of existence.
It made sense to me. After leaving the stability of a 15 year marriage, my life was in a constant state of change. The more I allowed and embraced these shifts the easier they became. The meaning of my life began to coalesce around the ability to shift gracefully.
I wanted my photo to represent that. What began as a humorous idea was to become a deep personal ritual.
On the day of the shoot I kayaked out to a sandbar alone. I spent the afternoon in silence, just allowing ideas to come to the surface of my consciousness. It began by my dripping sand until it built up, by scooping the sand with lots of water and allowing it to slowly funnel out of my cupped hands. I began to build a tail all the way down the length of the small sand island I had chosen.I dug a huge hole in front of the tail where I could kneel waited deep. This way my hidden legs would allow the tail to appear as though it was attached to my waist. It took the entire afternoon to build the layers of wet sand high and long enough to match the proportions of my upper body. Like the Tibetan monk had described to me, a meditation. My thoughts did not wander aimlessly but kept to the task at hand. I was a meditation of new forms I would be creating in my life. No part of me would remain. In the late afternoon the light of the setting sun would be perfect My closest friend, Cecilia, and Dick, the photographer, would kayak out to my island. When they arrived we worked quickly to catch just the right moment. I stripped and put hair gel in my hair to facilitate sand adhesion. I settled into the hole while Cecilia buried my legs and brushed away all the footprints around the shot. Earlier I had created a partial clay woman and I now rolled her into the sand so that she appeared to be made of sand as well.I held her high and looked up. Dick shot from all angles and within a few minutes had 130 exposures. As the sun set, there is an indelible delicious mental picture in my mind of the three of us kayaking down the river into the setting sun to have a celebratory dinner together.
I was deeply moved by Dick and Cecilia's experience of what I considered MY ritual. They also had had personal epiphanies. And each of us had allowed the river to help us on our personal journey of change.
Knowing that night the river would take the remains of my sand creation along with it on its journey I smiled and felt a sense of empowerment . The idea of ritual as a tool became real for me. And I like to think that my ritual was for all of us.
The first time I saw Rachel was at a belly dance class with her lovely navel exposed. I had no idea how old she was I just knew she was one of those rare ones. Our paths crossed occasionally over the two years that I have been in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Mostly I would see her at Sunday free form dance.
Everyone seems to know her and love her. She smiles sweetly and moves with the grace of a woman who has learned to love all the parts of herself.
It was not until she invited me to a Artist's Way writing group that she hosts at her house that I began to hear her stories. She talks of a traditional Jewish upbringing and a "normal" life up until her husband dies in the 1970's. Then she is off to India, Jamaica, and Indonesia. In California she rides the leading edge of the "new age" movement , hanging out at Esalen , taking dance classes with Gabielle Roth, and breathing classes.She is wealth of information from those years.She tells us to breath and vigorously rub our breasts to clear our lymph nodes because as she says," no one else will do that for you."
Today we all share our writings and she talks about her upcoming birthday at the end of the week.There will be a grand party at her house, but today she writes about her fear as well as her joy. Turning 90 brings up many emotions for her.
I have several older woman friends close to her age. These women are the ones that have inspired me for many years. I look to them to show me the way. How to step forward each day and live it to the fullest. How to cherish every moment of life and care for my body and mind into the wise years.
I feel women of this stature are the truest goddesses. They have lived beyond and through so much. They have been so many different faces of the Divine Feminine.
Rachel exemplifies this and yet........ there is fear. How many years will I have birthdays.
What can I realistically expect from my aging body. Am I living in the right place and is my life in order. All these things she contemplates and yet at the end of her writings she shares that she will just accept the days as they come no matter how many are remaining.
I wish I could say something wise and yet I know I am entering my aging years as well. I want to do that as gracefully as possible and the RARE RACHELS of the world show the way.
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.
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.
