not native fruit

Desert Sanctuary ~ my book is published!

I just wanted to let you know that I’ve self-published a mystery novel called ‘Desert Sanctuary’ under the pen-name of Karen Whittingham.  The book is available online at Lulu.com as a print-on-demand or as an e-book (see links below).  Here is the description of the book given on the website. 

 “In Desert Sanctuary, unconventional healer Madrigal Strahan investigates a mystery in the Nevada desert where she lives near her long-time friend and lover, Blaylock Pritchard.  Their silent and beautiful desert resonates with shock-waves following a mysterious fire in a remote location that reveals long-buried secrets leading to multidimensional resolutions for Madrigal’s family and friends, and an earth-centered spiritual epiphany.”

 

The reason I chose to write about the desert is because my partner and I spent many of our vacations camping in the high desert east of the Sierra and in Nevada .  The beauty of the desert and the mystery of its solitude has always stimulated my creativity.  This book expresses many of my beliefs about the importance of community, closeness to nature and healing.

 

I hope you enjoy reading my book!  

 

Desert Sanctuary by Karen Whittingham, available as print-on-demand:

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/desert-sanctuary/17342000?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/2

 

Available as an e-book: http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/desert-sanctuary/17364322?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/4

PS - for readers interested in the Ishmael books or readers of Daniel Quinn, Desert Sanctuary offers a literary fiction expressing a vision of reality consonant with his. 

north pole sunset

 

"This is the sunset at the North Pole with the moon at its closest point last week.
a scene you will probably never get to see in person, so take a moment and enjoy God at work at the North Pole.
And, you also see the sun below the moon, an amazing photo and not one easily duplicated. 
You may want to pass it on to others so they can enjoy it.
The Chinese have a saying that goes something like this:
'When someone shares with you something of value, 
you have an obligation to share it with others!' 
I just did.. Your turn"

A friend sent this to us.  Isn't it beautiful? 

I like the passage too - reminds us of just how much God doesn't need us - God's been having fun creating effects like this for untold millenia.  I've heard it said that we are here because God wanted His or Her handiwork to be appreciated.  My question is - How good a job are we doing at that?  Is that really our top priority?

kerala temples

When I studied theology, I learned that the architecture, iconography, etcetera of a religious tradition tells us a lot about the way its people view reality and the human relationship with the 'divine.'  The 'axis of the world tree,' etcetera, from Mircea Eliade, on vertical religious architecture:  soaring cathedrals, bullet-like projectiles around mosques.  Recently I've had a renewal of interest and enthusiasm for my Keralan spiritual connection, and I liked this passage from 'Temples and Legends of Kerala" by K.R. Vaidyanathan.  He quotes Ronald Bernier in "Splendors of Kerala":

"Kerala temples emphasize horizontal movment as symbolic of the path toward truth.  The temple is not a mountain, although it is built around an axis.  It is activated by its enshrined 'engine,' a holy power in the form of a sculpture or symbol from which energy and goodness radiate.  Mighty as it is, a figural image at the centre of the womb may smile in benevolent, friendly acceptance.  Perhaps Kerala's is the most house-like of all the divine dwellings in India.  Its materials are natural and clearly earth-derived.  The monument touches the masses in terms of earthly experience rather than that of of the worldly grandeur and pomp.  At the same time, there is room for preciousness since the temple is after all a heavenly abode.  (Yet) it is not for its precious parts that Kerala temple design is best to be remembered, but for its special accomplishments primarily in the use of wood."

Kerala is coastal territory, beaches and wetlands ringed by coastal mountains and the sea.  I wonder sometimes if my attraction to this spiritual tradition springs from my ancestors having come from coastal territories so much themselves.  It's 'in the blood,' so to speak.  My mtDNA J2 ancestors are associated with sea routes from Turkey to Iceland, my father's people lived on the sea-swept west coast of Jutland, I have Irish ancestors from County Mayo, a poor coastal territory that took in its share of survivors from the Spanish Armada, and then my Delaware Moor ancestors were native to the marshlands of southern New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. We also seem to have a certain element of pirate ancestry, as well, which fits with the high scores I had in East African dna matches.  At any rate, I love that spread-open, airy, flat 'delta' kind of land wherever I find it.

But there's more to it than that, of course.  I love Vedanta and the entire Shankaracarya tradition as it has been lived up to the present day in Kerala.  Shankaracarya was a peace-maker who synthesized many different traditions in Kerala.  I confess I felt a bit weary of the constant fighting of the middle-eastern traditions from which my Jewish, Christian and Moorish forbears sprang - that fighting just seems to go on and on.  Shankaracarya brought resolution to similar fighting among religious factions in his own land, and the peace seems to have lasted pretty much up to the present.  So, there must be something to it.  I think we really ought to be looking at what they're doing.  At any rate, it is one of the most beautiful, lively, colorful, relaxed, joyful, playful, mystical, entrancing religious traditions I've ever come across, and I've come across quite a few.  (Sufism, perhaps, comes closest, imo.)  Wise and insightful, Keralan spirituality has certainly stood the test of time.

Anyway you can see more examples and read more about Kerala's Temples here.  
 


 

suze rotolo: memory lane

I read online a few weeks ago that Suze Rotolo had died about a month ago, age 67.  Of course, I recognized her famous photo on the 'The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan' album, and learned that she has written a memoir called 'A Freewheelin' Time.'  I picked it up at the library, and soon bought my own copy. 

What a trip down Memory Lane!  Not just the folk-music scene stuff - yes, that was somewhat meaningful to me, since I was an afficianado of the genre at the time, in the early sixties, before it had become 'popular' among my peers.  No!  What I found fascinating was just the story of her life - THAT was what I could really relate to.  Her socialist-oriented parents (a polite way of saying 'communist'), her humble working-class origins (in Queens), the fact that she initially took the subway to Greenwich Village to 'connect,' her problems at school (just like mine!), her life in the old 'bohemian' style, her work creating sets in off (and off-off)-Bwy theatre productions, her natural artistry which manifested in her clothing innovations and jewelry - I could relate to all of that, I suppose because I did all of that! - a few years after Suze, and in another city.  Maybe it was the times, but it wasn't what was happening in our community - I kind of had to go out and find it.  And yet, in another way, I guess I could say I was tuned in to my times.  Anyway, her story sure brought back memories for me!

Also, I shared her experience of being emotionally and sexually connected with a very unusual artist who initially seemed very much on his own, in need of a friend shall we say, but soon became 'attractive' to 'everyone' and who was intimately tied up with notoriety and 'fame' - ye gods, spare us that albatross - and who desired a very different lifestyle from what suited me.  We both had the courage to walk away from what wasn't working for us, to find our own lives, so I could relate to much of what she wrote about that too.

I've taken a look at some of her more recent book-art at Medialia Gallery - I think Suze Rotolo is my new patron saint!

pear-tree collage

 
 
Loren left a comment about images that reflect who we are, and I thought I would post this collage, which is based on a dream-image I later worked with using 'active imagination' during contemplative prayer.  I tried to draw the scene, but was not satisfied with the result, so I resorted to clip art to create this collage. The original dream image featured myself sitting on a bench beneath a heavily-laden pear tree, outside the gated, walled-garden of my home.  Sometimes I would sit alone on that bench, and at other times passers-by would sit down with me.  Sometimes we would talk, sometimes I would listen and at other times we might both just sit together in silence.

I think this may perhaps be a rather odd vocation, but it seems to be mine.  I've managed to translate my vocation into work (in different forms at different stages in my life: pastoral visitor, acupuncturist, elder companion), and using this image in active imagination I was even able to view a future event that was quite meaningful in my life.  Later, after I became initiated into the Sufi Order of the West in 1988, you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that my 'sufi name' is often written calligraphically in the form of a pear!

It seems to me that in our culture we are bombarded with images of certain kinds of people: businesspeople, sports people, music-culture people, celebrity stars, and to some extent political icons.  We fancy that we 'know about' such people thanks to their prominence in the media, but do we really?  It seems as if these are really the only choices of how to be.  But actually, there are all sorts of other kinds of people who rarely make an appearance in film, sit-coms, the news, or even in documentaries.  People who have vocations such as mine do not make a lot of money, as a general rule, and so we are probably not considered to be attractive subjects for the media.  There are a few exceptions, 'Babette's Feast,' the Danish film from the '80's, some of our films that feature western types living in solitude on remote ranches (can't think of any titles, just images from a few films), and I'm sure you could also name several more.

spiritual art appreciation

What child enjoys solitude?  Probably not many, and I can't say that I exactly enjoyed it, but the hours of solitude I experienced as a child led me to a vivid appreciation for 'reality' - a sort of heightened sense of wonder, a fascination with form, color, line, dimension and texture - all the elements necessary to mastery of the visual arts.  My mother felt conflicted about art.  She sent me for free art classes sponsored by the Philadelphia School system on Saturdays, but she literally drew the line at that.  When I went to high school, things like 'art school' (sic) had to stop, (even when my work was being featured by my teachers). The nuns would not allow an 'academic track' student to take art, etc, blah, blah, blah.  Anyway, I continued to dabble in the subject, taking an art history class in my freshman year (and only year) of college, and learning a few things about how to 'see' as an artist: perspective, etcetera.  I suppose, if I'd been a 'real artist' I would have felt compelled to create art anyway, and not just in the desultory way I went about it, everyone once in a while having a burst of expression, creating drawings for a calendar one year, 'illustrating' a 'novel' I'd written another year.  (All of these things were thrown away by my mother, because my work included sexual themes among the other more intellectual themes - I was interested in history and archaeology at the time.) 

But none of this is the point.  What I would like to say is that the real impetus behind my drive towards art, whether visual art or literary art, was a kind of Love.  I loved the forms, the colors, the lines, the textures, the surreal sense of the unreality of dimension.  I wanted to express this love by re-creating what I saw.  However, although I did indeed show early promise for being able to do that, I lacked the amount of practice necessary to achieve any kind of technical competence.

Instead, I find, when I look back over my life, that I have 'collected' examples of truth and beauty that satisfied my sense of artistic wonder.  Many of those examples collected over the years have disappeared.  At certain times, there was almost a glut of examples, so that I became lulled into thinking they'd always be there.  Now it is nearly impossible to find some of those images, at least not without paying substantially.  Interesting.  However, I do still have some pictures, passages I've copied from books, books of photography, etcetera.  I find it odd that I chose to collect rather than create, without really intending it consciously.

I understand some of the obstacles to my creativity.  For a long time, I felt that I just didn't have the right.  I didn't have the kind of background or education that others seemed to have, who seemed able to create at a level I could only aspire to.  Then, it always seemed as if I were just going to be playing catch-up.  Then, also, I channeled so much of my artistic, visionary impulse into prayer, spiritual reading, participation in the kind of imaginative spiritual groups that were popular in the 1970's.  Soon, things got really serious, and the representative of the diocese suggested I attend theology school to have a career as a 'lay-minister' in the catholic church, and I began to think more seriously about a career in spirituality and 'healing.'  I began to develop a different skill set. 

So, yes, I can see the evolution of my life and how I diverged from the path of artistry to which I had been originally attracted.  I'm wondering what my options are now, at this stage in my life (being sixty now).

ordination

On Sunday, I drove down to Mountain View for the ordination of a friend in one of the Gnostic traditions.  The ceremony was truly wonderful!  I felt very inspired.

I miss doing ministry - which I did for so many years in the church, lectoring, communion minister, pastoral visiting, and communion services as well as teaching.  Nowadays I do a puja (Hindu form of worship) weekly in my home for about a dozen people.  The puja is small but powerful, and I feel it is really a blessing on so many levels.  For one thing, I've always felt that the fact that I am able to do the puja - and many would like to, but aren't able to, for various reasons - is surely a grace and a blessing.   I regard it as a ministry.   It's a way, also, to express my devotion, communion, etcetera with the Divine, which takes up so much of my consciousness and time.  I do get lazy from time to time, but basically I've been committed to daily periods of prayer (also known as spiritual practice) for what? four decades now.

I also coordinate our national soup kitchen project, which currently involves 43 cities, am publishing an e-magazine for our spiritual community and do a lot of other 'ministerial' and 'service' oriented activities.  But there is something special about 'presiding' - I look forward to getting back to more of that soon.

religion, catholicism, interfaith

I had lunch yesterday with another friend who also studied for the ministry at GTU, and we talked about our thwarted ministerial gifts.  She is teaching elementary school, and she feels that it serves as a good outlet for what she wanted to offer as a minister: love, support of good values, teaching of values, in particular, along with teaching of the curriculum.

My own ministerial urgings were less towards teaching - although I have done my fair share of that - and more towards what we used to call in the Catholic tradition 'spiritual direction,' which was, basically, listening to people talk about their experience of God while giving (minimal) responses.  Affirmations, questions and sometimes statements geared to help highlight or pinpoint some of the wonderful insights people utter as if in passing.  Do you hear what you just said? kind of thing.  It's a ministry of being present with someone in their own process, of being receptive to that person as a spiritual seeker, a spiritual person, a person discovering their relationship with God.  

I was able to find some of that in my acupuncture process, and I seem to do it just naturally in many of my friendships and relationships, and now in my work with elders, but I still feel a longing to do more.  Ministry is simply in my blood. 

Another area of ministry that I always enjoyed, and received positive appreciation for, is ritual worship.  I used to lead communion services, and prayer services in the Catholic church, and now I do a weekly puja in my home that is attended by a dozen or so people.

Anyway, in the course of my conversation with my ministerial friend, I started to talk about Catholicism and my study of it over the years. Reading Peter Brown, Henry Chadwick, etcetera, has led me to understand what a conglomerate the RC Church really is.  It formed itself out of the detritus of the Roman Empire and early on stepped in to fill the governing-gap left by the failure of the Empire, especially in outlying areas such as France and Germany and Britain.  In this way it got itself tangled up in politics, social control and all the other charges that have been levied against it over the centuries.  It went a little crazy over virginity and asceticism, but most of those excesses seem to have been modified in recent times.  Perhaps it has grown and matured right at the time when it seems to be most in danger of dissolution.

Yes, my friend was saying, and in spite of everything it has somehow managed to preserve within itself the core of something good, the life and teachings of Jesus.  True, I rejoined, and I have known so many wonderful people within Catholicism: kind, thoughtful, cheerful, generous, optimistic, loving. 

After our conversation, I realized that I have met such good people in all my religious travels, recently in Judaism, where I have begun attending one of our local temples in Berkeley.  I've also been involved in Sufism for many years, Hinduism for the past 21, Buddhism (thirty years ago), various varieties of Christianity, and also a little bit of Daoism, Native Americanism and even atheism (a sort of spiritual movement all its own).  I have to say after all of this immersion in various paths, that I've come to the conclusion that spirituality and ethical consciousness are simply a part of being human, to a greater or lesser degree among individuals, but always a part of their humanity.  And religions simply serve to support the individual in his or her own quest, his or her own development.

So it's not important to focus on the dogmatic statements or 'truths' of religion: 'the pope is infallible,' for example, or even many of the scriptural statements that are interpreted as directives or requirements, 'unless a man be born again of water and the spirit...' etcetera.  These statements are just there to help us forward, they were never meant as bludgeons with which to beat other human beings into submission, even though they've been used that way since time immemorial.  Most of their 'truth' was a truth in the moment, a truth for a particular community in a particular time and place. 

What is important is that we are all moving towards God: or, for lack of better words, our ultimate Ideal of goodness, truth, mercy, justice, beauty, elegance (in the aesthetic sense of the word), and harmony. 

The religions, per se, don't possess that universality, but we do, all of us, deep within ourselves, at the core of our beings.  And what we want, in public life, is to express the flowering of that spiritual and ethical core of humanity, whatever our religion.

more joanna field

"NOW I'VE GOT IT.'  FIRES TEARING AND RENDING THE EARTH, UPHEAVALS...

In a flash, I was sure that this was what I had been looking for.  In my attempt to reconstruct the memories of childhood, objectively, I had for instance written:

'The photo I took when I was 12, of that curious rock on the coast at Dunstanborough.  I stuck it in my Nature Diary and also sent it in to the holiday photography exhibition.  The early rock strata had been thrown up in a curious contorted curve by some volcanic eruption.'

To the objective mind this incident marked a growing conscious interest in science.  But now I suddenly guessed that to another part of the mind it meant something else.  Just as I had once before discovered that I had two quite different groups of ideas about God, (see "A Life of One's Own, J.P. Tarcher, inc), according to whether I thought deliberately, or simply let thought come of their own accord, so this rock had two different meanings.  To part of my mind it was an interesting geological specimen, to the other it stood now for the idea of hidden inner fires, powerful and unaccountable, upheaving and rending the surface.  The first meaning had left me bored and depressed at the futility of what I was writing, the second had given me such deep satisfaction that I knew it was one of those significant memories from childhood that my questing imagination had been groping after.

But though my feelings told me this was what I wanted to remember, they did not explain why such an idea should be important.  Why should the idea of the inner fires of the earth have shattering importance, either to a twelve-year-old - or to me as I looked back on that twelve-year-old - since it was quite possible that I was reading my own present sense of its importance into my memory of that experience?  Volcanic eruption was not likely to be an important part of my life then, or now.  I thought that the only answer could be that it was important by analogy, that the idea of the inner fires of the earth was sufficiently like some other experience to be able to stand for, or symbolize, some experience that was too dimly felt or too complex and obscure to be expressed directly.  I wondered, did this possibility throw some light on my early passionate interest in nature?  I had a long way to go efore I could see the connection, but I felt sure the connection was there.  My next clues actually emerged from a study of journeys."  (pp.12-13, An Experiment in Leisure, by Joanna Field)

amma season

i've been absent from the weblog in recent weeks because i've been all caught up in 'amma season' - that wonderful time of the year that is better than school letting out, better than ski week, better than any holiday i can name - that time of year when amma visits the bay area from india.  we all had a fabulous time, and are still savoring our enjoyment of our time with her as she moves on her way across the country.  tomorrow will be her last day in los angeles and from there she will travel to santa fe new mexico.

as part of my service to the community this time around, i've published a new e-magazine called 'amma's forest dwellers' for old-timers, retired persons, contemplatives, hermits and the like - all of whom used to be called 'forest-dwellers' in the old folk-tradition of india.

i've also been reading Karen Armstrong's 'The Spiral Staircase.'  Years ago, I read her first book, 'The Narrow Gate,' about her time in the convent back in the late 1950's and early 1960's.  'The Spiral Staircase' tells her story after leaving the convent and eventually writing her best-selling books, such as 'A History of God.'  I found 'The Spiral Staircase' an engrossing memoir, plus entertaining (for example, her charming stories of Jacob), intriguing and educational (her description of her health issues), and I appreciated her articulate personal sharing.

i've been playing my dulcimer in the evenings more, as a part of my spiritual practice.  Toning and singing are even better, really, but i feel charmed by the mellifluous tones of the dulcimer.  like to feel the vibration under my hands and where the dulcimer lays flat across my lap.  my blue lion really truly does make exquisite sound.  very conducive to meditation.