sacred space artist

The keynote is to open to myself

2010-05-25T03:09:00.000-07:00

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” (Anais Nin)

Twice in the last week this quote has been presented to me in quite different forms.

You may recall that in February I was reflecting on what I might be avoiding. My commitment at that time was to personal confidence and active expression of my spiritual energy with the affirmation of ‘backing myself’.

Three months on and my resolve to personal confidence has been tested. My back continues to be my guide and indicator - recently throwing in for good measure an old pain pattern that had me badly locked up and walking like a scuttling crab. I ended up at the osteopath on my way down to a 5 Rhythms Heartbeat workshop. As the knots untied and the tension loosened off, we both agreed that I would be able to dance my way through the rest of the release.

Dance and draw my way through, I did indeed. Heartbeat allows for dance and reflection at the level of the heart – the emotional self. As I dance I find that I can breathe, unfold myself and open myself, easing the tension and creating space at all levels.

It was fascinating to see the Friday night drawing “Grace & Pain” with its thin lines and gnarly pain bits transform over the weekend into “Grace Moving” with its sense of gentle balance and “Deeply Rooted Lift Off” with its very strong sturdy roots holding open a space for light, love and spirit to flow and blossom with joy.

The link for me with the Anais Nin quote is that I do experience real pain when I hold myself in tight. I am of an age where being a tight ‘bud’ is no longer appropriate. The journey required is from ‘what I might be avoiding’ to realising that I am called to put my creative spiritual nature firmly in the forefront of my life: to have the creative and performing arts, especially dance, centre stage.

‘Backing myself’ means that I am at business development courses learning how to bring my creative vision into reality. ‘Backing myself’I applied, and have been accepted, for a seven day 5 Rhythms Intensive in America in August – a much looked forward to opportunity to meet Gabrielle Roth and deepen and expand my own practice.

With love and thanks for your reading. Arohanui Kerry-Ann

Kerry-Ann Stanton works as a celebrant, and is in transition toward establishing and leading “Inspirita” – a place to move and be moved.
celebrant@kerryannstanton.com www.kerryannstanton.com

What might I be avoiding?

2010-02-27T18:21:00.000-08:00

Where possible I stay alert to the ‘little’ signals in my life. Sometimes this means I avert trouble – other times I get to do delicious things just because I was paying attention.

At the osteopath the other day, having a very real lower back ‘compression’ released, she casually enquired if there was anything I might be avoiding? Now I am not real keen on this type of question. I don’t see myself as a committed avoider and anyway, if I knew what I was avoiding wouldn’t I be doing something about it? (Note: I do realise this is a very large presumption on my part)

I like and trust my osteopath and couldn’t very well hit her for asking such a question. Yet while I had an inkling of the need for the question I didn’t like it. I didn’t have an answer then nor do I currently have the complete answer. So I have left the question floating in the ether for consideration.

“Avoid” means to refrain or stay away from; prevent. It comes with a long and energetic list of synonyms including: abstain, dodge, hide, shrink from, sidestep, steer clear of and withdraw.

A phrase I have heard my self using over the last year as I review my direction is “I have chickened out on myself on a number of occasions in my life and I don’t want to do that this time.” Chicken out is a form of avoiding for sure and believe it or not ‘chicken out’ is a listing in the online dictionary – a verb – to back down. It too has a long and discouraging list of synonyms. The ones that resonate with me include: back down, back out, get cold feet, give up and wimp out!

Not how I would like to live my life or be described for that matter. From the synonyms I moved to the antonyms; face, meet, seek and want.

Definitely more the energy I want to be living my life from – facing into, seeking and meeting fresh challenges and wanting to be connected and of use.

In the osteopathic session what did show up was a body response to my mumbling about confidence in my self and my competence to take the rest of my life in a new direction. More recently I have experienced a strong sense that some how I box myself in, keeping my life vision too small and limiting my spiritual energy.

So rather than avoiding I am making a commitment to personal confidence and active expression of my spiritual energy. I remain unclear as to how this will fully manifest. However I am listening to my intuition, talking with other people and testing my ideas and getting to listen to myself out loud. Most importantly, my affirmation is “I back myself”.

Watch this space! Arohanui Kerry-Ann

Bag Lady: Vessel Of Value

2009-11-30T00:38:00.000-08:00

How many bags do you have? What do you use the bags for? What do you think of bags? Have you, in fact, ever given any thought to the bags in your life? What is the purpose of the bags in your life? What is your bag of tricks?

I have bags for many aspects of my life – the pink travel suitcase (no one else wants it!), the khaki small back pack, the bag with work stuff, the journal bag(s), the shopping bags, the vacuum cleaner bags, the rubbish bags, the bag with my walking gear, swimming gear, dancing gear, the bag with the shopping bags in it, the empty bags to pick up rubbish or treasure, bags with things for the City Mission, bags to drop something off to someone, bags of clean washing, bags for dirty washing after a trip, food bags to contribute – maybe fruit for my son and lots of bags that I have bought or been given with presents inside and so on and so on!

For many years my consolation around living was that if ‘push came to shove’ I would do fine as a ‘bag lady’. That is, a woman who lived, by choice or necessity, on the street with all her belongings in her bag. One simple bag, exposed to the elements of life, homeless, possibly useless; usually an old bag (both luggage and woman). I am grateful that this is not my personal reality thus far. However, when I was asked last year to state my value as a woman I was stuck for an answer – I might as well have been a bag lady! I felt homeless, useless and quite bereft in my inability to respond.

So what is the link between Kerry-Ann as a potential bag lady and Kerry-Ann as a potential vessel of value?

I was recently on a creative process and meditation retreat. During meditation I felt compelled to give new meaning to being a bag lady – to deepen my experience of myself and my life. Concurrently, another thread of fascination for me has been the exploration of ‘waka huia’ – the beautifully carved wooden boxes used by Maori for storing precious Huia feathers – that can be regarded as ‘vessels holding valuables’ or a vessel of value. I was drawn to playing with integrating bags and waka huia as I integrated myself.

I had taken a range of material to play with during the artwork in case I didn’t want to draw or paint. Amongst this was a number of small bags, beads, embroidery threads etc.

Grabbing all the bags I set about reframing bags as vessels of value and this bag (myself) as a deep, simple and connected woman with an intrinsic value simply from being alive.

What emerged was a seven bag ‘creation’. Each bag contained an assemblage of beads or cotton or whatever – mostly drawn out and worked with intuitively. This assemblage was connected to its bag by a cord or thread and each bag was connected to the next bag similarly. It was really important to me that each bag and its contents were connected and that they fitted one inside each other. Each bag was in its own way valuable – even if I couldn’t explain why.

When I shared my completed artwork it was the innermost bag – the small, simple white bag with the beads of seed, glass, metal, bone and the floral heart button – which I responded to most. Here was the simplicity of Kerry-Ann in elemental connection with spirit, at home in peace and light. A true vessel of value symbolised by a little light bag!

Arohanui
Kerry-Ann

Deep listening or “catching the clues”!

2009-08-23T02:48:00.000-07:00

I have had quite a year this year – and so say all of us!

I was talking with a friend on the phone the other night and we were comparing notes on our respective years. In passing she said, “Well, for you, this year is about success of the heart.” It was a spot on observation and such a gift to hear the essence of my year described so simply.

It is a year of success of the heart: from the work my husband and I are doing together as we learn how to craft a marriage into our future, from loving and letting my son go into adulthood as he turns 21, to the questions I am raising about my ‘heart’s desires’ – particularly in the domains of relationship and work.

In the past I have run celebrant workshops on “Deep Listening – the art of client interviewing” where we have talked about how we listen to a client in such a way as to ‘get’ what they want. This involves listening to what is said and watching for all the other clues that are present – watching for the emotional congruence of body language and questioning to get clear about what they may be uncertain of. The measure of success of our deep listening is found in a ceremony that clients experience as just right for them and their guests ‘get’ that it is just right also.

My reflection here is on the deep listening that seems to be helpful when I interview myself to find out just what it is I am seeking.

Because my friend and I like and trust each other, we are able to talk and listen in a deep way, and I was ready to receive her ‘success of the heart’. As my reflections on it deepened during the day I became so excited that I had to ring her and say thanks that same night.

I have had a number of other occasions this year where people I entrust myself with have made observations that, listened and caught – usually in a split second – have been life changing. One such comment was that I appeared to be ‘over-managing’ a relationship. This was painful to catch and in the catching it was really clear that I needed to behave differently if anything was to change. I was able to hear and act on this one word, because I was ready to. The observation was truly timely.

The one I am still grappling with is the question an Australian friend raised during a regular conversation that we have. She asked, “What is happening with YOUR work?” In other words the work that is mine to be doing – not necessarily the work I am currently engaged in and paid for. It is a damn fine, stimulating and unsettling question as I do have further dreams and schemes lurking.

It is also one I don’t have a clear answer for. I am practising deep listening to myself as I allow various answers to float to the surface – do they pass the deep listening test of being worthy of follow up? I plan to talk with other possible partners in my further work and listen deeply for their interest, their reflections on the things they may have thought of that I haven’t – listening yet again for the ‘clues’ that I am on track.

Actually what I am deep listening for is the answers that must be followed up on. “Over-managing” required in the first instance a meditation where I asked for and received help with my confusion. Then I was compelled to take the further action that has indeed been part of my ‘success of the heart’ year.

One clue I had during meditation recently was that whatever my next work is I will have a team wrapped around me. This particular clue has stayed with me strongly – complete with spine tingles!

So for now I am ‘deep listening’ for those clues that get a “Yes that’s it!” or give me tingles down my spine – both indicators for me that I really need to pay attention and that my being is supported by ‘spirit’.

Whether for me or with others, the common elements of deep listening appear to be:
 Our own availability – our willingness to learn, to acknowledge the level of angst we are experiencing
 The authority or trust that we grant the speaker or writer to say something of meaning to us
 Valuing ourselves – accepting that we are worthy of deep listening on our own behalf
 The serendipity of it all
 The unseen, deeply felt role of spirit

Arohanui
Kerry-Ann

celebrant@kerryannstanton.com
www.kerryannstanton.com

Kaleidoscopes and Mothers

2009-05-16T22:32:00.000-07:00

I attend a local full moon gathering as I am able once a month. The month of May brought Mother’s day and the following theme for reflection: “The word "Mother" is a powerful one for us all - What is foremost in your thoughts at present? Please bring a symbol for the altar”.

My immediate response was a ‘kaleidoscope’. I loved the little toy ones we had as kids and today I have a beautiful oil filled timber kaleidoscope. I love the magic of them, the feel, and the way the colours shift, drop and form into ever changing mandala.

The ever changing happens within the confines of the container of the moving pieces of glass and oil. In the same way, I liken mothers and mothering and being a daughter to a kaleidoscope. Ideally the forms of our relationships in this way are ever changing. I have talked with my own children about not ‘labelling’ and ‘boxing me in’ any more than they can avoid. And yet the label of ‘mother’ will apply and have meaning for them also – it is the basis of our initial relationship. I am their mother AND I want the freedom, just as the kaleidoscope does, to change colour and form!

What was uppermost in my thoughts prior to my response was what is happening around me with mothers. I have a number of friends who now, more than ever, are ‘mothering’ their mothers through elderly age. My mother is not at this stage in her life yet I am more mindful of her well- being. As I age I have greater appreciation of the fullness of her living in a way I didn’t as a younger woman. The kaleidoscope turns and falls into a different place and oozes it’s way toward the next.

My daughter and her partner have just announced their engagement – great news for them and multiple kaleidoscopic moments of reflection for me. That means I am going to be a ‘mother-in-law’ with all the connotations that can go with this. The other mother-in-law and I agreed laughing over coffee that this is yet another progression in our lives as mothers - one that requires ongoing letting go of our own ‘child’ as we welcome the new ‘child’ into our family. The engagement had us as a family turning the kaleidoscope backwards, highly amused at memories from the past and the growing of these two from single to couple.

At the level of my personal being I am very mindful of being held and supported by spirit mother energy. This is a new and deepening experience for me. I feel both a letting go, of being held and a sense of personal connectedness with the great mother spirit. My colours are shifting and changing again within the kaleidoscope that is Kerry-Ann. This is not always beautiful – as the mandala shifts and changes there are periods of transition, of disunion and dissolution, moments of suspension and an unknowing of the particular form that is arriving. I have found thinking about myself – all aspects not just the mother bits – as a kaleidoscope has been helpful. It is a symbol I am continuing to play with.

As one of the women commented, we are all born of a mother and all need sufficient mothering to survive and develop. And we all need to find for ourselves symbols that enliven and sustain our living and our mothering.

How might you answer the questions:
“The word "Mother" is a powerful one for us all - What is foremost in your thoughts at present?

What symbol would you bring to the altar?

Arohanui
Kerry-Ann

Spiritual leadership

2008-11-16T00:31:00.000-08:00

I am struggling to write this article. Tomorrow morning I am flying to visit my brother and his family. My sister-in-law is in need of a miracle as she faces another of the cancer challenges which have come her way over the last 4 – 5 years.

I am going to give them all a hug - because it feels the only thing I can do - and remind my brother and my niece and nephews that they have a big sister and aunt in New Zealand. And anything else I might have going on for me seems … well, trivial!

That said, I have been considering the notion of spiritual leadership. And it all ends up feeling way too big.

More recently I was offered the contemplation that spiritual leadership requires and involves three key behaviours – resilience, empathy and grace. These I can relate to.

Initially I turned to the dictionary for an understanding of the concepts.

“Resilient” adj. - able to recover form and position elastically, able to withstand shock, suffering, disappointment etc.

“Empathy” noun - the power of entering into another’s personality and imaginatively experiencing his/her experiences; the power of entering into the feeling or spirit of something and so appreciating it fully (e.g. a work of art)

“Grace” noun – easy elegance in form or manner, any unassumingly attractive or pleasing personal quality; favour; kindness; pardon

From a personal perspective it would seem that spiritual leadership is as simple as living a mindful and full life, learning to weather the vagaries of living and staying as well and as connected as one can.

Simple I say, but as a group of women talking with me recently said, “we could never have imagined at 21 how our lives would unfold!” I had to agree and our laughter was tinged with a mix of many emotions.

As I travel to deliver my hugs to a family who are looking forward to getting them I shall reflect further on the simplicity of spiritual leadership.

As it is my own life that I seek to lead spiritually, for now I plan to continue my wellness plan which seems to contain the elements of resilience, empathy and grace. Namely:

h meditating regularly when it goes well and when I struggle for alignment

h exercising my body reluctantly and with relish

h listening up to people when they want to talk with me

h practising gratitude and compassion, mostly about the fullness of my life and celebrating what you have heard me call the ‘Yum/Yuck’ of life.

So it is my spirit that draws me to family tomorrow, it will be spirit that sustains me and spirit that I will offer in my time with them.

And now a plug for my new work as a programme coordinator for the YWCA’s Future Leaders programme.

Serendipity or divine intervention, has lead me to a role where I get to live ‘spiritual leadership’. Resilience, empathy, grace and much humour are required and present as I meet with and work with girls 14 – 19 years old and the wonderful women who currently are their mentors. See the link below for more information.

Future Leaders
The Future Leaders Programme provides mentoring, practical support and skills development to young women who show leadership potential. To join this inspiring programme as a Mentor see www.akywca.org.nz.

Or better still give me a call at work on 09 375 9248. I am very happy to talk with individual women and groups of women about being a mentor.

Arohanui

Kerry-Ann

Matariki – a celebration of New Year in Aotearoa

2008-05-18T20:03:00.000-07:00

Kia ora

Matariki is the Maori New Year (Tau Hou) – due to be celebrated in New Zealand 05 June – 05 July 2008. This time span reflects that Matariki is celebrated by different tribes at different times. For some, it is when the group of stars known as Matariki or the Pleiades is first seen in the pre-dawn sky, late in May. For others it is the full moon after it rises that is celebrated and still others centre their celebrations on the dawn of the next new moon.
Traditionally, depending on the visibility of Matariki, the coming season’s crop was thought to be determined - the brighter the stars, the warmer the season and the better the crop. Matariki was also a time for family to gather and reflect on past and future, to remember whakapapa and the legacy they left behind.

Here are two translations of the word Matariki: Mata Riki (Tiny Eyes) or Mata Ariki ( Eyes of God). Either way the eyes are thought to watch over the land and its people. During Matariki, we celebrate our unique place in the world. We give respect to the whenua (land) on which we live, and admiration to our mother earth, Papatūānuku. Throughout Matariki, we learn about those who came before us. Our history, our family, our bones. Matariki signals growth. It's a time of change. It's a time to prepare, and a time of action. During Matariki, we acknowledge what we have and what we have to give. Matariki celebrates the diversity of life. It's a celebration of culture, language, spirit and people. Matariki draws and intrigues me as an appropriate mid-winter celebration – the rising of Matariki our signal that the Celtic winter solstice is close by. It is also our time where we can prepare for spring and growth as the Northern hemisphere does during their New Year in January. It signals a time of gathering together to talk and eat, a personal time to draw into self–reflection as the days shorten.

As a place to start last year I gathered in my home with celebrant colleagues. After a shared dinner together we met in the living room with an open fire and lit candles.

I led a “Breathing to come together:”

Cosmic breathing He ha ao whanui

I breathe in Puritia te manawa
I am land He whenua ahau
I breathe out Tukuna te manawa
I am listening E whakarongo ana ahau

I breathe in Puritia te manawa
I am river He awa ahau
I breathe out Tukuna te manawa
I am flowing E rere ana ahau

I breathe in Puritia te manawa
I am kauri He kauri ahau
I breathe out Tukuna te manawa
I am strong E tu rangatira ana ahau

I breathe in Puritia te manawa
I am rain He ua ahau
I breathe out Tukuna te manawa
I am refreshed E tu noa ana ahau

I breathe in Puritia te manawa
I am rock He kamaka ahau
I breathe out Tukuna te manawa
I am centered Kua hou e te wairua
- Powell, Anne, “Firesong”, Steele Roberts Ltd 1999

As part of our sharing circle we named and celebrated people who had died and we shared aspects of ourselves that we were dying to or complete with.

We finished with a poem called Warning of Winter – Ursula Bethell (p.135, “Spirit in a Strange Land: A selection of New Zealand spiritual verse”, ed. Paul Morris, Morris, Paul, Ricketts, H & Grimshaw, M, A Godwit Book Random House Publishing 2002) before having a cup of tea and cake of course!

“Give over, now, red roses;
Summer-long you told us,
Urgently unfolding, death-sweet, life-red,
Tidings of love. All’s said. Give over.

Summer-long you placarded
Leafy shades with heart-red
Symbols. Who knew not love at first knows now,
Who had forgot has now remembered.

Let be, let be, lance-lilies,
Alert, pard-spotted, tilting
Poised anthers, flaming; have done flaming fierce;
Hard hearts were pierced long since and stricken.

Give to the blast your thorn-crowns
Roses; and now be torn down
All you ardent lilies, your high-holden crests,
Havocked and cast to rest on the clammy ground.

Alas, alas, to darkness
Descends the flowered pathway,
To solitary places, deserts, utter night;
To issue in what hidden dawn of light hereafter?

But one, in dead of night,
Divine Agape, kindles
Morning suns, new moons, lights starry trophies;
Says to the waste; rejoice, and bring forth roses;
To the ice-fields: Let here spring thick bright lilies.”

At the level of community find out what is happening in your local area – perhaps get up before dawn and witness Matariki for yourself. Other ideas include developing a recycle plan for your home or local area, plant native trees and shrubs or draw out a plan for a spring garden and start to gather the seed and seedlings. Perhaps learn the plants which you can eat and which help to heal and pass this knowledge on.
And for fun you could make and go fly a kite on the New Year!

At a personal level Matariki is a time to reflect on your own whakapapa (or story), to spend time with family, record oral histories, perhaps create something to remember those who have recently passed on. As you look to Matariki look to your future, start something new, create an image for the year ahead. When my mother turned 70 we gifted her a book of family stories, that is the stories that each of us associate with her.
Matariki is a time of giving – giving thanks for the bounty we experience, giving to those who are in need and giving the gift of something of ourselves to others.

In 2009 Matariki will be celebrated on 24 June and in 2010 on 14 June.

Arohanui Kerry-Ann
http://www.kerryannstanton.com/

Other References and Resources for this article:
Batten, Juliet, Celebrating the Southern Seasons, Tandem Press, Auckland 1995
Hakaraia, Libby, “Matariki”, Reed Publishing NZ 2004

"I don't ... because"

2008-05-15T16:35:00.000-07:00

One recent Sunday I was dancing around the Blockhouse Bay Boating Club exploring the rhythm of "flow". It was very wet outside and as I glanced down at the pile of shoes I was amazed to see a pair of jandals amidst the boots and shoes. My mind went, ‘I don't wear jandals in the rain because they flick up mud and water as I walk onto my trousers." Well really!
How the mind can go to odd places and of course the implication was how silly the jandals owners were to be wearing jandals on a day like this. This meant the observer I am was far too sensible to do something that silly.
As I returned to the dance I made a mental note to further explore what other "I don'ts" I and others might have that trip us up, perhaps prevent us fully participating in our lives and may have us sit in unnecessary judgement of others.
The very next weekend a friend announced as we were driving from west to east in Auckland to go to Parnell that she ‘didn't go the port way because she didn't feel comfortable about the lanes to use." So she would go the longer way to avoid confusion! And yes you are right we coached her, in heavy rain again, how to use the port way with much hilarity as I shared my jandals story.
What are your "I don'ts ... because"?
They are not necessarily invalid or foolish but unexamined can really remove us from living fully. The prudent ones prevent misery and mayhem - "I don't drink and drive because ..." but what about "I don't talk to people like that because ..." or "I don't go here or eat things like that because ..."
Very similar to I don't is I can't or I couldn't possibly. "I can't apply for that position because I don't have everything they are looking for." Or the heartbreaking "I can't go to heaven because I'm not good enough for God" from an elderly relative a number of years ago.
As I have commented before we all make assessments in these ways all the time. The issue is not the making of the assessments. The issue lies with not checking them out and going, "well who says so and is this still so?" This gives us the opportunity to check our assessments out and just maybe make a different choice or be very clear in our original "I don't" - so no jandals in the rain for me.
Arohanui Kerry-Ann (www.kerryannstanton.com)

PS - what I did do as a child was walk home from school on really rainy days barefoot in the overflowing gutters - such remembered bliss. So in a really heavy rain storm the other day I walked (with my walking shoes on - broken glass you understand) through flooding gutters, water gushing everywhere. Still feels good.

When there is nothing to understand, nothing to say

2008-03-13T16:58:00.000-07:00

Since I last wrote we have had a 10 ½ month friend die and a young man, my daughter’s age, get some potentially devastating news.

Each event has challenged me. How to stay present to my friends and not be overwhelmed? What is the best way to help? How to accept that sometimes there simply is nothing to understand?

Our baby friend was seriously ill in hospital when we went away for our summer camping holiday. Prior to going camping I had been popping into the hospital as I could, just to say hello and sit with them for a while.

When I was camping, I initially struggled with being away enjoying myself while they were in Auckland experiencing a very personal sort of hell. I ended up giving myself a talking to about making sure I enjoyed the opportunity I had. All the while knowing that there was nothing I could do to help anyway. Such a feeling of helplessness though.

As I thought about it some more I decided I would at least send a daily text – just to say, “You are not forgotten”. So when I climbed the hill to change the freezer pads at the communal freezer I would also gather at the site where I could get signal – where we could all get signal actually. It was a hilarious sight to see us all there pointing our mobile phones skyward from the hill, waiting and hoping for communication release! I would briefly say what we were up to at our end – a quick chat – and then carry on into my day. The occasional return text assured me of the delight of ‘normal’ communication and of being kept in touch with.

When I returned to Auckland the visits continued and I would stay light and present during the hospital time and then cry on my way home - nothing to do, nothing to say.

My friend does beautiful drawings and it occurred to me that drawing might be one way for her to stay grounded during her experience, especially if they were in this for the long haul. I asked if she would like to do this and one day I took in several sketch books and a bunch of crayons.

It didn’t end up being a long haul – our beautiful baby friend died late January and we attended one of the most exquisite funeral ceremonies I have been to. At this time we got to say good bye to her and to honour her Mum & Dad.

We don’t expect to have to say good bye to a baby and to grieve with parents whose hopes and dreams have been so radically changed by such a loss. It was a time of deep reflection for us all – both during her illness, as we offered our prayers and meditations and readings, and at her death.

And the drawings – well I may be privileged to see them one day - or not - as the case may be. However they were begun and are being continued. As someone outside the situation I could be an observer and make a suggestion around self care, without it needing to be a magic cure.

Our other friend is an inspiring go-getter and leaves the rest of us behind with his matter-of-factness. At a much younger age than I, he is teaching me that sometimes there are no ‘reasons’, there is nothing to understand. Life just is, so just get on with it. I want to look for reasons, for understanding – because if I did, surely there would be something I could do to make it all better again!

I still don’t get the WHY of these events. I DO get that staying in touch, acknowledging what is going on rather than pretending it isn’t, staying grounded myself and present to my own living, all help.

Sometimes there is nothing to understand. There is something that can be said and done.

Arohanui Kerry-Ann (www.kerryannstanton.com)

Juxtaposed with these events were two heartening ones.

On the day I heard of our baby friend’s death I was doing a naming ceremony for a small boy the same age. As one family grieved, another family and their circle of extended family and friends, joyfully welcomed their small boy into the world and their community.

I have also been helping a friend make a scrap cot quilt for her first grandchild. I knew her daughter as a small child and looked after her with my own daughter. Making this quilt has been a form of prayer for me – keeping me in creative action and soothing my soul.

Indeed the yum/yuck of life as I call it.

After thought: Poems can offer solace. These two moved me.
God be with the mother (father) by Michael Leunig. Find it in A Common Prayer – a cartoonist talks to God, Michael Leunig, HarperCollinsReligious, 1990
A small wave for your form by Mhairi nic Neill. Find it in Life Prayers, ed. E. Roberts & E. Amidon, Harper, San Francisco, 1996

Kerry-Ann in Wonderland

2007-11-24T16:55:00.000-08:00

Writing for the Women’s Spirituality Newsletter is an interesting quarterly time of reflection – I can recommend it for any of you out there half tempted!

This time last year I wrote about heart sensing, of heart palpitations and questioning how to live heart-fully. In 2005 I was speculating on how to combine Christmas and Summer solstice and stay sane, let alone spiritual, and in 2004 I was engaging with dance, tears and the sacred.

“I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, Sir, because I'm not myself you see. ” – Alice

November 2007 sees and feels me grappling with disappointment, transition and in the words of Alice (in Wonderland) – yes “it would be so nice if something made sense for a change. ”

I am quoting Alice in Wonderland as right now I feel somewhat like I imagined she felt. Which rabbit hole am I down? Did I eat too much of the cookie or not enough of the mushroom? Disappointment has popped back into my life like the Cheshire Cat and rendered me almost inarticulate for this article as I seem to equate writing for a spiritual newsletter to mean only writing in the positive!

David Richo talks of the full career of disappointment - realising it, grieving it, and then growing because of it. When I’ve written about transition before, I’ve talked about marking what is ending, going through the neutral phase before popping out into the beginning again – the land of opportunity. This time it doesn’t sit so comfortably.

On the face of it, I’ve had a successful year – my work income is up, I’ve had good client feedback,
my son has had a great first year at University, my daughter a most interesting year in Australia, I have made several quilts – including my gorgeous “Emerald & Scarlet” for my 50th and so on. I could write an in-depth gratitude list. Yet here I am, pondering on, and grappling with, disappointment.

From my perspective, disappointment and expectation are close buddies. It seems I had expectations of being 50. Some of the things I thought would be sorted out are not, or not in the way I expected! I wanted space and time to breathe this year but not at the cost of the recent and unexpected loss of work and income. I expected that my husband would have his business in a viable state, but it is not.

Rather than whine on, I’ll cut to Alice again – “However I thought I was further on than the beginning or am I merely at the beginning of the next part of my life?

Oh yes, she who works with transition is absolutely in one of her own – lots of things ending, with all the feelings, questions and speculations that go with endings and being in transition and none of the certainty that goes with being ‘in’ the next part.

Germaine Greer recently talked in a radio interview of the “irritable search for certainty” and I laughed and laughed – this is certainly my personal experience. And unlike the irritable Queen of Hearts – “Now, I give you fair warning, either you or your head must be off, and that in about half no time! Take your choice!" – I can’t chop heads off, nor do I intend to depart from life or marriage.

Well, when one's lost, I suppose it's good advice to stay where you are until someone finds you. But who'd ever think to look for me here? - Alice

Such a good question – who indeed? If I am to find myself how might I proceed from here? The Doorknob would have me “Read the directions and directly you will be directed in the right direction”.

It would appear that the Universe – bless her – has provided that direction by saying:
“Thou shalt pause and regroup; fresh opportunities need your time and attention”.

Reading the directions occurs for me through meditation, and leaning into those people and practices that sustain me – whether it’s dancing in my pyjamas to the “Doors” in the morning, swimming in the sea or walking in the beautiful Titirangi bush.

Recognising that I am in transition – and getting clear about what I am grieving for and what I am relieved about - is immensely helpful.

As to where from here, a final word from Alice - “I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!”

Arohanui, Kerry-Ann-in-transition

All Alice in Wonderland Quotes from: http://quotations. about. com/od/moretypes/a/alice1. htm

The laundry shrine

2007-07-23T16:43:00.000-07:00

I was talking with a friend the other day about cat urine and dog faeces. The cats were urinating in her house and leaving an unmistakable odour that was very hard to live with. The dog faeces smell was happening more often as she went to eat her food or when she was in different places – everything smelled like ‘shit’.

Yes, my friend has a number of very real pressures in her living and had been talking about her life ‘turning to shit’, now it was starting to smell and taste like ‘shit’ - a very high price to pay for life in the hard lane.

I phoned to say that I had a ‘thought’ I wished to share with her over a cup of tea. When we met we started to tease out how come it had to feel so hard all the time and what might just shift her thinking – not the constraint of her situation – just enough to make life a little less shitty.

To that end I had found and bought a range of symbols that might represent the introduction of some ‘sweetness’ into her living if they made sufficient sense to her. I had assembled in a bag a cake of aromatherapy soap, a glass ornamental wrapped sweet, a handful of lollipops and some candles to choose from.

Out of our conversation it transpired that she too had been asking some similar questions and was amused and delighted to play the game of choosing the right symbolic treasures for her. We did some of this with her eyes closed as the candle and soap had to smell ‘just right’.

And then the inspiration came – just the day before a brand new super huge much needed washing machine had been delivered to her household. The chosen items were to be spirited home and installed in the laundry as a personal shrine complete with a ‘sweetness’ painting. A cleansing of soul and sanity and hopefully odour and taste!

The urine – well on National Radio that weekend a solution was broadcast – white vinegar. It works like a charm apparently as long as you can survive the smell of urine AND vinegar for 3-4 days.

I offer the laundry shrine story in the knowledge and experience that in the face of seemingly insurmountable pressure the use of symbols energetically creates a different pathway for us to follow. It acts as a declaration to the universe that we are ready for help and open to some ease.

Arohanui
Kerry-Ann

On reaching fifty, the completion of five decades – the beginning of my sixth decade

2007-05-27T17:04:00.000-07:00

I have been writing about turning fifty for awhile and now finally made it. The relief is profound – having agonised and speculated about this ‘being fifty’ I’m here and enjoying it.

Part of my strategy was to allow time to reflect on the 7 x 7 or 49 years prior and to look at ‘where to from here’. Who did I want to go forward as? Or how did I want to show up to myself and the people around me?

My late thirties had seen me declare that I couldn’t and wouldn’t live into my forties in the same way. I made relationship and health changes at that time that continue to make a difference today.

This time it feels more like integration rather than making yet more changes. The Hebraic tradition talks about a time of Jubilee at around fifty. This is a time where one gathers together all that has gone before and all that one is, and sounding the trumpets in celebration, dons the mantle of Jubilee and steps out into the next part of ones living. This is a time of acknowledgement and recognition and a point of choice as to how we live.

Right up to the night before my birthday I was ‘processing’ and preparing (please note regular life was still happening along) and building up a fair head of steam around unresolved resentments.
* See my article “I love my resentment”.

Thanks to a good friend who copped a real earful I reached clarity about the three key resentments. One I could nothing about other than name it, know it wasn’t fair and knowing I’d rather be me than that person - let it go! The other two required conversations with my husband and my son. To all our credit, they got ‘it’ and made good on what was their part in my resentment – finally. These were both long term situations and well past my ‘being reasonable’ ability.

So … as I went to sleep that night I felt so relaxed and resentment free, it was gorgeous and I woke up on my birthday feeling horny for life!

As well as a number of birthday coffees and lunches I had three main celebrations. A family and friends dinner at home with great food and much laughter, a “Ladies in Red” evening hosted by celebrant colleagues with even more laughter, great food and gifted treasure, words of acknowledgment and readings, and finally a women only ceremony led by a celebrant colleague Barbara James-Bartle. This ceremony I would like to share with you in more detail.

Entitled “In the loving of my fifty”, the idea was to embrace being fifty and be supported by women in my life to transition into the fullness of a sixth decade. The concept was taken from Meg Campbell’s poem

AFTER LOVING

“While we lie hidden in ourselves
a moment longer, two colours
light up a world within.
At first Chinese red
because we are happy,
and then emerald
the god-green of peace
that follows when you follow me
while my hands
wing their separate flights
along your gullies.”
– Meg Campbell

I feel deeply moved by this poem in relation to the fullness of who I am and the fullness of life I get to lead, “Chinese red of happiness and the god-green peace of emerald.”
I also wanted to create a fabric art piece or quilt to mark this time. Each of the women was invited to gift me fabric – emerald and/or scarlet, toward this piece, a work from an inspiration by Kaffe Fassett, a fabulous scrap quilt that I can incorporate all the pieces gifted to me.

I was secluded in a private room, preparing, as each of the women arrived – recognisable by their laugh, quiet words or raucous arrival!

Invited into the ceremonial space I was greeted by thirteen beautiful friends, from different aspects of my life. Stepping into the fifty area, marked by a 50 created from flowers and leaves, I walked and spoke briefly to the five decades that had preceded, bringing myself to the present time. Invited to sit I was covered to mark the ‘invisibility’ that can occur as we age in our society. As music played I felt the shift and as the women moved to encircle me closer I felt deeply held in the transition. Revealed once again and emerging to the light of a circle of candles, I sat as I was blessed by each woman, each in their own way. Finally I had the opportunity of speaking and for me truly “the best mirror for a woman is a good friend”.

Dinner was then shared with the love and hilarity that only women can do, in my opinion. My outstanding memory is of how peaceful I felt, so peaceful.

I have shared some of this in detail because for me all of it was important. For others of you it might be quite inconsequential to turn fifty or to have resolution in some of the ways that were important to me. I’m glad to have marked turning fifty. I am grateful for the family and friends who celebrated with me and for me.

And how am I going forward - peacefully and feeling well loved!

Heart Sensing

2007-05-15T16:53:00.000-07:00

Each time I sit down to write one of these articles I trust to the intuition of writing on what is present for me or pre-occupying me right now. A major presence for me recently has been heart palpitations and a sense of tiredness around living.

At a practical level I have been checked by my Doctor, I have moved to herbal support for early menopause and I continue to benefit from regular acupuncture.

At the level of my spirit I have wondered what my body is attempting to guide me to.

One thought suggested to me is that although I may have limited ordinary mental time I do have unlimited spiritual time - that this is an essential difference to be aware of when seeking freedom from the struggle & stress that generates my feeling of tiredness. I am not sure that I fully understand this! I do struggle with the ‘fullness’ of my living and seem to need wake up calls about what really matters for me.

Are my heart palpitations a reflection of being out of balance? Are they requests to live ‘taking heart’ and ‘heart fully’?

How do I do this in the face of what I see as non-negotiable requirements – to support my family, pay my way, and make a contribution? To meet those demands do I need to do work that does not fully engage me? Must I choose between ‘doing’ and my desire to ‘just be’?

Or is it more an issue, once again, of how I think about and live into my life? My sense is that ‘Yes, in part this is true’. So I am endeavouring to heart-sense my way into daily living with ordinary time and spiritual time. Is my heart in this? How do I stay heart-centered and honour my commitments from this place?

What is showing up is the need to pace myself differently, not necessarily do less, but to live and work with the rhythms of my being. What is showing up is the need to ask for and receive help. What is showing up, yet again, is the need to listen to and respond to my own heart and to the divine within me.

My two business cards (developed a number of years ago) have the same heart logo and two different yet connected ‘by-lines’. My coaching one is ‘wholehearted living’ and my celebrant one is ‘celebrating life’. I must have known something about myself and my need to be reminded of joy and grounded in intentional heart-focused living.

In one of The Prayer Tree poems about broken, cracked or cut hearts, Michael Leunig writes

‘Let a bird lean in the hole and sing
A simple song like a tiny bell
And let it ring.’
I am playing with this gently – a ding-a-ling to support joyfulness.

Arohanui
Kerry-Ann

References
‘The Prayer Tree’, Michael Leunig, HarperCollins 1990. Poem begins ‘ ‘When the heart …”

I love my resentment

2007-02-26T16:40:00.000-08:00

I consider myself a spiritual woman. I consider myself an emotional woman. Over the years I have experienced endless angst as I struggled with encouragements like – “just let life be a deep let go” or “90% attitude 10% reality”.

I felt angry or at best ‘yeh right’! All well and good on the days when this was achieved with grace and ease but what about the other ‘many more’ days? And who said that to be spiritual one should be nice all the time? I don’t know but it is certainly a directive that I have attempted to meet. Well it didn’t work for me!

What has worked, is working for me is a compassionate acceptance of where my emotions fit in my living – how I can observe, understand and work with my emotional being to actively and congruently achieve grace in my life.

If I was to say one thing to all the people I work with and especially the women it would be “love your resentment”. It is the most fabulous indicator of what is going on for you and gives very accurate clues as to what you might need to request, offer or decline in your life.

What do I mean by the mood of resentment? I mean that agitated, irritable, snarly sort of hidden energy that gets in the way of feeling comfortable, usually causing me to lose mindfulness in the rest of my living. For the purpose of this article emotions are those moment by moment emotional experiences we all have and that are constantly changing. Moods, by contrast, are the prevalent emotional state we may find our selves caught up in and living.

Resentment is a mood where I assess that the world is unfair to me, I declare I don’t like the way my life has unfolded and I declare my intention to get even. Problem is we rarely ‘get even’ with the right person or situation. As my son said to me one day when about 10 years old, after I had thrown a verbal maternal tantrum at him, “you know Mum it’s not my fault you’re so angry”! So true!

Resentment is when we find ourselves thumping pots on the element because we are ‘resentful’ about being the cook, or in the work place being the only one ‘who cares around here’.

I have a number of options at the point I recognise what is happening for me. I can move to a mood of acceptance where I assess that some possibilities have been closed for me right now, e.g. I am the only cook for now, and I can declare my gratitude to life regardless of that and think of ways to have being the cook work for me, e.g. more simple meals, take-way meals sometimes etc. Or in the workplace, rather than beating others up for their lack of ‘care’ I can acknowledge myself for the opportunity to do ‘care’ my way and therefore be in integrity with myself at least.

Alternatively by recognising I am in full flight resentment I can move to a mood of ambition or resolution. This is where I assess that there are possibilities in life, I declare that I have chosen to realise some of them and I declare that I will take action right now. So sticking with the domestic environment, rather than snarling at my son and husband for their lack of contribution I have sat down and talked with them. Out of this discussion and my requests we now have different systems in place where we share the domestic chores. And yes, I do have to accept some variance of standards etc. However the net result is a wife and mother who is more easy and more fun to be with. I am more at ease within myself and much more available for gratitude in my daily life.

One of my promises to myself is to, where possible; only agree to do things that I can do ’gracefully’, i.e. without resentment. This for me is the ‘fit’ with my spiritual being and my emotional being.

So – love my resentment yes I do! Do I stay in resentment any longer than I can manage – no I don’t! With this comes a confidence where I can assess that there are possibilities for me in life, that I can act on them most of the time and that if I find myself unable to act I can learn – I don’t have to be stuck in resentment.

Arohanui
Kerry-Ann

Summer Solstice and Christmas – a question

2006-11-15T17:13:00.000-08:00

I wonder what Summer Solstice would be like without the potential jinx of Christmas?

Christmas is a time of very mixed feelings for me, as it appears to be for many of us. Christmas can be summer, high times and happy family gatherings. It can also be a time that feels relentlessly busy and not at all joyful.

In my family of birth we often travelled to family for Christmas and I would arrive feeling car sick and anxious about the tensions that I could feel but couldn’t name.
On the plus side I loved all the carols, the candles at midnight on Christmas Eve and the opening of presents on the day. We were never far from a beach on our holidays so Boxing Day onwards was often blissful with sun, sand and seawater.

Once I had my own family and several marriages I had even more family and tension to spread myself around. Rescue remedy became the order of the day, particularly the years I did Christmas without my children.

Sometimes I would run to the beach and just hide, excusing myself from multiple family gatherings – so a regular tension for me between my love of the season of summer and my up and down feelings about Christmas.

As the first Pohutukawa triumphantly open into glorious crimson flower from mid November onward how can I integrate my understanding of the themes of Summer Solstice and the themes of Christmas so that I don’t feel like a somewhat hysterical, discombobulated banshee?

In part I plan to do this by pausing for the Summer Solstice as a celebration in its own right. If Auckland weather obliges this is a time of brightness, warmth and the sheer joy of being out in nature. I plan to sit out in the weather and let my heart energy and the energy of the sun infuse each other. I love the idea of holding ‘lightness’ as central to this time, of radiance whether in our energy or the beauty of nature around us. I might invite a few people to share this time with me, exchanging achievements and affirming our lives.

Notice I said I plan and might – writing this article has really highlighted for me just how stressful I experience this time of year. So anything I can do to transform this for myself has got to be good for me! Perhaps I can take the light and warmth of the Solstice into Christmas with me.

Coming just before Christmas, as Juliet Batten suggests, “…, summer solstice is the threshold to the holiday season, and by giving thanks for what has been completed, we can let go of the working year and step forward and enjoy the break that lies ahead.”

I do take personal solace each year in the pre-Christmas gatherings with my women friends. At these we share good food, celebrate, bemoan and cry about the year just gone and ‘gift’ each other in the truest sense - often with real gifts and just as likely with laughter, love and listening. I treasure and look forward to these gatherings.

In New Zealand Summer Solstice and Christmas do happen together so my opening question requires an answer that allows both to be a blessing in my life rather than a non-event and a curse.

The answer for me lies in owning up to the fullness of all my feelings, of taking the time to give thanks for the bounty and the gifts I have in my life, of taking the best bits for me of Christmas, the giving and the receiving, and declining to participate in anything that has me feeling disoriented and distressed.

When all else fails poetry reminds and revives me. May it do so for you.

From “Nativity” - Joy Cowley
p.30 “Spirit in a Strange Land: A SELECTION OF NEW ZEALAND SPIRITUAL VERSE”, ed., Paul Morris, Harry Ricketts & Mike Grimshaw, Godwit 2002

“Look now! It is happening again! Love like a high spring
tide is swelling to fullness and overflowing the banks
of our small concerns.
And here again is the star, that white flame of truth blazing
the way for us through a desert of tired ways.

Once more comes the music, angel song that lifts our
hearts and tunes our ears to the harmony of the universe,
making us wonder how we ever could have forgotten.

And now the magi within us gathers up gifts of gold
and myrrh, while that other part of ourselves, the impulsive,
reckless shepherd, runs helter skelter with arms
outstretched to embrace the wonder of it all.

We have no words to contain our praise. We ache with
awe, we tremble with miracle, as once again, in the small
rough stable of our lives, Christ is born.”

Or from Michael Leunig (“The Prayer Tree”, HarperCollinsPublishers, 1990)

“We welcome summer and the glorious
blessing of light. We are rich with light;
we are loved by the sun. Let us empty our
hearts into the brilliance. Let us pour our
darkness into the glorious, forgiving light.
For this loving abundance let us give thanks
and offer our joy.

AMEN

Arohanui
Kerry-Ann

On Being at Home – further personal sharing

2006-05-27T17:03:00.000-07:00

Well as mentioned last time I’m moved – talk about a literal transition from one age (pre 49) to the next stage (post 49). We moved the day after my birthday and the last month has been tempestuous – weather, humour and day to day!

I have always liked the notion that spirituality involves honouring the extraordinary of the ordinary and the ordinariness of the extraordinary. It helps to make sense of wherever and however I find myself – which is a bit all over the place currently as I physically and emotionally come home to my new physical home and the being I am and desire to be.

I can’t say I have triumphantly sounded the trumpets of jubilee time yet - however I just love my new home. Disarray and all it just feels right, both in terms of the feel of the house and the feel of the land. Someone recently described nature to me as the ‘sacred naked’. What a privilege for me to be more deeply connected with the land. I already have a different sense of coming home to a community where I fit better and make more sense to the people around me. Simple things like neighbours who talk with us, friends I can now meet just walking distance away, events I am drawn to AND a home I feel like spending more time in. As I practise meditation and explore my living further I am seeking to come more clearly home to myself.

Virginia Woolf is quoted as saying that all women need “peace, acceptance, personal income and a room of their own.” I endeavour to live my life based on this – and have created as a basic purchase condition a beautiful room of my own for meditation, creating and just sitting – a by invitation only space. I am grateful to have sufficient personal income and experience peace and acceptance as a life long journey!

May Matariki provide for you a deepening sense of connection with self, others and the land – a sense of being ‘at home’ whatever that is for you.

Arohanui
Kerry-Ann

Musing on love

2006-05-15T16:51:00.000-07:00

When I compose these articles I tend to write from whatever my current preoccupation is. This time I am musing on love, realising that this is an unrealistically ambitious topic for a short piece. Accordingly it is a collection of threads that are part of my living – marriages, children and my spiritual journeying through reflections on Rumi.

January to early April sees me in the thick of the wedding season, meeting couples and writing ceremonies of marriage with and for them. Love and marriage are expected to go together, so love gets to be a big part of what we talk about and what I am challenged to write about in a way that makes sense to all the different couples!

Some want it simple, nothing too frilly or romantic - “We only know what we have always known, that without love we live alone.” (Denis Glover)

Some find a poem or reading that expresses the essence of what they mean to each other, so for example, “Love is friendship that has caught fire …” (unknown) or “because to the depths of me, I long to love one person, with all my heart, my soul, my mind, my body...” (Mari Nichols)

Many welcome it as an opportunity to acknowledge each other in ways we often don’t make the time or place to do.
“ … I love you for putting your hand into my heaped up heart and passing over all the foolish, weak things that you can’t help dimly seeing there, ad for drawing out into the light all the beautiful belongings that no one else had looked quite far enough to find…” (Roy Croft)

And sometimes the marriage is a celebration of a long love and friendship. “Young love is a flame – very pretty – often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep-burning, unquenchable.” (Henry Ward Beecher)

I am deeply privileged to participate in people’s lives at this level. Time and again I get to reflect myself on love. It helps keep me softer and more loving, both toward myself as it reminds me of the best that as humans we can aspire to and toward others as I share their journey of making sense of our being human.

Today, as I was writing this, a friend sent me one of those quick flick emails that go around every so often. It’s heading – “What does love mean?” A group of professional people had posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds. The following responses really appealed to me.

"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love." Rebecca- age 8

"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well." Tommy - age 6

"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget." Jessica - age 8

The children’s responses point to an understanding of love over time, of love surviving challenges and our need to know we are loved. I am a step-grandmother, Nonni K, to two young children. My step-son has only been in our lives for the last eight years as he was adopted at birth. So almost simultaneously we have become birth father and step mother and warmly welcomed and now loved grandparents. No rules for this experience, just an intention to be loving and loved, that we grow into with each visit.

My spiritual journey encompasses mystical Sufism – in particular the writings and teachings of Rumi. I am currently reading and reflecting on a book by Kabir Edmund Helminski – “Living Presence – A Sufi way to mindfulness & the essential self.”

One of the chapters is entitled “What we love we will become”. I find that certain sentences leap out for my contemplation; “whatever the soul chooses to love, it will resemble.” And therefore what we choose to love is important.”

In talking about love for the Spirit or agape he talks of how “Spirit within us can love Spirit in everything. “…our openness, our relatedness, and our engagement are the measure of our love.”

Easier perhaps for me to do when working with couples on their marriage, definitely an energy I endeavour to bring to all my work, even when dealing with people experiencing strife or overwhelm in their work and living.

When I am asked “how are things” - I will often reply, “I am blessed to lead a full life.” Usually meaning I have been really busy! What might be more real and truthful is that “I am blessed to lead a full and loving life.”

When I remarried in 2000 we had the following blessing:

May these vows and this marriage be blessed.
May it be sweet milk, this marriage, like wine and halvah.
May this marriage offer fruit and shade like the date palm.
May this marriage be full of laughter,
Our every day a day in a paradise.
May this marriage be a sign of compassion,
A seal of happiness here and hereafter.
May this marriage have a fair face and a good name,
An omen as welcome as the moon in a clear blue sky.
I am out of words to describe how spirit mingles in this marriage - Rumi

I could replace the word marriage with the word life and I would have some way of speaking to the blessed life I lead as I am indeed, “out of words to describe how spirit mingles in this life.”

Arohanui Kerry-Ann

Inner & Outer Spring

2006-05-12T17:09:00.000-07:00

First Light has just passed and already the light is shifting in the patterns of shadows through the trees and the stunning beauty of magnolias that bloom just as I am feeling fed up with the dark. I marked First Light very simply by myself this year – setting up an altar with ferns, a white candle, a paua inspired small bowl with a simple white rock in it and a green frog symbolizing cleansing. My reflections focused on questions posed by Juliet Batten.
¬ What needs cleansing and purifying in your life?
¬ What delicate new growth needs your support right now?
¬ What creative action are you inspired to undertake?
¬ What is emerging in you and seeking the light?
The answers that came from these questions lead me onto Spring in this article.

Last Spring I wrote on how in our full and busy lives it is often easy to just survive rather than thrive. One thriving strategy I talked about was to acknowledge the seasons, not just those of nature but also the seasons of our own lives.

This year as spring approaches I am reflecting on my inner spring and anticipating the outer spring. I am also thinking in questions rather than having to have answers or as Thich Nah Hanh has said, “don’t just do something, sit there!” Still a discipline for me I have to say.

So I return to Juliet Batten’s Inner Focus questions for Spring – the ones that appeal to me are:
¬ What new quality, attitude or activity do you want to encourage?
¬ How can you care for the earth?
¬ How can you support what is greening in you right now?

These questions and my responses address inner and outer spring. I am seeking, now I feel more physically at home, to develop my vision for community celebrancy. I am looking to sow the seeds of this with colleagues over the next year. My new home has a number of plants now regarded as noxious weeds by Waitakere City. Our plan this first spring season is to get advice on what needs to be removed and the safest ways of doing this. So this spring will be about clearing the way, getting an idea about what will be needed in our garden in the future. As to what is greening in me – well I am meditating on this and staying open. My spiritual self, my sense of the sacred and a personal connection to the divine are the tendrils of new growth that are active in me.

I have chosen to use Juliet’s Inner focus questions – you could choose your own questions. The important thing from my perspective is to take time, to regroup your self from the depths of winter and claim in your own way the ‘rights’ of spring – renewal, energy, balance and hope.

Arohanui Kerry-Ann

Batten, Juliet – “CELEBRATING the SOUTHERN SEASONS – Rituals for Aotearoa.” Random House, revised edition, 2005.

Autumn – ‘it’s just time’ - threads of thought

2006-03-15T17:11:00.000-08:00

Thread One
Last year in winter and this year in summer I have been asked “why”?
My reply; “it’s just time”.
So simple really – each time there has been a list of reasons and yet it was just time. Time last year to leave my salaried work and work for myself. As autumn approaches, yes, I am reaping the benefits of that leap of faith.
This year, time to sell the home I have lived in for the longest time ever and yes, it feels the right time to us all. Now is the time to find a home that takes different care of me - a place of sacred retreat. As autumn draws near it is my wish that we will be settled in our new home ready for the winter.

Thread Two
Autumn is a time that just is – each year it is autumn – just because. The seasons parallel our outward experience of aging. Simply by living we experience the cycle of seasons in nature and we age. How we think about this though can affect our experience of the seasons of our lives.

Juliet Batten talks of the autumn equinox as a ‘transition from outer to inner, from above to below, from light into dark’.

My ‘it’s just time’ is my inner, deep intuition of time and timing, while the outer experience of this is making the decisions happen. In the case of my house using the energy and vigour of summer to clean, repair and present our home for sale!

Thread Three
As the outer world comes into autumn my inner autumn begins. I will turn 49 in April and I regard this as a time worth marking and celebrating. In Hebrew tradition they speak of the Jubilee Time – where one dons the mantle of all one’s life that has gone before (the 7 x 7 years) and sounding the trumpets triumphantly stepping into the life that is to unfold. Barbara Sher talks of the first half of our lives belonging to society and our biology – working, raising families etc. The second half of our lives is ours to craft if we would have it be so. And for me ‘it is time’ for this to be so.

Living
Working
Hanging in
Holding on
Leaving
Reaping
Blessings
Blessings of marriage
Weathered this time
Life persevered
My turn
My time
Time in spirituality
Feminine divine time
Right time
Enough time
Time it is
Blessed be

Arohanui
Kerry-Ann

Highly recommended reading:

Batten, Juliet, Celebrating the Southern Seasons – Rituals of Aotearoa, Random House Publ. Revised edition 2005

Harris, Maria, JUBILEE TIME – Celebrating Women, Spirit, and the Advent of Age, Bantam Books 1995.

Sher, Barbara, it’s only too late If You Don’t Start Now – How to Create Your Second Life at Any Age, Dell Publishing 1998

On Change

2005-07-11T16:50:00.000-07:00

Recently I worked with a group who had been experiencing a huge amount of change in their work environment. Changes in physical location, equipment, team membership to name the key ones. Yet when I had the group do a tick box checklist of all the changes they had personally experienced in the last year both in and out of work one man ticked only one box. On being asked how he managed only one tick in spite of so much change identified by everyone else he replied, “I only marked the change I didn’t like. If I like it I don’t regard it as a change”.

This is an interesting notion around change when for many of us our instant response is to regard change as a negative experience or as guaranteed to be stressful. I could say that change is just change and the only constant is that all change creates ripple effects.

It is the assessments that we make about the changes that make the difference. At work an announced or even impending change can generate a range of responses from “about time – can’t wait” through to “how dare they?”

In the work environment this variation of assessment around change can cause further breakdown of relationships. People can be labeled as “over emotional”, “uncaring “, “resistant” and so on. This doesn’t allow for the validity in the first instance of everyone’s response to the changes. Each of us does have an emotional response to change. What varies is what this response is and how we manage it. My suggestion is that each response needs to be heard and then managed if the changes proposed are to be integrated well into the work environment.

From this same tick box checklist we look at a number of considerations around change based on the number of ticks and the domains that these ticks have occurred in. A larger numbers of ticks and therefore changes, say over ten, may explain why we are so tired and therefore a need to consider self care strategies.

Here too we consider whether as individuals we like and go seeking change or whether by preference we like constancy in our living. What I might find boring living might be another person’s idea of too much change and stress.

If most of our change is at work we may find that home provides with us balance or vice versa. If lots of change is happening in all domains we may have the sense of going from the fire to the frying pan on a daily basis.

Another key factor to our experience with change is whether we have chosen the change or the change has chosen us and we feel the change has been imposed on us.
While the outcome of the change may eventually be the same we often start from a different emotional place depending on our assessment of chosen or imposed.

This simple starter exercise very quickly allows a group to see how one particular change can have significantly different impact for different members of the group and how differently they may perceive the same change.

Our previous experience of change and how we think and speak about change can influence any future experience of change. Those in the group I mentioned earlier who had changed countries and jobs let alone the changes in their current workplace were generally more philosophical and accepting of the changes. They spoke of knowing from prior experience that things sorted themselves out, that there were things that they could do to help themselves through the changes. Other often younger people, where life is just constant change, spoke of wondering what the fuss was all about. Still others spoke of being distressed and disturbed by changes they hadn’t wanted and couldn’t see the point of.

My key offer is the concept that we shape our experience with our assessment of change. This assessment comes out of our previous experience with change and the anticipated impact of any further change.

It is important to know ourselves, to be a good observer of ourselves and change. This involves monitoring how much change we may have occurring, how in line with our preference for change this is, the nature of these changes, chosen or imposed and where the changes are occurring for us. There is not a right or wrong response to change. However knowing yourself you can maximise the opportunities of the change and minimise the stress that change can bring.

Knowing yourself well how might you handle change in your life to thrive rather than just survive?

Transitions & Healthy Change

2005-07-11T16:48:00.000-07:00

In my work I am endeavouring to have people thrive rather than just survive their work and their lives. We talk a lot these days about constant change and somewhat less about how we might view change and live change in healthy ways that encourage good living.

The model that I use to have people make sense of what is happening for them is based on William Bridges work around change and transition. He and other consultants like John Kotter state that change requires not only the physical external change of say a workplace or way a team works but also an internal, or emotional, transition that allows us to integrate the changes into how we live and work.

A more simple example might be when we shift house it is rare to feel at ‘home’ until sometime after the move in date. A whole range of things have to happen for each of us to feel at home and this will vary from person to person. This ’range of things’ is the transition if you like. If we fail to make the transition we may never feel at home.

Certainly my experience over the years, both personally and professionally would support this.

After looking at change more generally I will have people talk with me about “what is going on” for them right now at work. Usually I have been called in because change is happening or just been announced. I am interested to hear people’s emotional response, their practical concerns and questions, anything they might be looking forward to from the changes. In fact anything at all they are thinking about the whole situation. Out of this conversation I map their responses under three key headings based on the transition model of Bridges.

In Bridges transition model all change begins with an (1) ending, progresses through the (2) neutral zone and ideally achieves resolution with a (3) beginning or the assessment of opportunity in the change.

In the first instance we all take change deeply personally – what is going to happen for me? Then we start to look at the ripple effects of the changes for others around us. These may be our work mates, customers, anyone we assess will be impacted by the change. My initial goal is to validate everyone’s current experience of the change - we cannot be in any other emotional experience than the one we currently find ourselves in. Understanding where we are we can then reflect on whether this response is going to support thriving or struggling.

So we talk about what is ending for people when a change is chosen or imposed in the domain of work. Some examples of things that come up as ending are, knowing what to do, particular relationships or friendships, job security, current childcare arrangements etc. We talk about ‘letting go’ of ways of thinking and acting that will no longer be possible.

The neutral zone is hardly neutral. Anyone who has had to double clutch through neutral in an old vehicle will know that in neutral you have the least control of that vehicle. This can be the sense of the neutral zone. Change throws us into a time full of questions, concerns, fears (real and imagined). Change can also throw us into a time of inquiry and excitement and teasing out the possibilities that may come out of this change. Either way it is often an energetic phase unless we find ourselves caught in depression or resignation. Being as involved as we can is a key strategy here, being and feeling part of the change even if we didn’t choose it. It is useful in this phase to get clear about the questions and concerns we have and get answers to them. Even if we do not like the answers we can still plan our future based on knowing rather than not knowing. And of course when so much may be up for grabs the neutral zone can be the perfect time to do something quite different, or something that just quietly you have been thinking about for a while. For example one review I was part of, the choices that people explored out of the neutral zone included: early retirement and being a ‘grandma’, shifting departments for a gear up in career, doing further training to be able to work at a different level from the current job. The most painful experience was for people who were just waiting for the change either not to happen or to just be told what to do – and wondering what this would look like.

In neutral we are not where we were in time and knowing and we are not where we will end up. We can’t be – this takes a certain period of time. So we need to take care of our basic human needs. Never underestimate the role of good food, good sleep, good exercise, good friends and family connections and of course being willing to ask for help.

Ideally during this transition conversation we can begin to speak of the possibilities of the beginning – or the opportunities that may arise from the change. However sometimes we cannot in that instant see any possibility for ourselves out of the change. This area of beginnings is often easier to speak to in hindsight, when we have lived into and realised the opportunities we could only guess at when they arose. So for example when my job was disestablished a few years ago it felt terrible. Lots of things ended including feeling wanted in the work place. What was I to do next? How would I support my family etc? I took some time to really think through my options – stay in the field, retrain, what to do? Several years down the track I know that this was a fabulous opportunity for me. I am doing work that is much more suitable and enjoyable.

I have written this article based on conversations in the work place. All of the conversation of transitions and healthy change is equally applicable to the rest of our lives. One young man in another work session commented at the end when we had filled the whiteboard with all the endings, neutral and beginning aspects of his work place, “S…, Kerry-Ann, you’ve just put my whole life up on the board!” He could see where his flat, friendships etc were in different stages of the transition model.

Being able to identify each stage of a change lessens our sense of not coping, of being overwhelmed or powerless to affect our experience of change. It means we can plan our completions or good byes, ask questions or clarify our concerns and our possibilities of the neutral zone and begin to live into our assessed opportunities of the new beginnings.

In short, an ongoing powerful tool for a world where the only constant is change.

Reflections on dance, poetry and the sacred

2005-07-11T16:47:00.000-07:00

I recently read an article entitled “Show me in movement what you find sacred”. At least I read the heading several times and ended up in tears every reading. Around the same time I was indulging my love of dance by attending a variety of performances as part of the Tempo Auckland Dance Festival. I went on my own to “Angels with Dirty Feet” – a dance theatre production choreographed by Raewyn Hill. Raewyn is a Wellington based choreographer. Her company Soapbox Productions had produced this work based on Raewyn’s drive to say something about drug addiction. And say something she did to me. Tears again during the performance and then I sobbed my way home in the car. Not the safest way to get home! The next night I went again determined to watch with ‘detachment’, to see if I could work out what moved me so much and why yet more tears around dance and life and living.

I have no personal connection with drug addiction so why the deep response? As a dancer was pulled and flung between four others holding long stretches of fabric I could identify patterns of addictive behaviour in myself in the being pushed and pulled by the people and society around me. I could barely sit in my seat as I watched. As a woman in middle age wanting/needing to take a break I could feel the addiction to ‘keeping going’, ‘keeping working’, surfacing as the story unfolded. I have hungered to be cared for in the achingly beautiful way the dancers gathered each other up, school chairs and all.

I observed how addictions or addictive type behaviours can creep up on us – yet how powerfully the sacred pulls us too. What was sacred in the dance was demanding attention from the sacred within me.

I dance because I have to. I dance because I am danced through. I dance as a restorative when I have been stuck too long in my intellect. I dance whatever shows up in response to the music. And when I can’t dance for real I dance in my soul. I experience life and my living as a dance of being and becoming.

For me my spirituality needs to be embodied in action, in movement that expresses the sacred for me. In a way of living that is alive and in action aligned with the woman I experience myself to be. So to dance whether literally or within unsticks me when I feel grabbed by patterns of addictive behaviour or stuckness.

The final image for me from the dance is the dancers all coming toward the front of the stage. Each looks like an ungainly, stunted bird moving in this exquisite roll of movement; so ugly and so unutterably beautiful – the essence of sacredness as a human being.
In a recent song of the Finn Brothers “Gentle Hum”, the opening lines are, “this bird has to sing, my heart has to follow …” And so it was for me. Watching those birds come toward me, moving their song, my heart opened and followed.

As for all the crying – well I seem to have phases of needing to, as a softening influence, as a call to attention to my spiritual being. I feel reassured by these words from Rumi – “This rain weeping and sun-burning twine together to make us grow. Keep your intelligence white-hot and your grief glistening, so your life will stay fresh. Cry easily like a little child.”

My life feels fresher for the last few weeks of crying and singing and crying some more and dancing and of being in action in my way. So I show by the movement of my life that which I find sacred. “When I dance each step as it is, I join the symphony of life.” (Unknown)

Arohanui Kerry-Ann

On being a woman in transition

2005-06-15T16:59:00.000-07:00

On 25 May 2005 I called my own bluff and resigned from my salaried job. Not such a big deal you might think but I have never done such a thing without work to go to. This time I had run out of graciousness to stay and plain and simply had to go. Not to another job but into my own business KTLYST instead of working around it all the time.

This decision called my own bluff in several ways. One was that I was doing what I needed to do for myself, very clearly and in a way that my coaching clients often realise they need to. Secondly I was thrown into the transition cycle that I had spent the last three years teaching and supporting people through in my job.

Put simply all change begins with an ending, moves through a phase called ‘neutral’ and ends at the point we assess we are at the beginning again! Change is simply change (with whatever ripple effects it generates) – it is the assessments we make about the changes that usually have the greater impact. Transition is the internal or emotional journey that we make alongside the external and physical changes. We cannot do one without the other and yet we often underestimate the transitions we undergo through change. (For other articles on Change & Transition please see my website)

By resigning I ended a whole variety of things, knowing what my job was, financial security (potentially), the relationship with the people I work with, plus I ended the sense of feeling stuck and trapped in the job. I wasn’t stuck anymore and what a sense of lightness I experienced. So while I felt grief at saying good bye, I also felt gratitude for the opportunities I had realised during my work, relief to have made the decision and anxiety about how I was going to manage financially, no savings and no other support available.

The neutral zone follows hard on the heels of an ending and there is nothing neutral about this phase. It is a time of questions, emotions including fear and anxiety, a sense of being in limbo – of not being where and how we were but equally not being where and who we are going to be. It can be a time of high creativity and innovation as we make radical changes while so much else is in the air or an opportunity to do something we have wanted to but didn’t feel we could. For example, I am more available to do ceremony now and can do my writing during the day rather than late at night after work.

The final phase of change, the beginning, is when we assess we are realising the opportunities of the change. This is not necessarily when the change occurs or the start date. Transition can take time and this will vary for each of us and for each change.

As I write this article it is still a “leap of faith”. I assess I am strongly in the neutral zone. However the call to action was clear and remains steadfast.
Barbara Sher in her book, “It’s only too late if you don’t start now” talks of the second half of our living belonging to us, rather than to our biological or societal drives. I see this move as answering my need to explore my creative spiritual dimensions and to craft my work in a way that is more truly how I like to work.

At the level of my soul I have had a strong ‘longing’ to be working differently. Finally the ‘call to action’ has become the greater imperative and I am now ‘finding my path’.

Arohanui Kerry-Ann

Rumi – a spiritual guide

2004-10-15T17:06:00.000-07:00

My spiritual journey encompasses mystical Sufism – in particular the writings and teachings of Rumi. I am currently reading and reflecting on a book by Kabir Edmund Helminski – “Living Presence – A Sufi way to mindfulness & the essential self.”

One of the chapters is entitled “What we love we will become”. I find that certain sentences leap out for my contemplation; “whatever the soul chooses to love, it will resemble.” And therefore what we choose to love is important.”

In talking about love for the Spirit or agape he talks of how “Spirit within us can love Spirit in everything. “…our openness, our relatedness, and our engagement are the measure of our love.”

Easier perhaps for me to do when working with couples on their marriage, definitely an energy I endeavour to bring to all my work, even when dealing with people experiencing strife or overwhelm in their work and living.

When I am asked “how are things” - I will often reply, “I am blessed to lead a full life.” Usually meaning I have been really busy! What might be more real and truthful is that “I am blessed to lead a full and loving life.”

When I remarried in 2000 we had the following blessing:

May these vows and this marriage be blessed.
May it be sweet milk, this marriage, like wine and halvah.
May this marriage offer fruit and shade like the date palm.
May this marriage be full of laughter,
Our every day a day in a paradise.
May this marriage be a sign of compassion,
A seal of happiness here and hereafter.
May this marriage have a fair face and a good name,
An omen as welcome as the moon in a clear blue sky.
I am out of words to describe how spirit mingles in this marriage - Rumi

I could replace the word marriage with the word life and I would have some way of speaking to the blessed life I lead as I am indeed, “out of words to describe how spirit mingles in this life.”