The keynote is to open to myself

“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?

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

Kaleidoscopes and Mothers

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

When there is nothing to understand, nothing to say

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

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

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

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

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 …”

Summer Solstice and Christmas – a question

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