Category: Reflections

What I Shared

On By Alethea KehasIn Memoir, Reflections2 Comments

Following up on my earlier post today, “Teach Your Children Well,” I wanted to share these two scenes from my memoir manuscript. After talking with my daughter and son about how our words can hurt others and have a lasting impression, I shared these stories with them for the first time. It was an emotional afternoon, but also a healing one. I am so grateful for the opportunity to help instill the importance of kindness and empathy.

From A Girl Named Truth (for “Sally” and “Timmy”):

There were some things I could not hide, like the food I brought for lunch in grade school when we were still vegetarians. In the cafeteria I would look around the table and watch my friends with their saran-wrapped sandwiches made with bread that reminded me of clouds, all soft, white and full of air. Between those perfect slices of bleached wheat, circles of pink baloney, or squares of pink ham floated atop squares of orange cheese. How I wanted to sink my teeth into those sandwiches!

Instead, I would open my lunchbox and pull out my waxed-paper bundle. My friends, in turn, would watch while I unwrapped thick slabs of my mother’s homemade bread. Peeking through the edges of the uneven slices, stems of alfa sprouts curled into tiny green fists.

One day, while I sat with my friends at the cafeteria table, one of them pointed at my sandwich, while wrinkling her nose. “What are those?” she asked, her fingers almost touching the sprouts that looked like they were struggling to grow out of a bed of bread.

“Sprouts,” I mumbled.

“Sprouts? What are sprouts?”

With the question, my face grew hot, as though I was suddenly standing, against my will, too close to an open fire.

“I don’t know,” I whispered looking down at my lunch, wishing by some grace of the universe, that it would disappear. “They’re kind-of like lettuce, only smaller.”

“Well they look like grass. What are you, a cow?”

The rest of the table erupted into giggles and a chant began, “Alethea’s a cow, Alethea’s a cow!”

The fire in my face flamed, while my eyes watered to quench it. My stomach, in turn, had closed to the prospect of taking another bite.

I never threw those sandwiches away.  Instead I wrapped their nibbled forms back into their waxed paper packages and handed them shamefully to my mother at the end of the day. She, in turn, would shake her head and ask, “Alethea, why didn’t you eat more of your lunch?”

 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

One spring day, when I was in the first grade, I made my first and only trip to the principal’s office. My victim was Timmy, a chubby boy with light blond hair and blue eyes hidden behind thick glasses. Timmy didn’t have any friends, and that day on the playground he sat, as usual, by himself on a bench while the rest of the school played around him.

I began recess on the swing-set with my best friend of the day, Stacy. As we soared over the ground, we giggled and made faces of disgust, pointing our fingers at Timmy, who studied the brown dirt beside his feet.

When we grew bored and hopped off the swings, Stacy whispered into my ear, “I dare you to go over to Timmy and tell him he’s fat.”

I hesitated, “Only if you go with me.”

So, together Stacy and I ran past Timmy, while crying out in nervous giggles, “Timmy, you’re fat! Timmy, why are you so fat?”

Timmy never lifted his gaze from the ground, and although he acted as though he hadn’t heard us, there was no way he could have missed our words.  Even the teacher on playground duty, whom we had failed to notice, caught our words as they skipped through the air.

“Alethea and Stacy,” she called after us, “Please come with me to the principal’s office.”

While I sat with Stacy on the bench outside the office, my stomach churred with guilt and fear. Tears spilled from the corners of my eyes as I contemplated the reprimand that awaited us. I had never before been sent to the principal’s office and all pervious reprimands at school had been for talking in class and passing notes. I felt awful for myself, and deep within my belly, I felt bad for Timmy, who was more like me than I wanted to admit.

I never teased Timmy again for being fat, instead I mostly watched, with the mixed pang of relief and guilt, when a child who wasn’t me suffered the ridicule of being different. I couldn’t, though, resist teasing Sally. It seemed no one could.

No one really liked Sally or wanted to be around her. Sally’s hair often looked unwashed and hung in stringy strands down her back. Sally wore glasses, and without them her eyes crossed. Most days, Sally looked like she needed a bath.

When we played tag, Sally was the one with cooties, and my friends and I would run away whenever she came near. If she touched us, we would have to shower under the hemlock tress until we were cleansed of her germs with an invisible cootie-wash.  The boys, in turn, loved to chase Sally with their homemade spitball guns, constructed out of lunchroom straws. Their ammunition was saliva soaked wads of paper, which they would shoot with their breath, hoping to land the dripping pulp on the skin, or even better, the glasses of Sally.

“Splat.”

“Got her,” the victorious boy would yell. My friends and I giggled nervously, while we peered over at Sally and the goo that covered the glass over her eye in dripping humiliation.

We stared and waited for Sally to wipe away the trail of slime as it slid down the side of her cheek.  Sally, though, never cried. Instead, she held tight her emotions like a seasoned soldier. It took me several years, after I had myself become a victim of almost unbearable humiliation, for me to truly regret my part in Sally’s torment.  Only then did I seek her friendship, which although was never close, lasted until we graduated high school and went our separate ways.

Teach Your Children Well

On By Alethea KehasIn Memoir, Reflections4 Comments

This morning, at the same time I was off-line erasing a page of my memoir manuscript into a poem about bringing lunches to grade school that were fodder for shame and teasing, a friend of mine was composing me a message about an unfortunate lunchroom experience regarding our daughters. It was not a joy-filled event, reading about my daughter’s unkind words and how they had hurt one of her peers. Things happen for a reason, the universe calls our attention to places where we need to focus our energies so that we can create opportunities for learning and shifting.

I sit writing this while listening to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Life is a circle of lessons premised on love. We learn from your children, they learn from us. Our greatest gift is to “teach them well.” This afternoon I will be sitting down with my daughter to talk about love and compassion. We’ll discuss the energy of words and how much it hurts when we are the recipient of an unkind word or action.  We’ll talk about how it’s okay to lead, as long as no one is left behind. That to be a true leader, one should lead with love that wraps and uplifts.  And we’ll talk about how it hurts ourselves, perhaps even more, when we hurt others. My daughter came home from school yesterday in a foul mood, and I knew something was bothering her from the events of the day, yet she chose not to share them with me.

When I was a child, I was shamed by my unconventional lunches. I looked at the slabs of nutrient-filled home-made bread only partially covering thick slabs of cheese and sprouts curling around the edges, and thought only about how much I wanted to throw my lunch away because my peers teased me. Yesterday, a child threw her lunch away because of my daughter. It breaks my heart. It brings me no comfort knowing that she is not the only child to do this in the lunchroom. Instead, it reinforces the need to teach my child well.

As most of us know, bullying starts from a place of fear. A child will bully to be popular. Children want to be loved and accepted by their peers (just as they want to be loved and accepted at home). I am comforted in the fact that I live in a community where many parents care enough to be involved in their children’s lives, and not to turn a blind-eye when their own child causes pain and suffering to others.

Now, I await the passing of hours until my daughter comes home off the bus, while I thank the universe for sending us this lesson and opportunity for growth. I hope that together we can shift this lunch-room atmosphere into a place of love and acceptance, that we will be joined by other parents and children who sit together and learn from each other in order to create an environment where everyone is treated with respect and compassion.

“Teach Your Children Well” — Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

A Walk to School

On By Alethea KehasIn Gaia & Elementals, ReflectionsLeave a comment

DSCF3332I spent the early part of the morning, after I’d loaded the kids off to school, stressed. I could feel the tension rising in my chest as I searched my home office for the packet of photographs my birthfather had sent me months ago, then, when I found them, how to scan the ones I wanted from my printer onto the computer.

While I was looking for the photographs, I shifted through piles of debris, hardly giving these stored mementos a second glance in my panic to find the photos. Instead, there were the barely perceptible pauses as I catalogued the contents for later review. As my mind wandered to many places, I kept hearing the voice inside telling me to get outside. Downstairs the banana bread I had made for my son’s class was sitting on the counter cooling, and the voice urged, Why don’t you walk it to school?

As I showered, having given up on my efforts to scan the recovered photographs, the voice kept coming back. I thought about the time it would take (the school is only about a mile from my house), and whether the dogs would protest. But, as I sliced and wrapped the bread, popping a heal in my mouth to make sure it would pass the taste bud test of 7 and 8 year olds, I thought, What the heck, I’m going to walk.

The dogs barely noticed, as I wafted by them with my bag of bread and quickly opened and closed the front door. They knew, as I did, they’d still get their daily allotment of 3 walks/day. It’s a rare day when they don’t.

There’s something about stepping from the enclosure of a building into the open air that has an immediate effect of lifting one’s mood. Well, at least for me. Especially on a fine, spring day. Instantly, I felt lighter and the tension began pouring out of my cells. I had, I realized, through the urging of Spirit, given myself a gift.

Even though I stayed on the roadside, I was surrounded by bird-song and that showy abundance of chlorophyl one finds only in spring and summer. There’s a reason why so many people go into the cathedral of nature to find themselves, and to heal. Green is the color that vibrates from the healthy heart, it’s the aura of a healer, and it’s the expression of life in nature. Unless one is metaphorically asleep, you cannot help but feel the uplifting effects of being in the presence of  plants and trees.

As I walked to the school, I inhaled the color green with each breath, and took in the gifts Nature had to offer me. On the way home, I asked Spirit for a plastic bag (an easy request, as they’re often tangled in the undergrowth of trees), and found one minutes later caught in the hands of a small shrub. The roadside was full of discarded debris, and I began piling soda and beer cans, disposable coffee cups, cigarette packages and butts, and all manner of plastic inside my too small bag.

If I hadn’t taken the extra time to walk to my son’s school on this beautiful day, I would not have seen the black bird fly across my path. I would not have taken that deep breath to absorb the gift of its energy, and in turn, hear its message of reassurance, You will find your way. If I had driven my car, I would not have paused, while retrieving bits of styrofoam, to seen the pair of orioles  spreading sunshine through the pines. And, I would not have paused beside the fire pond to watch the light dance on water.

Animal Messengers: Cardinal #cardinals #birdsymbolism #animalmessengers

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Dreams, Reflections6 Comments

cardinalI am sitting here on my porch, listening to and watching birds. It’s what I would call a perfect May day, although we could use some rain. The sky is robin egg blue, the temperature hovering around 70 degrees, and a gentle breeze is keeping the black flies at bay. The air is infused with the song of birds.

Lately, I have been marveling at the capacity of the songbird to produce such a full-bodied, melodious sound. Did you know that the voice of the songbird enables plants to achieve more optimum growth and produce more food? One only has to sit outside on a spring day to believe that this must be true. There is something truly magical and peaceful about the song of birds.

The purpose of this post, though, is not to laude the lyrical gifts of the class of birds we call “songbirds,” but to explore their gifts as messengers from the spirit world. As I have written in previous posts, when we pay attention, spirit often speaks to us through nature.

Today, while I took the dogs for their early morning walk, a male cardinal flew across my path and stopped in a hemlock on the side of the road, waiting to be noticed. Yesterday, while I drove my daughter to a sporting event, first a male, and then a female cardinal flew in front of the windshield, bisecting my path in a dangerously close encounter that I could not fail to notice.

When we encounter animals and birds in such a manner, it behooves us pay attention, as it is likely that spirit is trying hard to get a message across to us. Cardinal certainly seemed to be trying to tell me something, so I took careful note. First, I took inventory of my thoughts – the ones that were passing through my head at the moment the male cardinal decided to fly across my path.

I had, I quickly realized, been thinking, or rather, fretting over my desire to manifest more clients and grow my healing business – a subject that has been consuming me of late. As my daughter told me the other day, “Well, you told the universe you didn’t want a lot of clients before you have the space for them.” Yes, she was right, and I have been trying to “correct” that intention over the past several weeks, as I realize I am ready and able to handle more clients while I wait for my new healing space to be created.

Those were my thoughts when the cardinal passed over, which led me to my dreams. Last night, while I slept, I was telling a woman who was in emotional distress that I could help her, but as I searched through my wallet for my business cards I realized they were missing. The previous night, I dreamt of sitting on the top of a very tall and long slide. It was red, rimmed in orange (symbolic of the first and second chakras, where we house our grounding energies, basic needs, and also our creative energies). The slide was steep, and had at least one “bump.” In the dream I was holding onto the hand rails at the side, reluctant and fearful of descending. A woman at the bottom was urging me to let go and slide to my destination. The first chakra, I might also note, houses a lot of our most primal, deeply rooted fears. The second chakra is also our sexual chakra. The slide, I realized the next morning, was like a birth canal, and I was being asked to let go and “rebirth” a new, fearless self.

Back to the cardinals I’ve encountered of late. Today, when the male cardinal flew into the hemlock, I stopped briefly to ask its message for me. Do try this for yourself, if you don’t already, when you encounter an animal, insect, or bird that feels like a messenger. You’ll likely get a response inside your mind. The words that entered my own mind spoke of insecurities and self-confidence. They spoke of the symbolism of the colors red and orange, as well of that beautiful, fearless, full-bodied song housed inside that small bird.

Being a natural “doubter,” I like to check my sources. So, I went home and read though the section on cardinals in Ted Andrew’s book Animal Speak, my personal, go-to-guide for animal symbolism. And there it was, right at the top of the page, “Renewed Vitality through Recognizing Self-Importance.” In other-words, don’t give up on your dreams and keep walking your path, leaving fear behind. As Andrews also notes, cardinals with their loud, clear song, urge us to listen and heed the messages around us. Their colors remind us to breathe new life into our ambitions, and assert our creative selves.

Pay attention to the birds who cross your path, drink in the healing energy of their songs, and ask them what messages they hold for you.

How it all began

On By Alethea KehasIn Memoir, Reflections7 Comments
Hawk, show me my path
Hawk, show me my path

Last night, before bed, my son asked me, “Mom, do souls ever die?” Had he asked me this question six years ago, I may have given him a different answer. My own journey of spirit in this lifetime began with a childhood of doubt, and the silencing of my inner voice. Many of us begin our lives (in this incarnation) this way. Few, I suspect, have had the gifts of nurtured guidance from our caregivers, for our world has yet to fully embrace the untethered spirit.

I was born into an unhappy marriage between two young, hippie parents. The hippie lifestyle outlasted the marriage, but it was not a free, loving lifestyle. My “spiritual” edification was early and short-lived. When I was two, my mother fled with me and my sister to live on a series of Hare Krishna compounds for 6 months. Other than the comic books my mother kept, and a few other relics, nothing remains of this early life. It was a mode of escape and of hiding, a journey based on fear and not the quest to find spirit.

When I was growing up, my mother and step-father shunned organized religion, and I had almost no knowledge of biblical stories, or other religious texts. Mine was an agnostic household at best, tending toward atheism. Yet, I do recall my mother speaking about the possibility of reincarnation – a “concept” I secretly embraced, as it felt “true” to my soul.

When I prayed, I prayed silently to an unknown, untouchable God inside the muffled walls of my mind. My prayers were desperate and laced with my childhood fears of death and loss. When I thought of death, and my body and “mind” disappearing forever, my heart would leap into my throat.

This way of living went on for many years, well past the time I left my childhood home, despite the nudging of my spirit, which wanted to be heard. A spirit that struggled for the full-bodied voice of Truth. Despite fear’s best attempts to close my third eye, I was an empathic child with psychic gifts. Everywhere I went, I felt the imprint of energy. Unfortunately, I absorbed fear and and pain more than anything else.

My parents labeled me as a “moody,” “overly-sensitive” child, not realizing that I was an empath, and was absorbing and feeling their own fears, as well as the fear-energy that permeated my environment. This is not to say that I didn’t feel love and joy too, I did, and often I shared in the joy of others. Somedays, I would find my mind open to this energy. While sitting in my classroom, there were moments when I connected with a classmate’s inner joy. These were blissful, unexplainable moments for me, as my cells hummed with unexpected joy.

And, I had dreams. Prophetic visions that played out in the ensuing days that I learned to doubt. When I left home, the voice of spirit called louder, urging me to leave the path of ego I was following. In the summer before I began graduate school for a doctoral degree in the biochemical sciences, I was plagued with these visits, which I found terrifying at the time. As I drifted off to sleep, many a night (or day), I would wake suddenly to a loud voice, calling my name into the hollow of my ear. This desperate call to be heard went unheeded, I followed the path of ego for one more year.

It was a miserable year, of which I’ve written about to some degree in other posts. Had I not taken this path, though, I would not have learned its lessons. I would not, perhaps, have known how much it contrasted with my inner truth.

Yet, still I was lost. That 5-year-old girl who secretly knew she was born to write and help the world with her gifts, was still hidden in the cage of fear. It took, in fact, motherhood and IBS to bring her out into the light.

When we have our own children, we are given an opportunity to see a new perspective that extends beyond the limited view we may be used to. We also see the world through our children’s eyes. Again, the nudge of spirit came back to me with urgency.

Before my daughter was born, I knew she would be one of my big teachers in this life. About six months before her birth, she appeared to me while I slept. I saw her full round face, framed with the same brown hair as mine. My blue eyes were mirrored back at me, their shape larger and more pronounced.

My daughter learned verbal language early, and by the time she was two she was asking me some tough questions. While her father was at work, she would peer into my eyes, “If daddy is a doctor, what are you?” she would ask. “But, what are you?” she persisted when I told her I was her mommy.

Her words lingered and probed the recesses of my mind. What was I? Her questions dug under the detritus of fear.

By then, I had both of my children, who are less than a year-and-a-half apart in age. My life was consumed by the joys and stresses of motherhood, and it was laced with holes. I could not deny that I was, in many ways, miserably unfulfilled. Yes, I had always yearned for the time I would be a mother, but this was not a role that completed me. There were huge, undeniable gaps.

Still, I ignored them. After all, I had young children to raise, a busy, working husband, and the idea in my head that I would not let anyone else be the primary care-giver to my son and daughter.

Welcome in a new night-time messenger, this time in the form of IBS, which began suddenly and in painful earnest. Let me take a moment to talk about IBS and how it relates to fear and empathic tendencies. When we spend a great deal of our time feeling and absorbing energy from our surroundings, this energy often gets trapped inside of us, lingering and growing into a dark mass of fear that blocks our inner-light, and creates an energetic imbalance inside of us. The result is often a disease or dis-ease of some sort.

I was a child plagued by stomach ailments, so it should have been no surprise that I developed IBS (a common dis-ease of empaths). My mother (who is in the medical profession) was the first person to suggest this was what was causing my adult ailments – episodes of such intense intestinal discomfort, that I would be up for 3-5 hours during nights when it flared.

I shunned this diagnosis, which I found both embarrassing and unsatisfactory in its inability to be medically “cured.” Two years passed, during which I made trips to doctor’s offices, tried various antacids, had tubes shoved down my throat and blood tests, and passed many a day feeling completely depleted of energy, which made me unable to properly care for my children.

Then, on Mother’s Day of 2008, I had my last episode. You can read the story someday in my memoir (when it’s published), but for now, let’s just say, I had had enough. I was ready to heal. Healing from a dis-ease such as IBS, or any energetic imbalance, comes from a deep-soul-level desire for health. The mind, body and soul must sync in this desire and embrace the truth that we each, inside of us, hold the capacity to be healthy and balanced – that, in fact, this is our natural, steady-state. For more on this, you might want to read Deepak Chopra’s book Quantum Healing.

I may have not known, intellectually, why I was ready and able to heal then, but I knew I had made that determined choice. A change inside of me had occurred – I had decided to heal, and in the process, to finally, heed the desperate, loud calling of my inner voice.

Within a matter of weeks, I was looking at graduate schools with creative writing programs. And, painfully, for it was a struggle, I began to write – really write. That voice that was so deeply buried was starting to emerge. At the turn of the New Year, I packed my suitcase with a week’s worth of clothing, snacks and various other necessities, left my two young children in the primary care of their father, and headed two hours north to a small town in Vermont.

Goddard College, was, in so many ways, the doorway to my voice. Here, for the first time, I was in an environment that felt like home. I quickly found 5 soul-sisters, and a setting where my spiritual and creative voice could sing without fear. Those two years, filled with the challenges of balancing motherhood and being a full-time, low-residency student, were the happiest, to-date, years of my life. There was no turning back. I had embarked, finally, with eager and unwavering feet, along the path of my soul’s truth.

When we find the bliss of our soul’s truth, how can we turn back? I can’t say that after I left Goddard, and the structure of regular deadlines, which “forced” me to write, that I have maintained a steady forward trek. Everyday life has a way of taking over when we let it. Now, though, I stop to listen, take inventory, and find a way to get back on the path.

When I look back at what where I have been in the last five years, I can hardly say I’ve been sitting still, or going “back-wards.” I have not only written many lines, I have nurtured and grown my spiritual calling and path. To help heal others, I have learned, we must heal ourselves. This isn’t to say that we have to be completely “healed” of fears, for this takes most of us many lifetimes, but we need to have an understanding and acceptance of the fears that have a tendency to make a home inside us, and we need to work at healing and letting them go.

Along with Goddard, and the many individuals and gifts I encountered by being there, I have met, and continue to meet wonderful healers, teachers and fellow soul-travelers. This part of my journey began with conversations with a friend, whom I met while our daughters were in preschool together, and gradually grew to include various energy healers, gifted intuitives/psychics and teachers of spirit, and soul-travelers who have merged into my life. When we open ourselves up to our spirit’s truth, doors open to the teachers and companions we need and seek. The world, suddenly, becomes unbounded and filled with the magic of discovery and joy. There is no looking back, except for remembering how far we have come, and the lessons we learned to get here.

May you, if you have not, find your own way to travel your soul’s truth, for it is the only, “true” path, to bliss.

We Share One Womb

On By Alethea KehasIn Gaia & Elementals, ReflectionsLeave a comment

Today, and everyday, let us be a planet of Hope and Love

Let us remember that we are held and fed by a Mother who nurtures unconditionally

Let us remember that we are here, together, as one large family

Let us find our way home

to Peace

Making the best out of Life

On By Alethea KehasIn Reflections7 Comments
Bloom even when there are thorns at your back.
Bloom even when there are thorns at your back.

My dog Rosy likes to dig. I’ve taken many picture of her digging up our back yard, and have adopted the policy that her digging will someday unearth buried treasure. I also tell myself that she’s prepping the earth for a patio. Sometimes we just have to look for the positive aspects of life in order to make the best out of a situation that we can’t really, or don’t wish to, control.

The other day, Rosy was digging, as usual, in the backyard, spewing the rich, thawed loam of the earth with abandoned joy. Her older sister, Daisy, was also outside, resting, and I realized what a marvelous partnership they had developed.

"I dig the holes"
“I dig the holes”
IMG_1866
“…and she fills them.”

Look for the light of joy inside your days, even when you feel thorns pressing on your back. Beauty is always waiting to be seen.

A cluster of spring beauty
A cluster of spring beauty

The Heart of a Tree #trees #naturehealing

On By Alethea KehasIn Gaia & Elementals, Reflections15 Comments

Heart of Tree

It’s been an emotional week as I process the energy of rebirth. In this time of spring, this is what I am choosing to call the destruction around me. On Tuesday and Wednesday, seven trees were felled in my yard in an effort to bring the unfiltered energy of the sun to my too-shaded home. There is mold my attic, there is green mildew creeping along the white edges of my siding.

You could say I put this off for too long, but each cut of the chainsaw was felt inside my heart. My love for trees extends back, I am sure, lifetimes, but my memories begin in my childhood as a little girl seeking happiness in a life of loss and new beginnings. When I was five-years-old, and beginning a new life apart from my birth father and extended family, I climbed the slender limbs of young maples to seek refuge and to find peace. Here, in the embrace of a tree, I found a joy that was often elusive on the ground.

All of us can benefit from the energy shared by trees. When I walk in a forest of trees, I heal my inner child. Sometimes I find myself laughing and skipping with joy. Sometimes, I sing and dance. I am alone, but I am not.

Trees, with their ability to live for hundreds to thousands of years, harbor souls of wisdom. Their roots mix and mingle with the energy of the underworld, where the Earth radiates love to bring forth life. The arms of trees bloom into canopies of green, harnessing the divine energies of the universe. Stand or sit with your back pressed against a tree’s trunk, and you cannot help but feel this powerful connection of energies. It is sacred.

Before the seven trees were felled, I visited each one individually. Placing offerings of found feathers, dried sage, and lavender at their feet, I whispered words of gratitude, and asked for forgiveness. With my body aligned with theirs, I felt our energies joined into the universal energy of love. Along with their forgiveness, I asked the elemental spirits who tend to the trees to rebirth their energies into new life.

It has been a week of rain and sun, which is fitting for rebirth. Today there is the sky exudes the energy of gray stillness – the aftermath of death, which is not death, but a pause as energy is recycled and repurposed. The only water that drips is from my eyes. Although I await this new life, and the sun’s healing rays, I mourn the loss of seven trees.

Earth: A Love Story

On By Alethea KehasIn Gaia & Elementals, Reflections6 Comments

When I was a child, I would lie on the ground with my face to the sky so I could feel the heartbeat of Earth. In those quiet moments I felt the gentle pulse of energy that radiates from the body of our planet rocking my cells, as I stared at the expanse of sky above me. It brought me peace and comfort, and, at the same time, filled me with an awe of my “small” place inside this vast womb we call home.

Some days you can still find my flat on my back, gazing into the atmosphere. Have you tried it? I hope you have. I hope you will. In our over-industrialized culture we often forget the source of our life force, choosing to drive through our days inside the fog of technology. We hardly stop to think of the impact on the Earth and ourselves as we strip the land of its resources to add speed and “comfort” to our days. We can do this because Earth is a forgiving mother. She keeps feeding us, she keeps offering her oxygen for our breath, and she continues to quench our thirst with her reservoirs of water.

Earth: A Love Story

Yet, when we allow ourselves to observe the body of Earth we see that we have stretched her belly to the extend that she has well-exceeded her capacity to carry a healthy womb of life. We have contaminated her waters, air and soil with our waste, so that not only is her health compromised, but the health of all of her children. Just as a fetus is affected by the nutrients (or lack of) a mother takes into her body, and by the toxins she ingests, so too are we affected by the conditions of this womb of Earth we live inside.

I didn’t set out to preach in this blog, really, I didn’t. Rather, I set out to make a plea for a collective understanding. You see, for me this is a love story. A love story between our planet and us. And some days, like today, I am reminded that it is still taking a very tragic turn. When I logged onto Facebook (no, I’m not denying that I am also slave to technology) this morning I was greeted by a wonderfully beautiful testament to Mother Nature in the form of a friend’s painting. And, I was also greeted by a shared video of an island filled with dying albatross, whose bellies are bloated by our indigestible waste. The bellies of some are so filled with junk that they cannot harbor viable life. How many more decades, I wondered, will I be looking at these heart-wrenching images? How many decades can we afford?

Nature's Love by Karen Kubicko
Nature’s Love by Karen Kubicko

When will we collectively awaken? When will we heal this mother that gives us life, and, in doing so, heal ourselves? We can start by feeling her heartbeat inside our own. Everyday.

The Muse

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Memoir, Reflections4 Comments

While I form the narrative of a young adult novel, I find myself pondering the muse in its varied, colorful forms. Realizing, as I do, that the muse extends to life itself. Let me first take you back to the night. In the realm of dreams we set the scene for our days. During sleep our mind strays to far-off places, playing with scenes like a mad artist. Or, at least mine does.

I’m not going to dwell on the metaphysics of dreams in this blog (I’ve dabbled in this area in previous posts), I simply want to relate how one’s dreams set the stage for one’s day. When we wake in the morning we carry the residue of our dreams like a sticky syrup, which never fully washes away. Because of our dreams we start our days feeling grumpy, groggy, out-of-sorts, content or in a state of eager joy, ready to embrace the day’s gifts.

Here is where our day begins, with the sap of the dream-muse. Sometimes it’s delightfully sweet and we savor its taste for as long as we can, and sometimes it’s bitter and bothersome. I spend many a morning wishing I had experienced more joy in my dreams, yet some mornings I have greater success removing their sticky residue. On these days I remember that I am, after all, the writer of my own script.

Which, brings me back to writing. So, I’m writing my first Y/A novel, and I have found I am not a writer who works by scripting, in advance, the entire plot, from beginning, to middle, to end. I didn’t even do this with my memoir. Writing, for me, is an adventure of trust. It’s about taking the risk of not knowing what will come next, yet trusting that the next will appear at some point. On a good day, on a day when I open myself up to the muse of life (and writing), I find what I am looking for and what I need. The muse is always waiting to be let in when I quiet my mind and open the door.

Yet, the muse is not always what we might expect, or think we want. We writers know how it can take us to unexpected places, some of which are quite shocking and uncomfortable. Our muses can lead us to our darkest secrets, or the darkest secrets of our characters. And, they can also lead us to limitless joy or help us find the next leg in our journey or narrative. So, while it behooves us to allow the muse to enter into our minds and into our daily activities, it also behooves us to remember who writes the final draft.

Perhaps we’re not quite ready to look under that boulder we’ve stubbornly placed in our path for so long, perhaps we only want to nudge it a couple of inches. Or, likewise, perhaps we don’t want our characters to morph into unruly and wild creatures who will scare readers away. Then, we simply take the reins back, draw in the slack and tighten our grips a little. The muse, after all, knows no limits. It’s free and without restraint. When we allow it to ramble it can skip and dance us all over the place.

I’ll confess there are days when I want to follow the muse deep into the forest (both literal and metaphoric) until I lose myself in its mysteries, but there’s always the mundane (joys) of life waiting to be attended to. There are meals to cook, children to feed, clothes to be washed. And, there’s that idea of a book tame enough to be shared.