Fade to White

Windsor Fountains Condo

Culver City, CA
November 30, 2011
9:49 a.m.

Fade to White

There is one story and one story only that will prove worth the telling. . .

                                                                              -- Robert Graves

Joseph Campbell suggested that myths are public dreams and our own personal dreams are our private myths.  We live in a time of shifting public dreams, with not much certain to believe in “out there,” although many of us cling to traditional paradigms for the comfort they provide.  Others of us turn to our private myths to provide meaning for our lives with the hope that at least we may be able to control -- or at least influence -- the environment “in here.”  These, who are increasingly tuned to “the beyond within” are the individuals who would be “masters of their fate,” but who realize that such a course must be undertaken with the greatest humility -- surrendering the entire outcome to a much greater destiny that shapes our ends. 

Where do I stand?  Somewhere between comfort and mastery.  I’m not ready to buy the old myths just because I’m attached to the stories and their happy endings.  Nor am I ready to throw out all that has gone before just because it seems to have failed to provide all the answers.  I do want a sense of control, a sense of “destiny,” to “take arms agains a sea of troubles,” not simply to be a passive observer, paralyzed with fear, on the deck of a sinking ship.  I want to find what is “mine to do” and to do it -- to play my own role to the best of my ability in this great human drama, in which I seem to be a single point of light in a vast tapestry of immense design.  I think of the musicians who played “Nearer My God to Thee,” as the Titanic went down.  It was a choice they made as a group.  If that is my role, let me play true until I can no longer breathe to blow my flute. 

*   *   *

I undertook the cross country walk with my daughter with a specific myth in mind:  I was Demeter the outraged mother, she was Persephone, the daughter who had been abducted by Hades, King of the underworld and taken to his underground realm.  Viveka’s husband, Richard was Hades.  The story was complicated, for Persephone’s father, Zeus had approved the marriage to his brother, Hades, without consulting Demeter, who was sister to the two brothers, which made Persephone Hades’ niece.  (Incest was common to the gods, apparently.)

Believe it or not, this ancient Greek myth fit my relationship with my daughter Viveka and my son-in-law, Richard to a remarkable degree.  Richard is much older than Viveka, more like a brother to me than a son-in-law.  I was not consulted about this match beforehand, and there were many things about it that angered me, not the least of these being the fact that Viveka had been living in a marginal, depressed and “underworld” environment ever since she married Richard.  They had suffered great reversals of fortune, and were living hand to mouth.  I had been called upon many times to “rescue” my daughter by loaning money, even buying property for them to live on, but the fact remained that my outrage and anger were always lurking beneath the surface.  Something about this family situation was not “right.”  I wanted to get to the bottom of it and discover what was really going on. 

Backstory:

What I discovered -- to my surprise -- was that Viveka had felt abandoned by me when she became an emancipated minor at age 16 in order to pursue her film career.  I did not feel I had abandoned her, after all this is what she had wanted, and had begged for.  It was a decision I must have regretted on some level,  for I also discovered remorse and a feeling of responsibility for Viveka’s (apparent) inability to manage her life.  I did have to acknowledge that I felt grief over signing away my parental responsibility before she was emotionally mature.  This fact was the source of my guilt and contributed to the anger I was feeling -- anger at myself for letting her make the choice, and not insisting that she enjoy a few more years of childhood.  I was afraid she would blame me in later years:  “I could have been somebody, and you stood in my way.”  It was a Catch-22.  There was no “correct” choice.  I did what I did.

So as the 198 days of our cross-country Sole 2 Soul walk fulfilled themselves we discovered that we were filling in those lost years.  We were completing her teen-age years, and I was fulfilling my responsibility as a parent.  Richard was really not the enemy.  The real enemy was the unacknowledged feelings of grief and anger and outrage over decisions that were made in my family history where I and other women had no part in the decision making and therefore had no say-so, and no control.  I truly got in touch with this deep cause of anger, and could identify with women throughout time and history, literally back to mythological times!  

Here is the real issue I had to confront:  cowardice.  

If one makes a decision one has to live with the consequences and take responsibility for it.  If one lets a decision be made for her, she can be a victim and blame others.  She takes no responsibility, but she can be angry because she was not part of the decision-making process.  But this is entirely dishonest.  The truth is she chose not to choose.  Why?  She was afraid.  She was more afraid of choosing than not choosing.  And still she does not want to be accountable for choosing to be a victim!

The answer:  

Getting in touch with the confusion and the anger smoldering underneath.  Seeing that it is misplaced.  Knowing that it is anger with myself for making a choice from fear instead of love.  But how could I have known this?  Without this bitter experience I could not have known the difference.  Therefore, coming from love, I can now forgive my unfortunate choice and start again with a clean slate.

What did Demeter do?  

She was not a coward, but she was a women in the company of very powerful men who weren’t disposed to consider her point of view.  She protested in the only way she could:  she threw a tantrum.  (See my blog on Tantrum Yoga.)  But what a tantrum!  Since she was the Goddess of harvest and fertility her tantrum meant that the earth did not produce its fruits.  The people were starving.  So the plight of the people found its way up to Zeus who had sanctioned and permitted, even suggested the marriage of Persephone to his lonely outcast brother, Hades.  Zeus was asked to resolve the world crisis.  How did he do it?  With the aid of Apollo (the Sun God) and Mercury (the messenger of the gods) a compromise was reached.  Persephone wanted to be returned topside, but she had eaten some pomegranate seeds and this meant that she was in some measure bound to the King of the underworld.  How many had she eaten?  3? 6? 9?  

The resolution / compromise: 

Zeus decreed that Persephone could dwell in the sunlight with her mother for a number of months of the year, but must return to the realm of the underworld for the rest of the year.  This created the seasons:  Summer and Winter.  How long will winter be?  3? 6? 9? months.  In different parts of the world the length of the seasons differ.  The world would suffer no more, but would harvest the grain and fruits in their seasons. 

*   *   *

Here is my challenge to all readers of this blog as I conclude:

Get in touch with your personal myth -- something that resonates with you and informs the story of your life.  Plunge deeply into the subconscious and unconscious sources of this strand of story.  It is like a piece of wood floating after the shipwreck.  Grab it.  It has the power to carry you along.  It is no accident that this particular piece of debris has come to your aid.  Its appeal is both personal and universal.  It reaches out to you.  It sings to you and will bring you to shore.

The reason it appeals to you is that you are the hero / heroine in this story.  It can be no other way.  When you find that story it will be like a key that will open up the starry night like the stories of the constellations have always opened up the cosmos:  from the standpoint of the merging of both the collective and the individual mythos.

And is there only one story?  Yes -- and -- no.  To be sure there are many individual stories, but the hero and the heroine’s journey have common structures that bind them all together:  a going out and a coming home with the elixir which brings joy and healing to those at home in the community.  And those waiting at home are of two types:  (1) those who are waiting to venture out -- the youth; and (2) those who have already ventured out -- the elders and ancestors.  All are waiting to welcome you home with the gifts you bring.

*   *   * 

Viveka and I will be making a film about our adventure, G-d willing.  It may take a year or more.  There will be some surprises, for I have not here told the whole story.  For example, Viveka’s version of the story differs from mine, as might be expected, which leads to some interesting moments of truth.  Another surprise involves the fact that the hero’s journey is not the same as the heroine’s journey.  And this is an important aspect of what we discovered.  For the purposes of this last blog, I have merely suggested a story-line, which we will be fleshing out with the footage we have gathered.

Stay tuned. . .

. . .Fade to white

Home 'n Stuff

Windsor Fountains Condo

Culver City, CA

November 17, 2011

2:15 p.m.

Home ‘n Stuff

Does a girl have to have cancer to make a wish, or have a dream come true?

                                                                                          --Viveka Davis

This is blog #32 in a series of 33 -- the next to last.  It’s time to look back and see if anything still needs to be said before we turn our attention to making a documentary film about our adventure, which could easily consume the next year -- or two.

Yes, there are several things.

GRANDMOTHER JOANNE

First and most of all, I would like to acknowledge my mother, Viveka’s grandmother, Joanne, who not only made our journey possible financially, but who made it necessary and desirable emotionally.  You see, Joanne (may she be remembered fondly) was of that “Rosie the Riveter” era -- some have called it “The Greatest Generation,” who weathered the great depression and waged World War II, and wanted to see their children have a better life.  “Better” to them meant more affluent and better educated.  They succeeded.  Because they provided for us materially, we had the luxury of hanging out in libraries and coffee houses, marching in protest parades and starting a revolution against the very values that our parents had made such vast sacrifices for.  I realize, with great gratitude and appreciation, that these words are being written because my mother, a child of immigrants with an eighth grade education, believed in me, and provided a way for me to have a voice.  She did this by working in her little beauty shop, dreaming of a better future for me and my brother, one pin-curl at a time.  Thank you Mother.  May your labors of love not have been in vain, and may the beauty you brought to others forever abide with you as well.

11:11:11: STAR KNOWLEDGE GATHERING

Second, I would be remiss if I did not mention the Cahokia Star Knowledge Gathering in Collinsville, IL 11:11:11 which Viveka and I participated in both as attendees and presenters.  Here is a description that went out prior to the event:

Chief Golden Light Eagle and many others invite you to join us for the 11:11:11 Cahokia Star Knowledge Gathering

The energy of the 11:11 has been building for many years, and the long awaited 11:11:11 offers us the opportunity to step through a portal of love, a window of opportunity to transcend from third dimensional beings to the next step in our evolution of consciousness to functioning as being multi-dimensional beings and honoring our connectedness with all there is.

During the Gathering we will focus on the importance of our Guardianship of the EARTH, AIR, FIRE, and WATER. What better place to merge with all there is than Collinsville, IL, near the WATERS of the Great Grandfather Mississippi River in the Heart of Grandmother Turtle Island (North America).

Your heart has the memory of the 11:11. Join us as we activate the memory and answer the Call to Awaken.

Now, writing one week after the fact, all I want to say is that I hope that you were in ceremony or in some spiritual gathering on 11:11:11 which allowed you to experience the remarkable energies that found expression on that occasion.  I and many others witnessed with great joy as we, as a planetary consciousness, passed over a threshold to mark a milestone in our evolution as a species. 

RE-ENTRY AND THE CHALLENGE OF “STUFF”

When I left on my journey last March, I cleared out my apartment so that I could rent it.   Because I lived in an RV for 7+ months I got used to the discipline of “stuff-less-ness.” I discovered that there is very little that I actually “need,” and it can all fit in a few suitcases.  What freedom!  Now that I am back I am faced with the “problem” of what to do with all of that stuff.  Part of me wants to dump it ALL at a charity thrift store.  Another part of me wants to sift and sort through it, and re-establish the attachments that time and distance have severed.

The truth is that the person who is returning home is not the same person who left.  She sees with different eyes, hears with different ears, and feels with a different heart.  She has tasted the freedom of detachment, and is not willing to enter once more into the bondage of things.

In any case, it is a high class problem to have, and I see it as a luxury.  In my next -- and final -- blog I will let you know how it all turned out. 

  

How Are Decisions Made? (Part II)

WildeRose Guest House

Rogers, KY

November 4, 2011

8:57 a.m.

How Are Decisions Made?  (Part II)

“If you want to make God laugh, make a plan.”

                                             -- source unknown

Ideally, here is how I make decisions:  I gather the most complete set of facts and information available; then, using my reason and logic, (left brain) I consult further with my intuition and imagination, (right brain) and I select a course of action from an array of possibilities that best serves my highest ideals.

I said “ideally” because that is how I believed decisions “should” be made.  However, as a result of this recent cross-country trip with my daughter, Viveka, I have had the opportunity to observe my decision-making process in slow motion over the past few months.  I have concluded that I very rarely have the opportunity to make the “ideal” kinds of decisions.  In fact, I’m not even sure that I make decisions at all, although very often I do exercise my preferences, and seek consensus with others.  What I have called decisions in the past are merely the means I use to keep myself believing that I am in control.  And I am not.  

Am I a fatalist, then?  Do I believe in predestination?  No, neither of those.  But I have seen that my so-called free will is limited to a very simple kind of choice: not what actually happens -- for that is determined by forces far more complex than I could possibly command or control -- but only what attitude I assume about what actually happens, i.e. what I make it mean.  That is what I can control.  And only that.  I have direct control over my happiness when I choose or “decide” to accept it all with gratitude and joy, and learn the lesson that reality is affording me in this now moment.  What a privilege!  This is what I call “practicing the art of the possible,” a concept given me by a wise Guatemalan woman, Yoland Trevino.  

That is why, as the adventure unfolded I grew less and less fearful and appalled by circumstances that threatened our progress, and more and more amused and delighted with the seeming obstacles that turned up in our path, for example  a sudden death in the family of our driver (which called him away unexpectedly); our rejection / banishment by 1/2 of our team members; our vehicle’s mechanical failures; and the difficulties we had in keeping to our “schedule.”  

Because of the people we met and the relationships we formed, very often it was no simple matter to say goodbye and move on.  It was as though we could not leave certain places until we were “released” from them.  That was certainly the case with Sedona and the Santa Fe, Kansas City areas.

So we came to ask ourselves: “Who” or “what” is calling the shots and doing the “releasing”?  As we surrendered more and more to “Divine Order” and “Divine Will,” which we often referred to as “The Divine Feminine” or “Divine Mother” we found that our path was strewn with blessings.  Amazingly fortuitous things happened every day to convince us that we were living out a script or a plan that we could not possibly have devised.  And it was all designed to provide me with an opportunity for optimum, joyful spiritual growth.

But the grandest obstacle of all was encountered in Kentucky in August when my adversarial relationship with my son-in-law flared up.  This brought up all of my issues of personal heartbreak from childhood involving my mistrust of men, and brought to the forefront my need to work on my own shadow and heal my wounded inner child.  (See blogs entitled “Tantrum Yoga,” and “Golden Wedding Day.”)

*   *   *

The successful completion of the walk and the inner gifts I received from Spirit as a result, coupled with the work with Andrew Harvey at his Sacred Activism retreat in Oak Park IL early in October have given my life a new sparkle and verve.  What I am learning is to live my life more consistently and consciously from the inside out, taking into account the rich array of options in front of me.  It is as though half of me is sensitive to the beauty in things -- I’ll call that the feminine part -- and the other half is sensitive to the truth of things -- I’ll call that the masculine part.  There had been unnecessary misunderstanding up to now about the nature of these two ways of appreciating reality.  But, as with the ages-old conflict between religion and science, there now appear to be ways to reconcile these alienated partners -- who actually started out side by side on the path to human knowledge.  

Just as science and religion are attempting to answer different questions:  the how and what (science) as opposed to the why and wherefore (religion) so the “masculine” and “feminine” parts of my make-up are giving me two different versions of human value.  But I am now clear that one is not more “valuable” than the other.  They must work in partnership as the poet John Keats suggested in his poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn”:

  Beauty is truth, truth beauty, -- that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 

I can only begin with myself.  My heart is both an art studio and a science laboratory for this grand experiment.

  

The Game's Afoot! (But Why Am I Walking?)

November 20, 2010
Culver City, CA

(Please note:  Originally published in 2010, this blog was the first in the series.  It was recently revised to correct an error.

*   *   * 

Rev. Doris Davis, a 72-year old Interfaith minister and three others, supported by an RV and driver, plan to walk 2700 miles from Oceanside, CA to Washington D.C. in the 6 1/2 months from March 8 to September 21, 2011.  They expect that local walkers -- both women and men -- will join them along the route (Oceanside / Phoenix / Albuquerque / Denver /  Kansas City / Indianapolis / Washington D.C.) for a little or a lot.  They will welcome the companionship and the conversation.  She writes:

Why Am I Walking?  

First of all the dates are significant:  March 8 is the 100th Anniversary of the International Day of Women, and September 21 is the International Day of Peace, declared by the United Nations.

Why Am I Walking?  

People always want to know.  But really, I want -- and need -- to know, and I ask myself many times a day, and get different answers.  If you ask me a year from now I may have a better answer, I may even have a book put together about what I saw, felt and learned from this adventure, but at this point, as I begin my training, I can say that I am inspired by a group of women (sole2soulwalk.com) who are imagining a world where women are equally valued decision makers all around the world in partnership with men.  The call has gone out for women to step up, step out, and step beyond their previously perceived and accepted limitations to make this happen in meaningful ways.

Why Am I Walking?  

As a 72-year-old White-Anglo Saxon-Protestant (WASP) woman who has had the benefits of being a wanted child, born into a stable, prosperous and orderly society, I have been blessed by abundance, opportunity and good fortune.  I have had a first class education, enjoyed excellent health, raised beautiful, healthy children and found meaningful work and advancement in a society where I have been free from want and fear.  I have no complaints whatsoever.  But I know that the blessings I have received are simply not available to billions of my brothers and sisters across the planet -- especially my sisters.

Why Am I Walking?  

Really, there are two kinds of answers:  outer ones and inner ones.  Outer answers are the ones people want to hear so that they can label them and perhaps dismiss them more easily, like: "I am walking to help cure cancer," or "to end world hunger" or "for nuclear disarmament and world peace."  But always between the goal and the reality there necessarily stands a great abyss.  The kindly well-wishers will say, "Good luck."  The cynical will add under the breath "That will never happen."  And quite often the bottom line will be the amount of money raised because that seems to justify everything in the end.

But the inner answer, the one that satisfies me and gets me up in the morning is more mysterious:  I am walking for no reason that I can put words to.  I am walking because in some deep inexplicable way I know that I was born to do this very thing -- crazy as it may seem.  It is not a matter of survival, it is a matter of completion.  Knowing this, I have arrived at a very meaningful and joyful place -- by G-d's grace.  I aim to be celebrating my gratitude every step of the way.   

Let me be careful to explain that last paragraph, because it is important:  I am walking because I have already arrived at a place where I can see that  ALL ARE NOT THERE YET.  Still, I want to draw others -- especially women -- out of striving and efforting into the circle of celebration, where they can experience the perfection and the completion of the NOW moment.  I am walking because I can, and because I choose to integrate walk and talk;  because my life is about the unalienable right -- meaning the power and freedom -- to CHOOSE to have my life be exactly the way it is.  All else flows from the first choice to be at peace from within.  With my head in the clouds and my feet on the earth I am choosing to integrate the spiritual, mental, emotional and physical aspects of my existence in the most meaningful way I can imagine.  I am literally walking my talk.  This is a pilgrimage, and every step is a prayer.

Why Am I Walking?  

When men's feet touched the surface of the moon and walked, there was great rejoicing.  A small step for man was a giant leap for mankind.  Similarly, I am holding a vision for this walk:  When women's feet walk the earth with that kind of intention we will see giant strides for humankind.  The sleeping sister giant will awaken with all of her latent potential for decency and compassion.  The Dalai Lama said in 2009, "The Western woman will save the world."  The Dalai Lama and I agree, and I am walking to gather the WOmentum for the next quantum leap in our collective evolution.  There are many ways that men as well as women can join this movement.  For details, e-mail me at walkdoriswalk@gmail.com

And Finally:  Why Am I Walking? -- NOT!

Firstly, I am NOT walking to demonize or blame men or "the patriarchy."  I am not walking to defy, fight against, or change anything.  I doubt that anything can be changed until and unless it is fully acknowledged, as experienced,  and therefore completed.  It must be allowed to be just the way it is, and the way it is not.  No doubt the critical change I want to see in the individual and in the collective will come from within.  I will be writing more of this in future blogs.

Secondly, I am not walking primarily to raise money for myself or for any cause.  All I want is for people to use my example and whatever inspiration it may spark to get in touch with whatever it is that they are passionately committed to, and to find a way creatively to embody the new paradigm that they want to operate from in their own reality.  Yes, our little expedition will have need of money, for gas and food and many contingencies unforseen, but we are stepping out on faith, knowing that our needs are known before we ask and therefore we will be provided for.  Love offerings will always be gratefully accepted in the name of the Divine Mother.

Always Victory!

Doris