TAKING LEAVE
By Patresa Rollinger


She called. And like a child runs to its mother, I came.

“I have to go down to the lake.” I blurted as I pushed away from the dinner table. The urgency in my voice told my husband more than he wanted to know: that he would be packing alone for our impending move until I got back.

I grabbed my coat and hat as I ran out the door, across the deck, down the stairs and onto the trail that led downhill, between Manzanita bushes and newly budding oak trees, to the lake that bordered our property.

After twenty-nine years we are moving from our home in the country where we have lived on a ridge overlooking the small heart-shaped lake to the east and a sprawling valley to the west. It’s the best thing for us now that we are older and the children are gone. I hate the fact that we are leaving.

I slow down only when I reach the northwest corner of her shore – the place where I always stop to gaze out over her silvery dark water, to slurp up her beauty like a parched desert traveler. Tonight the wind ruffles her surface and rustles the tops of the bullrushes that grow along her edge. The “scree” of a red-winged blackbird pierces the softening shadow of dusk. Turning to my left I walk along the north shore to the east. When the trail branches I stay close to the shore to avoid the denser trees and bushes where mountain lions are known to lurk.
The east shore offers a rocky beach on which to sit as I watch what remains of the sunset. It’s rather ordinary tonight: no clouds, little color. But still, any sunset feels magical to me.

My heart starts doing strange things in my chest. It feels light and fluttery. Memories abound as my throat tightens and tears stream down my cheeks. What will I do without my lake? Where will I go for the care she gives me? Who will still my fears and worries and listen to my anger without judgment? Who will offer me solace?

I have struggled with these feelings for days as our departure date draws near. A very wise and trusted friend suggested I leave a tangible piece of my self behind at the lake. I was shocked. The idea never occurred to me. It’s not what I think I am supposed to do. Shouldn’t I to take all of me and mine away so the new owners can claim it as theirs without me/mine/us in the way? As if I could.

I always think of taking a piece of her with me, not vice versa. I am the one who is leaving after all. Why would she care? It’s nothing to her that I am here or there. She will go on just as she has with no thought of me. She won’t miss me. Isn’t that the existential crux of the matter: I come, I go, it matters not to her?

In my pocket I carry a heart-shaped piece of gemstone. It is something smooth to fondle when times get rough. It has been caressed much lately. I reach for it now, seeking the familiar weight of it as my living heart weeps. What if I leave this symbol of my heart here, in her care? She, who has unfailingly cared for me all these years, could hold it for me. She is a heart-shaped lake after all.

The heart in my pocket is heavy. It will sink like the proverbial stone. I take it out, letting it rest in the palm of my hand. It is silvery black just like the lake. Taking aim at the deepest part I throw it out to the water where it lands with barely a plunk and slips from view.
Take my heart, sweet lake. I give it to you freely. Take it all. Devour it and lick your chops! Beam all the love it holds and all the love of which it is capable to all who encounter you whether they sit by your shore, swim in your belly or view your heart from the sky. Guard it well. I do not know if I will return.
I love you deeply. I will miss you dearly. The memory of you will live in my heart. It brings me comfort to know that my heart will live in the depths of yours.

Be well, my love.

Creative Success: What Does it Mean? How Do We Attain It?

I am offering a new TeleSeminar Series on the meaning of creative success. This is a four part series which begins on Thursday, April 2 and continues on the first Thursday of the month through July.
No matter how much the creative spirit calls and feeds us, we set impossible standard when it comes to measuring creative success.

Session One: You Cannot Be Truly Creative Until the Gypsy In You Dances!

Session one of Emily Hanlon's TeleSeminar Series on Creative Success is designed to challenge our definition of creative success. We will explore the pros and cons of outer world success and its seemingly constant companion, the beast named Failure. To this beast, no matter the accolades we receive, no matter the fame and fortune, enough is never enough. To this beast named Failure, there is always another mountain to climb.

After putting Failure in its place, we will explore creative success from the perspective of the fire in the belly and the hunger in the soul. Creativity laughs and cries, it dances and sings. It holds the power of the waves and sweetness of bird song. Join us in the creative dance!

The TeleSeminar comes with an E-Book: Calling Forth Your Gypsy, which will give you a different perspective on your relationship to creative passion even before we the TeleSeminar begins.

The teleSeminar begins at 1 pm, eastern time and runs for 75 minutes.

Explore Session One, The Gypsy Dances

Explore the Series

While Buying a Cup of Coffee...

She was so pretty, so young. I envied her wake-up skin and uncombed hair that only made her more lovely.

I went to pay.
"Your name is Emily," she said. "Mine is, too."

I smiled in wonder.

She said, "When you opened your wallet to pay, I saw your name."

We laughed.

"Such a popular name now," I said. "When I was a kid, I was always the only Emily."

"I know." She smiled.

We laughed.

How could she know. She was so beautiful and young with her wake-up skin and morning uncombed hair. I missed my beautiful young self. Every morning I stare at my wrinkles and graying hairs that I can no longer count.

We chatted about being Emily. "The most popular girl's name for the last 17 years," she said.

17. She hardly looked more than 17.

I paid for my coffee and left. The yearning for youth and its beauty flowered like a dying rose. And I said, "What have I forgotten?"

The answered flowered like a lotus.

You are Emily.
She is you.
All is one.
You are she.
You are you.
You are old.
You are young.
You are dying.
You are born.

The flower grew beyond my being, embracing me.

And yet, my mind still yearned.

"I hide myself inside myself and then I try to find myself..."

When I was a little girl, I loved this rhyme that my mother taught us. There were more words, but these are the ones that have remained with me all my life. I loved the idea of hiding myself inside myself. I remember giggling and giggling as the giddy ballerina in me turned round and round in circles singing this to myself...

Lately, the rhyme has been coming back to me with an understanding that became quite visceral the other day. I was walking my dog on a beautiful trail and paused on a bridge overlooking the reservoir. The sky was a brilliant blue. The branches of the bare trees held the stark beauty of winter; it seemed to me that the branches were reaching skyward in prayer. As I gazed out over the immense horizon of blue sky, glistening water and the sepia trees, I became aware that something had changed. Everything was clearer, more brilliant, more defined and the three dimensionality of the view seemed like a digital picture. An unexpected giddiness filled me and I called to Phoebe, "Let's go, girl!" We started to run and it was as though all of nature ran with me. I whizzed by trees as they whizzed by my. The sky was in front of me and the air beneath.

This is me, I thought, not knowing what I meant. I was flowering from within. Finding myself suddenly breathless, I was forced to slow and feared the moment had passed. But as I began to walk, the colors, the sense of depth and beauty within and without remained. Again I thought, This is me...I knew this feeling. I've had it before, but usually for just a few moments and then I am myself again. Gloriously, the timelessness and joy stayed with me for the entire walk and with it a deepening sense of having found myself — the me I had lost so long ago — and my childhood rhyme came back.

I hide myself inside myself and then I try to find myself.

Have I found me? I wondered, feeling the giddiness of my six year old ballerina self twirling inside me. I was the six year old and I was the grown up me, both of us laughing at the trees and feeling as if we could merge with the sky. I love you, me. Stay with me always. Where have you been, you wondrous creature? Oh, thank you, thank you, glorious me, for returning!

The walk ended and I returned to me who goes about life with all her hopes, plans, worries, problems, etc. But the awareness I had that day has remained and changed me in a most profound way. The awareness of freedom, love and connection to joy is me, the deeper, truer me, and is not something that can be taken away. It can't be taken away because it was not given, not by me or anyone else. This awareness is my beingness, and the well of my creativity. It is ephemeral because I am living in a body and weighed down by both my physical and emotional bodies. But what a great challenge that is! To be me. To be alive. To be on this adventure called Life.

Mother’s and Daughters… a Mother’s Passing

My mother died in early December. She was 91 years old, living in a nursing home and slipping rapidly into dementia. On a late Wednesday afternoon, she was taken to the hospital with an infection that had came on quite suddenly. The doctors felt that without intervention, which she had made clear she did not want, she would die. Still, when I got the call, my first inclination was, I can't go to the hospital. Not tonight. Long Island is too far away and I am exhausted. I was exhausted. It all brought up too much "stuff" around my mother and our very difficult relationship.

I told my sister, I would come in the morning. My sister accepted my decision, but I knew she needed me. I heard it in her voice. I called her back and said I was coming. My husband offered to drive me to the hospital, but I insisted it would be better for him to stay home with the dogs... so we didn't have to worry about them. And I knew this was a time for me, my sister and my mother.

I drove to Long Island... at least no traffic on the bridge and Long Island Expressway at 11 o'clock at night! I no sooner walked into the ER and saw my mother and sister than I was relieved to be there... When I had last spoken to my sister, she told me that Mom seemed to be in pain and was having difficulty breathing; but the doctor had given her oxygen and morphine and she seemed calm. My sister and I stayed with our mother for several hours. By the time we left, she was very peaceful.

I stayed with my sister that night and we returned to hospital the next morning and stayed with her all day. Not long after we arrived, a Catholic chaplain named Michael appeared and asked if he could do anything for us. And we began to talk, and he was amazing... totally ecumenical, with a gentle and profound peace and ability to be with us on our journey. Although all three of us came from different spiritual traditions, we talked for hours about life, death, our experiences of divinity and the human and soul journey of life. We even talked about the Divine Feminine, a subject most important to me of late.

In the midst of this intense being together and sharing around the hospital bed of my dying mother, I realized, he was really working hard... and I mean this in the most powerful and loving way. Although the range of our conversation was far reaching, I saw how he kept on bringing the conversation back to my mother and to us, to her life, our mourning, her passing and our healing. He was shining the light on love and release, and on supporting our emotional and our spiritual journeys.

Suddenly I found myself crawling into bed with my mother and lying beside her and stroking her and telling her how much I loved her and how I know she tried her best, and stroking her and kissing her and calling her "mommy, mommy" and "Evie, Evie." I felt so close and filled with love. I was both a child loving mommy unconditionally and an adult whose heart yearned for freedom to let go the human drama and simply love my mother.

It was around this time, as the circle between my mother, my sister and I deepened, that she began to squeeze the our hands. My sister and I were both holding a hand, and each time we tried to let go, she squeezed us. As if to say, "Stay." And so we did.

After a while, I asked Michael if he could say a prayer. We all joined hands and my sister and I were holding onto my mother and he spoke so movingly. It was as if he knew our lives. And then, not long afterwards, he left. My sister and I spent some peaceful hours with my mother, holding her hands, talking, telling stories and remembering.

My sister returned to be with Mom the next day. I decided to go to a silent meditation retreat that she and I had both signed up for. I knew it was the right thing for me to go and she knew it was the right thing for her to be with our mother. We each honored the other's decision. I am so glad I went. Although I had felt at peace with my mother and free of the negativity that had hounded me for so many long years... the retreat was a gift for which I will be forever grateful. At first it was the peace of silence that nurtured me and the freedom from having to do anything or even speak to anyone. Then, around 7 on Friday night, my sister called to say that Mom had passed. Although my sister had been with her most of the day, as so often happened, my mother needed to pass when no one else was there.

I told one of the leaders of the retreat that my mother had just passed and that she was very old (91) and ill and it was a relief. I said she had gone in peace. She asked me what I needed and I said, if it was appropriate, a prayer with the group. She asked me my mother's name, how many children and grandchildren she had, and then said she would feel what was right. We hugged and I sat down.

I did not know if she was going to say anything, but she did. In such an incredibly loving way. She talked of a woman named Evelyn who had just passed. That she was the mother of one of the retreatants. Evelyn, she said, had three children and seven grandchildren and five great grandchildren. And then she said, "May her memory be a joy to everyone who knew her."

My first thought was, wow, fat chance. But my heart quickly came to the fore. Yes, I thought. There was pain and so much manipulation and misunderstanding. But there was also love. And she did love us as best she could. She loved to laugh and always talked about being happy... Let's just be happy, she would say to me. It was something I wanted also, to be happy with my mother. Yet all too often, that happiness vanished before it had a chance to take hold. Yet, I began to think, yes, there were happy times. So many of them. There were times when we laughed ourselves silly. There were times when we had wonderful conversations. When we shopped and gossiped and had lunch together. When my children we small and I called upon her. Yes, many times...

I thought too, that she was brave. She struggled for her voice at a time when it wasn't so easy for a woman to find a voice. She had a difficult marriage, but in her late fifties, at my urging, she went back to school and fell in love with philosophy and other subjects. She wrote papers that she showed me and she loved, loved, loved her professors. She had a hungry mind and she had worked so hard to make sure she, who had had one semester of college, would see her children graduate from college. After my father died, she pursued her love of travel with a group of widowed women. (My father steadfastly refused to travel.) They went to Elderhostels to travel and learn. She went to Canada and studied about Canadian tribes and tribal culture. She went to Italy. She fulfilled some of her dreams. She managed well without my father... theirs had been a very traditional marriage. He wouldn't allow her to work. He was the head of the family...

These thoughts went through my mind during the retreat and then, on Saturday, one the retreat leaders was talking about compassion and the Loving Kindness mediation that is part of the Buddhist tradition. I have to admit it was hard for me to listen attentively... I was very very tired and slept a lot. But suddenly I heard her ask us to think of a very difficult person in our lives, a person who had injured us, a person who we find it hard to forgive and she said, "If you had lived the life this person lived, if you walked in their shoes, might you not do the very same things they did?" Which is not, she reminded us, to take away from our hurt. It is a reminder that we are all humans trying to so hard to live life given our woundings, our inheritances and our karma.

I, of course, thought of my mother and the years of mother/daughter conflicts. There was so many, so very many that at times I thought she was little more than a festering wound in my life. But here I am, me, and I rather like myself as I get older. I like who I am growing up to be! Some of this is in spite of Mom and some of it is because of Mom.

About a month or so ago, I had gone to see her. She sometimes knew me then and sometimes didn't. I wasn't sure she knew me that day and the woman who cared for had wheeled her out, to walk with me to my car. And I said to my mother, "Do you know who I am?" And I smiled.

She laughed. "Of course, I know you. At least now I do. You're Emmy." And then she grew quite. She looked away. I thought she was gone, but she looked up and said with great sadness. "What was all the anger about? I don't know anymore. It was such a waste." And then she began to cry.

My mother was not a woman who cried readily.

Ditto, Evie.. What was all that anger about? It was such a waste. You tried, Evie, you tried your best given the shoes you walked in. Safe journey, Mommy. Be well. Be in peace.

Holiday Sale Thru December 15th

Have you visited the Gift Shop of the Divine Imagination?

Now's the time. 20%-50% off books, teleseminars, jewelry, labyrinths, and more.

Check out the sale now!

Series Begins on Thursday, December 11 For 35,000 years—millennia before Yahweh, Christ, Buddha or Mohammed appeared on the scene—the Goddess was worshipped as the primary divinity. She was everywhere: in the seasons, the tides, the sun and the moon, and the birth and death cycles of all living things. During the time of the Goddess, scripture was Nature and Nature was feminine. As we move into the dark time of the year and the promise of rebirth offered by the Winter Solstice and the holidays of hope and light, the Divine Feminine, our most ancient divinity is calling us to remember and return. It was sometime between 3500 and 2000 BCE when the warrior tribes with their masculine gods and patriarchal societies descended on the rich lands of the Fertile Crescent where Inanna was the reigning Goddess. These patriarchal tribes first challenged, then attacked and finally crushed the Goddess, her beliefs and the ways of those who worshipped her. At best, women were stripped of their influence at spiritual and cultural levels; at worst, they were enslaved and demonized.(read about etymology of word "hag".) Today more and more women, and men, are questioning traditional biblical teaching about deity. Although many people assert that God is beyond gender, long centuries of referring to "Him" as masculine and addressing Him as Lord, King, Father, etc have been a strong conditioning factor in our lives, whether we are "religious" or not. Sacred duties and religious rituals have been largely in the hands of men, and a priestly hierarchy. Because history is written by the victors—the patriarchy—this image of a masculine God and his earthly spokesmen is presented as one prevailing since time immemorial; it is "natural" and enshrined in both Holy Writ and religious tradition. Nothing could be further from the truth! Without the Divine Feminine as an integral part of our psyches, our hearts and minds, we are a world out of dangerously out of balance. For without the feminine to balance the masculine, the patriarchy has become a twisted task master who sees itself as the center of all life instead of living in partnership with the others, the earth and the cosmos. This world view, as we now know, has created disastrous affects on the earth itself and has led to almost constant warfare. Without the feminine, the masculine has no womb. Without the womb, there is little hope for compassion and creativity to take their place as two of the great triumphs of human history. Over the next six months, I will be running a series of TeleSeminars on the Divine Feminine. Join me in this first in the series. How has the loss of a Divine Feminine affected your life? How would you be different if you had been brought up knowing that the divine has a feminine face whose loving arms protect you? How might your life have been different if you were taught that the Divine Feminine promises joy, passion as well as compassion. How might your life have been different if you knew that the constant changing rhythms of life and the flow of one form into another is what gives life its challenge, its fierceness and its beauty. And that this flow is divinely feminine. "The Goddess in all her manifestations was a symbol of the unity of all life in Nature. Her power was in water and stone, in tomb and cave, in animals and birds, snakes and fish, hill, trees, and flowers. Hence a holistic and mythopoetic perception of the sacredness and mystery of all there is on earth." ~ Marija Gimbutas, archeologist Read about Marija Gimbutas Registration: All sessions are recorded. If you can't attend in person, you will receive the download. Sign up for all six session and receive a 30% discount. 6 sessions: $84. CDs are $10 extra per session. Each session: $20 with audio download,$30 with a CD Read about Emily Hanlon www.creativesoulworks.com emily@emilyhanlon.com

Blogging Will Resume in October!

Hi Everyone,
I have been getting ready for my retreat in Tuscany in September, Women, Creativity and the Journey of the Soul, and it is taking all my time. So no blogging, among other things... However, this blog is rich in articles, stories and information, so explore and enjoy...

More to come in October.

Emily

I Am Not I

There is a very particular risk inherent in the creative process: when you take the journey inward, you discover that you are not who you think you are, or you are more than who you think you are. But sometimes these images reflected through the inner mirrors are so alien to our ego that they cause us to run. The trick is not to run, but to persevere. The image will shift, the fear will dissolve and the stranger seen through the creative mirror will become familiar and quite wonderful. These unknown parts of us will guide us through unseen doors, into unexpected landscapes.

A poem by Juan Ramon Jimenez speaks wonderfully to this point.

I Am Not I

I am not I.
I am walking beside me
whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit
and at other times manage to forget.
The one who forgives sweet when I hate,
the one who takes a walk when I am indoors,
the one who remains silent when I talk,
and the one who will remain when I die.

How do we discover these who walk beside us and tend to be who we are not? How do we learn to lift the smoke screen?

First of all, I'd like to suggest that these ones do not walk beside us, but these unseen, unexplored voices live inside us.

There are different ways of exploring these inner selves, whom some call the dark or shadow side, hidden self or true self. Whatever the name, these are parts of self that have been secluded, usually in childhood or adolescence, when it seemed somehow dangerous to put them out into the world. We learn very early in life to pass judgments on those parts of self that don't meet with acceptance; in so doing, we doom our self to live through a small part of the totality of self while casting other parts into the shadows, where we keep them hidden and silent.

Carl Jung said that the unconscious is a great friend, guide and advisor to the conscious and that psychic wholeness comes from bringing the unconscious and the conscious into balance. He believed the primary way of doing this is through dreams. I believe that this communication is also part and parcel of the creative journey. The trick is in breaking through the stranglehold that the rational, conscious mind, the "I" we think we are, has on us.

As far as I am concerned, this is the most difficult part of the journey, quieting the inner critic so that we can go unfettered, without judgment and criticism, into the great sea of the unconscious. This breaking through is also the hook -- or perhaps it is more accurate to say that when we finally break through into the creative unconscious, we are hooked. For there we find the hidden selves who hold so much of our deep yearnings and explosive drive. They hold talents, wisdom and knowledge we never dreamed we had. For the fiction writer, our hidden, disowned selves often come through as powerhouse characters -- if we let them! In so many ways, these hidden selves are partners in the dance of creativity.

Being open-hearted makes us vulnerable....

I am currently giving a TeleWorkshop called Tapping Into the Feminine, Connecting to Source: Wisdom as Nurturer and Warrior. The first session held last week was very powerful and we spontaneously came up with prompts to help us embrace the Divine Feminine. There were about five and the one I chose was:

Being open-hearted makes us vulnerable....

I am posting what I wrote.

Now as I am with that thought, Being open-hearted makes us
vulnerable....my first response is fear. Openheartedness seems utterly terrifying. Open heartedness to everyone? Is that what is demanded.

I think yes. That is what is being asked. And why is it so scary? I see, I think that I have work to do on my warrior. How right that feels. My warrior. It has taken on new meaning.The warrior who knows that my heart is good. The warrior who knows that I am safe. I am safe because there is a part of me that is embraced by the Divine Mother who, like water, can be gentle and kind as well as powerful with the fierceness of flow.

Like Kali, the Creator/Destroyer.

Like the cycles of life/death/ rebirth.

Always giving in... opening to the dying, the letting go.

It is fearelessness and an embracing of joy. The sheer joy of being. The child's laughter and lover of life. The vulnerable heart that holds the hand of the Divine Mother within.

A mother who protects.

A mother who is fierce in her love.

A mother who holds me without judgment of need.

The mother I year for is within me. She is my Warrior!

What does the above prompt open for you? Please post.
Also, if you would like to be on my mailing list to receive notice of future workshops, please email me.

I look forward to reading your thoughts..

namaste

Emily