Spirituality 08'

Just a tote? Just a story? Just an experiment on cloth? Just a bit of embroidery? Just a revised reciy? No..These are a few of expressions of creativity. Creativity is being a woman and in the act of creating something never seen before you leave a bit of self behind when you die.

I have done a quick retreat back to my cell at the Abbey as I just discovered that a link has routed viewers to this blog from Heathers Advent calendar and I am feeling embarrassed. I have been so involved in her Silk Road Journey I have totally neglected this blog. The calendar is a truly marvelous contribution filled with contributors that have added some great art work. I know I have things to contribute but have not concentrated my attention to present them to the public. For this I apologize and will try to make it up to you by adding this photo. It is of an oil painting I did of the creation of Lemuria, my second home. On the top left Lemuria is rising out of the ocean. The mists gather and the oceans reveal the land, the abbey and one of my journeys. Next year I will be prepared. Jane 

Rose Meditattion

Deeper, deeper, into the center,
uncluttered mind, single focus.
Calm, quiet and peaceful.

The rose, the rose, the rose.

I stand at a crossroads
and chose the one less traveled.
The centuries drop away
and once more I become transported.

The rose, the rose, the rose.

Deep within my meditation I observe the moving centuries and the many lives I have lived on this plane. I see my Iona counterpart and her journey through Europe towards Alexanderia, I see her accepted into the inner circle and her hours searching the knowledge of the world for her pasts. And now, here, in this century, in the center of the rose, I am taken back to my beginnings.
I see the tents in a sandy strip on the most easterly part of Mesopotamia. I can see myself, draped in white linen, one shoulder exposed, and a golden rope belt holding the wrap together in the front. I seem to be standing in expectation, viewing the Tigris river on the East and the Euphrates on my west. Do I of another time somehow know that Jane of this life and time will return before she once more returns to another realm. If we can think it perhaps it is possible?

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

Preparing for another journey

Once settled on my meditation mat I let my mind review the new tour that I have elected to join.
"Come and join her on a magical caravansary expedition.
The path leads through the Mountains of Myrrh towards the House of the Serpents and patient camels wait to take their hosts"
I let my mind wander, for a while, on the expectations of the journey. I wonder if Frans ‘Donkey, Inc,. will now include camels.? I anticipate the beauty of the desert in the spring, the smells, the warmth that heals the deepest ache, and the comfort of an ice tea in the shade of a canopy during the hottest part of the day. I wonder if they serve ice tea in Mesopotamia, and what do they wear? What will I wear?
"Enough, enough Jane. It is time to do the rose meditation."(Oh dear..I do not have an invitation for the divination tent. I must write Heather…).
"Hush active mind. "
"The rose , is a rose, is a rose, is a rose."

message delivered 

moonlight on magic mountain 

medit ation 

cloud deliverry 

magic mtn 

Energy mountain photos  

Musics message

My 10pm journey down the halls, following the sound of the music, turned out to be an awakening for me. What started out as curiosity helped put me back on the right path. Upon entering the Abbey, when asked, I said, "I think people enter the monasteries to get to know God deeper then they are able when they participate in the secular world." I said: I hope to reach humbly into the part of me that knows God". That really was an incomplete thought but at the time I did not realize that.
What happened was: I headed down the dark, dimly lit halls towards the sound of the music. As I got closer I could tell it was someone playing a piano and it seemed to be coming from behind a large double door. I pushed open the door slowly hoping to slip in unseen. That would not have been necessary as the room was completely dark. Once insider my eyes adjusted to the darkness I could see that I had entered a large, high ceiling chapel. The light from the moon through the dome sent a beam onto a raised pulpit. To the far right a dim light sat on the top of a spinet piano lighting a page of music. I could not make out the face of the person playing but the emotions were evident. I slid into a back pew and soon was lost in the incredible music coming from the fingers of the piano player. It was obvious that I was watching another person having a deep spiritual experience.
I knew I should leave. I was feeling very guilty for invading such a private space but for some reason I was bound by the experience. The music flooded my soul and I so wished I could be experiencing what the person playing the piano was experiencing. And in that moment I realized what my personal search was. I too wished to feel what the piano player was feeling. I knew there was a part of me that revered God, but bringing God as close as the piano player did must be the most moving experience we could ever have. I wanted to move beyond being a student of God, to move beyond reciting rituals and bible quotes and being preached to by the experiences of others. I desired to actually be in the presence of God.

Creativity abounds I have gotten creative once more. After organizing my cell with my new supplies I had to try out all the ideas...and now have finished a felted and beaded embellishment, and a hangy, dingy..which will work good on a piece of fabric for a carry some thing. Now I must get back in my meditation routine as here is something nagging at the back of my mind I must address..but now it is late at night and I hear the sound of sacred music echoing down the halls. I think I shall wander a bit and investigate.
 

Return comfort

Change is always exhilarating for a short while but there is nothing to compare to returning home. I trudged up the hill from my mountain home, in the dark, with the March snow blowing into my face but still anxious to return to my cell in the Abbey. I could hardly see the Abbey through the snow but the path in front of me was well trodden. Evidently we have more new occupants then when I left a month ago. On leaving I had the best intentions to continue my art commitment and my meditation journal which I started when I first arrived, but the city has a way of changing those plans. I hoped to slip back into that zone.
I pushed open the huge wooden gate and entered the Abbey courtyard at the exact moment that the sun flooded through and bounced off the new blooming flowers in the garden. The surprise snowstorm had not touched the Abbey. Like Lemuria, the Abbey holds the same amount of magic I had become use to there, and I smiled as I pulled the positive, comforting energy around my shoulders, hurried to the entrance and down the long hall to my cell. I could feel the zone closing once again around me. My mind immediately burst with too many creative projects that I was anxious to experiment with as I unpacked the supplies from my backpack. I smiled, knowing I will never be commercial as I cannot resist learning something new, but here in the Abbey that seemed not to matter. It was good to be back.