IS ANYONE ELSE HAVING TROUBLE SLEEPING?

Looking out my window at 2:22 AM, I see a gravestone — a simple, rounded gravestone there in the moonlight at the edge of my garden path. “ Funny I never saw that before. It certainly was not there today!”

It definitely seems to me that it is my own gravestone. I know this intuitively, and I’m not particularly frightened. Just kind of relieved — if you can imagine. Though I don’t want to die anytime soon, I do know where I’m headed.

Recently, I’ve been traversing death-defying sleepless nights, wringing my poor tired body/soul into knots of fear for our Democracy. Wide awake on the high desert of New Mexico (a brief getaway to the Land of Enchantment) instead bombarded with visions of war in Ukraine. Returning home, to thrash around in my own brass bed waiting for the dawn, unable to rest my head and give in to sleep because I felt my palpitating heart would stop beating if I did.

But now seeing my gravestone outside my window, I feel uplifted and calmed and able to breathe. An all-encompassing panic attack in this Age of Anxiety has worked itself through me like a fearsome invading worm. And that dead me out there just might be ignorance and wrong action from long ago which which continues to plague me in the middle of the night. Silly me! That me is dead AND buried out there under what I discover in the morning to be a plastic flower pot the wind lifted from around the corner in order to play this horrid little trick on me. It no longer looks the least bit like a weathered gravestone.

And tonight I sleep the age of innocence in my own bed.

Such an elegant unconscious — ever hard at work.

I awake to internal sunshine — present before my eyes opened to the actual day. Surrounded by soft light — which had accompanied me from dreamscape — I savor lightness more intimate than sunlight, flowing through each cell of my body and filling my mind with sweetest optimism. I was awakening to my baby self — my essential self.

I’m telling you this because it may be important.

The vision we were born with becomes too quickly distorted by the world around us. The pinches, punches and pushes of powerful nay-saying words from those we admire make us small and fearful and (at least in my case) make rebellion the necessary response. Then there’s no relaxing.

As I lay there comfortable in my bed in my soft early morning breathing I am born into the consciousness of, if I was like that then, why not now? I have this vision, perhaps it was a photo I’d seen, of me as a baby sitting in the grass with a delighted smile. Nothing more needed. Goodness inside and out.

If this was me then, why not now?

As I deal with an aging body of aches and subtle pains, in a world of pandemic uncertainty and blatant fear-mongering from frighteningly ignorant politicians. Evil abounds and pessimism certainly doesn’t help!

So I send out this inner light which has never deserted me (for long). I send it to you and to my own children and grandchildren as a point of hope in your busy, distracted lives. Because that’s what I do.

And here is the whispered thought that goes along with it:

Don’t forget the Light you once knew.

American Dreamer

In the mid-2000’s I lived part of each year in France. It was a long-held dream come true. I fell in love with the French on a family trip to Europe when I was a child. It was my first brush with real elegance — the way the people moved and dressed, the gorgeous, old-world architecture and, above all, the magical sound of language transported me. Of course, I’d never seen or heard anything remotely like it in my small town in Colorado where I mostly slouched around wearing bluejeans. I was suddenly fully awake in the City of Light, my heart thrumming with dreams and budding passions heretofore unimagined.

Many years later when both my parents died, I was left some money which I used to buy an ancient stone farmhouse high on a hill in the foothills of the Massif Central. It was a place of such extraordinary beauty that I often stand in my memory on my little balcony (mon bolet) and gaze beyond the blooming Chestnut and Wild Cherry Trees and the tile-roofed barns towards the green, rolling hills in the distance. I’m thrilled just thinking about it. La Belle France!

During the first few years I wanted more than anything to BE French and was delighted when up in Paris French tourists would once in a while ask me directions. I was a tourist too, but I somehow managed to look like une vraie Parisienne — like I belonged there . I actually lived in what was referred to as la France Profonde or deep France. I learned to speak the language because I loved it and because there were very few English speakers around. Since there were more cows than people, I also got good at mooing on my long walks when I felt like “talking”. Sometimes I sang to the cows in English. They particularly liked the Blues, I think.

As I worked in my garden, expanding it beyond the lavendar plants and roses which already grew there, my neighbors would catch me speaking to my plants in French. I remember saying to certain weeds, “Pas ici. Pas maintenant!” (“Not here, not now!”) as I yanked them out.

I planted daisies and veronica, lady’s mantle and buddleia — even a small fig tree. On November 1 — the traditional planting day for grapevines — I carefully prepared the hole I dug at the bottom of the stone stairs beneath my balcony, and, with all the care I could muster, I gently placed a tiny, fragile grapevine. My dream was to work the French earth, learn the language and learn to see the world in a new way.

The grapevine flourished and its tendrils joined the established vine which grew from the opposite end of the balcony, like hands reaching for one another. This was the gift of returning to the same place year after year. My garden, as well as my heart, continued to unfold in the exquisite beauty surrounding me. As I grew to better understand the words and ideas flowing around me, I realized that though the language was musical, often the ideas expressed were just as short-sighted and ignorant as in America. They just sounded better. I found in many ways the people were just as petty as we are. I guess I’d expected them all to be poets and philosophers!

After several years of being entranced with things French, I noticed that when I came back to America there existed a more open spirit that I didn’t experience as often in Europe. More often than not, here we smile at one another. We chat in elevators and on park benches as if we’ve known each other forever. In America, I felt relieved that smiling at a man would not be interpreted as a “come on” which I’d often been accused of in France. I think the American culture is basically friendly and welcoming. Oh, not always, but it is here in the West even in our polarized state of affairs.

It was refreshing to feel more connected with my own country. And, though I have loved getting carried away writing about my lovely France, which in my heart will always be my second home, I am so glad to be in this bumbling, stumbling, in-your-face, smiling, often rude-but-honest country of ours. I feel more myself here. Having had the great, good fortune of planting myself and thriving in another country for a while, I’m content to be breathing the air of America. Because there is hope and possibility flowing through my blood — our blood — of what the world could be. Of what this place is supposed to be. I feel it. I see it. I stand for it. I call forth the vision of my ancestors who fought for independence to manifest it. Maybe we will make the dream come true.

Little by little. Step by step. Petit à petit.

Grey Bird Says Relax

Georgann Low

There’s this gray bird — tiny, or I should say — very small, but not tiny.

He pokes his long beak into various flowers in my garden. He seems to particularly favor Hyssop but sometimes he wanders over to the Buddleia or the rose. I see him as my friend because he returns again and again — always alone and with a kind of steadfast intelligence some birds seem to lack. There’s power of purpose and discernment in his doings. Quite often when he’s ready to fly away, Gray Bird flies in circles around my head as I sit and sip my tea.

I think of this now that the snows have come and his actual presence is long gone. I think of him, too, because this early morning I poke my beak into different thoughts patterns and take into my consciousness sweet nectar of spiritual inspiration from writers I trust, eventually calming my breath into awareness of this moment.

Where else would I be? Oh, I could easily be wandering in worry from one dire prediction to another in these sometimes unspeakably difficult times. (My poor heart!)

But slowing down and coming into this moment is so much healthier. I am gathering what I need to appreciate and fully live this new day — filling any spaces of worry and confusion in my heart with optimism and the sure knowledge that I am not alone. Others have made it through even more challenging times yet I see from reading history that the world keeps moving forward. I’m here to tell you to relax! Loving cosmic energy is going to prevail.

HOMETOWN

…. was the last place on earth I wanted to be stuck in, so I took off the morning after I graduated from high school. I flew the coop for grander stages.

Over the years, boomeranging back and forth across the country from New York to L.A. to San Francisco, back to New York, back to L.A, back to San Francisco and so on, I became wildly-worldly and weary to the bone. I was so dizzy I couldn’t see straight until I began a serious meditation practice in order to catch my breath. Living in solitude in an ancient stone farmhouse high on a hill in rural France, I could at last see where I’d been and dream of who I might become. (And that’s the last forty-some years in a wee nutshell.)

It’s been a phantasmagorical ride!

Now, as it happens, I’m back where I started. Walking beside Clear Creek on this splendid, crisp winter day — the flow of the mountain waters, never-ending (I HOpE and pray), moving onward despite any of our collective climate mischief. At least, at this moment it is still flowing and I feel myself flowing with it. It is flowing from the perfect mountain with the “M” on it. I tell my grandkids “M” is for Mimi which is me. I tell them it is my mountain but not to worry i will share it with them.

Why is it my mountain? Mainly because it came to me in a dream not long ago. No, it was a visitation. It was as if it rose up from the darkness of unconscious realms of myth and magic, and in its aliveness It embraced me with its powerful presence. And it loved me with its vibrating MOTHER Earthiness and said, “You are home”.

Who in the world could argue with that?

So since that dream or vision or whatever it was, I have been returning daily to my little town which is called Golden-Where The West Remains — as the welcome arch which spans main street announces. Or, at least it used to till the town fathers decided “remains” sounded a bit too much like a graveyard (which they wanted to avoid becoming) and changed it to Welcome to Golden Where The West Lives.

Anyway, I cannot get enough of my mythic mountain. It bears telling that i actually grew up at its base and rode my horse whose name was Trigger on the hill beneath it. But in those days it just looked like a regular old mountain and I don’t remember it ever vibrating or calling to me. Maybe it’s like good old T.S.Eliot says,

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and to know the place for the first time”

I gaze upon my mountain from different angles on my walks through town where every footstep is a memory of childhood. I fill myself with its otherworldly grace. I inhale it into my being. It was always part of me only I didn’t realize it until now that I am an elder of the earth. Now that I can hear its silent wisdom and feel its strength.

And now is when I need it. Don’t we all?

Peace

A Very Brief Glance Into Psychedelics: Dancing Ourselves Into A New Paradigm

There are a good many things right about America. One is Rock’n Roll — its transformative energy ! I listen to jazz and I play with jazz musicians but today in front of The Denver Public Library, I danced my fool head off to a fine Indy rock band with a fabulous harp player! And as I waved my arms in the air and joyously gyrated, feeling my heart open to the universe beyond the city pavement, I sent my feelings on out to the rest of the world. For healing. For love. For joy. Guess the Sixties were not lost on me!

Here’s the thing about wild dancing. It can lift us out of our stuck places, out of judgment of self and others, and, when it’s really soulfully expressive, it can bust open the moment and lift us out of our boring lives into fresh possibility — unimagined potential — of energy dancing through us. Even a fairly brief dance can do that.

i was just reading an article in The New Yorker about taking small doses of psychedelics to get over yourself for a couple of hours so that you are able to see your life in a new light. Sounds like a plan. Except that you usually have to keep ingesting stuff to return to that creative new vision. That was one of many things I did not enjoy about the 6o’s. i jounced myself into a schizoid/ paranoiac state which ended up being ok because it started me on a lifelong meditation path which serves me amazingly well. Though it’s not a quick fix by any means, it is infinitely more reliable.

And learning to sit still in silence has, I think, made me a better dancer. I’m going to put on some Marvin Gaye and some Crash Test Dummies and throw in a little Salsa and dance myself beyond the Pale — whatever the hell that is. (Maybe it’s just the stuck place politics and pandemic has landed us in.)

Anyway, THAT is what I will be doing on New Years Eve 2021.
And I’d love you to join me!

HOPE

Georgann Low

Continuing with the subject of inner chuckling, I will add some words loosely derived from my book, RESURRECTING BUNNY: A Wild Child’s Pilgrimage, on the topic of HOPE. In my mind, the two go together.

After years spent sashaying around France, experiencing the high life to its fullest, my hair is silver, my skin wrinkled and my days numbered. Still, I have landed by grace in a simple cottage of contentment. That is, I’ve settled down into myself — a shining state which savors an abundance of self-love. (Perhaps I should thank myself here for the years of daily meditation.)

The harvest is on. I’m in the season of harvest, the inner harvest of contentment and new energy to devote to the artist in me. Thank goodness that early on I made friends with her. Particularly in shaky, unsettling times, I always had my pen and sketchpad to turn to.

My work was anything but perfect, but what mattered more was the self- expression.

Now that my inner vision has taken over for the dwindling eyesight of advancing age, I have found the precious gift of my inner chuckle. I wear laughter like a cape of streaming rainbow colors.

Here’s the thing. Help is available wherever you are. Truly at any moment you may choose to go deeper than the habitual surface dialogue of your mind — no matter how seductive it is — and b.r.e.a.t.h.e into the deeper reality within yourself where peace and quiet abide.

Listen, you cannot change what is past. Nor can you change the stressful reality outside you. It is only in this moment — right here — that your soul can smile on you, redeem you, and give you hope for the future.

Heart Dancer

I must write this afternoon. But not knowing what to write, do I just wait till words come onto the page — automatic writing, as it were?

Ok. I was trying to avoid telling you this, but after a fierce debate with myself (where I had to go lie down before I could continue) i decided to tell the damn truth. It is the way I work best.

Since I want to talk about heart. My heart. I must say that I love people. But I’m not crazy about dogs. Ok. it’s out in the open for all to see. So that’s that.

(Writing on medium everything looks so nice and crisp and finished, professional even. I usually write in a notebook, circling paragraphs and making lines and arrows and crossing out stuff. But I’ve set myself this little challenge of composing on medium — just for fun. and we shall see…)

So today when I was walking along Clear Creek a dog jumped out at me. He or she was fortunately attached to a human by a leash, and I was told that “Sniffy” or “Brutus” or “Ursula” was just happy to see me. I told its human that I wasn’t a dog person. He looked kind of hurt so I told him that, though I don’t particularly care for dogs, I like their humans just fine. And I gave him my warmest smile. And he said a heartfelt, “Thank you.”

Maybe that doesn’t seem like much of an exchange but it is an example of how i go about my days trying to keep my heart open in spite of my judgements and predilections. It’s as if my heart opens and closes. But the good news is that, at least in this case, my love didn’t shut down. My sweet heart opened to my brother who happens to own a dog.

Does this make sense to you? Maybe it’s just important to me because I believe Love can and will save our planet.

Thinking about healing the heart, I’m going to quote a paragraph from DANCING ALONE, which I believe I can safely do because it is, after all, my book.

“After I finished my writing I did a little dance to a song on the radio. A curious sort of standing-in-one-place dance on my frayed Persian carpet, turning slowly to the four directions and using my arms as if to cradle different people who came into my mind, moving even beyond my people to mankind in general. Love flowing through me, I lifted my dancing hands and called for healing our human heart…”

Inner Chuckle

There's this little laugh which can be best described as a chuckle and it happens often. It's between me and myself.

For instance, I sat down to meditate just now on my rolled up yoga mat and,"Hehehheh", there it was again. It pops out with out along with a goofy little grin. I've even had it happen in the midst of a long meditation or in the middle of the night or when I'm in a crowd of people -- it rises up when i notice how hilarious my thoughts are.

Anyway, as i sat to meditate this morning it was because I had just signed up to become a "serious" blogger and I had to choose a name.  Since my name is Georgann Low, I tried using all iterations I could think of for gLow -- "glowinthedark" I particularly liked--but the only thing that was available was "birdglow" which sounded too much like "birdpoop". 

"Shortblobs" occurred to me and was high on my list because, in fact, my blogs will probably be short in that I have a short span of attention and am easily bored. But I figured people would think I was saying "shortblogs" when I declared it the world.  And that would never do because it was already in use.

So I settled on INNER CHUCKLE because it is reality. And, since my own truth is all I can believe these days, I'm happy to have that as my moniker. In fact, I'm thankful that after so many years on the planet, I've received my inner chuckle which says life pretty much always has it's funny side. It's like I've graduated.

Oh! But it's good to chuckle in these dark and difficult times!

Now, I will get back to my morning meditation.

Cheers!

Me and Pema ~ Excerpt from Resurrecting Bunny: A Wild Child's Pilgrimage

Ha! I just remembered that Pema Chodron, the celebrated

Tibetan Buddhist writer, visited me in my dream last night. She

had on a cute little plaid outfit in rust colors and earth tones and

we were very close — like best friends. I admitted to having some

less than desirable traits and as I told her each one she said, “Oh,

that’s nothing to worry about.” (Boy, was I glad to hear that!)

Then we were singing together a medieval polyphonic chant

in harmony. “This can’t be right,” I said. “Am I hitting the wrong

note?” “No,” she smiled. It’s a passing tone that resolves itself in

the next measure. “Lean into the dissonance,” she said. When

I did, the strange sonic color it created was quite beautiful and

exhilarating.

Buddhists say that when something discordant or jarring

happens along, we could try leaning into it. Rather than running

from it, we could at least stand our ground and stay present.

Breathing instead of freaking out. Dreadfully hard for me, but I

think that is how we develop depth of compassion for ourselves

and the rest of the world. I don’t know that for sure because

it’s a new concept for me, and I’m trying it out. I’ve always run

from any inkling that a disagreeable experience might possibly

be coming my way. That’s a whole long lifetime of trying to

avoid pain.

Leaning into it is like saying, “Ok. I recognize this is not what

I wanted to happen but I’m not going to try and defend myself

or deaden my awareness and disappear. I’m standing with it.”

Breathing in and out. Accepting it with a sort of humility. Getting

off my high horse, so to speak, and out from under my ego a bit.

There is a fresh experience of harmony in that. Oh, but it’s

fun to learn new things!

I’ve spent the entire day embracing each person I meet

with my heart.

Loneliness

Lately I’ve been noticing that I’m lonely. Loneliness is a little like living in the midst of a beautiful garden where mushrooms pop up here and there — not always to mar the beauty, except for those ugly, grey toadstools that emerge once in a while.

I also find that breezes and gentle winds sing to me. It’s usually early evening when aloneness becomes laced with loneliness. I hear the whispers of tree leaves in the early autumn. The leaves fall and love me. The cottonwoods are Indian rattles shaking their magic. my heart is lifted.

Do you think maybe the breezes are the voices of the dead?

I find that reassuring as I welcome my sister.

I Believe in Parties

In fact, I just came from one. A birthday celebration for a 1-yr old with people from across the cultural/political spectrum. Yes, there were definitely Trump followers along with those who are die-hard Bernie supporters. We gathered for our beautiful grandchildren who, of course, will inherit our world.

It was like the neighborhood picnic I went to last Tuesday evening. Because I live on a blue-collar block where almost every house has a pickup parked in the driveway and there are transients in the duplexes, I was a teeny bit skeptical of a community picnic. Having recently moved from a high-class neighborhood in a very liberal city, I’ve had to do some attitude adjusting. As I looked at my new neighbors, sitting woodenly at metal picnic tables waiting for the chicken and potato salad, I thought very loudly, “What the hell am I doing here?”

Then a guy started up his little one-man karaoke band and began singing in a pretty good voice along with real music tracks from the 60’s and 70’s. Very gradually, here and there, people started subtly moving to the groove. There were smiles, too, as the music propelled aging, out-of-shape bodies into short bursts of gladsome dancing. It wasn’t exactly the ecstatic soul-expression of lithe young creatures dancing at Woodstock. But, still, I pretty much loved every person there.

Can’t you just picture this aging hippie loving everyone?!

We can’t change each others’ outrageous politics. But there’s a strong possibility that our humanity will usher us through these dangerous times — if we keep our hearts open.

Loosen Up

A post on “Finding the Artist Within”

Feeding Birds

All I seem to care about these days is whether or not birds are eating at my bird feeders. I’ve been a nervous wreck trying to place them where my tiny friends might notice. I’ve switched them from tree to bush to tree several times in the last few months. I’ve become obsessed.

Last night I was feeling forlorn. Nothing was working. People who asked to speak to me about my spiritual companioning practice didn’t follow up. Relationships are faltering even though I care deeply (desperately?) to keep them going. I’m not making much money in my art endeavors Birds are ignoring me. And, oh Lordy, what’s Trump up to now?

Freeing my spirit from my obsessions is the answer. So I keep trying to surrender, to hand them off as easily as I would let a bird fly from my hand if it happened to land on me. How many times must I affirm that I’m not in control!

Today I was speaking about just that with another spiritual director, Faith, who is a wise woman steeped in her rich African/American spiritual heritage. She suggested I create a “surrender” jar, decorating it with this and that so it’s meaningful to me. Then I can write down my worries on scraps of paper and drop each one in with intention. This I will do over and over again to remind myself that I’m not in control of other people’s (and birds’) journeys. I think I will also help my 6-yr old granddaughter make one. She’s already worried. Maybe it’s the times we live in.

And, lo and behold, as I finished my conversation with Faith in Washington, DC, I looked up to see a small flock of birds converging on both my bird feeders! Wonderful feathery creature friends!

I feel it’s a sign that I am fulfilling my heart’s desire to nurture the soul of the world, when I step out of the way.

Faith in Washington, D C

I might as well tell you that in the middle of the night i wake up and find myself praying for America. I do this by simply closing my eyes and focusing on the space between the eyebrows which yogis call the third eye center or the eye of the soul. The darkness suffuses into the vibrant golden glow of inner/outer space which I can reach into with my heart.

I see the hearse carrying George Floyd’s body as a middle-aged white cop goes down on one knee, head bowed in an attitude of sorrow. It seems slightly painful for his overweight body but you could feel his heart flowing into America.

I prayed for my friend Faith in Washington, D.C. who is my soul sister in Spiritual Direction. I feel her pain and frustration at the treatment of “people who look like me”. She is a powerful, prayerful African American who is affiliated with Howard University and she, along with many others, will guide us into a more equitable future. Without violence. Without revolution.

Martin Luther King be with us.

Faith is up in the middle of the night praying too. We are in good hands.

How to Find the Artist Within

Here are some insights to my journey as an artist. I will post more as we continue the journey!

One thought occurs to me as I embrace both my feminine and masculine sides

One thought occurs to me as I embrace both my feminine and masculine sides – I join collectively with others involved in the same work. As a woman I manifest my connection with what I call Divine Mother – the feminine face of God. It is this strength and energy that has seen me safely thru these changes.

But it is not the exclusive domain of women certainly! Men are also seeking and discovering new pieces of themselves as we all move toward wholeness.

We are two sides of the same coin – The yin/yang dynamic ongoing. Yin transforming yang, yang transforming yin.

We are moving toward balance, toward healing of ourselves and ultimately the whole planet.

Remember, we will get through these times

I'm not alone in feeling the shadowy fears and worries of these times.  The undercurrent is there but I prefer to also notice the beauty of the day, the garden I'm planting, the love that surrounds me. 

 I've refreshed my living space by hanging new art with images that help me lift up out of the undertow of uncertainty. They offer me a new lens with which to view these times.  

My piece, America Votes,  brings my heart a flower of whimsy to bloom in darkest times - which is why I find myself drawing angels so often!  It's a call to our better angels.

And remember, we will get through these times.

Optimistic art available now on my website.

Buy original art prints from my online, independent art gallery.