Season of Stories

"The universe is made of stories, not atoms."

~ Muriel Rukeyser

As we enter the year's prime shopping season, stores tend to replace stories as the gift source of choice. I grew up in Paramus, New Jersey, the shopping capital of the known universe, where it's easy to get "malled", so I understand just how seductive — and soul diminishing — the material mindset can be. 

Emerson said: "Rings and jewels are not gifts but apologies for gifts. The only true gift is a portion of thyself." How do we put the "I" back in "stores", supplant material-eyes with empath-eyes? How do we create the new story of Now? We can begin by sharing who we are, as keepers of culture, guardians of wisdom traditions, members of a vast community belonging to something greater than ourselves. In re-storying the holidays, we restore a sense of continuity that is soul nourishing for us, and everyone around us. READ MORE

Build Bridges, Not Malls

In the current issue of my newsletter, themed, "To Tell the Truth," I offer dance medicine in the form of ecstatic grooves for an awakening world by Om At Last, which includes powerful lyrics if you listen closely. I also rediscovered this wonderful world anthem, A House Divided, from 2006. Music, like art, is a cross-cultural bridge to unite us far beyond our superficial differences of age, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic level… If you think about it, these external challenges exist in order to allow us to go deeper, to cross the great divide into harmony.

I've just read a book that defies easy description as it demonstrates the shamanic essence of life, disguised as entertainment: The Death and Resurrection Show: From Shaman to Superstar. Our thirst for the paradigm-busting truth it contains is evidenced by the book's scarcity: it sells for a minimum of $122 on Amazon — and that's for a used copy. Clearly, we feel the call to Mystery, even as we seek to demystify daily life.

But too often, we get malled instead. That's not a typo, it's a sigh.

A month ago I blogged about the new shopping mall going up in a nearby town. Right now it's a swathe of dirt paralleling the highway, but the words that spring to mind are Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks." All the foliage has been desecrated in the name of profit.

Except they got the homonym wrong: it's prophet, as in augury, herald, divining a new world. We don't need more bling for the outside, but to let our radiance shine forth from the inside. This is how we build the bridge across forever, to the new human, the new world we're co-creating. The clarion call to awaken and step up to a higher Love is being answered around the planet; it's the most amazing time to be alive, to be witness and participant in the wonder of the shift.

While it's always fun to dress the part, express, not excess, is key. A new outfit to honor your Divine self? Sure! Another megamall to wander in soulless surrender while boosting the GNP? NOT!

Synchronicity Rising vs. Shopping Away Your Soul

On Thursday, the cross-quarter gateway known as Lammas, with a full Aquarian moon lighting up the sky and the Olympic rings, I had an incredible encounter with a man ahead of me in line at the grocery store. We casually commented that the lines seemed to be moving slowly, and I said, "I think most of the checkers are new; it's not easy to master all those codes on the register. I had to use one at my very first job when I was 16 and (I imitated the hunt and peck motion)." I laughed and said, "Now, of course, we all have computers so we're fast on the keys."

Then I looked at him and said, "Are you old enough to remember what I'm talking about?" He said, "Oh, yes, I'm older than you." 

Naturally, I had to take the challenge so I asked, "How old are you?" He said, "55." I said, "Dude!" and high-fived him. Then I asked, "When's your birthday?" He replied without missing a beat, "2/4/57" ~ which is exactly the way I always say it! I got what I imagine was a look of incredulity on my face and asked, "What time?" Meanwhile he's still processing what's happening, and says, "Wait ~ you're an Aquarian too?" And then he says, "It was sometime early in the morning, like 1 am." I was born just after 1 am. I said, "We're twins!" It was the coolest connection, though I think it flipped him out a little. For me, it was simply "synchronicity rising!"

Contrast this with some construction that's been going on for quite awhile next to the community pool here. The pool is located not far from the freeway onramp, but a stand of trees afforded a measure of privacy and peace. I noticed the greenery was slowly morphing into bulldozers, but had no idea why. Over the weekend I happened to mention some other nearby construction to a young Whole Foods employee, and he referenced the swim site construction by saying, "I'm designing the benches for the mall!" I thought he was making a very dry joke.

But no: the construction by the freeway is a new shopping center underway. Incredulous in a far different manner than during Thursday's heart-sync'd encounter, I said sarcastically, "Oh, I'm sure we need another mall!" That was when he repeated the information about the bench design, and I realized he was serious. I congratulated him on landing the project ~ I always support art, in all its guises ~ but the desecration of nature for human consumption galls me.

In this kairos moment when reclaiming our soul connection is key to personal and planetary evolution, the trees are our allies and guides. We won't realize our life purpose by buying the leopard print tights, but by becoming our wildness ~ not as violence; as an abiding, sensuous connection with Nature and all our planetary kin.

Hey, I grew up in a town that had more shopping malls per square mile than any other; I thought the trees planted inside the mall grew there! And I enjoy a beautiful new outfit as much as the next woman (or guy). The difference is, I know materialism isn't the path to what we might term synchronicitree.

I invite and invoke your primal need to be in natural surroundings, so that the synchronicity I experienced in the market knows how to find you. When you're living in the flow, such encounters will tickle you into joy everywhere ~ and you won't rely on shopping as a way to remember your soul.