living outside the box

About a month ago, I experienced an odd series of dreams. Very vivid and detailed, the story unfolded over three nights as so many acts in a well-structured play. It was both disorienting and exciting to be living this adventurous "alternate reality" in dreamstate, though it made my waking life -- at least temporarily -- appear rather dull in comparison.

I may compose a later blog about the dreams themselves -- though I am also in the process of incorporating them into a larger storytelling framework -- but this experience led me to take a closer look at my waking world, my expectations about life, and where I've been and where I might be going.

These images left me feeling as though I've not accomplished all that much (e.g., never went to grad school in archaeology), that my life is pretty boring, and that I've missed so many opportunities. Of course, all that isn't true -- I've done and accomplished a tremendous amount, not the least of which has been healing a great deal of trauma (no small task). I suppose all of this made me feel old, unrealized, wishing I could go back 15 or 20 years to make some different choices.

But who hasn't felt like that?

The other night, I realized that a big reason I've been feeling so directionless and adrift without an anchor since the cross-country relocation -- from my home state of Virginia to the Pacific Northwest -- is that I am truly outside of the box I'd been living in for the larger part of 35 years. While this was a big motivation for the move -- to put geographical (and thus emotional and psychological) distance between myself and all of those expectations and rules -- I hadn't anticipated floundering on the other side. I suppose I'd figured that once free of the box I had long since outgrown, I'd instantly take off on a determined and calculated path, with absolute certainty and no doubts. Instead, I found myself suddenly disoriented and bewildered, although happily so.

It takes a great deal of discipline and energy to make new choices, and to keep wanting and making those choices every moment of every day; when you're off the familiar tracks, it's easy to just coast around in little circles, without practiced vigilance.

Huh. Ever read Vonnegut's "Timequake"? I am reminded of the moment when people suddenly regain their free will, after having been literally on auto-pilot for ten years, unable to make any choices but simply re-living the previous decade without any ability to choose new outcomes. Suddenly folks are back in charge after growing so deeply complacent, and -- not surprisingly -- all hell breaks lose. They are so used to being powerless that no one has a clue what to do with themselves.

One of my big challenges, of course, is that I am interested in -- and seemingly skilled in -- so many different areas that it is difficult to make solid choices and stick with those paths without getting distracted by all of the other stuff.... In a Sunday afternoon e-mail exchange a couple of weeks back, a friend and I were musing over possible doctoral dissertation topics. I think my "dream thesis" was titled something like, "The Metaphysical Implications of Healing Geometry in the Sacred Dance of Ancient Sumerian Dogs." But even that might not hold my interest long enough for me to complete my dissertation in a timely fashion, as I would likely be distracted by the underwater excavation of some ancient Minoan temple dedicated to an heretical space-god, or by developments in practical healing techniques through applied energy meridians and hypnosis.

But such is the life of ADD genius. (Or so they tell me.) ;)

In the meantime, I am still feeling my way along. I may well have traded one box for another, larger one, but I have yet to discover any new boundaries, and perhaps there is no perimeter or limitation at all.

what's in a name (part 2)

So we're back to the name game.

Have you ever felt disconnected from your own name, as though it wasn't really you?

My problem initially stems from having a fairly common name. While living in Virginia, I discovered that not only were their five other women in my city who shared both my first and last names, but two of them had my same middle initial. I found out about this when updating my address on my grocery store customer card -- all five Jennifer Willises shopped the same grocery chain. The worst came when I called a computer superstore to order some supplies, only to find that I was talking to Jennifer Willis on the other end of the phone, and when the airline got my travel information confused with another Jennifer Willis with a similar itinerary.

I tried going by my middle name for a time, but that didn't seem to fit either. After college, I tried using my middle name as my last name, but those who saw it couldn't say it, and those who heard it couldn't spell it, so that didn't last long. A few years later, I used a diminutive of my middle name as my first name, but there was still the same spelling problem, and even in the South -- with a grand tradition of naming girls after boys -- it was much too masculine for me; I didn't have a feminine-enough personality to balance it, I guess.

So I went back to being plain old Jennifer Willis. When publishing my first book, I made the decision to throw my middle initial in there, to (somewhat) help to differentiate me from the other Jennifer Willises in the world.... only to discover another author by the name of Jennifer S. Willis, who writes on subject matter similar to mine. Argh!

More recently, I've been going by Rev. Jen Willis.... only to find that there is another Rev. Jen Willis, in California, who is doing work that is very much like my own. I just can't win.

But I've not been feeling very connected to my name lately. Several weeks ago, my mortgage company sent me some paperwork with the wrong permutation of my name on it -- using my first initial, middle name, and last name (instead of first name, middle initial, and last name). Was the Universe trying to send me a message? My mother -- whose own post-divorce name change struggles were featured in an earlier entry (what's in a name, part 1) -- has suggested that I consider changing my name. She also admitted that when her lawyer told her that the court had granted her the go ahead to choose whatever name she wanted for herself, she seriously considered changing her name to Empress Moon Noodle (at my previous suggestion). But she didn't.

I have a friend here in Portland who changed her name some time ago, adopting a spiritual name instead of her birth name. It fits her perfectly. She also gave new spiritual names to her children, all of whom elected to use the new name instead of the birth name. And they are beautiful names, too. I know others who have taken new names to better reflect who they have become in their lives, and the paths they are treading.

When I was half-way through my seminary training, our deans took us through a guided meditation on a class retreat, in which we discovered our own spiritual names. I have, to date, revealed this name to only two people. It's a truly beautiful name as well, but it feels somehow too pure or too powerful for this current incarnation -- thus far, at least.

My given name is a powerful one, and it was chosen with purpose: "Jennifer" is a combination of "Gwenyvere" (which means "white wave" or "white phantom") and "Winifred" (which means "a friend of peace"). Beautiful and powerful. But it doesn't feel like me. Should I change it, or have I simply placed too great a significance on my name? Does a person's name need to reflect who they are?

I'm not sure how my family would respond to a name change -- particularly my father's family, a fairly traditional and conservative (and large) group. Plus there's that whole hassle of being known professionally by my given name; the last thing I need in my life is more confusion. I'm living in enough of a disjointed, pea-soup fog as it is.

So for the time being, I'm still Jen Willis. Until further notice.

unveiling the mask

Below is a short essay I wrote more than eight years ago (on an even older experience), about the masks that we wear in our day-to-day lives, disguising us from each other and even from ourselves.

I have found myself repeatedly challenged -- with increasing frequency -- to "speak my truth." Such a simple directive that requires so much courage and focus! Much of this unfolding will be taking place here on the blog, I imagine, and "thoughts for the spiral" will be an apt title indeed. I hope you will bear with me through this.

This morning, it seems that digging up this archival essay is as good a place as any to begin.

* * * * *

Unveiling the Mask
2 February 1997

We all wear masks of one kind or another as a necessary part of our daily lives. These are the faces that we present to the world. They serve to protect us, to shelter us, to make our interactions with the outside smoother and less dangerous, to make us less vulnerable to a variety of forces, and sometimes to delude us.

There are many layers of these masks, each of which may serve a very specific and subtle purpose, and different faces are donned for different occasions. These also act as the filters through which we view, interpret and interact with the world, and it is not uncommon to find that we even wear masks to protect us from ourselves.

Consider the phrase "put on a happy face," which is very simply a command to put on a socially acceptable mask to hide what may truly be going on just below the surface. And we have all played such games of hide-and-seek with ourselves, taking refuge behind this mask or that in intricate efforts of self-denial.

The more we are able to strip away these costumes, the more successful we are in seeing ourselves as we truly are.

At least, that's how I see it.

When I was nineteen and in college, I was dating a young man who asked that I participate with him in something which he called "Zen Soulmating."

What this involved was our sitting down close together and facing each other on the floor, then looking into each other's eyes. This may not sound like much to those who have not tried it. Once each person has become comfortable enough with piercing another individual thus and also being the target of penetration, and once each person has become more acclimated to the exercise, something very unusual and unexpected begins to happen.

There is a flood of colors, flashes of light, and shadows of darkness which begin to slice and dance across the other's face. Creatures only imaginable in tales of science fiction and fantasy begin to manifest in the visage facing us. What we see is not only intensely beautiful, but also monstrous and ugly, each appearance and distortion giving way to the next so very quickly that there is no time to consider what might actually be happening.

And this is what happened with us that night.

He was both old and young, full of light and then cast into darkness. He was purple and green and orange. He had no teeth and decaying skin, and then he was as innocent and precious as a cherub.

We had begun to see each other's masks.

It's a fairly intense experience.

This is understandably unsettling at first. Here I was sitting with someone with whom I was deeply in love, only to find such disturbing personages flickering across his face, and to know that he was seeing the same in me. While we were not necessarily cutting through each other's layers to be able to view plainly the true identity residing within the core being, we were able to take stock of each other's filters, and to have a better idea of precisely what we were dealing with in our interaction.

I actually didn't think much about this experience at the time. Towards the end of my college career, however, I began to experiment with this on my own, seated in front of a mirror in a quiet place to look into my own eyes to explore what I might find manifesting on my own visage.

When discussing this with friends, I try to warn them that this delving into self, while very enlightening, can also require a fair amount of courage. We get to see the good, the bad, and the ugly in ourselves, and it is never at all what we may expect.

Others have found that this can also be a helpful exercise for investigating past life connections and energies, and I've even seen the face of a soul twin appearing in this manner, but I'll leave that discussion for another time.

What has been happening recently, however, is very interesting.

About two years ago, I sporadically began seeing auras. I never had any control over when this would happen or how long it would last. I have also never seen colors, as others do -- rather, it is more of a visual buzzing that I will notice surrounding a person's body. While this is intriguing, it is also distracting, as I sometimes find myself more focused on viewing someone's aura than on what that person is saying.

But this seems to have progressed into spontaneously seeing people's masks as well.

It appears that no eye contact is necessary for this to occur, and it's certainly not anything I have pursued -- it happens without warning, and without any conscious effort on my part. I will first notice a strange flash of light in my peripheral vision, followed by the immediate darkening of my surroundings which is accompanied by the "brightening" of whichever individual whose masks I am about to see. It feels very much as if my visual focus is being forced through a narrowing tunnel, with this great display of masks at the center.

If anyone else has experienced similar occurrences, I would be very interested in hearing from you.

At the very least, such experiences hopefully help to convince people that there is more than meets the eye to this world and to people in general.

I think it would be a mistake for us all to try to rid ourselves of these masks, to lay ourselves bare to the world and to each other. Society as we know it would not be possible without these psychological and spiritual devices which have evolved with us over time. Each surface persona is a carefully crafted "user-friendly" interface which either conforms to or challenges the norms and standards which have been accepted by the population, adding yet another language to the many layers of communication which we employ in our lives.

Still, such exploration is great fun and aids in understanding. Plunging to such depths has always been a favorite hobby of mine, so no doubt the adventure will continue.

the passing of a pontiff

When I read on Thursday afternoon (Pacific Time), that Pope John Paul II had received last rights, I was both saddened and relieved. This man had suffered through numerous and chronic health problems in recent years, and had spent the past month with a tracheotomy tube in his throat. For a man of humble origins who had spent his life in service, his final years had certainly been hard ones.

But I was also concerned about a meetup I would be attending that evening: The Wild Witches of the West. When I first moved to Portland, I met a few locals who made no secret of their anger against Christianity in general and the Roman Catholic Church in particular, and for those individual pagans I don't think that enmity was undeserved. While I hadn't run into such vocal protests in this Westside group, I was still nervous that there might be some mean-spirited celebration afoot, and "Ding Dong the Pope is Dead" sung in a public place would easily offend those in genuine mourning, and wouldn't exactly foster good will.

The evening went off without a hitch, fortunately, but I kept my laptop with me in order to keep tabs on the Pope's condition. I am not, nor have I ever been, Catholic. However, there are millions of non-Catholic Christians across the globe who look to the Pope as the unofficial leader of their faith, not to mention the very powerful role the Vatican plays on the world stage. The passing of a Pope is a monumental event.

(On a side note, I felt like an idiot on Friday when I announced -- to everyone at Coffee People, and then to my family via wireless phone -- that the Pope had died. Then, of course, I had to take it back. So much for relying upon CNN.com for breaking news of global import. It was just like the 2000 and 2004 U.S. presidential elections all over again.)

Historically, Pope John Paul II was a very liberal and progressive church leader. Even though some of his directives made me want to tear my hair out, I respected his efforts to bring the Catholic Church at least out of the Dark Ages, if not actually into the twenty-first century. I also respected his honest desire to serve his faith and his world. I honor his passing and have said many blessings over his soul, at last free.

Now, of course, I turn my attention to the council of cardinals who will shortly begin the process of electing a new pontiff. Will the RCC choose a successor who will follow in John Paul II's progressive footsteps, or will they follow the recent example of the United States, who in the wake of eight years of a liberal presidency decided to take about twenty-seven steps backward to twice elect a paranoid fundamentalist? As our world village continues to shrink, and as moral and spiritual matters (of many faiths) come increasingly to the forefront of our global challenges, the choice of Pope is no small matter.

Though I am not a Catholic, I bless those few who have this task now set before them, with sincere wishes that their choice may serve the higher good of us all.