Monthly Archives: August 2013

See You at the Club!

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Dear Friends,  

When I was a little girl, I played intensely for hours at my grandparent’s home. Inside, we dressed up in all kinds of crazy outfits and developed an unending inner life of the imagination. We played house with elaborate scenarios, hosting dinner parties of saltine crackers and juice. 
 
Outside, we rode our bikes up “the hill” and sped down and around the curve in the street. We raced in circles around my friend Patty’s driveway and I proudly carried a small scar on the little finger of my left hand from when my bike crashed. We rolled down the grassy hill in the back yard, and played in the drainage creek at its bottom. We made ourselves so dirty that sometimes we had to leave our clothes outside when we went back in the house. 
 
One time, somebody found some small round pieces of burled wood with a small hole drilled in each one. I insisted that this would make a great “club” necklace. We found some string to make them into necklaces and then we had to figure out what the club was about. We never did.  
 
That always bothered me. I thought it was cool for us to have these fabulous necklaces and I was sure we could have a special club too. What I didn’t realize was that we already had something better than a club. There was already an energy that compelled us to create fun projects together. We didn’t need a club to glue us together. 

Eventually, my mother remarried and I moved away and we all grew up and never saw each other again. All we really had in common was that little subdivision where my grandparents lived in Saint Louis. 

From my earliest days, my gift has always been in starting the games and encouraging people to find and express their own voices. Sometimes, I think I keep trying to make clubs, but I have learned that you have to be committed to a greater good to make it a club where I want to be a member. Above all, I believe in creative free expression, and in whatever it is that makes people want to create and be together. I love to see people create together, and I believe in the healing alchemy of community. 

And beyond that? I still seem to be trying to make necklaces out of those little wooden things.

Happy Labor Day, 

See you at the club.

Peace out,
 
Jane

Spirit Says to Sing Your Song

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Dear Shape Shifters, Spiritual Beings, and Summer Travelers,

 
             The city has a stillness in August, in places that are usually full of activity and buzz. Everything has a vibration, and stillness does too. Last week was my mother’s birthday, the first since she crossed over six months ago. It was a really hard day for me, and even the usual life affirming push back of the city wasn’t doing its job. The energy was that of tourists and vacationers. People were walking across streets at odd times. The sense of purpose and rhythm that is part of the conversation of New York’s public space felt out of sync. 
 
             On Saturday, I waited anxiously with my Trader Joe’s bags on the uptown subway platform at 72nd St. Overwhelmed by sadness and grief, I wanted to get home, to not be around people and tourists and chaos. And then the most beautiful music came toward me from the other side of the platform, the downtown side and a woman sang into her mic with a heavenly back up track playing from her little karaoke machine. It was so beautiful that lots of people, including me, stopped and quieted down. One man took his hat off and faced her from across the train tracks with respect. I almost didn’t get on the subway when it arrived, to stay and hear her sing her beautiful soulful song. Oh thank you, thank you, thank you, subway singing lady/angel. Thank you.
 
That moment of listening to the creative expression of her soul transformed me and every person who heard her sing that afternoon. She rearranged the molecules in the air with her voice. Your song does the same thing every time you sing it. As Rickie Byers Beckwith says, “Spirit says to sing your song.” 
 

See you Sunday at @ 2 West Park 86th and Amsterdam 
 
With love,
Rev. Jane
 

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Genius Bar!!!

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Dear S-NYC Geniuses,
 
             You are a genius, you know. At our center, resides the Truth of who we are, and when we allow ourselves to live from that place, we are a conduit for the Divine and the brilliance it shares through us. To think that we are the Source of our genius creates a form of pressure that actually works against us. We are the ideal vehicle for our unique and perfect gift to the world. Actually we are each the ONLY vehicle for that gift, so competition with other people or ideas is a misdirection of our creative energy.
 
             Rev. Karen Osit and I are looking at some archetypal stories and teachings from three depth traditions – the Torah, Buddhist precepts and Native American wisdom- that are potent and effective guides inward. As wisdom teachings, they can be understood on different levels but each path leads to the same place. Matthew Fox describes it perfectly with the title of his book about the wisdom path, “One River, Many Wells.” The wells represent different religions. The river represents the Source of all creation, upon which they all draw. It is communion with the RIVER that we seek.
 
Only you can be you. Trying to be someone else is not only futile, but robs the world of your beautiful gift, your song, your unique music. 
 
Come join us this Sunday 2 pm at West Park – corner of 86th and Amsterdam in NYC.
 
We love to see your face!
 
Peace out,
Rev. Jane
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