STEPPING STONES (ALONG THE PATH TO THE LIGHT)

INTRODUCTION

Throughout my life, I have been searching for connections to a higher power - that universal energy, my divine self, a peaceful perfection. The following is a brief account of a few of the stepping stones that, so far, make up my path to the light. In my childhood, swinging and climbing trees were essentials on my pathway to peace.

One hand here, my foot goes there, oof, and leg over, up to the part where I can sit and feel safe, where I won't fall. There's sundapple light through the long, shiny dark green ovals. The back side of the leaves are soft, the center vein raised. This time of year, the big velvety cream blossoms are not perfuming the tree. Instead, the large cones of bright red seeds appear. A steady single line of ants curves up and around the tree. I flick them away from my limb. I like it up here, alone, beyond all the rest of my life.

Since I came to grandmother's house to live, I've found places to play. In the backyard, under the high wooden porch is my dirt floor house where I prepare mudpies. The big pecan tree has a tire tied by a heavy rope and I can rock in the breeze, back and forth again and again. Yard, sky, treetops... yard, sky, treetops...

In the front yard are the two magnolia trees, one on either side of the sidewalk leading up to the white frame house with its wraparound porch. I try the tree to the west from time to time but the first handhold is awkward. The one on the east is much more inviting. The branches are staggered in a spiral up towards the top. They are all strong and forked to give me a feeling of safe asylum. It is here that I can drift with the clouds and sing songs to myself.

"It is in these moments of your life that there is no longer separation. There is peace, harmony, tranquility, the joy of being part of the process. In these moments the universe appears fresh; it is seen through innocent eyes. It all begins anew." (1)

FIRST VISION

Ferndale, Arkansas; as a young girl alone in the woods, I lay facedown in the leaves at the roots of a friendly tree. I peered intently into a small perfect circle of water as if into a crystal ball. The water was of such clarity that each round pebble was like a polished jewel. For the first time in memory, I merged magically with the breath of God made visible in nature. All concerns of childhood, toxic and broken family, inhibitions and distractions disappeared as I gazed in awe at this realm of divine beauty.

THE REOCCURRING DREAM

Eighteen years old, survivor of a bitter adolescence, I sat in the front seat of a car, drinking a Bud with my friend LD. I was a drama major at the University and he was studying psychology. We were parked on the side of a mountain, rapping about life. I decided to share with him my reoccurring dream - maybe he could tell me what it meant.

I'm walking along a coast in the countryside. It seems familiar to me but I am searching for a particular vantage point. In some dreams I meet people and ask them to help me find the way. Sometimes they speak in French or in Greek and that is not a problem for me to understand. I continue to search. What I am looking for is exactly, precisely the point at which to look out across the sea. At this place, I can see a spectacular light shining from beyond the islands - what I imagine it would be like to see the dancing lights or aurora borealis. I won't be content until I find this view. What make this dream wonderfully special is that sometimes I do find my lookout and I stand in rapture to experience this magnificent sight.

LD gave this dream of mine thoughtful consideration and asked me a few questions. He took the exercise seriously as if he were the psychoanalyst he was studying to be. He helped me to interpret the meaning of the dream. I decided that it represented my search for enlightenment .

In the years since then, I have been drawn to coastal views where one can see sunsets (or moonsets) that frame distant islands. I have learned to speak Spanish and French and Greek in my travels and explorations. I have looked to the light, seeking enlightenment, as I have traveled through my life.

A JOURNEY WITHIN

One evening - I was about 20 years old, I sat on a train in a station, waiting for it to depart. I was on my way home to attend my wedding. There was a considerable delay but I have no idea how long the train stood there...it seemed as if it were only a moment, though I believe it was more than an hour. And in that moment, my life stood still in a special place. It was as if I were watching myself sit there and at the same time I became aware of an understanding. Although I had come to life to play a part in the cast of characters in my parent's drama, I was now, for the first time, on my own. I would, from this moment forth, be responsible for my life and all that happened in it. I was now free to make my own choices.

This realization was not merely a ceremonial one like the taking of communion when one becomes of age according to the church. I felt in the presence of a great universal source of energy and support - guardian angels, my higher self, all of the known ( and unknown) universe became apparent in those spiritually aware moments. It was, though I didn't realize it at the time, my first meditation.

CRYSTALS , POETRY AND THE ARTS

Along the two lane highways curving through the Ouachita and Boston Mountains in Arkansas where I grew up, there are roadside businesses which feature rocks. In particular, there are crystals of all sizes heaped on tables, beckoning to be admired. Now and then, after pawing through dozens and dozens of them, one irresistible rock would demand to be adopted. And along the byways of my life, images have come to me that I have felt bound to capture in words. Usually they are almost as if I were engaged in automatic writing, the clarity of the situation caught like a leaf in a crystal.

I found the muse of poetry a fickle one. When I tried to make a poem happen, the words turned trite and brittle. But when I was receiving a transmission, I felt the words burning, branding themselves in such a memorable way that I had to capture them in writing. I wrote passionate stuff, packed with excessive adjectives as I tried to capture my feelings. Gradually, I discovered masters of the craft to imitate: Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, T.S. Eliot, ee cummings, Ferlinghetti.

"Doubt not, O poet, but persist. Say, 'It is in me, and shall out.' Stand there, balked and dumb, stuttering and stammering, hissed and hooted, stand and strive, until, at last, rage draw out of thee that dream-power which every night shows thee is thine own; a power transcending all limit and privacy, and by virtue of which a man is the conductor of the whole river of electricity."(2)

The following poems are from a collection of my poetry called "WHO LOVES, RAVES", compiled in 1980.

Roses and Songs

And if I filled your rooms 
with roses,
the sad smell of their death
would crush you

So if I dream of roses and songs,
my smile will offer all and it fits easily

no storage problems

Vancouver, Fall 1975

Some days

Some days I wear black and walk like a widow
Some days I wake to find the sun on my mind
Some days old men's beads chatter on the sidewalk
Some days there are more birds than cones in the pines
Some days I sing songs in a language I don't know
Some days the flower vendor gives me a sign
Some days spring blossoms through branches of winter
Some days all is light and I know the spiral of time
(Some days I don't wake and that's very sad)

Athens, January 1977

Restless from muddy dreams

she rises from a pool of night
her clothes still on fire
with scepter to probe the skies
(blindman's searching cane of white)
columns of dragon's blood
sentinel guard her fearless flight
her head folds out into petals
a mountain flower seeking light.

Mysterious orb the eye

Troubled sea a world
that rarely catches light
all sullen grey and cold
swollen cloudy with fear

And the ballroom of blue,
that windowed heart of mine,
blazes wide with clarity.

Mysterious orb the eye
that lies flat in the pan
the occasional flake of flesh rainbow hued scales
drifting off in hot fat

Yet permits me a leap for one flickered gasp into a depth of soul.

July 1978

a blue and silver summer poem

morning when the voices sing
and leaves open up into great green hands clapping
even the uneasy memories
round off in oval shapes;
the ordinary Monday
that twirls and dances
dustballs into amber daydreams.
Plans change, courses alter,
but the graceful foot, gentle hand
finds new ladders, rungs to climb
up through roofless whispered clouds
to pick the ripened fruit
a blue and silver summer poem.

Lagada on the island of Chios

There were days
when nothing filled my mind
but the colours of ladies'
dancing dresses
that I saw in a changing ocean.

But I didn't crawl back
under the blanket of shelledged foam to die.

I flew through the tears of time
to Aegean evening
to the rocks below siren pines
where water has a tongue
and licks at the edge of Lagada,
the silvering blue of a sea so true
that trees want to be brave masts when they grow up,
not left to weep for distant captains who never come home.

August 1978

what price a poem?

how many hours
of living
suffering
soft and low
songs in the
dark of the heart
times 
without
lies and promises
days upon end
with no reward
but
patience
to turn memories
into words
or living into
songs but songs
are poems
to inner music
and as always
I provide
my own 
accompaniment

THEATRE

Growing up, I took drawing and painting lessons, music lessons, wrote in my diary, and enjoyed a collection of records. I liked blues, jazz, classical, rock and roll - I would learn the words to ballads and sing along. I was in good company: my great grandmother painted, my grandmother was a classical pianist and music teacher, and my mother an interior decorator. I began acting in plays by time I was thirteen. Through my studies, I discovered exercises for the imagination, voice and movement to help me explore the essence of a character and to use my "instrument" in performance. The theatre seemed the ideal place to explore - here I could embrace all of the arts. For much of my life, then, my interpretations of the world around me have had the holistic and often therapeutic filter of my involvement in the theatre.

SPIRITUAL SEEKING

Throughout my youth I was very active in my church. It was not until college that I ventured from the Presbyterian fold and began to associate with the Unitarian-Universalists. I was impressed with the association and it's connection with the transcendentalists like Thoreau and Emerson. Here was a free-thinking and socially active bunch who put aside the rigidity of formal - style services. Wherever I moved I would become involved with the local Unitarian fellowship.

In my mid-twenties, I realized that something was missing. I was active in the local community drama guild, busy with classes to obtain my teacher's certificate and involved with the Unitarian fellowship. Why did life still seem empty somehow? Where was that connection to a Higher Energy? I didn't know what to do or where to look when I met someone who gave me a few ideas. He was a visiting Unitarian minister, previously a Presbyterian minister who had been defrocked for disagreeing with certain tenets of the church. After the meeting where he spoke, we two went to a 24-hour coffee shop and talked through the night.

For the first time I heard stories of Edgar Cayce and yoga and auras and all manner of intriguing concepts. It was if a door had been flung open and I could see an intriguing vista stretching out before me. He gave me a list of authors including Krishnamurti and Alan Watts before he went on his way. From this brief meeting I learned of a whole new realm of thought, of philosophy and eastern religions, of metaphysics and reincarnation.

MEDITATION

Towards the end of the sixties when the world was preoccupied by assassinations of leaders and an unpopular war, I became aware of practices for achieving inner harmony. At the same time as consciousness-altering drugs became popular, so did meditation. Jess Stearn who had chronicled Edgar Cayce's life, now explored yoga and reincarnation. I began to practice yoga and was initiated into the International Meditation Society. A powerful influence in this period of my life was Richard Alpert who came to be known as Ram Dass. In his presence, I understood for the first time, that I was witnessing love and compassion in human form. His book, Remember Be Here Now helped me to connect the teachings of the east with the feelings of the west.

For a while, I met with three friends to meditate once a week. I began to spend time sending healing energies to friends and family near and far. There was one very special place I went to practice. This park, just a few blocks from my home, was set on a slight promontory overlooking Kitsilano Beach with views west from Vancouver towards the Gulf Islands. I feel a special connection with the trees and rocks in this place, and think of it as my place of power.

I always enter the park with a sense of ritual, greeting certain trees - one that stands sentinel, one that seems like a throne with eight branches offshooting from a central crown, one that represents my connection to my family and one that is symbolic of spiritual renewal. There is a rock where I always sit to meditate and another rock where I stand to send healing energies. Whenever I return to Vancouver, I make a pilgrimage to this spot. Watching a sunset from this point reminds me of that reoccurring dream of so many years ago. It is a place I travel to in my imagination from wherever I might be living.

PERSONAL CEREMONY

For the past twenty-five years, I have observed a meditation ceremony each month on the evening of the full moon. I have an altar in my bedroom where I keep holy pictures and momentos. I have a small box that contains bits of shell and rock and wood from my travels to various mystical sites around the world including the healing sanctuary at Epidavros, Delphi, Eleusis where the Great Mysteries were observed at the temple of Demeter, and the great pyramids in Egypt. There are ikons of St. George - for me this saint represents the rescuing of the higher mind from the dragon of negativity. I have a photo of Ram Dass, a representation of Artemis, one of Apollo, little figures of the Buddha and Bodhidharma, a triptych of Jesus. I burn a candle and incense and hold a special inspirational meditation that reminds me of the blessings of the previous month and of my goals and aspirations for the month ahead.

STARS

Along the way I became fascinated with the concept of "stars". Although I did not have the tremendous drive required to become a star in the entertainment sense of the word, I decided to be a star in my life. I found a wonderful saying on a postcard by anonymous that suited me exactly.
"To be a star, you must shine your own light, follow your own path, and don't worry about the darkness, for that is when stars shine brightest!"
For many years I have collected five-pointed stars to remind myself of this idea. My friends have joined in the spirit and for birthdays and Christmas I often receive cards and gifts with a star theme. I have left a wall open in my living room and I plan to amass all of my stars in a giant assemblage. In the meantime, I have incorporated the symbol into my business logo.

AFFIRMATIONS

I learned from self actualization workshops like those based on the teachings of Jose Silva, the power of affirmations. I discovered that the alpha state is more easily reached when the eyes are looking up at an angle. So I created an exercise which I practice every day as I leave my house and again as I return. I look up at an angle to the top of a tree and breathing in the light, I say an affirmation, imagining that the tree, my friend, is acting as a conduit, beaming my positive thought to the universe for me, to help manifest this in my life. As I breathe out, I let go of any negative energy impeding my progress.

When I am going for long walks, I repeat my affirmations a number of times in this same way, seeking out the tops of trees to act as my aerials. Over the years, the affirmations themselves have undergone revisions. At present, there are 12 all together. A few examples: "Every day in every way I am an excellent and loving teacher, healer, friend, artist and learner". "I am transforming negative energy and pain and turning it into positive powerand creative energy". "I am a creative genius and my creativity serves the universe". I reinforce good health, mentally and physically.

TEACHING IS LEARNING

For about a decade, I worked as a counsellor in the FUTURES program. My students were labeled "severely employment disadvantaged". They were between the ages of 15 and 24 and typically were quite troubled. The source of their difficulties to conform to traditional schools was often difficult to determine. Frequently there were learning disabilities, fragmented families, traumas, crime, substance abuse, and for some, the problems associated with being a new Canadian. Early on, I realized that my most successful strategy involved working on myself and sharing the revelations with these young people. We did our soul-searching together. I began using creative activities, arts and crafts and drama to explore and practice problem-solving.

In the early years at FUTURES I organized in-house publications to display the emerging stories, art work and poetry. We used creative drama to develop little plays and eventually turned to video to make movies. I was delighted to discover that this activity provided a great variety of opportunities for practicing life skills such as decision-making, time management, cooperation and team work.

EVOLVING

The world around me became more computer-oriented by the mid-eighties. I bought my first computer to do multimedia on a simple level - to edit and title the educational videos I was making to further my work with FUTURES students. Working on multimedia to use in my teaching, I was introduced to the writings of Brenda Laurel, who, like myself, was trained in theatre but who had gone on to multimedia. In this adventure that started, with classroom role play, I have been drawn to concepts like virtual reality. This new medium is emerging as a powerful tool for creativity in curriculum design.
"But for virtual reality to fulfill its highest potential, we must reinvent the sacred spaces where we collaborate with reality in order to transform it and ourselves." (3)

GUIDES

I believe there are guides all around us. I feel fortunate to have found books that have given me touchstones in words. There are a few books that stand out as being very special in that way. One was discovered at a library booksale in Athens, Greece. The Candle of Vision by A.E. I have a wonderful memory of an afternoon when my friend Mark and I sat near the ruins of the temple of Apollo in the sacred precinct of Delphi among the ancient olive trees. We read aloud to each other from this book, passages that inspired us to meditate, like the following:
"On the mystic path we create our own light, and at first we struggle blind and baffled, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, unable to think, unable to imagine. We seem deserted by dream, vision or inspiration, and our meditation barren altogether. But let us persist through weeks or months, and sooner or later that stupor disappears. Our faculties readjust themselves, and do the work we will them to do. Never did they do their work so well. The dark caverns of the brain begin to grow luminous. We are creating our own light." (4)

The writings of Hermann Hesse speak to my heart. Again and again I read his beautiful stories, touched by the imagery.
"Every phenomenon on earth is an allegory, and each allegory is an open gate through which the soul, if it is ready, can pass into the interior of the world where you and I and day and night are all one. In the course of his life, every human being comes upon that open gate, here or there along the way; everyone is sometime assailed by the thought that everything visible is an allegory and that behind the allegory live spirit and eternal life." (5)
In such stories as "Iris", I become the protagonist, Anselm, seeking to understand the mysteries of life reflected so poignantly in nature.

Two writers who have inspired me greatly are contemporary women, Shakti Gawain and Julia Cameron. From Shakti I learned that the physical world is my creation - that I was creating my life as I went along.
"In fact, the external world is like a giant mirror which reflects both our spirits and our forms clearly and accurately. Once we have learned how to look into it and perceive and interpret its reflection, we have a fabulous tool".(6)
I began to include guided imagery and journal writing in my teaching to help my students with their personal transformations.

I took Julia's course to discover and recover my creative self, twelve weeks of writing morning pages, exercises and special activities. I continued to keep a daily journal as I have the past 30 years in addition to writing each morning. I found that this regimen helped me to gain more confidence in my artistic abilities, to reaffirm my creativity in my work as a teacher and graduate student. Julia reminded me that:
"Art is an act of the soul, not the intellect. When we are dealing with people's dreams - their visions, really - we are in the realm of the sacred. We are involved with forces and energies larger than our own. We are engaged in a sacred transaction for which we know only a little: the shadow, not the shape."(7)

DISCOVERIES

It was at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education that I made stunning discoveries in the summer of 1995. I was taking two courses, Holistic Education and Internet Resources. The combination of the two forged a powerful stepping stone. I created my first web pages, including a resource for fellow teachers. Selia's Spa , Holistic Oasis on the Web at last combined my love of beautiful images (my photography of flowers) and my gifts as a holistic teacher/learner immersed in the arts. It was as if I had discovered a secret garden of my own making! I have continue to create web sites, the latest being one for contemplative practitioners, called, The Fountain. It is a work in progress where I can collect links to meditative studies and create an arena for my own explorations, drawings, writings, photography.

Years ago, I was feeling uncertain about which way to go in life. I had been directing and acting and writing plays and designing sets and costumes and I felt uncertain as to what to do next. I went to an astrologer in New York City who described an image which he felt represented where I was in my life. He saw a great hallway, and leading from it were twelve doors. I had stuck my head into each room and they were all tantalizing. What I must remember, he said, was that it was unimportant which one I entered, as all led eventually to the same place. What was critical, however, was that I enter one. And so I have entered the room of the educator, and in so doing have license to use all of the arts for teaching and learning.

SUMMARY

It is a meandering path, the stepping stones appear before me in these various forms: practices, realizations, readings, writings, teachers, guides. I hope, in my own work to become a stepping stone for another seeker along the path to the light.
"If you see the cypress clearly, the kung-an is a success. Whether it is a cypress, a lemon tree, or a willow is of no importance. It can be a cloud, a river, or even this hand that I put on the table. If you see it, the kung-an is a success". (8)

REFERENCES

1. Ram Dass, Journey of Awakening: A Meditator's Guidebook, Bantam Books, NY, 1978.
2. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, Essays,"The Poet", Dent, London, 1906.
3. Laurel, Brenda, Computers as Theatre, Addison-Wesley Publishing, Don Mills, 1993.
4. A.E., The Candle of Vision, Macmillan and Co., Ltd., London, 1931.
5. Hesse, Hermann (translated by Denver Lindley), Strange News from Another Star and Other Tales, "Iris", G.K. Hall & Company, Boston, 1973.
6. Gawain, Shakti and King, Laurel, Living in the Light; A Guide to Personal and Planetary Transformation, Whatever Publishing, Inc., Mill Valley, 1986.
7. Cameron, Julia, The Artist's Way; A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, Putnam Publishing, NY, 1992.
8. Hanh, Thich Nhat, Zen Keys; A Guide to Zen Practice, Doubleday, Toronto, 1974.

If you enjoyed this you may also want to read:

 
• The Educator as Explorer  A personal mythology written in 1995.
• Notes and Sketches From an exploration into the nature of fountains and the planning of gardens as regards life and contemplative thought - a work in progress.

 

 

 

selia.karsten@utoronto.ca

December 23, 1996