Join the butterfly effect Revolution

Who doesn't love a butterfly? The other day while visiting my brother, a butterfly went fluttering by and I really felt uplifted. The trees and flower gardens were all blooming and spring was really showing off. The butterfly's presence just continued to wow me!

Recently I was asked by the Justice Network committee to help design their display at the first S.N.J.M. U.S. Ontario provincial chapter this summer. The Story Unfolding is our theme and what better idea to help with the unfolding story for us but the butterfly effect. Wikipedia defines The Butterfly effect as:"a phrase which encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory. Small variations of the initial condition of a nonlinear dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system. So this is sometimes presented as esoteric behavior, but can be exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position."
That kind of makes my head spin a bit, but it fits when I think about it in terms of our justice work as we tend to our Chapter acts. So as I help put the Justice Network's booth together,(not just an ordinary table with papers to read and reports to digest) I will have the challenge of engaging the membership in joining the SNJM Butterfly Effect Revolution. It will be an invitation to change one small thing and help to change everything. The change we wish starts from within and moves outward. It can be as subtle and delicate as the flap of a butterfly wing. The very transformation of our world depends on the initial sensitivity to conditions which we can create. We have decided on hope and limitless possibilities, something that seeing a butterfly out pollinating flowers and enjoying nectar might metaphorically suggest. Our Justice network has focused our "direction of flight" on: Water, Trafficking, HIV/AIDS and Global Warming. Many of the new Province members are already doing things to help bring about changes in these four areas. Our Chapter will be a time to communicate with each other small changes we can make that can change everything. I am hoping that any of you reading this blog will have your interest awakened just a little bit more to our gathering time this summer. We can make creative changes together. The Justice Network booth will have some ideas for you....more will be revealed.

SNJM Eastering!

Every morning as I emerge from my bedroom and move into my day, one of the first things I see is this picture attached to the refrigerator. It's my way of staying connected with these young women and also a reminder to pray for the hope of the community in our newest members. Ever since the picture was sent to us in an e-mail back in 2004, they have daily been on my mind in this way. Lately it has occurred to me as I looked at the whole ensemble, that it looked remarkably like a butterfly! So, to make it even more distinct, I doodled on it and this is what resulted.
The story of the development of the butterfly is even more remarkable:


One of the awesome miracles of nature is the creation of the butterfly. After being deposited as a tiny speck of potentiality,on a life sustaining leaf, a little egg cell one day unfurls and becomes a tiny, fuzzy worm. It begins its journey towards magnificence as a consumer of its environment. In between bouts of consuming its environment, it goes through enormous growth and changes where it outgrows its skin, shedding it for a new look and yet, it’s mission remains the same...consume and change, consume and change. Each of the five stages is called an “instar!” (this is really what scientists call these stages, I looked it up in Encarta...) Towards the end of the fifth instar a quiet revolution begins to happen inside this creature. Little Cells, different from the ones its body and being knows, begin to appear. These amazing cells are called “imaginal cells” or “imaginal disks.”(again, the scientist’s words...)
At first, the caterpillar's immune system “reads” the appearance of these new cells as “intruders” and its immune system tries to fight off the new cells. But, since, the caterpillar is approaching a new stage of change there is an inner urgency to stop consuming and rest,...does dying fit here? By the time the caterpillar changes into the chrysalis an awesome metamorphosis has begun. Inside the quiet little sack all the contents begins to breakdown into a chaotic ooze, a fertile, nurturing “soup.” Nothing within this new birthing place in anyway resembles the creature who first entered, except the imaginal disks, which now proliferate and link together exchanging information. They hold the blueprint for the new creature. Each imaginal disk carries specific information and when linked together in chains, a whole new idea is formed! One, that in no way, resembles the creature that came before. When the newly created being emerges and takes flight its whole mission is different than the little consumer it was in a former life. Now, it is an awakener, a pollinator of new life, a messenger of hope and beauty,a way-shower to new horizons. It is so connected now, to the Universal Matrix, that it has become an energy maestro. Some believe that the very flap of its wings has the power to create a hurricane!

This Oneness With All That Is could only mean that there is somehow a change of consciousness, now, not separate from the whole but part of, one with, as the whole!

The journey of the human species is also undergoing a transformation. The Awakeners of a new consciousness within our society, the imaginal disks, are calling us to this metamorphosis. When we humans emerge from our transformative chrysalis, we will in no way resemble in appearance or mission the creatures we were in a former life. I liken the SNJM journey we have been taking since our founding as that of the caterpillar. Each decade since Vatican II has been one of increasing and urgent growth, change and transformation.

Perhaps, using the butterfly metaphor we could call these stages we have been experiencing: “instars.” In a way, each has been marked by a theme, a star of an idea, a calling forth, a following of a vision for our community’s becoming.(our whole history together is a becoming!) This latest stage, the 5th instar, is about creating a nest for ourselves that is a safe and nurturing place for our aging and infirmed. It is a letting go of our institutions and property, it is consolidating and downsizing our physical world to match the reality of our membership needs, abilities and limitations at this time in our story of becoming more. We say: ”we are an aging community...” The provinces that reflect the youngest of our community, are realizing that we must regroup and reconfigure to prepare for the future becoming.( I trust we know we are becoming something new!) It is about giving ourselves over to the imaginal disks that won’t go away. The carriers of the blueprint for the new organism we are becoming.

In a very real way, it is about the transformation of our race. The Christ is the Master Imaginal Disk we SNJM follow, His mother, the Holder of the Mirror of Magnificence, showing us an inkling of who we are and Who we are becoming, no less than A Child of God! We can only follow that inner star and the imaginal disks within the membership,and the whisper of the Holy Spirit, calling us to let go of the old and welcome something not yet revealed.

Our hope is that the transformation will have to do with the Eastering of our planet and our race. Our collective body and being is changing.

We struggle to define how we can remain connected in this new stage of our journey of liberation. Mission centers emerge as an idea. In our present understanding they are physical locations, maybe geographic, familiar places, places with structure we can relate to, touchstones of memory and meaning we cling to....and yet, can we also be open to the possibility, that for a while now, we have been creating multidimensional mission centers... ones that do not occupy physical space? We have been creating HearthMind. (Yes, I know this is a new word. Hearth, we know... Mind is not about brain function or even thinking so much as it is consciousness and higher consciousness at that.)

These multidimensional mission centers are the gathering places of our hearts and our passions, our hopes for something new emerging. We are linking with those with whom we resonate. These are not necessarily our formal wisdom groups, but, they could be. This experience of HearthMind is also where we really talk and share, not from prepared papers, answering questions some committee has thought up to help facilitate the process, but sharing late into the night, where we pour out our hearts and spill forth our hopes and dreams and musings in the safety of those we know love us and will listen for as long as it takes...not a two minutes at the microphone, stay on schedule kind of thing....

And, then, there is the question of mission broadly defined as “The full development of the human person.” Do we really know what a fully developed human is? Are we, truly allowing, encouraging this emergence in ourselves? So far, we are focusing on an earthbound, physical existence because that is all we know. But, what of our new bodies and beings? What will help us become the new human, one that may have powers and abilities that we only assigned the Son of God. Will we be able to heal, to walk through walls or walk on water? Will we be able to manifest and create seemingly out of thin air? Will we be so evolved that we can connect with the Divine Source and create a whole new reality, a New Jerusalem, Heaven on Earth? Will we be like Jesus and other Great Awakeners in human history, human tuning forks, entraining the world around us to resonate at a higher frequency, the frequency of Love and peace, of gratitude and blessing? What is the true purpose of this so called “junk DNA” we carry? Will our earth remain the little planet spinning in space, or be catapulted into a whole new dimension our little human minds cannot conceive? What does it truly mean that we are the creators of our reality and that we live in a holographic universe? While these may be too mind blowing for us to think about, we are the seed-bed of change for the future, as were the ancestors who came before us. We are the faithful carriers of the Starseed planted within, yet to be revealed. These imaginal disks within must be entertained, they will not go away and we cannot fight them off as a foreign idea not connected with our own emergence.

This I Know: we are the Awakeners or our species. There are many Awakeners on our planet now. I would like to think our mission emerging is as Awakener, as Jesus Risen is for us. Those words in the garden: “won’t you stay awake with me...?” foretold the truly hidden agenda we carry, a guiding star, an epiphany, an ...Aha!

I see a vision and a theme, a new story emerging... I plant a seed for your consideration as we begin to give form to our first chapter of the new province and the continuing journey ahead into the new and not yet revealed. I for one am already designing my wings!

Bright Blessings!

Stirring the embers...

Whenever I reflect on my life, I call it stirring the embers; stirring and bringing a tiny hot coal to the surface that will act as an ignition point for my daily energy. This is one that surfaced today:

Many an evening here on the Oregon Coast there is a beautiful sunset. Just about everyone who visits the coast during the sunsets can't help but pull off the highway, if they are driving, go out on the deck,if they have one or stroll on the beach so they can watch the last dieing embers of the Sun. Without even thinking, they find themselves in a peaceful state. When Cindy was still alive, but in her last year of life (for those who don't know, she was one of the women in transition I housed. She lived with me the longest of all the women and we became very close.) anyway, she was living day to day not knowing when death would take her so she would position herself at the window waiting for the sunset. She would call all of us who happened to be in the house to come running to watch it with her. We never knew when this would be her last sunset. This started a tradition she calls the "Peace Wave" and figured that when people were watching the sun set or rise around the planet they would experience an endless wave of peace. Since peace is a natural gift we experience at that time, as we are quietly watching the light increase or disappear, depending on what part of the day and where we are when the earth turns toward the sun, she told us a wave of peace would wash over the earth, no matter if two people or two billion people were experiencing this peace. The more who joined this wave of peace, the more powerful it would be. After a while, she imagined, other moments of peace would take over while we were quietly stirring the soup, kneading the bread, rocking a child or watering the flower pots in the morning sun. When we SNJMs passionately speak of peace or join a march or organize a group of people around peace making, we can know that back home, some of our infirmed or aging SNJM family members, or those who have many things that keep them from joining our march, are quietly carrying out the peace wave from their sick bed or apt. window. It's a comfort knowing that when the time comes for each of us to slow down because of our aging process, we can still be a powerful force of peace where ever and how ever we are. The forces of nature are our teachers and guides calling us to stop and watch the sun rise, stop and watch the sunset. Stop and be the peace, be the eternal wave of peace we seek.

Welcome the Hearth at Rocky Creek!

One of the things that was on the "must have" feature list, when I was looking for housing nearly 7 years ago in the planned move to the coast, was a wood stove or fireplace. The Hearth has been an important focal point in the 20 years of work that the Sophia Center ministry represents. The Hearth is the quintessential power place for women. Symbolically, it's where the heart of the home and relationship starts and ends. In modern times we have less need for the warmth and light it offers and we cook on modern stoves and the like, in the kitchen. I once had a visitor come to the little shop in Sea Towne, where Sophia Center is physically located, who traveled all over the country studying old homes. When he was in one of the New England states he found a home that had what was called: the "Keeping Room." Now we call it The Family Room. It reminded me of a little story my sister shared with me many years ago when her first boy was about two. She decided that since he was going down for a nap, she would just join him. As they lay there together settling in, the little one said: "Mommy, keep me." She looked at him not understanding what he meant until he demonstrate by putting his little arms around her middle and pulling close: "You know, keep me." So, my intention with the Hearth of my home is that it is a "keeping" space for all who come to stay. It also challenges me in these times when we sisters are so far away from one another to figure out how we can "Keep" each other close for comfort, encouragement, inspiration, support. My hope is that this Ring of Fire Circle will be one way. More will be revealed.