Touch Time Alone and in Community

Do you have a space that is yours alone? There are several spaces that are solely mine.

During the warm seasons of the year I have my backyard gardens to enjoy. There are what I call the social gardens where I sit when I am ready to welcome company—my husband, a grandchild, a friend. Then there are the meditation or quiet gardens where I sit or kneel when I wish to be left to myself. Inside my house there is both my bedroom and meditation spaces in two other rooms: our living room and our dining room.

In all of these places I am able to go, shut a door (if I wish to be left to my self) or sit with the door open if I am willing to receive another. I own several Touch Time inducing items. One is the large flat vibrator that I call my Baby Thumper. It does a marvelous job of breaking up the tension that likes to find a resting place in my back. I also have a sound machine, a falling rain chime, a rain stick, tingshas, zen chime, and a hot rock spa that does marvelous things for my body whether I place these hot rocks across my forehead, between my fingers or across my upper chest.

As you can see by my examples, there can be Touch Time for when I am alone with my thoughts, my Godde, my visions, my dreams. These kinds of Touch Times – when I allow God to touch me with new understandings – is essential to my health and wholeness. They strengthen me. What do you do that is organic and gives you strength? What might you try?

Touch Times can happen in special places with other women. Touch Time can be getting up early at the retreat center in Carefree, Arizona to leisurely watch the sunrise over the labyrinth set in the desert soil. Such Touch Time has us feel the boulder beneath us as we sit as we touch our own soul through our eyes. We are reminded anew of God’s amazing creation. Our heart weeps with thanksgiving.

Another Touch Time is exploring Godde with one or several other women. Let me tell you a story.

There were ten of us. We gathered in the desert to consider how to pull unity from the division that society has given us as women from different so-called races, different ages, different parts of the country. Our discussion ran deep and more than once these women forced me to open myself more fully to God’s grace.

The Lord had brought us together. It was my task to facilitate our discussions. I had to listen with my heart relying upon Godde to give me understanding. I had to speak consciously, made fully aware by Godde of the impact any and all of my words were capable of having. Godde was faithful.

We touched. Our souls touched. And, the Touch Time was not singularly between myself and the other women. We began our five days together with each of the women having their relationship with me as their primary link. With each over a number of years I had cultivated affirming levels of trust. This was their first time together as a group. They proved to me the spiritual value of Touch Time as they turned from me to each other and, sometimes timidly, at other times boldly, touched each other. Touch Time.

So, Touch Time can be talking about our most important treasures with another person who treasures the same things. For the women in the desert our common treasure was the God that dwells in each of us. Their natural link was myself – their Touch Time took us into a holy space that I know we will all recall for years to come.

Touch Time is time spent allowing Godde to simply fill our senses, soothe our cares, and direct our path. Touch Time is taking the time to allow God into our lives, our dreams, and our relationships. It isn’t always named but it is always intentional.

Touch time with Another Can Feed Soul

Buying a new pair of shoes or new dress is a bit closer to feeding the soul—depending upon the feeling these items bring but this immediately means these CANNOT be purchased for their status value. Status is simply a position. Status has no feeling. Trying to make a visual or social impression or convince ourselves of worth through the accumulation of certain things touch no part deep part of ourselves--or others.

Touch Time is about touching and being touched. Ten minutes of touch-time is worth an hour of mall shopping and a trunk full of new things on any day because touching is what our soul-body connection hungers to receive. Touch-time can be flesh touching as in rocking babies in a hospital nursery, counseling a young mother, or massaging hand cream into another woman’s hands.This last is something I enjoy doing while praying for another woman.

As a Reiki Master I practice Reiki on myself on a regular basis. This kind of touch is for the purpose of healing but all nurturing touch conveys God's healing presence.

Let me tell you another way I do this: I always ask permission of a sister-friend. It is not a good idea to assume a sister would welcome being touched – we are always at such different places in our development and this can even vary from day to day.

Luckily, I have never had a woman say no when I asked if I could touch her hands. I heat about a tablespoon of virgin olive oil in a small microwave proof dish. To this heated oil I will add a touch--just a touch of an essential oil. I like the combination of clary sage and cedar wood.

I begin with a talking prayer that shares the wonderful virtues I know this particular woman possesses. She is always offering a service – whether through a professional or volunteer vocation, I know of her enough to praise God for her service. I inform her of how her hands are symbolic of all her service – all that she gives from a generous heart. I will stroke each finger, and apply gentle pressure to each soft web between the bases of her fingers as I praise Godde for her being a vessel of God’s grace.

I will gently knead the mounds of her palms as I tell her of God’s love and her testimony of that love. I ask Godde to continue to strengthen my sister, to keep her clearly focused on Jesus who is the author and finisher of her faith. And, then I will stroke the back of her hand, gently massaging her knuckles as I thank her for being such a gift.

Such touch times are remembered as an intimate time, a worship time, that would be totally impossible if it were not about touch. I believe any touch time can be turned into a worship time.Care for self can also mean a woman carves out her own space and time. Every woman needs her own space and time. It can be a small altar area in her own flower garden. I have settled on one after many years of searching.

New Tomtatos for Old!

My oldest daughter suggested I write of my life, my pain, my anger. Someday I am sure I will if for only myself and the women who will follow me in this particular flow from the river.

The Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of being mindful of anger. He teaches that we can show attention and even affection toward our anger and that such added focus can lessen our own suffering. There is a reconnecting that I continue to work on in my own life. I am reconnecting to my body and to my life past the traumas that have separated me from my own heart and best self-interest.

Thick Nhat Hanh's teaching in his book "Anger" uses the illustration of anger being like potatoes placed in a covered pot of water over a flame to make them edible. This illustration teaches that the warmth of mindfulness prepares our own anger for ourselves.

No one can eat a raw potato.

Years ago I was in psychotherapy. There was a great deal of frustration and anger that dwelled inside of me at all times much like a huge knot of my own internal organs threatening to choke out my very life.

Perhaps my doctor and I were a bad match or perhaps I simply had to find my way in a circuitous route. Whichever the case, the only thing I understood from my psychotherapist was that my life was a rotten tomato and that I had to slice that rotten tomato up and make of it a sandwich for some kind of final supper.

Perhaps my daughter is right; perhaps there is a book in this path I have taken, particularly of these most recent years. If nothing else, I have decided, I will have the pleasure of the recapitulation this writing promises to be and through that I may likely find even greater healing. Time will tell, time and these words that I place in this healing blog.

Reverend Mother

I love her so much! And, I miss her. But, I know I will see her again because life is in many ways a circle.

She calls me Reverend Mother. She came to me during a time of great loss and great pain about seven years ago. I will call her Mara.

Barely five feet tall, Mara had just gone through the kind of betrayal that threatens to pull us under and never let us rise again. Both her employer and her lover had turned on her.

Mara was not openly gay at that time but had lived as a bisexual in her previous life in another city and state. A woman of many natural and spiritual gifts, great depth and love, she had come to her new job to serve others from the heart. She had placed her new boss on a pedestal and was, perhaps, a little bit in love with her. (You know the kind of idolization that comes naturally when we think someone is the cat’s pajamas?)

Mara worked long hours, was always cheerful, and made many sacrifices to do the best job she knew how. When others tried to disuade her from being so selfless, she heard and answered the high call of self-less-ness.We worked for the same company. It took her new boss less than two years to betray her. And, in fact, Mara was suffering betrayal in her department at the very same time that two women decided that I needed to be cleared out of my own department. We were on parallel tracks of betrayal and trauma.

But, we did not come together at that time. We knew each other but we did not spend quality time together until a year or so after our traumas.

The first time she came over to my house, I served her herbal tea and I gave her a hand massage with warm oil. We made our confessions and shared the absolution that is available to us all by God's grace. That was the first time she called me Reverend Mother. The name stuck.

Mara described my spirit as that of a healer, a wounded healer and that of a Reverend Mother. She said this meant that I knew how to preserve what I was given. I was able to defend myself and others and knew how to fight for those that were entrusted to me.

At first, I pushed this appellation away. But then as the circle of women that I began to be a part of grew and our different roles emerged, Reverend Mother began to make sense to me. Reverend Mother. Tend to, care for, look after, protect with reverence. That is how I understand this title.

Mara and I came together at various times since our first meeting. I have had her alone for tearful sessions in my meditation room where we prayed and I practiced Reiki on her. Sometimes we simply sat in silence. She said my house (and certainly my meditation room) and my garden were healing places.

She with her (then) new partner came over for cook-outs and holiday gatherings in the ensuing years. She danced at our youngest daughter’s wedding. Mara regained her health and her sense of worth. She is a vibrant woman. Mara continues to call me Reverend Mother.

Mara now lives in a distant city in an eastern state of the United States. She continues to wrestle with her imperfections as we all do (if we are lucky enough to not be paralyzed by them). She had returned to school and is now working as a counselor who empowers other women who have suffered various forms of trauma. She *is* a wounded healer. This I know from my own experience. Because, as much as I may have helped her, she brought forward in me a mothering agency in which I have developed a strong confidence. Mara, I bless you and Godde blesses you...And, I thank you.

CARE FOR SELF – TOUCH TIME

In talking to women I often hear that taking care of ones self is something that we do for our bodies; self-care happens on the outside. We exercise, treat ourselves to a book, a day at the spa, or even a favorite restaurant or wine–all are good things but none satisfy the soul’s thirst for touch.

We hunger for the oil of genuine praise and the encouragement towards holiness/wholeness. Woman holiness/wholeness is neither a formula for austerity nor an outward adornment. Women want to be touched. Our bodies crave healing and nurturing touch.

Our holiness/wholeness is in our feet as we place them upon the earth. We are made holy whole when we lay down our lives and when we take up our lives. We are holy whole because God/Godde is holy and whole. For no other reason are we holy and whole. That is all. Because God/Godde is, we are.

We are created in the the image of Godde/God.True self-care is to explore the Godde-ness of our selves. As we explore how God reaches us to teach us we begin to grasp how Godde teaches us all that we need to know if we will listen. For the Sofia of God is not aggressive – though she is persistent.

The love of God/Godde (from The Message version of the Bible), never gives up, cares more for others than for self, doesn't want what it doesn't have, doesn't strut, doesn't have a swelled head, doesn't force itself on others, isn't always "me first," doesn't fly off the handle, doesn't keep score of the sins of others, doesn't revel when others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything, trusts God always, always looks for the best, never looks back, but keeps going to the end.

Now, women can take care of ourselves by wrapping ourselves in this love and insisting upon no other Lover than the Lover that is capable of such love! We seek Godde.

There was a time when women had to work hard to run a house. Today women work hard to run a house and an office, or hospital ward, or production line, or service route. Women work hard. And over time, the amount of our time that is touch time has dwindled. Time is at a premium. We often do not do things for ourselves because of the time we would have to take from our other (believed to be) more important responsibilities. As a result, we attempt to convince ourselves that having our car serviced is something we actually do for ourselves –and it is since a safe car contributes to our own safety. But having our car serviced has in it none of the touch time so many of us women hunger for.

Western theology and traditional Christian thought has provided a clear division between the natural and godliness. We even have language like “carnal” and “divine” as being in opposition to each other. The dichotomous mindset of the West is one with which I strongly disagree. I think spiritual worship can be through the body (considered carnal) as much as I believe that physical contact can possess the nature of worship.

I do not believe Godde allowed evil to be made from what God created as good no more than the religious quackery practiced by some has not changed the gospel of grace one iota! I refuse to imagine that there is something filthy about my body that is so amazingly and wonderfully made. God was not the one who told us we were naked!

What were you taught about your body? What struggles do you have to this day because somewhere along the line someone showed you or told you that your body was dirty or ugly or base? Offer these up to the Divine Spirit and create ways to heal your own spirit...