1000 Birds for my Birthday Moment

In 1797, How to Fold 1000 Cranes was published. This book contained the first written set of origami instructions which told how to fold a crane.  

                    The crane was considered a sacred bird in Japan. 

 

Japanese custom: Person who folds 1000 cranes are granted one wish.   

 

Origami became a very popular form of art as shown by the well-known Japanese woodblock print that was made in 1819 entitled "A Magician Turns Sheets of Birds". This print shows birds being created from pieces of paper.

 

  

                         Trusting one’s gift and making space for it IS the most beautiful expression 

                                                 any human being can commit their energies to completely.

Total flow, commence.  

The blue sky inhales into my organs, expressing health and lighting the day.                      

                                                                                Regina Spektor plays Samson as my fingers prance across the page. 

My 52nd birthday became the surprise of perfection when I'd previously been stuck agonizing, out of control, over disorder. After many years of protecting my ritualistic and solitary guided 1:06 pm birthday moment; I was instead breathing deeply, grounding my deepest connection into the core of this planet, with someone else in the room.

I was in the hands of a young, exquisitely peace-filled Goddess, a Geishi of the Facial. Her hands danced as her voice, shy but excited, chanted into my ears. The wings of her fluttering on, above and over my face, caressing my neck, the sensitivity of her touch to my nose and how she re-energized my eyes made my headache disappear. My hunger went missing. Enraptured, I surrendered, completely mesmerized by this JAP's ease in manifesting her gift. The JAP within me? Her equally intense doubt about what I'm worth, constantly evaluating my value by external standards, was silenced. My spirit was singing. 

I asked her, “What do you do when you are stressed out?” 

She thought for a moment. “I either do sports, or take a bath. Sometimes I do nothing. I need to compete. It is more fun.”   

Listening to her, being the focus of her vibrating hands, my upper corridor was ecstatically enraptured. I felt changed, transformed by her healing zone. 

"What is your name?"

"It is Chizuko."

“Chi, yeah energy… how is it translated?” 

“When someone is sick, we make 1000 origami birds and create a mobile that floats above our recipient in the hospital, healing their illness or disease.” 

My miasma of fear and indecision evaporated. 

I give great thanks to the Artemisian goddesses who chase after and protect me. 

Every inch of me is inspired. 

1:06 pm completely melded me together, all selves present and accounted for in my new mobile. 

1000 birds of beauty. 

I know how to do this. I should do this every day, soberly with a complete stranger.

This is healing. 

                                                           I am as clear now, as she was then. 

                                                            I still have 1000 birds healing me. 

                                                                  Such a Blessed moment

                                                                 I had to share it with you.

THE GUEST OF THE LAND

11/3/11    Re-Examining Options         6:03pm

We can get stuck easily, and unstuck less readily if we don't learn how to make a practice of it. When I was younger and had all the energy of my convictions to heal the planet, elders warned me that I'd soon lose the desire to do good or the belief that my little plot of good will have much impact. Unfortunately, as I was taught to listen to my elders, to be a good girl, to be respectful of their years of experience, I listened. I pulled back from believing that my deepest intuitive impulses, insights or inspirations were to be followed whole-heartedly. I did step off the beaten track, but I walked hesitantly instead of joyfully in the wilderness.

Now, at my age and in my position, I know better. I spoke today with someone I met when I was 17 and she was 16. I was Junior Class President. She was Sophomore Class President. We had our journals and were sharing notes out on the girl's softball field. We've remained dear friends and trusted guides to each other all these years. She's one of the ones who encouraged me to step off the path. She wrote me a poem over a decade ago about how she was the Mother to All Men, and I was the Guest of the Land. Today she said, You did thirty years ago what kids today are starting to do and getting criticized by their elders. Your stories would give them assurance that they are not wrong or crazy for streamlining their life choices to subjectively suit them and not just take on someone else's excuse of a life.

I shared with her that after reading Lori Gottlieb's writing in MARRY HIM: The Case For Settling For Mr. Good Enough, I had five fascinating men who were suddenly extremely interested in me. Gottlieb says that every year after the age of 35 a woman loses her power, allure, value in our society. Gottlieb chose to have a child before she found a husband and is now experiencing difficulty finding a suitable man she can stomach, yet she writes threateningly that unless we settle now, we won't have a chance later. She says at 41 her options are increasingly limited but they aren't as limiting as they would be at 51. This is utter and pure hogwash.

Karen said, "I don't understand why you aren't pissed off that she's writing this old fashioned dreck and getting it out to the youth of today as common knowledge." I told her that they were in the process of making a movie about the book. "All the more reason you MUST tell your story, write of your experience. You truly are a Guest of the Land. You are welcome everywhere. Don't doubt that this is true." I said that a guest is perhaps welcome for three days. "Do you want or need more than three days?" I admitted that after three days I need to return to my own self. She said, "Exactly. If you'd stayed on the path by now you would be on your fourth divorce. Instead, you are delighted to be valued and appreciatied for who you are and what you think and feel instead of playing a role that others insist you be for them." Just as I could have listened to Gottlieb and shut down in fear, I can listen to the American Cancer Society and do the same, or take what I know about healing and implement what I know will heal me.

Decades from now I can sit with Karen on rocking chairs in Ireland, all wrinkled and wise, laughing that we each made this life our own. She the palliative specialist guiding the masses into their next life, and my writing out in the world giving permission and guidelights to one's own BIG O.