Hard Times 

it's hard to so hard to sometimes.

it's even hard sometimes when it's easy.

which is fucking up. which is different.

but the times that are just really hard.

the hard times don't ever get easy.

An End of December Celebration

Like Isis, We Make the World Whole:  

An End of December Celebration

The end of December is upon us. As we celebrate more familiar traditions of rebirth, renewal and the return of the light, let us not forget ancient Egypt's Goddess Isis. As you may know, Isis deeply loved her brother and beloved, Osiris. Their brother Set murdered and dismembered Osiris, then scattered him across the land. Isis, in her desolate mourning, gathered up the pieces, remade Osiris's body, and conceived their son, Horus, who is said to have been born around the time of the Solstice.

I wish I were like Isis, dashing around the globe picking up fractured bodies, minds, and souls and making all beings whole. Instead, right now, I am Osiris. I am at the edge of being a "Queen, of an age and coming into the life circumstance of greater freedom and life experience to be Queenly. Still, I find I am still too much a dim and wavering shadow with unhealed and unintegrated fragments of my being lying here and there in too many times and places to resolutely ascend to the throne of being wise, confident, and effective.  

If I were to send Isis off on a journey to recompose my scattered pieces, I would send her to my 20s to reclaim the sense that every object, building, street in the city I then called home, was infused with a vibrant magic that faded with more responsibility and less time to dream; to scout out the hiding place of the belief from my gentle childhood that love is the natural law of the universe after witnessing too many ordinary people obeying only the law of fear; to rescue the lightness of life that vanished after too many medical diagnoses that promised only pain and death rather than hope among family and friends who deserved better. She would return with a collage of people, all with my face, but yet not me, in different eras, from all directions. She would come to know me better than myself, yet still not be able to answer the question "Who is she?"

But, in the end, the Isis I have been envisioning does not come when I call. There is only me, the all of me and none of me that walks through daily life feeling too wounded and unfocused to be the strong and powerful woman I imagined I would be by my age. As I go over Isis' story over and over in my mind, I begin to wonder, "Perhaps the gateway to being a Queen is deciding that I will be Isis myself instead. Maybe crowning myself and going in search of my fragments is the gravity that will draw them to me."

I envision myself and Isis melting into one another. I rise into the air to go in search of little bits hiding in my own memories, conscious and unconscious. When I see myself and my life from the outside, as Isis would, when I do not look only at what I have chosen to remember most, but all that really happened, the vision changes. As a child, I always walked my own path and saw what others didn't see, whether that was a future for myself beyond the suburbs or spirits out of the corner of my eye. Could it be that what I now perceive as a lack of magic is simply over-familiarity with living on different levels of reality as part of daily life? As I grew older, I became more aware of the violence from which so many suffer each day, but I also have met hundreds of people putting their minds, souls, and bodies between attackers and strangers. How could I have forgotten them? As I come closer to the present, when so many people I love have passed over into death, I remember again the happiness and fulfillment of their decades of life and our time together rather than their last weeks of physical dissolution.

As I see my life through the eyes of Isis, she who brings together and sees the truth, my story becomes whole. I begin to no longer feel bereft and barren, but rather, my vision of myself expands like a Goddess rising through the air and seeing not just the room she was in, but the whole neighborhood, city, continent, and world from the heavens. I see that my task is not necessarily to change who I am, to become someone else or to return to who I was when I was younger, but to begin to incorporate all my experiences into who I am, leaving no moment behind, no matter how insignificant it may have seemed when it was being lived.

So often when we read stories of goddesses, we don't think how their experiences would transform them. Perhaps when Isis traveled near and far to seek and gather up Osiris, she too, experienced an expanded vision of herself and her mission. We so rarely wonder why a goddess gives such abundant gifts to us. Could it be that Isis' acts of healing for humans, so much that she even vowed that those who worshipped her could outlive their destined span of years, was the result of seeing both the misery and promise of humans on her journey? Of seeing that she was a goddess beholden to the whole world?

As I gaze with my Isis eyes upon the world, I see how it, too, has become dismembered and desperately seeks restoration to life. We began as one people and adventured out to the distant continents, growing apart in geography and custom until now when we are consumed by our differences. Our faith in ourselves, justice, and the certainty of our survival lies scattered on battlefields, abandoned villages where victims of genocide used to live, and melting icecaps. Whole cultures are disappearing, leaving empty chapters in our human story.

We must all be Isis to recover and heal the broken body of our wholeness as humans. For my part, I can try to begin looking through eyes that have seen the planet and all who dwell on her as one being. When I read of wars and starvation in a land far off, I can say to myself "that is my home, too, and those who live there are parts of me" and provide whatever support I can. What I write can express a greater horizon that will show how all our fragments are really all of one piece, that what one woman experiences is a reflection of everyone's life on Earth.

Through Isis' supreme act of love for Osiris, she became a great healer to all who worshiped her. We live in a time when healing is our generation's great task. Before we can restore our planet to environmental health, before we can reweave the bonds between nations and peoples, before we can truly progress as a species, we must heal ourselves and those around us. By looking at ourselves and the world through Isis' eyes, we, too, can make this the season we truly become Queens and Queenly healers.

13 Ways of Looking at Black

Black is the color of Our Lady of Einiendein's face, deeply, totally, absolutely, eloquently, hauntingly, compellingly black.

Black is the color of cognitive dissonance, what we wrap our judges in, yet shun in skin.

Black is the color of the night sky before electric lights washed out the stars, making us feel apart from the universe.

Black is the color of accumulation, of water so deep that light no longer reaches, matter so dense that the space between atoms ceases.

Black is the color of a conundrum; in paint, it is sum of all hues; in projected light, the absence.

Black is the color of humor that makes me weep while laughing.

Black is the color of the universe, the invisible light that keeps the cosmos from collapsing and gives birth to an infinity of stars.

Black is the color of a solar eclipse, the Sun blotted out by a New Moon disc.

Black is the color of Tao, the yin to the yang, "a prelude to nature, a preface to God."

Black is the color of my mother's womb, the unseen space that swallowed the spark.

Black is the color of rich, fertile soil, the kind roots plunge through with a hunger to grow.

Black is the color of the unconscious well, the place between dreams, the canvas of ideas.

Black is the color of Hanna, her Labrador fur shining iridescent in the noonday Sun.

- Amy Martin, TX

Luna!

The Queen's Court  

 The Queen's Court is a gathering of sovereign women of a certain age - our dear peers - who graciously offer information, guidance, inspiration and encouragement to each other.

We Queens know what we know. And we know a great deal. Our experience has made us wise. So, feel free to consult with our cyber council/counsel when you are need of sage advice or wish to explore a particular topic of interest.

Here is a question posed by a sister Queen:

I have a question: how do you differentiate between being a Queen and a Crone??? After a certain age, or perhaps after our mothers die, it seems to me that the lines blur. How will YOU decide?

- Amika, MA

Dear Queen Amika,

I do see graduating - "Flying Up" - as we called it in Brownies - to a new elevated state of authority and moral influence when I achieve my goal to be a stellar elder. How old is that, exactly? It depends, but for me, I would say perhaps 75 or 80. I don't think of that stage as being a Crone, but rather being an Empress. Still a Queen, but with the range, the reach, the results of my response-ability much expanded. Here's to the journey,

xxQMD

To repeat Queen  Amika's question - How will YOU decide?

I would love to continue this thread of discussion. Please send your thoughts, opinions, and personal experiences in response to Queen Amika's query. Your letters will be printed in the next Queen's Chronicles.

Send your responses to: thequeenofmyself@aol.com   

Letters In Response to the OCTOBER 2013 Issue

I have lost so many friends and relatives to breast cancer,

so I was glad that you called attention to that disease. Here are blessings to all women in the names of those who have been stricken.

- Sherrie, KS

My mom got breast cancer when she was 77. So many of us have been impacted, whether as patients or caregivers. Both paths are so difficult. And yet there are many valuable lessons to be learned along the way. At least I can say, I learned my share. Thank you for sharing those lessons of other women.

- Jeanette, NM

Every time I get a mammogram I am scared that I might be next. Thank heavens I have escaped so far. But my prayers are always with those who have had that terrifying diagnosis. Thanks for the thoughtful issue.

- Teresa, OR

Thank you so much for including me and Lillian in your Kudos section of this issue of The Queen's Chronicles. I'm so honored to be in the Bosom Power issue! :) Warm regards,

- Deborah, NY

WOW DONNA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GORGEOUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!  

I am Sending it on.

- Judyth, Mexico

You get whatever accomplishment

you are willing to declare.

- Georgia O'Keeffe

Robin, Bady, NY; Alessandra Belloni, NJ; Barbara Hammer, NY: Shelly Mars, NY; and Martha Wilson, NY; on their performances and/or performances of their work.

Lynn Claridge, CT, Crystal Healing (E-book); Mary Cronk Farrell. WA; Pure Grit (Book); Elaine Silver, FL, Prayers (CD); on their new publications.

Cristina Biaggi, NY; Lauren Curtis, NJ; Janet Goldner, NY; Ana Mendieta R.I.P.; Barbara Rosenthal, NY; Carolee Schneemann, NY; Linda Stein, NY; and Martha Wislon, NY; on the exhibitions of their artwork.  

Linda Humes, NY, on the 20th Anniversary of Yaffa Productions, the non-profit Art & Education organization she founded.

Marianne Williamson, CA on her candidacy for election to the U.S. House of Representatives from California's Congressional District 33.

Please send your good news, achievements, accomplishments, successes and celebrations so that our international circle of sovereign sisters can send you blessings and accolades. 

Please Submit Your Royal Reports

Tell us about your Self and/or your Queen Group:  

who, what, where, when, why?

What Queenly topics do you explore?  

What projects do you engage in?

Describe some golden regal moments.

Send pictures!