Lisa Tilson

I love to give everyone a voice, especially those who don’t  do it for themselves. These stories are generally inspired by the column in the Georgia Straight called “I saw you” that give a voice to those folks who were a little late getting the words out.

Here’s one of my favorites:

Hot Red Head

Date posted: Sunday, October 19, 2008

I like to imagine what would happen if he got his chance.

Lets say, one day the man gets a day off work and decides to take the bus downtown, back to his old route, hoping to get an opportunity to talk to the red head again. He wakes up, shaves, puts on clothes as though he was going to work, and his lucky wing tip shoes. Read the complete Post.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for you are with me;
Your rod and your staff, the comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the lord forever.

Psalm 23

This week I have been monitoring my energy as we adventure along Vancouver Island checking out Ecovillages. I have been looking for lows and highs and the circumstances surrounding both, without changing my normal habits and patterns.

What I have found is that my cup doesn’t overflow. I feel like I am running into debt - sleep doesn’t help, knitting doesn’t help, talking doesn’t help (for very long). It feels like I’m not me. I’m cranky, and I don’t want to go beyond my perceived limitations. My ego rears at any mention of discomfort and I just want to be alone. (Not good when exploring ecovillages and communal living)
It also feels like I’m not quite sure how often I am me - full of energy, love and radiating the ease with which I desire to live my life. This prompted me too look up where the quote “my cup overfloweth” comes from. Sure enough, it comes from the bible.

Since studying lots and lots of spiritual teachings, I have learned how to read the bible and relate it to my life. I used to get stuck on the His and Him and You stuff - but now I just chalk it up to one groups understanding of the Force. And wow. The Lords Prayer(Psalm 23) is exactly what I needed to hear. Translation - in relating to my soul each day I will find that peace, goodness and lovingkindness fills my cup (making me feel well) and then overflows (which is what everyone wants to be able to do - give) onto the rest of the earth.

To overflow, I have to be full.

Sounds logical and reasonable right? Might even sound a little bit redundant?

Well than how come I find myself feeling drained and selfish and sad and hurt … and… and… and. Yes, for some reason I wasn’t getting it. This trip has shown me that I cannot survive without a connection to my spirit and a connection to the source of all spirit.

Thank GOD for GOD.

I recall talking to a friend about earthquakes in Vancouver.  Her mom is from Ontario, and had constantly said to her that Vancouver is a dangerous place to live.  To that, my friend said that if something was going to happen, she believed that she would have enough awareness to move herself and her family.  At that time, she was somewhat of a teacher to me - teaching me how to find a comfortable place inside myself, where I could integrate all of the teachings available to me and use them as tools to strengthen my intuition.

This conversation has stuck in my mind through the development of my own awareness, and I have come to feel the same thing – If I need to get out, I would feel it.  This summer, my friend moved back to Ontario, a decision that has been circulating through my head too.

The pressure of recent events in politics and the economy are making everyone uncomfortable: business folks, students, farmers and homeless alike.  The world from our Western point of view seems to be getting more and more out of control – which on the highest level reminds us that we are not ultimately in control of the outcome, but in a physical space, means that we haven’t taken enough responsibility for our safety, security and wellbeing over the past 100 or 150 years.  We’ve arrived at a point where big changes need to happen and will, whether we are ready or not.

It is clear that our society has no idea how to grow food for the amount of people living in it, in a way that can be sustained without massive fossil fuel based resources.  We don’t know how to make things within the community anymore.  People don’t know how to talk to people and live in community with others; hell, people can’t even stay married.  Not only are we manifesting the bleak destiny of complete dependence on others, but we are showing our children how to do it – something likely to explode in their faces (or ours if the prophesies are correct)

I have two minds about this: one who wants to follow someone, and one who wants to respond and lead others.  Generally it is the one who is used to following someone that comes out when I am fearful, tired or sad - the times when I want to be taken care of and not think about what I am doing.  When I am with my husband, focused on the beauty of humanity, I am ready to take responsibility – to respond to the crisis.  To act.  I can see that this is my true self.  I want community and help to make a new way of being happen.

Its not earthquakes I am worried about, necessarily.  It is the shakiness of our society and realization that money in the bank isn’t security.  You can’t buy your stuff when there is no one making it, no one selling it.  Security is a home, food, trees, water, skills.  We’re making a big decision now.  Do we continue to pay into the insanity of the rest of society, or do we listen to what seems insane inside our heads, and start taking care of business, following intuition?  Saying the question out loud makes it sound even more clear than it did in my head. Let’s get while the gettin’s good.

In August I was outside on the back patio sweeping and I came across a gigantically girthy, hairy spider. Instantly, I turned my broom over and with the end of the handle, I squished it (more like exploded it).
For an pang I felt a pang inside (guilt or fear, I’m not sure). I told my friend about this, and she said “I cant believe YOU would kill a spider, YOU of all people, who loves to work with thread, spinning and knitting”. Ouch. OUCH.

The truth is, I have been an avid spider killer for my entire life. I have had nightmares of walking through spider webs and have woken up half way through the air on my way to jumping out of bed. I had a spider crawl into my hand at night (I never sleep with my hands above my pillow now) and I heard it hit the wall as I flung it across the room. I didn’t sleep in that room for days, even after my dad took the whole place apart and vacuumed. WHAT IF HE HAD BUDDIES? I thought. Shudder.

So this friend and I went shopping for a gift for her niece and what did I find? A spider puppet. It was the most huge, hairiest tarantula I have ever seen. I put it on and felt the beginning of the connection with the spider-web-weaving archetype. I went home and searched around on the web. I checked out spiders that can kill you in BC. It turns out that there are only two dangerous spiders in BC - the black widow, and the brown recluse. And, unless you get stung and then leave it, you can’t die from their venom. (I closely examined these photos so that I would know it if I saw it)

Not long after this, around the middle of august, a spider moved into our house. In the kitchen, by the cupboard. It didn’t look anything like either of the above mentioned, so I left it. 2 days before Matt moved in (September 1st) it dropped down into the middle of the window, creating a beautiful web. I felt honoured! It lived there in the middle of the window until yesterday when Matt brought the blinds up and sent it flying up onto the valance. I looked at it… thinking it might be dead. It didn’t do its special little bunching up thing it does when you blow on the web when i touched it, it just rolled into a ball and fell on the floor.

I felt devastated.  I thought about burying it in the garden… I was even a little pissed at Matt.  He knew the spider was there!  We often admire it together as it builds its web, why wasn’t he more careful!

Shocked at my feelings for the beautiful arachnid, I covered it with a container, in hopes that it was playing dead. 1/2 hour later, I came back and lifted the container.  It was still in a ball. But its web was still attached to the container… funny.  As I was detaching the web, the spider sprang (and I mean sprang) to life.  HOLY SH… Okay, it was playing dead. (I’m glad I didn’t bury it!) I got it into the container and placed the blinds cord in the container so it could climb back up, where it hid under the valance, all day yesterday.  Hopefully it will drop back down to its honourable place infront of the window.

I’m definitely not cured of my spider fear.  Even looking at the pictures above and reading about them makes my skin crawl.  Spiders are too fast, and too unpredictable, but I feel like I’ve come a long way to appreciating the spider archetype and seeing how much we are alike.

Read the Greek Myth of Athena and Arachne. Check out the mythology of Spider Woman &  Crystal links Spider Woman Legends.

“Little girls are cute and small only to adults.  To one another, they are not cute.  They are lifesize.” Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye p 125

Above the basic human needs: air, food, water, shelter and clothing are our emotional needs.  The need to be loved and accepted, to feel in control, to feel important and to feel safe.  They resonate in each of us differently, often one much stronger than all the rest.  What we forget as adults, is that children are much more afraid of being found out and are much more protective of the fear that one of these emotional needs won’t be met.

This quote reflects the essence of what it is to be a child protecting your fear that your weakness will be found.  To them it is real, even at 9 years old.  My fear as a child was that I wasn’t going to be liked - loved - accepted.  I knew I was good at things, I knew that I could make things happen in my life and succeed and I had a strong feeling that whatever was out there would be taking care of me.  But I collected evidence that I would never be accepted. Read the complete Post.