The Telephone Pole

A Nun, a Pastor and a teacher from Denmark walked into our booth. Yes, I know, it sounds like the opening line of a joke, but it really happened this weekend during an Art Festival. The full force of what came out my mouth did not strike me until the late drive home. Punchy and tired, the conversation replayed in my mind and I started laughing.

Les très femmes were amusing and there was something about their demeanor that sparked my curiosity. I asked what they did in their professional lives. They said to guess and in fact, suggested that I’d never get it right.

After rising to the challenge and selecting ideas from left field, they were correct, I did not manage to guess they were women of the cloth. However, it hit me later that I asked a Nun if she was a stripper, a sniper or a pro-wrestler. Wow, another taste of my size 10 shoes.

What does this have to do with today’s theme? As I clack at the keys, I’m not sure yet, but hopefully by the time I wrap it up, something will have tickled my inspiration.

I’m currently in the car. The first thing I notice is a sign proclaiming the “Enchanted Way.” If you haven’t noticed, I’m a firm believer in signs, symbols and shiny reflective surfaces. My faith includes the notion that God, through the language of the Universe, communicates with us every day, 24/7.

Don’t worry; whether a person communicates via Klingon, text message-shorthand, or ig-Pay atin-Lay, the Universe understands all native tongues. What’s important is if we’re fluent in speaking Universe.

Messages are everywhere if we pay attention. Some are subtle and others are hard to miss. I offer a recent example. Groom and I were out for a walk this week and we were in the midst of a lively conversation about self-love when a newspaper littering the ground caught my eye. The print was small and the only word large enough to read from that distance was “PATH.”

This is my gauge of a subtle communiqué. It would have been easy enough to miss. At first blush, the newspaper appeared to be trash, but I looked anyway and saw the “PATH” ahead of me.

This well-timed word reinforced the understanding that self-love is the gateway to our path. A warm feeling came over us and our conversation sparked even more ideas. We were animatedly discussing the moment self-love gives permission to our darker, squirrelier parts and they finally feel safe enough to come out of the shadows and into the light to be healed.

Although this sounds good in theory, in practice, deformed aspects hiding in the dark tend to get blinded by the love-light when emerging. The emotions they provoke range from skittery to belligerent. Anything coming to life hurts and things that need to be healed aren’t always pretty. In other words, it can be darmn uncomfortable (Yes, darn feels too weak and damn too strong).

There is a time period when the pain is no longer hiding in the dark but it has not yet acclimated to the light. This is a freaky, shaky moment. It helps to have support and be around people who recognize what is taking place. This is exactly where we were in our conversation, so imagine our delight when we walked past a telephone pole with a white plastic window-blind hanging from it.

This is my gauge of a message that’s hard to miss. Especially when it’s hanging from a pole that was wearing a red bra last season. I’ll skip interpreting the lingerie and concentrate on the “blind.”

Whoa, hold the phone. This began with a true story about me asking a Nun if she was a stripper and a few paragraphs later I’m talking about a pole wearing nothing but a red bra. Is there a connection? My inspiration is being tickled…

Red is the color of the root chakra: The beginning, the family, the tribe, and the origin of all the stuff that needs to emerge for healing in the first place. Stripping is the peeling away of layers to get to the fleshy good stuff.

A bra holds the girls up. It is supportive. Sometimes functional, sometimes sensual. Breasts represent nurturing, mothering, nourishment and pleasure.

A pole? Well, let’s just gloss right over that and go straight for the telephone part. Fifth chakra: The throat. It’s our avenue of expression, a channel of creativity, the ability to speak up for one’s self. And full circle, we’re back to self-love.

When we don’t speak up for ourselves, we swallow anger, stifle our creativity, get sore throats and worse.

A white blind was suspended from a symbol for communication and self-care. We were talking (using our voices to communicate) about feeling blinded while healing. Um, do you suppose the Universe was communicating with us??

In stopping to look at the art installation God set in our path, we understood it was multi-layered. One of them was about moderation and control. Again, we were thinking either/or. Either hurt stays in the dark or hurt comes out into the bright light, which we already described as darmn painful.

White is the color of purity, of perfection and holiness. The white blind was showing us that we could have more control of how much we let in. We can adjust the window blind to allow our disabled subconscious critters room to adapt to the light.

We could see how we were treating the unhealed parts of ourselves like criminals, bringing them up from the holding tank and shoving bright lights into their eyes during the interrogation phase.

Like the color white, a Nun and a Pastor also represent holiness. A teacher stands for the dynamic of teaching and learning. Yes, I know, kinda obvious, but I still had to say it.

The fact that I was joking around with a trinity without self-consciousness tells me God has a sense of humor and loves it when we are simply ourselves.

Can we have a sense of humor about it all and simply love being ourselves?