Salon for the Soul: Recent Episodes
Cathy Barney
| | | The place Dan and Donne reside in my heart and how we are connected via Spirit |
Soon, I will have to release another sacred friend and Quaker minister from my life and heart. The first time, seven years ago, was traumatic. Dan had been my friend, monthly sharing a cup of tea when my kids were little, stumbling over them as they grew and even writing a message (short sermon) about the time when Autumn, just potty trained, offered to sit and hold his hand while he used the bathroom. "Everything I learned about ministering, I learned from Autumn," I think he titled it.
Dan was VERY hard to let go of because he was the first person whom I could trust to talk about deep spiritual things, like the time I drove home from the Quaker Meeting and felt every red light and reflector glare at me as if evil or when I confessed I wasn't sure who Jesus was to me and he responded, "Me, either."
In the last year or so, we have gotten back in touch and it has been a joy. Over time, I learned to understand that the complete separation was necessary.
Necessary so I and my Meeting could establish rapport with a new minister, who happened to be Donne. I had been tasked with serving on a selection committee when, suddenly and separately, two people became acquainted with a recent Earlham School of Religion (Quaker) graduate serving a Unitarian congregation part-time. I met Donne on her first interview and was physically moved by Spirit to know she was the one for us. I was so convinced that, when our selection committee met in worship, I felt my heart being squeezed and knew Spirit was offering Donne as a gift. The person next to me said she had felt it as well. So clear that I stood aside, as Quakers say, and removed myself from the committee so they could continue their work. I would not change my mind. Another Friend was equally certain the search should continue. Eventually, Donne was hired.
Now, her cycle has ended. In a rare spate, I've missed three weeks of worship and touch with what is happening in my Meeting. I called Donne this afternoon, driving home from my new job. I wanted to catch her up on what was going on and suggest that, because of the new situation, I may not make all of the ministry retreat this weekend. She told me she was was tied up in a transaction and would call back.
Intuitively, I knew she was buying the RV she had mentioned months ago. She had dreamed of traveling. However, I hadn't quite made the connection that she was leaving.
We caught up earlier this evening at the retreat, which Dan was also scheduled to attend. Coincidence? Donne got a call a week ago that the simple-but-popular RV she wanted had walked onto the lot, did she want it? Yes, she'd said. If not, three others were in line behind her.
It's her time to be free. "Sounds like you've been released," I said, instantly recognizing that my ministry has been given the same message in the last week.
In her exit letter, Donne writes "... I must let go of you and ask you to let go of me. In other words, I have been your minister–a friendly one, I hope–but now someone else will be called to be your minister ... I will miss you deeply and love you always."
"Can I do this again, God? This is the second person I've counted on to discuss deep things I rarely share with others. Dan and Donne have both seen the real me and have helped me see it in myself."
Yet, I know her cycle is over and it is time for her to move on from her ministry and into the unknown just as I am. Separated, but together, we will trust Spirit to guide us. That will always unite us.
• How do I say goodbye?
• Who was the first person with whom I could have profound spiritual discussions?
• How do I value that gift?
• How have I learned to let go?
• How do I trust Spirit in my own life and in others I love?
she came in on
a whisp
arriving just
as we needed her
like Mary Poppins
as we grieved our
previous loss,
we saw she possessed
different gifts
gifts we sorely
needed
she had this way
of flowing in and
around like water
wherever
she was needed
showing us the way
as Spirit is showing
her now,
only in a direction
a part from us
**Listen to this post:****
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The luxury of time to move and sort, pitch and remember has been a gift. A gift of solitude and gratitude.After a rambunctious and unusual Artsy Fartsy session Saturday, I am taking down the big stuff, shifting packed boxes into moving positions, no matter where that happens to be in the room, and very much aware that the room is disappearing. I didn't want the kids to witness this piece. I'd packed most of m personal possessions and things tucked and squirreled away, leaving the objects that have come to define my studio and to which the children have responded: the meditation tent, theater seats, art tables and Ikea stools, my desk, posters and their art on the walls, streams of colorful fabric draped from the ceiling and the full bulletin boards.
| | | Our memory flag created for leaving Milford Main |
Today, however, the gloves are off and my mission is to smartly pack, move and store. I am relentless in pitching and recycling and may become more obsessive as I get everything into a box and see how much there truly is. I am already figuring a two-person system of getting my large garbage bags into the dumpster: having one outside on the ground below a second-story window and the other tossing down the bag, which should land only a few feet from the trash bin. The recyclable I may have to transport somewhere else.I've been darting back and forth, packing this and that, adding to unfilled boxes with similar items. Before desiring a break to blog, I carefully folded 15 man-sized striped and plaid shirts the kids have used for paint smocks. It was almost like putting away my daughter's baby clothes. I could picture the kids in these enormous shirts and unrolled several sets of sleeves.As I was rolling up posters, I opened what I thought to be an empty mailing tube. Tucked inside was a poster of two children holding hands and the caption: Companionship: those who bring sunshine to the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves.It opened some emotions as I drifted back to 14 years ago and the wonderful Neighbor-to-Neighbor group I organized. That was a three-year stint just as Artsy Fartsy has been. And the Neighbor-to-Neirghbor still meets! All of the touching and personal thank-you notes on the back became an echo of what I needed to hear about Artsy Fartsy ... the words I don't actually hear from families, but know they carry:"You're a jewel and an inspiration.Thank you for all you do.God bless your caring spirit,Thank you for your energy and compassion.Thank you for following your heart and getting us all together.Thank you for your hard work and inspiration.A big heartfelt thank you for initiating and following through with Neighbor to Neighbor."Saturday was tough. After reminder post cards, phone calls and volunteer drivers, only three kids were out and about waiting. I knocked on many unanswered doors and was told kids had other plans. We eventually ended up with 9. We've had as many as 17 at once. I really wanted them to be here to say goodbye. That was my projection.One dad asked if I'd stop by and pick up a pizza for his wife. "No, David," I replied not very graciously. "After I drop your boys off at the school, I need to head up to Oakbrook for kids, run back and run the program." Little Caesar's is a five minute walk for him.During our session, I pretended not to hear one of the girls say she and her friend needed a ride that night. She aimed it at me.I was feeling under appreciated until I ran across the poster and those words that helped me see they are as appropriate now as then. Thank you, Spirit!• How do I handle times of transition?• Can I find reflective moments within those times?• Can I find Spirit in the bittersweet space?• When has Spirit provided something I desperately needed?• How did I express my gratitude?just because Ihave spent timetransitioning,I expected thekids to wantthat as wellto recognize thatthis specialthing we'vebeen a part ofwas changingbut, they'rejust kidsstrugglingin theirfamiliesand tosurvivehardnessinstead,God sentme a specialmessage,whisperedyears agoyet in thehearts ofthose I servehelping replacemy question of"Have I beensuccessful" with"Have I beenfaithful?
The last of four workshops aimed at creative entrepreneurs ended yesterday. I discovered the series serendipitously, signing up last-minute. Something spoke to me. Possibly that as I sort and move my studio, I am sorting myself. Clearly, I see this as a period of endings, beginnings and re-shaping.
Branding expert Darla Kirchner suggested several times that we name or hone our mission, define our ideal client, look at our target audience and ways to connect. And then she dove in deep to collaborating live, virtually and via social media. She really de-mystified it for me. Much of her charm is that she has learned this the old-fashioned way: by doing it herself.
| | | ©Tad Barney photograph/www.tadbarney.com |
While I have been exploring my business, I have also been probing myself. It has become quite apparent that before I can connect, I really to need to know who I am in this moment and where I intend to head. When I showed Darla my crazy map of all the projects I have in the works, she said "Pick one – the one that's in your heart."
So, after the last workshop, I took my notebook, map and computer and plunked down outside with an iced coffee to do just that.
A rather large grant, due next week, has been hanging over my head. I am discerning if I really want to do the project attached to the grant or am only doing it because it can draw funding. I really have been attempting to distance myself from what seems projected on me (by myself and others) and listening to my heart. That's not so easy in normal, everyday, busy life.
In the past, when I felt this way, I scheduled a retreat in a quiet, safe place. Those have always been so productive. I don't feel the urge right now. I am supposed to do this work in the here and now, in my normal, busy, everyday life. Somehow, organizing, packing and pitching is meditative and offering a shift in perspective. As If I can take the longer view.
A recent re-birthing with my shaman is very much a part of this. I have released the anxiety of not knowing what's next and giving myself the space to be prayerful and discern my path through Spirit. I have many pieces, but no clear picture of how they fit. The workshop has been a tool to help me piece them together; especially Darla's advice to look deep within.
I read Richard Rohr's meditation today about the Desert Mothers and Fathers and their apart-ness that allowed them to live in solitude and silence. Rohr writes:
"They recognized that they had to find inner freedom from the system before they could return to it with true love, wisdom, and helpfulness."
How true is that? Very, I believe. I am tasked with locating that inner freedom while living alongside the system, much like being in the world and not of it. I have never really understood how to do that, until now. Making peace with the word, for me, is necessary. Unwounding myself, such as in the rebirth process, is key. Through all of this, I have been painfully aware that I am confronting my real self. Rohr spoke to that today:
"Solitude is a courageous encounter with our naked, most raw and real self, in the presence of pure love."
Barely a handful of very precious times, Spirit has let me see myself through her eyes. I traveled there again during my re-birthing. In a flash, I experienced myself at birth, my daughters and a car accident I have let over-define who I am. I learned that I am filled with light, as are my daughters and all children of God. Also that the accident changed my path, my course in life and I should be joyful, not angry.
I am joyful that I am privileged to live out of the mainstream, yet alongside it. I am grateful to Darla for showing me how to look into my heart in a practical way to allow me to be more of how I am and show more of that light-filled self to the world.
I am ok living in the cloud of unknowing.
• When have I disassembled myself?
• What were the results?
• What helpers surfaced?
• How can I live apart from the world?
• What spiritual practices support me?
I've been
following
the path of
shoulds
as if I
were
someone
else
living
by a code
that has
never
fit me
attempting
to measure
up, while
eroding
my real
self
when I let
the heart lead,
instead of the
brain,
I get back
on course
toward
Spirit
**Listen to this post:****
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My oldest, 17-and-a-half, finally obtained her driver's license yesterday. She wanted no fanfare because of being embarrassed about how long it had taken her. No Facebook posts and, maybe, she would be bothered by this. She passed with only two points off and a lot of beforehand grief on her part.
We had a very sweet and honest conversation on the way to the exam station. I hadn't prodded her much for information on why she delayed, I know she does things in her own time and for her own reasons. She was a 29-hour birth delivery.
And I have really been pondering what that 29 hours must have been like for her after recently confronting my violent birthing process and re-doing it.
In the car on the way to the driving exam, my daughter grew very anxious, her cheeks flushed. "Mom," she confessed, "I hate when this happens. I have performance anxiety, even in band. I make myself crazy."
She was asking me for help. We talked about deep breathing and looking at the benefit she will gain afterward. I insisted that she NOT beat herself up, but I know how the self works in moments like these. When she was little and become anxious, I soothed her with Rescue Remedy, Bach flower homeopathic drops recommended by a friend. They seemed to work. I hadn't even thought – in the busyness of my day – to tote them along this time. I had not realized that she still struggled.
It breaks my heart. And leads me to wonder how much she struggled and became anxious during her birthing process: being forced into labor by drugs when she wasn't ready. Almost 11 days late and with no amniotic fluid, the doc said we couldn't risk waiting any longer. Like me and many of us, she was forced out. Perhaps not with forceps, but with drugs.
"What happens to the mother, happens to the child," my shaman had told me last week. Just how did this baby experience the drugs. Did they make her anxious?
That state, she confided, is why she had waited so long to take her test. I had no idea and guessed it was more her perfectionist tendencies. "No. Mom. I let those go. I was avoiding getting worked up."
I centered and remained calm, working with her to breathe and reminding her how we automatically go into shallow breathing when we feel stressed. That the long, deep breath is cleansing and a signal to the brain and body to relax.
She settled some, but the delay in her appointment, I knew, stirred the anxiousness. And then, it was her turn. I laid my hand on her knee as the tester emerged from the previous nervous teen and tried to send her calming energy. And then she was gone. Off on her own, doing big, grown-up things over which I had no control. For a split second, I could have fallen apart and into her anxiety, but I chose to ask Spirit in and hold her as close as possible. "Just be with her and let her feel you."
We had talked about prayer in times of distress and she revealed that she had pursued that path. I was grateful. And I knew, right now, God was with her – no matter what. Then I could let go.
Apparently she did, too, and came in with a grin. "It was so much easier than I thought;" almost the same words she used after her temporary-driving permit book test.
As Jesus said "...with God all things are possible."
• When have I witnessed or experienced the grip of anxiety?
• How do I deal with stress?
• How do I help others deal with stress?
• How do things change when I invite God in?
• How have I learned that with God all things are possible?
over ripe
by medical
standards
she wasn't
quite ready
to enter
this world
I wasn't
either
yet have
learned
I am meant
to be here,
now
Spirit
planted
me
as she
planted
my daughter
in the
here and
now
teaching
life is
a gift
**Listen to this post:****
Earth day was a fabulous [re]birthday that not even I had planned.
Grateful for a slower pace on Wednesday, I made my way to my monthly shamanic-counseling appointment. It wasn't until I crept in my quiet Prius down the long, leaf-cloaked lane and into the path that circles the house and spied an extra car that I realized I was two hours too early. Forgot to check my calendar.
No worries, I'll just head to the nearby library and spend some time reflecting on what I desire from this session. I untucked my laptop, logged in and searched spiritual companionship. I have felt in desperate need of some. I landed on a page about developing a partnership of trust and I realized I already possess that relationship with my shaman.
And, then I began to think that even if I don't have one, constant spiritual companion, I have many. That revelation was reassuring and reminded me of the idea of looking for the helpers at given times in life. Fred Roger's learned that tip from his mother:
"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, m mother would say to me 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.'"
I have been looking for helpers in pointing me in the right direction, so I continued scouring the website. Reading deeper, my breath left for a moment learning about a process that will reset your body's cells on a primal and transformative level, erasing patterns of illness. YEP, that's what I was looking for ahead of my appointment.
Three times in recent months, wise people have suggested I look at childhood trauma and its connection with my fibromyalgia. I couldn't locate any until I went all the way back ... to birth.
| | | I always knew this was me/pastel and paint on paper |
I returned to my shaman peaceful and focused on undertaking a rebirthing process. He was delighted to accommodate me and was open for whatever would transpire. We talked a bit about how our birth circumstances cast a shadow our entire life. I told him that all my mother remembers is being knocked out and that I came head first, my sister, feet first five minutes later. I was lovingly teased as a child that I was really red and had a pointed head after birth. It wasn't easy being the first out and, likely, assisted by forceps. I always told my sister she kicked me out to make sure it was safe.
My shaman helped me understand that whatever happens to the mother happens to the child and with my mother unconscious, I was as well and that's the state I return to during transitions. He confirmed this with his own birth story.
I am definitely in transition, moving a studio, re-evaluating my path and living in the cloud of unknowing for the moment. I want to be clear and aware, not asleep. I want to consciously choose what's next by listening to Spirit.
On the massage table, I rebirthed myself in a rhythmic, gentle and intentioned way guided by my spiritual companion. He asked me to hold out my arms (my eyes were closed through the process, probably a nod to my unconscious birth) and accept the baby. As I did, a flood of memories of my birth, those of my daughters and the accident that set off the fibromyalgia opened, followed by effusive light and a sense of empowerment not unlike when I feel unconscious. There's a distinct, but very thin line.
Almost a week later, I am letting that experience settle down into my core and re-arrange my cells. My awareness has been shifted and I am not anxious about my current state of unknowing because I know Spirit is with me – always. I know it in every cell now, thanks to this rebirthing.
This transition as a matter of choice is more clear. Taking contemplative time to sort it out is my path.
Saturday, my daughters and I ventured out in the wicked, torrential rain to shop at Ikea and gorge on their coffee and real cream. I almost asked my 17-year-old to drive, but decided she wasn't experienced enough in heavy rain on the highway. Traffic was moving pretty quickly when, oddly, the sun broke through in patchy places, actually decreasing visibility. As I began to exit for another highway, I noticed cars crumpling like toys one into another. I instantly knew not to head in that direction and forced the car out into traffic with no opportunity to look. I employed the brakes and came to a stop. Not one car was anywhere near us. I let out a sigh and don't really remember getting to Ikea, though it was safely. My youngest felt sick after seeing cars pile into each other, My oldest emerged with a bear hug and a "Mom, I wouldn't have known what to do."
I sent them off to shop, while I recovered with a coffee. I was steady and not unnerved. I began to wonder if others were hurt, so decided to check online. I found no notice of the accident, but a news story about a fatal shooting the night before. One block from where we had been about the same time.
THANK YOU, God, I silently screamed ... for keeping us safe and letting me know clearly that I am still here because that's what you want. The earlier message I'd receives "not to jump into anything" had become "not to jump into anything ELSE" but God's arms.
I sit here still stunned by the string of incidents, grateful and wondering if by experiencing the pain I have tried to escape all these years simply means I am fully awake. Not unconscious.
• What's my birth story?
• Can I see its impact or patterns in my life?
• How could I create opportunity for rebirth?
• Where do I find the comfort and understanding of spiritual companions?
• When have I felt full awake?
weeks melting into
months, morphing
into years
trying to
escape the
pain
which had
a very real
lesson
wake up
wake up
I have put
you here
life is a
gift
not a
burden
**Listen to this post:****
Three years ago to the month, I was dreaming, slowly unpacking and savoring my new, light-filled studio in a former classroom. It had taken me six years to get here and since the first inner promptings of Spirit initiated this adventure.
That six years seemed like forever. And the three since have vanished too quickly. However, I can count the many blessing in between:
• The luxury of space and quiet to listen to God regularly.
• Using that gift to create an arts exploration for then unknown children, though Jordan, Alivia and Jihad had infiltrated my heart and were the target to which I was drawing closer. I had met them as an art-room volunteer and they melted my heart and planted the seed for a program, where other kids from their complex could shine.
• Having an empty classroom as a blank canvas in which to create a sacred studio.
• Actually hosting Artsy Fartsy here initially with six girls and now with 21 on the roster, including boys.
• Dreaming up a series of classes or single, creative workshops and having the perfect space to pull them off.
• Finding a place to hold all of my ministry.
• Being at the heart of the community and my neighborhood.
• Sharing in the patina of wonderful things that have happened here since 1912.
• Making art here.
• Writing blogs and books here.
• Sharing this section with other artists, including my husband.
• Feeling community.
• Always knowing my stay was tenuous, but planting roots anyway.
• Inviting others here to find a way to save this building.
• Knowing I have been faithful.
I have come to realize that what I believed to be impatient waiting for the next step has actually been grief named by two wise ministers.
I have known this place with the young-adult loss of my best friend, a miscarriage and the passing of in-laws, grandparents, beloved aunts and uncles, even family pets. I had not equated it to a space or my work. I have come and gone from many jobs over the years, but never mourned them quite like this. This wasn't a job, it was ministry and emanated from my heart.
| | | How it began |
With this new insight, I spent yesterday relishing being in the quiet space and carefully packing what can go to storage. It wasn't a chore, but a ritual. Packing away the wonderful presence of Spirit here that has witnessed and facilitated so much transformation in me, the kids and others here to volunteer or participate in a workshop or class.
Room 102, a former math room, is totally infused with God and it will remain even if the last brick is yanked out.
| | | Where it is ending |
Yesterday, I was sad and the ritual helped. That is one important lesson I learned working for a casket company. Rituals are there for the times, like grief, when we don't know what to do and we must do something. Rituals are comforting and offer meaning. Even my own, by myself.
Writing this blog seems part of the letting-go ritual. I am savoring this task more than normal, not skipping through to get it finished, edited, recorded and posted.
I sense God between the words, on the keyboard, in my heart and head. She knows this is a bittersweet time. Yet, today, I am growing more toward deep, quiet joy, calm and peace as I move from one known thing into one unknown – at the direction of Spirit.
My prayer two days ago was for spiritual companionship and I received it abundantly. I also asked for simplicity (taking the time to pack) and abundance (the richness of companionship and empathy from so many).
I don't know where I am going. And, today, that's just fine.
An hour ago I was speaking with one of my current spiritual companions. His church has promised me space to do Artsy Fartsy. That may be the simplicity that I am seeking. Just knowing they are there, supportive and available makes all of the difference.
So does what my pastoral counselor told me Wednesday. He looked me dead in the eye and said: "You have made a difference ... in the lives of those kids. Whether or not you continue, their live shave been changed for the better."
As has mine.
• When have I found ritual a comfort?
• How?
• How have I learned to surrender to Spirit?
• What practices, companions or experience help me trust?
• When can I walk one step at a time?
the cool, soothing
air drifts in the
open window
for the first time
this season
as if a finger
unfurling
calls me
out into
the unknown
suggesting
it is time
to move on
God has
another plan
just
follow
**Listen to this post:****
"I have a wonderful [business] partnership, so much so that when my partner was way too busy and couldn't say no, I told her we should cancel. That we weren't in the right place. She was grateful."
When I related that information Monday at the second in a series of workshops I am taking on collaboration in the arts, I added "You know, had this been in the corporate world, we would have had to move on no matter what. No breaks for family life or time-outs when needed," I confessed to Darla, our daring facilitator.
"That's why you are an entrepreneur," she gently tossed back at me.
That's the second time in two weeks she has given me an essential truth I needed to hear and in the right moment when I could listen. Last week, she said she had to let her perfectionist tendencies go and just get things done the best she could. Of all the marvelous things she said and reminded me of, this was crucial and it just sort of slipped out. I am not sure it was in her notes.
So, according to Darla wisdom, I chose to be an entrepreneur to control my schedule and I can curb my perfectionism and the world won't fall apart.
Before Monday, I hadn't considered what I am doing as either entrepreneurial or a choice. That insight is causing a shift in me. A BIG one. Perhaps from listlessness and either accepting what comes along or taking it all on to understand this is a choice, a positive one and not a sentence.
I have also heard the term artpreneur. That seems very much in line with where I am these days. Whether writing and planning to publish, making art, leading creative workshops, grant writing and working with low-income kids, I AM my own boss. I tend to lose sight of that in all of the busyness and far-flung projects.
As a result of these workshops, I drew out all the things I am doing -- ALL five -- and trying to see similarities and places to simplify. I did this last fall, yet things have shifted majorly.
Artsy Fartsy Saturdays: serves a very specific population and geographic location, has grown and successfully attracted grants. However, I need a new home by June 1, must assemble a board to help me apply for my own non-profit status and continue to seek funding. Not so simple: new home, new board, new status, more funding solicitation. I have also initiated a book I'd like to write online as a fundraiser about the experience of launching this incredible program.
Art Truck: This concept popped into my head several months ago when I was meeting with a very energetic, get-things-done photography teacher with a big heart. She will be on my board if/when that happens. Didn't even hesitate when I asked. It was an after thought in a conversation about finding a new location. For a few, brief moments, a larger arts business was interested, but decided they had too many initiatives. Then I applied for a new grant for individuals. Yesterday, I heard I was not one of those selected. The week before, I heard from ArtsWave that my video request had been advanced to the next round and another large application, but for bigger money than I have ever sought. I adore this idea of taking art directly to those who don't have access, plus doing some fun gigs in-between. Adding a vehicle, new venue and drumming up support through social media is a whole, other venture. What if I am too busy? I asked my husband, then realized the ridiculousness. I am less afraid of failing than getting too busy.
Salon for the Soul: The blog I have faithfully been writing weekly, sometimes twice a week, for five years. I want to continue and create a devotional from the many entires. That means culling the 500-plus posts, re-writing and paring down and publishing in some form. And building a larger audience. In reality, the groundwork is in place. Maybe not too unsimple.
Turtlebox Stories & Studio: Essentially my physical space and the playful, nurture workshops/retreats I have conducted, which all stem from my first journals and the book I created from them. It's been resting while I taught it. Now the teaching has been resting. I would REALLY love to travel with these workshops and retreats. Someday will be the right time for the book.
Pain as Spiritual Teacher: A chapter from the Turtlebox book that jumped out at me as something wonderful in a workshop format as did the perfect partner, my first yoga teacher, Renee, who also lives with chronic pain. We spent a year doing small, intro sessions, 4-hour workshops and, finally, a stint at the wildly popular Victory of Light Psychic Festival. We had a good, receptive crowd, but got so caught up in what we were doing, we forgot to ask people to sign our e-mail list. We planned a February workshop, but canceled after our festival faux pas and busyness in our lives. Interesting that our Facebook page continues to be active, I think we need to write an article or book together and focus on this rather, specific and hungry audience.
I always joke that I have branding issues and that was my struggle yesterday. How do these all fit under one umbrella ... interesting choice of words as I am looking for a financial umbrella for Artsy Fartsy. Of course, the common thread is me, that these are mission/heart driven and creatively address the spiritual on some level. My map showed me that Artsy Fartsy really is the kid side of Turtlebox; that Salon for the Soul is my vital attempt at community; that Pain as Spiritual teacher is the deep, helping-others-heal work I do with the perfect partner; and, maybe, just maybe, the Art Truck is too much. It can go anywhere to anyone and could be the vehicle, pun intended, for what I take on the road.
When I look at my map, I see that Darla is exactly right. I have created all of these and that makes me an entrepreneur. Then, when I apply her next keen observation about perfectionism, I wonder what can go, be put on hold or rest awhile. Of course, I want to do it all NOW. That's not been working so well. Too many balls to juggle.
What is the simple path forward? The one that is joyful, Spirit-infused and abundant?
• When have I had too much on my plate?
• How did I discern or decide what stayed and what was cast aside?
• How do I seek Spirit in these matters?
• How patient am I when I am called to wait for an answer?
• How do I make the most of and enjoy the discernment-and-waiting process?
I always want
things PERfect
to go off without
a hitch and be,
exactly, the way
I envisioned,
flawless
rarely does
that happen
and then I
crucify myself
but then I have
lost sight of
what perfection
means
wholeness
Visit Darla Kirchner @ http://www.cbizschool.com; attend the Creative Biz School series the next two Mondays @ www.the-arts-alliance.org
**Listen to this post:****
Wednesday afternoon I had a date. A date with my mom to go grocery shopping. Not very glamorous.
She's been struggling with cooking as she recovers from a fall and rod inserted from her hip to knee. Generously her church, friends, neighbors and two clubs to which she belongs have been keeping my parents well stocked with food. But the meal train (yes, there is a scheduling website by that name) ends next week.
And she wants to be independent, so I suggested we create a list and shop. Her diet is complicated. I was looking forward to quality time and getting the chance to discover who she is these days after a surgery and two months away.
In recent years, we have discussed that I am her mother and she is Lily – or that we share the other's characteristics. I am quiet and sensitive much like her mother and she is feisty and independent like my youngest. This knowledge helps me understand my daughter and our relationship better and the same for my mother and our complex connection. I think there is no relationship more complicated than mother and daughter. PERIOD.
I left my studio Wednesday afternoon in enough time to drop by the house and say hello to my daughters. Oddly, no one was home, so I texted my husband, who said the girls had walked to McDonald's for a snack and to do their homework. The proximity and free WIFI make it a convenient choice. I swung by and got roped into buying food for my youngest. She's perennially hungry. My oldest was fighting with a slow internet connection to finish a paper. I said I had to leave in 10 minutes to get Mimi (their name for my mom) and take her shopping. They were so engrossed that I felt invisible and mute. Once again, I announced that I had to leave if they wanted a ride. No response, so I waited in the parking lot, texted with no success and left to collect my mother. It was not the way I would have wanted to leave. Things unfinished. Unsaid. Teenagers.
When I arrived at mom's, she was tucked in to her back bedroom watching a movie, waiting. Took awhile to gather her jacket, walker, purse and grocery list and slowly exit from the treacherous garage step and into my Prius. Thankfully, it sits low to the ground and she had no trouble swinging her bad leg into position and getting comfortable. I had anticipated an ordeal.
My dad handed me their handicap-parking permit, which enabled us to park much closer. My mother insisted on walking, not being dropped off. It was interesting to see how people responded to her slowness. Generally, they were kind, except those in cars in a hurry.
We picked out a motorized cart with the gentle help of a store employee. Can I just say I LOVE the people at my local Kroger's? They alway go the extra mile, like the time I experienced a pain meltdown in the frozen-foods aisle when I came for one thing, skipped the basket and buckled under the weight of one-too-many items. A cheery face offered help, left, then quickly returned with a cart. I made sure to tell her manager.
Mom had a blast driving the cart and did really well, which surprised me since she can't drive anymore ... she lost her peripheral vision in a surgery, we think. I reminded her not to nip my heels like Lily always does with the cart. She didn't.
We both had lists. She penned one and I jotted down some things I thought would be easy. They were very similar. We began scanning the aisles and conferring on choices, getting that list under control. It was a very fruitful two hours and I was able to witness how much better my mom is than I had expected. When I couldn't remember that last thing on the list, she did, immediately.
I might have been prepared for this nice surprise if I had paid more attention to what a physical therapist had said in the hospital a few day earlier. A severe episode of vertigo kept here there four days. The PT marveled at her ability to maneuver given her recent surgery. She is religious in completing her strengthening exercises.
And the way she whipped around the store in that cart. Yes, Lily is HER granddaughter. Completely. And my mom is herself.
• How do I handle those I love age?
• How do I handle my own aging?
• Have I learned to ask for help?
• Can I befriend this part of life?
• How does it draw me closer to Spirit?
frail, I feared
walker, slow steps
and all
faded memory and
a somber duty
INSTEAD
the moving
cart became like
a new toy to
be tested and tried
and she passed
with flying colors
the memory had
thrown off the
anesthesia hangover
and she was
BACK
**Listen to this post:****
Didn't I just write about roller coasters last post? Well, here I am on one again. I want off.
After my hopes for a job were dashed last week, I received an e-mail this week saying I qualified for the final round of a rather robust grant. BIG news, yet also BIG work. And, I have a BIG weekend with two major kids' arts events that I lead.
Did I mention my back is also acting up?
You know, I did get a day off, Thursday, in a strange, unplanned and not-necessarily welcomed manner. I got to catch up with old friends. Friends from my first working days as a full-fledged reporter fresh from college. Friends who knew me when and care for me no matter what.
| | | Only easy-to-find photo of my early newspaper days [with Tad] |
Ronda and I bonded easily when I arrived in the newsroom. She worked for another paper in the chain and traveled between offices. She was always easy, generous and funny. Her laugh, infectious. She showed me the ins and outs of local bars around Dayton, especially her favorite, The White Rabbit. It was just a strip-mall bar, but with Ronda there, it seemed magical.
She was nearing her first-year anniversary and making vacation plans. I told her I'd love to go to Florida, but I wasn't due for another few months. She waited.
| | | Ronda, me, Jean and Mary at a newspaper reunion |
We took one of our grey Chevettes, though I don't remember which one. Maybe mine. Black vinyl and no AC. That's what was affordable to a moneyless, new graduate. And it got us to Daytona Beach. Our first stop was somewhere in the mountains of Virginia. I am not sure. I wasn't much of a navigator back then, but Ronda taught me all about reading maps. Before being hired as a reporter/photographer, she took baby pictures at department stores. She knew how to get around and ask for what she needed. We pulled into a small motel and, after settling in, discovered our TV didn't work. Ronda went to the manager and sweet talked him into bringing us his from his house! I learned a ton on that trip, such as:
– Betting on a dog called flea-bite because we were so chewed, winning and taking ourselves to a posh dinner in a French restaurant owned by Hugo of Marseilles.
– Learning to make hobo stew of hamburger and vegetables in foil cooked over a grill on the beach.
– Throwing caution to the wind and heading to the world's fair on the way home sans a reservation and sleeping in the back of the Chevette in a camp ground. One of our air mattresses went flat in the night.
– Lucking into buying someone's ticket stubs to get into the fair in Knoxville, TN. Still not sure why it was there.
We have so many memories of weekends, other trips, meeting between her home in Toronto and mine in Cincinnati with our spouses and kids.
The reason I was able to see Ronda this week is because her father died. There's no way I wouldn't go to the funeral, north of Dayton. I arrived at the visitation in enough time to use the restroom and, when I returned, another reporter friend (one I have known since college, who also happened to work with me and Ronda) had just arrived. Ronda couldn't believe we had both come to attend the service.
Because Jean only lives a half-hour away, we are in touch more frequently. When my mother was recovering in rehab after an extensive heart surgery, she visited numerous times to give her healing-touch therapy. That's just the kind of soul Jean is.
We agreed to go to the cemetery, then the reception. I was the last in the car assemblage and lost my way to the American Legion. Somehow, I thought I heard VFW and, when Siri directed me there, found an empty parking lot. Even the funeral home couldn't tell me where to go. Fortunately, I had Jean's cell in my contacts.
I was grateful to find a full parking lot this time, entered and noticed a gathering around the bar. There was Ronda's husband, the lovable Canadian for whom she had left us and the States. He offered to buy me a beer, then we laughed at how cheap, $1.25, it was. "Heck this would be $5 at home." As we shared some conversation, Jean called to see where I was. "On the other side having a beer with Bub." She led me to the reception and a nice spread.
It was really good to touch based with these wonderful, longtime friends, even in their grief. I loved reconnecting with Ronda's family and her high school friends, who also felt like family. These are wonderful, good, honest people. Just like Ronda's dad. Nothing fancy, but real and full of tremendous love for his wife and three daughters. That was so apparent in their tears and grief. Ronda's mother has never lived alone, so the girls quickly drew up a plan where she lives with each of the three for several months the first year before she has to make any decisions.
For several minutes during the visitation, I held a three-month old. Good as gold though she was teething. She's the granddaughter of one of Ronda's longtime school friends. It was so healing to hold this sweet creature in the shadow of death and the open casket. I was stirred at the cemetery, before the skies opened with more tears, as the lone Marine trumpeter wailed taps through his instrument.
I was out all day, living an honest, hard truth among friends and grief. My prayers and blessings are with this family as they move forward without their beloved father and husband and I am grateful to have witnessed such love, grief and grounding. These are genuine people who don't stumble over what matters most in life.
• When do I feel life is a roller coaster?
• How do I get off?
• When was a time it happened serendipitously?
• Who teaches me about love and being grounded?
• What lessons are there in grief?
reeling from
ridiculous
self-made
complications
I was called
away, out
to real
living
the stuff
that matters:
life, death,
love, grief,
family
and friendship
the places
Spirit
runs deepest
**Listen to this post:****
Last session, I told my shamanic counselor that I wanted off the roller coaster. He responded that I had been on one all the time, 17 years, that he had known me. That's because you didn't know me before kids or fibromyalgia, I replied.
Well, I got lurched again last week by a job rejection that I cared about more than I had realized. Everything sounded so perfect and it would have tied up so many loose ends. I want a simpler, more abundant life and this seemed like the ticket.
I am also smarting from a friend's offer to put in a good word for me that never materialized; it may have made a difference.
I want to know why God didn't want me to have that job. How did I miss the mark? Was I aiming too low? This was a mid-level position at the salary I started at 20 years ago. Less stress, I hoped. Would I have had the flexibility to manage my fibromyalgia? Would I have come home as exhausted as I had after three hours from the second interview? My spiritual director says to look where the energy is. There was none when I left that interview.
Fortunately, two days after I received the voice mail saying they were going with "another finalist," I had planned an overnight college-visit and trip with my 17-year-old. "Maybe they just liked someone else better," she had said after the bad news. On the drive, she probed deeper, asking why I wanted that job. "Is that what you really want to do?"
"Well, no," I confided. "I really want to be a successful writer, do workshops and creative nurture," I continued. But that's hardly possible my inner critic shouted.
I had gotten that far in another round of interviews for a job I knew wasn't right, when the interviewer said: "You're a good writer. A really good writer."
I seem to need that external affirmation. I am tired of working in isolation, though writing really isn't a team sport. The response to my daughter's question is one of the few times I have verbally articulated my dream. Is this where Spirit is pushing?
Both my mother, sister-in-law, husband and close spiritual friend were more upset than I at the non job offer. It did feel like the world's rejection for awhile. I used to always get the job ... from newspaper ads to which hundreds responded. What's different now?
Of course all of this was transpiring during Lent and the Easter Season, the time of death and resurrection. I read a Max Lucado meditation on Silent Saturday, the day between Good Friday and Easter, when all of the action happens. Deep things happen in the silence, he'd written, between death and resurrection.
Sitting in worship Sunday, I wondered what I was dying from. I had listened to a snippet of NPR's Fresh Air on the way over and an author was talking about Jewish pessimism, passed on by his parents, products of the Holocaust and Depression. Worry prepares you not to be disappointed, he'd said he learned, then unlearned. I remember reading that worry is a prayer for disaster. Can I let the negativity and worry in my life die, I wondered.
I opened the bulletin to the Centering Down section and was struck with the first passage
... the seed you sow does not come to life unless it has first died; and what you sow is not the body that shall be, but a bare grain, of wheat perhaps or something else; and God gives it the body of his choice, each seed its own particular body ... So it is with the resurrection of the dead: what is sown as a perishable thing is raised imperishable. Sown in humiliation, it is raised in glory, sown in weakness, it is raised in power; sown as a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body." 1 Corinthians 15:35
| | | Falling/pastel on paper |
Sown in humiliation, sown in weakness ... that sounds like my current condition. I let all of that sink in and meandered to the place where I was about to die, where I was about to let go, when I was jolted back by the thoughts of leaving things unfinished. I do think something died there on Easter Sunday in that worship.
Pretty soon, a Friend rose and talked about how the Egyptians had measured the weight of a dead person's heart to see how much remorse there had been and how, with Jesus, God taught that the physical body didn't matter in resurrection. She said a lot of other smart things, but what I really remember is her booming voice bellowing "all God want us to know is that he loves us. I love you." I heard God in her speaking to me. Broken and disappointed and struggling, God loves me. I so needed to hear that, really hear it from human lips.
Our minister ended her message quoting the Gnostic Gospel of Philip: "You must resurrect while in this life."
I do feel as if I am resurrecting, that something died and something else is birthing. That, perhaps, I can leave the worldly world and its lure of office jobs behind and move more into the spiritual world of trusting Spirit. My prayer is to trust in that process. To trust Spirit as my guide.
• When does my life seem like a roller coaster?
• How do I examine its cause?
• What spiritual practices support me?
• How do I move more into the spiritual realm?
• Can I resurrect while in this life?
sinking in
is so
satisfying
letting the
layers melt
and remembering
remembering
who I am
my origin
my source
and then I drift
almost as if
asleep
yet awake
deep
down inside
I sink
the lines blur
and I am falling
into release
death
until I shudder
and return
renewed and
missing
something
I never
needed
**Listen to this post:****
How come when I bitch and moan on Facebook about a hot, local topic, I get 40 comments, but when I post a blog with some deep soul secrets, I get one?
I really do have a love/hate relationship with Facebook and it stems from my always-egging desire to go deeper. I seem to want to force Facebook to, sometimes, be something it's not: contemplative. I'll continue nevertheless in the hopes that whomever is suppose to read it will. Just like vocal ministry in Quaker worship. Sometimes you're given a message that makes no sense, but, if you've really discerned that it's yours to give, you do so anyway and detach from any reaction.
This romance I have with depth can drive me crazy. I seek it everywhere, not jut on Sundays in worship. It very well may be why I am so perplexed over the closing of this fabulous school building I have inhabited for almost three years. The e-mail came the week before last that we all had to be out June 1 as the district can no longer afford to keep it running. They always said that's would happen if a solution did not step forward. It hasn't.
One artist was moving his canvases out today and this place feels more abandoned with each loss. And, yet I remain. As my art friend was returning for another load, I was talking to Susan, the custodian who so lovingly cares for the place. Sometimes I feel as if she and I are the only ones who still tend this space. We welcomed the other artist into our conversation,which soon became a tour of Susan showing us the vault, the former gym and pointing out where walls had been opened and closed, the hidden locker room trapped between floors, the high ceilings in some rooms, molding and lone, real slate blackboard.
We crossed over the Maginot Line from the artist's side and into the autistic school, after hours. I can't tell you how many times I have resisted for the sake of protecting the school and observing their boundary. Today, as we all know we will be leaving soon, was different. It seemed a parting rite of some passage.
Today, I could really see the building, its bones and history, the generations who have enlivened its halls, the modernizations and attempts to keep up with the times and demands.
In what I had thought was a dreary cafeteria, pristine sunlight was streaming in. The lower-level bricks were cleanly white-washed and the former gym floor well oiled and heeled. Susan does a very good job over there. She was told months ago not to clean this side ... so I had forgotten how everything can look when polished.
Not many can envision this building polished. They can't look that deep, into its soul. They see the peeling paint, 1970s renovations and the holes left when building icons – such as plaques, murals and the Rookwood fountain – have been removed.
I still see life, not dollar signs I wonder how far the $900,000 cost of tearing it down could go toward upkeep. Unfortunately, this building was written off years ago with no exit plan. That's been the problem. Is locking the doors and closing it up a good solution? I know, I know the school board continues to say it can't afford to keep it open and what a burden it is on taxpayers.
I still can not understand how the city and school district missed the opportunity to look down the road at this building TOGETHER and create a plan that would put the sturdy bricks and mortar to a new use. Of course, I missed that opportunity as well.
It's been a wonderful three years here breathing creative life into a former math room, bathing it in color, gaining inspiration out its windows, watching young artists bloom and small groups go deep the way I like. I really don't know how I will say goodbye.
• Where do I crave depth in my life?
• How does modern culture and technology thwart that?
• Where can I devise a happy medium?
• How can I challenge our throw-away society?
• Where do I find Spirit in the patina of the past?
I entered this
side alone
just me, a
desk, rug,
some books
and a prayer
here to begin
something new,
something unknown
something of Spirit
soon I'll
be here alone
again,
wondering
how and
where to follow
next
**Listen to this post:****
Last week was ONE of the rare weeks I had no time to blog and I am saying no to shoulds! It was one of the most intense, active weeks I have experienced and something had to go. Not the three-hour second interview or its prep and not the two grants due the day after the exhausting, but good, interview. So, it was the blog.
I missed it and things kept percolating all week. It really is my time to process the deep subjects, questions and concerns floating around my psyche. Then there are times I need to rant, tell a story or express gratitude. I am grateful for the outlet and the dear readers who linger and, often, take time to comment. It acknowledges that what I experience is not isolated ... that we all struggle and amble through life the best we can, attempting to remember there is a greater ONE behind the scenes.
I am currently feeling the need to deal with with Lent, my Quaker Meeting's 200th anniversary and the June 1 closing of the school where my studio has been located for three years. And, I'll take them in that order.
Lent never meant much to me growing up, except that the school cafeteria served up soggy fish on Fridays 'cause the Catholic kids couldn't eat meat, they gave up things like gum and candy, wore ashes on their foreheads and our Methodist Church changed its color scheme to purple. Of course, I understood it as a build-up to Easter.
Last year, the practice became much more personal and meaningful to me mainly because of my new spiritual director, an Episcopal, and because it entranced me, intertwining with the change of season, life-death-life and a very specific rhythm and focus. I haven't been following it so deeply this year, yet it calls to me. I understand it as a time of shedding, reducing, turning inward and seeking Spirit. Meanwhile, my exterior life ha gone haywire with busyness and so much uncertainty.
In the midst, my faith community reached an epic milestone culminating one Sunday week before last. We celebrated with guest speakers, visitors, former members, an old-fashioned carry-in meal and then Quaker author Phil Gulley and Quaker singer/songwriter Carrie Newcomer.
I loved how Phil Gully just keeps expanding his circles of understanding and inclusiveness. I was moved in "If the Church were Christian" by the idea of universal salvation; that God's love is available to all. PERIOD. That is what I believe. He advocated that if Christianity, all 39,000 factions, is to survive, we must embrace other faiths and religions with the same idea of universal salvation. Christianity must change to survive. He's right. Life is change and anything stagnant dies.And Carrie Newcomer's low and folky voice carries her deep wisdom into song. I've heard her described as the Prairie Mystic. She truly is. She sang my favorite, about the brown-gray geodes so common near her home in Bloomington, IND. Dull and dead-looking outside, broken open, beautiful crystals are exposed.Again, life and death from both author and songwriter/singer.It was a former minister's words, however, that woke me up. Jim Newby, also an author and now at Church of the Savior in Oklahoma City, talked about the challenge of building redemptive community. I immediately sensed his words were a challenge to my 200-year old church not to rest on our laurels and to take up this way of being. Redemptive community, he said, consists of:• creating a place where we can expose and deal with our pain;• nurture deep worship for reaching the living Christ;• encouraging and supporting one another;• being sure of ourselves and able to count on each other; and• practicing unconditional love.We do one of these well and another half well. The rest are untapped sources.This week in worship, our minister asked what current truth we speak, as Quakers. It occurred to me that truth is only present when the first motion is love, not when we worship early Friends, social activism, the intellect or the Quaker way of doing things. And that Jim Newby's five points are the perfect road map.Why must I be the negative Nelly, I wondered after delivering that message. At least four people later said they needed to hear that and it was truth. Wouldn't have mattered; I couldn't NOT have said it. Spirit was pushing me.A few days later, in my "in" box, this devotional from the Henri Nouwen Society arrived:
"There are many forms of poverty: economic poverty, physical poverty, emotional poverty, mental poverty, and spiritual poverty. As long as we relate primarily to each other's wealth, health, stability, intelligence, and soul strength, we cannot develop true community. Community is not a talent show in which we dazzle the world with our combined gifts. Community is the place where our poverty is acknowledged and accepted, not as something we have to learn to cope with as best as we can but as a true source of new life.
Living community in whatever form - family, parish, twelve-step program, or intentional community - challenges us to come together at the place of our poverty, believing that there we can reveal our richness."
And so, when the e-mail came declaring we had to be out of the building by June 1, I was not surprised. While it tears me up to think this place where such beautiful things have happened will, likely, get torn down itself, I understand God may be making way for new things. Better things. Things we can not possibly imagine.That wisdom would not have surfaced had I attempted to blog last week -- only now, when Spirit prompted.• What practices help me avoid the shoulds of life?• What meaning, if any, does Lent have in my life?• When do I experience times of retreating, waiting, reducing?• How do I recognize when Spirit is leading toward a death?• How do I trust during these times?blogginglast weekwas not in thestarsdid I really justhear one of theautistic kidsnext doorsingingTwinkleTwinkle?clearly, thank yousweet voice, itwas notand I restedany attacksof the shouldsbecause thisis the seasonof pullingaway from lifeand letting whatmust perish diebecause wehave theultimateexample ofnew liferightbefore uslivingwithin
**Listen to this post:****
We're not meant to be perfect. It's NOT in our DNA.
Wow, those words still ring in my heart as much, maybe more, deeply than they did Sunday when they leapt off the lips of our minister. She was offering a follow-up message to one a few Sundays earlier about perfection and, that in Jesus' original tongue of Aramaic, meant whole or complete.
They gave me permission to relax and recognize that so many worldly standards set us up for failure and frustration.
I confess that I had entered worship with something on my heart, the fate of the old school I inhabit, and wasn't completely open. Open enough for those words to get me percolating, letting them sift and filter through my conflict. As the pieces began to assemble, it was quite clear that some are looking for the PERFECT solution to an IMPERFECT problem and wisdom said to "look at the edges, to go outside." That's when I made this drawing:
Truly, this is a matter of getting the energy out of the box and how we're boxed in by perfection and rules. We require a free flow of ideas, not granite and stainless steel, which I'll hit on in a moment.
Perfection is a trap that holds in that which can not be attained or captured. Perfection is suffocating. It:
pre-supposes,
judges,
divides and
is a power play.
When, instead, we need acceptance, which comes from a place of love.
...
The perfect kitchen, according to contemporary tastes, gleams with granite counters and finger-print-free stainless steel applicances. Someone has deemed it the cultural norm to be emulated, repeated, not lived without. It's everywhere: DIY shows, magazine ads, real-estate photos and highlighted in vacation-home rentals.
| | | Simple Paris kitchen |
A year ago when I was combing through airbandb.com and other vacation-rental websites, I was astounded that even the teeniest Paris apartment boasted granite and stainless. Why, I wondered? That's the American ideal. I wanted a typical Parisian kitchen, which we found up 76 winding stairs. The kitchen was tucked inside an alcove by the front door with a single sink, tile counter, stovetop, microwave, mini-fridge (white no less) and plates and utensils stacked openly on shelves or hanging. Simple and useful and so, very French. We celebrated some amazing feasts here.
| | | MY kitchen with warm memories |
Mine at home has been cobbled with laminate counters in a stone pattern, a matching stainless-and-black fridge and dishwasher a la Craigslist and a 15-year-old smooth top, black stove. The slate floor that reminds me of a creek bed was laid by my brother-in-law, who also custom made a shelved, hinged desk for a funky, not square corner. The table with oak top and original milk-green painted legs was an end-of-show deal at a fairgrounds 20 years ago. The New Orleans jazz painting hung in my childhood home and recently took up residence on a blank kitchen wall, where it has always belonged. The island is a faux-painted cabinet on wheels retrieved from my Quaker Meeting and topped with an Ikea butcher-block slab.
| | | Paris kitchen #2 |
My kitchen is anything but perfect, a hodge podge of things sentimental and practical. I LOVE my kitchen in all its quirky, imperfect splendor. And, yes, there are some improvements I would like to make, but it seems so crazy to worship an impossible ideal whether in our homes or ourselves.
| | | Tuscan kitchen |
I adore my studio in a 1912 building so many recently have said is worthless. Almost 50 autistic kids attend school in one section, hungry parochial-school kids eat lunch in its cafeteria five times a week, pliable gymnasts bounce all over its auditorium/gym and a hand full of artists create from their classroom studios. Does this sound like a lifeless shell?
When we can recognize the implicit imperfection in the world, we can re-imagine and re-purpose building on those flaws and, even accept, things as they are. That's the lens of creativity, acceptance and love.
• How do I see the world's imperfections?
• How do I see my own?
• To what standards of perfection do I hold myself and others?
• How can I rid myself of that false ideal?
• Where can I find acceptance from the place of love?
in a throw-away
society,
a 103-year-old
has little chance
of survival
not even if
it's witnessed
history
housed, fed
and educated
hundreds
served the
community
faithfully
stirred
memories and
friendships
been repurposed
barely tended
and awaiting
acceptance
for what it is,
imperfect
yet functional
can't we see
this as a metaphor
for ourselves
and come
to its rescue?
**Listen to this post:****
Compassion has been on my mind; specifically how we express compassion for others that keeps all parties on equal footing. It's so easy to fall into the trap of thinking we know best what the other needs without having lived their experience.
Giving and helping are not necessarily the same as showing compassion and exhibiting social justice. It goes back to the Golden Rule, which is universally embedded in almost all faith traditions, including Christianity. "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." Not lord it over others, presume to know what they need or desire or move from a place of superiority or inferiority. I believe it means to meet people where they are as we are. To not be afraid to learn about and listen to another who may have a far different background, set of experiences and vocabulary.
Sunday, I attended another church, a local one that burns to partner with me in serving Oakbrook residents. The pastor asked me to speak from the heart about what I do to the congregation. I was warmly greeted as I always have been when I have attended smaller meetings here. Opening with a contemporary band that got us to our feet as lyrics flashed on the large screen was so opposite my typically wandering into worship, quietly taking a seat and settling into silence. As I loosened to the music, I found my body swaying and my lips moving. It really is a wonderful manner in which to worship. It was my hope to meet this congregation where they were and ask the same from them. When it was my turn to speak, I admitted that standing up front with a microphone was not, exactly, easy for an introverted Quaker. They laughed and I relaxed, telling a story straight from the heart after praying that God would give me the words and wisdom. She complied ... at least the pastor said that I expressed what needed to be said.
| | | Add caption |
After, he talked about serving the poor and earlier in life he was so excited to assist a hungry family that he bought an expensive roast and all of the fixings. When he joyfully delivered them, he noticed packaged foods and no cooking utensils. "I doubt they even had a pot to cook it in." He opened himself and that experience to suggest that we need to work ourselves out of our experience and expectation.
Last summer, when some generous soul provided me with a boatload of fresh garden vegetables, I had the urge to give them to a family of seven that struggles. "Oh, no thanks," the father said. "We don't eat those." That had been my bias, assuming they would clean, cut and cook them.
My greatest lessons in learning how to serve others and meet them where they are have originated with the Neighbor to Neighbor group that I helped start after the 2001 Cincinnati Race Riots and Artsy Fartsy Saturdays, the arts exploration I lead for local, at-risk kids. To really meet people where they are, takes an examination of ourselves, knowing where we are and then patiently listening and getting to know the other. It is about giving of yourself, forming relationships and a bond of trust – rather than racing in with shiny new things, ideas and gadgets that may hinder rather than fix things.
I was really taken with an article in the current issue of Yoga Journal by scholar-teacher-activist Dr. Tessa Hicks Peterson:
"We find our breath, ground ourselves, push past limitations, learn how to live at that edge and find compassion for ourselves. This is the same with social injustice. We can't be afraid to face our ignorance or internal biases, our fears and apathy, our own oppression and pain; we must sit in that discomfort and learn how to find our breath and connect and build compassion for ourselves and for others, including the ones we don't understand, the ones we think are too different from us culturally, racially, religiously – even the ones we hate."
She writes about how the lessons of yoga translate into social action and justice. Sitting in the discomfort really speaks to me. Possibly living with chronic pain puts me there more often than I'd like, but I do have opportunity to reflect on myself, inner workings and motivations. I know myself, fears and most biases; though there is always room for more growth. If we can direct compassion toward ourselves first – just like taking the airline oxygen mask before helping another – we open to being that for others. We're here to accompany and assist one another, erasing as many divisions as possible, not inflict our unexplored biases on each other.
• How do I personally experience compassion?
• What practices aid that?
• What have I learned about myself?
• How can I then apply that to others?
• How does my perspective shift when serving stems from compassion?
in our white,
supreme ways
we think we can
change the world
everybody, we
tell ourselves
benefits from
our experience,
culture and
wisdom
we know it all
we've done it all
we are wealthy,
we tell ourselves
over and over
and over
until we believe
it is the root
of all
and from this
warped root
we approach others
benevolently
as if they everything
to gain and
nothing to lose
how very
wrong we are
for our wealth
is shallow, selfish
and lacking wisdom
**Listen to this post:****
Perspective is EVERYTHING and God gives us a dose of it every once in awhile to humble us and call our attention to what really matters.
The past two weeks have embroiled me in working to save our neighborhood school. It's been an incredible journey and one in which I could see Spirit at work. That hit a snag Sunday when I opened my studio to discuss possibilities and one loud group took center stage announcing that the only way to go is to support the efforts of two children to tear the building down and create a park. They aim to raise $1 million. The park idea is lovely, but I don't believe the expensive tear-down is. At least, I desire to explore ALL of the options first. The park group believes, second hand, that they have been exhausted. But I know artists imagine things in a completely different and transformative way. My shamanic counselor has taught me a solution is never either/or (save or tear down), but a "whole rainbow of color choices."
After a three-hour meeting Sunday, I returned home exhausted and with anxiety about all that we had just accomplished. That lingered through the wee hours, even though I kept telling myself to let God handle it. I was buoyed yesterday by two conversations with out-of-the-box thinkers with a genuine concern for the community.
One of those was late in the day and I arrived home late and ready to unwind. I barely had my boots off when I heard a gusty knock at the door ... one that demanded to be answered. I complied and lit up to see two of my Artsy Fartsy girls ... two who have stuck with me three years. They had been shopping out in the cold for four hours -- one only dressed in a sweatshirt -- and wanted to warm up and ask for a ride home. I gave one a clean pair of dry socks and we sat in the living room chatting about their after-Valentine's Day bargains. One got a text that it was time to be home. As I led them through the kitchen, they were enticed by the smell of the cooking meatloaf. I wished it had been ready then and I could have fed them. Instead, I ferried them back to one of the stores where they had forgotten a package. "If he doesn't give it back to me, something's gonna go down," one crowed. "How about I go in with you, just in case." "Good idea," she agreed. "Now, don't embarrass me or I'll act like I don't know you," I teased.
We successfully retrieved her bag and I drove them to warm homes. Their visit and the ease of our relationship dispelled any coldness in me from the weather and the fate of the building. The art I make in the building is about the kids, not where we do it. I told them the project and its tear-down were rejected and they were excited. "Where will have Artsy Fartsy if not there?" they both chimed in. "We have lots of temporary offers, but I am not worried about it. We'll figure it out."
I slept incredibly well and even braved the extreme cold to do laps in an 84° pool. I sailed into the studio for a full day of writing when the phone rang. My mom had tripped last night, broken her hip and they were in a hospital awaiting surgery.
OMG. Could a building or any petty conflicts about it come before her?
People, God says pretty clearly, come first. Even before my Do-Gooder reflex and how I hope things could be in my community.
I needed the reminder – thank you, Wise One.
• How do I let myself get carried away?• When do I need to be jolted out of my ego-centered world?
• How does God give me perspective?
• What spiritual practice can also grant me the larger view?
• What is my prayer for the wisdom of perspective?
Dear One,
Whom I love with
all of my heart
Who knows me
better than I can
ever pretend
Please continue
to guide me
even when I resist
When ego is
front and center
Remind me
what matters
most
**Listen to this post:****
I don't consider myself any kind of evangelist even if I do write about matters of the spirit. However, I am still dancing because Spirit made the impossible possible. And I must publicly share my gratitude.
Even just days ago as I sat down at this computer to write, I was forlorn with the impending and seemingly certain fate of this wonderfully blessed space. The school district finally had a buyer, who dreamed up a plan that had sailed through planning-commission and board-of-zoning-appeals approvals. I had attempted to test the waters of public support for the building for months. Many people waxed nostalgic and wanted to keep it, but few were committed to action.
In this case, money was speaking.
I was repeatedly asked where I would move. I had no real idea. Certainly, there were kind offers for temporary space, but no permanent home, Uncharacteristically, I had no plan and I was oddly at peace. All I knew was to stay here as lonely and isolated as it seemed. Stay and be a beacon of light showing the transformation that can and does happen right here in this old building. I have witnessed wily children ripen into trusted mentors, misbehavior channel to creativity, marginalization become confidence, a bland peeling classroom morph into a bright refuge, bitter enemies bond, artists with gifts offer them generously, volunteers with big hearts stretch them larger and children asked to grow up too quickly soften, relax and feel safe. HERE.
Then, suddenly, I wasn't one of the few. Neighbors joined neighbors and the energy spread like wildfire. And I knew it was time to invite people in. They created their own energy, renewing what I was beginning to feel once again, within these walls.
Several weeks ago I trolled the halls looking for peace and quiet only to turn up abandoned bulbs peaking out of the soil. Now tended, the 18-inch stalks are leaning and lengthen every day. Then, I recognized it as a sign of life. My spiritual director had advised me that in finding the energy, I would find guidance because that is where God resides. I knew She was telling me something with the blooms. Don't give up hope, what you think may be dead is not.
In dizzying days of meetings, e-mails, letters, petitions, phone calls, Facebook chats, yard-sign distribution and prayer I was energyzed. People adored the studio, the work we do here and the fact the building was in better shape than some would admit. These concerned residents brought more and new energy with them. It was the energy of being united and while some may not view it as spiritual, I knew its source.
Each of us added a piece and brought more away as our gatherings broke apart. Most of this was unbidden. I only see it now. I kept tending and watching the paperwhites. They grew as the momentum did. I pointed them out to the group. Which either made me seem wise or nuts.
All was riding on Tuesday night's council meeting when the body would make the final decision. A denial required five of seven votes. City staff reversed its recommendation after studying the impact on emergency services. That was hopeful and paralleled the paperwhite's rise. Opposition signs sprung up in 500 yards across town. Neighbors from all ends collaborated. Many pitched in legal fees to hire an attorney to write a letter. I was not one of them, believing in what I saw happening. I also didn't agree that we needed legal representation before our elected representatives. In one last e-mail before the vote, that's exactly what I told council members. That I trusted them and the system. It was Spirit that I really trusted.
I raced from a downtown grant presentation to get to the council meeting, where several neighbors and new friends had a seat waiting. The swell of energy and tension could have been cut. The city manager read the new position and the developer was given time to respond. He began by reintroducing himself because "most people have it all wrong, I am an investor in your community .... I gave money ... for your rained-out parade." I was sad at his defensiveness and separation. He called the fire chief's figures "arbitrary and capricious."
I can not imagine how devastating the reversal must have been for him. He'd spent months, money and time crafting a lucrative plan. What he'd neglected to do was really listen to those of us looking for something with a community focus. He wrote us off. He wrote me off as an artist who "contributes nothing" to the building and the welcome letter I sent him with grant suggestions as "nothing I can take to the bank." He had the audacity to tell me those things in my studio. Yet, somehow that negative energy dissipated. And I haven't been angry with him, just understand that our goals are so divergent.
After his allotment, it was time for council members to explain how they would be voting. Hallelujah. Not just a vote, but an explanation.
The mayor began, armed with discrepancies, homework and a litany of reasons she was rejecting the plan. My side of the room erupted with applause and hope. When the second council person said no, we held our breath and signed with relief. In quick succession, the third and the fourth, the fifth and the sixth voted with their peers and against the proposal. The final voice dissented. Six-to-one the development was denied.
I had prayed up and down the halls of the building for something like this. All of the prayer warriors were on it. I could hardly believe my eyes and ears, but in my heart I knew God had been at work. During a break after the vote, staffers, elected officials and residents united in a way I have never experienced. We were ONE.
We meet again Sunday for strategy and next steps. Although the sale of the land from the school district to the developer was contingent on the zoning approval, the school board president says it's still intact.
Now I pray for the developer and total unity. Join me if you would. Amazing things do happen. Thank God.
• How have I experienced God at work?
• When was a hopeless situation reversed?
• How long before I was aware of Spirit's hand in it?
• When have I experienced utter unity?
• How do I pray for more?
hibernating
since early
last spring
anyone
would have
thought them
dead
just like
the fate
of this
old building
yet,
isolated
in the dark
and secret
places
forces
were working
bringing
new life
and energy
with
Spirit
stamped
all over
**Listen to this post:****
Tonight may be a loaded night. Full of emotion, intensity and, hopefully, not heartbreak. I am trying to hold it all prayerfully and trust all will be well.
Of course, I am referring to the city council decision on a proposed development for my beloved Milford Main School. It's been such an awe-inspiring couple of weeks and I simply could not have imagined that so many people could rally together in such a community-minded way.
My neighbors, whom I never knew before, Joe and Janet, began knocking on doors when they found few others attending hearings and meetings while the proposed development seemed to sail through city channels.
I attended the first public hearing in front of the planning commission, kept up on the minutes of the second one and also when the city board of zoning appeals approved a variance in density for the property. I made sure to attend the public hearing happening before city council. I stayed for three-and-a-half hours, while the night owls remained until it ended about 1:20 a.m. About 40 people spoke after city staff, the developer and his experts made their case over 90 minutes. People's words moved me. People from all over Milford and all walks of life. One unrepresented group, children, were eloquently captured in one artist's words.
It was at the steps to the city building I encountered a new group, STOP Milford on Main, that had emerged with a terrific logo, t-shirts, petitions and, soon, yard signs. One of them started a Facebook page with, regular and relevant posts and spot-on info-graphics. A neighbor on the other side of town jumped in. Carl was involved about a dozen years ago when a developer wanted to plant houses in a flood plain on some very pristine, natural land. A small group organized, hired an attorney and with much effort, founded ValleyView, now a 150-acre nature preserve and education center, in South Milford. After the tense hearing before council, he contacted me about gathering those opposed to what the developer calls Milford on Main. We both suspected there were other, small groups and interested individuals out there that we wanted to collect.
I offered my studio in Milford Main as a meeting space. After all, we were focused on Main; plus, I felt it was something I could do and I love showing off the place. Many people wander in and are surprised at the shape its in: better than they had anticipated. Enough inspectors through the place have hinted that the oldest section, mine built in 1912, is the soundest and that any asbestos is properly abated. It is only a problem when exposed such as during demolition. While it is true that renovations over the years have stripped some of the original charm, there's still plenty in the large classrooms with chalkboards that stretch down entire walls. In one meeting, the developer said there was no character or chalkboards left. He's visited me twice and, apparently, hadn't noticed.
Carl had said he'd like me in the mix as an example of what can continue to happen in Milford Main. This is a reason I have kept Artsy Fartsy at Main through inspections, wall-busting and weeks of dust as the Rookwood fountain was removed. Programs like Artsy Fartsy that serve the community belong here. I dislike he idea that the school for kids on the autism spectrum will leave. They have been so happy here.
So 20-something turned out for our first meeting at Main and we had a healthy discussion and managed some organizing. I am eternally grateful to the neighbors who braved cold weather and closed doors to collect hundreds of signatures. Their take was that so many were in the dark and, once informed, not in favor of the massive development.
Like wildfire, this energy has spread. It gives me hope and courage that our elected representatives will do their job. The best thing to come out of all of this is meeting more good people who happen to be my neighbors.
• When has something dire brought people together?
What are examples of when even just one person has made a difference?
• What about democracy in action inspires me?
• How do I find freedom of speech sacred?
• How can I remain Spirit-led in trying experiences?*
I had all but
lost hope
turning the key
in the studio door
as often as I
could get there
praying over
the room and
down the halls
hosting my
Artsy Fartsy kids
with as much energy
as we could muster
and spraying
that all over
the building
and, just as the
forgotten paperwhites
bloomed from
cracked dirt and complete
disregard
life sprung into
action
neighbors
linked arms
and
together
worked for
the community
for
unity
My heart melted yesterday, but only after it was jolted by the blaring fire alarm just outside my studio door. I neither heard nor saw anything else, so grabbed my coat, phone and purse and headed outside. All was quiet. Hum, I thought, drill or real?
A few minutes later, the teachers, aids and students inside the school for those on the autism spectrum came filing out. Orderly. Not in a panic as I would have expected the alarm to trigger. Several had their ears covered. It had been so suspiciously silent most of the day that I had wondered if they were out of school. I have grown accustomed to, even fond of, the shirks, groans, singing and cries. That is once I got past the fact they were not expressions of pain, just expressions of living inside oneself.
As they streamed out, tagging onto each other and being pushed in wheel chairs, I noticed the extreme level of need some of these children live with. A kind teacher was gently bundling her charge up in a fleece blanket. All I could detect was the tassel of ginger hair trailing out of the soft, patterned volcano, like lava. I helped tuck her in a bit more snugly, feeling guilty that I'd had no one to tend but myself and time to grab my warm jacket. "She was already not feeling well today," her teacher remarked. She wasn't the only one struggling. All of them were freezing, so they began to huddle at the faraway fence, frozen as the two fire tricks and police cruiser screeched by. Finally a walkie-talkie revealed the coast was clear and the disrupted, red-cheeked kids and young adults were moved back inside. I ran ahead and held the door open, the VERY least I could do.
I typically meet some of the more able-bodied students during their recesses and walks or when they line up for the busses. We'll share a snippet of conversation or smiles. I had not understood that some are much less mobile and non-communicative. Wow. This school does an even more amazing job than I had previously credited it or its staff. Busy door holding, I looked up to see a teen girl in some sort of torso brace. Not uncomfortable, just necessary. I don't have a clue as to her issues or what job her paraphernalia performed. A wave of grief hit in a modicum of feeling for what her parents must experience. It wasn't pity, more a shred of empathy for her parents. I know how difficult is it to raise teenagers with just their normal amount of drama and hormones. What if I struggled to really communicate with them – past our petty control arguments and family gripes?
I am ever more grateful for the school just beyond the double doors for their care, nurturing and education of those with greater needs in our society. How incredible parents have this resource.
...
Last night, my book club discussed Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things, a book so poetically and lushly written with a haunting story that touched my core ... as no other has since I read Annie Dillard. The story of blurred lines, misshapen love and dysfunctional familial patterns that connect generations was profoundly sad, yet I wanted to read on. The twins the novel focuses on gripped my heart much as the children during the false fire alarm did.
Rahel and Estha are robbed of genuine love (we had some debate about whether their mother was a good one and concluded, given her history, she managed the best she could) but find a twisted version between themselves. Your heart aches because unconditional love is foreign to them. You even grieve for them.
And, at the same time, you selfishly become more grateful for your own world.
Mostly, the fictional and real children prove that even in terrible circumstance, there is life. It may not look like the norm, but there is that of God in each one of them. And you begin to believe that God draws them even closer.
• What breaks my heart?
• How do I let down defenses to let that happen?
• How is breaking allowing something to enter?
• What builds my compassion?
• How do I take that out into the world?
it usually
strikes in
the same place
not that
I've ever
really
located it
before
right at my
breastbone
in the middle
of my upper
chest
in the
hollow
and I have
to remind myself
to breathe
through
that it hurts,
but it is
also opening me
my
compassion
button
**Listen to this post:****
The debate today is which topic would be most meaningful to write about:
A) Boundaries and how I must keep them as I open my studio tonight to what could be some negative energy. Would be a good follow up to the last post on vulnerability.
B) How in certain, odd moments, Quakerism resonated so deeply within me that I think I was always Quaker.
C) The injustices and misinformation I witnessed attending a public hearing on the building I occupy with my studio.
D) All of the above.
Think I am settling on D because I can't seem to unbundle any of these threads.
Of course the place they connect is within me and my experiences this week. And they also focus on the fate of a place very near and dear to me: Milford Main School, where Artsy Fartsy was birthed and flourishes. I have been following the fate of this building for years, but most especially since I moved in the spring of 2012. It was always my understanding that is would not be a permanent home as the district was attempting to, somehow, disassociate from it.
For months, I have attempted to gauge the interest and energy level of the community in rescuing the building, but no one seemed interested. A group for preservation formed, but petered out. There's been a lot of talk and fond memories of Main, but no one has put their money where their mouth is until recently. A developer was the sole offer to the school district for the building. Many others passed it over. His plan is intense: 92 apartments aimed at seniors, wiping out so much of the space the public has come to rely on as theirs.
His plan has passed frighteningly fast through city re-zoning channels. Frighteningly. And it all came to a head Tuesday evening in a six-plus hour public hearing. I had thought this building remaining was a dead issue, until Tuesday. Something like 40:3 spoke in opposition to the plan, which dismantles the school. Maybe there is hope, I sang all the way home.
Which is why I agreed to host a meeting tonight in my safe space to see where the energy is flowing. However, some are only bent on stopping the current project, nothing more. And stopping it at almost any means. My view is that if the city could see a new vision, they may not feel so compelled and desperate to say yes to what's on the table. I am a creator, not a destroyer.
Unfortunately we have arrived in this space because of years of non-action and no one stepping up for the community. The district has not wanted the building in ages and the city, it turns out we learned Tuesday night, actually declined the district's free offer of it. Why was it quiet and no public discourse? Who made that decision for us?
We also learned that the district is tearing down two other schools, not historical like Main, giving the property on which one sits to the neighboring township for $1 and taxpayers will foot 73% of those tear-down costs. What if we'd rather those funds go to preserve Main? No one asked the public.
The public hearing was run more like a trial and unlike any I have ever experienced, which is pretty many with my long tenure as a local-government reporter. The city attorney facilitated the meeting insisting that everything be clear for "The Record" should this go to trial. Anyone who wished to speak had to be sworn in.
Did I just hear that, sworn in? I asked myself. Good thing I had written two letters and had not planned on speaking, because I would not have taken the oath. Quakers believe your word should always be impeccable, so there is no need to swear. I have asked the city attorney about that, but not yet received a reply. I also stood alone not saying the pledge of allegiance in that gathering. I have always thought it intolerable to pledge allegiance to a thing. Yes, the things represents our government, but that is not what rules my life. Of course I am law-abiding and respect and value our democratic process, which was in full form Tuesday evening. It wasn't until I became Quaker that I had a reason for that gut feeling. Quakers don't pledge to anything or one but God, otherwise it puts that person or thing above God in their view. Mine, too.
The developer and his expensive entourage had first crack at the public hearing and they all played to the council seated ahead of them on a platform above the audience. [Our Quaker Meeting disassembled its low-rise platform years ago so as not to place anyone at a higher level than another.] It was an hour and 45 minutes into the meeting before the public got its turn. The self-appointed time keeper, the attorney, said they had only taken 38 minutes. Besides not believing his accuracy, I heard almost a warning in those words, as if residents should shush themselves. They were limited to 2 minutes each, but that was never enforced.
After three-and-a-half hours, I left hearing nothing new in the last hour. I applaud the council members and residents that stayed until the bitter end, 1:15 a.m. I have never witnessed a public hearing lasting that long. Residents had a lot to say, perhaps more than one hearing can accommodate.
The fancy money spoke fancy and cited pedigrees. The middle-class residents spoke from the heart, some more eloquently than others, some very emotional and others twisting bits of truth. I grew somewhat uncomfortable with where I was sitting as a group hysteria formed: people cheering others on and jeering at comments with which they disagreed. At times, it felt more like a sporting event.
I merely listened.
So, what to DO with all of this? Extend the invitation, ask respect for the safety of the space, pray all day in the space and let Spirit do the rest.
• How do I keep healthy boundaries?
• How can I get sucked into others energy?
• Are there spiritual practices to keep me on track?
• How do I live with integrity?
• How do I let Spirit in on all aspects of my life?
a quiet
writing
day
eroded
by obnoxious
drilling
outside
seeping
through
the windows
into my
brain and
around
my heart
like a
lethal vine
drilling
that preceded
construction
as if it
were a
done
deal
when
it wasn't
agitated,
I wandered
to the
most silent
room
at the
interior
where,
by no
accident,
I discovered
the forgotten
bulbs
in parched,
cracked soil
sending up
green shoots
there is life
yet
in this
old building
**Listen to this post:****
My heart hurts for a friend, who opened her heart to another and the other chose to walk away. She gave completely, he took completely, then left. Left, I suspect, because, in his woundedness, he didn't know what to do with this precious gift. He may not have recognized it. My prayer is that she not take this upon herself or vow never to open again.
Vulnerability is difficult, even in the safest circumstance.
In our culture, we layer so many filters on top of our True Selves that we forget who we are, how we are. Much of the burden is the armor of our woundings, also our human need to feel in charge. Visually, I think of Adam and Eve in Paradise, naked, unburdened, content. That is how we are meant to be. Not clothed and hiding in darkness.
I remember in junior high all of the snickering when we watched films from a couple who traversed Africa. We were embarrassed by the nakedness. Even that young. The blatant, unassuming nakedness of Africans going about daily business. Perhaps we yearned for that same freedom.
Wouldn't it be simply energzing to strip ourselves and walk around with nothing to hide? It takes impossible amounts of energy to cloak our True Selves. Behind masks, material things, feelings, emotions, experiences, expectations, failures, mistakes, attitudes, stereotypes, roles and anything else we can latch onto.
| | | Offering/pastel & paint on paper |
One of the most courageous people I know has gone to great lengths to be who he really is, who he has always known he is. Assigned the wrong sex at birth, he eventually came to terms with his True Self thanks to a wise therapist and family support. He has taken extreme, but honest, measures to become more of who he is. He is a guiding light of exposing himself, being vulnerable.
That's one of the greatest lessons I desire to each my daughters: Be who you are! Not who I want you to be, who you think I want you to be or who anyone else feels you should be. With two teens, I observe them struggle to work this out. They're not even sure. Why should they be? Neither am I about myself.
Except I know for fact that that's all God really wants of us: to be our Truest Self. Vulnerability is one of the hardest destinations on the spiritual path, but the best introduction is to begin in prayer. In that quiet silence, I can remember who I am and, layer by layer, undress and give my naked self over. When I am really still, I unwrap my heart and offer it to God. That's all she wants from us.
Yet, complex as we humans are, we have to muck it up, draw it out and make it darn near impossible. And so often, when we give in that way to another person, we are wounded. Or, at least, we see it that way. Usually, it has nothing to do with ourselves, our True Selves, but the other, who can not accept or reciprocate.
When my girls were babies, I loved taking a bath with them, then holding them skin to skin, naked to naked. That's exactly how Spirit likes us, naked to naked. Nothing between.
How amazing is that when we can also do that with another human? And, if we are burned, we have to do it again and again. Otherwise we lose who we truly are.
• When am I most vulnerable?
• How have I experienced acceptance of that?
• When was I wounded as a result?
• Have I let that fester or air out and heal?
• When am I naked to naked with Spirit?
so heavy
the accumulation
years
of waxy buildup
molten together
in an awful
swampy color
and the stripping
painful
until the
lightness is
tangible
stirring
the
remembering
awakening
the one
that
I am
**Listen to this post:****
Just before before jumping into the shower, I set my phone to the Pandora bossa nova station, letting the cool rhythms overtake my psyche and body. I want my life to be a samba, I thought.
With that on my lips, I arrived in worship, a bit late, lingering too long to the slower rhythm of the music. Our minister's message was about how things get in our way, crowding out God.
| | | I grew up with this album, allowing it to transport me somewhere special |
I want my life to be a samba, I heard again, then shared in worship.
I want my life to be a samba. Smooth, rich, full of grace and a deep contentment impervious to the giddiness of individual events and momentary accumulation of stuff.
Let me flow and glide by guidance, I silently asked Spirit.
I had spotted a wonderful young neighbor friend in our midst that morning. Seeing her draped in a colorful pashmina, she looked as if she'd always worshipped with us. "I wanted quiet this morning," she confessed. We retreated to fellowship afterward, sharing coffee, snacks and conversation with a table of women. It was easy and full of grace.
I slid on over for my free Starbucks and a few minutes of reading and initiating a marketing plan for my husband. I didn't have to do it now, but I wanted to. So many wonderful ideas floating around, I risked losing them if not captured in the moment. When they were sufficiently lassoed into the Word file, I unplugged my laptop, noticing it was exactly time to leave for my appointment with my spiritual director.
We hadn't met since June and I had felt the need for balanced advice on discerning my current direction in life. At a crossroads with my non-profit work, the need for helping fund my daughters' college, a second job interview and discovering, then applying for a dream job, I sought guidance. My own faith community is too close and tied to my ministry and the new minister in my life has already said he will do whatever it takes to keep encouraging me in my ministry. "You shine here and it's your passion," he has said.
I needed that affirmation and what he says is true. Yet not ALL parts of the ministry are my passion, particularly right now as the building I inhabit is closer to abandonment and demolition and with that, a gloomy shadow, as well as the arduousness of forming a legal non-profit that overwhelms me to the point I have been dragging me feet for months.
So I e-mailed Mary and she said she could see me Sunday afternoon. Perfect timing.
I arrived on the dot of 2:30 and, while she heated water for tea, fingered the wonderful assortment of books on her shelves. Many I have or would want to have. She arrived with steaming cups, we sat and I spilled my heart. My biggest concern is that I follow what God wants for me. Her response, "Well, then, follow the energy. Pay attention to what gives you energy and what robs you." She recommended the Ignatian Examen, also a traditional Quaker practice of reflecting each evening on where God was visible during the day, where there was grace and where there wasn't.
How could she know I was looking for a tool? I hadn't, even. We spoke more and I blurted out things not yet articulated: fears, joys, concerns, dreams, goals, threats. All of it.
She noted my enthusiasm for a job posting. "But I've just applied and don't even have an interview," I protested. She was noticing the energy around the idea of the job. "Pay attention," she prodded.
In 60 minutes, I had poured everything possible out, been heard, affirmed and given an exercise to help me identify the energy.
"I am so very sorry to have bothered you on a Sunday," I said on the way out her door. "Absolutely now worries," she gently commanded, "Sunday is MY work day."
We agreed to touch base in a month and I was deliciously grateful for the sound advice and the (re) discovery of a tool to help me decipher where the energy is in my life.
I ambled home to a family re-assembling from multiple destinations. I received a glimpse of gratitude, recognizing there won't be too many more re-gathering Sundays as my high schoolers begin to make their own paths and ways in life. Today had been seamless and smooth. All part of the samba.
Sunday is my husband's dinner duty, so I had time to reflect on my spiritual-direction session and begin this blog. After dinner, I sank into a warm couch with my oldest for an episode of Downton Abbey, then tiptoed off to bed and a rare, sound sleep dreaming of the Girl from Ipanema and ...
"When she walks, she's like a samba
That swings so cool and sways so gently"
• When is my life like a samba?
• What makes it so?
• What is my desired rhythm?
• How is it also Spirit's rhythm?
• Where do I see the grace and energy in my life?
music is
the tonic
of change
its rhythm
draws in
the soul,
reshapes
whatever is
troubling
lifts spirits
into the
stratosphere
where the
giver of music
resides
**Listen to this post:****
I don't like to get political in this space, but I just have to say that I am disappointed by local government. My school district and my city. Certainly, they have done some very good things. But when it comes to a prime and public piece of real estate, they have failed miserably.
And yet, maybe the public has a role here as well. We ALL have been terrible stewards of the Milford Main School. All talking about how important is it, but doing little to change anything. Yes, there was
an advisory committee that trumpets how it
made the recommendation some years ago for the district to divest itself of the building and even some ideas on repurposing it. However, the district always seemed clear it was not their job to re-purpose and has limped along thanks to tenants who discovered the charming, if less than perfect, and reasonably priced space. We're here to educate, they sing, while constructing new elementaries and upgrading other buildings. They have an operations manager.
For years, I have heard the city was offered the building and declined, yet council has voted to purchase and raze a downtown gas station for parking and a building at the Little Miami Trail head.
And the public LOVES the building, yet any recent effort to do anything with it has been invisible. Years of talk and inaction bring us to where we are now: at the knees of a developer who insists on a density higher than typically allowed, and a new zoning. Why the zoning variance for the higher density was approved, 3-2, before the actual zone change (from institutional to multi-family) seems so backward and reactionary to me. We have a city admitting they are deciding development issues on a case-by-case basis, abandoning and having not renewed a 1997 land-use plan in which the community participated.
I sat through three-plus hours of an initial public hearing in which the clear majority of speakers, yes mainly affected residents, objected to the density and massiveness of the proposed 92-apartment structure for seniors. I understand there was standing-room only at the last hearing and yet the project was approved.
Now on to city council Feb. 3
The developer has gone to great lengths to find a suitable project that meets a need, makes money, complements his Riverwalk development and is palatable enough to get approved. He has said he desires the highest and best use. I say the city ought to be looking for the best use. This has been public property after all to which many children have had access for running around at recess, playing in the gaga pit, tossing some baskets, riding bikes and skateboards. Not to mention church and event parking. That will be reduced to a 4,000 square-foot triangle at the five points intersection and 190 parking spaces to be shared by 92 one-to-three bedroom units and the churches.
The two affected churches have written letters of support of the project to the city. I was somewhat surprised. The developer approached me, too, and I politely declined. It's a lovely project, but I am not sure this is the best plan for this site.
If things progress surprisingly swiftly as they have and the measure moves through council so easily, we'll have to accept this major change in our neighborhood. I certainly hope it fills a need, is successful and accommodates seniors, otherwise it will be marketed to whomever can afford the $1200-$1500 monthly rent.
I hope we learn the lesson of what happens when we are reactive, not proactive here. Had we been proactive, there would be a new plan designating a very studied and beneficial use for the land that benefits all. And, if a developer came along and deviated, s/he could be denied. Better yet, maybe we'd be planning a community center funded by a bond issue, grants and private donations that we could all enjoy.
It's not too late for other properties such as the former Millcroft Inn and vulnerable, historic landmarks.
Sadly, even though 46 students trudge in every weekday with their teachers, aides, principal and staff, the St. Andrews kids storm in lunch and the hand full of artists still make art, Main has lost it's shine. The 1912 portion of the building I occupy is never cleaned unless I do it, all sorts of inspectors and workmen stomp in leaving their trash, dirty footprints, disturbing me by helping themselves to my studio and poking holes in walls looking for asbestos, leaving swirls of dust and debris. And no one else cares.
That's a sorry lesson to convey to Artsy Fartsy kids: that no one else cares about the space that has been sacred for us. They already typically feel as if no one cares. On the upside, it's not about the location, our efforts and energy will thrive other places.
If you have an opinion, write city council or attend the Feb. 3 meeting when it will be discussed.
**Listen to this post:****
January was supposed to be my month "off," a respite from the previous, dizzying year and holiday season. It began on a relaxing note with a re-grouping retreat and, listening to collective widom, unscheduling the January session of Artsy Fartsy. Of course, I didn't feel as if I could completely abandon the kids, so I prepared, with the help of my oldest, art kits with supplies and activities, then sauntered up to their complex in almost sub-zero weather with my youngest to leave them at each door.
When I'd met with a potential Artsy Fartsy board member at the end of the year, he'd wondered out loud why I was taking January off. "This is when you should be planning," he mentioned supportively. Well, yes, that was what I intended. Taking time off from the everyday busyness to look at the BIG picture and spend reflective, prayerful time seeking God's direction. He – the man, not God – suggested developing a business plan and accompanying financials. Did I mention I also had two grants due?
When I thought I'd take off the month, I had not envisioned writing a deep and truthful letter to the city planning commission about the proposed re-zoning for Milford Main. That took effort and energy, but I felt as if God was pleased. Nor the workmen who kept entering my studio, then knocking out walls searching for asbestos. They threatened the safety and security of my space. I don't know how easily that can be restored.
Least of all, I had not expected the call for a job interview as a PR/media strategist. I thought, what the heck, why not? The call came Monday and they wanted me Wednesday. I had planned no work for Tuesday, my birthday. Fortunately, my resume was together, but work samples were not. Yet, I also tempered my efforts with the thought that this was just a conversation.
Indeed, it was a good one. Maybe too good. I loved the synergy of the workplace, the type of work this organization does and the complexity of the job. I could easily imagine working under this boss and in this small group within the larger body. I felt like we clicked. That is, if I actually wanted the job. Do I want it or want to be wanted?
I'd prayed to God earlier to make this easy. She complied, though I am not sure she heard the rest of my pleas: "Make the path clear." EXCEPT ...
Tuesday, I'd raced through my morning swim, attempting to get done in time to take my daughter to school. All night long I struggled with shoulder-blade pain ... and into the next day. Because I had the interview, I stretched the shoulder, applied an Amish-cream remedy, then popped Ibuprofen. It was enough to get me through the interview. Wednesday evening it began to really bother me and there was no way to get comfortable in bed.
Thursday's saving grace was a previously scheduled massage. As I struggled with the pain (interesting how one single spot can affect so much of your body and movement), I began to wonder if this was God being clear: you can't handle a full-time job right now.
During the interview, I certainly felt that I could. In the aftermath, I reconsidered. My massage therapist/shaman/pastoral counselor sent me from his table to the chiropractor with a dis-aligned rib. Ouch. Aggressive swimming. During our talk (we do that, then get into the body work), he suggested that I had plenty of clarity. "You seem to understand and see the whole picture," he said. "What you need is guidance." That stopped me. He was right; I had plenty of clarity – perhaps too much.
I don't believe God causes pain for any reason, including in order for us to shift direction. I am aware of some of its causes in my case, but it sure seems to get in the way. Mostly the way of living a regular, normal life.
Why do I seem to covet that at times? Because it seems easier going with the flow. Swimming upstream is hard work (ask my ribs). A story I just read and I movie I treated myself to resonated deeply with me about being who you are.
The story of the Fourth Wiseman was all about his journey to find the baby Jesus based on the Truth he got from a particular star. He missed the opportunity to meet with with the other three when he stopped to nurse a sick Jew along the way. He kept stumbling into needy people all through his travels, finally giving away the last treasure he had carried for when he met Jesus. The Wiseman arrived in Jerusalem just as the earth was quaking and Jesus was dying. He tumbled and hit his head, dying in the arms of a woman he'd rescued from slavery with a precious pearl. The woman overheard a conversation between the man and a strangely sweet voice. The man was saying how he had looked and looked for Jesus, only to just miss him. The voice replied he had seen Jesus in every face of every person he had helped.
Though VERY different, the story of genius mathematician Alan Turing is also of one committed to another path. Turing's honesty brought him undue suffering for being truthful about who he was (a homosexual living in England when it was against the law) to the point of ending his own life. While alive, he would never know what he began: the fields of computer science and morphogenesis, mathematically revealing how cells differentiate to form shape and attributes such as stripes or spots.
Right now, I see several paths personally. Spirit, please help me chose the one that brings me closest to you.
• What measure do I take to step back from life and seek God's input?
• When do I take a respite?
• What spiritual practices support that?
• What daily spiritual practices help me take the longer view?
• Where am I on my path right now?
through the haze of
busyness and
dizziness
it's awfully
hard to see
what lays ahead
or remove
oneself altogether
to step back
and see things
clearly
relying on
God's vision
**Listen to this post:****
In celebration of writing Salon for the Soul for five years, I am looking back at my most-popular blogs, sharing their essence and patterns and, wondering, what the over-arching message may be. What speaks to people? Apparently surrender, handing over our brokenness, relying on God, following Jesus, finding our gifts in community, blaring at God out of loneliness and seeing ourselves as wounded healers. Thank you for the honor of sharing myself and hoping that, sometimes, Salon for the Soulreflects your thoughts, beliefs and experiences.
1 Spiritual nakednessLay your burden at the feet of Christ.Give yourself unto me.With those words murmured into my heart during worship, I was able to begin to truly surrender. I have been moving toward this process since June, when Spirit commanded me to lay down on a pew in a Meeting that wasn't my own and surrender.Sunday, I did lay my troubles at Jesus' feet and gave the rest to God. Suddenly, I felt jolted awake, reallyawake. A golden light invaded me and I experienced a wonderful lightness. For me, this is surrender.And, I believe I must do it everyday. Every, single one.
Full text: http://salonforthesoul.blogspot.com/2013/11/spiritual-nakedness.html
2 Please, use my brokennessI awoke with a new prayer on my lips and in my heart yesterday:Please, use my brokenness.Certainly, I have prayed for healing and for God to use me, but never to use my brokenness. Before the words formed, there was an image of a mosaic, specifically the cement binding all of the broken pieces together and I knew that's where God, silently and mysteriously, resides. If I can admit that I am I pieces and give them to God, then something transformative can happen. Nothing of my own volition can make this change. I have to totally surrender and let God work.Am I brave enough for that surrender?
Full text: http://salonforthesoul.blogspot.com/2011/11/please-use-my-brokenness.html
3 Present in the midstFRIDAYDriving home from Cleveland, I noticed a peaceful patch of woods and longed to be there, out in Nature and away from the artificiality of the hospital.SATURDAYI so craved Mother Nature to recover from the week. After peaking outside, I knew my recovery meant getting out there.SUNDAYAs I sat in worship, soaking in the sacredness, someone smelling of soap and sausage plopped next to me. Permeated, I reluctantly opened my eyes to my friend Patia. "I thought you could use an angel," she said as she kissed my cheek and offered her hand. MONDAYHurriedly walking to yoga, then catching the silken sky reminded me of how much more there is to life than my current obsessions. "Lift me out of my littleness," I murmured as a prayer. WEDNESDAYIn my sacred, Quaker Meetinghouse, joyfully finalizing details for a workshop on sacred pain with a beloved partner, I spot a voicemail message. My father says my mother has been moved out of the ICU. THANK YOU, I sing and dance.THURSDAYI sink my teeth back into centering prayer, almost strangled by the phrase "the end of time.” Not end of the world or humanity, but the end of time. I live so constrained by time. Pushed and rushed. What would it be like to live outside of time? To do and act when Divinely inspired?FRIDAYMy youngest wakes up sick and I am anxious about bringing my mom back next week. The anxiety mounts. I remind myself that I've had a few terrific days making spiritual connections. That I have felt God present and that she will figure all of this out. The burden is not mine.Oh yeah, I remember.
Full text: http://salonforthesoul.blogspot.com/2013/11/present-in-midst.html
4 A Quaker considers guns
I really do wonder how Jesus would handle this. I think he'd take a deeper look at society and see where we are failing and demand we fix it. First, however, he'd probably walk up, unarmed, to the shooter taking his chances and look him in the eye, witnessing his wholeness and goodness, not just the evil he projects. After all, the shooter is as much a child of God as his victims.
My heart is not legislated by human law, but by Spirit’s. Life is about constantly dying; none of it is easy. Dying from our ego and into Divine union. I do not fear death; to me it’s the ultimate surrender. Of course, I don’t wish to die violently, at the hands of a shooter, but my prayer would be that I could look that person in the eye and see that of God in them.Maybe if that had happened once, the shooter would not even have a gun.
Full text: http://salonforthesoul.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-quaker-considers-guns.html
5 Surrender as a giftSpiritual gifts, a topic near and dear to me, have been on my mind and heart as I read and prepare for a full-day retreat on an annual Quaker renewal day.Of course, I have plenty of play planned. Play that gets us out of our heads and into our hearts, where we may better discern our gifts and those of others. The person who can look inside and see it all clearly is in the minority. Most of us need encouragement and nurture from each other. "It is the faith community's responsibility to name giftedness of its members because we cannot see ourselves clearly," Lloyd Lee Wilson writes in Essays on the Quaker Vision of Gospel Order.When that happens it “frees the individual from fear, hesitation and caution,” according to Quaker Marty Grundy, who also taught me that the burden of translation, when listening deeply, prayerfully, to another is on the listener. I call it listening by heart, beyond the words and to the other person's heart.Perhaps seeing gifts in another is a similar process. A looking beyond the surface, deeper, to that place God resides in each of us.Full text: http://salonforthesoul.blogspot.com/2013/09/surrender-as-gift.html#6 At odds with GodGod, I am blaring, what am I supposed to do right now?For Pete’s sake, I’ve been discerning your message from June asking me to surrender. I can’t even be clear on that with the help of a clearness committee. First it seemed I was to give up the rigidity of the fibromyalgia. But it got worse, not better. And, in this time, I have discovered healing energy in my hands, even consciously used them on another. Now I understand my propensity to touch someone when they are hurting. Do I surrender to this?Next I thought it was about direction and vocation. Now it seems more about finance and livelihood. I keep reading about the path of descent making one holier and more pure. I tire of that path. I don’t know anyone else on it. It’s lonely and painful.
Full text: http://salonforthesoul.blogspot.com/2013/10/at-odds-with-god.html#7 Other side of graceThree days ago I felt tested, much like my Quaker friend Patia described about her own life Sunday. "God tests those closest to him," she'd said.So it was with surprise and gratitude I responded to my 13-year-old's request to walk the local labyrinth. I couldn't help noticing how much each quadrant of the sacred pathway resembled a section of the brain. Perhaps this is why a walking meditation works so well for me – it quiets my mind, I surmised. A tapping webinar I stumbled onto demonstrated how this process can release the body from its frozen state between fight or flight in the amygdala, the part of the brain that the labyrinth mimics, and trigger relaxation. So relaxed and unfrozen, I encountered a friend who practices healing touch. "You have the gift," she told me after experiencing it. "Yes," I replied, "when I can get myself out of the way” which, she admitted, was the challenge. She encouraged asked me to center and place my hands on her injured ribs. I felt the surge again and so did she. We just stood there touching each other tenderly. "This is what real connection means, doesn't it?" I finally asked, breaking the silence. "Yeah it really is. I felt things settle, what did you feel?""The energy, but I also saw green.""Love," she said with a smile."The heart chakra," I chimed in.Wounded healers, we agreed.
Full text: http://salonforthesoul.blogspot.com/2013/09/other-side-of-grace.html
**Listen to this post:****
Saturday, I gave myself the luxury of spending an entire day on retreat, delving into the lessons of 2014 and looking ahead to 2015. I had planned to do the same last year, but awoke sick and cancelled. Fortunately, the leader walked me through the exercises, which I completed on my own. It took several weeks and I gained a new spiritual director as a result.
I was raring to go this year. At 3 p.m. after a 9 am start, the leader asked what our energy levels were and did we want to knock off early. No way, I said, I was ready to keep moving in this contemplative manner. And so we plodded on.
| | | Trinity collage |
The culmination of the retreat is selecting your word for the new year. You choose after you have mapped out the last year, looked at blessings and burdens and decided what will move forward and what will not. My map was a full-on disaster. Not in the things listed, actually many were blessings, but in the amount. No wonder I struggle with fibro, I thought when I looked at the riot of people, places, events, things for which I am grateful, things I would do differently, ideas that have matured, and the ways I have changed. And when I struck out VERY few to leave behind, it was all too clear that most of the mess will not be moving with me.
Last year's word was purification. After my new spiritual director handed it to me and I dashed to the car, the tears formed. I didn't want this word. Yet, on further reflection and meditation (which the retreat encourages), it did fit because, in a sense, it means freedom. My cinquen, a simple poem, for entering 2014 was:
bold, trusting
energetic, content, balanced
becoming, embracing, loving, freeing
empowered
Looking back, what it turned out to be was:
awareness, balance
gratitude, retreat, love
surrender, consent, blessed, gifted
seamless
I want a seamless life, I noted in my journal. Seamless as in whole and no distinction between spirituality and life. I am beginning to recognize the fruits of the Spirit ( love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control, according to Galations 5:22-23) as the result of life in the Spirit.
In continuing to process 2014 via collage, I unconsciously created a trio (trinity) of panels:
1) Releasing the pain, messiness and ugliness of myself to Spirit. Giving it ALL up when we've had enough and understand its not to ours to fix and eventually, surrender into the waiting arms of Jesus.`
2) Recognizing that with broken, jaded eyes all we see is brokenness and division. When the scales have been lifted, we see the Truth and God's reality that there really is no separation, not from birth and death, any thing or any one. All personal experience emanates from the Holy Spirit, God with me.
3) Consenting to God's constant invitation in the midst of both beauty and chaos. This is one step beyond surrender and one of consent to the empty chair God always holds open for us.
From this, I was able to create my "I am" statements:
I am the one healed by consenting to God's invitation .
I am the one who has received new eyes grounded in love, truth, reality and wholeness.
I am the one who consents to live in and with the Mystery of Spirit.
I am one.
I am.
I am seamless.
| | | Sophia collage |
We were so nurtured during this time with an abundance of materials, hospitality, beautiful space inside and out, openness, accompaniment and delicious food. Just last month, my pastoral counselor/shaman said I needed more nurturing. That I was burned out. This retreat was wonderful tonic.
After pumpkin-curry soup, a berry-studded salad, flowing drinks and chocolate, then some more reflection time, I was eager to select my new word.
Wisdom. Wow, such a sift.
My first thought was of Sophia and divine wisdom, then my encounter last September with a snake, another symbol of divine wisdom. I chanted my words (wisdom–Sophia-snake) as I walked outside in the warm rain, muddying my boots and traipsing over mole tunnels. Then I came in to journal and the message to relax in, inside, into wisdom, into my inner wisdom emerged. It is God calling me home, much as Dorothy discovers when the ruby slippers she's been wearing will take her home. I have always had the power within.
Sophia
beauty
something ancient
calling me home
golden, wise, revered
home is embedded, imprinted
always been with me
wherever I travel
beyond time
own it
I choose to bask in my own Sophia.
• What am I carrying forward from 2014?
• Where have I witnessed Spirit?
• Where do I hope to encounter God?
• Where am I on the spectrum of surrender and consent?
• What is my poem or word for 2015?
**Listen to this post:****
Weekend before last, I trekked east about an hour to reunite with five friends from freshman year in college. We go back a fair bit, you could say. We generally meet every five years and, for this visit, I selected a refurbished 1900s hunting lodge in the Highlands Nature Sanctuary, a part of the Arc of Appalachia, with the mission of reuniting the Appalachian Forest. It's a good, central meeting point because we travel from Cleveland, OH, to Nashville and points between. Lucky for me, Cincinnati is about midway.
Highlands is the former Seven Caves attraction, which has been closed to grow the bat population. When we stopped at the former gift shop, now museum, library and guide station, one college friend, the plant pathologist for the State of Tennessee, carried on quite a conversation about the white mold that's diminished bats. Fortunately, the attendant said, it hadn't reach Highlands; another reason the walkways, electricity and tourist traffic were removed from the caves.
This slice of beauty seems to maintain the perfect balance between nature and man, preservation and cultivation, awareness and relaxation. The lodge and surrounding trails were perfect for our group's reconnection. I arrived first – barely. The drive out State Route 50 was slow and beautiful, easing me into a more contemplative rhythm. Peering down the paved path from the drive, I spotted more than enough white rockers for our group and took that as a welcome sign. Inside, I dropped my bags and just sighed. This was it, the place I have been searching for: rustic, but not antiquated, preserved, but not stuffy. Seems the original 1920s wicker in terrific shape has been retained. Five bedrooms with two single beds each line the sides of the lodge. In the center is a fire place and staircase to the lower level of kitchen, prep area, large dinging room and porched piazza. Upstairs are two living rooms, a large porch with swings, two more intimate, closed porches and a bathroom with double toilets and showers. This would be just fine, I told myself, scrambling to think of other opportunities to rent this gem.
We arrived in clumps, all within an hour or so of my entrance. And, the parade of food never stopped. We began to wonder just how long we'd intended to stay, but with a gathering of mothers, we never go hungry nor run out of conversation. I think we all wished the weekend wouldn't end.
After a late night chatting – some into the wee hours – we shared breakfast (pumpkin waffles and maple syrup) and headed out for a hike. Two planners selected the trail, but we opted to stop at the station. Unfortunately, with four of us crammed in the back, the driver hit an undetected old stone. Ouch, her SUV said. Its owner was much more gracious. Back on the narrow roads, we passed the hidden trail, then backtracked, parked and walked to the river. I happily crossed into the water and over stones in my Vibram Five Fingers, my yoga shoes with separate toe compartmments. I caught some flack earlier for wearing them, but squishing in the mud is wonderful. Dead end. The trail began on the other side of the road. Go figure, it wasn't visible from the car and literature mentioned it wouldn't be as they encourage hiking, but want to preserve and return the forest.
It was a beautiful hike on an Indian summer afternoon flanked by women I grew up with: through finals and flirting, serious relationships and break-ups, good roomies and bad. I was so intent on listening to a conversation as we walked single file, that I lifted my eyes from the trail and tangle of roots only momentarily when, I felt a glacial shiver in reaction to contact with something cold and slimy on my ankle. Instinctively, I walked past until my mind ached to know what sort of mud would reach only above my foot and not encase the rest of the shoe. Not mud, but a very long, writhing and rising snake, unhappy with the close encounter. We all took many giant steps away and watched as it seethed from being disturbed. I felt empathy – from a distance. I hadn't mean to disturb this creature and seemed to have stepped up against its coil, not directly on it.
I wouldn't get close enough to identify it, but we were pretty certain it wasn't a rattler or copperhead. Even in that moment of recognition, I felt as if this were a symbolic experience, not necessarily a visceral one. That thought was reinforced minutes later when, on another path, an even longer, very black serpent of sorts slithered across into an old shed. In all my years of visiting the Smokies and heading out solo once to the desert to paint and realizing that was ridiculous, I've never seen a big snake outside of glass. Then two within the hour? We were all a little stunned.
We returned to the cabin warm and sweaty, ready for showers and a cold beer. There was a squeal as Deb discovered a wide worm in the drain. What sort of conspiracy was this? Alone, she probably wouldn't have thought twice about collecting him and tissue and letting him loose off the front porch. But a third slimy thing?
When I returned home and caught up my best friend, she automatically said it meant that I had brushed with something dark and it hadn't harmed me. That I had gotten past unscathed. Interesting, I thought and, later googled the symbolism of the snake. I wasn't expecting its significance: primal energy, life source, healing, transformation and ... purification. Wasn't that the VERY same word my spiritual director drew for me at the beginning of the year; my word for the year?
The snake or serpent also signifies spiritual guidance, a period of transition or personal growth, stepping into the unknown, needing support and a reminder to stay grounded as one moves through changes. These are big ideas that do mean something in my life. They connect to other events and experiences. I see them as hopeful and positive, perhaps not always easy.
However, when I read that the snake represents our vital energy, coiled at the base of the spine and the movement of kundalini, I was reminded of my last shamanic/massage session two days before the snakes appeared. I had asked for opening and, of course, hip work. My careful therapist waited til the end to get to the hips, especially the one injured so many years ago. And, he actually got a part to unlock. "That old, stubborn thing," I'd carelessly remarked. "It doesn't know any different than to hold all of that energy," Gary responded. So I have been gentler, waiting ... for the snake, I suppose.
• When have I had an encounter with an animal that held a message?
• How aware was I in that moment?
• What were the circumstances?
• What did I learn?
• What place do I believe animals hold in the world?
geared up to
relax and play
with longtime,
close-knit
women
we quickly
shed our
filters and
inhibitions
of the five years
since we'd met
face to face
all of us
rekindling
the bonds of
innocence and
growth we collectively
experienced
and, together, we
took the untrodden
path, hard to
locate, yet beautiful
and terrifying as
we stumbled
upon him,
clothed just as
the forest floor
brushing past,
awakening his
seething energy,
then letting
him reassemble
as we
more carefully
wound our
way around
and out of
the woods
together
**Listen to this post:****
Confession: [I seem to do that a lot here] I have a thing for mannequins that I think stems from an incident as a young adult – and I blame my mother.
She and I were downtown Cincinnati walking across the Pogue's bridge between the store and parking garage. That should give you a clue as to how long ago it was. Of the three or four major department stores in town when I grew up, Pogue's was the smaller and more upscale of them. It closed in the 1980s. I digress. As we were tromping over the street on the enclosed bridge, I looked down into onto the street and a dumpster full of precious treasure: full-body, lime green, flocked female mannequins. Stiff limbs outstretched as if awaiting rescue. Patient to find a good home. MY home. Someone had actually thrown them out. No matter how much I bargained, I could not convince my mother to help me retrieve them, let along finagle them into the trunk. "All you'd have to do is hoist me," I pleaded. Wasn't like it was illegal or anything, but it was broad daylight. My mind raced with the possibilities as I churned over how to get them myself. Impossible. I had to let that one go.
Over the years, I have tried to replace those glowing-green gals. I even dream about them sometimes. Where would they be now? How would I have used them? Would they still be flocked or well-worn?
I once invested in a soft-grey sewing form, later to find a lone mannequin head that I pieced together to attend my 1950s bar cart and several Halloween parties. Kids came and she was relegated to the basement. No room and her constant lurking in the shadows always caught me off guard. I resold her to an equally ecstatic guy, whom I am certain gave her a very creative, loving home. I hope. The head is somewhere floating in the basement, along with Sheniqua. She's a cosmetologist's model. The kind with flowing hair and a face ripe for make-up. I inherited her because my aquatics instructor's family was spooked by her. Mine was, too, so she's hidden and will give whomever finds her a jolt.
What is this pleasure derived from body parts? I do have a dark side and sense of the macabre, but there's just something so darned interesting about these half-finished creatured. They can become almost anything. A canvas of sorts.
So it as with much pleasure I stumbled upon a crop of them freshly delivered to the local St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Shop a few nights ago. "Guy on a Harley with black trailer dropped them off," the attendant offered as he was cooping them up for the night. "They be here in the morning?" I asked, wanting to make sure my studio could accommodate another object and knowing I may be moving. "Yeah, they're not even priced yet and we may be keeping a few."
Lily was with me as I inspected the crated lot: one VERY tall one on a collapsable stand, a few short one on pedestals and some teetering on their own from the buttocks up. All very clean except for one with rings around the appropriate appendages. I posted a photo on Facebook and most comments asked what I was waiting for ... thinking time, how I could justify these purchase.
When I realized we were making a scary movie for the next Artsy Fartsy Saturdays, the arts exploration for 4-6th graders I lead, I knew who the star could be ... part from the kids, that is. I was all set to return the next morning before they were gobbled up.
Only I didn't. Other things reared their heads that morning and I traipsed off to the studio totally forgetting my mission of the night before. Something made me remember -- maybe a call from the lifeless forms themselves echoing how their flocked cousins had bellowed to me years ago. Maybe my sense of adventure and fun.
Who knows, but I returned to the store to see them all boldly displayed outside, front and center. I was elated and began choosing. A different attendant from the previous night encouraged me to look closely because missing parts prevented them from attaching to the stands. Ooohhh, that changed things. He pointed to the tall one with the rings. "She's the one that works," he said pushing her form higher up on the metal bars until she reached an intimidating height. I had almost settled on her until we realized she could not be separated from her stand and how problematic moving and storing her could be. So, I removed the tag from one that stood on her own haunches and looked pretty clean. "Good thing you didn't pick the one who looks like her boobs were dragged through the mud," the cashier congratulated me. Silently, I think we both wondered what happened to her on that ride behind the Harley in a trailer. I am envisioning a Stephen King story now.
I paid, then swept her under my arm and was about to whisk her into the trunk, when a woman who could have caught a fly by the way her face was positioned in gawking at me remarked: "What the heck are you gonna do with that?" I quickly replied "Halloween," which wasn't a complete lie, but not entirely the truth either. No matter the season, I would have bought her.
No imagination, I thought, then changed my mind about the trunk and placed her next to me in the front, passenger's seat: my new companion.
• What makes me crazy with creativity?
• Are there certain things that really get my juices flowing?
• When have I made an insane purchase based on nothing but elation?
• How come some just can't see the possibilities?
• When does my (inner) artist come out to play?
enraptured from
the moment the
sun struck their
felty neon skin
only to NOT
possess them
I was haunted,
searching for
a substitute
creating them
from pieces,
never satisfied
until a mysterious
driver on a Harley
dumped his stash
including the one
with dirt circles
around her chest
and her partner,
now mine, has
the best story yet
**Listen to this post:****
HOO-ray, today is the FIRST day of fall, the autumnal equinox, and my absolute, hands-down, favorite season for a myriad of reasons – not all explainable. I was married this time of year (we'll soon be celebrating 28) and my oldest, Autumn, was born Oct. 1. I didn't mind that she was 10 days late, arriving in what I consider the best month. "You can make it until then," I internally chanted.
The sky was different this morning: cold-weather cloudy with a cast of filmy mystery foreshadowing the most playful of holidays. Late afternoon as I perch on my back porch (it's much too beautiful to be indoors, where I sat all day in a productive meeting), a cloudless cerulean slate permeates a just-arrived crispness. Its crunch infuses the September air. The crickets are deep in conversation and a stray cicada adds dissonance.
I could linger here ... now that my allergies have settled. The march from summer to fall takes a personal toll on anyone residing in the Cincinnati dust bowl. These transitions can be unkind and unwelcome. I make great allowances for autumn.
I feel more alive this time of year even when I understand it's the harbinger of death, decay, hibernation and isolation. Sweater weather, the riot of colors that cue each other, harvest time, pumpkins, hayrides, ghosts, bonfires and football games stir my soul. I want to be outdoors as much as possible and suck life's marrow. Three-quarters of the year is over, for which I am eternally grateful, but there is still the promise of the dark night, winter. My obsession with dusk stems from the same observation as if the day surrenders with a brilliant stroke of color only to be engulfed by the blackness. That surge of pigment is the essence of life.
If you know me or my blog, you recognize that I have no problem bumbling around in the darkness. I know that place well and, when winter rolls around, am generally ready to turn inward and reflect. Fall, however, is its antithesis. The time I want to be outside and gregarious, cheerful and fun-loving in, of all things, groups. Autumn elicits my inner extravert. I want to play in the leaves and mess up those perfect piles.
Perhaps I feel the natural balance, when day equals night, of the season and I know how to claim that in my life for a brief while. Playfulness abounds, shoving worry and darkness aside. How can I be so affected by air, light, temperature and Mother Nature? And if that's what makes me come alive, how can I recreate that effect when I am withering in sweltering humidity or under constant grey sky?
This also speaks to where I am in chronological life. And I am feeling the burst of creativity and desire to leave a legacy of color, compassion and a little spirited fun.
• How does the change of seasons affect me?
• How does my favorite make me come alive?
• How do my rhythms reflect nature's?
• Where do I see Spirit in the transitions?
• When am I most playful?
even if I hadn't
glanced at the small
print in my planner
or heard a snippet
of the morning
news
I would have
known
known that
summer's
light had begun
to fade and
shorten
that 6:30 am
seemed darker
and denser
that the sunrise
was ripe
dancing in
with a
new partner
**Listen to this post:****
| | | Our freshman corridor portrait |
Logging into my computer, I am reminded of them and that time. My password is my nickname (oops, now everyone knows) Rosie, earned back then. College can be a precious time. Mine was and I look ahead to my high schoolers and hope the same for them.
In a few hours I will be on my way to our every-five years' reunion that began when we all turned 40. We stayed very connected beyond graduation, attended each other's weddings and began to drift after long-term men and children arrived.
| | | Ox College, now Oxford Community Arts Center |
The seven of us, plus a few more, were randomly thrown together freshman year in a very old dormitory at the far edge of campus removed from the more-modern quads. At first glance, it seemed like a catastrophe – a recipe for loneliness and isolation. Turned out it was anything but. Now, we all feel privileged that we had the opportunity to live in such a beautiful, unique building complete with parquet-floored ballroom, auditorium, marble-stalled bathrooms, antique-studded study rooms and stuffy Victorian parlors where ancient yearbooks were stashed in benches. The place had a patina and oozed a certain austerity from its days as "Oxford Female College." I am certain we contributed to erasing that aura at what we affectionately called "Ox."
| | | The ballroom, site of the Ox College Spring Cotillion |
When someone asked where you lived on campus and you replied "Ox College," the usual response was one of pity because of the distance to campus and supposed social life that centered around the quads. However, they were mistaken. We didn't put on the freshman 10 (extra weight), although we had our own dining hall and better food, simply because we had more walking or biking to get anywhere except uptown. We were at the far edge of uptown, between the Oxford Lane Library and Planned Parenthood and closer to the bars than anyone but the frat boys. That proved rather convenient as we returned from winter break and the university was closed for the first time in its history because of a blizzard. We could get uptown for groceries, pizza and beer. Not so for the quadders.
Because we were so out of the way, during little-sis rush (we were all indies and not into the cloned life of sororities), the fraternities always sent us escorts. It proved an interesting social life and a handful of us joined an off-the-beaten-frat-row eclectic fraternity because someone's sister was already a little sis. We got the royal treatment and were wooed.
| | | Exterior of second alley |
The friendships that have endured, however, are among this group of women who occupied second alley, a small wing of the dorm. Over the four years, we all re-arranged with whom we lived, but mostly, in some combination of one another. This weekend, six of us get to be together again as we have been at 40, 45, 50 and, now 55. The glue of our group, Maggy, attempted to assemble us last year and, finally, in desperation launched a Facebook group called "55 and Doing Fine Ox College Reunion." That created momentum so that we will be in the woods at a 1900s refurbished hunting lodge with no kids or spouses and a lot of catching up and reminiscing to do.
I had a preview last week when I traveled to Cleveland for an author's conference and stayed with Bethy and her husband. She hasn't changed at all and we picked up right where we left off. I first met Beth in the kitchen at Ox. She was making yogurt in a contraption I had never seen. She was Jewish and seemed so exotic and earthy to me. I was smitten. Still am. She's as grounded, humorous, compassionate and saucy as ever.
I don't recall how long it's been since I've seen Debbie, but I was so surprised at her friendliness freshman year. She's so comfortable in her beautiful skin that I assumed she was a selective sorority type – boy was I wrong. She introduced us to little-sis life and was such a wonderful combination of hard work and silliness, when you'd least expect. Can't wait to catch up.
Jackie was Debbie's room mate and so grounded and wise in college. She would tell the truth when necessary in a way the rest of us could hear and respect, rare for someone that young. Don't get the impression she was a stick in the mud – far from it. She was always good for a party or trip uptown. I would have loved to have lived with her.
Barb, whom we'll terribly miss this weekend, was my room mate junior year when we rented an apartment. I'll never forget an early conversation when she said the thing she craved most after mowing was a cold beer. That seemed so strange to me at the time. She was wise and worldly (from the BIG city of Cleveland), a gifted artist and easy room mate, even with her lab mice.
Funny that Maggy has become the glue that binds us because she didn't turn up until second semester. She wasted no time connecting with her small-town, genuine wholesomeness and hearty friendship. She knows no strangers and perseveres to keep this bunch together. You can always count on Maggy to make you feel better – that's just her way.
I revered Anni, who always seemed to have her act together. We'd often collide late at night in the bathroom, sharing cheese and crackers and conversation, thinking the entire second alley couldn't hear us. She is an excellent confidant, with attentive ears and a big heart. I know that hasn't changed.
There was such acceptance, affirmation and companionship in this group. You can see why I am so excited that I get to be Rosie this weekend. I really like her and how each of these wonderful women is reflected in and contributed to who she is.
• When have a circle of friends deeply shaped me?
• How do I remain connected?
• What were pivotal young-adult relationships?
• How have I grown as a result?
• Even if I didn't see it then, where was Spirit in all of this?
I flew the coop
for for years
and never came home,
according to
my mother
college was a pivotal
and precious time
in my life
anchored by
remarkable
young women
with whom
I have been
privileged to
grow older
and,
hopefully,
wiser
I am
eternally
grateful
**Listen to this post:****
Yesterday, I finally assimilated the mass of information I inhaled at an author marketing conference held in Cleveland last Monday. It was an incredibly dynamic every-minute-packed event that excited me from the moment I serendipitously encountered an announcement for it.
Author Marketing Live authormarketinglive.com kept its promise, even if we were somewhat overwhelmed. From an early-morning get together, through two talks during lunch and an after-conference social-networking time, there was little time to decompress. Which is why I chose to drive home right after. The four hours of silence gave me time to ground myself and begin to mull over what had just transpired. Plenty.
As an introvert, I am not a huge networker, but I am going to learn to be, thanks to Author Marketing Live. Several speakers helped me understand that it is not a nasty, sleazy, pushy business. Merely, as an artist, there is a time to remove the beret and confidently transform your art (mostly in the artist's mind) into a product and get it to customers. Essentially, to let the world know what you've done. My shaman has said this so many ways so many times to me. Now, it is sinking in.
As I read through my notes and compared them to shared slide of the presentations, I typed up what stood out, tallying 15 pages, and hand wrote a four page to-do list. Getting through that, making it doable, setting goals and breaking them into manageable tasks is my next feat.
I've already employed one very practical tip. My husband and I had just been discussing that I needed some sort of microphone to record my blogs. My voice is fine, but the background noise is not. One of the speakers is a voice artist and coach. Wa-la, he recommended exactly what I was looking for in his presentation. In addition to how I stumbled onto the event, this pertinent piece of information confirmed in my heart that Spirit did, indeed, lead me here.
So, in addition to applying this information to my situation, I desire to incorporate it in a manner that fits my style and spirituality. Yes, it is business, but I want to engage with integrity and not change who I am. Of course, I believe all of the speakers had integrity, they just don't happen to dabble in the spirituality arena and I want my business efforts to reflect my whole self.
What some presenters did for me, and I dare say others, was close the gap between art and marketing. I hadn't really understood I had blocks to selling, I just thought it was a degrading business. I'm imagining door-to-door pushy or the recent guy at Kroger's whom I told I did not want to subscribe though he insisted he could go home if he gave two more pitches. I gave in just so he could finish and he persisted to hound me until I finally told him what I thought of his product. That's just ugly.
I considered myself above selling, when I was selling out on my work #salonforthesoul
However, finding the right audiences (customers) for your work is not. Julia Kline of sleazefreeselling.com illustrated this very clearly when she asked whether you'd treat your art (metaphorically) as a museum piece or garage-sale grade. That hit home. Here, I considered myself above selling, when I was selling out on my work that comes from the heart and also experience and an education. "Why deprive the world?" my shaman asks. Previously that sounded haughty of me to ask. Now it seems like the truth of joining art and marketing.
There is a way to do it and retain integrity. Engagement, they all said, was key. Community building, I call it and that's right up my alley.
Maybe I can be an authorpreneur and spiritual nurturer all at once. The possibilities are astounding.
• How do I embrace the business world?
• Can I balance it with who I am and what I believe?
• What does that look like for me?
• What is my practice of abundance?
• And of gratitude?
alone,
I create
private, with
all of my heart
and yet,
I desire to
share
not sullying
art with
aggressive tactics
it sits,
alone
until a nudge
from Spirit
points me
in an interesting
direction
away from the
deep and quiet
and into
the percolator
of the internet
and marketing
of all things
and now I
realize the
possibilities
of uniting
them
**Listen to this post:****
How ironic that I attended a writing conference, which stressed regular writing time, in Cleveland on Monday and haven't found space to blog all week. And, last post, I wrote about craving routine and its value. I haven't found it this week. Not with work, life or spirituality.
I've been running and crashing, running and crashing. Typically, I plan for more balance; time off after projects, traveling and late nights. I never was one who could burn the candle at both ends – my body simply won't let me.
It's all been deep, rich work, but at such a fevered pace and not of my creation.
| | | Bookends: from glitzy hotel to packing my studio |
Monday was a killer conference packed full of marketing know-how for authors. Exactly what I had hoped it would be. I drove up Sunday afternoon and spent the evening and overnight with a wonderful friend from freshman year at Miami U. I loved getting to know her in her house and with her likable spouse. Her girls are away at college. I even got to visit her 85-year-old mother whom I hadn't seen in 30 years. She had home-baked cookies and tea prepared.
I dashed out of the house at 6:40 a.m. to make the 7 a.m. conference registration. Scored super-cheap, convenient parking thanks to online trolling and arrived. All of the speakers are published authors who sung the praises of treating your work as an entrepreneur not an artist when it comes time to market. Authorpreneur, they called it. One women, over a quick lunch lecture, asked whether you'd put your work on a pedestal inside of velvet ropes or next to a stack of sneaker at a garage sale. That image really drove home the point for me. I was encouraged and hungry for information. I loved that an Amazon best-selling author said his work was awful at first, even sharing nasty reviews. He was so humble and encouraging of what really can happen all at the same time.
I had another offer to stay in Cleveland and drive home in the morning, but my head was swimming, I relished the quiet four-hour drive home and was eager to be in Cincinnati. The next evening, I was scheduled to present my non-profit elevator speech on stage to potential new board members.
The speech went very well even though the spotlights were overwhelming. Maybe it helped that I couldn't see the audience. Good practice for this introvert, at any rate.
I've been gathering, planning and organizing all week for the annual community art day and registration for Artsy Fartsy Saturdays, held at the complex we serve. A lotta work, yet a lotta fun.
Serving poorest of the poor on the heals of listening to marketing gurus are interesting bookends #salonforthesoul
Serving the poorest of the poor on the heals of listening to marketing gurus are interesting bookends to the week. Sprinkle in a mini reunion, being center stage at an edgy theater, the subject of a ministry care committee, making a personal grant request and re-initiating art Sunday in the inner city and I think I may take at least Monday off to rebalance.
• What's my usual balance of work, play, family and spirituality?
• How do I handle it when I become off-kilter?
• How easily do I let my spiritual life fall to the wayside?
• Where or how do I feel God in these moments?
• How do I take time to see where God is in all of this messy life?
knowing it would
be inspiration,
informational
and what I hunger
for,
I took the plunge
although it
complicated
the rest of the
week
that just got
busier and busier
things happening
that I just couldn't
say no to
trying to find
my way through
and not forget
who put me
here
**Listen to this post:****
I confess, I always put off going because I know it's not a quick drop off or visit. But Wednesday morning for some reason, Spirit let me know to go.Ostensibly, I was dropping off donated clothes (thanks to a wonderful and thoughtful friend), but needed to speak to Jasmine. Her partner answered the door, grateful for the sporty clothing with tangling tags. "What would we do without you, Miss Cathy?" he said. "Hey, they're not from me; I'm just delivering them.""Jasmine's awake if you want to see her." I did. He hustled off to get her an iced mocha from McDonald's, her favoriteCurled in her bed, as I often find her, her spirit brightened and lightened the more we talked. Her eyes beamed, her skin glistened, her hair shone and her once-limp arms wildly gestured. This is Jasmine's refuge I have come to learn. At the foot of her bed, at one point, I felt shivers up and down my body, signaling sacred Truth in what she was telling me.On the surface she looks the farthest place from sacred you could imagine: a mother of five who's battled leukemia since she was 8, had plates installed in her head, was violently attacked at 15, never worked and lives on minimal assistance. She's easy to write off.Probably the reason I didn't was because I met her kids first. The oldest is a sweetheart, gentle, well-mannered and a straight-A student. Next in line is a dashing, also smart, clone of his father packaged with some learning issues. Third down is a charmer. Next, the only girl, rightly a bit spoiled, and, lastly, the most sensitive, according to Jasmine. Beautiful, intelligent kids whom their mother loves fiercely. Their dad works hard as chief caregiver and acknowledged he has no familial role models, which caused him to leave home at 15.The first time I met Jasmine was because her oldest was enrolled in Artsy Fartsy Saturdays, the non-profit arts exploration for at-risk local kids I founded in my neighborhood. I was getting something signed and we had our first long talk. I saw that same streak that gave me a shiver this week. As if God were speaking directly through her. She was saying her kids really needed a computer. It took me a year, but with substantial help from my faith community and neighbors, we got them one and all of the accouterments.She reminds me of where wise theologian and writer Henri Nouwen says he found God: at the margins.Jasmine is grieving at the death of two sisters to cancer this summer. She reached over and grabbed the lockbox she keeps by her bed, opened it with her extraordinary lanyard of multiple keys and handed me the two obituaries. "I really wanted you to be there. I sent my kids down a few times, but they couldn't get anyone to answer." How could I tell her we were enjoying Europe for two weeks?I would have gone in a heartbeat had I been home. Feeling as if I missed an important opportunity with her, I managed to deliver news of the real reason I'd stopped by: that a plethora of generous Facebook friends was sending checks to cover another year of Internet."I tell you, you really are my angel," she responded. How could I be her angel, I thought, I wasn't even here when her sisters died."My grandma knows that you are," she confessed, then told me how psychic her almost 100-year old grandmother is. "I have those abilities, too," she said. "I am very open to things." That's when I got the chills because I recognized it as fact."You're not open to everything are you?" I asked. "Oh no, not to evil or dark things. Though I have sure felt some of that in this house.""Have you ever done a blessing or cleansing?" I wondered. "Yes with oils my grandmother recommended." Clearly this women knows what she is doing.Many people don't agree. She takes countless drugs for her illnesses, with is primarily why she keeps a locked box. "Don't want my kids getting into them," she says in a very motherly tone.Many would discount her statement that one of her sister hasn't crossed over yet because she's guarding the very-premature granddaughter born just after her visitation, which sent the mother into very early labor. Somehow I know that she knows.She rolls up her pants leg and exposes the neat line of a long cut on her shin. "Got another when I fell in the bathtub," Jasmine confesses. "Maybe you should't take that walk I recommended earlier for clearing your head." We both laugh. I wonder aloud if some of her meds cause muscle weakness. "No, I was just born a klutz," she says.I am profoundly grateful that this visit she doesn't tell me how ignorant she is. Instead and, much to my delight, she delves back into her metal sanctum and produces a paper with her psychiatrist's signature. "He thinks I am ready to take care of my own financial affairs."Throughout our hour visit, I run through all of the things that I can't do for her. It overwhelms me, an inkling of how she must feel. Then I recognize I am doing exactly as Spirit wishes. Listening to Jasmine and Spirit.• Where have I found God in the margins?• What have these experiences been like?• What persons struggling inspire me?• How am I inspired to action?• How do I obey Spirit?tucked into fetalpositionI was afraidof disturbing hertruthful, more so thatshe would disturb mewith her illnesses,struggles and BIGproblems thatoverwhelm meI can't possiblyfix them allthen I get aflashthat's not myjobwhy do Ifeel I have toplay God?all God asksis that I listenwhen I do,I see a very brightspirit uncurl fromher bed and sheteaches me
**Listen to this post:****
Who am I? How often do you ask yourself that question? On some level, I think I am constantly seeking the answer. I don't want a reflection of who I am, I want the Truth, the naked Truth.
Today's answer isn't so very pretty. It's one of the rare days I can't shake the blues of chronic pain and one more symptom to handle. Vertigo has decided it's time to call again on top of all of my other house guests: poor sleep, stuffy nose, headache, sinus pressure, neck ache, shoulder and hip pain, tight jaw, and constipation. I have a daily regimen of supplements, netti-pot, exercise and food intolerances to handle. I am grateful that they have worked all summer. Until the hammer of stress came crashing down as it does periodically on all of us. And I kept pushing through.
That mess of annoyances is about all that I can see. My pattern is to retreat, where it takes less energy to survive until symptoms recede. But I don't think that's the healthiest route. It seems one of the patterns I need to break. Last week, I spent a good deal of time pouring over some astrology interpretations from the amazing monthly group I attend under the guidance of my spiritual friend, Char. In this space, I have been able to delve deeper into who I am, or am meant to be, and look beyond the drive-me-crazy symptoms. According to the stars (and planets and their interactions), I have been blessed with many gifts and the means to use them. I am, they say and I know myself, a late bloomer. I married later, had my kids older and still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. I also must follow my own path, which includes a lot of excavation. I joyously e-mailed Char Monday that I had meticulously gone through all of the material and how happy it made me, how affirming and confirming it had been.
So what's changed in a a day or two? Nothing that I haven't already dealt with the past 16 years. Shortly after I began this post, I looked up, frustrated. I didn't want to whine or be in that self-pitying place. The large signing dangling from my studio ceiling saying "Take a Break" was the first thing that came into focus as I adjusted my eyes away from the computer screen.
I get it, I thought. I doubt the instructions could be any clearer. I quickly Googled what movies were playing and opted to forgo unproductiveness and truly take a break. I settled on the "100 Foot Journey" with Helen Mirren. I'd selected the book a year ago for book club and was thoroughly delighted and entertained ... to the point I'd forgotten it was fiction. In my rushing to the car to make the show, a van driver flagged me down, lost. I drove her to the highway, stopped home briefly and was on my way, arriving ahead of the previews. What wasn't to like: food, France and Indian culture. The scenes shot in Paris brought tears of gratitude for the trip we had as a family this summer. "God, you have been so very good to me," I said silently. I didn't add the "but why am I always struggling" as I had earlier.
One of the things I have been learning about myself by studying my natal chart is that I need to periodically treat myself and take breaks. I tend to push through and deny myself. I've been pushing ... all summer. From a wonderful vacation at the beginning (that I completely planned from scratch, which I love but can be stress-inducing), to balancing kids home and more outside work, some stinging upsets (learning I must relocate my studio and Artsy Fartsy and that I missed a major grant deadline), getting my girls off to school while my husband was out of town (I honestly don't know how single parents do it) and settling my oldest into college courses this week as part of the post secondary enrollment options program. Did I mention we have also have a new driver?
It is just life, dished out to us all. I live it hard, forgetting to breathe and, often, to enjoy. One of my recent astrology lessons is to let life flow through me. I wonder what that looks like, exactly. Here are a few of the other lessons I am cultivating:
• To live out of abundance, confidence and trust;
• To follow my dreams and truth;
• To let go of fear;
• That boundaries are necessary, barriers are not.
• To bring the past forward;
• That my security in life rests in Spirit.
• To put power and energy into intention.
• That healing requires pruning the excess;
• To rely on my (inner) resources and that looking within gives me the most clarity;
• That's is ok to risk and create new structures to replace what isn't working any more.
I am calling all of this lean love and am thinking that I used a little of that on myself today by going to the movie instead of wallowing in my studio. Hooray for me – I AM learning.
• What's my gut reaction to stress?
• What are my go-to patterns?
• What patterns must I seek to change?
• Where do I find Spirit in the mess of life?
• What lessons about living and loving am I learning?
allowing myself
the luxury
of half
the workout
grateful
breast stroke
didn't induce
vertigo
racing around
to drop my daughter
at school even
though my husband
offered
why? I now
wonder
finding the grace
to take a few hours
off, dreaming of
France and food
sneaking in a grocery
trip, attempting
dinner, an aborted
bank stop and
getting my daughter to
her first night
class on time
when, again
my husband
offered
why, God,
do I insist
on killing myself?
**Listen to this post:****
Earlier this week, I felt somewhat unglued and ready for a routine. Getting kids back to school in different weeks, with one attending evening college classes as a high-school junior and shy of her driver's license, there's been a lot of chauffeuring or, rather, being chauffeured. Then labor day, a day off and a weekend of 14th-birthday celebrations for the youngest. Summer retreated with a bang. It was a great season initiated by an incredible family trip to Europe.
So slinking off to school and work routines is not, exactly, exciting. Yet necessary.
I crave more-focused work, balance and rhythm. The busyness has caused me to let go of a regular spiritual practice, even weekly worship twice, and my daily gym visits. It's like skipping medication. For one day, I'd like to just wake up to the day and head onward, no swim, sinus care, supplement taking or gluten-free lunch packing. Just once. And not have to experience repercussions.
Yes, I know that I am whining. Tuesday, I, dutifully, headed to the gym by 6:45 am, swam less than the usual mile (I must build up again), blended and slurped down my spinach-blueberry-and-brown-rice smoothie, dropped my oldest off at 9 am, returned to take my supplements, pack my lunch and get to the studio. Once there, my first action was to light a candle, welcoming Spirit's light, and pull out my daily devotional. The bookmark was still on August 21.
The passage was about beginning the spiritual journey with a reminder that we humans center the universe on ourselves. We can't help it. The shattering of illusions, Father Thomas Keating writes, is the beginning of the journey. The real spiritual journey and the way to nowhere.
The way to nowhere. I can identify with that.
Who likes to admit they haven't the faintest idea where they are headed? Practically no one. It's not practiced in this culture. Everyone knows exactly where they are going: to work, careers, up the rungs of the social and corporate ladders, and, even Heaven. We are so sure of it. Otherwise, what are we left with? Feeling out of control?
Societally, we are launched on an upward path. I left that long ago and never really understood it until spiritual teacher Richard Rohr wrote that the spiritual path is one of descent ... into the messiness of life and brokenness. THAT I could identify with – over and over again like a skipping record.
With a new awareness, I have begun to notice something pretty radical. When I am slumming in the sludge of life, guess who is always with me? God. I don't especially remember feeling her presence when I traipsed up and down the steps of my corporate job years ago. As I traveled, marketed, plotted and planned I felt, well, hollow. Like I was just pretending. It seemed as if we all were. The lemmings marching in sober-faced, stiff and Zombie-like (perhaps mirroring our product, caskets) each morning and flowing out each evening, together at the same time. Like them, I was probably asleep.
I have since awakened and know Spirit's presence in the depths of darkness, on the average day and the heights of contentment. She is with me when I am alone, when I worship with others, when I struggle with others. I know her most intimately through Jesus and his universal Christ energy.
I know it best when I keep a daily practice that opens me to that energy and love as I journey to nowhere.
• What role does routine play in my life?
• What happens when it's not in place?
• Where do I pencil in time with God?
• What difference does that make?
• When have I felt I was on a journey to nowhere?
beginning of the
week I am
chomping to get
organized and
feel in control
again
that holidays,
and new schedules
become assimilated
... quickly
bouncing from
one busyness
to the other
when I remember
to light the candle
and let Sprit in
**Listen to this post:****
| | | This morning as Lily turns 14 |
Lily turns 14 today. In fact, she already has ... at 1:47 a.m., to be exact. She bounced into the world rather quickly (7 hours compared to 29 with my first – I have a theory about birth experience/length and how it relates to later behavior) and mostly without the assistance of the physician, who ran in to catch her. The nurses, Lily and I did all of the work. That day and her fragility seem so far away. I do remember rocking on a yoga ball to ease the pain, that I took the epidural after careful consultation with the anaesthetist to ensure it would not re-injure a spinal wound and, 45 minutes later without breaking much of a sweat, this sweet thing was here!
She was a gorgeous, jolly baby always looking for a cue from her beloved older sister. She hasn't changed much. Except when she and I do battle, which has decreased and taught us each something from the other. No one has ever gotten under my skin the way she does. She irks me to no end, but also shows me the endless depths of love. I wrote about her on her 10th birthday:
She shows me what it's like to be wild and free. I model responsibility and discipline. We each desperately need each other, although it's hard for either of us to admit publicly.
| | | Young Lily, busy at the computer; some things never change |
In that post, I also wrote about how she whined our entire vacation that summer. That was my fear this summer, when we took the girls to Europe on a long-awaited, hard-earned trip. She was a gem, possibly because I shared the daily plan with her ahead. She likes to know what's coming. The four of us spent a lot of time together in close quarters for those two weeks. That experience eked into the rest of summer and we all liked being together. I sensed this time as ripe for that as both girls are now high schoolers and, all too soon, will be going off into the world on their own.
One of the surprisingly unexpected and wonderful gifts of the trip is how exceptionally close my girls have become. They were always cozy, but in a push-me, pull-me way. Now, they respect and depend on each other, while each is quite independent. Lily is having the time of her life as a freshman, sampling so many activities, earning new friends and easily picking up a new language. Autumn is off to college classes two night a week as part of a post-secondary education option. They seem to be running in different circles, but after school they often walk somewhere to study or for a snack. That's about the only time they have together.
That means I see them each separately these days, which equates to less drama and more quality one-on-one. I have observed Lily grow into herself, keenly so. She is such a problem solver and always off on some creative adventure like making videos, sketching or having a scavenger hunt with her BFF.
| | | Lily and her BFF: Dr. Who Halloween |
Under her confident smile and sometimes bristly facade lays a huge and tender heart. She still occasionally mentions the homeless woman we encountered in Chicago years ago laying in the alley: How do you think she is now, Mom?
As I have delved the past couple of years into astrology, I have grown more appreciative of her characteristics as a Virgo. A few weeks ago she asked me one of her incessant questions: "What's the most-hated astrology sign?" I don't know, I answered, fearing it was my own. "Virgo – mine," she answered rather sadly. My wise friend Char shared an affirmation for Virgo with me that I will give Lily today. Here is an excerpt:
"I accept deeply my keen analysis
and enquiring mind.
I accept fully my high energyand amazing memory.I accept fully my ability to see details,to transform separate parts into meaningful wholes.I am dependable.I am precise.I am meticulous yet practical.I am industrious and self disciplined.With great ease I refine, soften, and directmy inexhaustible energies,express my discrimination and wisdomwith courage, self reliance, and strength,my power with delicacy and appropriatenessmy invincibility with protectiveness.I accept my extraordinary ability for self-sacrificeand my high intuitive gifts that are rooted deeplyto my instinctive human sympathy.The birthright of Virgo isto pierce the Grand Illusion of Life."Lily is ALL of these and more; she's my private wild child who has stolen my heart. Like when Max leaves the wild things, they cry:
“Oh please don't go – we'll eat you up – we love you so!"
• Who am I close to that gets under my skin?
• Why is that?"
• What do I have to learn from that person?
• What do I have to teach?
• Where is Spirit in this relationship?
tangled hair,
but perfectly
made-up eyes
though I don't
see why
she has a natural,
wild beauty
but, I suppose,
at age 14, she's
fallen prey
to teen experimentation
and off-kilter
marketing that
says otherwise
she has to
discover these
things on her own
as I stand back
and witness
her growing
more and
more into
herself
beautifully
**Listen to this post:****
Listen to post:
Why is it that when we experience the fragility of life, we tend to regain new eyes and appreciate the everydayness with growing gratitude? I have been living in the midst of so much birth and death that I can not ignore their accompanying lessons.Today I finished my second belly cast, completed for a niece nearing week 32 of her pregnancy. Just about a month ago, I did my first. Placing my Vaseline-coated hands directly on the mother's belly and gently spreading the layer, then, carefully affixing warm, moist plaster strips on top has such a meditative and loving quality for me. The models didn't seem to mind, gifting me with the process of documenting life. This creative act stands in stark contrast to the recent deaths of two men in my small Quaker congregation and my role in arranging one of the burials.Just before I finished this cast, I took a call from a longtime friend whose wife delivered her own baby eight weeks early at home and on their bed. She'd done everything right and even been to the doctor that very day. She's home now and the infant will spend a number of weeks in the hospital. In the same breath I congratulated my friend and also said I was sorry. Apparently that also captured his feelings. I told him he had one heck of a strong wife and he said she's been beating herself up for not knowing this was coming. How could she, not even the doctor did? But I understand mother's guilt.I've had a ringside seat watching my baby sister deal with 18-plus years of mothering an extremely premature baby. I know it's taken a toll on her, yet she is exactly the right mother for this child, who will graduate from high school on time next month. That in itself amazes me as does the wonderful young man this baby has grown into. At one point, he was not expected to live. There is nothing my sister has not done for her son in terms of finding the best doctors, surgeons, therapists, tutors and anything else that would assist his development. He has more than survived, he has thrived due to the loving concern and care of his parents. They don't coddle him. Through the haze of this grueling kind of parenting, my sister managed to earn a Ph.D in special education and now teaches teachers about special-needs kids! Hers has been a journey of hardship, perseverance, growth, patience, trust and love. I am certain it hasn't always looked that way to her.This death of a dream, not delivering a healthy baby, is a cause for grief. I hope my friend's wife gets through that. It's not her fault and yet as mothers, we take everything that happens to our children so personally. I recently told my shamanic counselor that I wondered if spending a brief time in a fume-infested painting facility caused a miscarriage. It was part of my job, I was only newly pregnant and had not sprung the news publicly. It just sort of slipped out during a discussion of my unmet needs, though my mind had looped it, like a bad movie, a thousand times. My counselor responded that a pregnancy should be able to withstand that.If that triggered my guilt, what about these mothers who have so much more to deal with? How does one overcome losing the hope of delivering a healthy baby?My sister has had 18 years to work through it and she's still chipping away at that bundle of guilt and grief. My prayer is that she gets relief and a reaches a sense of peace. I am also praying that my friend's wife finds loving compassion for herself, though, I suspect, she'll be busy mothering the beautiful, but small, son she now has.How can you take life for granted when you're surrounded by stories like these?• What's my experience of mothering, whether there's a child involved?• What dreams have I birthed?• What guilt or grief have I experienced when these dreams died young?• How do I share my sorrow with God?• What's God's response been when I have?my hands have laidon bursting bellies,massaging and knowingthe life beneathmy ears and hearthave taken on thegrief of other mothers,nurturing babiesforced out too soonmy lips continueto intercedefor the health andwelfare ofALL childrenbecause God,in her infinite and lovingways, claims each of usas her children