Moving

Howling at the Moon does not seem to fit the way it used to, so I started a new page: https://thoughtsbecoming.wordpress.com/.
Still me. Still just the ramblings of another perfectly typical human being making my way in the world. Just posted somewhere that feels a little more like the me of here and now.

The Treacherous Path to Strong

In recent weeks, I find myself spending hours of each day in contemplation. Too many of those hours between three and five AM every morning. Ghosts from the past have awoken to cast their shadows over my present and stalk my dreams.

When I logged back onto this blog a week or so ago I found that my last post had been two years prior, almost to the day, and the topic had been the domestic violence in my past, and how I found my way to freedom through an offer of help. I suppose this is just that same contemplative time of year coming back around for a visit.

Nearly three months ago, I returned to the study of a Martial Art, but a new one: Aikido. My new school and style is wildly different from my old style in every way I can think to compare: philosophy, technique, energy, leadership. It is really good to once again be in a learning place. At the same time, not everything I am learning is exactly what I had envisioned when I stepped back out onto the mat.

That first month, focusing solely on newness of the physical techniques, I was aware of some nervousness. I chalked this up to wanting to avoid a misstep in my new school. My old school was not always kind to people who came in with previous martial arts experience, and I felt a bit as though I was waiting for a shoe to drop. It hasn’t, and I have no reason to think that it will. Everyone has been startlingly kind and supportive.

In truth, I’m realizing that this had nothing to do with the actual difficulties I have been experiencing. The Sensei saw through to what was really going on well before I ever did. This knowledge was illuminated by a comment he made after observing my being taken to the mat by another student – something to the effect that I was just going to need time and lots of positive experiences on the mat.  I was completely taken aback. What did he mean? What could he see that I didn’t? What could even *be* there to be seen? After all, that trauma was well behind me, wasn’t it? It has been seventeen years since I walked out that door and closed it behind me. How could he possibly see my past trauma? I felt terribly, utterly exposed.

I suppose that is the way of it when the Universe invites us to grow.

And this one is not an easy invitation to accept. On the mat, I find myself freezing when someone initiates contact (which happens a lot because … it’s a martial art) or, worse, responding with way more energy than officially required when the intensity ramps up a bit. Off the mat, I’m struggling with anxiety and with far too much thinking about the past. I am not typically a person who struggles with this, but my current state is akin to what I experienced immediately after leaving my ex-husband: glancing over my shoulder everywhere I went, terribly afraid.

I started Aikido because I thought it would be fun and enriching. I didn’t expect to be confronting my past again. I did not expect to be called upon to find this lost strength I once called upon to free and ultimately find myself. Or maybe it wasn’t exactly lost. Set aside, perhaps? For safekeeping until such time as I was once again ready to embody it? I think I liked it better where it was.

Because if there is one thing my life experience has taught me, it is that being too strong as a female in our society can be life-threatening. I saw it in my first marriage. I saw it in my old dojo when, a scant week before my 2nd Dan test, a senior black belt took it upon himself to knock me down. HARD. And it is only in reflection this past week that I realize the timing was no coincidence; that this occurred just as I worked to reclaim my strength, my power after years of abuse. I had overstepped my bounds as a woman in the dojo by reaching so far. And for the first time in fifteen years, I’m angry.

But it’s not enough to be angry. The challenge at hand is whether I can find my way along this treacherous path toward “strong” and whether I can keep myself safe at the same time. I am not worried about DP – he will always celebrate my strength and my victories right alongside me. But everywhere I look there are others out there who are only too happy to use violence and intimidation against women, against minorities, against anyone who holds a different world view and stands tall doing it.

Is it safe to once again invoke my strength? No.
The question is whether I should do it anyway.

Settling in to the Dark

Happy Solstice.

It’s a festival of light.
But it doesn’t always feel like it.

As I look out the windows into the thin and colorless light of this day, I can feel the heaviness of the dark of the year settle upon my shoulders like an enveloping cloak. My thoughts turn as dark as this night promises to be and I feel myself drawing inward.

There are burdens that I have carried with me for years, some almost unnoticed as the decades slip by. They are so completely a part of me that I don’t know how to set them down, even as I recognize that the journey forward would be easier without their added weight.

I suppose that’s the question every survivor faces: survivors of violence, of illness, or just the toll of decades of accumulated grief and loss. In the end, we’re all survivors trying to face the next day with strength and courage. How can we turn toward the light and all that it promises when the darkness is so full and present around us?

That is the work of the Winter Solstice.

I have something to share

There is something I feel I need to tell you.

Not because I need to talk about it – It’s been more than fifteen years, I’m good. Not because I am proud of it. I am not. Although I *am* proud of how far I have come. Not to raise awareness, because there are so very many awareness campaigns. But they are impersonal. I need to tell you because I want you to hear it from me, because nearly everyone reaching this page is someone I know.

You who know me personally, I need to tell you that I am a survivor of domestic violence.

This past weekend, I went through a class on victims of domestic violence which involved a grueling two-hour activity called “In Her Shoes” which demanded of us that we each walk through the stories of two or three different abused women in a Choose Your Own Adventure style activity. (One sample: “roll a single die. If you roll 1-5, proceed to welfare. If you roll 6, you have committed suicide. Go back to your chair and reflect on Eunice’s life.”) At the end, we talked as a group about the oft-asked question of “Why doesn’t she leave?” and why that is the wrong question. (The right question is “Why does he keep hurting her?” Somehow, society finds his behavior easier to understand and forgive than hers, which is so wrong.) At the end of the activity, other women spoke of the experience as thought-provoking and eye-opening. It gave them a ‘new understanding.’

That was not my experience. My experience of it was a deep and physical remembering. My experience was feeling all that wariness, deadness and stillness all over again … don’t move a muscle, don’t even breathe, maybe he’ll forget I’m here … if I don’t catch his eye, maybe he won’t snap. I remember those months, even years of hyper-vigilance after leaving. I remember the personal cost of staying, the personal cost of leaving and the personal cost of silence. Even today, though I am happily married in a safe and supportive environment, those forgotten feelings can be so easily rekindled.

You may not know that I was married once before. I met a Navy submariner when I was nineteen. We started a whirlwind long-distance relationship and wed when I was twenty, having spent almost no real time together. I was immature for my age, had no self-confidence, and was almost entirely inexperienced in relationships. He was young, hot-headed and felt like he needed to be “a man” and “in charge.” We were clueless and doomed to fail.

I left school because he wanted to wed immediately (having only a semester of student teaching left to complete for my degree) and moved to WA State where he was stationed in Bremerton. The idea was that I would return to school out here, transferring to UW, but that did not happen. He was incredulous that I could possibly be so stupid as to have not realized that I would need to start working full time immediately. I was isolated from everyone I knew and discouraged from making friendships. When my car broke down, it wasn’t fixed. I was allowed to get a ride to and from work with a (female) coworker. The isolation continued: I was only allowed to see other people in his company.

I would not have called this domestic violence at the time. But as the months turned into years, my crushing unhappiness grew with each passing day; and as his temper grew and my will to live shrank, it became clear that my situation was not a good one. But it happened gradually, and I became acclimated. Comments made by coworkers showed that they understood my situation better than I.

And to be completely honest, it also wasn’t nearly so dire a situation as many others find themselves in. He never once punched me. Instead, I experienced ongoing and increasing intimidation and both physical and emotional control. (I feel the heaviness and hopelessness come over me as I type this.) I was held against my will, and repeatedly pinned to a wall until I would acquiesce to whatever the issue of the moment was. I was pinned to the floor on different occasions when I tried to walk away from a fight. And I was physically dominated in other ways best left unsaid.

He made absolutely sure I knew that I was a joke in karate and that I was only advancing because I helped with the kids classes.

Objects were destroyed displays of aggression and strength that left me feeling very intimidated and unsafe. One time, when I expressed a dissenting opinion on something, he ripped the couch apart with his bare hands. Just broke it up and hurled pieces of it – a back rest, an arm, a support piece – around the living room, looking at me and yelling at me throughout. Another time, he took a 2×4 to the exterior of the house. Then, one day shortly before I left for once and for all, something snapped in him and he lost it. I don’t remember much of anything about what happened, but I do remember trying to get to the phone to call 911, and that he forced me up the stairs and wouldn’t let me come back down. That is all I remember. Just crouching on the stairs wanting to get to the phone.

A week later, some friends were going to Wendy’s after karate for a burger. I said I didn’t want fast food, and he got the look about him that I had come to know too well. He said to me, in a tone I will never ever forget: “I’ll see *you* at home.” I knew that if I went, he would kill me. I knew it with a gut level certainty that I can not deny. I can’t say whether I was right. All I know is that I did not go home. I never saw him again. I had to change my phone number and email address due to constant harassment. I was stalked for a time, but I broke free.

For anyone still with me, I write this for two reasons.

The first reason is this: I had somewhere to go. A coworker had seen the bruised wrists. She had seen the haunted look. She had noticed the isolation. And she had said this: “When the time comes that you need somewhere to go, call me. I don’t care when, just call me and say ‘it’s time’.” And so I did. I left that night with only my car, my cell phone and the clothes I was wearing because someone was there to catch me. She game me an anonymous place where I could hide out while a restraining order was placed. Somewhere I could stay until I felt safe enough to get an apartment. And it made all the difference.

So many others do not know that they have a place to go. You don’t have to *be* that place, although it’s amazing if you can, but you can at least be aware of places that a person can go and you can be prepared to share that information. Being in that situation … it is so overwhelming. I don’t think I could ever explain it. Being afraid for your life just takes all of your energy and attention. It sucks away your life force. I can’t even imagine also being afraid for the safety of my child or children. If you take nothing else away from this post, please understand that a person has to know that she/he has options before she/he can exercise them.

The second reason I write this is that my experience of domestic violence didn’t match my preconceived notions of it. I didn’t really notice the slow creep and recognize the danger it heralded. I didn’t really notice the purposeful isolation. I noticed the depression, the fear, the loneliness, but I thought they were all something wrong with me. I thought that domestic violence meant being regularly beaten up, and that I had nothing to complain about. I don’t know how much longer it would have gone on had it not been for the incident on the stairs that one night.

And so I offer to any of my sisters or brothers suffering silently in an oppressive and fearful relationship that you deserve better. And that if you reach out to me, I will do my level best to help you make a plan and to help you find your way out.

Even now, with the perspective of seventeen years gone by, I don’t much like to talk about it. I still feel on some level that leaving was a failure on my part. I still feel the societal pressure to have made it work, stuck by my man, and upheld my vows. I got married too young. I was unprepared. I was immature. I made him angry. I provoked him. I failed as a wife. But I am not the only one who failed. And I never promised to give away my self-worth and safety, which is exactly what was demanded of me.

I have extended family who disapprove of the divorce to the point of having never spoken to me again. I have extended family members who still refer to that first marriage as my ‘real’ one. I just quietly say that it was a bad situation, but there is little reason to say anything more. I come from a Catholic family. Divorce is bad. Divorce is breaking a promise; breaking a sacred vow. It is against the will of God; unholy. I understand that they do not understand. And I can live with that. I do live with that. The operative word being ‘live.’ Getting free and getting safe were, are, and always will be worth the price of that disapproval.

I want you to live too.

Does “Gun Control” really have to mean “Prying My Gun From My Cold Dead Hands”?

OK. I have held my tongue for years of this, but I no longer can. I don’t know where the voices of all the moderates have gone, but that’s another post. I am tired. So tired of all the yelling and taking of sides. I have lost faith in people, our government, the system and the possibility that anything will ever change.

Still, in all my sense of futility, I do have an opinion. This is, after all, happening to all of us – to our country.

My opinion is: I think we should be able to talk about this.

Seriously. We, a people who have suffered through more mass shootings (defined as four or more individuals injured by a single shooter and controlled for domestic violence) in 2015 than there have been days of the year, should be able to talk about this.

But whenever something horrible happens, people quickly start drawing lines in the sand and taking sides. No meaningful issue is this simple.

When someone like me starts talking about commonsense gun legislation, others start saying “They’re not getting my guns!” Literally. I tried to make a comment about safe firearm storage to an immediate family member this past summer, and this person literally burst out with “They’re not gonna take my guns!”

The thing is, nobody said that. Nobody ever says that except people seeking political power or money by fear mongering. And even if they did, there are checks and balances in our system that keep anything that sort of thing from even being possible. The commonsense firearm legislation I have seen has nothing whatsoever to do with removing guns from the hands of law-abiding citizens.

Instead, some of the following things have been proposed and have failed:
* Safe storage legislation (too expensive, too intrusive, too hard to enforce)
* Extreme Risk protective orders (Legislation designed to temporarily remove a person’s access to guns during a time of intense emotional disturbance or first psychotic episode where family members or law enforcement have evidence the person poses a serious threat to themselves or others.)
This law, if in place, would have removed the OR shooter’s guns from him and would have prevented these ten tragic, meaningless, and preventable deaths. Such legislation has been proposed time and again, including in my own state earlier this year, but typically fails. In WA, the bill had the support of the majority of the legislature in theory, but still couldn’t pass. Where it did pass in California, gun rights activists scream bloody murder over what they view as restrictions to their rights, all the while saying that we should address the ‘mental health issues.’ This leaves me shaking my head because we’re talking about helping a person suffering with mental health issues by keeping firearms from them while they have a chance to stabilize.
* Closing of loopholes related to gun shows or internet purchases. Seriously this should be so obvious it hurts. This is simply a matter of states universally enforcing laws that are already in place. This hardly seems an encroachment on anyone’s rights, but is always met with heavy pushback because of the dollar amounts involved. Seriously, let’s enforce our existing state laws universally. That’s what state right are all about.
* Allowing the CDC to study gun deaths just as they do automobile deaths and allowing them to make their recommendations. We don’t need to be afraid of facts, yet this continues to be disallowed.
* Law Enforcement gun buyback options for those who *want* such a thing. Nothing forced – I’m not talking about taking anyone’s guns – but there are plenty of people, even some I know, who wind up inheriting a firearm and not knowing what to do about it. This gets unwanted weapons out of the hands of an under-educated group and out of circulation where they can be picked up by those who might do harm.

These are the kinds of things we’re talking about. And I support them. And I believe that most moderate individuals support similar ideas. We all want to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and disturbed individuals. And we all know that this will never be achievable. But it can get better. Every gun that is (truly) safely stored is a gun that a child will not accidentally shoot her sibling with. Education plays a *huge* part, but it isn’t enough by itself. Every gun removed from circulation by those who voluntarily choose this option is one that won’t be stolen in a burglary. Every gun sale prevented to an unauthorized individual through the enforcement of existing state laws and the closing of exceptions to those laws is a gun that won’t be used by that person to commit a crime. And this is not theoretical – right here in my own state we passed an initiative earlier this year which very simply requires that private sales and transfers —including those at gun shows or on the internet— go through the same background check process as sales through a licensed gun dealer. Just days after going into effect, this law blocked the sale of a firearm to a prohibited purchaser at a Spokane gun show. This individual had an active arrest warrant, but only weeks before would have been sold a firearm no questions asked.

This is an emotional issue, no doubt about it. But lots of other high-stakes issues are also emotional (School quality, highway safety, infrastructure spending, corporate tax rates, access to college, ad. nauseam) but they aren’t politicized in the same way. For some reason, this issue, along with the ‘A’ word, have become so politicized that we can’t even see straight. We don’t talk to each other like human beings. It’s ‘us’ versus ‘them’ and ‘they’ want to take what we have! And it’s not true – it really isn’t. We’re all human beings who care about our civil liberties, who care about our families and who care about public safety. I wish we could drop the overtones of political power and talk about individual issues rationally. Unfortunately, slippery slope logic prevails as it so often does with emotional topics.

What truly troubles me about this is that we aren’t talking with or listening to each other. People are drawing up sides and proclaiming at one another. I feel like I am expected to take up ranks on this – either I stand with some undefined ‘them’ who want to take all the guns or I stand with real Americans who support the 2nd amendment by opposing any gun legislation at all. And … I don’t fit. And I don’t believe that most Americans do either. Anyone who really knows me knows that I am not anti-gun. I’m not. But if we’ve ever talked about it, you’ll know that I think that locked, secure storage should be compulsory and that anyone wanting to own a gun should be able to pass a basic background check.

Call me crazy, but I don’t think that takes me to the extreme left where my voice should be disregarded as just another anti-american liberal who wants to take your guns. Likewise, I don’t think that my friends and family members who are gun rights activists are crazy gun-toting right-wing extremists who would be dismissed out of hand. I think we can have it both ways. I think we can have gun rights for law abiding citizens, and also have a safer country *without* removing a single legally-obtained firearm from any individual who is not prohibited from owning it. I don’t want to take your guns. I don’t want ‘them’ to take mine. I just want to be able to talk to one another. Because preventable deaths are occurring.

That’s what I think.

Living with cancer

There is so much weighing on my heart and my mind recently.
One of the most prominent this week is this – living with cancer.

Most of you reading this will know my husband’s diagnosis. He had his previously diagnosed cancer recur in a small spot in his pelvic bone that was discovered just before our wedding in 2010. We are very grateful to his oncologist’s policy of ongoing scans after treatment that allowed this recurrence to be discovered so quickly. After this discovery, fast and agressive treatment knocked it back into remission, and it has remained in remission with ongoing treatment — where we fully expect it to stay.

But even so, it is something that we live with day to day, albeit in different ways. Obviously, it has a physical presence for him that it never will for me. From time to time it feeds fears, anger and dark moods. We do our best to not “look” at it too often – much as we discipline ourselves to not fixate on those reality entertainment programs so generously called “the news.’

But twice a year, it is harder to look away. Twice a year, scan and results time comes around and turns our life upside down for a week, a month, longer. It seems to take over for longer and longer as each round comes by, and I’m not sure why that would be. It’s usually harder in winter than in summer. The best I can figure is that it feels closer some times than others. My husband’s mom lost her life to cancer right around this time last year, and its hard not to think about the pain of that loss.  We also have our little guy now; and we’re both strongly invested in his growing up with daddy by his side.

A week like this week reminds us all that nothing is certain; nothing is a given.

But it can also remind us that what we do know is that we *are* here together right now. It is so easy to lose today to tomorrow — to give over the joy of living fully right now to the fear of what tomorrow might bring. We all do that. Over happy things as well as sad.  We lose the fun of baking with our kids to the stress of trying to be ‘ready’ for Yule or Christmas. We lose our presence in our work to plans for after work, or our next vacation, etc.

My husband reminded me recently that it is our response to adversity, to difficulties, to grief that, over time, defines who we are. It shapes us. It feeds the darkness or inspires the light. It confirms what we believe or it changes our mind. I’m not proud that there is a vocal part of me that wants to complain the unfairness of it; who wants to insist that I should have the assurance of the other moms in our play group that their husbands will be there for the first day of school, the first ball game, the high school graduation. But it a false assurance; in truth none of us really have it. It is illusion. Illusion we cling to; illusion we count on, but illusion all the same. Sometimes I want to have that illusion to hold close. I want to visualize my husband and I dancing at our son’s wedding one day and just know, not hope, but know in my heart of hearts that it will certainly come to pass. Other days, I am grateful for the reminder to just be together right now; to accept the moment and to do our very best to live in love every day.

The holidays remind us of those who are no longer present to celebrate with us. It is hard for everyone. This week I miss my sister Stephanie more acutely than usual. Stephanie lived a life measured in love, and I miss her. She never had the certainty that most of us count on of one day to follow another, but it didn’t stop her from living a full life – a life full of love.

For today, I will try to live each moment given to me in love.

It’s measured in love

How do you measure a year in the life? It’s measured in love.

As you know, my family and I lost my sister Stephanie just two short months ago. I have and continue to shed many tears over her loss. It is a loss not only to us, but to her community in Bozeman and to the world. I don’t doubt for a moment that this is true.

I haven’t ever written much about Stephanie, and I should have. Stephanie’s is a remarkable spirit. Everyone who knew her knew this to be true; knew they were meeting someone with a rare openness of spirit, friendliness and kindness.

Now I know that if you just went by what was said at folks’ funerals, that nearly everyone is a kind, generous, amazing person … nearly perfect in every way. And maybe there’s a lot of truth to that, if we look deeply enough. (I once heard a quote along the lines that each of us has within us everything that the great spiritual leaders of history have had – the patience, kindness, serenity … even the key to enlightenment, but that we also have things they don’t have that hold us back … and that if you wonder what those things are, see what comes out the next time you’re stuck in traffic!) But I stand by my statement that Stephanie’s is a remarkable spirit. And this statement: The world is less because she is no longer in it. As our sister Liz said at her funeral: she made us better. She really did.

From the time that she started to communicate with others, Stephanie began to to show that she had mastered an art that very few ever do. She displayed a deep-seated assurance that she was liked; loved even. If we went out to dinner and took our eyes off of Stephanie for even a minute, we’d find that she had wandered over to the table of some unsuspecting couple or family to introduce herself and chat with them. Or to admire their baby. Stephanie just loved babies. And you know what? it worked. Stephanie was liked, loved, treasured. Stephanie was known by hundreds of people in her community. A steady stream of people arrived at the hospital to look in on her. So many of them stayed to tell us about their friendship and how they treasured Stephanie. Everyone had a story. Everyone talked about how Stephanie lit up their lives.

Stephanie was clearly loved. And that makes me stop and think about what defines a good life.

Stephanie, as some of you know, had Spina Bifida. She never walked, and had many surgeries during her life to correct complications related to this. Accompanying that birth defect, as it so often does, was hydrocephalus (water on the brain) that led to some cognitive disability.

When I was pregnant with Conlan, I worried terribly about the possibility of his developing some birth defect. I wanted (and very much want!) him to be healthy, happy and whole. I want my son to have all that life can offer him. But on reflecting upon Stephanie’s life, I again wonder what defines a good life? What exactly does life have to offer us other than, well, life. And is one life inherently better than another? Or worth more? Does life really have more to offer one than another, depending on the circumstance of his or her birth?

People can have good health and many advantages, but still have a bad life. I see examples of that around me all of the time! People can also have every disadvantage, but still have a good life – a very good one.

At the risk of over-simplifying it, I think a great deal of it comes down to one big difference. People who are happy, people who have great lives, live in love. They love and are loved. And they know that this is what, in the end, really matters.

And Stephanie extended love to everyone she came to know. So far as I can see, she didn’t hold back as so many of us do, to keep herself safe. And so this unlikely-seeming individual with her significant disability lived a better life than so many do. No matter what she couldn’t do, she could love perfectly.

Now, so I still want Conlan to have excellent health? Of course I do! And I hope that I can provide a healthy and physically active environment for him to grow strong and healthy and vital. I look forward to hiking, sailing and many other awesome activities with him. And do I think that he will have more opportunities as a healthy and vital person? Yes. But to the question of whether he will have a “better” life than someone, for example, born with Down Syndrome? Maybe, but maybe not. Certainly not necessarily. This fragile, beautiful life that we are given care over for such a short time is what we make of it; quite literally what we make of it.

I grieve that Conlan will be less for having not known his Aunt Stephanie … but even as I say that I realize that it’s up to me to rise up to Stephanie’s example and to teach him what she taught me. To teach him that there’s something sunny in every day, however cloudy it might appear. And to teach him that people are truly good. And to teach him a little of that unshakable faith that people will absolutely like him if he only gives them a chance to know him. And that having what you need is having enough. And that time spent with people you care about is, here and now and also in the end, the only thing that actually really matters.

Be open to all the world has to offer

On Saturday, we presented a new ritual up at the ATC: The Spirit of Youth – A Summer Ritual.

The initial idea for the ritual came out of a discussion I had with a friend about what to do for a fun summer ritual. She had suggested following an inner child thread – how we are children of the gods or how we are a “child of earth and starry heaven? What does that mean? And how is being child-like sometimes the right response to the world?”

I liked it and began getting some ideas down on paper.

Then I saw an interview on Conan with Louis CK about how everything is amazing and nobody is happy. And got to talking with David over dinner. The basic concept was born: a ritual about remembering or observing the wonder of a child at how incredible and new everything is. About practicing appreciation for what we have right here and now. About finding joy in simple things. And I’d love to share few of those thoughts with you here.

Because our world is incredible. Genuinely, honestly and truly incredible.

There are so many wonders in our world, wonders that our ancestors couldn’t possibly have imagined. We can travel to distant lands that were but rumors to them in a matter of hours by FLYING THROUGH THE AIR. We can interact with people all over the world. We have sound homes out of the elements. We don’t have to worry about being eaten by tigers, so we can turn our minds to every kind of wonder – from sailing a ship across the open sea to scaling the highest mountains. From curing disease to building impossibly small microchips. From traveling to another culture to flying to the moon! It is truly amazing.

But sometimes we forget. Sometimes I think that we are so in this world that we forget to see it. And it wasn’t always like that. As children, we were open to the wonders around us.

Think of a three year-old discovering magnets for the first time. It’s magic … pure and simple magic! The simplest toy is an amazing discovery to be explored. A doll or stuffed animal is something alive, imbued with wonder, imbued with personality.

And we still have that available to us. We can still look at the world with fresh eyes. I’m sure that everyone reading this has days like that: where the skies are just brighter, people kinder and the world a place of marvelous magic. It’s still available to us, but we so often do not choose to stop and see it.

When I stop and ask myself why not, I think the difference is this:
A child approaches the day with wonder, excitement and energy because they can’t wait to see what’s going to happen. It could be anything! It is a discovery just waiting to be made.
We, on the other hand, so often approach the day with a tired reluctance because we think we know exactly what’s going to happen. But what if we didn’t? What if we chose to be open to surprise, instead? What if we chose to take it all in, to breathe it all in, to open our eyes and really look around us each morning. Scan the sky for ravens and hawks on the way to work. Look at the next person who approaches us with an open heart, anticipating that they like us, that they are with us because they want to be with us. What might happen then?

I think that, so often, a child assumes the best. Assumes that people like them, that people want to be with them, want to play with them. They approach every encounter with an expectation that they will get what they want. Now sometimes they don’t, but sometimes they do. And I have to stop and ask myself: “What might we get if we fearlessly seek what we need?”

Food for thought … for me just as much as anyone else – maybe more so. 🙂
Let us stop today, look around us and ask “What is incredible, wonderful and beautiful about this?” Let us be open to all the beautiful surprises the world has in store. Let us assume the best of the next person who approaches us. Just to see what happens.

Brightest Blessings to you all.

What do you care if I’m happy?

Some time back, as I began to recover from a particularly difficult time in my life, I began getting a remarkable number of comments from my coworkers that they were glad to see that I was ‘back to myself’.

What, I wondered, did that mean exactly? When had I ever stopped being myself? Of course, I hadn’t. What they meant was that they were glad to see me back to my normal happy equilibrium. But I couldn’t help but wonder why they would care or even notice. What impact did it really have on the quality of their lives whether I felt happy or not? 

Then I came across this article on the topic, one well worth a read.

Dave Young writes: “We, the happy, are obligated to remain so. Periodically, we must put on our oxygen mask and wade into the misery pit to help someone find their way out (or help some unhappy customer find some semblance of satisfaction). … the pit is not a place to stay.”

This led me to another thought-provoking article on emotional contagion. In a nutshell, my take-home from the article was this:

“If you want to accomplish something that demands determination and endurance, try to surround yourself with people possessing these qualities. And try to limit the time you spend with people given to pessimism and expressions of futility. Unfortunately, negative emotions exert a more powerful effect in social situations than positive ones, thanks to the phenomena of emotional contagion.” 
—Richard Restak 

and this:

“Anger and resentment are the most contagious of emotions,” according to Stonsy. “If you are near a resentful or angry person, you are more prone to become resentful or angry yourself.”

These are words that were very helpful to me as I struggled to regain my equilibrium all those years ago, and words that I continue to return to again and again.  And I must also remind myself that this goes both ways.  Not only should I be cautious of the emotions to which I subject myself, so too should I be cognizant of the emotions to which I subject others.  Basically a reminder that my moods and attitudes are sure to rub off on those around me. Very powerful knowledge to have.

Act the way you’d like to be and soon you’ll be the way you act.  

~Crane, George W.

The power of the spoken word

My note from the Universe today has got me thinking:
Your words are simply the thoughts of yours, C, that will become things the soonest.

Or, as my former Sensei used to like to say: “Words mean things.”

Or, as Bill Cosby says: “First you say it, then you do it!”
So true.

I think that sometimes we forget the awesome power of the spoken word. There is a reason why, in the Christian Bible, the gospel of John begins: “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God” (John 1:1).

The word was the act of creation. The word defined the action to follow – gave it shape and form. The word made it real.

Our words are the first step in our thoughts being made manifest. Our words are one of the outside world’s first and most important clues as to who we are on the inside. Our words are our commitment to ourselves and to those around us. Words mean things.

From a metaphysical perspective, things get even more interesting (at least to me.) So often, in ritual, we speak, write, or draw words to represent what we would make manifest in our lives. We recognize the transformative power inherent in the task of considering what we would accomplish, and then putting the energy out to the universe in spoken form. We often give more energy to our intent by chanting or vocalizing to add power and force to those words.

Why would we do that?

Putting voice to our intent moves that intent from the internal realms out into the Universe. It announces to the Universe what we would accomplish. But, more than that, in that same act of speaking we put a bit of energy into motion. And once that motion is begun, it has momentum. Perhaps the momentum is a shared idea that inspires another idea, or that sparks another to action, or that gives us that finality of a decision finally committed to which moves us to actually go get things done. There are infinitely many ways that this momentum might be made manifest. The point is that words spoken change something. Always.

Even when it’s a joke passed along that lightens the stress on one who hears it, which then affects how they interact in traffic, with the grocery clerk and with their family when they return home … in turn affecting how each and every one of those people interacts with the next person they see.
Or when it’s a hard truth shared in love, prompting someone to look within and make a change.
Or a lesson shared, which helps another to avoid the pitfall that caught us up.
Or even when it’s troubles set down at the feet of a friend which lighten our hearts and allow us to take one more step closer to being the person who we would like to be.

Wow! That’s power.

To quote a ritual from this past fall “… later tonight, let your ideas mingle with the others here. Share you thoughts, and you may be surprised what ideas you may plant next spring …”

So, on remembering that every word spoken is an act of creation, I ask myself: “What would I like to say today?”

And what does that change?