My Ego

     Because you have stuck with me for so long, I am going to share a deeply embarrassing, personal piece of information that might be up there with "I wet the bed... last week".  The only other person who knows this about me is my boss, who reminded me of it yesterday.

  

     My ego's name is Bueleh.

    During a particularly trying, long conversation with one of the parents I work with, my ego just wouldn't sit on its haunches.  "Down, boy, down!" I cried over and over, while the parent continued to criticize every. single. aspect. of a huge home program I'd designed.  This parent had been very, very wronged.  This parent had two children severely affected by autism. This parent was afraid.  This was clearly not about me, but I simply could not still that horrible rising up that caused me to eventually snap a little defensively at the parent, "It really sounds like you think we might not be the best fit for your home program! Is there anything going right?"  Not my proudest moment.

     When I got home and told my mom (who we call the Dali Mama) about it, she said "Name it".  "Angry, defensive, insulted!" I cried indignantly.  "Your ego.  Name your ego."  "Bueleh," I said, instantly.  I have loved the name Bueleh since I read it in a baby book.  It seemed like a nice name to give such a big monster.

     Funny thing - something with a name is much more manageable.  "Down, Bueleh" and "Heel, Bueleh" go much better than "Hey pipe down you!"  Bueleh lets me feel compassion for myself and my ego.  Bueleh lets me recognize it as an entity when it arises.  Bueleh is practically solid matter, whereas a nameless ego was an insidious, icky slime.

    Sounds like I'm giving myself Divided Identity Disorder?  Next time you feel that tension rise up in you in response to someone else, next time you feel yourself snapping or getting defensive or feeling offended or insulted, take notice of that tense feeling, where it resides, how strong it is.  Give it a name.  Watch it grow legs and walk away.


     How do you keep your ego in check?

Spring

     Easter and Christmas - I've always struggled with them (once I got past the Santa Brings Presents and Eater Bunny Brings Chocolate stage).  They're religious holidays, but they're grossly commercialized, so they belong up there with Valentine's Day, but they're deeply meaningful in some religious traditions... it's too much for me to wrap my pea brain around.  I'm not good with mutually exclusive concepts dwelling on the same date.
     I wanted to find ways to create meaning, since the days aren't going away.  Some options: do nothing and just be straightforward with our daughter about it from the get go.  Plenty of kids don't do Christmas and Easter and they live to tell the tales.  Or rather, to not tell tales, since we're throwing in Lying to our Children on top of Buying a Bunch of Crap.
     That's not very fun though, and we like fun.  Another option is to just put my blinders on and go for the gold - Cadbury eggs and all.  Can't really spiritually quest that way, though.  Since my whole goal is to find meaning and marrow in the ordinary things, I had to do better than that.
     So, for lack of creativity, I decided to do a little non-candy basket with a few books, a DVD, and some funky forks (she really likes tableware, what can I say?)  My mother in law also got the baby an adorable little few things so we put that out too.  I covered the coffee table in a red gingham vinyl table cloth, you know, the kind you take on a picnic.  And I decided to see what happened.  My only goal was to get outside into nature.
     There is such a grace to letting life unfold and give you answers.  For starters, our daughter was totally underwhelmed, cranky and woke up way too early.  My husband nearly went to war with a sippy cup.  If I was married to the idea of the idyllic Easter, I would have been crying by 6:30am.  Instead, I wrangled the family, banned the iPhones, poured bowls of goldfish crackers, and made everyone watch the DVD.  Voila! An Easter tradition of snuggling and snacks was born.
     Still not sure what to do with the rest of the day, we took a blissful 2 hour family nap - another Easter tradition born, one centering around rest and renewal.  I can get on board with that.
     Later in the day we went to the park and rejoiced in the movement of running, climbing, swinging!  We then took a lovely long stroll down the creek in the park.  We looked at all the small signs of life - the buds on the trees, the daffodils, the way the water runs under the bridge, the fresh tiny green leaves.  We literally hugged trees.  I can't imagine a better way to introduce my toddler to Easter - traditions centering around new life, renewal, Mother Nature waking up and washing her face.
     That's how we drew some meaning from a day that doesn't have a lot of authentic meaning to me.  Last year I spent it in the church vestibule bouncing a way too heavy child and commiserating with another similarly miserable mom.  I didn't find new life in that church, heavy with male leadership and incense.  I found it in the green grass, the light of life in my baby's eyes, and the sweetly blue sky.

Spirituality and the Feminine

     Why struggle when you can swim?  Since I resumed my menstrual cycle after having my baby, the days around it have gotten darker, more volatile, and almost violent.  During that time I fight against my ordinary life like a WWF wrestler in a steel cage match.  I try to turn to my best old standby, A New Earth, and the whole thing falls flat.  Cognitively I  understand that in these troubled moments driven by hormones and whatever else is going "wrong" in my body, all I am supposed to do is accept what is, dwell in that moment, and eventually come out peacefully on the other side.  Realistically, the best expectation I can have is that I come out the other side not having broken any dishes willfully.  The model of inner peace and enlightenment that is set forth by all the teachers I've read is one that feels unattainable to me.

    Recently I have been reading This Time I Dance by Tama Kieves.  Her writing thrills me.  It talks of passion and power (the inner kind, not the dictator kind).  It talks of peace driven by fulfillment.  It talks of harnessing the energy - violent and otherwise - into your life's work.  It talks of swashbuckling, risky, feather-in-my-cap kind of inner peace.  Now we're speaking my language!

     The dovetail to Tama Kieves seemed to be a revisit to Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.  Says Pinkola Estes, "Feeling extraordinarily dry, fatigued, frail, depressed, confused, gagged... without inspiration.. chronically fuming, volatile,... to be self-conscious... drawn far into domesticity..."  These descriptors point to being out of synch with the "wildish force int he psyche".  In other words.. to be a woman.  To live in modern society, especially here on the east coast in new jersey, means to inherently live out-of-synch with our wildish psyche.  It means to drive a car from point A to point B.  It means to straighten our hair, it means recycling is some remote thing done far away. It means that the beauty and power of our ocean and its sands of times is relegated to an onslaught of summer beach dwellers half heartedly glancing in its direction.  It means the struggle to seek marrow in an ordinary existing is like Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill.

    Well! No wonder this woman is ready to tattoo her face with desperate messages of escape! Rescue me! I have no desire to live peeing in the woods, believe me.  I don't want to hunt deer for food and forage for berries. I like most of modern life - I like elongated seat toilets, I really love hot showers.  I don't like bugs, inside or out, and most wildlife scares me.  It's only that the pace and standards of life right around here are counter-supportive to living a full, feminine life connected to Mother Earth and one another.

     This is all to say that the men seem to be talking more about peace in the moment and stillness, the women seem to be talking about passion and movement, and I live in a place that seems counter-supportive to any of the above.  To women living out a fulfilled, authentic life, this society I live in is polite enough to quiet its collective mouth but will give you a brutal side-eye.

    Do you think that emerging women's spirituality would do better with female teachers?

  

Tuesday is the Day of Karma!

     According to that sweet little guidebook, Tuesday is the day we teach our children that the seeds we plant today bloom into flowers tomorrow.

Monday is the Day of Giving...

     Remember Monday? The day of giving, as per this post:  Monday is the Day of Giving and as per Deepak Chopra's wonderful little parent-sized book, The Seven Spiritual Laws for Parenting.  I love the simplicity and repetition of assigning each day of the week a spiritual theme.  It helps me to depart from raising a child in an organized religion - one of the appeals is the organization part, isn't it?  Sunday is church and Sunday School.  Saturday night is youth group.  The religious practices have an order and a time set aside for them.  Trying to raise a child with spiritual practice often falls apart for me because there is no time set aside for it.  It's an all-the-time effort, but I do think my child needs some rules, repetition, and special time set aside for spiritual practice at her level.
    Which brings us back to Monday.  This morning, she shared her precious Bink with her dollies and her Elmo stuffed animal.  We made a big deal of that!  She gave some of her snack to a friend at school.  These are the small things that I hope will help her learn how wonderful giving feels, how happy it makes others.
    Now, if I could only remember what TUESDAY's theme is!!!

Whispers from the Universe

     Don't you love little sweet nothings from the universe? Don't you love how you can go half asleep through each day, then one day remember your connection to all things living and wake up again?  Don't you love that when you do wake up, the universe is right there sitting patiently like a mother watching her child sleep and waiting for the moment when he wakes, like a mother relishing the sighs, restless tossing and turning, sweet closed eyes of her child? How like a mother, the universe cherishes us just as much, sleeping or awake, and eagerly awaits the moment our eyes pop open, we rub them, we look up and stretch our arms out to be lifted up?  And how the universe will always, always hold us close when we ask.  Don't you love it?
     How do we know?  Those little sweet nothings.  When we decide to stretch out our arms, we open are ears and hear coincidences, come across a meaningful quotation, get an email from a friend that says exactly what we needed to hear.  We get a shining sun day, or a grey contemplative day - we get what we need.  Little sweet nothings.
     I received this today: "Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves" - Rainer Maria Rilke   I was regretting opening my arms to the search. I often start down the seeker's path only to become overwhelmed and intimidated by how far there is to go, remembering that as far as I go, I have to get back, fearing getting lost.  I like my rabbit hole, the safety of knowing and not doing.  This time out, I see that I can't go back - this time the path is overgrown by the bramble of dissatisfaction - there is no way back to the place of unhappiness and unfulfillment.  This leaves me stranded out in the middle of the way, with my arms stretched up, listening for whispers from the universe.

Can of Worms

    This was my fear all along.  A calm and silent acknowledgement, I don't want to do this anymore.  Just the flutter of hummingbird wings in my mind one morning.  This drains me.  This does not strengthen me.  The small flutter that sent the small ripple that sent the river flooding that sent the ocean coursing through estuaries that with years of repression carved themselves so deeply that the waters of inspiration and truth are now rushing through me.
     How do we go from day to do with this deep dissatisfaction, wonder, and awe?