MOMENT OF LIFE

 

There’s nothing as good as the moment you find yourself in

Pause

After slowing down

Breathe in the cool stream of air

Feel it filling you up

Giving you this moment of life

Offer a cheerful little smile

Breathe out into the space

There’s great stillness

A vastness we all can access

That we all co-exist in

That we all exist in forever in timeless space

If that’s too big

Just slow, pause, breathe in, breathe out

Listen to your breath

It is you

Feel your heart beating warm inside your chest

Sounding out one moment into the next

The rhythm of your life

Your good sweet wonderful life

There’s nothing as good as the moment you find yourself in

 

(Written May 29, 2012, Sitting by myself on a massive boulder not quite alone at Point Pleasant Park, Halifax, Nova Scotia on a drizzly, cool Spring morning)

 

DEDICATED TO MY FAMILY

A Poem

I watched as the news from the television set spoke of the world’s inhumanity

I felt the force of destruction and despair move through me into the next room

The feeling of who are and a death wish knocked at my body’s door

I walked away and refused Death Mother’s admittance

The chaos is real and happening

But what if I choose to not let it into my place

My small place in this large world

The world, the planet, is bursting and alive every day and in in every moment

Life which culminates second by second

Nature doesn’t wait for the right time to act

It dances spontaneously

I passed through the archway of my mind's meanderings and back into my small yet significant reality

Realizing that my mind and body contain all the life there has ever been in the world

We are specks of unity, vessels holding the entire world in our bodily forms

Jesus and other messengers, earthly warriors of truth, remembered

They came to remind us to remember too

The illusions we carry in our thoughts are so dense and thick that they had to physically demonstrate to us their humility, they sacrificed to help humanity remember our oneness

Their hearts are wise and knowing

I turn back from my thoughts and the inner workings of my mind again to look out with a fresh view upon my family

They are the reflection of all the moments of life within me

And at this moment I want to be me

There is absolutely nothing missing

I am glad to be in my body, standing precisely where I am with all my gifts and charm, and frailties and foibles

Timeless, motionless

In a freeze-frame of utter gratitude to be alive as me

The pain delivered by the television pulled me back to this reality

Of standing here in total open inner silence

Seeing the beauty of My Family

My cousin Mary’s shining daughter, Grace, her smile and bouncing blond curls

I heard the ebullient laughter hanging in the air

I would not have chosen to be anywhere else on earth

But here in my Aunt’s kitchen with these, my people, my lovely family with all their flaws and sparks of life

Conversations of the Heart

 

This week I went with my former husband to attend a lecture at Canisius High School of the author of the bestseller, Boys Adrift and Girls on the Edge, Dr. Leonard Sax.  He is a clinically trained physician and psychologist and offered an evening that was insightful, humorous and intelligent.  His books are based on many longitudinal studies showing certain shifts in children and cultural habits. 

His words resonated with me from the start.  He started the presentation with that photo of that drop-dead gorgeous mother looking straight into our eyes who graced the cover of Time Magazine in her snug black outfit with her breast popped in her 3 year old’s mouth as he stood on the chair also looking out at us.  This got a lot of chuckles from the audience. Dr. Sax basically asserts that thanks to the proponents of attachment parenting, we have actually done a huge disservice to our children.   Now I am personally not opposed to attachment parenting. Natural childbirth in the hospital, homebirth with my second, breastfeeding on demand, sleeping with my children were all facets of my style. So was a sense that I was somehow flawed or not good enough.  How could I ever stand up to the demands of motherhood?  And I certainly rescued my children again and again due to ignorance and fear.  I accept this and I love myself despite all my choices.    

Dr. Sax spoke to the Culture of Self Esteem that is all pervasive in our world and that we have raised the last two generations of our kids in a world very different from the Culture of Humility in which anyone over thirty  grew up.  He spoke of this shift and how our young people lack a certain resilience because we as parents, particularly middle and upper income families, have shielded our children from any disappointment, and he was speaking of the minor disappointments of life that build character.  This “helicopter” style of parenting coupled with the overabundance of indoor time, gaming, cell phones, on and on, all detract from children and humans being able to touch in to their basic humanity, their basic goodness.  I think of the “nature deficit disorder” I have heard about, that is, children spend way too much time inside and are missing the exploration of the phenomenal outdoor natural world, even as close by as their own backyard. 

Children (and adults) are distracted by all these digital things to do.  Bedtime and nighttime are changed with phones and devices in bed.  My bedtime was my time to let my imagination run free.  I created so many worlds and possibilities and sometimes I ached and dripped with loneliness.  Reflecting back I prefer it over this damn cell phone sitting by my bed each night for company and over emphasis on communication via this mode.  The digital highway is even detracting from intimacy and dating; being single in this electronic era really stinks. I always say, “You cannot hold hands or kiss in a chatbox or text.”  I want connection; I need connection -- voice, and hands, and touch, and deep listening and looking into each other’s eyes. 

For children and humans to be resilient they must have time to delve into their souls and minds and hearts.  There must be darkness as well as light.  True solace is not to be found in the virtual world but in the real world.  And to gain a sense of who we humans truly are, we must experience failures and disappointments and find that we are more resilient than we ever imagined.  I remember all the travel I did alone and all the pickles I got myself into.  Sometimes I did get into dangerous situations but I learned to listen to that inner voice that is a guide; that we all have.  Our intuition is the voice of experience passed down throughout lifetimes. 

Dr. Sax reminds us to open our hearts and make space in our world to communicate with our children and that cars offer the ideal container to have these conversations of the heart.  Turn off devices, tune into one another.  There is no guarantee of the next moment, so breathe and open up in the moment you find yourself in.  Just today on the short drive to the Middle School, Aidan and I were noticing the high school kids smoking and looking rather disheveled.  Aidan says in his wise way, “You know mom it is actually good that I was exposed to Grandma and Grandpa smoking growing up because smoke is awful, it smells awful and I know I will never smoke.”  Then he continues, and this part really wrung my heart, “Grandma and Grandpa did a decently good job because look how you turned out.  You are not perfect but your fine, you are genuine.” 

I appreciated the way Dr. Sax reminded all the parents in the auditorium that our job is to be a model of humility and goodness to our children and to others.  He reminded us that humility is caring for others as much as we care for our self.  That it is not about being great or unique but being a genuine person.  There is no one our children like or love more than their own parents, despite our shortcomings and our failures.  If we have little sense of who we are, we will never know what really matters.  I know for me the people who have a presence built on dignity and humility and gentleness are the humans who really engage me and touch me.  These human beings are not caught in the trap of their ego but are engaged in the work of the world confidently and with great humbleness. 

Dr. Sax left his audience with the three things that really matter most to us:

1.     Find meaningful work

2.     Find someone to love

3.     Find a cause to engage in

“Esse quam videri”

To be rather than to seem to be

Soaked with Life: A Journal Entry

 "It is in the work of life that we learn to truly love and to be alive.  Not in taking the easy way out."

 

(Entry from August 3, 2006, Portland, Maine)

Yesterday, we all sailed together in Portland Bay.  Bobby, Aidan and I took out the Sunfish.  This was Aidan’s first time; he is just six years old.  We set out into the bay and made two passes as a thunderstorm rolled in.  We sidled up to the dock and jumped onto the pier, kneeling, my son and I were holding on with the tethers firmly gripped in our hands.  We waited while Bobby drove his car down to us.  Suddenly a wild, terrific storm swept in and the waves were rolling and crashing, swelling over the dock as Aidan and I held onto the boat with all the might of a six year old child and his mama.  A man came to offer help.  This moment, these minutes were so intense and profound.  I felt completely alive, aware of the danger side-by-side with my six year old; Aidan and I became one body, truly one.  It occurred to me in that suspended space of time waiting for Bobby’s return that I am raising exactly the kind of man I would like to be with.  Good.  That’s my contribution, my creation.  I reassured Aidan with all the confidence of the divine female and male combined within my being that all is okay and rainbows surround us and it’s all good.  And, I really knew it; I felt my words.  I could count on this unseen protection not from God, but from life, from our selves, from our togetherness. 

As this rain pelted us and soaked our bodies, the back of us, and rivulets of water streamed down our heads and faces to our noses and into our open mouths, we were soaked with life!  My hair was ravaged and clinging to my face and nape of my neck, cascades of water from my earlobes. Utterly soaked with life. 

MIDDLE WAY IN LOVE

The middle way in love

Neither sticking to the other, our Beloved and

Smoldering the oxygen from their bodies

Nor pulling away and distancing ourselves out of fear of the primordial wound

When one relationship ends there is a tendency to fill up the space

There is so much spaciousness and oxygen

That one feels to be drowning in all the freedom

The path of equanimity

Free from attaching or averting

Awaits

This all takes practice and more practice

It is possible to turn the mind and heart into allies

It is good to be confident in one’s own basic goodness and sanity

 

THE LONG NOW

The ever present now,

There is no escaping it.

It is good to empty into the next moment.

Whenever you are is

Called now,

Known as the present.

The long now,

There is no escaping

Or turning away from.

The plants and animals

Live in the ever present

Children do, too.

We are not any different.

When you take your

Next breath

It will be now

And the breath after that, too.

Breathe and be,

Awaken to your gentleness

As one moment folds into the next.

 

 

A Poem by Mary Oliver

WILD GEESE

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

~ Mary Oliver ~