Pondering... 30 in 30 - Day 28

"To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasant sensations in the world. You are surrounded by adventure. You have no idea of what is in store for you, but you will, if you are wise and know the art of travel, let yourself go on the stream of the unknown and accept whatever comes in the spirit in which the gods may offer it." -- Freya Stark

Diamonds in the Soul - helping high-functioning, under-living people recover and nourish personal delight & joy in life.

Everyone is a teacher

Reminder to self – Everyone is a teacher.

As a group facilitator, I often have the privilege of being taught by my students. During a day of reconnecting to creativity through restoration and rejuvenation, I invited participants to select an image to introduce themselves. The images were as varied as the people around our circle, but my teacher of the day presented in the form of a sprite of a woman, weighing no more than 90 pounds fully clothed and soaking wet. Well into her 80's with hair of spun silver, she wore a bright scarlet dress accessorized with a huge medical collar strapped around her neck.

With twinkling eyes, she held in her hand, a photo of a rugged snow-capped mountain with soaring peaks. Out of her mouth came the words, "I am one who explores the trails." Incongruous as it might seem for this frail woman to make such an unflinching statement, no one who witnessed this scene doubted her. In fact, I could actually envision her roaming that mighty mountain as she shared deeply from her heart, her memory, and even her future. With her words, her stature grew and she became the towering mountain. I could see all dreams come true - hers, mine, and the world's. It was a glorious moment.

To live fully is to believe in dreams, unflinching truth and living our heart's desire. Today’s teacher demonstrated all of those wrapped in a petite package of wisdom. May we each learn from her example.

Consider today:

· What is your heart's desire?

· What trails do you hope to travel this year?

· What would it mean to speak the truth out of your deepest desires?

Announcing... My Word(s) for the Year

My words for the year have been colluding and whispering to me for weeks now. First I thought it was one and then the other, until finally I realized they were a pair that begs to work in tandem in the coming months. This morning I finally sat down and let them dominate my morning pages, so it seemed like as good a time as any to announce them here. Tada!!! Announcing....

Refine & Expand

What does it mean to refine and expand? To refine feels like letting go, not necessarily of big things although some will feel big. I love flexibility - movement - fluidity and "Water" (last year's word) emphasized both fluidity and flexibility. I also really like structure coupled with freedom of movement. I want to refine the structure of how I do things. Not necessarily the bold "Fire" way of two years ago, but softer - wiser - more delicate refinement. Like working on the tiny details of a painting, not with massive burst strokes across a giant canvas, but intricate adjustments like the light in an eye or the pollen of a bloom. Details. Refinement.

As I refine, there will naturally be expansion. "Dream Big" continues to show up and I know my life is meant to be Big. (Isn't yours?) I've experienced BIG hurts along the way, and in return - not as payback or to be fair - I've also experienced tremendous joy and contentment. When you let go of (refine) your hurts, the swing of the pendulum automatically makes room (expands) for great joy. Big risks offer Big paybacks. My skydiving experience was a HUGE fear that turned into a hallmark experience of undeniable, impossible to explain exhilaration and joy - with a side benefit of new-found bravery!

I don't know exactly what the expansion will look like and I'm ok with that. I'm starting a new training course next week and it's going to be extensive and expansive. I'll be expanding my tribe, my knowledge, my world view and a few more things I can't name right now.

Refining and expanding will include clearing and cleaning out the clutter in my life. I refuse to live small and hidden. In the past, I have dug into the depths to unbury myself in some pretty BIG ways. In 2011, I plan to continue to dig, but with a teaspoon rather than a backhoe - that's refinement. One small step. One spoonful at a time. That's where I believe I'll find the treasures this year. It's like an archeological dig. It's easy to find the giant sarcophagi, but painstaking to seek out the tiny carved buttons. Refine & Expand - there you have it!

If you've chosen a word for the year, I'd love to have you share it here. If you haven't considered what yours might be I invite you to sit quietly and see what finds you. Carrying a word for the year can be a truly magical and "expansive" experience. I hope you'll join me!!

Bullies in Disguise

Layers and layers of discovery. I move. I rest. I pause. The layers shift and morph. Refining my way toward freedom. Awhile back I had a memory arise and while I’m not sure it’s an actual event, I don’t know why I would have made it up – unless, of course, I needed it to help me with something else.

The scene is pretty precise. I’m 6 years old and in the first grade. I’m in the narrow cloak closet at school and we’ve just come in from recess. I can smell the damp coats and feel someone behind me pressing my face into them. It’s another child, I’m certain. I can’t breathe. A vise-like grip deepens on the sides of my throat – pudgy fingers, I think. My fear tightens as a knee or elbow presses into my spine, stuffing my face further into the darkness of the fabric. The bully tells me to “Stay quiet, or else.” My nostrils fill with the acrid smell of wet wool. I want to scream, but my mouth is buried and the words won’t come. Suddenly, there’s a flurry of activity and the grip releases, the pressure comes out of my back. I’m alone and disheveled in the closet. No real harm, right?

The metaphor to my life is immense. The internal struggles over voice, aloneness and importance are core. They are battles I’ve been peeling the layers off for years. They move and shift and morph. Recently, I’ve had a grown-up bully attempting to put the vise-like grip on my authentic self. (S)he came disguised as someone who wanted my help (which is very seductive for a caregiver.) How long would I allow the knee to press into my back and stifle the scream rising in my chest? It wasn’t until I invited this person to leave that clarity came and I felt the relief of speaking up for what I wanted and needed. The pressure released and I was not alone.

This week in my Advent retreat, we are pondering what it means to say, “Yes.” What is the risk? Will you say yes to your longings? For a moment just ponder the danger of continually saying, “No” to your heart’s desire.

Risk

What does it mean to ask for what I want?

I asked and I received.

Writing. Reading. Creating.

Say Yes!

I asked and I received.

Don’t limit.

Say Yes!

The shadow is the bully.

Don’t limit

My writing, reading, creating.

The shadow is the bully.

What does it mean to ask for what I want?

Anyone There?

Themes of birth, awakening and mothers float through my mind. Vivid dreams invade my night and wake me like a whisper from my sleep. I roll over, turn off the alarm and sink into that space where dreamland meets dawn. The space between past, present and future cannot be delineated and my earliest memory drifts into now. I am older than one and younger than two. Standing in my crib with an earnest look on my face, I am not crying or distressed. I appear to be reaching, perhaps not with my arms, but only with my eyes. Anyone there? My eyes stretch into the room beyond the recesses of my barred bed and beckon, Anyone there?

Isn't that the question I still ask today? In times of lament, I turn to the ancient lie I tell myself. I am not important. I will always be alone. Was no one there? Sharing my 10 year old brother's room, I wonder if he resented my presence from the beginning. I recall the black eye my mother received when she bumped the door jamb during a nightly visit to me. Would she return again?

So odd, these memories. So very interesting. Anyone there is what I continue to ask today. Will you read my work? Hold my hand? Laugh at my jokes? Kiss my lips? Notice my hair? Anyone there? Are you paying attention? Do you see me? Is it possible I still carry the look of a one year old standing in her crib - reaching and searching for connection. Anyone there?

What are the questions you ask yourself or the lies you whisper when past & present merge?

photo - Paris

when words fail, i turn to nature...

"All of nature is invested with the loving care of an infinitely creative God."

I bind unto myself today
the virtues of the starlit heaven
the glorious sun's life-giving ray,
the whiteness of the moon at even,
the flashing of the lightning free, t
he whirling wind's tempestuous shocks,
the stable earth, the deep salt sea,
around the old eternal rocks.

-- excerpted 3/3 Aidan's Readings; Celtic Daily Prayer

photo from paris 3/2008

Not one. But not two.

"Just like the sun and its light, the ocean and the wave, the singer and the song. Not one. But not two." -- Joan Chittister quoting an ancient

Earlier this week Sunrise Sister wrote a lovely post reflecting on traveling and whether or not we have companions alongside us. One of the main questions people asked as I prepared for my trip is "who are you going with?" or "are you traveling alone?" I have had a hard time responding. I mean - do we ever really travel alone? On the flipside, can anyone else truly know where we've been or where we are going? "Not one. But not two." Profound, huh?

Today, I am reunited with one of my favorite blogging sisters, Tess of Anchors & Masts. We met online several years ago and had the delight of meeting in person almost two years ago in Paris. She is taking on the daunting task of keeping me awake throughout the day so I can get myself acclimated to UK time. Additionally, she has offered to meet me at the airport, steer me toward our lodging and carry my bags. Now that's a great traveling companion!

photo from Paris 2008

Sacred Sunday: Pondering Poetry

Thursday was National Poetry Day in the UK. Tess wrote a lovely post that has stayed with me most of today. Here was my response:

this is a very thought-provoking post for me. i do not remember lullaby’s ever being sung to me except in the recesses of my mind, so they must have come from somewhere. the poetry i remember from school was dissected and examined in such critical detail that i did not like it at all… and so, when i think of my favorite poets, the first ones that come to mind are the “ordinary” people. the ones i have witnessed create beauty from just a moment or two of solitude. i remember the first time i was prompted to write a poem since the painful time of elementary and middle-school rhyming agony. it was sitting in the midst of a group of women who i know now were anything but ordinary. when the words popped out of my mouth, they pulled a string on my heart and i was hooked. now i can visit the likes of oliver, neruda, levertov, rumi, hafiz, o’donohue, berry and others without dissecting them and looking for iambic pentameter and whatever. i can let the words wash over me like the songs they were created to be.

alas my poet’s heart was awakened by this post.

oh, and i am a sap for the love poems of elizabeth barrett browning.

How about you? Where and how (or does) poetry pull on the strings of your heart?

People Watching

The following poem evolved from a couple of things - Memory from a Zeta Sister and Invitation to Poetry: Moments from Abbey of the Arts.

Do they know who they will become?
Are they already there?

Pink crocs and purple cast, she floats
across the playground.
Will she be a nurse mending others or
the daredevil breaking bones?

Tiny son in his own blue crocs,
raises his voice to the sky.
Budding opera singer? Talk show host?
Perhaps a bellowing father.

Newborn babes & scampering tots,
mothers, fathers, aunties too.
Do they know who they will become?
Are they already there?

The merry-go-round spins
faster and faster.
Which moments of the blur will
stand in clarity?

Bell bottom jeans, peasant top
& flowing hair, she sits upon the campus wall.
Could she know who she would become?
Was she already there?

Perhaps it is middle age or psychotherapy that has me remembering moments of my past, but I continue to be fascinated by what I am learning about my life. Recent discoveries have led me to consider the "clues" to who I have become that were there all along the way.

The things I loved as a child (which I thought I had forgotten) are still the things I love today. My authentic tendencies (not necessarily those imposed upon me by others) have been with me from ages 5 to 15 to 50.

So, what do you think? Did you know who you would become? Were you already there? Can you see the clues that were there along the way?

photo from Paris, 2008

fight, flight or a third way?

We are slowly discovering what many of us are calling "the Third Way," neither flight nor fight, but the way of compassionate knowing. Both the way of fight and the way of flight fall short of wisdom, although they look like answers in the heat of the moment. When it's an either/or world you have no ability to transcend, to hold together, to be creative.

from Hope Against Darkness by Richard Rohr

I read the above quote this morning and it really resonated with me. As is often the case, many different thoughts and ideas started swirling around in my mind and fighting for attention. I thought of my recent post, feel your feelings as well as Sunrise Sister’s post here. The other topic that ran through my mind was the Couples Workshop that I am leaving to facilitate tomorrow.

As I reflect on these three topics, I realize that they cover relationships with ourselves, the world and committed personal relationships—as well as our overreaching relationship with God which always shows up (I believe) when our eyes and hearts are open ☺.

Limited on time this morning, I cannot delve into this as I would like, however, here are a few thoughts that worked their way onto paper.

Will the couples (will we as people; I as a person) choose to fight or flee or will they decide to try something new in relationship? We must be risk takers in order to be peacemakers. They go hand in hand. It is sometimes risky to seek peace. To seek a new way of looking at things. To do something different when the old is not working.

In living each day there is always the urge to fight or flee. Sinking into depression and not considering options can be a form of flight. Immediately going to outside sources for cures, saying “Nothing is wrong” or merely treating of symptoms is a form of fight. Feeling the pain, being in it, wrestling with it, resonates of the "compassionate knowing" of which Rohr speaks.

There are so many ways to look at this, but for now these are the bubblings of my brain. I am not sure if I will be back here over the next week or not. I hope you will ponder some of these thoughts along with me. Also, if you are so inclined, please say a prayer, send special thoughts, warm feelings, whatever it is you may do to the brave men and women who will be participating in Soltura’s first couples workshop. I am one of the facilitators and I am excited, encouraged AND nervous as can be!

May each of us consider choosing a “compassionate knowing” rather than fight or flight as we enter this new week. Peace! ☺

the wonder of little boys

This morning while reading this post, I was touched by the images of discovery and childlikeness. While in Paris, in addition to dog stalking which sounds reasonably odd, I was also drawn to child watching (which I realize could move from "odd" to downright creepy in many contexts ☺.) Not to worry, however, I was most touched by the sense of wonder in the children I observed. Sue's post included this special T.S. Eliot quote:

We shall not cease from exploration,
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

So, I am sharing a few of my Paris children (all little boys). I have not included the girls because today I think of my own beautiful boy who at near age 19, has a hard time remembering his own sense of wonder.





And although, my big boy may think he is all grown up, I still remember when his sense of joy and wonder filled his life, because...


He is mine; And I have different eyes That hold his yesterdays In pictures no one else remembers:

Waiting for him to be born, Not knowing who he would be, The moments of his childhood, First steps, first words, Smiles and cries, And all the big thresholds Of his journey since...

He is mine in a way No words could ever tell; And I can see through The stranger he has become And still find the countenance of my son.**

**adapted from John O'Donohue blessings.

photos from Paris. last photo circa 1994--j & me

Paschal Mystery

"Christians speak of the "paschal mystery," the process of loss and renewal that was lived and personified in the death and raising up of Jesus." --Richard Rohr

Welcome back. So, I am a little freaked out right now, because I read the above words from a morning reading AFTER I spent my quiet time alone this morning and wrote the following (unedited):

Trust. Trust you will be held with your strong hands and mine too. Trust the process. Unfinished. We wound and we are wounded. We are never healed, but always healing if we allow ourselves to heal--to trust we will go up and down and all around. Wounding. Wounded. We wound because we are human. We heal because we are made in God's image. Healed from the tomb. Nailed to the cross and risen again.

I have been nailed to the cross time and time again. Wounded and wounding. Healing. An unfinished woman. We are moving forward. Gratitude. The healing that continues to take place in me. The woundedness and the healing. Momentarily healed, but then a new wound appears or maybe a very old one we were unaware of. We have the opportunity to receive grace and heal again. Some wounds heal quickly and some are deep and leave scars that are like gouges to our soul, but our soul survives. No matter what, the light cannot be extinguished.

Wounded and healing. Loss and renewal. Is this the "paschal mystery" of which I write? What does healing and wounding look like for you? I'd love to know your thoughts. It is a mystery to me...a paschal mystery, perhaps ☺. (By the way--I do not recall ever hearing the term paschal mystery before this morning. hmmmmm....)