The lesson of balance

It was a journey getting into the studio today, but I am here now. I lingered in bed as the sub-zero temperatures pawed at our old-house windows. Usually, I'd be up at 6 on Tuesday and headed out the door, dropping the kids at the bus and depositing myself at the pool for a mile of laps. Just too damn cold, I told myself. They weren't going to school and I wasn't stepping out, no matter how bundled, at six below.

Seemingly out of nowhere, I snapped at Lily, my 13-year-old, as I was hastily gathering everything I needed to get here. She was trying to control what I was saying to myself as I mumbled the list of everyone else's needs I was tending to before I could get to mine. She was also in the midst of pushing me toward a house full of kids today. I dislike when the anger eeks out. It reminds me that I have unfinished business.

Interestingly, I was going to blog about retreat today; how I typically indulge in one in January and haven't yet this year. I was thinking that maybe I don't have to because I am taking a series of daily retreats, a slower pace this month that has filled my annual need for solitude and reflection.

Early this month, I'd been looking forward to a daylong retreat to let go of last year and look ahead to 2014. Sounded perfect for me and it was literally around the corner, five minutes away. And then a touch of the flu hit and dashed those plans. Generously, the retreat leader met with me last week to give me materials, talk through what transpired and encourage me to do the work on my own. We even set an appointment for a month so I could share this particular journey. Have I even opened the folder to begin? No

Have I regularly been spending time in centering prayer? No, I take three minutes with the reading, then move on because there is so much work awaiting me. Of course the Thomas Keating quotes are deep and worth savoring, I just can't devote the time I'd like.

And, I am certain, swimming would have burned off the emotions I hurled at Lily. I really want to learn what those bubbling emotions signal. They caught me off guard as I'd spent last night with close friends, receiving a massage from one and wonderful dinner from the other. I'd slept great and could relax into the massage this morning instead of pushing myself out of bed at the sound of the alarm. Honestly, though, I was disappointed by how achy I felt. My muscles and connective tissue had been unearthed, stretched, soothed and put to rest. I'd detoxed with herbal tea and lots of water, nixing the tempting red wine my companions were drinking.

I was out of kilter this morning. Kids off school, me off schedule with no exercise and I was racing to get to the studio to blog and spend some time in stillness. Not to mention the Artsy Fartsy postcards I need to send, the workshop news release that needs to get out, the expense report to file, the mission statement to revise, etc. Much as I dislike it, I have a daily regimen I must follow if I want to maintain some normalcy living with fibromyalgia. Sometimes that makes me angry. Why do I have to spend at least an hour or so exercising daily, another 20 minutes taking supplements and doing the Netti pot? Then eat an allergy-free breakfast and pack a similar lunch? And, where do I fit in a spiritual practice? Optimum centering prayer suggests 20 minutes twice a day. Seems like a dream while I have kids at home.

The world's ingrained message tells me to speed up and fit more in. Spirit says to step back, breath deep, recollect and actually be grateful that I know what I must do. That the emotions swirling and leaking out tell me I must retreat, recalibrate and set myself in right order for the coming year. For me, there are no short cuts.

• What happens if I get off rhythm, out of sync or off schedule?
• What role does regimen play in my life?
• What's the balance between physical, mental and spiritual?
• How do I retreat?
• How does that recalibrate me and makes things right with Spirit?


lured by mother
nature's violence

using it as an excuse
against daily discipline,
giving into the mind
at the expense of
body and spirit

when the froth of
anger is lodged
at another, an
innocent

how many times
must I learn the lesson
of balance?

Listen to this post:

Rumpled skin of myself

My wolf came out the other day; no, literally she really did. On a 45-miute drive while I was taking a cat nap in the passenger seat – we'd done this same, long stretch three times in the last week-and-a-half – I had a waking dream. The kind that pops up before you know it, signaling that you were on the edge of sleep, but not quite.

Almost before it shifted to another visual, I recognized it as something to note. A yowling wolf, standing straight up, as if half human, emerging from a silken guise that looked like me. I was just shed, split in two and shuffled to the floor like a Disney-princess costume when the bad-guy seems more attractive.

I immediately sensed the wolf represented both power and anger. After journaling, I am aware she also symbolizes not playing by the rules, wildness, a natural state, animalness, beastliness and rawness.

Max and the Wild Things

The power and anger had been suppressed, but now they are out. This coincides with recent night waking as if my body is programmed for fear mode. Fear that I won't get enough done, be a good enough parent, earn enough, basically that there is not enough and I am not enough. On an intellectual and spiritual level, I know this isn't true. But, bodily and deeply imbedded, I don't and I need to learn it in that realm to release it.

A couple of days ago, a Richard Rohr meditation addressed this issue in a manner I had not before articulated:

Moving to the level of "participative knowing: is first of all a cellular experience, a full-body knowing. It is nothing you can prove merely by the mental ego. It is something you know by inner experience – by prayer, by love, and by suffering."

That hits the nail on the head for me.

This week I have been struggling, more like battling, with my almost 13-year-old in organizing her to go back to school. Organization is not in her genes and so her wolf has been calling, growling, to mine. As I explore and begin to address her resistance to organization and preference for chaos, I understand that taps into my current journey. That I have been too conformed to the world's ways that are not in sync with my nature. I have been teaching her some of the structures that constrict me and stuffed this wolf inside. She's challenging that. As a mother, I do need to guide her through the maze of living more easily in the world. Interesting books on fast minds and the hunter gene teach me that my daughter's nature is one of constant scanning and change. That she's not meant to be still and obedient, though she must adapt somewhat to survive this world. That's where I come in.

I can't ignore either of our wolves. Mine is no longer invisible and has shredded the princess facade of niceness. My wolf must channel her anger. Confess, as a wise astrologer suggested six months ago. Not repress or express. She's rebelling against old messages of sucking my stomach in or eating with my mouth closed so I don't appear uncivilized to others.

I ache to embrace this wildness that I see in my child. To own my power and creativity and surrender the old messages, patterns and destructive ways along with the fear and anger. I long to let go of the super structures that are not me. The ones that hold and hem me in. The ones that separate me from Spirit.

I want to flow, dance, be joyful and not restricted. That's all my daughter wants. We're fallible human bodies with big hearts and a spark of Divinity, that of God within. In learning to unstrap my burden of responsibility, perfectionism and attachment and give them to Spirit, perhaps that will guide her as well.

I feel like the opposite of my favorite storybook character, Max, from Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. Max dresses up in a wolf suit to become "the king of all the wild things." I've dressed up in a suit that constricts my wildness and closeness to Spirit. Hoping to complete the journey and return while, like Max's homecoming, my dinner is still hot.

• When has my wild thing emerged?
• What triggered it?
• What message did it bring?
• How do I identify with the wildness in others?
• How does that wildness draw me closer to Spirit?


lazily drifting
out of thought
into the warmth
of the sun, the
soft breeze and
gentle hum of
the car

hypnotic

uncontrolled
images carelessly
floating by until
one calls, grabs
my attention

the wolf, my wolf
growls her way
out of my skin

announcing her
visibility and need
to be out

now, what to do
with the rumpled
skin of myself and
the new wildness

Listen to this post:

Soothing the soul nerves

[Recording located at end of post]

Anxiety and anger: What's the difference? What's the connection. Seems like an odd thing to be on my mind in the midst of success with my Artsy Fartsy arts' exploration for at-risk kids and recent word that the program has received another modest grant from a BIG source.

And yet I find it so. Haven't we all found ourselves in the middle of utter bliss when something gnaws at us. A recent astrology reading, my first, with a credible source, may have prompted it for me. Or , perhaps, I am ready to take this on right now, open and trusting because of the flow of grace in my life. The author, astrologist and Jungian expert with a Ph.D from Yale had a few things to reveal about the topics. I wonder what of these may speak to you as well:

Specifically anxiety:
• You have a golden understanding of the nature of the physical body, the mind and emotions and an emotional connection now called psycho-neuro immunology or soul nerves. [This may be what I am trying to unearth in this post.]
• You experience issues with nerves and chronic illness, but not forever, and enjoy ways to rejuvenate. 
• You have lots of nervous energy you must let go.
• Trouble sleeping is caused by not venting your energy enough; it builds if not expressed or blocked.

• When ambient anxiety shows up, it means the mind-body-spirit connection is not working together.

• Swimming (for me, it may be something else for you) burns off nervous energy; you can not underdo physical activity.

Specifically anger:
• Appreciate your anger as assertiveness. Don't REpress it, EXpress it inappropriately, but CONfess it in journals or with a resonator, someone who can hear and hold those feelings.
• Illness arises out of anger that turns around and affects the nerves; if things fester, health problems show up.

The connection/disease:
• Soul is asking you to understand the inner urges and not over do in your life; you can be too demanding of yourself; there are positive ways to deal with it so it doesn't manifest as disease.

• Getting to the root of the problem is required for healing

• When you hear the negative animus, the voice of judgment, it means you given up too much; ask others to pick up the burden.
• Your have a propensity for making mountains out of mole hills: be aware that it's just your nature.

Torn between the two emotions today, I began writing out a prayer, understanding that the anxiety that has bruised my sleep the past few nights is unexpressed anger. That is after I swam a mile to burn some of it off. I ranted and raved at God to let off steam, read it out loud, screamed and began to simmer down. To release and be ready to listen and understand what's happening. Apparently my soul nerves had had enough input and needed output before they exploded.

I think I am teaching myself that it's ok to express these feelings as confession. I only learned repression, possibly because I crave serenity and harmony in my life. I would cower in the dark, quiet basement when, at 16, my twin sister, would argue with my parents. So, I stuffed some of the anger in. That was also a year I struggled with IBS. Hum? I am now finding creative ways to unplug years of eating my anger.

Personally, I see the anxiety-anger connection as a barometer. If I am anxious, then something obviously is pent up. Pretty often I believe it's anger. Several years ago I decorated a black-and-white speckled composition book with a giant M, creating my mad journal. So this isn't all new to me. God has slowly been opening me to my disease. I need it in small chunks at the right time, otherwise, it's just lost on me.

I believe the astrology reading and its lessons came at the appropriate time, as well.

So now that I'm pretty well over my madness and anxiety, I am beginning to realize valuable lessons and that Spirit has been beside me all along this roller-coaster ride called life. Thank heavens!

• How does anxiety show up in my life?
• How does anger?
• What connection is there for me?
• What lessons can I learn?
• How do I see Spirit's imprint in all of this?


awakened and
anxious
again

racing to the
pool to swim
it off

much of it
dissapates,
not all

so I sit,
light a candle
and babble

on and on
in my journal
to God

when things
lift and
shift,

trading loneliness
for lightness
and lessons

finding my
soul nerves
soothed

and me,
smiling my
gratitude

Listen to this post:

Bound in love

Listen to this post:

It hit me between the eyes this week: the family pattern that rears it’s ugly head less frequently, but with no less intensity, than it did 10 years ago. My husband’s off in another room; the girls and I, together for whatever reason. It’s just how it happens. The older one and I are typically engaged in something, singularly or coupled.

Lillith energy/pastel on paper

That’s when it hits. My youngest can’t help herself; she has to do something, anything, typically to garner negative attention. Often, she reels me in and I over react, yelling, exhausting myself and giving her my power.

This time, however, I didn’t and that is BIG news for me. I simply had had enough and firmly told my children to leave. Of course, it didn’t happen automatically or easily. The younger one bounced out as if she’d behaved the entire time and my eldest dawdled, which is her nature. They were pushing my buttons and boundaries.

As a result, I told them they could forget the family lunch because it required behaving. The oldest one stormed out and ran away. Before she left, she said it’s always unfair that her sister’s behavior ruins plans. I wasn’t in the mood to hear this. The youngest began to show a bit of remorse, but only after blaming her sister and because we thought she was lost.

Fortunately the oldest is not rash and just took a walk to blow off steam. While we awaited her return, I spoke to the youngest about her behavior and she confessed that she doesn’t know why she acts this way.

The next evening was my monthly archetypal-astrology class and I shared this incident when we each checked in. It was still with me. I want to understand my child and help her. I always have. Techniques work, then everything is fine and we tend to forget. And this generously compassionate and wise group understands the Lillith archetype far better than I though they know I live with it (her).

More Lillith energy/watercolor

Our group was wrapping up the topic of astrological aspects, the relationships between the planets on one’s birth chart. Gratefully, we began with the more challenging aspects like oppositions and squares, moving to trines, sextiles and, that night, conjunctions. When we began to look at Pluto and what aspects we each had in our charts, I noticed something quite odd; that I have a trine between Pluto and Lillith. A trine. That’s the one that comes so naturally and easily that we often don’t know it’s not that way with others. But dark, underworld Pluto and Lillith, the dark moon for goodness sake? Ohhhhhh, but it began to explain so many things on so many levels. “Another reason why you’re Lily’s mother,” my dear friend and group leader Charlotte pointed out. “You understand.”

I couldn’t wait to go home and Google Lillith. Of course, I had known in mythology and ancient Judaic tradition that she was Adam’s first wife. But she expected equality and, not getting it, left. She’s a passionate energy focused on fairness. She’s also anger. Hummmmmmmmmmm.

My Lily’s real issue is that she feels she is always slighted … in so many contexts. “It’s not fair,” she’s constantly whining about home, school, friends. Lest you get the idea she’s a complete pain, she is also the most empathetic, creative, caring child I have ever met. But this feeling cheated drives her.

Over the years, my shaman has mentioned that, in his experience of working with fibromyalgia, the source is often repressed anger. I never connected that to me. Til now. Lillith’s anger at not being equal. Lily’s same issue and, to a lesser degree, mine. I do expect things to be fair and get angry when they are not. Always have.

So many dots are connecting and more questions are forming, but it is comforting to see there may be an archetypal energy at work here that explains the seemingly unexplainable. It feels as if it is key to some opening for me and Lily.

Funny, in the astrology group, they asked me how I named Lily. “Shortly after Autumn was born, I met a beautiful newborn named Lily and knew if I had another girl, that would be her name.”

“So you chose her,” they collectively sighed. Yes, I did and it’s even clearer we are on this journey together.

• How do I handle it when someone I love gets under my skin?

• Can I look more broadly to see if there is a lesson?

• To see what role I have to play in this relationship?

• What’s my experience of archetypal energy been?

• How has that opened meaning for me?

she makes her

presence known

noisily, often

without regard

for needs other

than her own

she’s my wild child,

one I am to tame,

but also one from

whom I must learn

to unleash my

wildness

you see,

we have an

agreement

bound in

love

Re-finding the divine within

Finding my divine [in]side

Listen to post:

This has been the week of REs ... as in recover and repent, even rebirth, resurrection and re-find. That second word, repent, has always hung me up until today's selection from Thomas Keating's "The Daily Reader for Contemplative Living" that I use for centering prayer.

I've spent most of the week healing from a shoulder injury, trading yoga for walking, laps and water therapy. It's helping, but slowly, and takes a lot of energy. Have to remind myself that healing does. Even so, I've been intensely working on a new class, submitting a comprehensive grant and helping my eighth-grader plan her whole high-school career (or so it seems). It wasn't until today, Thursday, that I even got around to centering prayer and I cheated. I read the March 1 entry before prayer. It spoke of repent meaning "to change the direction in which you are looking for happiness." Did not seem as sinister as I'd thought. No less easy either.

So I took that word, repent, as my entrance into prayer. It seemed to coincide with an experience I had in my class when I facilitated an experiment-in-light-exercise. Developed in the mid 1990s by a British Quaker, Rex Ambler, the purpose is to emulate the worship experience of early Quakers. While reading the six-step meditation (there are several variations) and keeping time, I was able to experience it to some extent. The point is to let the light reveal Truth through discomfort. It's not intended as a la-la-la blissful meditation, but as transformation. What it revealed to me was stuck anger; no surprise really, except that I was able to visualize where it is in my body and that it is slowly surfacing. I understand it as something I must face instead of letting it seep out onto unsuspecting others.

Somehow, I also think this idea of changing the direction in which I look for happiness has much to do with this stuck anger. Parts of the anger revolve around not living the kind of life I expected; you know not having the American dream of health, wealth and an easy life. Though the older I get, the more I see it as a misguided, perhaps dangerous, myth. I expected to be working full-time in a career right now savoring some success. But that's because I equated happiness with materialism, wealth and success; basically, on external circumstance.

A lesson earlier this week in the pool awakened me to the fact I often look outside for help, when it resides within. My wise spiritual friend and mentor noticed last week that I seem to think of God as outside myself. She pointed that out once before. I can see that of God within others, but forget it's also within me, probably without as well, but I forget that I am part divine. That's where I can look for happiness and to dislodge the emerging anger.

So, today when I was tempted to search for an online job, I opted for prayer instead and am holding fast to my plans to open a studio for spiritual nurture with the glimmer of grant backing. I do know that if I follow my heart into more nurture work that will be my life as opposed to taking some outside job that will split me apart again. I seek wholeness.

• What does the idea of repent mean to me?
• How does that shift if I use Thomas Keating's definition?
• Where do I seek happiness?
• Where do I view Spirit as residing?
• Can I see my divinity within?

on the massage table,
my aching shoulders
were loosened,
relaxed


and Jesus had a message:
"You mustn't carry the burden
of worry. I've already done that."
He undid the work of a heavy cross
on my body.


internally, I am
living the resurrection,
rebirthing myself


and re-finding
the divine within