Time Will Make You New

     "How poor are they that have not patience!  What wound did ever heal but by degrees?"

-William Shakespeare

     One of the big lessons in my life is patience, and I find that the universe tests me daily in my progress.  For example, my hair seems to be growing about 1/4" a month, and it feels like my dreads will never be long, beautiful, and easy to style.  I knew when I dreaded my hair that I was delving completely into the world of patience, and taking a huge step away from my compulsively tempestuous nature, but even with mental preparation, the wait is arduous.  There's nothing I can do to make my hair grow faster, so I'm forced to just face my commitment with grace and dignity, and hunker down for the long haul.

     This is not the first time I have jumped blindly into long-term commitments-in fact, most of my life has consisted of just that.  I opened many accounts and took many vows in my 20's that I was not ultimately ready or willing to handle properly or follow through with.  I was married twice during my teens and 20's, and both times were beautiful, wild, romantic, unstable, rushed, hopeful, and built completely upon my delusions.  None of us knew who we were, what we wanted, or how to be in a relationship.  None of us knew how to get around our fears, disappointments, needs, wants, anger, resentments, depression, or irresponsibility, and so we blamed each other, built resentments against each other, mistrusted and lied to each other...and eventually I ran away.

     Something changed when I was engaged for the third time.  Something clicked-slowly, painfully, enormously.  I was about to get married to a new man, a wonderful, responsible, loving, caring, handsome, sexy, perfect man...and guess what....I was angry, I was terrified, I was depressed, and I was feeling exactly the way I had before.  Once my wedding day came and I finally realized that I was in too deep already, that he and I were too connected already, that we were already a family, I knew that I couldn't run, I couldn't go back, and I had to do what it would take to change.  I knew that if I didn't change, I would continue in my cycles of repeated patterns and selfish relationships, and I was not willing to do that.  I finally knew that the pain of the patterns was bigger than the pain of change.

     My biggest monster to face in a relationship is fear-fear of abandonment, deceit, and betrayal.  I have been on both sides of this coin, and it is a hideous thing to endure either way.  To live outside of integrity is to live outside of your true nature.  It is a traumatic path for a heart to cross.  Lies are imbedded within me from my past, and the fear of this pain repeated has always been enough to keep me with one foot out the door.  This is what I faced when I faced my husband Bill at the altar, and this is what I took my first meaningful vow to overcome.  

     "I give you my honor and my trust."

     "Honor.  Trust.  Yeeeeeaaaaahhhhhh like I know what that is."  <- This is what the other side of my brain was saying.  I think about what that means.  Always telling the truth.  Even about myself, my fears, how I'm feeling, why I'm angry or hurt...can I do that? Trusting someone.  Believing in someone's love.  Believing that I'm worthy of love and loyalty.  Even when my mind goes into hyperactive protection mode?  Maybe those fears really are keeping me safe.  Is anyone actually honorable?  Is anyone trustworthy?  Do I know how to live an honorable life?  Can I trust myself?  I want this so badly, but am I capable of having it?

     My therapist and friend, Steven Morrison always tells me that the old crap comes up so we can let it go, and that moving from the old to the new is simply a matter of reprogramming your brain.  This means that as an old fear-based thought, or negative thought of any kind appears in your brain, you remove yourself from it and replace it.  Here's an example:

"He is probably cheating on me right now.  I don't know why I got myself into this again.  I'm not capable of being in a relationship.  This is too scary."

Stop!  That's not me!  Those beliefs are not based on facts!  I get to decide what I think and feel!

How about this...

"I am so lucky to have an honorable, trustworthy husband who adores me.  We have such a beautiful love.  Thank you, God for this chance to grow and open."

     So this is what I do every day-I reprogram my brain.  I have written my clear intentions for my life, and I am gradually becoming the person I want to be.  I am more and more like myself as a child.  I am more and more my true nature.  I am more and more happy.  My intentions have become so simple, because with all the craziness and confusion melting away, life is becoming simpler.  The less time I spend involved in drama and emotional upheaval, the more I have time to follow my passions.  But each day presents its own challenges, and as Steven also says, "The old crap will continue to come up until you're done with it.  It's like turning a huge ship around-it takes time."

     Change depends on so many things.  Changing your thoughts is one.  Being impeccable with your word is another.  Seeing through new eyes.  Removing judgment of yourself and others.  Surrendering. Ingesting your own darkness.  Rebuilding yourself.  I began my very conscious path to change on my third trip to the alter, when I decided to shed my most comfortable fear.  Is it gone?  No.  Do I face it every day?  No, but almost.  My fears come and go, and the universe sets up interactions sometimes to test me, but every time I pull myself out of a spinning panic, I take another step toward peace.  Every time my husband is there to catch me, I take another step toward his love.  Changing what really needs to change within us is a noble task, and never a quick fix.  It is a moment by moment lesson in acceptance, intention, and patience.  

     Yes, my hair is a metaphor for my life, and the lesson is patience.  Whenever I pray or meditate on all the change I want to see, the answer I always get is, 

"Stay focused on the light, and time will make you new.  Everything you need is already here inside you.  All you have to do is stay focused."  

     Moment by moment, day by day, we move in the direction of our choosing, becoming what we make of ourselves.  Our intentions keep us on track, clarifying what we really want and who we really want to be.  Time goes by, and we age and change so slowly, so quickly, over generations, in a blink of an eye.  What is everything to us is nothing to the universe.  Life together on this earth is short.  We might as well forget the pains of the past and become present.  I don't want to miss anything.  Even the in-between length of my dreads is worth experiencing, because the time it takes to make them beautiful is what it's all about.  The time my husband and I spend working on ourselves and helping each other along is what it's all about.  The time we spend in the present moment will move us into a new consciousness.  And when impatience rears its ugly head, just remember that the more beauty we can find in this moment, the more beautifully fulfilled will be our destinies.

"Have patience with all things, but first of all with yourself."

St. Francis de Sales

How Do We Pray?

"When every hope is gone, when helpers fail and comforts flee, I find that help arrives somehow, from I know not where.  Supplication, worship, prayer are no superstition; they are acts more real than the acts of eating, drinking, sitting or walking.  It is no exaggeration to say that they alone are real, all else is unreal."

-Mahatma Gandhi

     When tragic things happen, like the recent bombings, people in the social media community begin posting announcements such as, "I'm praying for the victims," and "My prayers go out to the families."  We feel the need to express our well wishes to the world, to let people know that we care.  Our hearts are broken too.  Our empathy swells so hugely, but we don't know how to help.  We want to take away the pain, to make the world better, safer.  We imagine our lives touched by tragedy.  It seems too much to bear.  Our hearts become heavy with the shocking realization that this too could happen to us, at any time.  We want to do something.  We want to feel something solid.

     We sit down on Facebook to share our sentiments, but what can we say?  Saying that we're sending prayers seems appropriate...but then we wonder, is typing it and posting it enough or do we actually have to sit down and pray?  What exactly is a prayer?  Do we have to get down on our knees and come up with eloquent words?  What if we forget someone?  What are we really praying for?

     When tragic things happen, I most often fail at publicly posting my sentiments.  It feels unnatural to me for such prayers to be exposed.  I sit at the keyboard, wondering what I could possibly say that would make a difference to anyone, and then I realize that there is nothing I can say.  I decide to drop down into a place where I believe I can make a difference.  I close my eyes and breathe in low and deep, searching my mind to feel God inside.  It takes a few breaths to surrender, but as I do I feel it-the pounding in my blood, the silence in my ears, the spinning, falling feelings and the constant, stable ground.  God has been waiting in there for me to come back in.  Waiting for me to get the hell off of Facebook.

     The first thing to drift by are images.  Weeping mothers, frantic helpers, the bloody pulp of human flesh.  My insides ache and squirm and my head feels weary for all of us.  The next to come are words- "Please help these people heal, or "Please release them, if just a moment, from their suffering."  Again I search for the right thing to say, the right thing to ask for.  It feels unnatural.  It feels so small.  I remember a pact I made with myself to start my prayers with this:  "I'm here.  I'm listening."  So I check my breath again.  I hear my yoga teacher saying, "Breathe in to ground deeper.  Breathe out to become lighter."  I shift my mind to the denseness of the air around me.  God is already here, waiting, and I am so close to hearing.  I listen hard, but that's not it.  Don't listen so hard that your own mind gives you answers.  To clear, to open, to surrender to silence-that's where to go.  In a waking dream I hear a voice.  It reminds me of the voices I hear in clarinet or piano solos-rich, beautiful, joyous, wise.  The voice is everywhere.  I feel its soft whisper in my nostrils and stomach.  It holds me completely in its warmth.  It says to me what it always says.

     "For every soul there is a refuge-no matter the depth of pain.  I am waiting there, as I am waiting in the screams and the flowers, in the skin and the blood, and the tears that spill.  I will always be here waiting for you, loving you.  Don't be afraid of life or death.  In both these things, I hold you.  We all hold you.  Give your gifts with love.  Care for others.  Be kind to yourself.  Be a hero.  Open your heart, even when it breaks.  Remember I am here.  I am always right here."

     I still feel the voice resonating when I open my eyes.  The room and the world, and the space between things are humming with the invisible.  Has it only been a moment in time?  The suffering is there still-aching, depleting, fearful...but a grander force has shone its light into all the dark and scary corners.  The beauty of grief and resiliency meet and the shock begins to fade.  We are all here together-spinning softly on this beautiful planet, exchanging energies and prayers.  The Facebook prayers no longer bother me.  I love each person for caring.  I smile, knowing that we always will. We are connected so deeply-so deeply that our threads can reach each other in a prayer, in a breath, in a moment.  Our consciousness reaches across the world to accept each other's support, to share each other's suffering.  

     To pray is to float down into the light and longing of our own hearts.  To pray is to release the mind and listen.  To pray is to meet God in an ancient place where our connection with each other reaches across continents and galaxies.  To pray is to digest suffering and release it like a warm breeze.  To remember the power and possibility of what is inside us.  To remember God.

    "Prayer is not asking.  Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at His disposition, and listening to His voice in the depth of our hearts."

-Mother Teresa

A Blind Child

A blind child

Guided by his mother

Admires the cherry blossoms

-Kikakou

     Last weekend I attended a retreat with the incredible author and poet, Mark Nepo.  Our first exercise was to close our eyes and listen to this haiku three times.  The first time he read it, we were to imagine ourselves as the blind child.  The second time, we were to be the mother.  The third time, the blossoms. The child surrenders.  The mother nourishes.  The blossoms are open, still, blooming beautifully whether or not they are beheld.  When these three meet in this poignant way, we see so clearly into ourselves, into our needs and wants, into our true nature.

     Our true nature is so much more than one thing, one being, one personality, one experience.  What we are is so complex that not even the most intelligent or enlightened teacher can put a finger on it.  We push our way out into lives that have different directions, different belief systems, and no determined ending.  While growing up quickly, we try to forget our child self, putting old fears and insecurities into the past to be forgotten.  Then one day when we face our wrinkles in the mirror, we realize that the child never went away.  The child is inside there-in the eyes.  The adult is in there too-in the body.  The sorrow, anger, fear, shock, joy, insecurity, and assurance, the moments of our lifetimes are all there, all a part of who we are.  

     Sometimes I am the child completely.  Mostly when I'm angry.  Fire swells up from a dark cave within me, and threatens to take over my head, to make me cry or scream or break something.  I want to punch everyone who ever hurt me, who ever added to this ache.  I want to scream at God for putting me here to deal with myself.  I want to rip the world to pieces.  The buttons and nerves scream with rage so strong that I almost laugh.    This is the moment when the mother appears.  This is the opportunity for change.  The mother reaches out, I put an arm around the child.  Something has been hurt, and it is still hurting.  Something that the child wants to hold onto and drown with.  Something that the mother can put into perspective.  The mother reminds me to start breathing again.  I blow out my frustration with my life, myself, the world.  I inhale the suffering and feel it deeply.  It feels like an empty chasm of longing.  I push it down through my guts, where the universe lies.  Somehow, somewhere in light of my darkness, the suffering opens and joy beams through.  The exhale is only surrender to love.  A blind child, guided by her mother.

     I am reminded of a story from Jalaja Bonheim's book, Aphrodite's Daughters.  Naomi, who had been sexually abused by her father from infancy, and who was gang raped by her father and his friends at age seven, talks about finding a place of divine feminine comfort, even in the midst of hell.

     "A kind of guardian presence appeared and said:  'Come on, we're leaving.  We're not staying in this body.'  I was already fragmented into 'we' by then.  This guardian took my hand and started pulling me away from my body...even in the midst of such horror there were moments when a great feminine presence seemed to reach out and comfort me...As much as those horrible realities were there, I was also living with a constant protective energy that was so much a part of my consciousness that I took it for granted.  I didn't think, 'Oh, I have a guardian angel.'  But now I see that I did.  I remember going into closets and sitting there.  I would feel this incredible presence which later I completely forgot about.  It was a huge, healing, female presence, like a guardian angel or like the divine Mother."

     I feel the mother strongly.  In giving, holding and listening, I feel her joy unfold.  She wants to hold on to the child, to protect the child, to feed the child.  She wants to remind the child how ancient and wise he really is.  She is always there, always willing, always ready to take over.  She wants to give herself completely to the child, sometimes forgetting that she also needs care.  She aches to love.  She already understands.  The thing she has to give must not be given only to the child.  She must be generous enough to give it to herself.  If she forgets, she may see only the child, and miss the cherry blossom's bloom.  When she allows the child to change her, she feels the world with heightened energy.  She sees the world with new eyes.  The guiding mother lets go, and the child becomes the teacher.

     And then there are the blossoms.  So exquisite.  So temporary.  They cycle through life and death so magnificently and then become the earth again.  They grow and bloom and change, not because we are expecting them to, or because they want to be appreciated, but because it is their nature.  They would bloom for only God and birds and sunlight.  They would bloom for wind and darkness.  They would bloom for themselves alone, and for the tree that holds them.  If you fragmented any one of the blooms from a cherry tree, you would end with a handful of beautiful, colorful petals.  If you look at them all together on the tree, you will see humanity through the eyes of God.  The eternal energy that runs through our veins, that blossoms in the Spring and keeps our hearts beating, the stillness of the mountains and surety of rocks, is all ours within the blossom.  It is the part of us that never changes, whether we are young or old.  The blossom within us has been cycling through clay and spirit for generations, holding beauty in a sacred space for when we need it the most.

     A blind child

Guided by his mother

Admires the cherry blossoms

     There are so many lessons and inspirations within this haiku.  So much to think about.  I think what it all comes down to is the idea that there is beauty everywhere, in everything.  There are endless possibilities for acceptance, appreciation and growth within each of us, no matter where we are in our lives, or what is going on around us.  Sometimes to behold the tree at all, and spend time with each other at all, is the hardest step.  So often our stuff gets in the way of our lives and even in the way of ourselves.  It takes focus and hard work to get to the good stuff, and sometimes we try to forget that it's waiting there.  The child will surface whenever he wants to, and the mother will lead him along.  The blossom will bloom and die and change and fade and surface again, never stopping to wait for our attention.

     I think we must take these things on a moment by moment basis .  We must hold ourselves when we're hurt, and learn to rely on our light.  Our shared depth is too stunning and our potential is too great for us to continue on blindly.  If we can begin to understand ourselves, we will surely understand each other, and if we can begin to care for ourselves, we will naturally care for all of life.

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched-they must be felt with the heart."  

-Helen Keller

  

Violence vs. Evolution

"Violence is what happens when we don't know what else to do with our suffering."

-Parker J. Palmer

     Our world thus far has been a world of dependable violence.  Whether it is gang warfare, military warfare, domestic violence, self-inflicted violence, sexual violence or torture, countless generations of humans have survived it all somehow.  We have always expected violent people to hurt and destroy lives, and we have done our best to pick up the pieces when it happens...but what do we do to prevent it?  Do we attempt to understand it?  We target gun owners when something like the Sandy Hook incident happens, but are guns actually the problem?  I watched a video this morning on Australian gangs who get off on slicing people up with swords, knives and switchblades.  Have you ever seen the kinds of weapons they sell over the counter at a Samurai sword shop?  When you think of teenage boys roaming the streets with machetes, do you still think that guns are the problem?

     Last year I was fortunate enough to visit the San Diego Museum of Man's Instruments of Torture exhibit, where I became more enlightened with the gory details of torture throughout human history.   To allow oneself to take these things in deeply is both shocking and saddening.  The stories and images were almost too much, but here are some of my notes from that day:

     One of our great tragedies is that so much death and violence has been inflicted on humans, by humans.  The lives of so many are so full of suffering that they don't know what to do but take it out on themselves or others, creating more pain, more resentment, more psychological damage.  While many of us prefer to think of ourselves as being separate from this "evil" or incapable of inflicting it, the research I found at this exhibit suggests otherwise.

"The research reveals that when we are placed in an unfamiliar situation, factors such as blind obedience to authority, anonymity, dehumanization of others, uncritical conformity to group norms, and power without oversight can lead us to commit atrocious acts that we would denounce had they been committed by others."  -Dr. Rex Garniewicz

"The social psychology of this century reveals a major lesson:  often it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act."  -Stanley Milgram, from the Stanford Prison Experiment, 1971

     You mean all the work I've done on my spirit and character is useless if I become a guard at Guantanamo Bay?  Would I inflict torture on a "terrorist" prisoner if I were given orders to?  Would I do it if my own livelihood or life was in jeopardy?  At what point would I choose myself over the prisoner?  Would I justify that with my hatred?  

     My favorite rapper Akala, has another way of saying it:  "Pressure bursts pipes.  What would it take to rearrange your whole world and the way you behave?  To the point that what you now feel is crazed, feels logical and like it's the only way?  What would it take for you to feel hate so deep that revenge couldn't quell the pain?  Would it be your own mother raped in front of your face?  Your child's head blown off and you're covered with stains?  Or something less drastic to make you snap quick-constant harassment or some strange accident, your wife leaving you, parents beating you, the school teachers that keep on deceiving you.  What is your threshold, what is your point beyond which you would speak from a different voice?  Whatever your line, you can see in your mind-someone's going through it, in this moment in time."

     Pressure bursts pipes, and we each have our own burdens, anxieties, tragedies and boiling points.  If your life, your loved ones and your dignity were taken from you, would you not feel the fire of violence begin to rage?  If your life was a saga of endless suffering, like many lives in history, how would you find a strong enough inner peace and dependable enough moral compass to guide you through tough moments?  If you had no teaching or knowledge of love in your life, wouldn't you hate the world for it?  The root of violence stems from hatred, and that hatred stems from hurt.  If the thing in front of you did not bring up feelings of hurt or fear, you would have no reason to hate it.  Even if violence itself is the thing you hate, doesn't the thought of it make you feel violent as well?  Maybe you don't act on it, but it's there.  It is the spirit of Thumos, the inner warrior, and if it is not directed inward with loving purpose, it will be directed outward with destruction.  We take the fire of violence into our hearts and heal it.  We must take the spirits of broken souls into our souls and make them a part of us.  We connect to everything that exists, and we are stronger for it.  We turn our focus from the faults of the world to the ways in which we can heal.  This native American prayer sums it up perfectly, 

     "I seek strength, not to be superior to my brothers, but to fight my greatest enemy-myself."

     My friend Steven always says, "Be kind to everyone-especially the biggest assholes.  They're the ones who need it the most."  The more forgiveness I find in my heart, the more I realize how true this is.  I used to seethe with rage over the mere thought of my stepdad-the years of living with his maniacal attacks and unpredictable behavior caused me many tears and much anxiety, and I blamed all of my "issues" on him.  I hated him so much that I could barely see straight.  Although I never did much more than shut down during his outbursts, I dreamt often that I was beating him up, or killing him. In my normal home life, I was smothered by his presence.  The sounds of his footsteps on the stairs or his truck in the driveway sent me running.  There was nothing I wouldn't walk away from to avoid him, to avoid the rushing adrenaline I felt when he was hovering over my shoulder.  I lived with a phobia of anger-both in myself and others, because what I had seen of anger was hurtful and destructive.  It took me many years and a more distant connection with him to see him as what he really is-a big angry child.  When I began to get over my own fear and anger enough to see him clearly, I understood that all the pain he transfered to me had come from his own child self.  He was a very unhappy old man who had never forgiven the people who had hurt him, and the hurt that was born so long ago was still being carried along and shared. 

     Sometimes it is not possible to have this understanding until years later.  Sometimes a great space has to open up between the present you and your past suffering before understanding can sink in.  The triggers hit so suddenly sometimes, and you become a child again, full of hurt, full of fear, full of anger.  It is so much easier to hate the thing that breaks your heart.  To hold onto it feels so necessary and that grudge becomes a part of who you are, a place to lay the blame.  A reason to justify violence.  But what you don't realize as you sit there hating is that the hatred is destroying you.  It closes your life, your heart, your eyes.  While you think it is feeding you and making you stronger, it is rippling through your world as it takes you under.  

     If we take away the idea that violent people are in fact "evil,"and take responsibility for the fact that violent rage exists in us, in our homes, and in our history, where does that leave us?  If we take responsibility for our own reactions to other peoples' problems, instead of blaming them for ruining our lives, how much more peace will we find?  If we admit that we condone violence, as long as it's in video games, or inflicted on "the bad guys," then who does that make us?  If we focus our attention on blaming and punishing the one who does wrong, will we ever get to hear why the wrong was done?  And if it doesn't directly affect our lives, do we care?

     I met a man recently who was raised in poverty, hooked on meth, involved in gangs, and almost died in prison. What he was before is still with him, but the light in his eyes that was born through his survival and transformation is contagious.  His smile and warmth would make you think he had led a privileged life.  We talked about the roots and causes of violence, about what can be done in our community.  He said that what we need most is a place for kids to go, 24 hours, where they can learn art, music, writing-ways of expressing their frustration with poverty and their anger at the world.  A place to go instead of the streets.  A place where their creative training will help them transform their violent rage.  He talked about what it feels like to be a kid, surviving in gangs, living in a violent household.  When you are the "dregs of society," you get kicked around, pushed aside.  No one understands and nobody cares.  This is how these children feel.  We may believe that they are "bad kids" but underneath everything, they are people with hearts and souls, dreams and creativity, and great potential for growth.  

TED talk with David R. Dow-"Lessons from Death Row Inmates."

     The tragedies of the past are not meant to fill our lives with bitterness.  They are lessons to be learned about our own actions and our life's purpose.  Violence is being taught and spread, but so is peace and consciousness.  For us to grow as a species and pave new paths for our offspring, we must each realize that any act of violence, whether "justified" or not, is a sorrowful step backward.  When we hurt even those at the bottom of the barrel, we are destroying our own livelihood.  To move forward as a species, it is crucial that we begin to forgive and understand, to see from the other's eyes.  Any video game that dehumanizes, any preacher who spreads sheltered animosity, any sounds or visuals or glorifications of violence have got to be placed aside.  There is no safety or refuge in cruelty, and only a heart living in integrity is living its true purpose.  To live without the gifts of empathy and forgiveness is an insult to the capabilities of our species.  To think of only ourselves and our own pain is an immature and wasted life.  

     Let the gift your anger brings change you.  Let it give you insight.  Find inspiring ways to express it, and teach them to others.  Pull yourself from the world of inflicting, wishing, and fearing violence so that you may fully experience the dance of our planet.  Change what you hate by loving it.  Understand that it is a part of you.  Taking the seeds of violence that have been planted for millenniums and transforming them into beautiful growth and life is part of our calling.  Developing more, teaching more, understanding more, evolving more-that's why we're here.  To transform the fire of hatred within our own hearts, to take it in as a part of us and turn it into compassion-that is the path of the evolver.

"I am the twelve year old girl, refugee on a small boat,

who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate.

And I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving...

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all walks of life.

My pain is like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans...

Please call me by my true names, 

So I can hear all my cries and laughter at once.

So I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names so I can wake up,

So the door of my heart can be left open,

The door of compassion."

-Thich Naht Hahn