As the transitions continue, and new ones rise in my horizon, I am grateful for this lovely place, in sunshine and in fog.
A gorgeous, early, foggy morning at the beach. This place has been such a comfort to me through the last year of transitions. From bringing Little N here last summer as we prepared for his dad to move out, to quick stops to collect myself after work, to quiet strolls during my weekend hours alone. As the transitions continue, and new ones rise in my horizon, I am grateful for this lovely place, in sunshine and in fog. Stay tuned for what I hope will be a very happy announcement, and a new phase of transition, in the near future!
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The Beloved Therapist loves elephants. She has a drawing of one framed and hanging on a wall in her office. I once referred to it as the "elephant in the room." She startled and paused. "I never thought of it that way before." This morning she told me that today is World Elephant Day. It's an effort to raise awareness and protection of this species and what elephants mean to so many people. From the World Elephant Day website: "We admire elephants in part because they demonstrate what we consider the finest human traits: empathy, self-awareness, and social intelligence. But the way we treat them puts on display the very worst of human behavior.” - Graydon Carter, Editor of Vanity Fair In honor of the elephants of the world, the Beloved Therapist, and my good work with her, I'm posting this gorgeous Ganesha. Ganesha is, originally, a Hindu god worshiped in India, but his acclaim has also been found among Jainists and Buddhists elsewhere. He is a multi-faceted god of: beginnings, arts, sciences, intellect, wisdom, letters, and learning. He is the "lord of success" and the "destroyer of evil and obstacles." His image illustrates messages of wisdom.
My little pagan circle celebrated Lughnasadh/Lammas this weekend. It's the first of three harvests that we recognize as pagans. I was high priestess, for the first time!, so it was also a big deal for me and the roles I play in our group. Lughnasadh/Lammas is a crossover holiday originally celebrated by pre-Christian society and later adopted by Christians. Lughnasadh began as a celebration of the god Lugh. He is described as a multi-talented, multi-skilled god, excelling in everything from swordsmanship and blacksmithing, to history, poetry, and harp playing. The holiday was either a recognition of his death day or that of his mother, depending on which accounts you read. It was honored with ritual games, religious ceremonies, matchmaking, legal contracts and more. The holiday also comes at the time of the first harvest, celebrating the abundance of the land and the ongoing survival of the people who depend upon it. Versions of this holiday continue with festivities in parts of Ireland today.
As Lammas, or "loaf-mass", the Christianized holiday focused more on the first fruits of the harvest. People made a loaf of bread from the early crop of grain and brought it to church to be blessed. It's rumored that the loaf was then carried home and used for magic. In our circle, we focused our attention on the harvest aspects of the holiday. We recognized the little crops coming up in our gardens and the seasonal fruit filling our grocery stores as well as the personal growth coming to fruition in our lives and the letting go of what has not bloomed in the time span that we had hoped. For our craft, we made smudge sticks. These small bundles of healing herbs, like rosemary, lavender, and sage, bound together with cotton thread, are used as a tool for cleansing a person or a space for sacred work and connection with the Divine. We also chanted together, raising energy to send to the children at the US border in the form of compassion and courage for the journeys yet ahead of them. We closed the circle with a potluck chat about what we are harvesting in our lives, both the tangibles like fresh zucchini picked that morning and the intangibles like gratitude. For my part, I served as high priestess for this ritual. I don't think of myself as a public, out-in-front leader, but in ritual the role is more subtle and supportive. It's about moving the group through the different pieces as the energy and attention of the people warrants. It's about holding space for folks to have time to complete a given piece and then host the transitions between pieces. So I guided the group from one focus or activity to the next. I also shared the meanings of the holiday, the attention we would be giving to it, and information about the Border Children to whom we were sending our energy and good will. But what about my harvests at this time? I've written a bit in other posts about the dreams I'm working on in this season of my life. This holiday offers a time to reflect on where I'm at in those projects and processes. I haven't lost the weight yet, which I shrilly lament, but I am harvesting better health thanks to the Kind Naturopaths and the Beloved Therapist. I'm still working on a Good Divorce with my ex. In my view, that would look like less cranky conflict and more clear communication and agreements. We're not quite there yet - and maybe we'll never be there but always working on it. As long as we can protect Little N from the conflict and crankiness I'll be able to call it good. I am finding my voice, again, too, a fresh harvest that I hadn't consciously planted but am grateful to find growing up through the cracks. I hear my voice becoming clearer and stronger in many places. In responding to my ex. In my journal. On this blog. Through my un/healthy habits. In our little pagan group. At my job. It requires good work for me to be able hear my own ideas, opinions, feelings, and perspective on a given experience and then give words to it out in the world. It makes a good rich harvest that I'll be tending for the rest of my life. What about you? What are you harvesting these days? A few of my favorite photos from last night's potluck.
Baby-time was enjoyed by all and Little N got some kitty-cat love. Poor Little N. I signed him up for Summer Camp for his Summer child care. I talked to the director of the program and it sounded like a match. It's not. Kiddo hates it and cries and fusses every night and morning in anticipation of another day at camp. Little N says it's too loud, even with his ear muffs on. His dad has witnessed the classroom and describes it as disorderly and undisciplined. All of kiddo's Autism triggers are being hit. Noise, chaos, unpredictable behavior. More than a challenging transition to something new, it's a full offense on his sensitivities. Today, we're trying something new. Little N's dad went with him to drop off, as usual, but now is getting kiddo moved into a new classroom of slightly older kids. These children are kindergarten and first graders and are a little more mature. They already know how to behave in a classroom setting. Plus, this group has a teacher trained to work with children on the Spectrum. So far, this morning, Little N is participating, making friends, and playing with the group. He's still got his ear muffs on and his dad remains hovering in the background. But we're optimistic. Fingers crossed that Little N can do the same on Monday, when his dad drops him off and heads out. I should have taken a photo! But then you'd know exactly how much I weigh, which is 12 (TWELVE!) pounds less than I was a month ago but still more than I prefer to be. All that to say that I went back to the Kind Naturopaths this morning for a follow-up appointment.
Here's what I loved about today's appointment. I went in looking for next steps, having successfully adapted to the prescribed diet. I was (for no good reason) anticipating strict instructions to quit smoking and start exercising with vigor. But that's not what I got. Instead, I was met with gentleness, patience, and general kindness from the doctor. Through her treatment and conversation with me, she provided a good example of how I can treat my own body. To my smoking she said, "Not worried about it. When you're ready to quit, you'll quit." To my minimal exercise she said, "Don't stress about it. Keep walking and when you're ready add another walk or go a little further." Her whole approach was to keep the stress down and the success up. Each little step was praised and encouraged. Talking to a therapist? Applauded! Connected with a community? Right on! We're not shredding my body to be a bikini model on some urgent, immediate schedule. We're building sustainable changes for a healthy, happy, stress-managed life. So we're not going to make the things that are good for me into new stressors. Her last question of the appointment was the hardest for me to answer. "What are you doing for self care?" Blank stare. "What are you doing for you?" I wracked my brain. But there are several things I'm doing for me: the healthy diet, walking, book club, Ritual, and visiting with friends. What are you doing for self care? In Pagan practice we revere the natural world and the Divine spirit that imbues it. In ritual, our altar bears items for each of the four directions as well as the center. Each direction honors different aspects of nature and human life: the North is for earth and the body; the East is air and the intellect; the South is fire and passion and creativity; the West is water and emotions; the Center is held for Spirit. Setting the altar in this manner is one of the ways that we honor the multi-faceted wholeness of living in this world and living with Spirit. Creating an altar and using ritual items is also a way that we direct our hearts and minds to be present and attentive to Spirit during our time together. These tools aren't necessary all of the time, but we find that practicing with them helps us to get beyond our chattering minds and immediate consciousness to something deeper, something more true, a thread that binds the sacred and mundane together as one in our lives. At Summer Solstice, we recognize the longest day of sunlight, the shifting of the light to shorter days and longer nights, and the first fruits of the harvest. We give thanks for all that the sunlight sustains - including how good it feels on our faces and bodies! In this year's ritual, the first harvest included the gifts that we have received from the Divine to carry into our lives and to share with others. We honored this with readings, songs, and meditation. I selected the image above to meditate with. The image spoke to me about the next phase of my life as a single mother. The skull and the flowers represented the integration of masculine and feminine traits that I embody and balance as Little N's mom. The image also represented independence and endurance. These gifts from the Divine are the strengths that I will call upon as I proceed with the divorce, co-parenting with my ex, and mothering Little N. They are not strengths that I will have; they are strengths that I possess today and am continuing to develop and employ in the coming months and years. They are the strengths that I live with, guide my son with, and share with our friends and community. I've tacked this image up next to my desk as an ongoing reminder, for those days when I feel especially challenged and overwhelmed, of the strengths I have been granted. Following the good work of ritual is the good work of community. We "party like pagans" around a potluck table sharing food, conversation, and warm company. To me, this social time is as important as the spiritual time we inhabit together. This is when we catch up on each other's lives, cultivating our bonds as individual friends and as a cohesive little body. In this social time, we've celebrated births, jobs, and new partners. We've sympathized over losses and brainstormed solutions for each other's challenges. Our lives are enriched and sustained by both the spiritual work and the social work we practice.
As a Christian I'm hesitant to also call myself a Pagan. Frankly, I'm hesitant to apply any labels at all to my spirituality and identity. But this much I claim, in our little group I am met with both good Spirit and good Community. Meaning, this group, too, is one of my gifts from the Divine. Back in December I made a list of dreams for 2014. It's been a series of fits and starts as I make progress on these dreams. But this week, we are noticeably closer to two of them.
The other morning, Little N's dad signed the divorce papers and parenting plan so I am submitting them to the court tomorrow morning. It's one big step toward the Good Divorce that I'm dreaming of for our family. It's a formalizing with the legal and public world of what is already true in our private world. The marriage is over, but the family continues, albeit in an new form, but one equally committed to Little N's happiness and well being. Submitting the paperwork starts a 90-day waiting period before we go to court to finalize the divorce. And there are a couple classes to take in that time - one on Family Law and the other on Children and Divorce. So there are still steps to be made, but this submission to the court is a big one On the path of another dream, I'm starting to lose the weight! Finally! The Kind Naturopaths gave me a terrific and challenging list of foods to eat to help me shed the stress pounds and support my adrenal function. It's working! I'm in my newest pair of jeans and I can put them on without unbuttoning them. And I had to tighten my belt. Little things that encourage me to hold this course of a healthy diet. Back in April, I paused and considered the good work that I was doing toward my 2014 dreams. I still couldn't see any of the results. It was a dogged, baby-stepping, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other time. I found (and continue to find) encouragement in friends and family. Now I can look at the paperwork, and look at my own clothes, and be encouraged by the evidence I find there, too. Oh and there's so much work still to do. I need to find a way to pay for Little N's Summer Camp, and fix my car, and change my school loan payments, and figure out new health insurance for Little N… and what about community and retreats and writing…. It could overwhelm me. But I'm doing the work and getting results. So I know can continue to do so. It's pretty intense, the difference a year makes… last year, on June 15, I posted a Self Portrait Saturday cataloging my driving fears. I hated driving. I had to be focused and hyper vigilant about every intersection and pothole. Left hand turns made me tense. The curving road down to the beach tied my tummy in knots. And don't get me started on bicyclists! Last summer hosted a series of awakenings and initiated a series of transitions that I am still navigating and making my own this summer. I practiced single parenting while Little N's dad worked graveyard shift. We called the end of our marriage. I found friendship, support, and resonance where I didn't expect it. I found independence and strength I didn't know I had. The year since then has been a hiccuping cycle of stress and relief. There's plenty of work still ahead of me. Little N's dad just signed the divorce papers and so I'm on to the next step in that process. Plus, there's money drama to resolve with phone calls and paperwork. Each challenge presents itself before me and I experience the same anxiety and hyper vigilance that a drive to the beach used to elicit.
But the year has also rendered new insights, new sources of resilience and good health, new opportunities to be myself. I've learned that I can work and mother at the same time. I have developed a renewed, special relationship with Little N. I've invested in the Beloved Therapist and Kind Naturopaths with good results in my health, sanity, and choices. I've been invited to share my concerns with friends and been met with love and support. I drive regularly now, I don't love it, but I'm grateful to be able to do it to connect with friends. I'm optimistic that each year further from June 2013 will reveal me to be more independent, competent, and committed. Each new challenge expanding what I'm capable of: single mothering, co-parenting, working, cultivating dreams, restoring my health, connecting with family, friends, and community. The fear and newness of divorce will be replaced with familiarity and routines. And as new challenges present themselves, I'll be able to call on the strength and the adaptability of this year to help me navigate them as well. There's a great line in an Ani DiFranco song, Alla This, that has me thinking. Ani sings, "…and I will not rest a wink, until the women have regrouped." It's got me wondering - where do I see women grouped? Are we organizing in the way/s that Ani has in mind? How have we grouped ourselves historically versus today? I suspect that Ani is referring to political organizing like we saw with the Suffragettes' efforts to gain the vote for women or the efforts of feminists in the 1960s for the Equal Rights Amendment. I'm not that politically savvy these days, but I don't see the headlines declaring that same kind of organizing today. Women organizing does show up in social media around specific events and some key issues, for example: the #YesAllWomen campaign following Elliott Rodger's violence and murders in CA, the #BringBackOurGirls campaign following the mass kidnapping of 234 Nigerian female students, and Sheryl Sandburg's #BanBossy campaign to foster leadership skills and confidence in young women. And I love what I'm seeing online from Body Positivity folks in terms of promoting images of non-airbrushed women and declaring the beauty and worth of all body types. Do social media campaigns count as organizing? In the new era of "slacktivism" does social media have the same (or better or worse) effects as political demonstrations and legislation? To implement real, lasting change in our society we need to change hearts and minds, not only words on paper, even very important pieces of paper, like amendments to the Constitution and our laws. What role, if any, does the virtual world play in the big picture of awareness, understanding, and social change in the real world? My graduate school training in social change suggests that change happens at the level of people talking together and builds from there. It ebbs and flows, for sure, and social ills adapt into different forms as well (consider that we now condemn lynching young black men, yet we warehouse them in our prisons instead?). But change is cultivated at the level of personal change, people living experiences or hearing stories that alter their expectations, assumptions, and common sense about the social world. My formative years as an Evangelical Christian instructed me that people need to hear the good news of the gospel, hear the stories that can change them, and that it's our responsibility to speak up and create those opportunities for change. It's uncomfortable work that often falls on deaf ears when it doesn't provoke out right retaliation. Frankly, once I reached my teen years, and had a sense of social behavior, I really wasn't into evangelism. It felt rude, forced, and sort of unfounded - surely everyone I met already knew about Jesus and could make their own private decision without me. But does the same apply for all social issues? What is the "right" way to share our societal "good news" and bring change to individuals and communities? How simple or difficult is it really? Where and how do I join the conversation on the issues that matter to me? I've baby-stepped my way in and around women's organizing all my life. As a child, I participated in girls' groups organized with and by women around the tenets of our religion. In college, I organized a women's group around the issues we were living with as young women on a Christian college campus. In the last ten years of graduate school and motherhood I've participated with anti-war groups like Women in Black and CodePink, as well as women's spirituality groups, like my current pagan circle. In many ways, these groups felt like "preaching to the choir." They consisted of like-minded folks gathering and sharing like-minded ideas with each other. Although Women in Black and CodePink are both groups with public presence, it's not clear to me what our influence may have been on social change. Maybe it is enough to be a public presence and bear witness that there are other ways of perceiving, interpreting, and responding to situations that our government and our society have gotten us all into. Even so, most of the groups I'm aware of and participate in are private and personal. Women sitting together, talking, discussing books, sharing their lives. I believe that these groups have value, privately and publicly - and may be/become the women regrouping that Ani sings about. In these small, private groups women start to see patterns of what is not ok with us in the broader social world. The next step is to speak up into the public world, describing what is not ok and suggesting, promoting, and supporting alternatives. My pagan group gathers in part as a means of recognizing and undoing the negative we've experienced in male dominated organized religions. Here's where "preaching to the choir" works - there's resonance in an affinity group that says, "me too, I experienced that too, and it's not ok." Alienation is replaced with validation and a sense of sanity; a new common sense is established for the participants. Additionally, our group practices new forms of spiritual expression together. We do all of this privately, in each other's homes. Over the years of meeting we've come to know each other better, learned to trust each other, and started to share more both about our private lives and our public lives. We are becoming a source of vitality and support for each other in both spheres. Today, we are likely to circulate a petition for signatures around the group sharing in political activity together or participate together in events hosted by larger, public women's groups like Women of Wisdom or Gaia's Temple. We're hardly a force to be reckoned with, in terms of social change around women's spirituality, but we have significance in each other's lives and our immediate community. The Feminists of the 1960s and 1970s used a mobilizing phrase, "the personal is political." I think that's another piece of what Ani is singing about in Alla This. I think she's looking for an awareness among women that what we experience personally is derived from and has implications for the public, political sphere. It's another call to mobilize women to recognize the lived conditions of our lives and speak up for change. Challenges in our lives are not merely our own dumb luck but are also reinforced/manufactured by public, collective structures that have public, collective solutions. If those solutions are to be cultivated, then we need voices identifying the ills and proposing and supporting the alternatives. A small, private group like my pagan circle inhabits the gray area of "the women have regrouped." We've identified personal challenges with a public or collective status quo and designed a largely personal solution in response. Maybe that's where other women have grouped themselves for the time being while scrambling to make ends meet, experiencing discouragement with the public and political processes of change, seeing how far women have already made it, and feeling unclear on the changes yet to be made. Both of the mediums for social change that I've been involved with are rumored to be dead or dying - the Church and Feminism. I see it more as a cycle of renewal and rebirth as these two social forces adjust to contemporary expectations, new collective common sense about human rights and political processes, competing understandings of which social changes are needed, as well as age old American individualism. Today's feminism is not only about changes for women, though those needs certainly remain as we examine violence against women, health care designed around men as the norm, leadership issues, faith communities, living wages for single mothers and others, affordable, high quality childcare…, but also for social change that affects men and children (and animals and the planet…). Women offer a different perspective coming from a different lived experience of social conditions. We can offer particular insight into the consequences (intended or unintended) of current social and political trends. I think the gray area is an ok place to be, right now. It provides a safe place to start making change. It serves as an incubator for the next iteration of contemporary social forces, like the Church and Feminism. The gray area is a margin or liminal space where we are secure to claim, "yes, this is working," and to identify, "whoa, no way, that doesn't work, it needs to change, we need XYZ…" Here, we adapt and experiment with new ways of being together. The next challenge is to bring those ideas and methods into the broader social collective, in both the virtual and real worlds. I love my little pagan circle in the gray area. I am grateful for the strength and encouragement it offers me personally and the alternative it provides to mainline faith communities. In my pagan circle I feel seen and heard, I experience affirming resonance, and practice our own creative solutions. I carry that with me as I interact in my daily life of job and family and friendships. I develop a fresh lens for viewing the world and a clearer voice for speaking my/our truth. Ani may not be able to rest but I suggest that she could grab a catnap - there is certainly a lot of effort ahead. But the women are regrouping in this transitional social ecosystem. Preparing to grow from the margins into the main, like wildflowers and herbs, bringing beauty and salve to abused landscapes. Our voices are made stronger individually and collectively as we are supported and stretched in the liminal gray. |
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