The choleric man has a strong will, is bold, courageous, with an urge to action. Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Caesar, Napoleon, for example, were cholerics. This type of character shows itself even in childhood, and a child with this temperament will take the lead in childhood games.The melancholic man is very much occupied with himself and hence is apt to keep himself to himself. He does a lot of thinking, particularly about the way in which his environment affects him. He withdraws into himself, tends to be suspicious. This temperament, too, is apparent in childhood: a child of this type does not like to display his toys; he is afraid something will be taken away from him and would like to keep everything under lock and key.The phlegmatic man has no real interest in anything; he is dreamy, inactive, lazy, and seeks sensuous enjoyment.The sanguine man, on the other hand, gets easily interested in anything but he does not stick to it; his interest quickly fades; he is continually changing his hobbies.These are the four basic types. Generally a man is a mixture of all four, but we can usually discover the fundamental one.Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 95 – At the Gates of Spiritual Science: Lecture VII – Stuttgart, 28th August 1906
Friday, June 12, 2015
the four temperaments
secretary sweep
There aren't as many secretaries as there used to be. It used to be that most women who worked in businesses were called secretaries, paid much less than men and they often did significantly meaningful administrative work.
My first job out of college, in the year between college and law school when I hoped to convince my dad to let me off the hook about law school and support my wish to join the peace corps (the life unlived!) was not a secretary job. I was the administrative assistant to the president of a company that contracts to have automotive aftermarket car parts manufactured in Taiwan and then sold in the U.S. to Sears, Penneys (monkey wards?!), hardware store chains. We had a network of sales reps that I managed. It was a good job, actually. My boss, a disgusting pig, loved hiring smart women because they cost less and he knew smart women did good work.
So I guess I have never been a secretary, unless you count the few temp office jobs I took after law school while job hunting for a lawyer gig.
Anyway, in those days, there was a saying "the secretary sweep". It refers to the sedentary nature of a secretary's job and how her fanny can spread as she sits all day for years. The secretary sweep.
I have not thought of the phrase 'secretary sweep' until a few days ago. I was at a council meeting and saw a local business person take off her ubiquitous, and very cool, leather jacket. I saw she has developed a secretary sweep.
I love the phrase.
My first job out of college, in the year between college and law school when I hoped to convince my dad to let me off the hook about law school and support my wish to join the peace corps (the life unlived!) was not a secretary job. I was the administrative assistant to the president of a company that contracts to have automotive aftermarket car parts manufactured in Taiwan and then sold in the U.S. to Sears, Penneys (monkey wards?!), hardware store chains. We had a network of sales reps that I managed. It was a good job, actually. My boss, a disgusting pig, loved hiring smart women because they cost less and he knew smart women did good work.
So I guess I have never been a secretary, unless you count the few temp office jobs I took after law school while job hunting for a lawyer gig.
Anyway, in those days, there was a saying "the secretary sweep". It refers to the sedentary nature of a secretary's job and how her fanny can spread as she sits all day for years. The secretary sweep.
I have not thought of the phrase 'secretary sweep' until a few days ago. I was at a council meeting and saw a local business person take off her ubiquitous, and very cool, leather jacket. I saw she has developed a secretary sweep.
I love the phrase.
the wellbeing of a community
Prosperity/ Labour/ Egotism
The well-being of a community of people working together will be the greater, where there is less egotism. To realize this, one is therefore dependent on finding people who are able to leave behind all selfishness. However, this is practically impossible as long as people’s welfare is determined by their work situation. Whosoever works for himself or herself, must eventually fall into selfishness. Only the person who labours solely for others can slowly become more and more selfless. There is one condition however. When a human being works for others, he must find the motive for his labour in the other; and when someone works for the human community as a whole, he must feel and experience the value, the essential importance, and the idea behind all this.
Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 34 - LUCIFER - GNOSIS 1903-1908 – Spiritual Science and the Social Question, October 1904, (p.214)
Thursday, June 11, 2015
hard love = great healing and growth
I have learned to love the challenges that those I love gift me. I try to equanimously accept that I have to love all those I love around the impediment of their human imperfection.
Sometimes the work is way hard.
Sometimes the work is way hard.
love what streams to you from the cosmos
Steiner`s own words in chapter one of "Knowledge of the Higher Worlds":
"This tranquil contemplation must become a natural desire of life for the esoteric pupil. He must develop a living feeling for this peaceful activity of thought. He must learn to love what streams to him from spirit. Soon he will stop finding this world of thought as something less real than the everyday things that surround him. He starts treating his thoughts like the things in space. And then the moment nears where he feels that which reveals itself to him in quiet contemplation to be much higher, much more real than the things in space. He learns that life speaks through this world of thought. He recognizes that thoughts are not mere shadows but that hidden beings speak to him through them. Before only his ear received tones. Now it tones through his soul. An inner speech - an inner word - opens up for him. The pupil feels blessed in the highest degree when he first experiences this moment. An inner light is poured over his whole outer world. A second life begins for him. The stream of a godly, a blessed world pours through him. Such life of the soul in thought that ever grows to a life in spiritual being, Gnosis and occult science calls meditation ‘contemplative thinking’. This meditation is the means to supersensible knowledge. Through such meditation a complete transformation happens in the occult pupil. He starts to form new concepts about reality. All things attain for him a new worth."
"When one begins to meditate, one accomplishes the only really free deed in this human life... we are completely free in this. Meditation is the archetypal free deed."
Rudolf Steiner (GA 214, 20.8.1922)
reverence, respect, recognition
It is not easy, at first, to believe that feelings like reverence and respect have anything to do with cognition. This is due to the fact that we are inclined to set cognition aside as a faculty by itself — one that stands in no relation to what otherwise occurs in the soul. In so thinking we do not bear in mind that it is the soul which exercises the faculty of cognition; and feelings are for the soul what food is for the body. If we give the body stones in place of bread, its activity will cease. It is the same with the soul. Veneration, homage, devotion are like nutriment making it healthy and strong, especially strong for the activity of cognition. Disrespect, antipathy, underestimation of what deserves recognition, all exert a paralyzing and withering effect on this faculty of cognition. For the spiritually experienced this fact is visible in the aura. A soul which harbors feelings of reverence and devotion produces a change in its aura. Certain spiritual colorings, as they may be called, yellow-red and brown-red in tone, vanish and are replaced by blue-red tints. Thereby the cognitional faculty is ripened; it receives intelligence of facts in its environment of which it had hitherto no idea. Reverence awakens in the soul a sympathetic power through which we attract qualities in the beings around us, which would otherwise remain concealed.Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 10 – Knowledge of the Higher Worlds – 1: How Is Knowledge of the Higher Worlds Attained?
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
if ever we meet
I think I shall stop startled if ever we meet after our next birth, walking
in the light of a far-away world. I shall know those dark eyes then as morning stars, and yet feel that they have belonged to some unremembered evening sky of a former life.
I shall know that the magic of your face is not all its own, but has stolen the passionate light that was in my eyes at some immemorial meeting, and,then gathered from my love a mystery that has now forgotten its origin.
-- Rabindranath Tagore
I don't exactly belief in soul mates but, then again, I sorta kinda do. I think I met mine and he rejected me, even came to shun me. I had to move on. I don't think I will ever again feel about anyone as I do about the man with whom I have a deep, etheric, energetic bond. So, since he shuns me in this life, I will not be startled when we meet after our next births. I will rejoice and welcome his return into my orbit.
grounds for true love
Love is the only thing we can count on.
We all know the feeling. We meet, we
connect, we fall in love. When we’re in it our world is turned upside
down. We’d rather be with our beloved than eat, sleep, or work. We feel
on top of the world when our love is returned and crash to the depths if
it looks like our love is threatened.
Lust is connected with romance. We want
to merge our bodies, minds, and spirits. Orgasmic intensity isn’t just
about pleasure. It’s about wanting to share our hearts, souls, atoms,
and electrons. We want to lose ourselves and find the divine.
We no longer feel alone. We are now part of a pair. We feel the power of two and joy of being us.
We’re still in the world, but the world seems like the background. We
two are the center and the world is there to support and embrace us.
The primal creation, the reason we are
each here, is that a man and a woman came together and an intrepid sperm
was welcomed by wondrous egg and we were launched into life. But in a
world with too many people, we also create art, music, home, healing,
and other gifts for humankind.
The honeymoon time comes to an end.
Disillusionment sets in. Our partner seems to change. They are not who
we thought they were and they aren’t giving us what we longed to have.
We wonder if we’ve made a mistake and begin turning away and looking for
what is missing.
Incompatibility is grounds for true love.
When we become disillusioned with our partner, we often feel we’ve
become incompatible. But when we recognize that disillusionment can mean
letting go of illusions, we can also let go of believing that
incompatibility is a bad thing. It actually allows us to learn where our
wounds have been hiding.
In looking away from our partner, we are
forced to look within. We feel the pain of the trauma we all experience
growing up in families that didn’t adequately meet our needs. We
recognize that we were hoping that our partner would make us whole. We
were looking in all the wrong places.
Everyone gets sick, but that’s not a bad thing. Sickness can be our greatest teacher, our greatest guide. Depression, anxiety, diabetes, deep vein thrombosis, heart attack. . .any health challenge can be a teacher, draw lovers closer. Embrace illness when it comes and love your partner through sickness and health.
Being real is not sweetness and light. It
is passionate, painful, and creative. Much like making a baby and
giving birth. Being real requires being part of a pair.
Self-actualization is not something we do by ourselves.
All our unhappiness and illnesses are
fear based. We’re afraid of losing what we have or not getting what we
need. We always have two choices. Do we feed the fear or do we feed the
love? Whichever one we feed gets stronger.
Real, lasting love is something we create
every minute of every day. It’s the most difficult thing we do in our
lives. It is also the simplest. But simple isn’t always easy. Learning
to love is the graduate school of life. Admission is free, but will cost
you everything you have. Are you ready for the journey?
This edited essay was published on www.MenAlive.com. Check out the site if this interested you.
darkness has to be overcome by light
The profound thought that lies in this is that the kingdom of darkness has to be overcome by the kingdom of light, not by means of punishment, but through mildness; not by resisting evil, but by uniting with it in order to redeem evil as such. Because a part of the light enters into evil, the evil itself is overcome.”
~Rudolf Steiner
Monday, June 08, 2015
the best almond butter I ever tasted & Italian men
Some of my more environmentally conscious friends have given up almonds. I cannot. I won't eat peanut butter, which is not made with nuts but with legumes, legumes that all have a kind of fungus that is inflammatory. I adhere to an anti-inflammatory diet so not peanuts or peanut butter.
Almond, almond, that's my jam. Almond butter is the bomb.
And G.L. Alfieri Premium Nuts & Fruits of Ripon, CA makes the tastiest almond butter I have yet tasted.
I sometimes make my own from raw almonds. Jars of packaged nut butter are so easy. How's come G.L.Alfieri almond butter is so much tastier than mine? The jar says it is nothing but almonds. Mine is nothing but almonds but theirs is so much yummier.
G.L. Alfieri almond butter is not cheap. This is "I deserve a treat food".
I made almond butter protein cookies with chia seed and chocolate: food for the goddess. And I am the goddess. I am so slick. I make a gel with water and chia seeds to avoid using eggs so I get a gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free and vegan protein cookie. Next time, I'm making small protein bars. Yum. Num. Num. The recipe, from my friend Kelly, is for peanut butter chia seed cookies. And her recipe didn't add chocolate.
Everything goes better with chocolate, am I right?
My favorite professor in college was Professor John Alfieri. I bought Alfieri almond butter because when I saw the name on the jar on the shelf at Rainbow Foods, I felt a surge of love for Prof. Alfieri.
I've always been a sucker for little Italian men. Yum!
Almond, almond, that's my jam. Almond butter is the bomb.
And G.L. Alfieri Premium Nuts & Fruits of Ripon, CA makes the tastiest almond butter I have yet tasted.
I sometimes make my own from raw almonds. Jars of packaged nut butter are so easy. How's come G.L.Alfieri almond butter is so much tastier than mine? The jar says it is nothing but almonds. Mine is nothing but almonds but theirs is so much yummier.
G.L. Alfieri almond butter is not cheap. This is "I deserve a treat food".
I made almond butter protein cookies with chia seed and chocolate: food for the goddess. And I am the goddess. I am so slick. I make a gel with water and chia seeds to avoid using eggs so I get a gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free and vegan protein cookie. Next time, I'm making small protein bars. Yum. Num. Num. The recipe, from my friend Kelly, is for peanut butter chia seed cookies. And her recipe didn't add chocolate.
Everything goes better with chocolate, am I right?
My favorite professor in college was Professor John Alfieri. I bought Alfieri almond butter because when I saw the name on the jar on the shelf at Rainbow Foods, I felt a surge of love for Prof. Alfieri.
I've always been a sucker for little Italian men. Yum!
a free lifetime supply
A friend, whose girlfriend is an artist, prints her work on the giclee press they bought when they learned how expensive it is to pay someone else to print her work.
This friend, Kenoli, told me i have a free lifetime supply of any of Sharon's work that I like.
. . . but this weekend, when I visited her studio during open studios in Richmond, CA, he said "don't say you like something, then we'll have to give it to you."
Laughing I said "What about my free lifetime supply?" Happy laughter.
And then I said "It's not fair to the artist to tell me I can't speak admiringly of her work. do you really want me to not tell Sharon I like her work?"
Happinesss all around. These are two lovely people. and so am I.
This friend, Kenoli, told me i have a free lifetime supply of any of Sharon's work that I like.
. . . but this weekend, when I visited her studio during open studios in Richmond, CA, he said "don't say you like something, then we'll have to give it to you."
Laughing I said "What about my free lifetime supply?" Happy laughter.
And then I said "It's not fair to the artist to tell me I can't speak admiringly of her work. do you really want me to not tell Sharon I like her work?"
Happinesss all around. These are two lovely people. and so am I.
gentrification destroying communities all over
Gentrification destroying communities all over country
SF Bay Area is not the center of the universe. Unfortunately, the ongoing rape of our communities by a mostly anonymous investment class who only cares about accumulating their wealth and power and happily destroy community for any schmoes not blessed to be billionaires is not limited to the bay area.
The real estate investor class is behaving with reckless disregard for the millions of human lives disrupted so they can get a little richer.
Welcome to the oligarchy.
message in crop circles?
This from Ru Ahh's Facebook page. I do no know Ru Ahh.
Upon recommendation from my friend Richard, I borrowed a documentary about crop circles from the library. I've long been fascinated with crop circles.
The crop circles are not very likely to be done by alien beings who land on this planet, do their thing and go back to their homes. Scientists who have devoted their lives to studying them theorizes that crop circles are done by energies humans have not yet learned to recognize. Supersensible beings and energy! Nonmaterial reality energies.
In the documentary, at one point, a scientist tells a story of a group of people thinking and talking about crop circles, seeking understanding. Within a very short time, an elaborate crop circle appeared quite nearby, leading those present to believe that when they put their focus on a crop circle, the energy that makes crop circles responded.
Crop circles are messages, written in sacred geometry. They are probably gifts from higher realms, higher energy fields, messages.
My belief is that we see more and more crop circles because the supersensible realm loves us and wants to guide us, which is everywhere and which needs us as much as we need them if we are all to achieve our destiny,
I'd like to see some who have studied sacred geometry extensively get together with the folks who study crop circles, see the sacred geometry experts try to 'read' the messages in crop circles.
I think I have a good idea what the crop circle messages are telling us: have reverence for life, for your home planet, stop destroying nature. i think the messages are geometric because everything is connected by sacred geometry.
Pottersville or Bedford Falls
Berkeley, California and cities all over the country are blocking out the working class, the middle class and the poor. The result will be rich enclaves filled with fancy and/or hip restaurants. Berkeley won't have any good movie theaters but the idiots on our city council believe movies are a dying industry. So the new rich folks who might live in luxury highrises in downtown Berkeley will hang out in bars, spend money in restaurants . . and, the fairy tale goes, they will not drive cars.
Pottersville, the sadly craven city that was the result of what might have happened if George Bailey, the hero in It's a Wonderful Life had never been born, will be more like Berkeley.
I live downtown. With my windows open, I am often awakened by clusteres of loud drunks staggering around town. With no movies to go to, the rich new residents will only have bars to go to.
And don't forget that with the demolition of the Shattuck Cinemas, bars and restaurants will lose a ton of business.
I bet many downtown businesses will go out of business as several high rises are built all at once, with loud construction noise, disruptive construction traffic in an already traffic stressed downtown.
We might not have prostitutes street walking as we see in Pottersville in It's a Wonderful Life but we'll have rich drunks, rich foodies with nothing to do but drink and eat because the Harold Way project is going to demolish the only venue in the east bay for art films and documentaries, demolish the economic engine of downtown.
Great planning, eh? Pottersville, coming to a town or city near you.
Pottersville, the sadly craven city that was the result of what might have happened if George Bailey, the hero in It's a Wonderful Life had never been born, will be more like Berkeley.
I live downtown. With my windows open, I am often awakened by clusteres of loud drunks staggering around town. With no movies to go to, the rich new residents will only have bars to go to.
And don't forget that with the demolition of the Shattuck Cinemas, bars and restaurants will lose a ton of business.
I bet many downtown businesses will go out of business as several high rises are built all at once, with loud construction noise, disruptive construction traffic in an already traffic stressed downtown.
We might not have prostitutes street walking as we see in Pottersville in It's a Wonderful Life but we'll have rich drunks, rich foodies with nothing to do but drink and eat because the Harold Way project is going to demolish the only venue in the east bay for art films and documentaries, demolish the economic engine of downtown.
Great planning, eh? Pottersville, coming to a town or city near you.
Sunday, June 07, 2015
happy all day
I'm going to SF, to Golden Gate Park, the Deyoung and even pop to see the flower garden. I'm going to enjoy the sunlight, beauty of nature and of art and be happy all day.
should I, can I, release her?
I had a surprising exchange with a neighbor's daughter yesterday. This daughter is an adult, maybe thirty. She doesn't live here. She is African American and, as many African Americans do, but certainly not all, she has usually ignored me. So many AA seem unaccustomed to casually greeing a white person in a building that is mostly inhabited by African Americans that I have grown used to it.
When the building first opened, I was like an eager little puppy, eagerly seeking to interact with my neighbors. No my black ones, or the Chinese ones, or the ones from India. My neighbors. I hoped to get to know many and find new friends, lasting friendships, true neighborliness. The most I have achieved is some of my neighbors greet me in the elevator. None of them know who I am, only my race and appearance. I know nothing about them because a 30 second elevator ride is not enough time to form bonds.
It probably is my own energy that has kept me from forming friendships with my neighbors. I think it is also cultural conditioning, mine and my neighbors.
The neighbor's daughter I had a startling encounter with yesterday has never before acknowledged me. I have let her up the elevator. I don't let total strangers up into the residential floors but if I have seen someone come and go enough times that I remember them, I let them up. I have let this young woman up so her elderly mom didn't have to go down to admit her. And every time I have done this, the neighbor's daughter has held herself tightly, avoided eye contact with me and, in my humanly imperfect perception, I have felt rejected, maybe in anger, maybe coldness, maybe just disinterest.
It probably should not bruise me but it does when someone folds their arms in the elevator and looks at the elevator doors so they don't have to look at me. I stand there, respecting the person's choice but aching for the absence of simple neighborliness or kindness.
So. For six+ years, I have run into this woman. She has never said a word to me before.
Yesterday, she was sitting in the lobby when I came home, waiting for her mom to come down. I had a temptation to offer to let her up but her years of cold shouldering me kept me silent. Then her mom arrived in the lobby, just as the elevator would have opened for me. We all went into the elevator together and we all got off at the sixth floor.
Then our day went on. I went out again, having forgotten to buy raw walnuts at the market. She went out to run an errand for her mom, but had her mom's elevator fob. When I saw her, I said "Oh, I won't get to let you up". She smiled.She behaved warmly. As we walked side by side to the elevator, I said "I am thinking of how my daughter might react if I said to her "Please let me help you, I care about you"
Suddenly the young woman was talking at me, not to me. She began to lecture me, on that very limited exchange on my relationship with my daughter.
To cut short the lecture, partly because the young woman spoke with great intensity, even leaning into my face, but mostly because the subject of my daughter is so tender for me.
When the young woman did not give up lecturing me, occasionally interrupting herself to remind me she was speaking God's words and I wasn't getting what she said, I tried to stop her lecture by saying "My daughter turns 33 this month, she hasn't talked to me since I dropped her off at Cornell in 2001." I never say that without tearing up and I teared up.
Then this young woman began to angrily lecture me, telling me why my daughter had disowned me and what I needed to do to heal the relationship. Her advice was full of 'you need to tell her this" and "you need to tell her that" so I shared that if she won't talk to me and has never given me any indication of why she has disowned me, I could not do what this young woman was almost shouting into my face.
When she kept on lecturing me, leading me to wonder what kind of issues she might have with her mother although I did not dare speculate aloud on that, I interjected "My daughter was incested by her father when she was five. Whatever is going on with her, it's her work, her damage. I can't do any of the things you say if she will not talk to me."
I thought those comments might have dulled the attack. Instead the young woman said "Now I understand. You are crude. You should not have told me your daughter was raped and you should have mpathy for the fact that she was. You have no empathy for what she went through. You have to give her space and accept her choice and she will come back."
By then, although the young woman lectured me for a few more minutes, I began to say "Than kyou for sharing. I will give your comments some thought. Thank you."
Finally, I just walked to my apartment.
My daughter's rape by her father was a hole in both of us her entire childhood. It is a hole still in me. I don't know if her rape is why she disowned me. I don't know anything about why she left me.
When she first left me, I wrote many imploring letters, begging her to at least tell me why she has severed herself from me. I knew as soon as she did it she would not come back. She is severely OCD and never goes back on decisions. I guess she also thinks in the rigid black and white that a borderline can get caught in.
I don't know why she left me.
One good thing: I have not seen her since she was 19. I don't know anything about her anymore except her job title. Not knowing what kind of adult she has turned out to me, not knowing if she has humor or love in her heart, makes it easier to accept this loss.
I keen for a ghost, not for an actual person.
I felt beaten up by that neighbor's daughter. She said "You have no empathy for the fat that she is raped." I tried to tell her that Rosie had therapy about it, that Rosie and I had joint therapy about it and that I did what I could to protect her but this neighbor's daughter just kept shrieking at me that I had no empathy for my daughter and that she will only come back to me when I do.
So confusing, that interaction.
So difficult, the loss of my only child.
When the building first opened, I was like an eager little puppy, eagerly seeking to interact with my neighbors. No my black ones, or the Chinese ones, or the ones from India. My neighbors. I hoped to get to know many and find new friends, lasting friendships, true neighborliness. The most I have achieved is some of my neighbors greet me in the elevator. None of them know who I am, only my race and appearance. I know nothing about them because a 30 second elevator ride is not enough time to form bonds.
It probably is my own energy that has kept me from forming friendships with my neighbors. I think it is also cultural conditioning, mine and my neighbors.
The neighbor's daughter I had a startling encounter with yesterday has never before acknowledged me. I have let her up the elevator. I don't let total strangers up into the residential floors but if I have seen someone come and go enough times that I remember them, I let them up. I have let this young woman up so her elderly mom didn't have to go down to admit her. And every time I have done this, the neighbor's daughter has held herself tightly, avoided eye contact with me and, in my humanly imperfect perception, I have felt rejected, maybe in anger, maybe coldness, maybe just disinterest.
It probably should not bruise me but it does when someone folds their arms in the elevator and looks at the elevator doors so they don't have to look at me. I stand there, respecting the person's choice but aching for the absence of simple neighborliness or kindness.
So. For six+ years, I have run into this woman. She has never said a word to me before.
Yesterday, she was sitting in the lobby when I came home, waiting for her mom to come down. I had a temptation to offer to let her up but her years of cold shouldering me kept me silent. Then her mom arrived in the lobby, just as the elevator would have opened for me. We all went into the elevator together and we all got off at the sixth floor.
Then our day went on. I went out again, having forgotten to buy raw walnuts at the market. She went out to run an errand for her mom, but had her mom's elevator fob. When I saw her, I said "Oh, I won't get to let you up". She smiled.She behaved warmly. As we walked side by side to the elevator, I said "I am thinking of how my daughter might react if I said to her "Please let me help you, I care about you"
Suddenly the young woman was talking at me, not to me. She began to lecture me, on that very limited exchange on my relationship with my daughter.
To cut short the lecture, partly because the young woman spoke with great intensity, even leaning into my face, but mostly because the subject of my daughter is so tender for me.
When the young woman did not give up lecturing me, occasionally interrupting herself to remind me she was speaking God's words and I wasn't getting what she said, I tried to stop her lecture by saying "My daughter turns 33 this month, she hasn't talked to me since I dropped her off at Cornell in 2001." I never say that without tearing up and I teared up.
Then this young woman began to angrily lecture me, telling me why my daughter had disowned me and what I needed to do to heal the relationship. Her advice was full of 'you need to tell her this" and "you need to tell her that" so I shared that if she won't talk to me and has never given me any indication of why she has disowned me, I could not do what this young woman was almost shouting into my face.
When she kept on lecturing me, leading me to wonder what kind of issues she might have with her mother although I did not dare speculate aloud on that, I interjected "My daughter was incested by her father when she was five. Whatever is going on with her, it's her work, her damage. I can't do any of the things you say if she will not talk to me."
I thought those comments might have dulled the attack. Instead the young woman said "Now I understand. You are crude. You should not have told me your daughter was raped and you should have mpathy for the fact that she was. You have no empathy for what she went through. You have to give her space and accept her choice and she will come back."
By then, although the young woman lectured me for a few more minutes, I began to say "Than kyou for sharing. I will give your comments some thought. Thank you."
Finally, I just walked to my apartment.
My daughter's rape by her father was a hole in both of us her entire childhood. It is a hole still in me. I don't know if her rape is why she disowned me. I don't know anything about why she left me.
When she first left me, I wrote many imploring letters, begging her to at least tell me why she has severed herself from me. I knew as soon as she did it she would not come back. She is severely OCD and never goes back on decisions. I guess she also thinks in the rigid black and white that a borderline can get caught in.
I don't know why she left me.
One good thing: I have not seen her since she was 19. I don't know anything about her anymore except her job title. Not knowing what kind of adult she has turned out to me, not knowing if she has humor or love in her heart, makes it easier to accept this loss.
I keen for a ghost, not for an actual person.
I felt beaten up by that neighbor's daughter. She said "You have no empathy for the fat that she is raped." I tried to tell her that Rosie had therapy about it, that Rosie and I had joint therapy about it and that I did what I could to protect her but this neighbor's daughter just kept shrieking at me that I had no empathy for my daughter and that she will only come back to me when I do.
So confusing, that interaction.
So difficult, the loss of my only child.
the art of living
The Art of Drowning by Billy Collins
I wonder how it all got started, this business about seeing your life flash before your eyes while you drown, as if panic, or the act of submergence, could startle time into such compression, crushing decades in the vice of your desperate, final seconds. After falling off a steamship or being swept away in a rush of floodwaters, wouldn't you hope for a more leisurely review, an invisible hand turning the pages of an album of photographs- you up on a pony or blowing out candles in a conic hat. How about a short animated film, a slide presentation? Your life expressed in an essay, or in one model photograph? Wouldn't any form be better than this sudden flash? Your whole existence going off in your face in an eyebrow-singeing explosion of biography- nothing like the three large volumes you envisioned. Survivors would have us believe in a brilliance here, some bolt of truth forking across the water, an ultimate Light before all the lights go out, dawning on you with all its megalithic tonnage. But if something does flash before your eyes as you go under, it will probably be a fish, a quick blur of curved silver darting away, having nothing to do with your life or your death. The tide will take you, or the lake will accept it all as you sink toward the weedy disarray of the bottom, leaving behind what you have already forgotten, the surface, now overrun with the high travel of clouds.
I could make myself invisible
On Turning Ten by Billy Collins
The whole idea of it makes me feel like I'm coming down with something, something worse than any stomach ache or the headaches I get from reading in bad light-- a kind of measles of the spirit, a mumps of the psyche, a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul. You tell me it is too early to be looking back, but that is because you have forgotten the perfect simplicity of being one and the beautiful complexity introduced by two. But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit. At four I was an Arabian wizard. I could make myself invisible by drinking a glass of milk a certain way. At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince. But now I am mostly at the window watching the late afternoon light. Back then it never fell so solemnly against the side of my tree house, and my bicycle never leaned against the garage as it does today, all the dark blue speed drained out of it. This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself, as I walk through the universe in my sneakers. It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends, time to turn the first big number. It seems only yesterday I used to believe there was nothing under my skin but light. If you cut me I could shine. But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life, I skin my knees. I bleed.
great video on Goethe as scientist (and Steiner)
Steiner as scientist, Goethe as scientist
An excellent investment of an hour. Art Zajonc talks about Goethe's scientific thinking about ten minutes in. He says Goethe fully expected to be remembered most for his science, not his great literary work.
In Goethe, Steiner found a shift from what was then, and, to some extent, continues to be traditional science to a world into science behind the illusory world. Steiner found in Goethe a shift from transcendant realism (energy fields, energetic realities measured by traditional science) to a world full of qualities, a world of ethics, where feelings and values have their own standing as spiritual realities.
In Philosophy of Freedom,Steiner asks if it is possible to have true knowledge, can you be truly free? Yes, Steiner believed. If you truly believe you can be free, on what basis do you act? Steiner found this thinking implicit, not explicit, in Goethe's scientific writings.
There will always be horizons, or limits, but you can't experience new aspects of yourself without rising to ever higher heights, if you don't do you work.
We can be known as the human being, for our potential of God-self.
Science in ways and measures was rejected by Steiner as being complete, but science today is consistent with Goethe's world view. Steiner believed there is a broad knowledge of science, that embraces conventional science with spiritual, phenomenologicl science. Balancing the two spans of scientific inquiry was, essentially, Steiner's gift to the world.
An excellent investment of an hour. Art Zajonc talks about Goethe's scientific thinking about ten minutes in. He says Goethe fully expected to be remembered most for his science, not his great literary work.
In Goethe, Steiner found a shift from what was then, and, to some extent, continues to be traditional science to a world into science behind the illusory world. Steiner found in Goethe a shift from transcendant realism (energy fields, energetic realities measured by traditional science) to a world full of qualities, a world of ethics, where feelings and values have their own standing as spiritual realities.
In Philosophy of Freedom,Steiner asks if it is possible to have true knowledge, can you be truly free? Yes, Steiner believed. If you truly believe you can be free, on what basis do you act? Steiner found this thinking implicit, not explicit, in Goethe's scientific writings.
There will always be horizons, or limits, but you can't experience new aspects of yourself without rising to ever higher heights, if you don't do you work.
We can be known as the human being, for our potential of God-self.
Science in ways and measures was rejected by Steiner as being complete, but science today is consistent with Goethe's world view. Steiner believed there is a broad knowledge of science, that embraces conventional science with spiritual, phenomenologicl science. Balancing the two spans of scientific inquiry was, essentially, Steiner's gift to the world.
completing formation of your heart chakra
This video, a lesson from an anthroposophy professor at Rudolf Steiner College, is a good lesson in the six basic exercises Rudolf Steiner gave.
I have practiced these exercises for years at a time. This video reminds me I have neglected this important, basic practice. I need to begin again.
6 basic exercises given by Steiner
I have practiced these exercises for years at a time. This video reminds me I have neglected this important, basic practice. I need to begin again.
6 basic exercises given by Steiner
Saturday, June 06, 2015
love liberates, words of Maya Angelou
“I am grateful to have been loved and to be loved now and to be able to love, because that liberates. Love liberates. It doesn’t just hold—that’s ego. Love liberates. It doesn’t bind. Love says, ‘I love you. I love you if you’re in China. I love you if you’re across town. I love you if you’re in Harlem. I love you. I would like to be near you. I’d like to have your arms around me. I’d like to hear your voice in my ear. But that’s not possible now, so I love you. Go.'” ~ Dr. Maya Angelou
True love liberates us to life. It liberates us all. It does, it really does. But only true love can do that…
I think love has power that is not always recognized. It is not always right to 'liberate' someone. We are put into other's lives for reasons; sometimes love calls upon us to love past impediments, including the impediment that someone we love has shunned us. In some circumstances, 'liberating' a beloved so they might avoid a conflict as arisen might be the right choice. It might also be the more loving more right choice, to actively remind the other you love them and remind them you are open to working through the relationship.
Increasingly, I see much value in marriage commitment. I don't imagine I will ever marry again. I am not opposed to people living together as life partners without marriage.
Sometimes, a soul partner comes along with lessons for us. To liberate a beloved from their lessons is not loving. Yes we annot make someone interct with us but if we feel deeply bonded to that other being and feel a clear call to remain open to them, open to working through the relationship, I believe it is unloving to, as Angelous ays in the quote, 'liberate them'.
Besides, I don't think Angelous is writing about 'liberating' a loved oneo forever. A trip to China is not forever. Space to do something apart from a loved one is not permanent liberation.
I am noticing that I often read great quotes online. For a few moments, the quote might penetrate me and I will tell myself it is right.
There is no one right way of thinking about anything, not ben when the thinkerk is somoene as fine as Maya Angelou.
Hope
"Either we have hope in us or we don't; it is a dimension of the soul, and it's not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the Spirit, an orientation of the heart.
Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather, an ability to work for something because it's good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.
Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. . . It is also hope, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually try new things, even in conditions that seem hopeless. . ."
- Vaclav Havel (1986)
Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather, an ability to work for something because it's good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.
Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. . . It is also hope, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually try new things, even in conditions that seem hopeless. . ."
- Vaclav Havel (1986)
"my work here is done"
I said 'my work here is done'. My friend Richard said I did not use the whole quote. It goes like this:
"Chaos and anarchy reigns. My work here is done."
I love the quote. I don't think I seed much chaos or anarchy.
hope is a dimension of the soul
"Either we have hope in us or we don't; it is a dimension of the soul, and it's not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the Spirit, an orientation of the heart.
Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather, an ability to work for something because it's good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.
Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. . . It is also hope, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually try new things, even in conditions that seem hopeless. . ."
- Vaclav Havel (1986)
how to be safe in this world
Stand in your truth
Trust your guidance
Invite supersensible beings into your life
Remind them you sometimes need blunt messages from them.
Trust what you sense.
Trust trust trust.
Above all, to thine own self be true
Be full yourself, reveal your full self to others
Do this fearlessly
The more deeply you trust others to receive your whole, real self
the safer you will be.
You safety rests entirely in your vulnerability,
your willingness to be exactly who you are.
Trust your guidance
Invite supersensible beings into your life
Remind them you sometimes need blunt messages from them.
Trust what you sense.
Trust trust trust.
Above all, to thine own self be true
Be full yourself, reveal your full self to others
Do this fearlessly
The more deeply you trust others to receive your whole, real self
the safer you will be.
You safety rests entirely in your vulnerability,
your willingness to be exactly who you are.
hope never makes sense
This is the text of a speech by Christopher Hedges in 2010. I just bought a ticket to hear Hedges speak in Berkeley on June 9th.
Hope, from now on, will look like this.
Hope will not come in trusting in the ultimate goodness of Barack Obama, who, like Herod of old, sold out his people. It will not be realized by chanting packaged campaign slogans or attempting to influence the democratic party. It will not come through our bankrupt liberal institutions-- from the press, to the withered stump that is the labor movement.
Hope will only come now when we physically defy the violence of the state. All who resist, all who are here today, keep hope alive. All who succumb to fear, despair and apathy become an enemy of hope. They become, in their passivity, agents of injustice.
It is not having a positive attitude or pretending that happy thoughts and false optimism will make the world better. Hope is not about chanting packaged campaign slogans or trusting in the better nature of the Democratic Party. Hope does not mean that our protests will suddenly awaken the dead consciences, the atrophied souls, of the plutocrats running Halliburton, Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil or the government.
If the enemies of hope are finally victorious in this nation, the poison of violence will become not only the language of power but the language of opposition. And those who resist with nonviolence are the last thin line of defense between a civil society and its disintegration.
Hope has a cost. Hope is not comfortable or easy. Hope requires personal risk. It is not about the right attitude. Hope is not about peace of mind. Hope is action. Hope is doing something. The more futile, the more useless, the more irrelevant and incomprehensible an act of rebellion is, the vaster and more potent hope becomes.
Hope never makes sense. Hope is weak, unorganized and absurd. Hope, which is always nonviolent, exposes in its powerlessness, the lies, fraud and coercion employed by the state. Hope knows that an injustice visited on our neighbor is an injustice visited on all of us. Hope posits that people are drawn to the good by the good. This is the secret of hope's power. Hope demands for others what we demand for ourselves. Hope does not separate us from them. Hope sees in our enemy our own face.
Hope is not for the practical and the sophisticated, the cynics and the complacent, the defeated and the fearful. Hope is what the corporate state which saturates our airwaves with lies seeks to obliterate. Hope is what this corporate state is determined to crush. Be afraid, they tell us. Surrender your liberties to us so we can make the world safe from terror. Don't resist. Embrace the alienation of our cheerful conformity. Buy our products. Without them you are worthless. Become our brands. Do not look up from your electronic hallucinations. No. Above all do not think. Obey.
The powerful do not understand hope. Hope is not part of their vocabulary. They speak in the cold, dead words of national security, global markets, electoral strategy, staying on message, image and money. The powerful protect their own. They divide the world into the damned and the blessed, the patriots and the enemy, the privileged and the weak. They insist that extinguishing lives in foreign wars or in our prison complexes is a form of human progress.
They cannot see that the suffering of a child in Kandahar or a child in the blighted urban pocket of our nation's capitol diminishes and impoverishes us all. They are deaf, dumb and blind to hope. Those addicted to power, enthralled by self-exaltation, cannot decipher the words of hope any more than most of us can decipher hieroglyphics.
Hope to Wall Street bankers and politicians, to the masters of war and commerce, is not practical. It is gibberish. It means nothing. And this is because they kneel before the idols of greed and money.
If we resist and carry out acts, no matter how small, of open defiance, hope will not be extinguished. If all we accomplish today is to assure a grieving mother in Baghdad or Afghanistan, a young man or woman crippled physically and emotionally by the hammer blows of war, that he or she is not alone, our act will be successful. But hope cannot be sustained if it cannot be seen.
Any act of rebellion, any physical defiance of those who make war, of those who perpetuate corporate greed and are responsible for state crimes, anything that seeks to draw the good to the good, nourishes our souls and holds out the possibility that we can touch and transform the souls of others. Hope affirms that which we must affirm. And every act that imparts hope is a victory in itself.
(from Auden)
Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
Housing and Justice
This commentary, written by friend Steve Martinot, sums up my views and reminds me of my fears. We have much to lose when the pursuit of profit is prioritized above human need.
Introduction
Three winds of social concern and discontent are sweeping through the streets of Bay Area cities with a force that is beginning to disrupt the flow of political traffic. The strongest of them is the need and demand for affordable housing. Against the prior plans of various city councils for the construction of fancy high-rise high-income towers (and two such towers, 12 and 18 stories tall, are planned for downtown Berkeley), neighborhoods are organizing, and recognizing themselves in a new way. In Oakland, people took over city council to stop such a tower on public land. In SF, there is a call for a moratorium on market rate housing. In Berkeley, neighbors gather in local townhall meetings to figure out means of defending their communities. Against what? Housing development? Or is it the fact that massive development has been planned by unelected political bodies, ABAG and the MTC, that will flood these cities with above market rate housing and condos. A year ago, when ABAG and the MTC finalized their “Plan Bay Area” in a convention hall in Oakland, and established the Priority Development Areas (PDA) of San Pablo Ave and Adeline (among other), it was against years of protest, and calls to put the Plan to a popular vote – which were ignored.
Now movements have organized around the knowledge that if these new buildings go up in downtown, other neighborhoods will be next. And like all floods, this one will wash away something very important. Even in downtown Berkeley, the 18 story tower will meaning closing a ten-screen multiplex movie theater which brings more people to downtown than any other attraction, and thus is crucial to most other businesses in the area (restaurants, bars, cafes, etc.). With diminished custom, these business will fall like dominos.
Those opposed to the Plan’s development have been called NIMBYs. But they themselves have long been clammoring for development, though for affordable housing instead, as well as justice for the unrich. Is justice a development issue? It is when there is no plan to prevent the coherence and cohesion of community and life-style from being swept into the bay by development that is planned.
Justice and development
Justice is at the core of the other two winds that are gaining in strength. And as we shall see, they are not politically unrelated, though they might seem to be. The second squall that is brewing is a growing popular response and objection to the petty harassment of the homeless that the city has fostered through new piddling regulations. They may seem innocuous, yet that is precisely their meaning and design. They concern the prohibition of small ignorable details of homeless daily existence, which only serve to expand the noticeability horizon of the police. An officer’s mere attention to someone can be escalated at his will to charges of disobedience, should his target merely hesitate or balk at a command, though the person would otherwise be minding his/her own business. The police now have mantras by which they disguise the fact that they have initiated a gratuitous yet aggressive interaction (such as “stop resisting”). Along with this, the city has taken it upon itself to cut budgetary funds for social services and non-profit organizations (particularly in South Berkeley) – organizations that provide benefits for the low income, the impoverished, the homeless, and those in medical and psychological need. It is a move designed to increase destitution and stress, whose ultimate effect will swell the ranks of those inhabiting the streets. Even the poor and the marginalized are showing up in numbers at council meetings to protest, like a wind rattling the windows.
There is a ghost lurking in the shadows, cloaked in euphemism, and trying to fend off the force of these winds with fancy slogans. Its name is "gentrification."
It is the mystical project to build upper income housing in the name of the affordable. Though the city has ordinances requiring that affordable units be included in any new buildings that exceed city size and density limits, it allows developers to buy their way out of that by paying a mitigation fee. And so eager has the city been to have high income development that it has lowered that fee, at the behest of the developers, from $28,000 per non-affordable unit in buildings where affordable units are required, to $20,000. And so malleable are the permit conditions the city requires of developers that they have gotten away with not paying the fee. Thus, many good intentions fade away into an unseen spirit world of political expediency.
Affordable housing
“Affordable housing” means that the rent a family pays is calculated on the basis of the family’s income, and not on the basis of the building’s worth, or the mortgage, or the market. The rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the new downtown buildings will be upwards of $3,000 a month. The concept of "affordable" pertains to those at or below the median income for the county, which is $90,000 a year. HUD defines "affordable" as rent that doesn’t exceed 30% of one’s income. For those at the median, that would be $2,250 a month. Since the median is the "middle," there are as many families earning less than the median as there are earning more. Low income means that which 50% of median income or less. For a family earning $45,000 a year, affordable rent would be $1,125 a month, hardly enough to pay for a small one-bedroom apartment at current rent levels. After taxes (e.g. 15%), which would reduce real income to just over $38,000, that one-bedroom rent would amount to almost 36% of real income. The lower one’s income, the worse these figures get. To house people and families affordably will take political will and political action. Only affordable housing will keep this city livable for half its population. In the PDAs, the opposite is the plan.
Gentrification
Development begins in one of two ways. A developer makes plans with the city, and then buys some land on which to do it. Or the developer buys the land (or buys an option on it), and then talks to city planning, holding its investment as a hole-card (a prior investment the city must protect). In the first case, once word gets around, real estate prices will rise in expectation. In the second case, the developer buys low priced properties, maximizing ultimate profit. Buy low, build, and sell high. The areas where real estate prices are low (and the most profit is to be made) are generally low-income neighborhoods – working class communities, communities of color. They become the primary targets, promising highest return.
Once the word gets out that an area (a PDA) is due for development, however, the disruptions start. Real estate values in the immediate vicinity go up. Speculators come in and buy rental properties, preparing only to sell them at a profit, perhaps evicting all the tenants to prepare for demolition. Among homeowners near the development zone (PDA), competition develops to get the best price from the speculators. As real estate value goes up, so do taxes. The competition to sell increases, and values drop. As more people sell, local residents start to leave the neighborhood.
As this process proceeds, landlords with commercial space raise their rent to open space for stores that cater to a higher income clientele. Local stores close. These are the businesses that local residents depend on for community participation and consumption within their budget. As stores and restaurants close, the community infrastructure decays. Real estate a block or two distant from the PDA falls in value. People start to sell in order not to lose the equity in their house, and to escape the disruptions of construction. Others end up under water, unable to refinance. Some will face foreclosure, defaulting on mortgage rates that are no longer supported by their own real estate values.
Thus, the PDA becomes a machine that chews up community, displaces tenants, contorts real estate values (driving some up and others down), all in order to build new upper income housing. And while it promises new affordable housing (in response to popular demand), it destroys already existing low income housing. Insofar as developers can buy their way out of including affordable housing, it is doubtful that what they build will balance or compensate for what is lost.
In short, new high-rise and high-cost apartments transform the property relations of the community, replacing people of modest means with an elite. Some landowners and landlords get very rich. But many more lose because the infrastructure of their neighborhood has been decimated.
This is what is called gentrification. It is an extreme form of loss of community to corporate displacement of residents and neighborhoods, a loss of community coherence to corporate control.
In the case of West Berkeley, manufacturing, which depends on low rent housing that workers can afford, will be hard hit. The area is the site of most non-high-tech employment outside the university (a state institution). Breweries, food processing, and food distribution companies, for instance, make up a sizable portion of its employment profile. The Berkeley Office of Economic Development has suggested that the employment base needs to be expanded. The San Pablo PDA, however, will replace working class people with upper class, and the jobs landscape will suffer. Along with low income housing, jobs too will be lost.
City budgets and land speculators
Though gentrification may be detrimental to most city residents, it enhances the careers of the political elite. For this reason, against the winds of resistance, the city will foster policies to assist the process, policies designed to move people out of their neighborhoods. It does this through budget cuts and harassment laws.
There are, in every city, a number of non-profits and neighborhood organizations that provide services for the needy – those fallen prey to substance abuse, to homelessness, to varying degrees of impoverishment (requiring rent subsidy or welfare), etc.
When funding for such services is cut, those dependent on them find themselves deprived of essential means of survival. Many turn to more desperate means. Destitution creates social disruption and crime. Policing becomes the first line of attack (requiring higher appropriations for the police). A burgeoning atmosphere of criminalization provides a rationale for evictions, and for generalized social hostility. Real estate values decline, and speculators move in. A general pressure toward exodus will ensue. Thus, budget cuts for a low income neighborhood lay the foundation for high income development. This is the implicit destiny of South Berkeley, for which such funding has been cut, and which is the target of a PDA. We have seen a similar process occurring in West Oakland.
Along with this, Berkeley has been passing various nuisance ordinances to permit greater harassment of the homeless by the police. This too will create greater social tension, providing opportunities for developers to purchase properties cheaply. It works because it occurs in the shadows, and plays on people’s patience through an accumulation of isolated incidents. Residents call on the city for security, and the city responds with proposals for development.
Destitution, homelessness, social chaos, and crime will inevitably lead to community conflict, police control, and an undermining of resident opposition to the onset of gentrification. More people accept their fate and leave the neighborhood.
If, according to international law and treaty obligation, housing is a human right, then, in these terms, the proposal for massive development and gentrification, such as is contained in Plan Bay Area, promises to become a massive violation of human rights, expelling people from their homes for private interest. Against this, the social movements that defend downtown against high-rise high income buildings and call for affordable housing development, the social movements for humane responsibility toward the homeless, and the social movements seeking to maintain city budget support for the alleviation of poverty, all come together.
This was published by my friend Becky O'Malley, who publishes berkeleydailyplanet.com yesterday. Check out her great, independent news site.
I want a weirdo, I am one
This article came from this link: http://elitedaily.com/dating/find-yourself-a-weirdo/1052393/
Are you dating someone utterly out of his or her mind? Do you find yourself thinking about how crazy and “all over the place” your significant other is?
Do you find yourself describing your girlfriend as weird or your boyfriend as absolutely insane?
Well, you don’t even know how lucky you are.
If you’ve found someone brave enough to be him or herself in this world of standardized proportions and fixed ideals, adore that person.
If you’ve found someone strong enough to hold on to his or her childlike sense of wonder, to be completely and utterly free and uninhibited, cherish that person.
If you’ve found someone liberated enough to be a complete and utter weirdo, never let that person go.
You’ll know when you’ve found a weirdo.
He or she will be like no one you’ve ever been with before, a breath of fresh air mixed with an electric pulse that shocks you into another dimension.
They’re magnetic, attracting and pulling you into them while at the same time, pulling you backwards, throwing things at you you’re not always ready for.
They’ll piss you off while at the same time show you something you can’t live without — their world.
Their world of wonder and awe, the way they see things you didn’t notice before, look at things you never understood and question everything you thought you knew.
They’ll change your whole life without thinking twice about it.
If you’re lucky enough to be with someone crazy enough to let you into his or her weird world, cherish him or her and make sure never to let that person go.
Because relationships with weirdos are always better than with anyone who’s trying to be “normal.”
The weirdo will never let the fight be the same one.
Weirdos have feelings and opinions that will clash with yours like any significant other.
With them, however, it’s never about the same sh*t.
Because your relationship isn’t the same sh*t. It’s new things, new tastes and definitely new points of view.
The weirdo will never expect the relationship to be a certain way.
They don’t have expectations of you or the relationship. Weirdos let the relationship coast the same way they coast through life — hoping for the best and going with the flow.
They don’t go into things with preconceived notions because for them, a relationship is as random and unknown as life.
The weirdo will introduce you to the freak inside you.
You think you know yourself, and then you meet someone who challenges every part of your being.
Weirdos make you rethink your life, your passions and what the hell you’ve been doing this whole time. You go from who you were to who you could be.
The weirdo will never be replaced.
You know you can’t let them go because everyone after them will never live up to the force your weirdo entered your life with.
No one will ever show you as much, teach you as much and challenge you as much.
Everyone will just make you wish you were with your weirdo again.
The weirdo will never question when you need to take time for your own adventure.
Not only do weirdos support your personal endeavors, they push them. They don’t just want to be there for you; they want to show you the way.
They believe in everyone as much as they believe in themselves, and that support will change your life.
The weirdo will make you forget about the outside world.
Until you’ve met a weirdo, you’ve never understood the only world you need to judge yourself by is the world you create for yourself.
You also never experienced what it’s like to live in your own world, to never have to enter society again. Weirdos bring the only world worth caring about into yours.
The weirdo will catalyze every single creative interest you have.
Any weird, obscure or crazy notion you pondered then let go of is now thrown back into your face. It’s molded and nurtured and praised.
Those tiny thoughts you never gave any light to are suddenly magnified and urged to be chased and expanded.
Those tiny dreams you never let yourself think about are all a weirdo wants to talk about.
The weirdo will never make you feel weird about your own weird self.
They want you to be weird. They long for you to open up that side you refuse to show the world.
They’re ready to explore your inner workings and most obscure neuroses.
They’ll thrive on your quirks and your idiosyncrasies… just make sure you don’t hide anything.
The weirdo is always worth the drama.
Yea, weirdos are not always the easiest people to deal with, but they’re always worth it.
They’re going to bring with them drama and intensity, but that’s what’s going to make your life worthwhile again.
Those days when you were just going to work, the gym and going to bed will seem like a fate worse than death after finding someone who won’t let you be bored ever again.
The weirdo will teach you to laugh everything off.
They’ll show you what it’s like to not take anything seriously, including yourself.
Life is too short and too weird to judge anything, and if you can’t get serious about it, you may as well laugh about it.
Embrace those who know how to embrace the moments that shouldn’t be anything but funny.
The weirdo is going to be the best sex you’ve ever had.
Weirdos are uninhibited, and their sex follows suit. They aren’t nervous or scared; they’re down to try anything.
They want their lives between the sheets to be as spontaneous and crazy as the one outside.
They’re not scared to show their true, naked selves.
without trust
Without trust, we can have no cohesive fields, no love, no friendship and no great shifts within humanity that can take us out of the way things are, then onto a new field.
love, listening and trust
Holding Spaces for Courage, Love, Listening. In early 2015, we asked the 10,000 plus participants in a global U.Lab (an MIT-sponsored MOOC), what it would take to realize their "highest future possibility." What would it take to bring it into reality "as it desires" (Martin Buber)? Their resounding answer was simple and clear: courage! Then we asked them what support they would need from others in order to actually make it happen, to make it work. Again their answers very clear: love, listening, and trust! These responses from a multi-cultural community of change makers are similar to the responses we've heard from others. Profound shifts in small groups tend to happen when the two following conditions are in place: (1) individual courage and vulnerability, and (2) a holding space of deep listening with unconditional love.
the-blind-spot-uncovering
This quote is from the article I have linked to. Otto Sharmer is doing great work, helping human understand how we create collective fields with the capacity to undergo leaps and great shifts.
Love, listening and trust are essential to creating wonderful fields grounded in courage, vulnerability, the great strength comes in vulnerability, deep listening and unconditional love.
The article linked to is well worth a read.
Friday, June 05, 2015
trees most trusting of all beings
Trees are the most trusting of all living creatures because they trust enough to put their roots down in one place, knowing they will be there for life.
-- author unknown
stop war on this living world
'In a society bombarded by advertising and driven by the growth imperative, pleasure is reduced to hedonism and hedonism is reduced to consumption. We use consumption as a cure for boredom, to fill the void that an affectless, grasping, atomised culture creates, to brighten the grey world we have created.' - George Monbiot
Thursday, June 04, 2015
ad astra per aspera
Per aspera ad astra or Ad astra per aspera is a Latin Phrase which means any of the following: "Through hardships to the stars", "A rough road leads to the stars" or "To the stars through difficulties". The phrase is one of many Latin sayings which use the exxpressin ad astra.
A friend shared the phrase 'ad astra per aspera' to me today. He doesn't know that I have been moving through starry inner heavens these days, unhappy and struggling but I am always sure that I am more star matter, more starlight, than anything else.
Ad astra per aspera.
love, eros and sex
the-forces-of-love-eros-and-sex/
This is a transcribed lecture from a teacher I had not heard of until this morning. She gave this talk in 1959. A nonprofit holds the copyright but it is downloadable and can be heard on audio.
I found it useful, although not all of it applies to me.
This is a transcribed lecture from a teacher I had not heard of until this morning. She gave this talk in 1959. A nonprofit holds the copyright but it is downloadable and can be heard on audio.
I found it useful, although not all of it applies to me.
the erotic principle, or eros requires fearlessness
The erotic principle, I now know, has been around as long ago as Aristotle. At its most basic level, the erotic principle is that longing which draws mortal beings toward one another, according to Aristotle. It is not just people drawn to people. It is energy attracted to energy, subatomic particles drawn to subatomic particles, gaseous clusteres drawn to gasesous clusters, light drawn to light, light drawn to darkness, darkness drawn to light. The erotic principle is a principle of attraction.
Subatomic particles and the gaseous matter that were the very beginnings of this planet came together because of an attraction, because of the erotic principle.
I've only done a couple internet searches, only read about the erotic principle for a few hours. I don't think I understand it in terms of how someone, for example, sophisticated in philosophy might use it.
Still, I think I get the concept.
The erotic principle is a level of attraction that does not arise to love. A being has to be ready to do deep soul work, revealing one's truest self and entire soul to another, as best as able, to arise to the level of love. The attraction captured in the idea of the erotic principle can draw energy to energy, beings to beings, people to people. Ultimately, however, eroticism is not love. It is working together on soul work that is love. The erotic attraction can draw one to the right beings for one's work. Without deep, loving soul work, mere sexual attraction is just a physical release and not a reason to dive into sex. People can have unloving sex but it is outside the realm of moving the whole miracle of this earth, universe, galaxy and galaxy after galaxy towards love. Sex without love is not Eros in a good way. It's comparable to animals mating in a field. Or rutting.
And more. I've got a busy day. I am glad to know a bit about the erotic princple.
Carl Jung, and many thinkers, wrote about the erotic principle. In some spiritual traditions, there is much attention given to the attraction embedded in the erotic principle. A strong sexual attraction can be the cosmos' way of getting the right people attracted, and thus, connected to one another. Some Asian spiritual give significant attention to the erotic principle but mostly to remind humans that erotic attractions are not love, that many humans never get to the energy of loving soul work. From my brief reading this morning, I came away with the maybe-mistaken understanding that one has to be evolved beyond the erotic attraction and be drawn to doing the hard, deep work of soul work that can only be done in emotionally intimate, loving relationships. Sexual attraction can be the universe's way of pointing out good partners for us in our soul work. And sexual attraction can be great. I hope everyone has had the experience of being very physically attrcted to someone and then act upon it.
Love is a higher level than the erotic principle. The erotic principle can draw us to good soul work partners, but to reach love, we have to do our work, and ultimately together work. Eroticism should be a bridge between sex and love but it often fails to achieve love. Eros is often confused with love. Eros is the attraction, the draw of energy to energy, people to people (which is energy to energy).
Eros is the closest thing to love undeveloped beings can experirence. Eros can lift us out of our ordinary live, prod our soul to surge. Eros empowers people to do things that lift us out of our isolation and call us to connect to specific other beings. Eros helps a soul prepare to do the hard work of love. Eros is a bridge to love.
Without the erotic principle, many humans would never be ready for the more conscious work of love.
People afraid of their emotions and afraid of oneness with another will do anything in their power to avoid the great experience of loving unity. A favorite way to avoid intimate soul work is to blame the other person for one's fear.
And I posted a quote from Carl Jung, perhaps within the past month, in which he says, with me extrapolating, that people will do anything to avoid looking at their own souls.
I am grateful that I have this new, embryonic insight into the distinction between erotic attraction and love. My brief search this morning suggests that people, like me, who do not have a relationship with a commitment to do deep soul work together is because something in my being pushes it away.
I have been spending way too much time and my life energy wanting an opportunity to do deep soul work, my work, mutual work and supporting another's work with someone who won't go thtere with me. Maybe its me that kept me and this man from coming together.
I block myself from what I want. How to open up to the erotic and to the work of love and soul work?
How indeed. An undeveloped essay, I know. This is what I have. I will see what souls turn up to participate in dialogue with me about this.
Subatomic particles and the gaseous matter that were the very beginnings of this planet came together because of an attraction, because of the erotic principle.
I've only done a couple internet searches, only read about the erotic principle for a few hours. I don't think I understand it in terms of how someone, for example, sophisticated in philosophy might use it.
Still, I think I get the concept.
The erotic principle is a level of attraction that does not arise to love. A being has to be ready to do deep soul work, revealing one's truest self and entire soul to another, as best as able, to arise to the level of love. The attraction captured in the idea of the erotic principle can draw energy to energy, beings to beings, people to people. Ultimately, however, eroticism is not love. It is working together on soul work that is love. The erotic attraction can draw one to the right beings for one's work. Without deep, loving soul work, mere sexual attraction is just a physical release and not a reason to dive into sex. People can have unloving sex but it is outside the realm of moving the whole miracle of this earth, universe, galaxy and galaxy after galaxy towards love. Sex without love is not Eros in a good way. It's comparable to animals mating in a field. Or rutting.
And more. I've got a busy day. I am glad to know a bit about the erotic princple.
Carl Jung, and many thinkers, wrote about the erotic principle. In some spiritual traditions, there is much attention given to the attraction embedded in the erotic principle. A strong sexual attraction can be the cosmos' way of getting the right people attracted, and thus, connected to one another. Some Asian spiritual give significant attention to the erotic principle but mostly to remind humans that erotic attractions are not love, that many humans never get to the energy of loving soul work. From my brief reading this morning, I came away with the maybe-mistaken understanding that one has to be evolved beyond the erotic attraction and be drawn to doing the hard, deep work of soul work that can only be done in emotionally intimate, loving relationships. Sexual attraction can be the universe's way of pointing out good partners for us in our soul work. And sexual attraction can be great. I hope everyone has had the experience of being very physically attrcted to someone and then act upon it.
Love is a higher level than the erotic principle. The erotic principle can draw us to good soul work partners, but to reach love, we have to do our work, and ultimately together work. Eroticism should be a bridge between sex and love but it often fails to achieve love. Eros is often confused with love. Eros is the attraction, the draw of energy to energy, people to people (which is energy to energy).
Eros is the closest thing to love undeveloped beings can experirence. Eros can lift us out of our ordinary live, prod our soul to surge. Eros empowers people to do things that lift us out of our isolation and call us to connect to specific other beings. Eros helps a soul prepare to do the hard work of love. Eros is a bridge to love.
Without the erotic principle, many humans would never be ready for the more conscious work of love.
People afraid of their emotions and afraid of oneness with another will do anything in their power to avoid the great experience of loving unity. A favorite way to avoid intimate soul work is to blame the other person for one's fear.
And I posted a quote from Carl Jung, perhaps within the past month, in which he says, with me extrapolating, that people will do anything to avoid looking at their own souls.
I am grateful that I have this new, embryonic insight into the distinction between erotic attraction and love. My brief search this morning suggests that people, like me, who do not have a relationship with a commitment to do deep soul work together is because something in my being pushes it away.
I have been spending way too much time and my life energy wanting an opportunity to do deep soul work, my work, mutual work and supporting another's work with someone who won't go thtere with me. Maybe its me that kept me and this man from coming together.
I block myself from what I want. How to open up to the erotic and to the work of love and soul work?
How indeed. An undeveloped essay, I know. This is what I have. I will see what souls turn up to participate in dialogue with me about this.
lie down in this grass
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,lie down in the grass beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing. I'm in.
there is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase "each other" doesn't make any sense.
Rumi
"the erotic principle"
The Erotic Principle precedes love. It theorizes that The Erotic Principle is the energy of attraction, not limited to sexual attraction but any impulses to draw nearer to another.
The Erotic Principle is on the pathway to love but it is not love. A lesser developed individual might limit their erotic energy to merely physical attrac
The Erotic Principle is on the pathway to love but it is not love. A lesser developed individual might limit their erotic energy to merely physical attrac
could a greater miracle take place
Could a greater miracle take place than
for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?-- Henry David Thoreau
Wednesday, June 03, 2015
talking to my baby
One of the many wonderful things about being a mom was all the language games I was able to play with my child. From the moment she was born, whenever we were alone and often when we were not, I talked to her about everything. I profferred never-ending color commentary on the world. One of my foundational premises was that everything was new to Rosie. I imagined that little baby Rosie was gazing on a world that, at first, had no meaning or context for her. This is a mirror. This is a pin. It seemed, to me and my eagerness to open up as much as I could for my infant, that everything required long, colorful explanations. Even if she did not 'understand' my nattering, I knew that she understood that I was giving her all my attention because I loved her. Giving someone our attention is a fine way to say to them "I want you to be".
Rosie had my undivided attention when she and I were together.
How to explain the sound of a telephone ringing? And, then, how to distinguish to a preverbal baby who trusts you completely, the difference between the telephone ring and the doorbell? How to explain electric lights? Laundry? Grass? Dirt?
I assumed everything was fascinating to Rosie and, along the way, everything became fascinating to me as well. The world changed the first moment I began to imagine how to introduce everything to my baby. Indoors. Outdoors. Cars. Music. Music from a radio. Music in the car. Live music.
When Rosie was three months old, we flew to Chicago for her christening. Her dad came for the baptism but he did not fly out with us. From the moment we were settled in our seat, with my prescious cargo in my arms, I talked to Rosie the entire flight. I talked about the sensations a body might feel as a plane moves: it would feel quite different, I imagined, than her everyday life. Did her ears pop? I wondered aloud. I explained to her a bit about why I thought we feel sensation in our ears when a plane takes off or lands. I explained the seatbelt. I explained clouds. I pointed out all the sounds I could articulate; plane engines, clattering of service carts, the noise of a plane full of humans. Well, not explain, I guess. I talked about them, whatever thoughts drifted through me, I verbalized.
Then, after devoting a large portion of our flight to the fascination of flying, I began to talk about our trip. I explained to Rosie that we were going to meet people who already loved her. Imagine the miracle of love, I told my dolly girl. My brothers and my sister, my parents. . . I listed them over and over and over by name. All these people love Rosie and they have not even met you. We are going to have such a fine time, my little kitty cat, I cooed, loving and being loved this weekend by people that have loved me all my life and who have loved you all of yours.. Now let me tell you something about these people. And then I told her stories about my dolly David and my baby sister Margaret and my brother Tom. I explained to her that all these strangers were going to want to hold her and snuggle her and kiss her and she would have to do her best to cope with lots of new people holding here. Our family, I explained only had a few days with her so they would be drowning her in loving attention.
My infant was fussy at night when she had been at a social gathering at which many people asked to hold her, passing her around like a football. I knew being passed around to be held by many people, especially strangers, was stressful for her. I couldn't say no to folks asking to hold her. I understood people's longing to cradle young infants. I did, sometimes, limit how much and how many people got to hold my baby. For her wellbeing. I explained to her that for her christening weekend, we'd be with family the whole time and people were going to want to hold her a lot. I cooed soothingly about this, assuring her these baby holders loved her already.
I had such a fine time on that plane ride. I don't think I stopped talking for a single instant.
As I stood in the aisle to deplane, a woman tapped me on the shoulder.
"I was sitting directly behind you and your baby and I heard every word you said," she began. I was aghast. It had not occurred to me that anyone could hear me. I had imagined the plane engine noise prevented people seated in other rows from hearing me talk softly to my three-month-old. If it had occurred to me, I would have been silent. I never did this talking to Rosie in front of other people. I was embarrassed as this woman spoke. I wished the line would move and I could escape my shame.
"If I had known anyone could hear me, I would not have said a word," I said, deeply chagrined.
"I thought it was beautiful," she said. "I am ashamed of myself because I never talked to my babies like that and, listening to you, I realized that I should have. It made for a very special flight for me."
I was dumbstruck. Rosie's father had literally forbidden me to talk to her like I had spoken on that plane ride. He said only someone mentally unstable would try and talk to a baby about everything. He said I paid too much attention to the baby. I told him that our pediatrician, Dr. Murphy, had said that it was impossible to give an infant too much love or attention. Dr. Murphy said it was impossible to hold a baby too much. He-who-shall-not-be-named told me that if I thought he was going to fall for that crap, then it was proof that I was out of my mind. "No medical doctor would give such advice."
"I wish I were coming with you so I could meet all these people who already love your Rosie," the woman on the plane went on. "I am going to be watching you greet your father when we get in the terminal. I don't want this story to end." I had explained to Rosie that her Grandpa would meet us at the gate. This was before airport security and people could meet loved ones at their arrival gates.
The hardest, the very hardest part, about having lost my Rosie as I have, was that in the beginning years of this heartache, I thought it meant that all my silly little memories like this were meaningless. I thought it meant that I wasn't a good mommy. I thought it meant that it had just been my imagination that I had ever done anything right for her. I had always felt that I had been my very best with her and, then, I told myself that if she could cut me out of her heart the way she has, well, then all my beliefs about what I had shared with her must be false. The real loss was thinking that I had lost this part of my being. It hurt so much to think I had not been doing what I thought I had been doing on that first plane ride with my baby.
Now, happily, I am finding that I was that person on the plane. That I am that person on the plane. I don't know why but, lately, I feel, once more like the woman who raked catalpa leaves and baked pies with my Rosie. She helped with the pies by sitting on the counter and sucking cinnamon sugar off the apple slices. She helped rake catalpa leaves by sitting in her walker and watching.
When Rosie and I got off that plane in Chicago, my whole family was there to meet her. A surprise for me and revealing their eagerness to meet the first member of her generation in our family. The first grandchild. The first niece. They had come in two cars because no one wanted to miss the first possible moment of knowing her. As we stood in a terminal at O'Hare, and I watched all the people I loved most in the world pass my darling delight from one doting relative to the next, I was silent but I was already preparing my next remarks for the next moment when I was alone with Rosie. "Your Uncle David dressed up just to come to the airport to meet you. Did you see that?" "I have never seen your grandpa look so happy or so proud as he did when he first looked at you, my dear."
Let me hold her. No let me. My turn. No, my turn.
David and Margaret both complained that I had not chosen them to be the godparents. They were right. I should have chosen them but he-who-shall-not-be-named refused to let children be Rosie's godparents. We has asked, instead, my brother Joe and his wife but I knew in my heart that David and Margaret were right to feel aggrieved. I knew that they would be the ones who would love her the most. And they have been.
I loved that flight and arrival.
Rosie had my undivided attention when she and I were together.
How to explain the sound of a telephone ringing? And, then, how to distinguish to a preverbal baby who trusts you completely, the difference between the telephone ring and the doorbell? How to explain electric lights? Laundry? Grass? Dirt?
I assumed everything was fascinating to Rosie and, along the way, everything became fascinating to me as well. The world changed the first moment I began to imagine how to introduce everything to my baby. Indoors. Outdoors. Cars. Music. Music from a radio. Music in the car. Live music.
When Rosie was three months old, we flew to Chicago for her christening. Her dad came for the baptism but he did not fly out with us. From the moment we were settled in our seat, with my prescious cargo in my arms, I talked to Rosie the entire flight. I talked about the sensations a body might feel as a plane moves: it would feel quite different, I imagined, than her everyday life. Did her ears pop? I wondered aloud. I explained to her a bit about why I thought we feel sensation in our ears when a plane takes off or lands. I explained the seatbelt. I explained clouds. I pointed out all the sounds I could articulate; plane engines, clattering of service carts, the noise of a plane full of humans. Well, not explain, I guess. I talked about them, whatever thoughts drifted through me, I verbalized.
Then, after devoting a large portion of our flight to the fascination of flying, I began to talk about our trip. I explained to Rosie that we were going to meet people who already loved her. Imagine the miracle of love, I told my dolly girl. My brothers and my sister, my parents. . . I listed them over and over and over by name. All these people love Rosie and they have not even met you. We are going to have such a fine time, my little kitty cat, I cooed, loving and being loved this weekend by people that have loved me all my life and who have loved you all of yours.. Now let me tell you something about these people. And then I told her stories about my dolly David and my baby sister Margaret and my brother Tom. I explained to her that all these strangers were going to want to hold her and snuggle her and kiss her and she would have to do her best to cope with lots of new people holding here. Our family, I explained only had a few days with her so they would be drowning her in loving attention.
My infant was fussy at night when she had been at a social gathering at which many people asked to hold her, passing her around like a football. I knew being passed around to be held by many people, especially strangers, was stressful for her. I couldn't say no to folks asking to hold her. I understood people's longing to cradle young infants. I did, sometimes, limit how much and how many people got to hold my baby. For her wellbeing. I explained to her that for her christening weekend, we'd be with family the whole time and people were going to want to hold her a lot. I cooed soothingly about this, assuring her these baby holders loved her already.
I had such a fine time on that plane ride. I don't think I stopped talking for a single instant.
As I stood in the aisle to deplane, a woman tapped me on the shoulder.
"I was sitting directly behind you and your baby and I heard every word you said," she began. I was aghast. It had not occurred to me that anyone could hear me. I had imagined the plane engine noise prevented people seated in other rows from hearing me talk softly to my three-month-old. If it had occurred to me, I would have been silent. I never did this talking to Rosie in front of other people. I was embarrassed as this woman spoke. I wished the line would move and I could escape my shame.
"If I had known anyone could hear me, I would not have said a word," I said, deeply chagrined.
"I thought it was beautiful," she said. "I am ashamed of myself because I never talked to my babies like that and, listening to you, I realized that I should have. It made for a very special flight for me."
I was dumbstruck. Rosie's father had literally forbidden me to talk to her like I had spoken on that plane ride. He said only someone mentally unstable would try and talk to a baby about everything. He said I paid too much attention to the baby. I told him that our pediatrician, Dr. Murphy, had said that it was impossible to give an infant too much love or attention. Dr. Murphy said it was impossible to hold a baby too much. He-who-shall-not-be-named told me that if I thought he was going to fall for that crap, then it was proof that I was out of my mind. "No medical doctor would give such advice."
"I wish I were coming with you so I could meet all these people who already love your Rosie," the woman on the plane went on. "I am going to be watching you greet your father when we get in the terminal. I don't want this story to end." I had explained to Rosie that her Grandpa would meet us at the gate. This was before airport security and people could meet loved ones at their arrival gates.
The hardest, the very hardest part, about having lost my Rosie as I have, was that in the beginning years of this heartache, I thought it meant that all my silly little memories like this were meaningless. I thought it meant that I wasn't a good mommy. I thought it meant that it had just been my imagination that I had ever done anything right for her. I had always felt that I had been my very best with her and, then, I told myself that if she could cut me out of her heart the way she has, well, then all my beliefs about what I had shared with her must be false. The real loss was thinking that I had lost this part of my being. It hurt so much to think I had not been doing what I thought I had been doing on that first plane ride with my baby.
Now, happily, I am finding that I was that person on the plane. That I am that person on the plane. I don't know why but, lately, I feel, once more like the woman who raked catalpa leaves and baked pies with my Rosie. She helped with the pies by sitting on the counter and sucking cinnamon sugar off the apple slices. She helped rake catalpa leaves by sitting in her walker and watching.
When Rosie and I got off that plane in Chicago, my whole family was there to meet her. A surprise for me and revealing their eagerness to meet the first member of her generation in our family. The first grandchild. The first niece. They had come in two cars because no one wanted to miss the first possible moment of knowing her. As we stood in a terminal at O'Hare, and I watched all the people I loved most in the world pass my darling delight from one doting relative to the next, I was silent but I was already preparing my next remarks for the next moment when I was alone with Rosie. "Your Uncle David dressed up just to come to the airport to meet you. Did you see that?" "I have never seen your grandpa look so happy or so proud as he did when he first looked at you, my dear."
Let me hold her. No let me. My turn. No, my turn.
David and Margaret both complained that I had not chosen them to be the godparents. They were right. I should have chosen them but he-who-shall-not-be-named refused to let children be Rosie's godparents. We has asked, instead, my brother Joe and his wife but I knew in my heart that David and Margaret were right to feel aggrieved. I knew that they would be the ones who would love her the most. And they have been.
I loved that flight and arrival.
screech out
At my daughter's Waldorf School, as at, I believe, virtually all Waldorf Schools, the children were expected to play a string instrument, have private lessons and be in the school's string ensemble. On top of private school tuition, it was an added stretch to buy a cello and then pay for weekly cello lessons.
I tried to persuade my daughter to play the violin, because violins could be had for much less than cellos. I didn't try too hard. In Wally World, children are listened to. If she wanted to play a cello, she had to play a cello.
Our cello teacher, like most music teachers, held an annual recital. At every recital, every one I attended for eight years, always includes a performance of Scotland's burning. Every child new at playing any string instrument, in our world, at least, learned to play Scotland's Burning, a song that might be beautiful when played by skilled string players.
If you don't know the tune or lyrics to Scotland's Burning, they go something like this, "Scotland's burning, Scotland's burning, reach out, reach out". When six and seven year olds, new to their instrument, play it, it goes more like this: "Da dah, dah dah, screech out screech out."
Some parents of older children come late to miss the annual screech out and some of the other lower grades. I thought it was wrong to miss any of the performance. It was as much about community and friendship as the music. Yes, hearing 'screech out' grated but if one looks beyond the struggling efforts to learn how to play beautiful music, one sees young beings leaning into music, leaning into acquiring new skills. One sees young children making willful choices. Human beings need to build their will capacity. Music lessons are a great way to build will, as well as learn how to play an instrument.
It is also good for the older children to hear the younger children play. This remind them of both their own early learning and how far they have come.
Each grade played the same song each year. I always felt the rythym of life in those string recitals, listening to each age group play the same thing each year, with each each group advancing from year to year.
As the children advanced as string players, the songs were more elaborate, better played and more pleasurable to hear. I never tired of hearing the Scotland screech out piece played by very young musicians in their first year playing a string.
Some parents would duck out as soon as their children played. I thought those parents were wrong, to only show up for their child and then leave. If everyone did that, some children would have been playing to very small audiences.
It drove Rosie crazy when I insisted on arriving for the first piece and staying until the last. At first. She came to appreciate my reverence for seeing all the children at each phase of learning a string instrument.
I loved our cello recitals every spring. I knew all the children from school, of any age. I loved them all. And I loved all the doting parents who thought their child playing songs like 'screech out' indicated musical genius. Some parents cringed along with each screechy wrong note. Some parents heard heavenly sound no matter how their child played.
I loved the whole spectacle but my favorite part was the doting parents. The children did not show a lot of loss as cello recitals. They were tense, the idea of performing a source of anxiety for most.
The parents, however, were all pride, love and happiness.
Unlike the parents who ducked in just for their child and then ducked out as soon as their child had performed, setting a poor example to their own children, I love it all.
I tried to persuade my daughter to play the violin, because violins could be had for much less than cellos. I didn't try too hard. In Wally World, children are listened to. If she wanted to play a cello, she had to play a cello.
Our cello teacher, like most music teachers, held an annual recital. At every recital, every one I attended for eight years, always includes a performance of Scotland's burning. Every child new at playing any string instrument, in our world, at least, learned to play Scotland's Burning, a song that might be beautiful when played by skilled string players.
If you don't know the tune or lyrics to Scotland's Burning, they go something like this, "Scotland's burning, Scotland's burning, reach out, reach out". When six and seven year olds, new to their instrument, play it, it goes more like this: "Da dah, dah dah, screech out screech out."
Some parents of older children come late to miss the annual screech out and some of the other lower grades. I thought it was wrong to miss any of the performance. It was as much about community and friendship as the music. Yes, hearing 'screech out' grated but if one looks beyond the struggling efforts to learn how to play beautiful music, one sees young beings leaning into music, leaning into acquiring new skills. One sees young children making willful choices. Human beings need to build their will capacity. Music lessons are a great way to build will, as well as learn how to play an instrument.
It is also good for the older children to hear the younger children play. This remind them of both their own early learning and how far they have come.
Each grade played the same song each year. I always felt the rythym of life in those string recitals, listening to each age group play the same thing each year, with each each group advancing from year to year.
As the children advanced as string players, the songs were more elaborate, better played and more pleasurable to hear. I never tired of hearing the Scotland screech out piece played by very young musicians in their first year playing a string.
Some parents would duck out as soon as their children played. I thought those parents were wrong, to only show up for their child and then leave. If everyone did that, some children would have been playing to very small audiences.
It drove Rosie crazy when I insisted on arriving for the first piece and staying until the last. At first. She came to appreciate my reverence for seeing all the children at each phase of learning a string instrument.
I loved our cello recitals every spring. I knew all the children from school, of any age. I loved them all. And I loved all the doting parents who thought their child playing songs like 'screech out' indicated musical genius. Some parents cringed along with each screechy wrong note. Some parents heard heavenly sound no matter how their child played.
I loved the whole spectacle but my favorite part was the doting parents. The children did not show a lot of loss as cello recitals. They were tense, the idea of performing a source of anxiety for most.
The parents, however, were all pride, love and happiness.
Unlike the parents who ducked in just for their child and then ducked out as soon as their child had performed, setting a poor example to their own children, I love it all.
deep down
But down deep, at the molecular heart of life,
the trees and we are essentially identical.-- Carl Sagan
Tuesday, June 02, 2015
in the deepening silence
Stars once spoke to man.
It is world destiny that they are silent now
To become aware of this silence can be pain for earth humanity
But in the deepening silence
There grows and ripens what human beings speak to the stars
To become aware of this speaking
Can become strength for Spirit Man.
-- Rudolf Steiner, source material unknown to me
Keeping Quiet
KEEPING QUIET
by Pablo Neruda
Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.
For once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
Fisherman in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.
I did my undergrad senior thesis, required to graduate, on Neruda's prose poetry. I like the guy's work but I regret that it never once crossed my mind to study women writers, much less to have done my senior thesis, which was a big deal at my colege, on a female writer. Geez.
Gobbler's Knob, Georgia
I have discovered something many likely already knew. It is possible to use services, many of them free, to hide one's internet address, the identity of whatever device one uses to surf the net and to hide one's location in the world.
your love does not belong to another; it is you
What if nostalgia is not a fruitless dwelling on those irretrievable moments of the past, as we are taught, but an attempt by sweetness to reach you again?
What if nostalgia is really located in the present, like a scent or ambiance which is gathering around you, should you avail yourself to it.
As anyone who has been heartbroken knows, there comes a time when, long after loss has been well-lived with, a small melody of love always returns. And to your surprise, you may recognise the tone of that love as the very same love you believed you lost.
It’s then that you know your love never belonged to another. Your love was always your love. And if you let yourself be unguarded to it, nostalgia may find its way back into the generosity of your presence once again.
This short comment is from Toko-Pa's Facebook page. She writes lovely thoughts under the auspieces of "Dreamwork".
I feel empathy and compassion
I feel empathy and compassion for people who are of an adult age, have great educations and who have worked to become evoled but, ultimately, they have not yet learned that mature love does not reject people once loved simply because the beloved friend flashed some human imperfection.
Shakespeare said it so well in Sonnet 116: in a marriage of true minds, people love one another beyond their human imperfection.
It is our imperfections that make us perfectly human. It is in our imperfection that love takes on its transformative power. Shunning someone for being imperfect is not so different from shunning one's own imperfection living in projection and delusion that one is perfect and those around them who have the courage to be imperfect and seen in their imperfection are the truly advanced souls.
The person who flees someone they love in fear because that someone has let them down does not know how to love. Most people get how to love before their fifties. Not all.
I love people around their imperfections. I have done it for decades. This is one aspect of myself that I am quite proud of.
I feel empathy and compassion for people who abruptly shun someone they have loved because their formerly loved friend showed them their darkness. That's when the work of love is only just beginning, and it is absolutely not the time to end loving relationships.
Shakespeare said it so well in Sonnet 116: in a marriage of true minds, people love one another beyond their human imperfection.
It is our imperfections that make us perfectly human. It is in our imperfection that love takes on its transformative power. Shunning someone for being imperfect is not so different from shunning one's own imperfection living in projection and delusion that one is perfect and those around them who have the courage to be imperfect and seen in their imperfection are the truly advanced souls.
The person who flees someone they love in fear because that someone has let them down does not know how to love. Most people get how to love before their fifties. Not all.
I love people around their imperfections. I have done it for decades. This is one aspect of myself that I am quite proud of.
I feel empathy and compassion for people who abruptly shun someone they have loved because their formerly loved friend showed them their darkness. That's when the work of love is only just beginning, and it is absolutely not the time to end loving relationships.
Monday, June 01, 2015
if freedom means anything . . .
“If liberty means anything at all,” George Orwell wrote, “it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
now will never come again
A friend recommended a Star Trek episode from 1992, called "The Inner Light". Captain Picard is taken over by a force that initially puzzles the crew of the Star Trek.
Picard finds himself a different man, on an unknown-to-him planet.
Picard finds himself a different man, on an unknown-to-him planet.
on being a fearless woman
"But then, the thing is, when you're afraid of something, face it, go for it. You become a better human being."
What's the cost?
"Ah, a big one. Lots of loneliness, my dear. If you're a woman, it's almost impossible to establish a relationship. You're too much for everybody. It's too much. The woman always has to play this role of being fragile and dependent. And if you're not, they're fascinated by you, but only for a little while. And then they want to change you and crush you. And then they leave. So, lots of lonely hotel rooms, my dear."
marina-abramovic-on being a woman
This link takes you to an article in The Guardian from which I excerpted the above quote.
I wholeheartedly agree with what Abramovic is quoted as saying about the loneliness of being a fearless woman. Men can be fascinated with my fearlessness but they eventually want to change me, crush me, tell me how to be. So, loneliness.
the tree of life = interconnectedness
This photo was downloaded from Evolver Movement's Facebook page.
Humans are a life form interconnected with all of life, including what I refer to the nonmaterial realm, or supersensible realm. The supersensible realm is full of spiritual beings. As physical beings, some humans have lost about their ability to recognize the supersensible but we can develop our capacity to perceive it. In my limited, imperfect humanity, I do not yet know if the supersensible realm is nonmaterial.
Rudolf Steiner said 'Matter is never without spirit and spirit is never without matter." If Steiner was right in what he says in that quote, what I perceive as nonmaterial has matter. Isn't matter the root of material?
Musing aloud.
if you want to change the world
If you want to change the world… love a woman, just one woman .
Love and protect her as if she is the last holy vessel.
Love her through her fear of abandonment
which she has been holding for all of humanity.
No, the wound is not hers to heal alone.
No, she is not weak in her codependence.
Love and protect her as if she is the last holy vessel.
Love her through her fear of abandonment
which she has been holding for all of humanity.
No, the wound is not hers to heal alone.
No, she is not weak in her codependence.
If you want to change the world… love a woman
all the way through
until she believes you,
until her instincts, her visions, her voice, her art, her passion,
her wildness have returned to her-
until she is a force of love more powerful
than all the political media demons who seek to devalue and destroy her.
~Lisa Citore
all the way through
until she believes you,
until her instincts, her visions, her voice, her art, her passion,
her wildness have returned to her-
until she is a force of love more powerful
than all the political media demons who seek to devalue and destroy her.
~Lisa Citore
Hope
Hope
Hope is with you when you believe
The earth is not a dream but living flesh,
That sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,
That all things you have ever seen here
Are like a garden looked at from a gate.
Hope is with you when you believe
The earth is not a dream but living flesh,
That sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,
That all things you have ever seen here
Are like a garden looked at from a gate.
You cannot enter. But you're sure it's there.
Could we but look more clearly and wisely
We might discover somewhere in the garden
A strange new flower and an unnamed star.
Some people say we should not trust our eyes,
That there is nothing, just a seeming,
These are the ones who have no hope.
They think that the moment we turn away,
The world, behind our backs, ceases to exist,
As if snatched up by the hands of thieves.
~ Czeslaw Milosz ~
(The World)
Could we but look more clearly and wisely
We might discover somewhere in the garden
A strange new flower and an unnamed star.
Some people say we should not trust our eyes,
That there is nothing, just a seeming,
These are the ones who have no hope.
They think that the moment we turn away,
The world, behind our backs, ceases to exist,
As if snatched up by the hands of thieves.
~ Czeslaw Milosz ~
(The World)
everything matters
Once when my sister, fourteen years young than me, was in college, I had written her a letter passionately voicing my concern about some issue that was up for me at the time. I do not remember the subject that aroused my energy.
My sister wrote back, dismissively, that 'you are stuck in the sixties, people like you think everything matters'.
I have never been stuck in the sixties. She was a toddler in the last few years of the sixties. I was in my girls' Catholic high school in dreamy oblivion. I read the news so I knew about hippies, protests, civil rights marches but I was not, and have never been, a hippie.
I did not address her denigration of hippies in my response.
I wrote back, simply, "everything does matter".
I remember feeling that the short sentence 'everything does matter' was powerful.
Today, more than ever, I know that everything matters, that everything is interconnected.
If everything is interconnected, I am connected to the greedy rich, to the reckless destruction of our planet for private profit and to everything. Hummingbirds, starry nights, rustling sounds in a forest that hint of the animals that live there. The way sunlight causes redwood sorrel, which prefers shade, to fold to avoid too much sunlight. I am connected to the redwood sorrel.
Everything matters.
My sister wrote back, dismissively, that 'you are stuck in the sixties, people like you think everything matters'.
I have never been stuck in the sixties. She was a toddler in the last few years of the sixties. I was in my girls' Catholic high school in dreamy oblivion. I read the news so I knew about hippies, protests, civil rights marches but I was not, and have never been, a hippie.
I did not address her denigration of hippies in my response.
I wrote back, simply, "everything does matter".
I remember feeling that the short sentence 'everything does matter' was powerful.
Today, more than ever, I know that everything matters, that everything is interconnected.
If everything is interconnected, I am connected to the greedy rich, to the reckless destruction of our planet for private profit and to everything. Hummingbirds, starry nights, rustling sounds in a forest that hint of the animals that live there. The way sunlight causes redwood sorrel, which prefers shade, to fold to avoid too much sunlight. I am connected to the redwood sorrel.
Everything matters.
this is me on the inside
This is me on the inside these days. Always, in the big intergalactic sense, but sometimes I am not in this majestic kind of inner experience. I am right now and it is bliss.
we can avoid our own destruction
The more clearly we can focus our
attenion on the wonders and realities
of the universe about us, the less taste
we shall have for destruction.
-- Rachel Carson
stars, comets, planets, rings, gases, light and dazzling things
