Hide & Seek

I clean and empty the space around me, - the noise, stress, and stuff. 

Every evening, after the sun sinks into pink, I seek simplicity. 

During the day, I practice stillness amidst a household of happenings - of play and argument, screaming and weeping, laughter, and song. While I work too with young children in my classroom, I practice connecting to the stillness within. 

I practice acceptance too. Acceptance of this house and all its holes. [I accept it by cleaning it with brush, water, and soap, scrubbing away stains, dust, and dirt.]  Acceptance of my desire to want more and more material things like new brown boots, jeans, and candles. Acceptance of this human face and all its aging, its folds, tone, and color. Acceptance of these stark-white skunk-like strands of hair. Acceptance of the stretch marks and the occasional sharp chin hair. Acceptance of others and my own reflex to judge them. Acceptance of myself and my own reflex to judge me. Acceptance that everyone (including me) is at one necessary point in the journey. A point in a whole journey of points, points that make lines....................... lines like sunbeams, stretching outward and onward into expansion and evolution. 

At night, I practice inner stillness. I follow a yoga class or a meditation podcast, and I write. I then attempt to carry my stillness (like I would a full cup of tea) into my sleep. When I wake, I hold it still.  

Throughout the day, it spills,  and I must practice acceptance as it soaks and spreads throughout my insides. 

I carry my stillness by moving more slowly, and by doing one thing at a time. I heard that that's one definition a Zen master once gave for Zen, - doing one thing at a time. So I try ...and then I forget and try again. I slow down when I can, and hold my stillness, feeling for presence, stretching for it as I would a lamp switch in the dark. 

Slowly, I am stripping away the layers and unveiling silence, simplicity, serenity, and clarity.   

I realized recently that I have a tendency to hide. It's no wonder hide-and-seek was my favorite childhood game. We are born to be in community. We also need solitude. I notice this piece of me, this desire to hibernate, to seek silence and stillness and darkness, to hide. 

Today, I turn 39 years old. 

My birthday wish is that I will not hide so much anymore, but seek, - seek connections, community, and seek this whole world around me.  

even birds

 

listen to Rachel read this piece here: EVEN BIRDS on soundcloud

I want to be as light as a mighty little bird in flight: a starling, wood thrush, or bluebird. Something with hollow, hearty bones, and feathers that flicker in the cool fresh air. Something that soars and sings with a lightness that dips and dances. I want to swoop into the well within. 

Every day, I surround my kin with the wingspan of my soft featherless forearms. We fly with our feet. We nest in our beds. We sing.  

I must accept my unquenchable urge to learn and learn and learn. Surrender to the truth that I may never be a wise old woman until I am a wise old woman. [I can act with such impatience and impulsivity sometimes.] I must accept my naivety. 

This isn't an intellectual quest, this seeking. Instead, it is a silent simple one. Rumi called it emptiness. To stop and stare into the depths of quietude. Many late nights, I stretch on my mat and then sit and write. Then I wonder what possesses me to express myself in this way, through all this spiritual scribbling. 

I usually then release the wondering. Such seeking and writing compel me. The transcribing of my learning and living is a meditation - a recording of my evolution. Sometimes the price is a few pangs of humiliation. Such honesty as this can feel like public nudity like my soul is shaking and flapping her voluptuous vulnerability all over an enormous and clamorous city. 

I can wish and want all I want but I cannot be only being. And I do not yet want to be only being. There is worldly work for me here. I am a human being until I am no longer, and so I must celebrate the experiences and senses of this body. 

Even birds land for rest, bathing, and berries. Even birds protect, bicker, and cry. Even birds must be both air and animal. Even birds. 

I must feast, taste, and savor. I must dance, drink, and sing. I must gulp, sip, and swim. Slumber and laze. Weep, giggle, and read! Celebrate art - be drenched by it. And move! - move muscle, move bone, move emotion. 

Yes, be. 

Honor this being. 

I am a stitch in the brocade of everything. 

And yes, body. 

Yes, breath. 

Yes to this whimsical poetic parade of life. 

Happy

We drive home in the sinking light. I point to the trees, shapes cut from black cloth.

Leo, the two-year-old, shouts, "It's too dark!" 

Amelia, the seven-year-old, speaks, her voice small and shaky. "I just started thinking about something really sad and I don't know what to do. I don't want to be thinking about it. I want to stop."

Oh, the mind is a powerful machine. 

I don't say anything, but I turn down the music. 

She says, "I can't stop thinking about how everyone we know is going to die." 

This has come up before. 

"It is so sad." I tell her. "And yet, this is what makes life so sweet, that it doesn't go on and on forever." 

I turn the music up. Raffi's cover of What a Wonderful World starts to play. 

 "Can you play something else? Something faster, more happy?" 

I do.

A moment passes. "I love life." She says.  

"Me too, sweetie."

Wind for Wings

I bring our children to a protected wildland. We breathe the air. Smell leaf, dirt, and pine. They call to me, and one another.  We sing to the birds and look for toads and turtles in the pond.  In the woods, we find joy and calm. We hold hands. We let go. We run, stand, listen, giggle, and throw cattail cotton to the marshy meadow. We walk and walk, surrounded by green and goldenrod. 

I wonder if I could build a home that feels like the woods, - quiet, empty, still, and yet buzzing, vibrating with life, with air, plant, and animal. 

When we feel it is the moment to move from one house to another, I will look for a home beside a meadow. I want a meadow. Not to own, but to hold with my soul. But let's not call this future. Let's not call this wishing. Instead, I write this as an intention for manifestation.  

I want to eat, bed, and love beside the wildland. I want wind for my wings. I want swallows, willows, and fog out my windows. I want to be in a meadow. To be in a space where birds race, swoop, cluster, and soar. A place where grass grows and grows, tangling into nests and hay. 

I want wildflowers tangled my feet in the spring. I dream of stony streams, blackberry brambles, and a vegetable garden in summer. I imagine the yellow of autumn, and in winter, white. 

Oh, look how the plans unravel. 

Here I am at this moment, carrying our bodies, by car, to the meadow, mountain, sky, and water. 

We are worthy of this devotion. 

Perhaps that's when it will be time to move house, when I am fully settled in my self-devotion. When I have the belly for such feasting. 

 

Embodiment

What if I moved in a dance? Spoke like a poet? What if I was strong and still like old birch, yet shining like the sea under the sun? What if I felt breeze, dirt, and water like a ragged wildflower, - rooted, swaying, sipping, shedding, singing? Could I be like a dog, sprawled and sleeping, or galloping, sniffing, slurping, kissing? Might one day, I be a flock of black starlings? Connected and free?

HIERARCHY

I want to write about hierarchy. I want to write about how I believe it is an antiquated attempt at control over the wild world around us, - the wild world of continuous change, billowing transformation, and unpredictable individual selves and cells, vibrantly vibrating and expanding. There's always the pullback, the "no no no!" The "we've always done it this way" folks. But let's talk about the talk. Let's talk about hierarchical communication. 

I believe there is never full truth nor entire authenticity where there is status and hierarchy. Hierarchy is fear, no? Fear of losing something like a job, belonging, or safety? And when we act through fear. For instance, "I need to do it this way or I could lose my job". It lacks intrinsic motivation and joy, which leads to a lack of commitment, which stifles abundance and slows the energy required for inspiration and creation. And thus causing community-wide and internal stagnation and frustration. Plus, power struggles!

This way of communication splinters connections and separates us into teams, into enemies.  

Think job. Think home. Think children and parents. Think fear, think control, think correction, and think shame. Think of threats, yelling, and violence. 

Now imagine true community, connection, flow, and joy.

 

Non-hierarchical communication is communication that connects. Communication that expresses - WE ARE ONE! We are in this (this thing called life) together. I am you. You are me. You are not perfect. I am not perfect. Like you, I struggle and strive to be better, I want a journey of joy, and I care about myself and the whole wild community.

What if our communication (external communication and internal communication) was nourished with connection? And yes, when needed, firm containment and boundaries. What if communication too had attunement. Do you know about attunement? I just learned about it through my coaching institute with Dr. Shefali. It's like an energy exchange. A meeting of verbal and non-verbal vibes between persons. Attunement is presence too. It is a watchfulness and an awareness of the flow, - the flow of conversation, connection, and relationship.  

I want to contemplate and write about hierarchy not to shame any of us, but to allow us to see one place we wound ourselves and others. May we find these hurting places and wash them clean so that we can properly and deeply care for ourselves, so that we may properly and deeply heal ourselves, and therefore, who knows, maybe even heal others.  

Sit a moment and consider this: where are you above or below others? 

Can you, instead, meet them in the eyes? 

The Song of My Truths

What precious little lambs are you sacrificing to feel belonging? 

So many of us seek affirmations from others, others who are seeking affirmations from others, who too are seeking affirmations from others... 

What if we gifted ourselves affirmations? What if we listened deeply to our inner knowing? What if we loved ourselves more deeply, more completely?

We won't find deep belonging with others until we first find it within. Only then will we be free to see that we are all connected in community, within humanity, and part of this enormous and powerful universal energy. Only then, in our pure authenticity, are we free to be and free to belong. 

We need belonging. We as babies, for instance, need so much. Then still as small children. We need assistance, guidance, and love. We need to know that we belong. That we are safe. That we are cherished.  

As we grow, there will come a time when we lose ourselves to the expectations of others. We will wear costumes. We will walk in a funny sort of way. And our voices will not sound quite right. When this happens, we must (quickly or eventually) bring ourselves to the mirror of our truths. 

There, in silent stillness, we will hear our hearts cry out, "Oh! Wait. This isn't me."

And then, "Oh. Here I am. Yes, this is where I find my bliss. This is how I want to live."

My belly has always sung the song of my truth. Sometimes, the song is soft and I must reach into silence to hear it. Sometimes, the song fills the sky like a storm, blowing me in or out a door. And sometimes, the song is clobbered by the cacophony and clutter of culture, and I am left feeling confused. It is during these moments that I must return to the mirror, to the quiet, and allow the song of my truths to rise once again. 

What precious little lambs are you sacrificing to feel belonging?

 

I sacrificed my little lambs many times: my lamb of authenticity, my lamb of self-worth, and my lamb of self-love. 

Now, nearing 39, I hold my precious little lambs in my arms. I let them slumber in the sun. And I feed them all the grass, clover, and water that I can muster.