Loving the Woman, Nurturing the Child, Growing the Soul

At 9 years old she is closer in age to my 21 year old self than I am at 37. And when I see her soul-shining and wonderful, I see reflections of a younger me....

So maybe it is in seeing her, hearing her- my young amazing daughter so full of life, and raw emotion- that I could finally see her- that 21 year old me in the hallway, afraid.  And why I could finally grieve a pain I hadn't ever truly grieved, and feel a fear I hadn't fully felt at the time... because I had closed down, gone numb, gone cold within.

It's a long distance between 9 and 21.  And in many ways 37 is so much closer--as if once we become adults, we are like fully mature plants who have ceased to grow.  This may be true on the outside: Subtract 15 pounds, a few wrinkles and gray hairs, and I look a lot like my 21 year old self... By contrast my 9 year old daughter is at the very beginning of her physical transformation into a woman, which will happen quite rapidly over the next few years.  But inside, the changes that have happened over the past 16 years are immeasurable, and if I am to remain vital and alive to this world, then I can only keep growing.  

I can't imagine every arriving, ever coming to that place where I have stopped growing.  If it has taken me sixteen years to embrace the young girl in the hallway, to hold her and to comfort her like she needed to be held and comforted then, then I can only wonder what life might ask of me over the next sixteen.

At this moment it seems to be asking this brutal honesty of me.   Is this the truth about life-- that the older we get, the harder it is to lie?  The pretending, the facade, just becomes heavier and heavier to lift....and the only thing I can do is to shed that mask and become more and more of myself.

I have come back to this practice of meditating, followed by writing every night- not because I have any particular goal of reaching a captive audience- but because this practice affirms the soul. My soul at 9 and 21 and 37 is a writer's soul, that thrives on a steady diet of centering, reflection and creation.  I must lean in to what makes me come alive.  In this tiny sliver of the night, there is no lie.  I do not hide the keyboard beneath the covers, or make up stories about who I am.  It is my time, and so I nourish that self-- that inner child and that young woman--acknowledging the blessing of who they are.  

For the Love of this Life

I am lying in the den of my new house which after two months of living here has finally been cleared of boxes and feels like home. There's a new spaciousness I can rest in.

Tomorrow I return to work, and not sure that I'm ready.  But I can take one day at a time-- just like this house, and the way I have been working through this place box by box, little by little to turn it into a home. Little by little I will right my life, clear spaces, open doors, and dare to live with more honesty and compassion.

Daring to live honestly means coming up to my edges- and maybe crossing over.  Today I shared worship with my spiritual director who was our visiting minister in the pulpit; I also led a prayer circle with two others holding heavy burdens on their hearts.  It was a joyous day of being fully who I am and sharing that life of joy and sorrow in spirit with others.  The afternoon was spent catching up with a good friend I hadn't seen in awhile due to his new job which takes him out of town a lot.  We chatted over a lunch of homemade chicken soup made with the chicken from a fellow congregant's farm, and applesauce from apples from last week's church apple-picking excursion....I had given the time this weekend to slowing down, spending hours in the kitchen in such domestic labors of love. And I realized how much I love love love my life in this Hudson Valley-- as long as I can take the time to truly live it. I love my friends, my family, the way our lives are enriched in community.  I love that I share this journey with so many dear ones, and that there is a rich sense of interconnection woven into the fabric of our everyday lives.

This is the life I must lean into more fully-- not the crazy rat race that seems to have grown up like a weed, transplanted to this place from other realms.  There is a spirit already here, already present.  This is the spirit which nourishes us, and which I move into more deeply. 

Breakdown, Breakthrough

Confirmation of a good discernment comes in the form of peace and inner tranquility after a decision has been made. There is an inner knowing, a living into a fundamental truth.  When we act from our conscience in a way that brings us closer to wholeness, then we are closer to free.

I have experienced this sense of calm all day, having made the decision to reduce my hours at work and take care of my soul. My soul has felt a sense of freedom, as if prison bars have been lifted just knowing I have a choice.  I suddenly recognize with clarity the places where I had created obstacles and lost all sense of personal power. And now I see the ways in which I can break free from this experience of oppression.

How good it would be to say that this decision was made through hours of prayer, and that the voice of God spoke clearly and pointed out this new direction in a calm, clear voice.

And yet- that's not exactly what it looked like... No, this decision has come after months of fighting the angel, hours of wrestling the shadow, and days of intense crying and breaking down. And while there have been moments of peace and clarity, this process has often more resembled an agony in the garden than a mountaintop enlightenment. And yet I have realized that I have been blocking myself with will, not allowing the grace to enter. It's brought me to a point of crisis and desperation- reaching out for help and finally recognizing that I had to face this truth of my own limits- and even more than that- my own call.  Perhaps I was running away like Jonah into the belly of the beast.  Perhaps I was a fugitive in the woods looking for some place to hide-- anything but tell the truth of who I am and risk letting others (and myself) down with the acknowledgment that I cannot do it all.

I remember back in May how my teacher told me she saw me doing this-- that whenever she presented an option, I found some way to block it. And I remember how just this past week a conversation about honesty on rocks overlooking the Hudson brought me face to face with my own reflection and conscience.  I had not even realized how much dishonesty had been harming my soul-- until I decided to speak my truth, and knew that I could not go back.  And then- pushing through at last- I experienced exhilarating freedom: to be vulnerable, to be myself, to be who I was even in my brokenness.

And so this process of 'discernment' came in the form of a mighty roar.  It came in the form of rage and explosion-- of woman and nature slammed against a wall, and of the wall that finally started to crumble.

This was breakdown.  Yet it was also breakthrough.

Might there be an easier way to see my own truth before reaching this point of crisis?  (My husband tonight joked that I was overdue for a breakdown!  He's probably right... it's been a few years.)  I certainly wouldn't advise such a tumultuous path...and yet I also need to remember that I am ok, that I do not need to flee if it arises, but to remain present to the crumbling...I will be ok and get through it, and it will open me, not destroy me.

As I write tonight, I recall the experience of that real intense labor I experienced seven years ago-- when I gave birth to my daughter. As I listened to the prepared labor cd- New Age gentle tunes on the car ride to the hospital- I yelled "fuck this"- and spent the next two hours instead kicking and shouting and pushing everyone out so that I could open to my own body and labor in my own wild animal-like way.  She came beautifully and naturally after a short (but seriously intense!) two hour labor.  And as I saw my baby for the first time and laid her on my breast to suckle, I was filled with a gentle peace.  In that moment, I saw and named that child Grace (her new middle name, chosen at that time right after her birth.).

So I suppose this may just be my wild nature, a nature I have tried too often to suppress, which sounds more like a barbaric yawp, a howling at my core... and less like a Buddhist monk, silent and serene.  Or perhaps, there might be a way to experience both-  to accept myself just as I am- as I have labored this past week to birth a new child, that child of my soul, dedicating myself to her protection and her expansion.

Cracks

The crisp smell of Autumn leaves- just beginning to crumble and dry in late September- filled my lungs as I pedaled my bike through the Beacon streets, finally arriving at the waterfall. I watched   as a wedding party gathered across the way, and sat down on the yellow bench to journal beside the creek.  Teenagers played by the creekside falls, skipping rocks, and shouting "congratulations' at the couple across the way.  In the year and a half since I first sat on that bench, it had grown faded- no longer golden, but pale yellow, paint peeled and graffiti and weather written. 

But today, sitting on that bench, breathing- just breathing- I returned to balance. And just like that day in January last year, I prayed "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace." And just like that day, I felt the healing presence, the restoration of wholeness, the movement toward peace.

It seems this entire year has been characterized by profound brokenness and shadow work- more than I'd like to admit to most observers, or perhaps even to myself. I want to believe that this journey is not one of set-back after set-back or merely ups and downs along a linear line, but rather a gradual cracking of the shell from which the soul's new life emerges.  And I do believe, have witnessed and experienced the journey to wholeness, even as I have fallen apart and also experienced brokenness along the way.  

And is the shell breaking, and the little chick emerging?  Are the honest confessions I have made the past two days part of that breaking?  Will it get easier-- now that I have broken open and broken down-- on the phone walking the path with the old stations of the cross (a woodside confessional), or in my boss's office?

It seems I am prone to dramatic breakings- the egg shells shattering, splattering.  Others might do well with the subtle, gradual opening.  My own though happen quickly, when at their height, and so- a week of crying in desperation, and now it is over.  

Now, I am here- and the discernment is clear.  What I need to do is clear and peace is possible: to take care of myself, to reduce my hours in the office, and to move more fully into this new work I am called to do.  And to speak truly and honestly these words aloud. 

But beside the waterfall, I know.  There is real peace in the decision-- and a joy so deeply felt that I can step forward confidently in this new direction.  It took five days of constant crying and eventually letting go of pride to admit that I cannot do it all.  That I must take care of myself and limit my hours at work-- sooner rather than later.  That I must be honest about my limitations-- and that I must find in my limitations, real joy.  Real peace. Real healing. Real space for the soul to take flight. 

Space to Breathe

Oh my what a week!  Two full days of writing, and my final spiritual direction project- a writing portfolio, including Rule of Life and Pilgrimage, is finally completed! Well, sort of completed... the writing part is done, but the journey has only just begun.  A contemplative walk is planned to my favorite woods and river, and the space has been cleared to fully step into my call. The living of this contemplative way will happen in the every day. I know now where my walls are, my fear and anger; and more than this I know what it will take to face them.  And I believe I have the courage and the support to do so.

I had no idea this work was hanging over me so, until this moment when it was finally done. A full year of intense processing now packaged neatly into a binder.  And now there is space, and I can breathe.  I am excited because the spirit has been moving in such new and unexpected ways lately, into directions I hadn't anticipated....and each moment now I am free to respond.  

Returning to prayer tonight, I sang one of my favorite Jesuit hymns, Take Lord Receive. It would have been so easy to go straight to sleep after a movie with my kids; it would have been easy to opt out of the movie and curl up alone with a book instead.  But keeping to my commitments- time with my family, time with God in loving silence, and time now with my writing- has brought me back to a graceful flow.  Reflecting on the past year's journey-- oh how I have longed to return to that state of grace, as I experienced it last summer and fall. It has been a difficult past few months with many transitions, and there are going to be more I know.  I have been standing at the diving board knowing I must leap but seeing only the empty pool below.  I've started to see my current situation like a cancer I must learn to live with....as something too impossible to change.  

But it will change, I now know.  Already, moving more into my commitments, I see small shifts.  The humid air of this past few week has been broken, and the rain has cooled us down.  Smile, this is a wonderful moment, a moment of peace. 

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

We normally hate them:  walls and closed doors,  those obstacles that keep us from achieving our goals and dreams.   I think of the quotes- "Up against a wall"; "When one door closes, another door opens...."  or in another version-  "at least a window...".  I can't think of any quotes that praise the closed door or the solid wall;  after all, it's all about the journey-- and if we are up against something solid or closed, then we will have to stop moving.

This past year (and for many years previously), over and over I have become keenly aware of walls and closed doors (putting these in the same category of general obstacles).  On countless occasions I have returned from some enlightening or inspiring experience- be it prayer or meditation,  talk or sermon, retreat or conference, or simply a walk along the river- inspired, and even called to some action.  And over and over I have faced almost immediately the slamming door- an emergency work meeting or family situation, a high-priority task list, financial woes, and naysayers- something that caused me to set aside the dream, and address instead the situation at hand.  Something that stood in the way.

Conventional wisdom holds that we look at these obstacles as challenges we must overcome and stay focused on the goal.  Keep to the path... stay the course. But after awhile, I think we have to face the wall.

We have to look at the walls more closely- and to see which of those walls might be of our own imagining or creation.  Maybe we will see our own faces in those walls-- our monsters, our shadows, our dragons.  And if we begin to face them and speak to them, maybe they will begin to dissolve or transform into something else, something we can learn to be with and to hold.

And maybe we also have to look again at our reason for the journey.  Maybe we have to ask just why we are pushing so hard- and what for?  Because if we have forgotten the reason that inspired us... and are just so hell-bent on getting through... then perhaps we might need to go back and remember who we are and what moved us in the first place.

I also wonder if there might be a time in walking the journey when the wall is the journey.  It is the essential pause, the moment of facing the self, the moment of deepening awareness.  It is the essential task at hand-- and our call is not to the dream beyond, but to the wall that stands in the way.

Mirror, mirror on the wall.  Who's the fairest one of all?  The fairy tale sings...

In another fairy tale- a frog slammed against a wall turns into a prince.

In walls- perhaps- lie the vision and the transformation of ourselves, if we can learn to see them rightly.  And I cannot arrive on the other side until I have faced myself, both fair and un-fair aspects, and splayed from ugliness into the beauty within.

So I am grateful for my walls-- tears and all-- that are telling me more and more about myself on the journey to transformation.