I know there will be plenty of pious/devotional/reflective entries on today being Ash Wednesday, and I've done any number of them myself, so I'll skip that. Instead, I'd like to address a few words to G-d:
Dear G-d,
Hope you got the letter and I pray you can make it...sorry, joke. (10 pts to those who get the reference) No, seriously, just a few things.
1. I know it's a day of fasting/abstinence - I'm cool with that, but I will still be having my full Wednesday intake of caffeine. We all have to draw our line in the sand somewhere.
2. I'm NOT giving up shamelessly indulgent hugs and hellos from folks like John Leather. THAT just made my day - and all we need is love, right? And this whole season is about learning to love more. We talk about giving things up, but this month is really about stripping back to learn to love people more, right?
3. St Paul as the first reading. SERIOUSLY? Doesn't he get enough attention the rest of the year? I'm sorry, but every year has to be Joel, ALL THE WAY. Much better call to repentance. Srsly. The Old Testament every time.
4. Speaking of St Paul, he's a bit of a whingey martyr. "Oh, I've done this ALL FOR YOU, no matter how much I'VE SUFFERED." Yo, St. Paul - it's the world's smallest violin. Surely You didn't mean for him to have the lion's share of the NT?
5. Pious people. WTF? No, really. I'm not talking about the devout, like John and Mary L.; Nahed; Terry; Asta; Maggie; any of those I know and those I don't who walk their spiritual/religious talk, showing me up for the complete hypocritical twat I really am. No, I'm talking about those who make a show of virtue: posing with claret whilst being overheard having a 'how much I know about theology' pissing contest; peddling sensationalist stories about the 'secular world' and denouncing 'secular values' whilst being utterly enslaved to them ; overly awed by status; obsessed by rules, rubrics and lace and form; those who kowtow to those with religious status whilst casting doubt on their reputation the moment their back is turned. Those who use their 'orthodoxy' as a way of being an emotional bully and clubbing people over the head with their beliefs, insisting they live by them. That lot. You know, the ones who do all that to avoid a real relationship with You.
Ok, I know they have issues and they need my compassion and understanding. But here's where I need Your help, Lord - I want to effing smash their faces into the nearest psychological mirror. That's right. I want to take Mr 'Aren't I so perfectly Catholic' and shove his face in the fact that not only is he an emotional bully, but also that he's really unhappy, though he'd claim otherwise. I want to take Miss 'Fake Piety' and expose her as the scheming bitch she is. I want show so many of them just how shallow, spiteful and narrow-minded they are. I know, I know. Jesus died for them too.
But this is what makes it horrible - I want to take the gift of psychological insight You gave me and use it to take them apart and hurt them as much as I've seen them hurt others - their spouses, their children, those around them. And that, to me, would be the ultimate sin.
Help me, Lord. Help me find compassion for them this Lent. Help me let this go, because I can't do it.
Please. Help me to heal, not destroy.
6. What were You thinking when you made platypuses? Did you just look away for a minute and did Gabriel play a practical joke?
7. I know I'm feeling really stuck right now - but thank You. Thank you for where I am right now, and for all that I have that I forget about, and what being here brings me. Thank you for the challenges, for those who knock my corners off, for everything I learn from. Help me have faith in Your plan and kick me in the ass to act when appropriate.
8. This had to be separate. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU FOR MY FRIENDS. OH, GOD, THANK YOU. There just aren't words for the amazing people in my life. Help me be what You need me to be in their lives, and in the lives of everyone I touch - whether it's just a brush past or a lifetime commitment. (No straitjackets, though, please!)
9. Stay with me? Or rather, take down the barriers that make me forget You're always there. You know that unloved thing I blogged about? I feel it with You too - I mean, I know I love you as well as I can, but I don't often feel it coming back from You. I know I don't have to apologise for it, but...I feel like I should, you know. I know You're there, but a lot of the time, it's hard to feel and trust. Help me with that? Help me just BE with you?
So, basically, can we just work on us this Lent?
10. Small, yappy dogs. SO WRONG. Were You on...never mind. Better not ask that one.
Gah, Ash Wednesday is almost over - better post. More anon, Lord - thanks for listening.
Who loves ya, baby? That would be me.
Laters,
Irim xxxxxxxxxxx
PS - Promise not to kill any pious people during Lent. Hope that works for You. Mwah.
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Sunday, 19 February 2012
Spiritual growth: response to a sermon
I'd nearly forgotten how rarely Fr Robert preaches anymore, until he did today. I realised that I was no longer accustomed to seeing him in the pulpit, as I had to repeat 'Forget he looks like Richard Nixon. Forget he looks like Richard Nixon...' several times early on.
My ears pricked as he quoted JH Newman: "Growth is the only evidence of life."
Good start, I thought.
And so it was as he mentioned physical, intellectual and emotional growth and came to spiritual growth. I settled in. Then he said the one thing that distracted me from the rest of his sermon (not a direct quote):
If we stop growing spiritually, it is due to laziness or lack of education.
I baulked, but I waited.
Nothing.
That was when I moved from listening fully to listening with one ear as I took that statement apart and thought about how I wanted to discuss or blog it. Why?
Because, Fr Robert, I'm going to have to disagree.
As mentioned at the beginning of the sermon, growth is the only evidence of life. That means that living things, left to their own devices, all other things being equal/provided (food, favourable soil, friendly habitat, water, etc.), will grow. It has no choice - it simply is. Thus, if something living - including a spiritual/emotional/intellectual life - stops growing, it isn't out of lack of aegis (laziness, and I'll mention that having a deeper cause) or lack of academic information. It is out of profound injury or lack of nurture.
It IS true that people can be lazy, but garden variety laziness - e.g., I can't be bothered to do the dishes right now - which is usually overcome naturally, because it is part of a natural cycle - does not prevent growth. It may even be part of the need to rest. Persistent laziness, like its shadow, persistent busyness, is often rooted in a sense of fear, avoidance and overwhelm. For example, when I'd fallen behind on turning in my supervision forms at the place where I volunteer, 'laziness' took over because I WAS so far behind, it seemed impossible to catch up: it was a combination of all 3. In more serious cases, it is often indicative of depression.
Laziness isn't the underlying sin we take it to be - and often what looks like laziness is the gathering of resources before right action. We live in a world that believes in do, do, do and sees not acting as laziness. Nothing could be further from the truth.
So what does prevent growth? Emotional and spiritual injury through abuse, neglect, bullying, emotional disconnection, having to live in an environment where one has to hide in any variety of ways - so many things that create 'black holes' within us - those places so desperate for love (we often mistake approval for this), security and the nurture that we didn't receive as a child that they can never be filled. They turn us into 'hungry ghosts', defined in Wikipedia as beings who are driven by intense emotional needs in an animalistic way.
These holes bind us to them, they paralyse us. They prevent us from doing anything but frantically trying to fill them and stop the pain and emptiness they generate: we chase what we perceive to be love - especially those who cannot offer it, or those who abuse us as we were abused growing up; we chase approval through worldly success; we chase inanimate objects such as money, thinking that they will never betray us, and if we get enough they will fill that hole and it will be over.
But the thing about hungry ghosts is this: whilst they have wide open mouths and bellies bloated from malnutrition, they have very thin necks. Whatever goes into the mouth can never make it past the impossibly thin neck, so it can never nourish.
If it is bad for us, it cannot be expelled. If it is genuine love, genuine nurturing, genuine care, we cannot take it in. I recently had this exchange with a friend that demonstrates that:
P: You know you're very much loved by a good number of people, don't you?
Me: I grew up feeling unloved; much as I love my friends, and I feel THAT keenly, I very rarely feel love coming back at me. I sense need easily, but unconditional love not so much. It's lovely to know that I'm loved, even if I have a hard time feeling it. Thank you.
That is MY hungry ghost: I rarely feel loved, held. So I chase it - but I can't take too much of it (thin neck), so I chase it in those who can't love me profligately, passionately, fully. I take the little I'm given because it is what I can bear.
That's changing, the neck is widening, but it takes time and is still hard.
As Fr Robert said, the cause of the spiritual life's failure to thrive is sin - emotional abuse, neglect, bullying, anything that makes someone less a person. We're all guilty of some shade of that.
But I would take issue with his statement that sin is at the root of the lack of growth. If one just pulls up sin, it's like pulling up what you can see of a weed - it might be gone for a while, but another will soon grow in its place. You need to pull sin up by the root.
And that root is fear.
Fear is what drives people to sin:
Avarice: I'm afraid I'll never have enough/there's not enough to go round.
Envy: I'm afraid that what I have/who I am isn't good enough, but if I have that, maybe I will be.
Gluttony: I'm afraid there won't be enough, I have to have as much as possible now.
Lust: "I'm afraid I won't be loved."
Pride: "I'm afraid I'm not enough, so I have to tell people that I'm more. I can't ask for help/admit I can't do it/don't know."
Sloth: Cf. above "I'm afraid it's too much/I'll fail."
Wrath: "I'm afraid of being hurt/the pain underneath this/the pain that might come, it's easier to be angry than face that." "I'm afraid I won't get justice, so I must get it myself."
Those are by no means exhaustive - it is, of course, more complex than that, but I hope the point is clear. In discussing a real-life example earlier with a Saffa friend, he made the point that the great sin of apartheid came about because 'SA whites were very, very afraid.' That is brought home by one of the best songs ever written:
I knew a man who lived in fear
It was huge, it was angry it was drawing near
Behind his house, a secret place
was the shadow of the demon he could never face
He built a wall of steel and flame
And men with guns to keep it tame
Then standing back he made it plain
that the nightmare would never ever rise again
But the fear the fire and the guns remained
Perhaps personalizing it by generating our own 'I'm afraid that...' will help us move forward - and grow.
But how? So we know we're afraid and what we're afraid of? How does it help us grow? Self-awareness is the first step to emotional and spiritual growth - and to collapsing that black hole. Knowing what is true is the first step to everything.
The next step is to love it: and if it is too hard to love a black hole, let us use Donald Kalsched's imagery and love the child left behind, the child frozen in the trauma that tries to draw us back to it, tries to protect us from it again, but can only do so as the 3,5, 6 year old he/she is. That little one has done far too much for far too long, more than any child should have to do (as we probably did in real life). The time has come for us to hold it, to love it through its tantrums, its tears, its rage at us for abandoning it.
Once we can begin to love ourselves, it's time to move outwards and do so in relationship: first, in trusting God, next in loving others the way we are beginning to truly love ourselves: unconditionally. How do we do that? We hold them - figuratively and sometimes, literally. I have many friends with black holes because I have such black holes. And I have learned to hold them, sometimes imagining my arms around a younger them as they huddle silently and miserably against me or even as they flail and lash out against me. I will be there, lovingly, firmly (if necessary) and holding the space so they can find their truth, because that is what love is - so beautifully summed up in these words of Meg Murry in A Wrinkle in Time when she is desperate to save her brother:
I love you. Charles Wallace, you are my darling and my dear and the light of my life and the treasure of my heart. I love you. I love you. I love you.
And sometimes, that is what is most needed as they rage, weep, hide. I love you. I love you. I love you. And because of that, you are the treasure of my heart. You may know it, but one day, if you hear it enough, you'll feel it - even if it's just a little.
In addition to the nourishment that love provides, as we love others, we provide a safe, nurturing environment to grow spiritually: we need to be able to share our fears, our doubts, our thoughts with others who will listen, accept and respond lovingly, even as they disagree. Once we can provide that for ourselves, we can begin to provide it for others - and God can begin to use us to be His healing hands on Earth.
After all: There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment.
Love has no torment. That does not mean we are free from suffering, for loss will come, pain will come, difficulty will come. But that is not torment, which takes these things and twists them - and us - out of all recognition. Torment belongs to fear.
Here is the beginning of the end of sin, the Holy Spirit melting the frozen, and the return to spiritual growth - because where we are spiritually can now interact with love, community and experience, allowing it to meet new challenges to deepen and mature. After all, growth needs resistance.
And for most of us, some of those challenges are found in risk, in being vulnerable - for me, not saying to P, 'I'm ok,' but opening up to tell him what was really going on for me, was a huge risk, which one can see from the brief snippet I posted above.
It garnered the following response, in part:
P: Thanks so much for letting me in, for talking. You *are* loved - by me, and by many others...I'm your friend. What am I going to do? I'll always be here when you need me.
Exactly. What am I going to do? I'll always be here when you need me. For those of you who really need that but can't reach for it right now, hear it one more time and know it for the simple truth. When you can reach out, I'll come to meet you. That's a promise.
In that moment, I felt very loved indeed. And I could have sworn I felt my emotional and spiritual lives poke their heads out of love's rich soil.
My ears pricked as he quoted JH Newman: "Growth is the only evidence of life."
Good start, I thought.
And so it was as he mentioned physical, intellectual and emotional growth and came to spiritual growth. I settled in. Then he said the one thing that distracted me from the rest of his sermon (not a direct quote):
If we stop growing spiritually, it is due to laziness or lack of education.
I baulked, but I waited.
Nothing.
That was when I moved from listening fully to listening with one ear as I took that statement apart and thought about how I wanted to discuss or blog it. Why?
Because, Fr Robert, I'm going to have to disagree.
As mentioned at the beginning of the sermon, growth is the only evidence of life. That means that living things, left to their own devices, all other things being equal/provided (food, favourable soil, friendly habitat, water, etc.), will grow. It has no choice - it simply is. Thus, if something living - including a spiritual/emotional/intellectual life - stops growing, it isn't out of lack of aegis (laziness, and I'll mention that having a deeper cause) or lack of academic information. It is out of profound injury or lack of nurture.
It IS true that people can be lazy, but garden variety laziness - e.g., I can't be bothered to do the dishes right now - which is usually overcome naturally, because it is part of a natural cycle - does not prevent growth. It may even be part of the need to rest. Persistent laziness, like its shadow, persistent busyness, is often rooted in a sense of fear, avoidance and overwhelm. For example, when I'd fallen behind on turning in my supervision forms at the place where I volunteer, 'laziness' took over because I WAS so far behind, it seemed impossible to catch up: it was a combination of all 3. In more serious cases, it is often indicative of depression.
Laziness isn't the underlying sin we take it to be - and often what looks like laziness is the gathering of resources before right action. We live in a world that believes in do, do, do and sees not acting as laziness. Nothing could be further from the truth.
So what does prevent growth? Emotional and spiritual injury through abuse, neglect, bullying, emotional disconnection, having to live in an environment where one has to hide in any variety of ways - so many things that create 'black holes' within us - those places so desperate for love (we often mistake approval for this), security and the nurture that we didn't receive as a child that they can never be filled. They turn us into 'hungry ghosts', defined in Wikipedia as beings who are driven by intense emotional needs in an animalistic way.
These holes bind us to them, they paralyse us. They prevent us from doing anything but frantically trying to fill them and stop the pain and emptiness they generate: we chase what we perceive to be love - especially those who cannot offer it, or those who abuse us as we were abused growing up; we chase approval through worldly success; we chase inanimate objects such as money, thinking that they will never betray us, and if we get enough they will fill that hole and it will be over.
But the thing about hungry ghosts is this: whilst they have wide open mouths and bellies bloated from malnutrition, they have very thin necks. Whatever goes into the mouth can never make it past the impossibly thin neck, so it can never nourish.
If it is bad for us, it cannot be expelled. If it is genuine love, genuine nurturing, genuine care, we cannot take it in. I recently had this exchange with a friend that demonstrates that:
P: You know you're very much loved by a good number of people, don't you?
Me: I grew up feeling unloved; much as I love my friends, and I feel THAT keenly, I very rarely feel love coming back at me. I sense need easily, but unconditional love not so much. It's lovely to know that I'm loved, even if I have a hard time feeling it. Thank you.
That is MY hungry ghost: I rarely feel loved, held. So I chase it - but I can't take too much of it (thin neck), so I chase it in those who can't love me profligately, passionately, fully. I take the little I'm given because it is what I can bear.
That's changing, the neck is widening, but it takes time and is still hard.
As Fr Robert said, the cause of the spiritual life's failure to thrive is sin - emotional abuse, neglect, bullying, anything that makes someone less a person. We're all guilty of some shade of that.
But I would take issue with his statement that sin is at the root of the lack of growth. If one just pulls up sin, it's like pulling up what you can see of a weed - it might be gone for a while, but another will soon grow in its place. You need to pull sin up by the root.
And that root is fear.
Fear is what drives people to sin:
Avarice: I'm afraid I'll never have enough/there's not enough to go round.
Envy: I'm afraid that what I have/who I am isn't good enough, but if I have that, maybe I will be.
Gluttony: I'm afraid there won't be enough, I have to have as much as possible now.
Lust: "I'm afraid I won't be loved."
Pride: "I'm afraid I'm not enough, so I have to tell people that I'm more. I can't ask for help/admit I can't do it/don't know."
Sloth: Cf. above "I'm afraid it's too much/I'll fail."
Wrath: "I'm afraid of being hurt/the pain underneath this/the pain that might come, it's easier to be angry than face that." "I'm afraid I won't get justice, so I must get it myself."
Those are by no means exhaustive - it is, of course, more complex than that, but I hope the point is clear. In discussing a real-life example earlier with a Saffa friend, he made the point that the great sin of apartheid came about because 'SA whites were very, very afraid.' That is brought home by one of the best songs ever written:
I knew a man who lived in fear
It was huge, it was angry it was drawing near
Behind his house, a secret place
was the shadow of the demon he could never face
He built a wall of steel and flame
And men with guns to keep it tame
Then standing back he made it plain
that the nightmare would never ever rise again
But the fear the fire and the guns remained
Perhaps personalizing it by generating our own 'I'm afraid that...' will help us move forward - and grow.
But how? So we know we're afraid and what we're afraid of? How does it help us grow? Self-awareness is the first step to emotional and spiritual growth - and to collapsing that black hole. Knowing what is true is the first step to everything.
The next step is to love it: and if it is too hard to love a black hole, let us use Donald Kalsched's imagery and love the child left behind, the child frozen in the trauma that tries to draw us back to it, tries to protect us from it again, but can only do so as the 3,5, 6 year old he/she is. That little one has done far too much for far too long, more than any child should have to do (as we probably did in real life). The time has come for us to hold it, to love it through its tantrums, its tears, its rage at us for abandoning it.
Once we can begin to love ourselves, it's time to move outwards and do so in relationship: first, in trusting God, next in loving others the way we are beginning to truly love ourselves: unconditionally. How do we do that? We hold them - figuratively and sometimes, literally. I have many friends with black holes because I have such black holes. And I have learned to hold them, sometimes imagining my arms around a younger them as they huddle silently and miserably against me or even as they flail and lash out against me. I will be there, lovingly, firmly (if necessary) and holding the space so they can find their truth, because that is what love is - so beautifully summed up in these words of Meg Murry in A Wrinkle in Time when she is desperate to save her brother:
I love you. Charles Wallace, you are my darling and my dear and the light of my life and the treasure of my heart. I love you. I love you. I love you.
And sometimes, that is what is most needed as they rage, weep, hide. I love you. I love you. I love you. And because of that, you are the treasure of my heart. You may know it, but one day, if you hear it enough, you'll feel it - even if it's just a little.
In addition to the nourishment that love provides, as we love others, we provide a safe, nurturing environment to grow spiritually: we need to be able to share our fears, our doubts, our thoughts with others who will listen, accept and respond lovingly, even as they disagree. Once we can provide that for ourselves, we can begin to provide it for others - and God can begin to use us to be His healing hands on Earth.
After all: There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment.
Love has no torment. That does not mean we are free from suffering, for loss will come, pain will come, difficulty will come. But that is not torment, which takes these things and twists them - and us - out of all recognition. Torment belongs to fear.
Here is the beginning of the end of sin, the Holy Spirit melting the frozen, and the return to spiritual growth - because where we are spiritually can now interact with love, community and experience, allowing it to meet new challenges to deepen and mature. After all, growth needs resistance.
And for most of us, some of those challenges are found in risk, in being vulnerable - for me, not saying to P, 'I'm ok,' but opening up to tell him what was really going on for me, was a huge risk, which one can see from the brief snippet I posted above.
It garnered the following response, in part:
P: Thanks so much for letting me in, for talking. You *are* loved - by me, and by many others...I'm your friend. What am I going to do? I'll always be here when you need me.
Exactly. What am I going to do? I'll always be here when you need me. For those of you who really need that but can't reach for it right now, hear it one more time and know it for the simple truth. When you can reach out, I'll come to meet you. That's a promise.
In that moment, I felt very loved indeed. And I could have sworn I felt my emotional and spiritual lives poke their heads out of love's rich soil.
Friday, 10 February 2012
Triggered
Right now, I'm triggered, so I'm going to see if blogging about it will shift it at all.
As everyone here knows, I was sexually abused when I was younger. The effects manifest in ways obvious and subtle - I hide behind big, casual clothes; I need to be under a blanket, but can't bear the weight of it on my neck, because it feels like I'm suffocating; I can react remarkably calmly to the worst news, because I'm just not there; I'm hypervigilant and extremely aware of character. For years, I thought I was overreacting when I'd be uncomfortable with certain adults when they were interacting with children - actually, I'm spot on. Conversely, if I absolutely trust someone with a child, that's absolutely spot on too.
I don't trigger often anymore, though I know some friends would argue that I'm probably constantly slightly triggered - a bit like always having a low grade fever. I consider it a baseline. I know I'm triggered when close male friends touching me makes me tense up when they approach, when I will normally totally relax into it. Or if I get far angrier with South Asian males than is warranted, that kind of thing.
You'd think that after years, I'd be used to it; I'd know when it was coming - especially now that I'm a therapist. Sometimes, I can. Often, I'll be completely blindsided, though in retrospect, I should have expected it.
Part of the problem is that I can watch shows like 'CSI' and 'Criminal Minds' back-to-back and not have a problem, even if they're about rape. Ditto 'Law and Order: SVU', though if I'm completely honest, I usually have to watch something like 'Bridezillas' to wind down from that. But it's fine. What I tend to forget is that a lot of it coming at me from various sources, especially if a couple of those things are a bit close - a friend's pain, disclosure, it happening near me - create a cumulative effect that means that anything can push me into being fine one minute, triggered the next. It's even faster if I have to hold the space for someone (or several someones) else's feelings about the topic, and to do so, I need to absolutely clamp down on my feelings.
Not a problem if I allow myself to decompress and process later. Unfortunately, I'm more than a bit of a lazy idiot about that.
This week, I should have seen it coming. I could feel myself vacillating between dissociated and irrationally annoyed by small things, especially towards the end of the week. I tensed up any time anyone came up to my desk at work, even though I can see them in my screen, my headphones were on almost all the time. This evening, during a long text exchange about the topic, I could feel myself pulling in and away. In a friend, I'd have seen it coming a mile away and called them on it - therapist, analyse thyself.
Suddenly, I hit 11pm, post NCIS and 'Criminal Minds' (and if I'd been self-aware, I'd have AVOIDED THIS 'CRIMINAL MINDS' LIKE THE PLAGUE TILL ITS REPEAT) and my normal state made a cool whooshing sound as it went by.
(Oh Lord. I'd thought back to my uncle several times this week. Only for seconds at a time - but still flashbacks. And I STILL MISSED IT.)
What does it feel like for me? I don't cry, shake or go through flashbacks for days. I just...leave. Like I used to when...well, that. I'm just dissociated, out of body - sometimes for hours, sometimes for days. Nothing can touch me - I will see things that usually move me to tears, or make me laugh till I cry, or move me to advocacy - and I just don't care. I can see people I absolutely adore and feel nothing, though I know I love them to bits. When I was younger, it manifested as losing myself in series: the Oz books, Nancy Drew, Madeleine L'Engle. I loved to read, loved new worlds, but they served a dual purpose: if I was there, no one could touch me and it was easier.
Right now, it feels like I'm writing this from realities away. I'm here, composing, reading, but not feeling it, and I suspect it's showing up in my writing, though I can't judge that now. I know it'll show up when I flinch when someone sits too close to me in the pew (right now about two people away from me) or just a lack of real response to a friend. Fortunately, tomorrow is now clear and unlike the last two Saturdays, I don't have to read at the 18.30 mass, and I can just batten down the hatches for a day, which will hopefully clear it.
What do I need to do? Listen to it. Let it be what it is, rather than fight it. See what it has to tell me. If I need to, lean. And above all, get back into my body. Let my guy friends hug me - feel the resistance, but let the touch be. Progressive muscle relaxing exercises; my new 'feel your heartbeat' exercise from Martha Beck, which is brilliant. Breathe. Go wordless (MB again), at least for a while. SLEEP. Feel that my back is really bothering me, that my right ankle is stiff. That I'm tired, even if I feel I have no right to be.
And just let tomorrow be what it needs to be and bring what it needs to bring.
I may be triggered. But that doesn't mean I have to fire.
As everyone here knows, I was sexually abused when I was younger. The effects manifest in ways obvious and subtle - I hide behind big, casual clothes; I need to be under a blanket, but can't bear the weight of it on my neck, because it feels like I'm suffocating; I can react remarkably calmly to the worst news, because I'm just not there; I'm hypervigilant and extremely aware of character. For years, I thought I was overreacting when I'd be uncomfortable with certain adults when they were interacting with children - actually, I'm spot on. Conversely, if I absolutely trust someone with a child, that's absolutely spot on too.
I don't trigger often anymore, though I know some friends would argue that I'm probably constantly slightly triggered - a bit like always having a low grade fever. I consider it a baseline. I know I'm triggered when close male friends touching me makes me tense up when they approach, when I will normally totally relax into it. Or if I get far angrier with South Asian males than is warranted, that kind of thing.
You'd think that after years, I'd be used to it; I'd know when it was coming - especially now that I'm a therapist. Sometimes, I can. Often, I'll be completely blindsided, though in retrospect, I should have expected it.
Part of the problem is that I can watch shows like 'CSI' and 'Criminal Minds' back-to-back and not have a problem, even if they're about rape. Ditto 'Law and Order: SVU', though if I'm completely honest, I usually have to watch something like 'Bridezillas' to wind down from that. But it's fine. What I tend to forget is that a lot of it coming at me from various sources, especially if a couple of those things are a bit close - a friend's pain, disclosure, it happening near me - create a cumulative effect that means that anything can push me into being fine one minute, triggered the next. It's even faster if I have to hold the space for someone (or several someones) else's feelings about the topic, and to do so, I need to absolutely clamp down on my feelings.
Not a problem if I allow myself to decompress and process later. Unfortunately, I'm more than a bit of a lazy idiot about that.
This week, I should have seen it coming. I could feel myself vacillating between dissociated and irrationally annoyed by small things, especially towards the end of the week. I tensed up any time anyone came up to my desk at work, even though I can see them in my screen, my headphones were on almost all the time. This evening, during a long text exchange about the topic, I could feel myself pulling in and away. In a friend, I'd have seen it coming a mile away and called them on it - therapist, analyse thyself.
Suddenly, I hit 11pm, post NCIS and 'Criminal Minds' (and if I'd been self-aware, I'd have AVOIDED THIS 'CRIMINAL MINDS' LIKE THE PLAGUE TILL ITS REPEAT) and my normal state made a cool whooshing sound as it went by.
(Oh Lord. I'd thought back to my uncle several times this week. Only for seconds at a time - but still flashbacks. And I STILL MISSED IT.)
What does it feel like for me? I don't cry, shake or go through flashbacks for days. I just...leave. Like I used to when...well, that. I'm just dissociated, out of body - sometimes for hours, sometimes for days. Nothing can touch me - I will see things that usually move me to tears, or make me laugh till I cry, or move me to advocacy - and I just don't care. I can see people I absolutely adore and feel nothing, though I know I love them to bits. When I was younger, it manifested as losing myself in series: the Oz books, Nancy Drew, Madeleine L'Engle. I loved to read, loved new worlds, but they served a dual purpose: if I was there, no one could touch me and it was easier.
Right now, it feels like I'm writing this from realities away. I'm here, composing, reading, but not feeling it, and I suspect it's showing up in my writing, though I can't judge that now. I know it'll show up when I flinch when someone sits too close to me in the pew (right now about two people away from me) or just a lack of real response to a friend. Fortunately, tomorrow is now clear and unlike the last two Saturdays, I don't have to read at the 18.30 mass, and I can just batten down the hatches for a day, which will hopefully clear it.
What do I need to do? Listen to it. Let it be what it is, rather than fight it. See what it has to tell me. If I need to, lean. And above all, get back into my body. Let my guy friends hug me - feel the resistance, but let the touch be. Progressive muscle relaxing exercises; my new 'feel your heartbeat' exercise from Martha Beck, which is brilliant. Breathe. Go wordless (MB again), at least for a while. SLEEP. Feel that my back is really bothering me, that my right ankle is stiff. That I'm tired, even if I feel I have no right to be.
And just let tomorrow be what it needs to be and bring what it needs to bring.
I may be triggered. But that doesn't mean I have to fire.
Sunday, 5 February 2012
A reflection on clerical crushes and expectations
On Tuesday, 24 January, as I was waiting for Ari to show up online, I idly flicked through Sky channels to see if there was anything worth watching, and stumbled onto The world against apartheid. Now, anyone who has known me for oh, any length of time, knows that all things South African trip over me. Seriously. I went to Orkney and the first sign I saw was in the travel agent's window: 'Fly to South Africa'. And that's just one of at least a thousand examples. I've been fascinated by South Africa since I first saw the song We are marching to Pretoria in my elementary school music book - they've had a while to accumulate.
So tripping over this excellent programme was about as much surprise as the pope being Catholic. I've been sucked into the first two parts, drinking in the oral and social history that I'd never had a chance to dive into before. After seeing Desmond Tutu appear at the end of the first part, I looked forward to the appearance of his colleague - my third clerical crush after JPI and Oscar Romero: the late Archbishop Denis Hurley.
I'd heard of Tutu first - of course, since he became a Nobel Laureate - and absolutely adored him, but somehow, it was Hurley who caught my imagination. It may have been tied to my early draw to the Catholic Church, or something pulled in I sensed in him that I didn't sense in the exuberant Tutu: a shyness, a reserve, a weight on his shoulders - something I wanted to draw out, to help carry, to support. (Yes, that tendency of mine began very young indeed.)
I was SQUEEing about the show and Archbishop Hurley to Ari - who, like the true friend she is, sent me a copy of Guardian of the Light by Paddy Kearney, which I've started reading. Of course, being one who reads character from photographs, I went straight to the 2 sets of photos in the book, and found myself completely arrested by this one:
Seriously hot is not the way one should describe a bishop in full vestments, so I shan't. (Yes, really.)
But look at that face. Look at the character. He was 31. 31, people. Today, most males in our society are still boys playing men at 31, desperate to be the eternal Peter Pan. Here, we see the face of a man - a young man with much destiny in front of him, but a man nonetheless. The character is there already: strong, firm, determined, not easily swayed - balanced with thoughtfulness, strong principle and the ability to listen. And he is aware: so aware of what has been placed on his shoulders, and in that face, one can also see the 'I'm not ready. Oh God.' But he will say 'yes', because 'yes' is what is needed. There is great power in this 31 year old - true power, not what often masquerades as power. It is this character, this true power, that makes him the two words that I said I wouldn't use about a bishop in full vestments.
The photo makes me want to weep, even as it fills me with hope - for one can sense the terrible aloneness. I find myself torn between inclining my head to acknowledge the true power present and the urge to throw my arms around his shoulders and tell him all will be well.
He, like JPI and Oscar Romero, holds such power and is so deeply human. The two are not unconnected: one can only hold true power if one is truly and fully human.
As I read, I am startled to discover that he had not always been so passionate about the equality between the races: he was once startled to see a white woman and an Indian woman speaking animatedly on the bus, not having realised that non-whites had the same needs/wants as whites. It wasn't till he came to Rome as a seminarian and counted two Sri Lankans amongst his closest friends that his views truly began to change. This surprises me (though it shouldn't, he would have been a product of his time) and I put down the book to think about how it makes me feel - on its own then, more specifically, about him.
I find, to my surprise, that I am absolutely fine with it. More than absolutely fine. Why? Because it means he was open to change. That he could be open to experience, think it through, and come to a fair conclusion. I don't need him to have been perfect: I need him to have been real; to be able to listen and care; to stand up for what he felt was right, whatever the risk to himself. What I would have found unconscionable was a resistance to growth; a need to believe he was always right, even in the face of evidence; a need for approval that meant that he said 'yes' to those above him no matter what.
What Denis Hurley did was grow up, to develop, to begin to unfold into who he really was. And that is as it should be.
These musings lead me to understand how my conversion to Catholicism was, in large part, due to these men: men of truth; men passionate about the same things I was; men who wielded the power of the organisation behind them to try to overcome corruption, oppression, injustice, no matter what it cost them. Because shepherding God's people was their vocation.
When I joined the Catholic Church, these were the men I thought were going to lead me, the men I thought I was going to be working alongside to make the whole world a better place, to serve all people, no matter what religion they identified with.
I soon learned just how special my trinity of clerical crushes were.
Thus began my inner - and outer - struggle with the Catholic clergy. On the one hand, I was drawn to many of them. On the other, I found myself wanting to slam so many clerical heads into the nearest concrete wall as I told them exactly what I thought of them. What was going on?
In part, I figured, I was playing out my relationship with my father in a place that was slightly more sane. That makes a lot of sense, and is certainly part of the truth. But it was Ari who really began to crack it a few months ago, as I vented my rage at a cleric who I felt had failed abysmally in his duty to offer some help I had asked for. It was an unexpected failure, and therefore, felt like a betrayal, though I'd given him no sign how I really felt.
Then, she said it:
You are constantly asking them [the clergy] for things you know they can't give you. You can't seriously be surprised when they fail you.
Me: I set men up to fail all the damn time, don't I?
Ari: Yes.
Me: and especially men in authority
Ari: Yes.
Me: Some part of me takes immense pleasure in that
Ari: Sometimes it's justified: you're the child with the naked emperor. But yes, a lot of it is unnecessary.
I knew, at the deepest level, that she - that WE -were absolutely right. As we unravelled it further, what became clear was that there were certain areas in which I expected perfection from Catholic priests. Or if not perfection, certainly an absolute commitment to developing the following to the best of their ability:
1. Living a life of integrity. For me, this is the biggie, because everything else flows from this. Be aware of your issues and work on sorting out your shit, rather than running to the priesthood to try to hide from your shit. Because let me tell you, a collar that gets you some kind of station, pretty vestments, obsessing about liturgy, thinking, 'Hey, I can turn wafer and wine into body and blood, I am so much better than non-clerics' and being able to promulgate your point of view to a captive audience every week may taste like ice cream - but if you're not working through your stuff and moving towards personal holiness, it's ice cream on top of shit. No matter how much you shift the ice cream, the taste of shit will always come through. Work from the inside, instead of adjusting the externals, and everything else will follow.
And no, just saying office doesn't count as personal holiness. Prayer is much more and much deeper than that. "Your daily life is your temple and your religion," remember? So how you act matters. Take responsibility for your life. For your emotions. If you truly have a vocation to the priesthood, you have a vocation to shepherd God's people. God's people have a vocation to support you - this is symbiosis, not a one way street. But what God's people do NOT have a vocation to is to contain your unconscious stuff/emotion that spills out on them, nor do they have a vocation to be your co-dependent and prop up your dysfunction or your fragile ego. That's YOUR job to sort out - through self-awareness, with God, maybe with a therapist. By the way, the stuff you're doing you think is secret? It ain't, trust me. For example, if you've been sniping about me behind my back to other clerics or laity, I know about it. Everything leaks. So don't do anything that shouldn't.
2. Think for yourself. Seriously, one more 'The Church says...and so it's right' and some dog collar wearing male is going to get kneed in the balls. THINK, man. Is IT? One of the things I love about Denis Hurley is that he called Pope Paul VI on Humanae Vitae - robustly, via written correspondence. There was NEVER any question of his loyalty to the Church or God's people - dissent is part of growth and development. But Hurley thought, came to a conclusion and spoke his truth. He didn't let anyone do his thinking for him. God gave you a mind of your own. Use it. What does your experience tell you? Your compassion? Does it make you uneasy? Then FACE IT and follow it through. Know what you TRULY believe and take it to God. Lather, rinse, repeat. See #1.
3. Grow up - eternal Peter Pans have no place in the clergy. I've seen far too many boys, particularly neocons, claim a vocation because they can't or don't want to face the real world - essentially, they want to continue living their university days around people who agree with them or will hold them in such high regard that they never have to do any real work. They can join groups that do absolutely no pastoral work whatsoever, prance about in pretty costumes and vestments, hold high ritual, swan off to various parts of the world for the rest of their lives, all supported by the Catholic laity and held up as examples by the hierarchy as 'an increase in vocations'. Sorry, boys - I'm afraid that's not what Our Lord had in mind for you. I'll tell you what I do, though - a year in the Democratic Republic of Congo, ministering to the people. You have a vocation, right?
4. Pastoral care above all else. Seriously, anyone who can follow instruction can learn to the say the mass. Not that hard, I could do it within months of becoming Catholic. And frankly, the same goes for the other rituals. Anybody can learn to say them, it's just that the Church holds that because your hands were anointed with oil, like He-Man, you have the power.
But genuine pastoral care? That's something else altogether. That requires the ability to be in genuine relationship with someone else. Now, if you can't be in relationship with yourself and with God, you can't do this (again, see #1). You're a shepherd - THIS is your raison d'etre. Your real work, your real vocation, is to be with the people. To be there when they are dying; when those they love are dying. To comfort, to hold, to witness. To be tender, yet firm, in the confessional, when people are most vulnerable. To forever hold the sanctuary and the space - and to perform the sacraments from this space, letting God work through you. To die in the middle of mass because you have spoken out for your people. To be ready to go to prison for your people. To protect your people no matter what it costs you.
God may not be calling you to martyrdom, or to pay a great price. But if He is calling you to the vocation, He is calling you to be broken - at the very least in the way Mary Oliver speaks of:
I tell you this
to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world.
That is your vocation - and not just yours, but everyone's. That is what this pilgrim church is about - witnessing to each other's lives and helping each other break wide open: to themselves, to God, and to the rest of the world. For if your heart isn't broken open, you cannot be what God means for you to be.
Do I have the right to expect this of my clerics? I firmly believe I do - and going back to the cleric I'd ranted about to Ari, even the initial response wasn't the problem - it became a problem when he showed no awareness around it. What I needed him to do was come back to me and say, 'Hey, look, I was in a bad place - let me try again.' That was all it would have taken. That is the mark of a man with true power - a Hurley, a Romero, a Mandela, a JPI. My genuine frustration and anger is with those who willfully use the clerical vocation, which I consider to be deeply holy, as a way to resist growth, to hide, to wield power so they can take out their conscious and unconscious pain on others. That, I have a right to be angry and speak up about.
What I DON'T have the right to expect is perfection, or even, as Ari pointed out to me, that priests be BETTER than me at all those things. I can insist that they be my equals, my partners on the journey to truth, awareness, authenticity and service - and we can help each other be that. I can call them on being false and hold up a mirror to them. But I cannot despise them for not being relentlessly good or for falling on their way. They too, are human.
After all, even Denis Hurley wasn't always the champion of equality he became.
Nor would I dream of denying them laughter and play along the way - even my clerical heroes took time out:
And look at that picture closely - who's in it? So often, much more is achieved through the intensity of playfulness than through the importance of being earnest.
A lesson my clerical friends and I could all come together to learn...
...Royal Oak, next week?
So tripping over this excellent programme was about as much surprise as the pope being Catholic. I've been sucked into the first two parts, drinking in the oral and social history that I'd never had a chance to dive into before. After seeing Desmond Tutu appear at the end of the first part, I looked forward to the appearance of his colleague - my third clerical crush after JPI and Oscar Romero: the late Archbishop Denis Hurley.
I'd heard of Tutu first - of course, since he became a Nobel Laureate - and absolutely adored him, but somehow, it was Hurley who caught my imagination. It may have been tied to my early draw to the Catholic Church, or something pulled in I sensed in him that I didn't sense in the exuberant Tutu: a shyness, a reserve, a weight on his shoulders - something I wanted to draw out, to help carry, to support. (Yes, that tendency of mine began very young indeed.)
I was SQUEEing about the show and Archbishop Hurley to Ari - who, like the true friend she is, sent me a copy of Guardian of the Light by Paddy Kearney, which I've started reading. Of course, being one who reads character from photographs, I went straight to the 2 sets of photos in the book, and found myself completely arrested by this one:
Seriously hot is not the way one should describe a bishop in full vestments, so I shan't. (Yes, really.)
But look at that face. Look at the character. He was 31. 31, people. Today, most males in our society are still boys playing men at 31, desperate to be the eternal Peter Pan. Here, we see the face of a man - a young man with much destiny in front of him, but a man nonetheless. The character is there already: strong, firm, determined, not easily swayed - balanced with thoughtfulness, strong principle and the ability to listen. And he is aware: so aware of what has been placed on his shoulders, and in that face, one can also see the 'I'm not ready. Oh God.' But he will say 'yes', because 'yes' is what is needed. There is great power in this 31 year old - true power, not what often masquerades as power. It is this character, this true power, that makes him the two words that I said I wouldn't use about a bishop in full vestments.
The photo makes me want to weep, even as it fills me with hope - for one can sense the terrible aloneness. I find myself torn between inclining my head to acknowledge the true power present and the urge to throw my arms around his shoulders and tell him all will be well.
He, like JPI and Oscar Romero, holds such power and is so deeply human. The two are not unconnected: one can only hold true power if one is truly and fully human.
As I read, I am startled to discover that he had not always been so passionate about the equality between the races: he was once startled to see a white woman and an Indian woman speaking animatedly on the bus, not having realised that non-whites had the same needs/wants as whites. It wasn't till he came to Rome as a seminarian and counted two Sri Lankans amongst his closest friends that his views truly began to change. This surprises me (though it shouldn't, he would have been a product of his time) and I put down the book to think about how it makes me feel - on its own then, more specifically, about him.
I find, to my surprise, that I am absolutely fine with it. More than absolutely fine. Why? Because it means he was open to change. That he could be open to experience, think it through, and come to a fair conclusion. I don't need him to have been perfect: I need him to have been real; to be able to listen and care; to stand up for what he felt was right, whatever the risk to himself. What I would have found unconscionable was a resistance to growth; a need to believe he was always right, even in the face of evidence; a need for approval that meant that he said 'yes' to those above him no matter what.
What Denis Hurley did was grow up, to develop, to begin to unfold into who he really was. And that is as it should be.
These musings lead me to understand how my conversion to Catholicism was, in large part, due to these men: men of truth; men passionate about the same things I was; men who wielded the power of the organisation behind them to try to overcome corruption, oppression, injustice, no matter what it cost them. Because shepherding God's people was their vocation.
When I joined the Catholic Church, these were the men I thought were going to lead me, the men I thought I was going to be working alongside to make the whole world a better place, to serve all people, no matter what religion they identified with.
I soon learned just how special my trinity of clerical crushes were.
Thus began my inner - and outer - struggle with the Catholic clergy. On the one hand, I was drawn to many of them. On the other, I found myself wanting to slam so many clerical heads into the nearest concrete wall as I told them exactly what I thought of them. What was going on?
In part, I figured, I was playing out my relationship with my father in a place that was slightly more sane. That makes a lot of sense, and is certainly part of the truth. But it was Ari who really began to crack it a few months ago, as I vented my rage at a cleric who I felt had failed abysmally in his duty to offer some help I had asked for. It was an unexpected failure, and therefore, felt like a betrayal, though I'd given him no sign how I really felt.
Then, she said it:
You are constantly asking them [the clergy] for things you know they can't give you. You can't seriously be surprised when they fail you.
Me: I set men up to fail all the damn time, don't I?
Ari: Yes.
Me: and especially men in authority
Ari: Yes.
Me: Some part of me takes immense pleasure in that
Ari: Sometimes it's justified: you're the child with the naked emperor. But yes, a lot of it is unnecessary.
I knew, at the deepest level, that she - that WE -were absolutely right. As we unravelled it further, what became clear was that there were certain areas in which I expected perfection from Catholic priests. Or if not perfection, certainly an absolute commitment to developing the following to the best of their ability:
1. Living a life of integrity. For me, this is the biggie, because everything else flows from this. Be aware of your issues and work on sorting out your shit, rather than running to the priesthood to try to hide from your shit. Because let me tell you, a collar that gets you some kind of station, pretty vestments, obsessing about liturgy, thinking, 'Hey, I can turn wafer and wine into body and blood, I am so much better than non-clerics' and being able to promulgate your point of view to a captive audience every week may taste like ice cream - but if you're not working through your stuff and moving towards personal holiness, it's ice cream on top of shit. No matter how much you shift the ice cream, the taste of shit will always come through. Work from the inside, instead of adjusting the externals, and everything else will follow.
And no, just saying office doesn't count as personal holiness. Prayer is much more and much deeper than that. "Your daily life is your temple and your religion," remember? So how you act matters. Take responsibility for your life. For your emotions. If you truly have a vocation to the priesthood, you have a vocation to shepherd God's people. God's people have a vocation to support you - this is symbiosis, not a one way street. But what God's people do NOT have a vocation to is to contain your unconscious stuff/emotion that spills out on them, nor do they have a vocation to be your co-dependent and prop up your dysfunction or your fragile ego. That's YOUR job to sort out - through self-awareness, with God, maybe with a therapist. By the way, the stuff you're doing you think is secret? It ain't, trust me. For example, if you've been sniping about me behind my back to other clerics or laity, I know about it. Everything leaks. So don't do anything that shouldn't.
2. Think for yourself. Seriously, one more 'The Church says...and so it's right' and some dog collar wearing male is going to get kneed in the balls. THINK, man. Is IT? One of the things I love about Denis Hurley is that he called Pope Paul VI on Humanae Vitae - robustly, via written correspondence. There was NEVER any question of his loyalty to the Church or God's people - dissent is part of growth and development. But Hurley thought, came to a conclusion and spoke his truth. He didn't let anyone do his thinking for him. God gave you a mind of your own. Use it. What does your experience tell you? Your compassion? Does it make you uneasy? Then FACE IT and follow it through. Know what you TRULY believe and take it to God. Lather, rinse, repeat. See #1.
3. Grow up - eternal Peter Pans have no place in the clergy. I've seen far too many boys, particularly neocons, claim a vocation because they can't or don't want to face the real world - essentially, they want to continue living their university days around people who agree with them or will hold them in such high regard that they never have to do any real work. They can join groups that do absolutely no pastoral work whatsoever, prance about in pretty costumes and vestments, hold high ritual, swan off to various parts of the world for the rest of their lives, all supported by the Catholic laity and held up as examples by the hierarchy as 'an increase in vocations'. Sorry, boys - I'm afraid that's not what Our Lord had in mind for you. I'll tell you what I do, though - a year in the Democratic Republic of Congo, ministering to the people. You have a vocation, right?
4. Pastoral care above all else. Seriously, anyone who can follow instruction can learn to the say the mass. Not that hard, I could do it within months of becoming Catholic. And frankly, the same goes for the other rituals. Anybody can learn to say them, it's just that the Church holds that because your hands were anointed with oil, like He-Man, you have the power.
But genuine pastoral care? That's something else altogether. That requires the ability to be in genuine relationship with someone else. Now, if you can't be in relationship with yourself and with God, you can't do this (again, see #1). You're a shepherd - THIS is your raison d'etre. Your real work, your real vocation, is to be with the people. To be there when they are dying; when those they love are dying. To comfort, to hold, to witness. To be tender, yet firm, in the confessional, when people are most vulnerable. To forever hold the sanctuary and the space - and to perform the sacraments from this space, letting God work through you. To die in the middle of mass because you have spoken out for your people. To be ready to go to prison for your people. To protect your people no matter what it costs you.
God may not be calling you to martyrdom, or to pay a great price. But if He is calling you to the vocation, He is calling you to be broken - at the very least in the way Mary Oliver speaks of:
I tell you this
to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world.
That is your vocation - and not just yours, but everyone's. That is what this pilgrim church is about - witnessing to each other's lives and helping each other break wide open: to themselves, to God, and to the rest of the world. For if your heart isn't broken open, you cannot be what God means for you to be.
Do I have the right to expect this of my clerics? I firmly believe I do - and going back to the cleric I'd ranted about to Ari, even the initial response wasn't the problem - it became a problem when he showed no awareness around it. What I needed him to do was come back to me and say, 'Hey, look, I was in a bad place - let me try again.' That was all it would have taken. That is the mark of a man with true power - a Hurley, a Romero, a Mandela, a JPI. My genuine frustration and anger is with those who willfully use the clerical vocation, which I consider to be deeply holy, as a way to resist growth, to hide, to wield power so they can take out their conscious and unconscious pain on others. That, I have a right to be angry and speak up about.
What I DON'T have the right to expect is perfection, or even, as Ari pointed out to me, that priests be BETTER than me at all those things. I can insist that they be my equals, my partners on the journey to truth, awareness, authenticity and service - and we can help each other be that. I can call them on being false and hold up a mirror to them. But I cannot despise them for not being relentlessly good or for falling on their way. They too, are human.
After all, even Denis Hurley wasn't always the champion of equality he became.
Nor would I dream of denying them laughter and play along the way - even my clerical heroes took time out:
And look at that picture closely - who's in it? So often, much more is achieved through the intensity of playfulness than through the importance of being earnest.
A lesson my clerical friends and I could all come together to learn...
...Royal Oak, next week?
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
See what sepia can do for you...
Colour...
...and you're cute.
Sepia...
...and you're the Lord of Hellfire.
Wednesday, 30 November 2011
Day 30: GC, Relationship
I was going to title this friendship, but looking back across my entries, it seems obvious that the thread running through them is a broader than that, it is about relationship: with ourselves, with God, with others, with the world around us.
For the chance to BE in relationship, I am grateful. I may refuse it; I may not be fully engaged sometimes; I may stumble my way through it. But when I'm there, being in relationship is the most amazing thing: whether it is with the moment, the ocean, a child, a friend - even someone whom I find difficult.
My feeling has always been that we cannot learn in a vacuum - we only ever learn in relationship: we have to engage with the material, engage with the teacher, engage with those around us. We learn most about ourselves when we are most vulnerable in the intimacy of relationship: deeply in tune with or deeply challenged by: others, ourselves, organisations, long-standing beliefs, our environment.
We can only ever learn if we are intimate, allowing people and things to touch us, to help shape us - smoothing out edges, knocking off corners, breaking through shells, allowing the real us to emerge. This cannot happen if we shut ourselves off from relationship.
Relationship and intimacy can be frightening: one has to be vulnerable and there is no controlling the Other. It's unpredictable, unexpected, can be incredibly painful, always transformational, and if we allow it, often magical.
But although it is deep, intimacy need not always be serious: it encompasses all emotions, and think of how one often knows a couple is close: shared smiles; shared laughter; a gentle tease.
In fact, humour is one of the best ways to connect - to enter intimacy and confirm closeness.
This morning, just such an occasion happened with one of my closest friends, when she mentioned she was off to make tea. I announced that I was considering marrying the plush ferret she gave me for my birthday, Ramachni (named after a beloved mage in Robert Redick's Chathrand Voyage). She completely approved, noting that she would marry her plush black panther, Magick.
I, however, had a problem in that I had fallen in love with this lot, who tap right into my weakness for the emotionally wounded, so I suggested that I would have to be plushly polyandrous, which led to the following discussion at her blog, where she'd posted our discussion:
Me:
Of course, what midnightsidhe neglects to mention is that she is the one who set me up with Ramachni! Another reason we are best friends.
*Returns to viewing 'plush animal grooms' website*
xx
midnight_sidhe:
Well, I do try to remain modest about my match-making abilities, you see.
Also, you know what this means, don't you? If we're going to be Gonzo's sister-wives and the other primaries in this arrangement are Ramachni and Magick, not to mention all the other plush grooms you may acquire? WE ARE TOTALLY GOING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD.
xxx
Me:
Well indeed. Best not to be known as a shadchan; before you know it, you'll be inundated by humans and plushies looking for black market marriages.
Indeed, which means I will have to select my harem carefully. Dr Wood from the Clinic is a must, as is Dolly - that shapeshifting ability could come in handy for our plans of world domination...
xx
midnight_sidhe wrote:
Yes, exactly. It's not a vocation of mine, after all; I am merely a talented amateur.
She'enedra! *gasp* I do hope you weren't intending to select your harem irresponsibly before you realised the full implications of our impending domestic arrangement! One must take care not to be indiscriminate in these matters! Especially with your weakness; you could get sadly taken advantage of. Not all wolves-in-sheep's-clothing are like Dolly.
xxx
Me:
*Gasps in horror at the near disaster*
Oh, she'enedra! What was I thinking; I was going to marry for plushness and affection, even plushy need, NOT for the world domination plans. Ramachni has set me right on that. I was even considering a plush Tyrannosaurus Rex until Ramachni gently pointed out that short T-Rex arms combined with a massive head were completely useless when it came to world domination. I was crestfallen, but had to acknowledge his point.
What would I do without the two of you - my Gonzo sister-wife and my plush First Mate to keep me focused on the larger goal?
xx
midnight_sidhe wrote:
You would end up with forty-two plush husbands, all of whom were so severely wounded that they would be completely useless in our world domination plans. And you'd spend so much time helping them that you would be too, and this would be a problem, because Gonzo and I are too chaotic neutral to be left in charge and Magick is too prone to getting into complicated affairs with the wives of the wrong cats, and you wouldn't want your poor First Mate left trying to keep the rest of us in line, now would you?
While I agree with Ramachni that T-Rex is not really well-suited to inclusion in your plush-husband stable, may I suggest that there are other respects in which he might be useful? Suppose we need a diversion, say, or just to terrify a group of people. I should think T-Rex would be most useful under such circumstances.
But, you know, I don't think it would be a disaster if some of your mates were chosen for affection and plushy need. No reason to make dynastic sacrifices here; political unions can be problematic.
xxx
When someone gets you well enough to have the above conversation, you don't need serious to know it doesn't get much closer - and it has been one of the deepest friendships I've had - one that has pushed me the hardest, held the space in the darkest of times, kept me real and moved me light-years towards becoming my true self.
And that hard, deep work is only possible because we get each other well enough to discuss human-plush polyandry.
She'enedra - thank you is criminally insufficient, but I think you know the rest without my saying it, which speaks to the essence of this essay more eloquently than anything else I can say.
This one's for you.
For the chance to BE in relationship, I am grateful. I may refuse it; I may not be fully engaged sometimes; I may stumble my way through it. But when I'm there, being in relationship is the most amazing thing: whether it is with the moment, the ocean, a child, a friend - even someone whom I find difficult.
My feeling has always been that we cannot learn in a vacuum - we only ever learn in relationship: we have to engage with the material, engage with the teacher, engage with those around us. We learn most about ourselves when we are most vulnerable in the intimacy of relationship: deeply in tune with or deeply challenged by: others, ourselves, organisations, long-standing beliefs, our environment.
We can only ever learn if we are intimate, allowing people and things to touch us, to help shape us - smoothing out edges, knocking off corners, breaking through shells, allowing the real us to emerge. This cannot happen if we shut ourselves off from relationship.
Relationship and intimacy can be frightening: one has to be vulnerable and there is no controlling the Other. It's unpredictable, unexpected, can be incredibly painful, always transformational, and if we allow it, often magical.
But although it is deep, intimacy need not always be serious: it encompasses all emotions, and think of how one often knows a couple is close: shared smiles; shared laughter; a gentle tease.
In fact, humour is one of the best ways to connect - to enter intimacy and confirm closeness.
This morning, just such an occasion happened with one of my closest friends, when she mentioned she was off to make tea. I announced that I was considering marrying the plush ferret she gave me for my birthday, Ramachni (named after a beloved mage in Robert Redick's Chathrand Voyage). She completely approved, noting that she would marry her plush black panther, Magick.
I, however, had a problem in that I had fallen in love with this lot, who tap right into my weakness for the emotionally wounded, so I suggested that I would have to be plushly polyandrous, which led to the following discussion at her blog, where she'd posted our discussion:
Me:
Of course, what midnightsidhe neglects to mention is that she is the one who set me up with Ramachni! Another reason we are best friends.
*Returns to viewing 'plush animal grooms' website*
xx
midnight_sidhe:
Well, I do try to remain modest about my match-making abilities, you see.
Also, you know what this means, don't you? If we're going to be Gonzo's sister-wives and the other primaries in this arrangement are Ramachni and Magick, not to mention all the other plush grooms you may acquire? WE ARE TOTALLY GOING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD.
xxx
Me:
Well indeed. Best not to be known as a shadchan; before you know it, you'll be inundated by humans and plushies looking for black market marriages.
Indeed, which means I will have to select my harem carefully. Dr Wood from the Clinic is a must, as is Dolly - that shapeshifting ability could come in handy for our plans of world domination...
xx
midnight_sidhe wrote:
Yes, exactly. It's not a vocation of mine, after all; I am merely a talented amateur.
She'enedra! *gasp* I do hope you weren't intending to select your harem irresponsibly before you realised the full implications of our impending domestic arrangement! One must take care not to be indiscriminate in these matters! Especially with your weakness; you could get sadly taken advantage of. Not all wolves-in-sheep's-clothing are like Dolly.
xxx
Me:
*Gasps in horror at the near disaster*
Oh, she'enedra! What was I thinking; I was going to marry for plushness and affection, even plushy need, NOT for the world domination plans. Ramachni has set me right on that. I was even considering a plush Tyrannosaurus Rex until Ramachni gently pointed out that short T-Rex arms combined with a massive head were completely useless when it came to world domination. I was crestfallen, but had to acknowledge his point.
What would I do without the two of you - my Gonzo sister-wife and my plush First Mate to keep me focused on the larger goal?
xx
midnight_sidhe wrote:
You would end up with forty-two plush husbands, all of whom were so severely wounded that they would be completely useless in our world domination plans. And you'd spend so much time helping them that you would be too, and this would be a problem, because Gonzo and I are too chaotic neutral to be left in charge and Magick is too prone to getting into complicated affairs with the wives of the wrong cats, and you wouldn't want your poor First Mate left trying to keep the rest of us in line, now would you?
While I agree with Ramachni that T-Rex is not really well-suited to inclusion in your plush-husband stable, may I suggest that there are other respects in which he might be useful? Suppose we need a diversion, say, or just to terrify a group of people. I should think T-Rex would be most useful under such circumstances.
But, you know, I don't think it would be a disaster if some of your mates were chosen for affection and plushy need. No reason to make dynastic sacrifices here; political unions can be problematic.
xxx
When someone gets you well enough to have the above conversation, you don't need serious to know it doesn't get much closer - and it has been one of the deepest friendships I've had - one that has pushed me the hardest, held the space in the darkest of times, kept me real and moved me light-years towards becoming my true self.
And that hard, deep work is only possible because we get each other well enough to discuss human-plush polyandry.
She'enedra - thank you is criminally insufficient, but I think you know the rest without my saying it, which speaks to the essence of this essay more eloquently than anything else I can say.
This one's for you.
Tuesday, 29 November 2011
GC, Day 29 - Men who adore children
I believe I've spoken before of how fathers who are good with their children make me melt faster than butter in the South Asian summer sun. We idealise the Madonna and child, make place mothers up on a pedestal unless their children aren't what we think they should be, then we demonise them. It is always 'mother' as parent, the father is seen as disposable; fatherhood as an extra. We tend to see men as unnecessary to the raising of a child - whether as a father, uncle, or simply a close family friend, an adult male role model. We're more likely to be suspicious of them, to expect them to harm our children rather than parent them.
How very wrong we are.
I suppose I'm not deeply moved by mothers who are good with their children because we expect that, and because I'm deeply maternal - for me, that's to be expected, so I don't find it remarkable.
But men who adore kids? For whom children are as much of a vocation as they are for me? That makes it really hard to breathe and not cry in public.
It isn't simply because of cultural expectations here - it's because I am very aware that if I had had the chance, I would very much have been a daddy's girl. That has been painfully clear in the way I've worked through issues in my life: I've almost never been without a surrogate father, all of whom have been the most amazing men and instrumental in my healing.
So when I see a dad holding his daughter's giant stuffed duck and walking down the pavement at her 3-year-old pace, holding a serious conversation with her? I slow down and blink away tears, silently blessing him for being the man he is. When I see this father davening with his little girl in his arms (at 3:33)? I'm usually alone, so I do cry. And put the video on repeat a few times. When I hear dads taking their children's claims that the teacher thought they were a superhero/muppet/monster seriously? I could kiss them.
Fathers who are dads, who love their children fiercely and will allow them to unfold into themselves, not who they want their child to be, are absolutely incredible. Those of you who take lone wolflings like me under your paws and raise me through your classes and through your love and friendship, you save lives - and I don't even know how to begin to thank you.
But the men who aren't dads and love children deeply and fiercely; who would fall at the first ditch for a child; for whom there is, as of yet, no 'my children' and 'their children' - but only 'my children'? And for whom you suspect that even when they have children of their own, all children will still be 'my children', because children are their vocation, in the true sense of the word?
There just aren't words.
One of my good friends is just such a man. I remember when I first saw him with a friend's daughter - who clearly adored him - and felt myself choke up. I expected him to be good with children. What I hadn't quite expected was for him to become incandescent and truly step into himself, or that I would see a profound paternal instinct.
Even now, when it is completely expected, it is a joy to see him with children: the mutual adoration, the naturalness, the playfulness always make me smile. I've seen his mask drop as he lifted a little one above his head and watched him drop an adult conversation in a heartbeat to kneel on the pavement to speak to a little one in distress, his attention wholly on her. Every child knows they are utterly safe with him and seeing that, I know the child in me is safe with him as well.
There's the crux of it - with men who adore children, who can truly be with children, that vulnerable part of us is safe too. When we think of holding that vulnerable part in others as 'woman's work' - in the same way we think of parenting or nurturing - we rob men of this vital part of themselves, this ability to love and be loved unconditionally, and force them into hard exoskeletons that limit their growth into the narrow role that society prescribes them. Then we complain that they can't express their emotions/deal with their anger constructively/be responsible/parent children. All this after we start them off with 'boys don't cry' and telling a 5 year old to 'man up' when he's afraid or when he's fallen and hurt himself.
Is it any wonder so many of our young men are in such trouble?
So I give thanks for these men who aren't afraid to love and nurture openly - because we ALL need them to: as our fathers, brothers, friends, mentors, lovers, co-workers, leaders...fellow human beings.
How very wrong we are.
I suppose I'm not deeply moved by mothers who are good with their children because we expect that, and because I'm deeply maternal - for me, that's to be expected, so I don't find it remarkable.
But men who adore kids? For whom children are as much of a vocation as they are for me? That makes it really hard to breathe and not cry in public.
It isn't simply because of cultural expectations here - it's because I am very aware that if I had had the chance, I would very much have been a daddy's girl. That has been painfully clear in the way I've worked through issues in my life: I've almost never been without a surrogate father, all of whom have been the most amazing men and instrumental in my healing.
So when I see a dad holding his daughter's giant stuffed duck and walking down the pavement at her 3-year-old pace, holding a serious conversation with her? I slow down and blink away tears, silently blessing him for being the man he is. When I see this father davening with his little girl in his arms (at 3:33)? I'm usually alone, so I do cry. And put the video on repeat a few times. When I hear dads taking their children's claims that the teacher thought they were a superhero/muppet/monster seriously? I could kiss them.
Fathers who are dads, who love their children fiercely and will allow them to unfold into themselves, not who they want their child to be, are absolutely incredible. Those of you who take lone wolflings like me under your paws and raise me through your classes and through your love and friendship, you save lives - and I don't even know how to begin to thank you.
But the men who aren't dads and love children deeply and fiercely; who would fall at the first ditch for a child; for whom there is, as of yet, no 'my children' and 'their children' - but only 'my children'? And for whom you suspect that even when they have children of their own, all children will still be 'my children', because children are their vocation, in the true sense of the word?
There just aren't words.
One of my good friends is just such a man. I remember when I first saw him with a friend's daughter - who clearly adored him - and felt myself choke up. I expected him to be good with children. What I hadn't quite expected was for him to become incandescent and truly step into himself, or that I would see a profound paternal instinct.
Even now, when it is completely expected, it is a joy to see him with children: the mutual adoration, the naturalness, the playfulness always make me smile. I've seen his mask drop as he lifted a little one above his head and watched him drop an adult conversation in a heartbeat to kneel on the pavement to speak to a little one in distress, his attention wholly on her. Every child knows they are utterly safe with him and seeing that, I know the child in me is safe with him as well.
There's the crux of it - with men who adore children, who can truly be with children, that vulnerable part of us is safe too. When we think of holding that vulnerable part in others as 'woman's work' - in the same way we think of parenting or nurturing - we rob men of this vital part of themselves, this ability to love and be loved unconditionally, and force them into hard exoskeletons that limit their growth into the narrow role that society prescribes them. Then we complain that they can't express their emotions/deal with their anger constructively/be responsible/parent children. All this after we start them off with 'boys don't cry' and telling a 5 year old to 'man up' when he's afraid or when he's fallen and hurt himself.
Is it any wonder so many of our young men are in such trouble?
So I give thanks for these men who aren't afraid to love and nurture openly - because we ALL need them to: as our fathers, brothers, friends, mentors, lovers, co-workers, leaders...fellow human beings.
Monday, 28 November 2011
GC, Day 28 - Ocean
We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch - we are going back from whence we came. --John F. Kennedy
As those of you who have kept up with my gratitude challenge know, there have been some pretty intense blog entries recently - so today, I thought I'd keep it simple - ish.
For as long as I can remember, I have been drawn to the sea - I loved our trips to Virginia Beach when I was young and have sought it ever since - though I have ended up as far as it is possible to be from the water on this island.
By the sea - and I am particularly fond of the ocean in winter - I find myself. I find peace, perspective and re-find my rhythm. I feel wrapped in its vastness, renewed in its depth, and a part returning to its whole.
And I am reminded that I am not one to walk cautiously along the shore, travelling by landmark:
I would not creep along the coast but steer out in mid-sea, by guidance of the stars. --George Eliot
Sunday, 27 November 2011
GC, Day 27 - for having been suicidal
Yes, you read that right. I am, years later, grateful for having been so deeply in the darkness that I put my leg over the railing of my 8th floor balcony one cold December night. More than once.
As I stood there, sobbing, lost in the icy hell of isolation, fragmentation and pain born of a difficult year that I thought I would never see the end of, a thought - one that felt like another's voice - went through my head: "What right do you have to take yourself out of anyone else's life? How do you know where you will be in 10 years?" A bit hard, perhaps, but exactly what was needed to end the crisis.
This entry, like several others, was shifted by current events: today, the apparent suicide of Gary Speed. My heart broke as I read the news stories, having a sense of where he must have been to take such a decision and thinking of those left behind in a shock and grief that will have its own unique shards of glass working their way through one's heart at unexpected times for the longest time.
What struck me was the pictures. So many photographers had caught the pain on his face, the sense of being lost, but no one had seen it - and why would one? He was young, talented, successful, respected, famous - he had seemed happy only the afternoon before. And we hide it so very well. No one had the remotest idea how bad I was then, or the odd time since.
So why am I grateful for having been in this place of unremitting darkness, as hostile as the Antarctic winter, with ferocious winds and no shelter in sight?
Because it changed me profoundly. Once one has been to that place, one is never the same again: either one chooses to exit the world above and enter Hades' kingdom, or one turns back from the gates and returns, blinking in the light, transformed - and like Talamir after the loss of his first Companion, Taver, never quite belonging to the world above ever again.
Some of the gifts emerge from that no longer quite belonging above - the ability to see past what is expected: I can look at pictures of supposedly happy events, pictures on which others type 'Great photo! You must be so happy!', and, if it is present, see the sadness, the pain, the anger, the sense of being trapped. It is easier to see what is real, because one knows what so often lies beneath...
...and what lies ahead: death - my own - is no longer frightening, though I'm still terrified of those I love dying. That it will come, I know, and that is absolutely fine. I don't need to resist the knowledge or the process, and that allows me to live a fuller life.
Part of living that life to the full, and one of the greatest gifts, is being able to keep company with others through their Antarctic storms - to trudge with them, to sit through the blizzard, to hold them through it - without fear, because it is a familiar landscape, a home away from home. Someone who has been there can be trusted with that, can hold the space, can be believed when they say that the storm will end, even at the time of its greatest fury.
To be there, to be trusted to sit with another in the time of their greatest darkness, is a privilege beyond words.
To be unafraid to enter the deepest pain fully and freely, without getting lost, knowing that one can make the trek and return, both for oneself and as a witness for others, is the most precious of gifts:
And a woman spoke, saying, "Tell us of Pain."
And he said:
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.
Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.
Being able to enter pain fully brings gifts we cannot even begin to imagine - and so that first Antarctic storm that brought such gifts in its wake keeps bringing more through its first gift.
To Gary Speed, Lou de Misa, and so many others who chose to open those gates and walk through them, requiescite in pace and blessed be, and these words of Kahlil Gibran are ours to you:
Sons of my ancient mother, you riders of the tides,
How often have you sailed in my dreams. And now you come in my awakening, which is my deeper dream.
Ready am I to go, and my eagerness with sails full set awaits the wind.
Only another breath will I breathe in this still air, only another loving look cast backward,
Then I shall stand among you, a seafarer among seafarers.
To those who also turned away from the gates - and we always know eachother, don't we, by the look - welcome back, blessed be, and there is much work to be done, and so many to be with. Let us begin.
To those now in their Antarctic storm, feeling alone, unable to see, with the ferocious wind in your face - know that we are here. Even across the world, we reach for you, we sit with you, even if you do not know us or cannot see us. Whatever choice you make, we will witness for you and bless you on your way, walking with you as far as we can.
If you choose to turn your back at the gates and come back, I can tell you this:
We will be here, and the day will dawn - at first the faintest blush on the horizon, and it will emerge differently for each one of you, but the light will come.
That's a promise.
As I stood there, sobbing, lost in the icy hell of isolation, fragmentation and pain born of a difficult year that I thought I would never see the end of, a thought - one that felt like another's voice - went through my head: "What right do you have to take yourself out of anyone else's life? How do you know where you will be in 10 years?" A bit hard, perhaps, but exactly what was needed to end the crisis.
This entry, like several others, was shifted by current events: today, the apparent suicide of Gary Speed. My heart broke as I read the news stories, having a sense of where he must have been to take such a decision and thinking of those left behind in a shock and grief that will have its own unique shards of glass working their way through one's heart at unexpected times for the longest time.
What struck me was the pictures. So many photographers had caught the pain on his face, the sense of being lost, but no one had seen it - and why would one? He was young, talented, successful, respected, famous - he had seemed happy only the afternoon before. And we hide it so very well. No one had the remotest idea how bad I was then, or the odd time since.
So why am I grateful for having been in this place of unremitting darkness, as hostile as the Antarctic winter, with ferocious winds and no shelter in sight?
Because it changed me profoundly. Once one has been to that place, one is never the same again: either one chooses to exit the world above and enter Hades' kingdom, or one turns back from the gates and returns, blinking in the light, transformed - and like Talamir after the loss of his first Companion, Taver, never quite belonging to the world above ever again.
Some of the gifts emerge from that no longer quite belonging above - the ability to see past what is expected: I can look at pictures of supposedly happy events, pictures on which others type 'Great photo! You must be so happy!', and, if it is present, see the sadness, the pain, the anger, the sense of being trapped. It is easier to see what is real, because one knows what so often lies beneath...
...and what lies ahead: death - my own - is no longer frightening, though I'm still terrified of those I love dying. That it will come, I know, and that is absolutely fine. I don't need to resist the knowledge or the process, and that allows me to live a fuller life.
Part of living that life to the full, and one of the greatest gifts, is being able to keep company with others through their Antarctic storms - to trudge with them, to sit through the blizzard, to hold them through it - without fear, because it is a familiar landscape, a home away from home. Someone who has been there can be trusted with that, can hold the space, can be believed when they say that the storm will end, even at the time of its greatest fury.
To be there, to be trusted to sit with another in the time of their greatest darkness, is a privilege beyond words.
To be unafraid to enter the deepest pain fully and freely, without getting lost, knowing that one can make the trek and return, both for oneself and as a witness for others, is the most precious of gifts:
And a woman spoke, saying, "Tell us of Pain."
And he said:
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.
Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.
Being able to enter pain fully brings gifts we cannot even begin to imagine - and so that first Antarctic storm that brought such gifts in its wake keeps bringing more through its first gift.
To Gary Speed, Lou de Misa, and so many others who chose to open those gates and walk through them, requiescite in pace and blessed be, and these words of Kahlil Gibran are ours to you:
Sons of my ancient mother, you riders of the tides,
How often have you sailed in my dreams. And now you come in my awakening, which is my deeper dream.
Ready am I to go, and my eagerness with sails full set awaits the wind.
Only another breath will I breathe in this still air, only another loving look cast backward,
Then I shall stand among you, a seafarer among seafarers.
To those who also turned away from the gates - and we always know eachother, don't we, by the look - welcome back, blessed be, and there is much work to be done, and so many to be with. Let us begin.
To those now in their Antarctic storm, feeling alone, unable to see, with the ferocious wind in your face - know that we are here. Even across the world, we reach for you, we sit with you, even if you do not know us or cannot see us. Whatever choice you make, we will witness for you and bless you on your way, walking with you as far as we can.
If you choose to turn your back at the gates and come back, I can tell you this:
We will be here, and the day will dawn - at first the faintest blush on the horizon, and it will emerge differently for each one of you, but the light will come.
That's a promise.
Saturday, 26 November 2011
GC, Day 26 - Stuffed animals at my volunteer placement
One of the more unusual things I am grateful for is the plethora of stuffed animals at the place where I do my volunteer counselling. I'm not easily given to playful, silly behaviour - so anything that gives me a push in that direction is a fabulous thing - especially as I DO have a well-developed imagination. Here is what happened at times I didn't have clients - your captions in comments...
A good friend of mine saw this last one and asked why the MC was in bondage gear, assuming it was a mutual acquaintance. I gave a snappy answer, but didn't have the heart - well, maybe it was the guts, knowing what might follow - to tell him *I* was the one doing the MCing in this tableau.
I'd love to know what someone psychoanalysing me would think...
A good friend of mine saw this last one and asked why the MC was in bondage gear, assuming it was a mutual acquaintance. I gave a snappy answer, but didn't have the heart - well, maybe it was the guts, knowing what might follow - to tell him *I* was the one doing the MCing in this tableau.
I'd love to know what someone psychoanalysing me would think...
Friday, 25 November 2011
GC, Day 25 - Those who know
Very rarely, you find a friend who knows what you need before you do. You know, the friend who gives you a present or a chocolate bar at work that's exactly what you need.
Today, I received this gorgeous gift from one of those friends who knows. I'd been toying with buying a journal, so any journal would have been wonderful.
But this - this journal was perfect, though it wasn't one I would have chosen for myself. The friend who gave this to me saw me clearly enough to see what I rarely express: a deeply sensual side; the ornate; a rich explosion of colour; lush tropical flowers. Sheer indulgence. I can completely see myself as the woman with her peacock (which is what we decided it was) losing herself in the sensual joy of the moment.
This is one journal I will be writing in - because it is totally, utterly me...
...though I didn't know that until I saw it.
For those who see the gifts in us that we cannot - or dare not - see in ourselves, and place them in our hands - we give thanks.
Thursday, 24 November 2011
GC, Day 24 - Anne McCaffrey
Again, my planned entry has been put on hold due to a current event - which seems to be the way of things at the moment.
Just in the last few minutes, I have heard of the death of one of the first (still a favourite) fantasy authors I ever read: Anne McCaffrey. And a part of my childhood - well, adolescence - died with her.
I remember the first time I picked up one of her books - The White Dragon, third in her Dragonriders of Pern series. I was in the Middle School library on a Friday, and my eye was caught by a...white dragon. I checked it out and took it home, planning to start it as soon as I'd done my homework.
One of the things that you need to know is that I wasn't allowed to read for pleasure: I was only allowed to read textbooks and books on our summer reading lists. The rationale was that reading for pleasure would 'distract' me from 'real' work, and thus lower my grades. To a child who had loved to read for as long as she can remember, this was torture...
...but a brilliant way of developing resourcefulness: I hid books in drawers under clothes, under my bed, in my bookbag, under my MATTRESS, behind things on closet shelves, under things in desk drawers, in the basement - I cannot even TELL you how many ways I found to hide books or how many I had hidden at once.
The White Dragon was no exception.
Well, except that I couldn't put it down, and nearly got caught with it in my Geography book (sorry, Mr Caussin!) more than once that weekend. I was immediately drawn to Jaxom, accidentally Impressing a runt albino dragon; trying to come into his own through a rocky adolescence; wanting to fight danger on his own; falling critically ill when he is so close to proving himself.
And Ruth. Well. LOVE!!!! And he couldn't just travel where, he could travel WHEN! (This was novelty, as it was before I met Dr Who.) It was the first time I was introduced to an intense telepathic, unconditionally loving bond between two characters, and the fact that one of them was a dragon (a mythical animal I'd sneakily loved for ages) just rocked my world. I was desperate to Impress one.
I was hooked - fascinated by this world which had moved backwards technologically. I vividly imagined my self in Jaxom's world, with F'lar and Lessa; Piemur struggling after his voice broke; Menolly and Sebell; Robinton and Lytol. I picked up all the books in the series I could find and wrapped myself in this world so different from, yet so like, our own; imagined what it would be like to have a bond like the one Riders shared with their dragons; lived their joys and sorrows.
Pern felt like home in a way the world I lived in never had.
And to this day, Brekke's heart-wrenching, soul-ripping cry to F'nor, 'Don't! DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE!' haunts the occasional dream - and if I'm honest, waking moment.
This world, which led me to others I also love dearly - the Deryni and Valdemar - brought me sanctuary and gave me space to begin to explore who I was through the characters I identified most closely with; those I wanted as friends and family; having imaginary chats about my problems with a dragon; allowing their emotions to channel my own.
Though I left when I grew older, Pern has always been in my blood; Robinton's song in my heart.
I think it may be time to return, even as its creator has left us: Anne McCaffrey, requiescat in pace.
For Pern's creator - and the creator of so many wonderful worlds (I came to the Rowan's world much later) and sanctuary of my adolescence - I give thanks.
Wednesday, 23 November 2011
GC, Day 23 - Self-help books
I have a confession to make. I love self-help books. They've taken a beating over the years, and there are some seriously shite ones out there (though they're often worth a laugh) - but there are some godsends (my favourite being Clarissa Pinkola Estes' Women who run with the wolves). Pema Chodron rocks my world, as does Jack Kornfield - which tells you a great deal about my style. I meld well with books that have a spiritual foundation with exercises that I can try. Most recently, Stephen Cope's A seeker's guide to extraordinary living paired with Pema's The places that scare you has facilitated a profound shift that I'll be feeling the effects of for years.
Some people need classes and a lot of sensory input. I need the big picture, time to think and be alone with it and figure out how it works for me. I need to play before I can bring it to a group and move to the next step.
Self-help books are perfect for my way of learning. The deal is that you take what works for you, leave the rest - it may either settle and work for you later, or just not work at all, and that's fine - and keep a sense of humour and perspective. If you start making it a religion, game - and self-help - over.
Thus, I would like to thank Giovanni della Casa for kicking off the Western self-help book with this bit of wisdom:
It is also an unpleasant habit to lift another person's wine or his food to your nose and smell it.
Indeed.
Tuesday, 22 November 2011
GC, Day 22 - Letting go
A few weeks ago, my second cousin in Pakistan told me that my parents would be visiting him for Eid. I'm not sure what made me ask, but I requested that he take some photographs and send them on. It was curiosity, in part, but I think part of me also wanted confirmation that I had made the right decision.
Pics were taken, C popped online yesterday, promising to email the pics. This morning, my smartphone claimed several emails had arrived. I scrolled through, and my heart skipped a beat when I saw the promised one. What would I feel on seeing the pictures? What did they look like? Did they know the pics were being taken for me?
I got into work, waited for Outlook to start up my work account, loaded my personal one and clicked on the first picture.
From left to right: Uncle Zafar (mother's brother who, in an irreverent moment, I thought looked like a South Asian Mennonite), my mother, my father. I haven't spoken to them in 7 years; I haven't seen them in over 10.
I have always read pictures - you can give me one picture from a wedding or an ordination, and I can tell you if the couple or ordinand should have gone there; give me a set, and we'll be talking dynamics very quickly. I drink pictures in; they're the next best thing to real people-watching. It is this habit of mine that makes me so cautious in pictures - I know how easy it is to read people in them if you are not invested in things being a certain way: an event being happy; a pillar of society being good.
But what of these pictures, ones in which I have such emotional investment? I am struck by the deep unhappiness in my mother's eyes, but not surprised - I saw that coming when I was young. I find myself wanting to reassure her, but not touch her or get too close to her. I can't quite trust the rage behind the...'checked out' feeling; the sense that she missed out on happiness, on living, despite having had a materially comfortable life. I ache for her, but I don't think I can be in relationship with her, not yet, perhaps not ever. Not unexpected.
What is more unexpected is my father's uncertainty, the sense of being lost which emanates, never apparent behind his perpetual rage - and the frailty of the man who was always bigger than I was, stronger. He is frozen in his prime to me, in his strength, his 30s and 40s, though I am suddenly flooded with memories of moments of weariness when his head was in his hands. I remember being told of his sisters' deaths by another member of his family, and of his closeness to at least one of them - even now, I am only almost certain there were two, and not one, for he would never speak of a sister.
Suddenly, I realise that he has kept losing the women in his life: his sisters, his wife through a loveless marriage and, by not being able to love her, his daughter. It breaks my heart. But what shocks me is the overwhelming desire to hold my father until he finally cries. And I understand why I've chased the men I've chased - those in whom I see the frightened little boy they protect by assuming a persona of anger and rigid control, with the occasional addiction; men I need to save. I understand why I find male grief unbearable, why it overwhelms me. I couldn't save the first man in my life or ease his pain; maybe easing the pain of all the others will make that feeling of helplessness end. Finally, I can stop chasing, stop trying to save those I cannot.
I want to understand my mother too; want to feel for her as I do my father, but the sense of betrayal is deeper and more complex - and that's okay. It is enough (and a huge step) that I want to speak to her, to reassure her. That is what it needs to be.
So I find that the two people I have spent my life trying to get away from are the two people I find myself wanting to heal. I finally understand that though my experience of them was and is very real, I don't need to hold on to the story of them as irredeemable. They can simply be people who were twisted by anger, in whom there was no room for self-awareness and love, who suffered a very human tragedy they were never able to escape. What they gave me was beyond measure: an ability to be in the darkness, to know that I can overcome anything, a drive to grow beyond the trap they lived, a hunger for freedom for myself and others, to make sure no one in my circle ever feels alone and unloved.
And I am free. Free to love deeply and intensely in the way that I know I can, that I know I need to. Free to parent children without the fear of becoming my parents. Free from believing that I am unloved and unlovable - something my friends have proven to be a lie for years, yet something I never felt until now, because I realise that the way I've reacted to the pictures is the way only a person who loves and can be loved reacts.
There is a spaciousness, a place waiting to be filled where the story and its attendant emotions of anger and pain used to reside - but I don't feel the need to fill it. I light a candle to Our Lady in gratitude and know it is time to be still, to be with this in love.
So I breathe, close my eyes, and move easily into Hoʻoponopono, picturing my parents and repeating, 'I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you...'
...and wait for what dreams may come.
Monday, 21 November 2011
GC, Day 21 - Detachment
Today, a carefully planned, very important meeting for tomorrow completely fell apart. I was surrounded by frustration, anger, tension.
And I wasn't bothered. I was frustrated about certain things, but I felt like the drama was happening at a distance. My usual wont is to absorb all the feelings and then return them in some fashion, get caught up in it, even get off on the adrenaline.
Today - nothing. I did what needed doing, but felt remarkably calm throughout. I rather thought it might be a blessing in disguise. Something similar happened a few weeks ago when a friend's unexpected reaction knocked me for six, but I managed to pause, breathe and react to the person I know and love, not the words of a moment.
Suddenly, I've turned around to find that I'm beginning to act out of stillness. Oh, sure, I still go off on one. Yes, I still say things to catalyse a situation or to shock. But more and more often, I'm finding that instead of going full-tilt into a charged conversation - very much the way one had to deal with my father - I'm pulling back, slowing it down.
And I'm discovering that - contrary to what I'd been afraid of - it doesn't mean that I'm less passionate or less intense. I'm still loud, expressive, can talk a hind leg off a donkey and gesture a lot - that's not ever going to change. It simply means the energy isn't wasted the way it was when I'd go full tilt - lashing out, into an argument, political discussion, etc. It's channelled. Moving from stillness doesn't mean I'm boring, or lacking vibrancy, colour or passion: it means I'm beginning to use it well.
Apparently, the spiritual practice that I've been doing not-as-well-or-as-regularly-as-I-might has been working more-than-I-deserve.
SCORE!
And I wasn't bothered. I was frustrated about certain things, but I felt like the drama was happening at a distance. My usual wont is to absorb all the feelings and then return them in some fashion, get caught up in it, even get off on the adrenaline.
Today - nothing. I did what needed doing, but felt remarkably calm throughout. I rather thought it might be a blessing in disguise. Something similar happened a few weeks ago when a friend's unexpected reaction knocked me for six, but I managed to pause, breathe and react to the person I know and love, not the words of a moment.
Suddenly, I've turned around to find that I'm beginning to act out of stillness. Oh, sure, I still go off on one. Yes, I still say things to catalyse a situation or to shock. But more and more often, I'm finding that instead of going full-tilt into a charged conversation - very much the way one had to deal with my father - I'm pulling back, slowing it down.
And I'm discovering that - contrary to what I'd been afraid of - it doesn't mean that I'm less passionate or less intense. I'm still loud, expressive, can talk a hind leg off a donkey and gesture a lot - that's not ever going to change. It simply means the energy isn't wasted the way it was when I'd go full tilt - lashing out, into an argument, political discussion, etc. It's channelled. Moving from stillness doesn't mean I'm boring, or lacking vibrancy, colour or passion: it means I'm beginning to use it well.
Apparently, the spiritual practice that I've been doing not-as-well-or-as-regularly-as-I-might has been working more-than-I-deserve.
SCORE!
Sunday, 20 November 2011
GC, Day 20 - Baileys
Baileys, how do I love thee - let me count the ways:
1. Neat, neat, neat. NO ICE. EVER.
2. On cheap vanilla ice cream.
3. In coffee.
4. In a milkshake.
5. As part of an Orgasm.
6. In cocktails.
7. Did I say neat?
I was raised Muslim, so I never expected to drink. After the rum and Coke made by LLM, it was years before I actually tried another drink - Baileys - on the suggestion of a friend - at the Four Provinces Pub on Connecticut Ave: I was hooked after the first sip. For a while, it was all I would drink, then I tried it in cocktails, tried Midori, and moved into wine, but never quite made it to beer - unless it's strawberry.
But the love of that first sip has never faded, and it's still what I reach for when it's time to celebrate, after a tough week or month, on a night out with friends.
So raise your glass if you see God in hidden places,
He's right in front of you...
So raise your glass if you can see the hidden meaning,
it's right in front of you,
we will never be never be anything but proud to tell the story,
v'nahafoch hu
So pour the Baileys, raise your glass - and let's get out there and turn the world upside down.
1. Neat, neat, neat. NO ICE. EVER.
2. On cheap vanilla ice cream.
3. In coffee.
4. In a milkshake.
5. As part of an Orgasm.
6. In cocktails.
7. Did I say neat?
I was raised Muslim, so I never expected to drink. After the rum and Coke made by LLM, it was years before I actually tried another drink - Baileys - on the suggestion of a friend - at the Four Provinces Pub on Connecticut Ave: I was hooked after the first sip. For a while, it was all I would drink, then I tried it in cocktails, tried Midori, and moved into wine, but never quite made it to beer - unless it's strawberry.
But the love of that first sip has never faded, and it's still what I reach for when it's time to celebrate, after a tough week or month, on a night out with friends.
So raise your glass if you see God in hidden places,
He's right in front of you...
So raise your glass if you can see the hidden meaning,
it's right in front of you,
we will never be never be anything but proud to tell the story,
v'nahafoch hu
So pour the Baileys, raise your glass - and let's get out there and turn the world upside down.
Saturday, 19 November 2011
GC, Day 19 - IM in all forms
Facebook chat, gchat, Skype, AIM, MSN Messenger: for all these, I am grateful, because I can stay connected.
I've cried, laughed, railed, discussed everything from politics and ethics to setting the world to rights, thanks to each one of these IM programmes. And I've gotten to do it in real time with people I might not otherwise get to talk to, except via email.
Yes, email is nice, but correspondence will never evolve the way a real-time talk will. They are truly special. I can even pretend, if I have a glass of wine, that it's an evening out with a friend across the pond that I haven't seen in years.
Do I not get enough sleep? Quite often. But so worth it to keep the connection that is the lifeblood of friendships.
It's good to talk. Now I just need to set up the webcam...
I've cried, laughed, railed, discussed everything from politics and ethics to setting the world to rights, thanks to each one of these IM programmes. And I've gotten to do it in real time with people I might not otherwise get to talk to, except via email.
Yes, email is nice, but correspondence will never evolve the way a real-time talk will. They are truly special. I can even pretend, if I have a glass of wine, that it's an evening out with a friend across the pond that I haven't seen in years.
Do I not get enough sleep? Quite often. But so worth it to keep the connection that is the lifeblood of friendships.
It's good to talk. Now I just need to set up the webcam...
Friday, 18 November 2011
GC, Day 18 - A free lunch
This week has been one where I am just beyond tired and cranky with humanity, though I've managed to keep up the gratitude challenge, even if I didn't start writing before 2300.
This weekend isn't much better, as I had a supervision today, a 90 minute Management Committee teleconference for my volunteer organisation, and a training day tomorrow (one I'm looking forward to, but it still means the loss of a lazy Saturday).
And to top it all off, next week is Paz's and Gosia's last week. Serious suckage.
Near the end of what had become a very intense group supervision, I felt my phone vibrate in my jacket pocket. It was only a few minutes before the end, so I waited till I walked out, thinking about what I was going to pick up for lunch.
As soon as I opened the message, I felt myself start to smile, and the spiky cynicism that had been at the surface all week start to ease.
It wasn't a message bringing life-changing happy news, or even a cute animal picture.
It was, quite simply, a text from Paz:
Hey I went to Cairo cafe and have looooadddsss left over so if you want it don't buy lunch!! It's moussaka and rice xx
A simple message of nurture and friendship. Clearly, there IS such a thing as a free lunch.
I went straight back to work and...guess what? Despite offering me half her lunch, Paz half-apologised for it being vegetarian.
*Affectionate eyeroll* P-doodle, it was fabulous. Thank you for taking care of me today, and most days.
And ja, I am going to miss you like hell, chick.
This weekend isn't much better, as I had a supervision today, a 90 minute Management Committee teleconference for my volunteer organisation, and a training day tomorrow (one I'm looking forward to, but it still means the loss of a lazy Saturday).
And to top it all off, next week is Paz's and Gosia's last week. Serious suckage.
Near the end of what had become a very intense group supervision, I felt my phone vibrate in my jacket pocket. It was only a few minutes before the end, so I waited till I walked out, thinking about what I was going to pick up for lunch.
As soon as I opened the message, I felt myself start to smile, and the spiky cynicism that had been at the surface all week start to ease.
It wasn't a message bringing life-changing happy news, or even a cute animal picture.
It was, quite simply, a text from Paz:
Hey I went to Cairo cafe and have looooadddsss left over so if you want it don't buy lunch!! It's moussaka and rice xx
A simple message of nurture and friendship. Clearly, there IS such a thing as a free lunch.
I went straight back to work and...guess what? Despite offering me half her lunch, Paz half-apologised for it being vegetarian.
*Affectionate eyeroll* P-doodle, it was fabulous. Thank you for taking care of me today, and most days.
And ja, I am going to miss you like hell, chick.
Thursday, 17 November 2011
GC, Day 17 - Hands
I have always loved hands - read about that in detail here. (Yes, I know this is a bit of a cheat, but it is true!)
And not least as I watch male friends light up and pull into themselves, revealing a vulnerable side one so rarely sees.
For all hands (and opposable thumbs) do - healing, nurturing, holding, touching a beloved - I give thanks.
And not least as I watch male friends light up and pull into themselves, revealing a vulnerable side one so rarely sees.
For all hands (and opposable thumbs) do - healing, nurturing, holding, touching a beloved - I give thanks.
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
GC, Day 16 - Just in time...
Today, I was sure that I was going to write a very different entry, but a facebook status, posted at 19.45 GMT, changed all that.
Right now, I am simply filled with gratitude that I had the time to say, 'I'm sorry. Thank you. I love you. And I'm here.' It matters not how it is received; whether there is a reply; what that reply may be - it matters simply that she knows.
So easily, it could have been too late.
Thank you.
Right now, I am simply filled with gratitude that I had the time to say, 'I'm sorry. Thank you. I love you. And I'm here.' It matters not how it is received; whether there is a reply; what that reply may be - it matters simply that she knows.
So easily, it could have been too late.
Thank you.
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