Gifting......

This time of year not only marks my birth, but also brings Mother's Day....and with it comes the proverbial question, "What do you want" question from friends and family. My life is so glorious lately and all my emotional, spiritual and financial needs met that there is truly nothing that feels missing, leaving me a little short on answers to the question being posed.

My father lives a rather simple, non-materialistic existence, so it was not an unfamiliar sentiment to hear myself exclaim that I really don't need to be given gifts. It is nice to be in a place of contentment and non-reaching, where truly I am grateful and aware of the bounty life has given. People and relationship are really my most prized gift.

While I have come a long way in my ability to let the negative judgments and opinions of others wash over me like a wave and not even mind getting wet, I've discovered that I am still very vulnerable when it comes to the words of those I carried in my womb. I am beginning to really grasp the complexity of the connection and see that even though the apron strings appear to be cut, there must still be a thousand tiny threads connecting my heart to them in ways that reverberate into my chest like the plucking of an acoustical guitar string straight into the head of a microphone. I suppose the gift being that as each invisable string is struck, it breaks, leaving only the truth of my love where the connection was. I don't want them to pretend I'm perfect or flatter me with false praise, but when my imperfection is placed on the chopping block for conversation.....well, I may as well have been there in person because I felt the knife enter my chest as if I was.

I have come to understand that the judgments that hurt the most are the ones that contain threads of truth that we have already seen ourselves as places we struggle and fall short. It must be the fact that we have ALREADY JUDGED OURSELVES in the same area. So the arrival of the same judgment from another is really only the opening of a PRE-EXISTING, SELF-INFLICTED WOUND that we have failed to adequately dress with compassion and care for ourselves. It is as if we let ourselves bleed, hoping no one will notice the red liquid stain, but when they do, we want to blame the pain on the one who pointed it out so blantantly.

No one is harder on themselves than a mother, and perhaps even more so, single mothers, as we attempt to do the work designed by nature to be attended to by two.

So we try spliting ourselves in half, yet wonder why, at times, we feel fragmented and pulled in opposite directions. Even when we recite the notion to ourselves and others that "we are doing the best we can", inside some part of us really believes we SHOULD be able to do better, and that is little bandage for the bleeding we feel when we worry how our humanness may affect and be seen by our children.

I suppose I thought I had saved myself the pain of feeling split in pieces by consciously choosing to focus, as much as possible, in the few areas I deemed as 'most important' rather than try to be in all of them simultaneously, not realizing there was still pain to be had when someone points and scorns me publicly for the places I rarely inhabit. And I guess, for those who would judge my lack of attendance to certain areas of responsibility, I say, "May you never know for yourself."

Perhaps this is a call for self-compassion. A reminder that ultimately it is our job as parents, single or paired, mother or father, to tend to ourselves equally, if not more carefully than we do those in our charge. To hold ourselves gently as we so clearly see our own limits. May we draw ourselves close to the heart in the lap of the Divine, who gently bids us peace of mind and offers joy in the journey, despite the things that get done but go unnoticed, as well as those left undone and therefore stand like a monument to your limits, waiting for a passerby to notice and do with as they will.


But in everything there is a teaching and a blessing and a chance for healing, and so it is (once again)....even though my ego/mind still likes to revisit the graveyard now and then, even though that is not where 'the heart' lies.

May I share with you the sweet words of John O'Donohue regarding such events....


"Though it's way is to strike
In a dumb rhythm,
Stroke upon stroke,
As though the heart
Were an anvil,
The hurt you sent
Had a mind of it's own.

Something in you knew
Exactly how to shape it,
To hit the target,
Slipping into the heart
Through some wound-window
Left open

While it struck outside
It burrowed inside,
Made tunnels through
Every ground of confidence
For days, it would lie still
Until a thought would start it.

Meanwhile you forgot,
Went on with things
And never even knew
How that perfect
Shape of hurt
Still continued to work.

Now a new kindness
Seems to have entered time
And I can see how that hurt
Has schooled my heart
In a compassion I would
Otherwise have never learned.

Somehow now
I have begun to glimpse
The unexpected fruit
Your dark gift has planted
And I thank you
For your unknown work.



So to those whom I love, who profess to love me, and who ask at the milestones "What do I want?"..... I would say,


Gift me with your presence
Show up fully, but only when you really want to
Not out of obligation or fear of disappointing.

Gift me with your stories
Of joy and pain, for through them you grow
To love life and learn wisdom
And in hearing them from you, I deepen too.
Tell it all, every detail...
What was said, felt and discovered
And how it changed you

Gift me with honesty
Tell me when I hurt or disappoint you
When I make you proud or just that you love me.
Tell me the truth, as you see it,
In me, the world and life
As the unfolding Mystery


Gift me with forgiveness
An honest attempt to give
Not only me, but all you meet
The benefit of the doubt
That even in my faults and frailties
You see the inherent worth and Light of God
Most of all...

Gift me with a chosen silence
When it would be easier to judge
Or you feel you can't resist the urge
To share with another the latest amusing, confusing
Insane thing you saw me do...or refrain from
For time has a way, of bringing all things full circle

Gift me with a compassionate, listening ear
When I seek a witness to my life and experience
And open your heart even wider,
That it may take it ALL in
And love me even more when I most confuse you

Gift me with a place at your table
A phone call just because
An invitation to adventure
And the assurance that
Not a day goes by without a smile lifting your lips
In fondness for memories we have yet to create

Gift me with patience
As time slows my steps
And mind's edges dull
Allow me the dignity and freedom of which I am capable,
But if the time comes that I am not safe or sane enough,
Care for me, as I tried to do for you
when you still fit in my arms
And needed a shoulder to sleep on

Namaste

Have you ever noticed?

That those people in your life who are most uncomfortable with who you are or what you choose are usually the ones who, in their own lives, don't like to 'rock the boat' and something in the way you are living is rocking their boat and they don't like it. Their motto could be 'live and let live', however, it could be called into question whether they are really even living at all or just going through the motions. It makes them uncomfortable (subconsciously) watching you think and act for yourself, consciously. They are most comfortable keeping busy in mindless tasks and diversions, avoiding looking within themselves, lest they should actually glimpse or acknowledge what is REALLY going on INSIDE their own hearts and minds or what the truth of their own life and circumstances are. In the language of co-dependency, it may be said that they don't see or don't want to see the elephant in the living room and heaven forbid you say it out loud or especially choose to live a life with no elephants.

We are all a mixed bag of black and white, darkness and light, good and evil yet we live in a culture that wants to live 24/7 only in the white, light, good part of life; fearing the other side of ourselves and others. What I have discovered is that when I accepted those darker aspects I had been pushing away and fearing, they were not near as dreadful as I had been told they would be. When I invited them in with compassion and acceptance, they brought unexpected lightness and beauty into my life. My sensuality brought creativity, my wrinkles brought wisdom.

Meister Eckhart says that "One of the most subversive and amazing theings that can happen to a human being is the birth of God in the soul." Once that birthing happens and the divine awakens within you, that is the most divine invitation to creativity.

John O'Donohue says that 'Imagination is the great friend of possibility and when imagination is alive possibility is awakened, alert and ready to go. When your imagination really opens to something you have it in a way that you will never lose it again. Things that you truly, deeply live and experience and open to never leave you." He goes on to say that "the imagination is just like sex, and spirituality is just like sex. It is the most intimate opening and entering and receiving." I expect that those who compose music or write would testify that it is truly like conceiving and giving birth to something.

I would propose that much of our growth and maturity come from the dark, unexpected, messy things that show up in our lives. Years ago I was living a very safe, careful life when a man showed up that I knew, instinctively, could and would break my heart in a million pieces. Not only was he unconventional, but his life was certainly messy. I kept pushing him away and rationalizing away the feelings I had for him as not safe or good for me. I wished him away so often he should have been invisible. Nevertheless he would not go away. One afternoon at the beach, I found myself missing him so deeply I felt a deep ache in my chest. Apparently all of the talking myself out of it and facts made no sense to my heart. As I sat in the sand I opened my palms to the sky and asked a simple question, the answer to which rocked my world like no other....and made me wish I'd never asked. I think I asked, "Why is he here and what am I supposed to do?" Have you ever received an answer in prayer/meditation that you got in literally an instant, yet when you explain it to someone else, it may to take minutes to convey? Well, it happened to me that day, and what I was told was so true that if I were to deny it, I would also have to deny the existence of gravity. It's truth pierced me to the core, and yet defied all logic in the everyday world. I was told, "Valerie, you've always been really safe with your heart and with love in your life, and really, has it helped at all? Has it really ever gotten you anywhere? The last few years of your life have been about learning to love others unconditionally, and you've got that. Now......it's time to learn to LET YOURSELF BE LOVED UNCONDITIONALLY. He is here and he loves you. You let him love you."

More later........