If your hands, arms, and shoulders ache from long hours at the computer, you might glean good information by reading Ergoblog, a well-executed site that reviews the latest keyboards and desk chairs, and discusses the possible relationship between stress injuries and food allergies.
A full-spectrum, vitamin-B supplement has helped my tendonitis somewhat, and discipling myself to never, never blog on the portable computer at the dining room table, (where the table height is all wrong, and the keyboard is too small) has been helpful too.
Additionally, I'm loving Microsoft's Ergo Keyboard 4000 right now. And this DVD of hand and arm exercises is excellent. Here's a longer blog post on the subject. I also correct my children's posture when they're at the computer and when they'll let me. It's my belief that if I weren't the Music Man, there'd be trouble in River City.
This Friday, February 2nd is Candlemas, the Roman Catholic "Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord," when priests bless candles before the Mass.
O holy Lord, almighty Father, eternal God...thou hast commanded the bees to produce this liquid of wax which has been made into a perfect candle...Deign to bless and sanctify these candles for human use, for the welfare of body and soul both on land and on water...As these tapers burn with visible fire and dispel the darkness of night, so may our hearts with the help of thy grace be enlightened by the invisible fire of the splendor of the Holy Ghost, and may be free from all blindness of sin. Clarify the eyes of our minds that we may see what is pleasing to thee and conducive to our salvation. After the dark perils of this life let us be worthy to reach the eternal light.
--Prayer Source: Holyday Book, The by Francis X. Weiser, S.J., Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc., New York, 1956.
You can also see this day as a good time to welcome the returning light of spring by lighting every candle in your house and blessing their light in the presence of your family. Waverly Fitzgerald of School of the Seasons sees Candlemas as a fine time to solidify New Year's resolutions and pledges. Click here to participate in her Candlemas Pledge, where you can articulate how you want to live, change, or help bring more light to the world (since we were recently on that subject).
Environmental activists have arranged the micro blackout to coincide with the release of a major report--which some predict will be dire--on the current state of global warming.
Yesterday's blog post about John Mayer's hit song "Waiting for the World to Change" inspired a great conversation on how it currently feels to be stuck with the world as it is (most obviously stuck with the Iraq War). Reader Kannbrown65 wrote:
"Well, to be fair, the song is specifically about the 'Iraq War.' And, if you're one of the people who never supported it, who voted against those who did support it, and watched two election cycles of being, literally, ignored... that is the sort of thing that is fueling the song. It is hard to 'be the change,' when the change is more than a mindset, but an actual, physical action that is taking place now... And it's partly mirrored by the recent poll, where a majority of Americans were noted as just 'waiting for the Bush presidency to be over.'"
Then this came in from reader Khoffmaster:
"YES, WE SHOULD BE ACTIVE TO TRY AND CHANGE THE WORLD, BUT...YOU TRY AND TRY AND IT JUST DOESN'T SEEM TO CHANGE. SO ESSENTIALLY YOU ARE WAITING FOR THE WORLD TO CHANGE EVEN IF YOU ARE ACTIVELY TRYING TO CHANGE IT. PLUS, HE IS RIGHT, MY GENERATION IS GOING TO SOMEDAY INHERIT THIS WORLD AND IT SEEMS AS IF IT WILL BE A FRUITLESS ATTEMPT TO CHANGE IT IF IT CAN'T EVEN CHANGE A LITTLE NOW. IT WILL BE A HARD REALITY TO DEAL WITH WHEN WE HAVE TO MAKE THE DECISIONS."
I understand the feelings completely. I often feel helpless myself, and I daily witness the anger rising in my twelve-year-old who keeps lamenting in the car coming home from school that my generation has so screwed up the world that it will take his whole lifetime to rearrange its priorities. If we all get to live. ( I do seem to recall saying the same thing to my parents, though the situation today, I agree, seems worse.)
So how can one change the world with a landscape of profound helplessness and anger as a backdrop? Spiritual teachers don't always seem reliable since they banter on and on about finding bliss in the "now" moment. Well, what if this "now" sucks?
Meditation teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn says--true to form--that we've got to be at one with the despair, at one with the horror when it's there. This is different from being disengaged, and waiting for the world to change. This is more active. This is useful, passionate anger. He writes:
"Meditation is... about allowing yourself to be exactly where you are and as you are, and for the world to be exactly as it is in this moment as well. This is not so easy, since there is always something that we can rightly find fault with if we stay inside our thinking. And so there tends to be great resistance on the part of the mind and body to settle into things just as they are, even for a moment. That resistance to what is may be even more compounded if we are meditating because we hope that by doing so, we can effect change, make things different, improve our own lives, and contribute to improving the lot of the world."
"That doesn't mean that your aspirations to effect positive change, make things different and improve your life and the lot of the world are inappropriate. Those are all very real possibilities. Just by meditating, by sitting down and being still, you can change yourself and the world. In fact, just by sitting down and being still, in a small but not insignificant way, you already have.
"But the paradox is that you can only change yourself or the world if you get out of your own way for a moment, and give yourself over and trust in allowing things to be as they already are, without pursuing anything, especially goals that are products of your thinking. Einstein put it quite cogently: “The p
roblems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.” Implication: We need to develop and refine our mind and its capacities for seeing and knowing, for recognizing and transcending whatever motives and concepts and habits of unawareness may have generated or compounded the difficulties we find ourselves embroiled within, a mind that knows and sees in new ways, that is motivated differently. This is the same as saying we need to return to our original, untouched, unconditioned mind.
"How can we do this? Precisely by taking a moment to get out of our own way, to get outside of the stream of thought and sit by the bank and rest for a while in things as they are underneath our thinking, or as Soen Sa Nim liked to say, “before thinking.” That means being with what is for a moment, and trusting what is deepest and best in yourself, even if it doesn't make any sense to the thinking mind. Since you are far more than the sum of your thoughts and ideas and opinions, including your thoughts of who you are and of the world and the stories and explanations you tell yourself about all that, dropping in on the bare experience of the present moment is actually dropping in on just the qualities you may be hoping to cultivate -- because they all come out of awareness, and it is awareness that we fall into when we stop trying to get somewhere or to have a special feeling and allow ourselves to be where we are and with whatever we are feeling right now. Awareness itself is the teacher, the student, and the lesson..."
CM reader Lilit Marcus mentioned the Michael Jackson song "Man in the Mirror" as the musical antidote to "Waiting for the World to Change."(The Jackson YouTube.com link I've given you here gets particularly terrific when the gospel choir walks out on stage.) This song definitely ranks as one of my favorite getting-up-to-face-the-world songs. Here are some lyrics, and here's a link to the whole piece as written and composed by Siedah Garrett and Glen Ballard.
I'm starting with the man in the mirror I'm asking him to change his ways And no message could have been any clearer If you wanna make the world a better place Take a look at yourself, and then make a change!
Here's an astrological view of the coming months and years from astrologer Shelley Ackerman, excerpted from an article about Pluto's busy travels through our universe's "Galactic Center." This makes interesting reading even if you don't give a flip about astrology. (I happen to feel it's important to remain a clear channel, receptive to all information.) Ackerman writes:
Clearly, a significant pattern involving the Galactic Center is at play. When planets station retrograde and direct during a relatively short period of time, at the same degrees over and over again, there is some sort of a message implied...
The activity leading up to Pluto's visit at the Galactic Center has corresponded to an extremely dramatic and, some say, 'dire' time in human history. There has been incomprehensible attacks on New York and Washington, a devastating tsunami, three hurricanes which have destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes and a couple of million lives, a horrible war that most say can't be won...and growing apprehension about the reality of global warming and the very survival of our planet...
But there has been a lot of good that has happened too. The "human potential" or self-help movement has provided opportunities for growth as never before. There is a new understanding and an appreciation of what it means to operate from a place of authenticity. The Internet has made it possible for people to connect from all over the world in an instant.
As we anticipate Pluto's ingress into Capricorn in January 2008, and are reminded of the time 250 years ago that led to the American Revolution, we are also aware of the upcoming Jupiter-Pluto conjunction on Dec. 11, 2007 at 28 Sagittarius 24 preceding said ingress...Adding to the celestial drama is Mars in Gemini retrograde and opposing those critical degrees opposite the GC (Mars stations retrograde in mid November at 12 Cancer, close to the US Sun), so one can't help but be concerned about the potentially militant/confrontational expression of the conjunction. Mars-Pluto oppositions on a good day are fierce, and Jupiter in the mix expands it all that much more.
Mars was retrograde at similar degrees in late 1928-early 1929 and in late 1943-early 1944. Both were tumultuous times. It would be naive to expect an uneventfully smooth ride.
But without getting Pollyanna-ish or sounding outrageously wacky about it, here's a thought: If we can imagine the Galactic Center as having some profound intelligence to offer and the planets urging this intelligence to come forth, might we here on Earth be well advised to take a humble and receptive stance to what might come next? Perhaps a surprise is in store (Uranus squares the GC in 2009) not a horrible attack, or catastrophic weather, but something that forces cooperation between nations -- or else... It was Albert Einstein who asked if the Universe was, when all is said and done, benevolent. I have always believed that it was and is, and that it is humanity itself that is in question. Perhaps this sequence of Pluto at the Galactic Center will provide an opportunity for us to get to know ourselves somewhat better, and to see what -- if anything -- we have learned in the past 250 years.
I was shopping at a budget clothing store this past weekend when the song "Waiting for the World to Change" came over the loud speakers. As if on cue, every aproned clerk in the place started mournfully singing along as though we were all on the set of "Rent" or something. "Me and all my friends,/ We're all misunderstood/ They say we stand for nothing, and/ there's no way we ever could./ Now we see everything that's going wrong/ with the world and those who lead it. /We just feel like we don't have the means/ to rise above and beat it./ So we keep waiting/ Waiting on the world to change./ We keep on waiting,/ waiting on the world to change."
I'm not sure author John Mayer should be overly commended for what's being called "the song of a generation." To me, this song is only beautiful melodically. The lyrics are rather irritating. Words fail me here. I don't want to seem like a snob, but the video accompanying this ballad on YouTube seems nothing more than an endorsement of mopey New York graffiti artists. Waiting for the world to change appears to be tedious work for these dudes.
I'm moved by the disenfranchisement. I weep for those in need. But this song has such an unfortunate message. What a tribute to the magnetic lure of powerlessness! Is anybody else out there ultimately put off by the passivity, the blaming, the easy judgments articulated here?
Change begins with us. Peace begins with us. I'd advise no one to wait for the world to change. Thich Nhat Hahn says that "a person who is not happy cannot work for peace...but happiness does not need a lot of conditions." I believe that. Click here and then click on the excellent meditation about "Being Peace," if you wish to be the "change" the world needs and not just wait around!
I am comforted by words. I like having them around me. And I've always wanted to paint or stencil inspirational quotes in certain choice nooks of my home. But with the demise of rub-on press type, this hasn't been possible... until now!
The home-design website Apartmenttherapy.com has just introduced me to two companies that customize favorite words or quotations, set them in type, and print them in colors on a large, clear sheet that adheres to wall for outstanding design effects!
Have a close look at WonderfulGraffiti.com and WordsAnywhere.com and I'm certain you'll agree this is a great way to make your home a sanctuary filled with meaning that is exclusively yours! Let me know what word, quote, or bit of poetry you'd like to have writ large. Obviously, a little bit of this look goes a long way, but isn't it the the greatest thing?
posted by Chattering Mind @ 11:39 PM | Permalink |
Spiritually-charged jewelry serves as a fond reminder--as you put it on in the morning and take it off at night--that it's always "one day at a time!" All of us can relate to that.
In response to yesterday's post about personal transformation, a thoughtful CM reader named Barb wrote this:
I'm a woman who's 48-years-old and am a primary caregiver for a special needs son who has seizures, and is both mentally and physically challenged. It's hard to find time for myself for sure. It's also hard to look in the mirror and see the extra weight that I've put on over the years. It's hard to love that image staring back in the mirror at me. So, my self confidence and self image is at an all time low. How do I transform myself? I'm still trying to figure that out. I have been eating more healthy and cutting out all junk food from my diet. I have managed to lose a few pounds but it's a slow process. In the meantime, I'm trying to love who I am as I am. I have no problem with my internal being and am very spiritual. It's the outside me that I have a problem with. It's the outside me that others see because that's the type of society that we live in today. So, what do you say to all that, hmm?
Barb, I'm glad you wrote. Life seems harder when our bodies aren't comfortable vehicles for the journey. So I have some ideas. But remember as you work to get in shape by walking more and eating wisely that you can follow these links to meditate your way to a better body image, get into better contact with the natural perfection in you that already exists, adorn your body in colors that make you feel vibrant, or wear earrings and necklaces that magnify your positive energy. This is not trivial stuff. Think of the women you know and love who may not be conventionally beautiful or at an ideal weight, who may also have terribly stressful things going on in their lives, but who still radiate a spiritual beauty and vibrance that is noticeable to everyone. That's what we're all after--a vitality that sticks with us when our weight is up, when we're having a challenging day, when we feel we're steadily climbing uphill.
I have to recommend a book that was formative for me: Gay Hendricks' "Achieving Vibrance: A Seven-Minute-a-Day Plan for Feeling, Looking, and Being Younger." This small volume is loaded with advice on how to quickly center yourself, stretch, breathe, meditate, eat, and drink in a way that will make you feel good inside and out. When the author was 50, he looked at himself in the mirror and resolved to devise a program that would balance his full life on all levels. I recommend his plan of simple stretching and breathing exercises that can be done in a chair. He also says that beginning the day with a banana topped with peanut or almond butter is a terrific pre-breakfast snack when you're on the go, and I think of him fondly every time I do it. It works.
On the subject of spiritual weight loss, I have two books to recommend that go beyond conventional model of simple food deprivation. Norris J. Chumley's "The Joy of Weight Loss" has helped so many people exercise and pray their way to a fitter physique. He also maintains a presence on Beliefnet.com. Additionally, the famous "Fly Lady" at FlyLady.net promotes a book called "Body Clutter: Love Your Body, Love Yourself" that tackles weight loss with humor (viewing the pounds one carries like the stacks of unfiled papers one might tuck into bedroom corners). Authors Marla Cilley and Leanne Ely are just as much fun on the subject of household clutter and closet organization.
Someone once told me at a trying time: "Amy, you could have had a cookie cutter life, but then look at everything you would have missed." I know that's hard to hear right now, but look at all the wisdom you've acquired, behold the parents of newly-diagnosed kids you will one day help if you haven't started already. Write back and tell us how you're doing! Anyone else with ideas for Barb? Please chime in. I know there's a great book of daily meditations for parents of children with special needs but I couldn't find it online today.
posted by Chattering Mind @ 10:42 AM | Permalink |
I love this short conversation with Deepak Chopra on how to make the world a better place. His helpful formula can be boiled down to three words: "Transform, Serve, Connect."
Today, let's just look at the first part: transformation. A lot of people struggle with their own transformation. They may buy something for someone else or spend all their time weeping over toxic relationships before indulging in their own massage, or journey through something like spiritual counseling or acupuncture.
I once had a friend in her fifties who couldn't read a newspaper with ease because she put her children's school clothes ahead of her own reading glasses. Typical mom stuff. And it's hard to embrace change when you're not putting yourself first. Or single folks in their twenties may spend a whole weekend preoccupied with a romantic partner who's not available instead of enrolling in a transformative workshop that might teach them how to meditate, sing, dance, or find more joy in their lives.
Transformation starts simply: through you. You've got to love yourself, and take care of yourself to grow. There's nothing selfish about that. You've got to learn to say, "Nope, I'm not going to waste my precious time being unhappy, I'm going to gravitate toward people and experiences that will heal me. It's my time, my time is now."
Are you doing enough to support your own transformation? If not, why does it feel impossible to look inward? We've all been there. Maybe start by posting something here for the first time.
posted by Chattering Mind @ 11:48 AM | Permalink |
Drop your subscription to Allure and start subscribing to bitch, a magazine that has billed itself as a "feminist response to pop culture" for more than a decade. This publication's brazen quality may seem off-putting at first if you're older than 40, and the ads for feminist sex toy shops (catering to all genders and orientations) are hard not to notice (hmmmmm), but once you get into the actual reading, the top of your head will open up to a new energy that's smart, healthy, and healing. It's a fantastic magazine. Do you doubt me? Read on.
The Winter 2007 issue takes innovative stands on subjects as intriguing as Suze Orman, the Girl Scouts, Tyra Banks, and the growth of feminist vegetarianism (writes Aimee Dowl on the later topic: "Yes, Gloria Steinem is a vegetarian, but none of the major feminist organizations in the United States... have policies dealing with vegetarianism, ecofeminism, meatpacking labor, or animal rights issues.")
Writer Wendy Felton mocks Glamour magazine for cheerfully reminding readers that five of the eight "Sports Illustrated" swimsuit-issue models have passed their 30th birthdays as if to say, "Wow, you can be that old and that good looking." Says Felton: "It's not exactly earth-shattering (or helpful) to learn that you can still be attractive beyond age 30...if you were beautiful before you crossed the dreaded threshold."
Most interesting to me, is the article on radical knitting and craft. Gosh, what a great review of why a new generation of young people are finding the creation of their own garments and belongings a comfort, as well as a surprisingly powerful political statement. We can talk more about this. Writes author Wendy Somerson:
Like the slow-food movement, which discourages a reliance on fast food and encourages slower-paced home cooking with local ingredients, the radical knitting movement relies on its advocates making the decision to take the time to handmake an item, even though it would be much faster (and sometimes cheaper) to go buy something similar at Old Navy. By slowing down, knitters can reap the spiritual rewards that come with establishing a repetitive rhythm with our hands; we can achieve a calm physiological state similar to that of meditation. Being mindful of every stitch that goes into a garment, we can feel a strong connection to the items that we wear, use, donate, sell, or give as gifts. Unlike mass-produced objects that alienate workers from what they produce, handcrafted items have the potential to ensure a connection between creators and their creations.
Read the whole article, read the whole issue. It comes quarterly. Here's where to subscribe.
posted by Chattering Mind @ 10:47 AM | Permalink |
When Chattering son number one came down to the planet, I purchased a $30, 12-inch-square blanket deliberately manufactured to be a beloved "bankie" like Linus had in the cartoon strip "Peanuts."
The famous object relations theorist D.W. Winnicott called these transitional items "not me" objects. He said they provide many children with early experiences in sensing and differentiating self from parent and outside world.
My prefab silky blanket square didn't take, unfortunately. I even slept with the darned thing to get it to smell like me, and still my son preferred to hold my earlobe at feeding and snuggling times. There was no getting away from him! Remarkably, my second son was a parent's-ear-lobe holder too. Go figure.
So yesterday, when my sister, a therapist, excitedly phoned to tell me about "Taggies," a baby blanket square product festooned with those silky clothing tags babies love to hold and smell, I was skeptical. Why? Oh, there's nothing wrong with these cute accessories. They make good baby-shower-conversation topics. And the company has gone on to design stuffed toys with silky tags all over them, so that children can have transitional animal toys too.
It's just so typical of our striving American marketplace to identify a perceived "need" in the busy lives of consumers, and then assault them with it. Want your child to be securely attached? Buy a Taggie! Yeah, when in fact, what children decide to attach themselves to involves a far more mystical, organic process. They find their transitional object on their own, gravitate toward and cling to it independently.
You can't just hand it to them, and say "Here, use this."
But what do I know? Taggies are selling off the baby boutique shelves. It could mean our children are never going to smoke or bite their nails, so that's good news. How secure they'll be in the world!
This is not as pressing a topic as last night's State of the Union address, but do you see what I'm saying? Bear with me, next blog item gets more serious.
posted by Chattering Mind @ 11:42 AM | Permalink |
We have a ritual at our house. I should have mentioned it yesterday. Come what may, school be damned, we get our kids (now 10 and 12) to sit through the State of the Union address, significant political debates, and other TV presentations (involving no real blood) that will teach them about America's political process. I'm working to make our family room more comfortable because the presidential election of 2008 will involve more TV-watching than usual.
When I'm flooded with Rudolf-Steiner-induced confusion and guilt about letting my children watch television as much as I do, I think, "Well if we got rid of the TV set altogether, we wouldn't have those yummy popcorn-munching, election-year-debate screenings anymore."
When the kids were younger, the words of the State of the Union would just rain on them like a sermon in synagogue or church and they'd watch and squirm and complain a little. Last night, after the initial "I'm doing something else right now" resistance passed, they settled into the speech, listened, and asked good questions. The president was, after all, discussing the world they are soon to inherit.
The thing that pains me today is that our particular children dislike our current president more than I think children ought to. So I actually temper myself in my own criticism of President Bush when around my kids. He's it. We can't just criticize. We all created him. I preach to the children: "Now, now, guys you have to be respectful, and honor the office." In this context, it was interesting last night to watch Nancy Pelosi's face attempting to do the same thing: honor the office but respectfully disagree at choice moments. At times, her eyes assumed a deadened glaze and her mouth seemed twisted.
How did your kids do with the speech last night? How do you teach politics to kids?
posted by Chattering Mind @ 10:27 AM | Permalink |
Al Gore was really the second environmentally-attuned presidential candidate we'd ever had (preceded only by California governor Jerry Brown), but despite the fact that Gore was talking about ecology and the human spirit in the mid 1980s, he wasn't viewed until recently as an earthy guy.
But some twenty years ago, Gore was a keynote speaker in Washington D.C. at a remarkable "Common Boundary" conference not far from my old apartment, the kind of conference Joseph Campbell fans, Jungian therapists, and medical intuitives attended in large numbers, my favorite crowd then and now. I missed Gore's actual speech, but I vividly recall a friend of mine greeting me, waving her arms, jumping up and down, saying, "Oh, my God! Al Gore got a standing ovation for a speech you wouldn't have believed. I've never heard him this way. He's so passionate. He talked about the environment."
The side of Gore that energetically connected to progressive spiritual people, and openly worried about the state of the earth, went into hiding when he ran for president seven years ago, didn't it? But now, after the success of his movie, and with nothing left to lose, Al Gore is fully "out" and scheduled to speak at the Omega Institute's upcoming "Being Fearless" conference April 13-15 at New York City's Sheraton New York Hotel.
The Omega New York City "Fearless" conference (which has drawn as many as 2000 people) started as a ritual in 2004 following those fearful years post 9-11. Jane Goodall, Bobby McFerrin, Sharon Salzberg, Arianna Huffington, Carolyn Myss, and others will also teach this year. Some all-day pre-conference workshops are also offered. Click here to learn more.
posted by Chattering Mind @ 11:53 PM | Permalink |
"Your assertion of nothingness at the end of our mortal lives is no more and no less verifiable than my assertion of somethingness. And yet I do not accuse you of lying--to yourself or to others. I respect your existential choice to face death alone, as a purely material event, leading nowhere but physical decomposition. Part of me even respects the stoic heroism of such a stance. Why can you not respect my conviction that you are, in fact, wrong? Why am I a liar in this--either to myself or to others--and you, in contrast, an avatar of honesty? Isn't this exactly the sort of moral preening you decry in others?"
"Human life is a journey whose end is not in sight. Searching, longing and questioning is in our DNA. Who we are and what we will become is determined by the questions that animate us, and by those we refuse to ask. Your questions are your quest. As you ask, so shall you be."
Here's a lovely old song from World War I that articulates timely sentiments for me:
"I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier, I brought him up to be my pride and joy. Who dares to place a musket on his shoulder, To shoot some other mother's darling boy?
"Let nations arbitrate their future trouble, It's time to lay the sword and gun away. There'd be no war today If mothers all would say, 'I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier.'"
by Al Piantadosi and Alfred Bryan
You can replace the word "boy" with "child" if you have a daughter and want these lyrics to be more inclusive.
I know we're accustomed to thinking of our enemies as not so "darling" and some of their mothers seem pleased that their children will die for their cause. But it's still a beautiful perspective, and a timely reminder of motherly love.
Can you relate? Click here to hear this song in charming vintage audio.
posted by Chattering Mind @ 12:31 PM | Permalink |
"The project goal was to change the dynamic of the abortion conflict by changing the stance of the opposing parties, from one defined solely by disagreement and characterized by extreme polarization, to one where strong disagreement is acknowledged but where the parties (1) seek to fully understand the others' positions and beliefs...(2) seek and name the existence of overlapping values, goals, beliefs and important interests; and (3) consider ways to act jointly to move forward shared goals." Here is an online handbook that explains The Network's exciting approach to bringing opposing parties together to exchange their life stories. A lot of the techniques will be familiar to you students of conflict resolution.
I know of no such project operating on a large scale today. But I'm wondering if you'd like to chat a bit here in the coming days--not so much on your own strong views pro or con (which we've all heard before in one forum or another)--but on what you feel you can share with the people who disagree with you. Where is the common ground? Can you locate any in your heart?
"Too many people in America believe that if you are pro-choice that means pro-abortion. It doesn't. I don't want abortion. Abortion should be the rarest thing in the world. I am actually personally opposed to abortion. But I don't believe that I have a right to take what is an article of faith to me and legislate it to other people. That's not how it works in America.”
--Senator John Kerry
posted by Chattering Mind @ 12:25 AM | Permalink |
Everybody's writing today. We're crafting emails that would make our high school English teacher proud, posting pithy comments on blogs, and editorializing on our own web pages.
Will this kind of discourse replace the act of writing private thoughts in journals and diaries?
I hope not.
Writing something in a bound book daily is a practice I pretty much can't quit. Some journal entries are no more than my list of things to do, encoded descriptions of dreams, drifty ramblings, descriptions of proud moments or big worries. I'll doodle, rant and talk to myself in my journal which I move from my bedside table to my purse. I've found that if I take my journal on the subway or bus, I'm never lonely.
"Artist's Way" author Julia Cameron believes putting daily "morning pages," or stream-of-consciousness writings, on paper with pen or pencil every day is a vitally important practice, a way to connect to any parts of yourself that aren't being validated in more public contexts, as well as a way to create a stronger pipeline to your higher self or inner artist. Since blogs and social network sites are public displays, they'll never serve the same function.
Here are some photos of journals that I found on a web site called divinegoddessdesigns.com. The one at the bottom looks most like mine. I like writing in inexpensive accounting journals (available in most office supply stores) because they have page numbers. But I always admire the prettier books you see in metaphysical bookstores, and I buy them for friends as gifts, especially when I know they're experiencing something "big" (which is almost always, right?).
If young people (I guess I'm thinking mostly about girls) today are growing up believing that their snazzy blog or page on MySpace.com contains all they have to say about themselves, I think they're very much mistaken. Do you have a journal writing habit? How close is it to your heart?
posted by Chattering Mind @ 11:58 AM | Permalink |
Coming off that last post, I hope I don't sound cranky, but I'm pretty turned off the current "American Idol" craze.
Wait, I'll rephrase that--I'm observing the "American Idol" craze, and here's what I think.
While I've never made this ratings sensation our family ritual or something we Chatterings curl up before like a roaring hearth, the youngest Chattering came home from school this week complaining that everyone in his fifth grade class was talking about the program. He felt depressed by his inability to meaningfully participate.
So I was just about to cave and flip the TV switch, when ABC ran a "Good Morning America" piece that asked the question "Is This Season's 'American Idol' Too Mean?" Apparently, some of the less talented people trying out for the show really think they can carry a tune, and the panel's harsh critiques this past week made one guy cry, and others feel brutally humiliated. Some of the contestants even seem to me to be emotionally damaged already, impaired, or unstable.
So is being wickedly mean to peopel who are earnestly trying to show their talents something you want your kids to ape? Even if you, the parents, are there to watch and insert your comments, is this the best we can do for our kids?
Between homework assignments and Hebrew school there's just no time anyway. It's all we can do to sit down to a dinner and clear the dishes afterwards. If we do that much, we feel pretty proud of ourselves.
So you tell me, since I've really only seen "Idol" snippets, has "American Idol" served your family well? Do you find valuable lessons in it? Is it just entertaining and otherwise harmless? I don't want to sound like a Chattering Nag.
posted by Chattering Mind @ 10:01 AM | Permalink |
I have to say that the ongoing "blogalogue" (a relatively new term that merges dialogue with blog) between atheist Sam Harris and iconoclastic Christian Andrew Sullivan promises to be one of the best things Beliefnet has ever run. Kudos to Beliefnet editor Laura Sheahen for orchestrating it. I strongly advise you to follow along since the two writers are updating their fascinating conversation daily.
Harris, as you know, is the author of "Letter to a Christian Nation" and a harsh critic of those of any faith who believe that God has a direct hand in earthly events. He meditates and has elsewhere written some stimulating commentaries on meditation and Buddhism's contributions in our understanding of consciousness. Sullivan is one of the best commentators on just about everything (he writes the DailyDish blog for Time). He is receptive to Christian doctrine generally, finds value in it, and says he's been helped by it.
The two noted authors are discussing religion's role, God's existence, and religious fundamentalism. It's just a thrilling exchange. Click here to read the latest, and keep checking.
posted by Chattering Mind @ 10:55 AM | Permalink |
"Lucky teens in Camden, Maine, have found Reiki at...Camden Hills Regional High School. According to Judy Ottman, M.Ed., the school lost eight students to a rash of accidents, drowning and suicides within a six month period in 2001. As part of the communities desire to support the teens through these tragedies, a Wellness Room was created to offer Reiki to students and staff. Students can come on their own, or at the suggestion of a teacher or the school nurse. In the 2003-2004 school year, there were 370 student visits.
Students lobbied to be trained themselves, and three Reiki Masters collaborated to train twenty-four students in First Degree. A year later, eight of the student practitioners requested and received Second Degree training. More than half the student body has received treatment, and the entire basketball team came in before an important game."
The Original Healing Threads company was founded by three sisters, two of whom were unhappy with the conventional hospital gowns they wore when they were ill. This snazzy apparel, as you'll see on the website, is Asian-inspired, machine washable, and has handy sleeves and legs that open for medical access. I used to buy short, old-fashioned bed jackets for ailing friends at thrift stores, but these are infinitely more practical and attractive. What a great present for a friend in need! A portion of the proceeds go to terminally-ill single mothers.
Vogue magazine flew Annie Leibovitz, Angelina Jolie, and a fashion photo crew of 50 into the dry, tawny desert (somewhere between Los Angeles and Las Vegas), but sparks flew when stylists showed Jolie all the sleek, fancy, clothes they'd pulled for the photo shoot. She is, afterall, a compassionate, humanitarian engaged in aid for refugees, people for whom clothes and shelter are big issues.
It seems admirable not to want to strut in the sand in a $4,000, gold lame evening dress when you're due in the camps next week.
Just as admirably, writer Jonathan Van Meter quotes Jolie in the text of the accompanying Vogue article.
"I'm not modeling," Jolie says. "It's me. I'm a person. And yet I'm selling clothes while trying to promote a movie. It's very odd. And yes, in our world today, it's been a very successful formula. It works. We play dress up. But it's not really us. We've lost all sense of portraiture, and that's too bad."
Of course, the credits in small print still read: Ralph Lauren Collection white linen suit, Gucci sunglasses, Carolina Herrera caviar wool dress and belt, etc.
posted by Chattering Mind @ 11:04 AM | Permalink |
I'm snacking on roasted, sliced beets as we speak, and... there's nothing better. Nothing to them, either.
I did peel them while they were raw this time (I had one bunch of red beets, one bunch golden). Then I sliced them (you can grate), and spread the pieces on an un-oiled cookie sheet, spritzed a nice olive oil on top, and tossed sea salt around like fairy dust. After the beet slices had baked in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes or so, they got brown at the edges, and a little leathery. If you've sliced them thinner, they get crisp. They're so delicious. You can roast any root vegetable like this, and the most wonderful smell will fill your winter kitchen. I roasted rutabagas for my elderly dad over the weekend while visiting him in South Carolina. Big hit.
"My favorite definition of Yoga is that which enables one to attain what was previously unattainable. Yoga is the science of realization; you are the scientist, the ingredients, and the experiment. The ancient yogis have passed on to us the fruit of their work and wisdom. If one delves deeply enough, with discipline and devotion, the teachings will take you as far as you want to go.
"What is generally taught to the public is only a small portion of yoga, there is so so much more. If a student is not taught this, it is the fault of the teacher and perhaps the teacher's training. Perhaps that is what should be considered, how well trained is the person that is teaching you? How deep is their practice and where has it brought them? They cannot teach what they do not know, what they have not experienced.
"Yoga is usually defined as 'union,' but this is not quite on the mark. For they are speaking of the union of self to the Self, and this union already exists. We are already Divine Beings, we have just forgotten, we are unaware. So the practice is one of remembering, which comes from being present.
"Yoga provides us with tools for this: attention on the breath in meditation and pranayama, the sensations of the body as we attain an asana (the physical poses) are essential tools to the awakening process. Asana means to pose and re-pose, in so doing we are present, paying attention and adjust again and again until we can be still and go deeper within. As we go deeper we explore our body, our energy and eventually the microcosm of our being. This is key, for we are so distracted, so overloaded in our lives, that to spend an hour and a half focused on our being, we come alive.
"We are then able to let our mind settle into our whole being, to pervade our whole self. In time we are experiencing a fuller sense of who we are, and we realize we are not our thoughts, we are not our emotions, we are not just the body, we are more, much more. This is where my practice has taken me and where I lead my students."
"Never the Spirit was born, the Spirit shall cease to be never. Never was time it was not, end and beginning are dreams. Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the Spirit forever."
Originally published in 1945 and then revised in 1951, the famous narrative of a guru's life and times includes this great Indian teacher's descriptions of his first trip to the U.S. in 1920, where he was embraced by affluent intellectuals curious about the practices of yoga and meditation. It also includes descriptions of meeting Ghandi some time later. If you've never read the book, now is a good time to do so. I find the photographs especially wonderful. And Yogananda's writing style is always charming.
"Gross man seldom or never realizes that his body is a kingdom, governed by Emperor Soul on the throne of the cranium, with subsidiary regents in the six spinal centers or spheres of consciousness." --page 243.
"Utopia must spring in the private bosom before it can flower in civic virtue, inner reforms leading naturally to outer ones. A man who has reformed himself will reform thousands." --page 469.
The Swami's Self-Realization Fellowship continues to promote peace and meditative practice throughout the world.
Heavenly Father, bless the nations of the earth, our own large family, that all may realize their eternal kinship as Thy children. Thou art our one spiritual Father, the Beloved of the Universe and the Beloved of our hearts. May the strong thoughts of love we broadcast today possess the brains of the dictators and generals, that they may be filled with Thy wisdom, and so desist from working toward the common ruin of humanity. Bless them all. Bless all citizens of the earth, that they may establish a cooperative unity among all souls, and live in a united world with Thy power and light of love guiding us to Thy kingdom.
"I had always been the questioning and precocious type. At the age of thirteen, I shocked my Sunday School class by denying the bodily resurrection of Jesus. From the age of thirteen on doubts began to spring forth unrelentingly. At the age of fifteen I entered college and more and more could I see a gap between what I had learned in Sunday School and what I was learning in college. This conflict continued until I studied a course in Bible in which I came to see that behind the legends and myths of the Book were many profound truths which one could not escape.
"One or two incidents happened in my late childhood and early adolescence that had tremendous effect on my religious development. The First was the death of my grandmother when I was about nine years old. I was particularly hurt by this incident mainly because of the extreme love I had for her. As stated above, she assisted greatly in raising all of us. It was after this incident for the first time that I talked at any length on the doctrine of immortality. My parents attempted to explain it to me and I was assured that somehow my grandmother still lived. I guess this is why today I am such a strong believer in personal immortality
"The second incident happened when I was about six years of age. From about the age of three up until this time I had had a white playmate who was about my age. We always felt free to play our childhood games together... At the age of six we both entered school--separate schools of course. I remember how our friendship began to break as soon as we entered school, of course this was not my desire but his. The climax came when he told me one day that his father had demanded that he would play with me no more. I never will forget what a great shock this was to me.
"I immediately asked my parents about the motive behind such a statement. We were at the diner table when the situation was discussed, and here for the first time I was made aware of the existence of a race problem. I had never been conscious of it before. As my parents discussed some of the tragedies that had resulted from this problem and some of the insults they themselves had confronted on account of it I was greatly shocked, and from that moment on I was determined to hate every white person.
"As I grew older and older this feeling continued to grow. My parents would always tell me that I should not hate the white [man], but that it was my duty as a Christian to love him. At this point the religious element came in. The question arose in my mind, how could I love a race of people [who] hated me and who had been responsible for breaking me up with one of my best childhood friends? This was a great question in my mind for a number of years.
"I did not conquer this anti-white feeling until I entered college and came in contact with white students through working in interracial organizations."
I did not make it to this National Gallery Show when I was in Washington D.C., but I surely wish I had. These exquisite Dutch-school partnered paintings are called diptychs, and they consist of two small, hinged panels: A portrait of the diptych's owner was usually painted in a prayful pose on one side facing the saint or religious figure being prayed to on the other.
Popular as forms of religious expression in the Netherlands from the mid-1400s through the 1560s, these paintings are worthy of in-depth study. You can also listen to the online lectures provided. It must be an unforgettable show since these works have not been united as a group for several centuries!
For years Alex Grey's visionary artwork portraying the body's interior, auras, and energetic systems has inspired countless artists, seekers, and decors.
Now you can get a more personalized version of the human imprint in these colorful, custom-made art pieces from your own DNA or fingerprints. The company sends you a "collection kit" and then translates you into beautiful, hangable art in about four weeks.
Alex Grey says his artwork reveals "the miracle of evolutionary complexity, and the unity of human experience." The emphasis at the DNA shop seems to be each online customer's quirky uniqueness (which in truth is remarkably similar to everyone else's).
Do you connect?
Or do you prefer cows and trees on green landscape?
posted by Chattering Mind @ 11:38 AM | Permalink |
I love the way a reader named Aciana described her world as she "sees" it. She writes:
"What I 'see' are vibrations that form outward from objects. Sometimes just in the air. Since everything "vibrates," the sights I see differ with the intensity of each object. For example, once I was started to look up and see the bright white aura of a man walking toward me. I blinked twice and it faded, but I will never forget it. I tried to reason it away and consider that it was light from behind him, but it was not static... It moved with him, around him like an 'alive light.' This was a very spiritual and enlightened man, compassionate and kind to the extreme. I wonder if our soul energy emits a color?
"I have known I was different from most people since I was a child of 5; psychic 'knowing' that came as natural as breathing was damped down by frightened nuns in the convent and adults who believed I needed help. Only then did I understand as a very young child that not everyone sees, hears or thinks in the same way...
"As an adult, I have slowly opened back up and enjoy, most times, the experience that flows around me. The negative side of this enjoyment is that sometimes in large groups of people I get overheated from all their vibrating energy and have to develop some kind of 'shield', or leave desperate for fresh air. Anyone else like that out is welcome to connect with me."
posted by Chattering Mind @ 10:50 AM | Permalink |
Oneness--of one kind or another--is coming this way. Here's what scientists now say the world will look like in 250 million years: They call it Pangea Ultima. These continental shifts and collisions are occurring at a rate "slower than the growth of a human finger nail." Africa will basically kiss both sides of the Atlantic!
Just staring at the graphic tends to stimulate one's "Big Mind." Here's William J. Broad addressing this fascinating subject for The New York Times.
Sticking with the subject of money, click here to see a filmed conversation about poverty and prosperity between spiritual teachers Ram Dass and Wayne Dyer on Ram Dass's new, beautifully produced website, RamDass.org.
Ram Dass, as you no doubt know, was a Harvard professor in the 1960s whose worldly, pretentious ambitions as a striving American were uprooted by the religious teachings of Indian guru Neem Karoli Baba.
After decades of distilling what he'd learned in India and writing best sellers that taught people to "be here now," Ram Dass had a debilitating stroke in 1997 that left him unable to teach or travel. So in this film clip, Ram Dass discusses his astonishment that when word of his difficulties went public, Dyer (a fan of Ram Dass's lifetime of work) wrote his list of three million readers seeking immediate funds to cover Ram Dass's ongoing medical care and living expenses. Checks of gratitude poured in, Ram Dass has a home and steady care on Maui now, and "the universe," as Dyer says, "took care of it."
RamDass.org is a fertile garden of broadband teachings. A good deal on the site is free, but subscribers gain access to a large Ram Dass archive, Ram Dass’s current talks, teachings, meditations, satsang, daily words, a monthly newsletter, and a "Recollections of Maharaji" archive--all for nine dollars a month. I just subscribed, and I think you'll find it very worthwhile. Click here to find the list of upcoming workshops and chats. Here's a link to readings and photos from the life of this famous teacher who brought the East to the West.
posted by Chattering Mind @ 11:46 AM | Permalink |
A few readers object to Christian prosperity gospels and the preached belief that "God wants you rich."
"I'm all for prosperity," writes steady CM reader Stacey-Robin, "but in a more holistic fashion. Be grateful for what you have and practice good stewardship. Life isn't neccessarily going to be better with a bigger house or new car. The prosperity ministries ultimately do a disservice, by turning God into a wealth-granting entity rather than directing folks to connecting with the God within." But then she adds, "To completely contradict myself: There is something about Joel Olsteen that I find a bit magnetic--that whole positive-outlook-yields-positive-results talk is right up my alley!"
What I'm directly addressing is a desire to take hold of the world's abundance, however that might manifest, and not live in "scarcity consciousness" when it comes to time, love, money. We can continue to discuss this.
posted by Chattering Mind @ 11:38 AM | Permalink |
This seems a cut above the exercise/diet bibles by other personalities. I was going to say this book is more earnest than most until I recognized the pun (Mariel Hemingway is novelist Ernest Hemingway's youngest granddaughter). She manages to follow her depressed grand-dad's old dictum "Write what you know" by disclosing some pretty interesting material about her messy family situation:
"As the son of Ernest Hemingway, my father had inherited a complicated burden: the genetic tendencies toward addiction and over-consumption; the pain of abandonment caused by the way his father lived and, most tragically, the way he died; and the guilt and self-doubt that come with being the child of a legend, fearing that nothing you can do will ever match what your parent achieved. My mother, by contrast, was very beautiful yet painfully bitter. Her first husband had died in World War II, and after she married my father, she resented him sorely for not being the man to whom she'd truly lost her heart. The two of them fought pretty much every day..."
Mariel divides the book into four sections, two predictable, two new. After long passages on food (with chapter titles like "Cut the Crap" and "Eating with Peace and Moderation") and exercise ("Turn on the Breath" and "Bring it to the Mat"), she writes about the importance of silence ("The Quiet Power Tool") and a centered home ("Clear the Clutter" and "Create Your Sacred Space").
I enjoyed the discussion of silence because it was broad and encompassed what Hemingway calls "noisy food." Her list of common noisy foods to eliminate from the daily diet are tea, coffee, alcohol, chocolate, bread or baked treats, chips, fruity candy, mints, gum, and ice cream. She writes: "Habitually consuming foods with artificially high sugar and salt levels, with additives like MSG to give everything a kick...will dull the sensitivity of your taste buds and change your expectations of how food should taste....That's the reason people sometimes complain, 'Healthy food is boring!' It's not the food that's boring, it's that their ability to perceive subtle flavors has fled."
Much as some people may want to discount her (the book features photos of her looking foxy in her forties, doing yoga by a pool), she makes many serious points. You can find the book here (or at your local bookstore).
Do you ever find dimes in your jewelry box, pocket change piled on your dresser, or damp dollar bills crumpled in the washing machine?
This weekend, I walked around the house gathering all the bits of abandoned U.S. currency I could find. Then I got the kids to help me sort the coins so we could take them to the bank. It's a new year and tax time's coming; I want to be on top of my money. I still have some old health insurance claims that I'm oddly incapable of processing; what is it with me? Why does money seem so hard to claim and control? Why do I fall back on a belief that there's never enough, or that financial management is beyond me? Are you like this too?
In a prosperity workshop that I took last fall with Nancy SantoPietro, I realized that I'm living in a scarcity mindset due to a belief (common among public-interest types and liberal bloggers who work in bedroom slippers) that if I were to ever pull down big money, I'd turn into some kind of jerk. On some subconscious level, I struggle with the fear that mega-dollars will make me materialistic, superficial, egotistical, or worse.
Would it be so terrible to be Oprah, or Donald Trump? Or even a highly-paid New York healthy lifestyle magazine editor? (Oh, I think: I'd have to leave my kids, wear angular glasses, and carry a Blackberry. But how bad would it be to eat arugula daily for lunch? What a devil's bargain!)
SantoPietro says money is energy; it has nothing to do with how smart you are or hard you work. If you raise your vibrational pattern and make more money, starving refugees in war-torn countries won't be further deprived. As your consciousness is lifted to attract abundance; you can become more, not less, helpful to those in need.
Pastor Joel Osteen and many others have been preaching prosperity consciousness for a long time; some folks find this kind of talk obnoxious. What do you think?
I've been sitting on my feelings about The Atlantic Monthly's take on trendy yoga culture for a couple of days now. The piece is not available online without a subscription, but here's a chat about today's yoga scene with author Hanna Rosin, a talented religion writer who has worked for The New Yorker, The Washington Post and Beliefnet.com.
Rosin frames her article around a chic, celebrity-infested Jivamukti studio party where Sting, wife Trudie, Russell Simmons, Uma Thurman, and other celebrities appear. Then she says: "for at least fifty years, the prophets of California's communes have told us how much the denatured, stressed-out West needs the curative power of yoga. Now, to their great dismay, the West is listening."
Rosin quotes good yoga sources, knows her history, and pokes only gentle fun at folks who claim their lives have been jump-started by their yoga practices. She reveals that she herself has been happily attending yoga classes for eight years. But then she tries to land a point I find really questionable.
"...yoga had to wait until now, when our spiritual hunger runs a little more shallow, to reach the American mainstream. We're attracted to self-denying faiths of all kinds--Islam, Latin-Mass, Catholicism, traditional Judaism. But we tend to take what suits us and discard the rest. Young Muslim women choose to wear the veil in defiance of their more assimilated parents. Jewish Buddhists can meditate for hours on the souls of insects and rocks but still eat their pastrami and rye. In this atmosphere you can pick up some of the old familiar language--'higher power,' 'grace'--and layer on some incense, and no one will feel confused, or threatened."
Sigh. First, yoga isn't a shallow fad in the way miniskirts might have been, or bling that looks cool today and stupid tomorrow. Some people might have yoga practices that ebb and wane, and Pilates is a craze that has absorbed and benefited from some of the postures. But yoga is not a fitness fad, or a spiritual fashion. I don't see it vanishing. I suspect Christy Turlington and many tens of thousands of others will be doing yoga when they are senior citizens.
Second, yoga as practiced in many health spas and clubs may indeed be exclusively physical, and superficial as a result. The meditations and Hindu chants you'd get at a studio devoted only to yoga (where teachers connected to the Indian mothership might be employed) aren't making it into the mainstream yet. This seems to me to be part of yoga's ongoing process. It is a path, after all. But I don't see how anyone could say that our spiritual hunger is more shallow today than it has been at other times in human history, or that yoga had to wait for this particularly shallow moment to thrive, or even that the Americans enjoying Hatha yoga are superficial if they're not studying Hinduism in their spare time.
I do see how market drives might influence spiritual seekers and shoppers. I see how we pick and choose. But weren't religious topics off-limits for instinctively liberal celebrities not so many years ago? Aren't we delving "into" faith and whatever's unseen in a deeper, more direct way? You've got to taste something before you devour it.
When people try yoga for the first time, and stretch out in that final corpse pose--more often than not--they go into a deep sleep on the studio floor. This moment, so removed from ordinary consciousness, then shifts into a feeling of joy and painful recognition that--man!--they haven't felt this relaxed in a long, long time!
People greet their physical bodies in a way that is new and profound. The realization that "I was stressed and distracted, but now I'm so calm and relaxed," can indeed lead people to a healthier relationship to food, to family, to God. There is an "I was lost but now I'm found" quality to every yoga session--at home or in class. It's important to also realize that a yoga practice is not a class you buy. It's spontaneous moments caught throughout the day, pauses to reframe, stretch, breathe. Calm responses to stressful situations and abrasive people follow suit!
Can you become a more authentic person through your yoga pracitce and be better able to serve the world? Yes, and being of service is so much better than having well-toned abs or arms (though actually, Hanna, I am noticing that my triceps could use a little work).
I'll stop here and let you guys talk. If you've had no exposure to yoga yet, I hope you find your way to a teacher who won't just put you through the motions. Chime in, you more experienced yogis and yoginis. Let us hear how deep your practice goes, and what's changed in your life since you started.
Readers sent in such interesting descriptions of their energetic exchanges with deceased loved ones that I'll just run them here.
"The night that my beloved grandmother died in 1993," writes CM reader Nancy, "I left the hospital and went to my mother's house to comfort her. As I approached my mother's house, I felt a strong and unmistakable warmth, starting in the middle of my back and spreading throughout my abdomen. It was like an injection. I knew instantly that it was my grandmother's energy, touching me from the gates of the Other Side, comforting me, telling me that everything was going to be all right."
"About 20 minutes after getting the news [of my mom's death] I was laying down, in the fetal position, sobbing and in such pain," writes Elizabeth. "Out of nowhere I sat up and had the most peaceful feeling... I can't describe it to anyone, but that feeling was like nothing I have ever felt before. It helped me through (and still does) the most painful time of my life. Now, I don't know if it was my mom or God or what, but something was there, present, in me or touching me, making me feel safe. I still cry and am extremely sad that my mom is not here, but moments after I start to well up, I think of that feeling. It reminds me there is something bigger than me, that it doesn't just stop here."
"I was only 12 when my Dad died. I was at summer camp," writes Devar. "We were in the midst of the initiation ceremony for the new girls. It was a lovely ceremony with candles and everyone dressed in white. I was a new girl myself, so my candle had JUST been lit by one of the returning campers. I was standing holding my candle when suddenly I felt very alone. I was surrounded by all the other girls and counselors, but it was suddenly like they were all in a dream and I was in my own clear reality by myself. I looked down at my candle and saw it flicker, as if in a gust of wind... but it kept burning. Not only did it keep burning, but it seemed actually to burn brighter. I felt amazed and frightened by it. Later that night, my mother arrived to take me home, and told me that my Dad had dropped dead at the age of 52 on the tennis court when I had seen my candle flicker. I believe it was my Dad's spirit whooshing by me on his way to The Light, that caused my candle to flicker. I believe it was the perfect way for him to express his parting message to me: 'Although my death causes your Inner Light to flicker, it WILL keep burning, and mine with you. Let your Little Light shine in the world!'"
"My dad died February 3rd, 2005...I am still bereft, but I don't live in grief," writes Stacey. "I remember the euphoric feeling - for days - of the love coming from all the people that came to his viewing and funeral. Not only was their love palpable, but so was my dad's love. To this day I speak to him as if he were right near me, because I feel as though he hears and guides me. And I no longer fear death.."
Writes reader Cheryl Elizabeth: "One night the week of [my dad's] death, I was sitting alone in my bedroom talking to him in my head. I said, "Dad if you're okay please give me a sign.' Suddenly the room got a bright blue. My computer came on, and the blue of the Microsoft windows illuminated my room more brightly than I've ever seen. I couldn't believe it. It lasted about two minutes, and just as suddenly turned itself off. I felt wonderful, and have not worried about him since."
Reader Jolinda writes: "I have begun my meditation practice just recently (after a hiatus since 9-11-2001) and after losing my precious grandmother, on my birthday one year ago, I was in meditation this morning, thanking her for her guidance, and felt her stroking my hair, as she did (the only person ever to do so) while I would be falling asleep as a child. At 36 years old, this feeling is unmistakable, and from whom the same."
Writes Daria: "Last week I had a dream with the message 'It's about the code'...repeated over and over, like a
slogan, but in an insightful and loving way by everyone who said it. In the morning I awoke feeling rested and happy; I ran downstairs to share my dream with my family. It was then I learned that my best friend, Kate, had died during the night. I knew in that moment it was Kate speaking to me in my dreams. My first thought was, 'You'll always be able to find me, and I you.' Then I cried because I knew her pain was over."
posted by Chattering Mind @ 11:57 AM | Permalink |
Today Beliefnet launched a survey for parents on what it’s like to raise kids with religious and/or spiritual values.
This quiz was composed in partnership with Parents magazine for an upcoming article on spiritual parenting. Click that link and complete the survey if you're a parent; it only takes a few minutes.
There's one question I would have adjusted: When the survey asks what the biggest challenge to raising children with religious or spiritual values is, the multiple choice options don't separately list computer games and screen media, so I just checked the box that blamed "Conflicts between the practice of religion and everyday life."
Video games and entertainment media are definitely the enticements that arrest the young Chatterings' spiritual progress. How's it going at your place?
posted by Chattering Mind @ 11:46 AM | Permalink |
"Place your burden at the feet of the Lord of the Universe who accomplishes everything. Remain all the time steadfast in the heart, in the Transcendental Absolute. God knows the past, present, and future He will determine the future for you and accomplish the work What is to be done will be done at the proper time. Don't worry. Abide in the heart and surrender your acts to the divine."
This is my favorite Ramana Maharshi quote, and I found it on the homepage of Krishna Das's website.
posted by Chattering Mind @ 11:59 PM | Permalink |
Hey guys, you're going to love Jeff Martinhauk, a liberal Christian blogger and seminarian I discovered while Googling around last night. Martinhauk's blog is called "Leaning Towards Justice," and he writes on all manner of religious and spiritual topics with the belief that when you broadly regard human history, you will see that people are enjoying more freedom, things are improving, and that God is offering us a grand opportunity to live in His "full abundance."
"The Bible, rather than being a revelation of strict truths, is part of the grand narrative of time. It is the faith history of God and God’s people, showing how God’s people have learned about God as they move through time, gradually understanding more of God’s truth and responding appropriately. Sometimes they have it right, and sometimes they don’t. The Bible captures this struggle for forward movement- the joys and the sorrows, and shows how we, as a people of God, have made progress over time…"
Here's a passage from his blogger's bio:
"We know that in that broad view, the arc of history always leans towards justice. When we stop and absorb that, we can fully absorb the hope God offers us in this world...We can see the democracy of the souls–-the worthiness and equal-ness of all people–-before God. God is love. History proves it. Justice continues to roll down like waters, and righteousness continues like a mighty stream."
Nice! This will come as welcomed reading if you've been thinking "ah heck, the holidays are over," and haven't yet embraced your new year with open arms!
posted by Chattering Mind @ 11:45 AM | Permalink |
This week a 50-year-old construction worker and Navy veteran named Wesley Autrey saved a man who had fallen onto the New York subway tracks by leaping onto the tracks himself and pressing the fallen stranger down into the one foot high space left beneath the oncoming subway car (which did indeed speed over them). Everyone survived.
You have to believe you can physically manage that before trying it, right? Or not? And it's interesting Autrey had Navy training. But how far would you go to save a perfect stranger? What would you risk? Autry leapt, leaving his two daughters on the subway platform, and he yelled up--when the train was stopped but still on top of him--to ask someone to tell his girls he was all right.
posted by Chattering Mind @ 11:22 AM | Permalink |
Our 10-year-old Chattering son appears to be a synesthete, which in his case means that he "sees" letters in color and perceives the taste of foods on a "mental" grid or graph.
A fair share of famous artists and composers have had synesthesia, a involuntary sensory irregularity in which some of the five senses cross into each other. Musical notes may be "seen" in color, or smells might be grouped visually as circles, squares, or triangles. I first learned of synesthesia when I read Vladimir Nabokov's autobiography "Speak Memory," and found this sort of sensory profile so wonderful to contemplate that I never forgot about it. Once considered extremely rare, sensory overlaps may actually occur in as many as three percent of all people.
Young Chat has always been able to hear more than most people in one ear (our pediatrician insisted we see an audiologist to have the irregularity tested when he was very young). He's also been hugely appreciative of the complex flavorings of many ethnic cuisines in restaurants. And lately, his remarks when cooking with me in the kitchen have seemed so odd. "Oh Mom," he declared while making his usual Asian dumpling dipping sauce for our carryout: "The taste of this sauce goes way up, then goes flat for awhile, and then comes up, and goes down again." Could he one day be a skilled wine taster or "nose" for a perfume company?
"He seems to chart the tastes of foods like he's drawing them on graph paper," I told my sister on the phone last week.
"Well, he might have synesthesia!" she said, always the one to point stuff out to me.
"Hey honey, do you see letters in color?" I called out to him, phone still in hand (admittedly, not the best way to tease scientific information out of somebody).
My son said "yes" very emphatically.
So Mr. Chattering cheerfully sat him down and went through the alphabet several times, reviewing letters in random order, and discovered that yes, our son has involuntary color associations for letters that are fixed in his mind as realities. A and R are red in nature. B, G, H, and O are blue. Lots of letters seem green: E, I, V, T, J, S. The letter Y is white. D and C are inexplicably silver. Apparently, not all synesthetes assign the same colors in the same way, so there's no making sense of it. Young Chat can read books without being distracted; it's just when he thinks about the letters individually, and savors their character, that the colors come up loud and clear.
For me, certain acupunture points on my body, when needled, have colors to them. But I don't know what they are until I feel them. That's the only way I can relate. So we've just joined the American Synesthesia Association, which has annual conventions and is fueling a revival of deeper inquiry.
Do your senses ever lapse into each other? Do you know any synesthetes? Why do you think someone would be born with these kinds of sensory crossovers? Fun to think about, isn't it?
We spent our New Year's Eve with old friends (with a new baby) in Washington D.C., a city filled with so many memories since I lived in it eighteen years. We showed our own kids our old haunts, visited the renovated Portrait Gallery, and also caught a retrospective show of my beloved Joseph Cornell, which included an exhibit of his stacked supply boxes of shells, feathers, glitter, buttons, and junk--all the glorious clutter he kept on hand for his angelic collage projects! He found beauty in everything, and peace within chaos.
Alone later, in a consignment shop on Connecticut Avenue, I found a phenomenally beautiful 75-year-old Imari black bowl with a gold Buddha and golden-haloed meditating teachers all over it, which I've decided to send as a get-well gift to "Integral Spirituality" author Ken Wilber, who has been gravely ill in Colorado. When I walk into a thrift or consignment store and find just the right gift for somebody, I feel as though everything's fallen into alignment; I'm finding the right home for something precious that's fallen out of the right hands.
As I develop my own new year's resolutions this week--something I've done every year since I was a young --I'm thinking it would make sense to accept more of myself, all of my selves, and not strive to change too much. Why slavishly contort yourself into a new shape, work harder, or try on a new mask? Isn't it better to be grateful for the lessons presented by our faults? I did, however, find a good article written by University of Maryland psychologists about how to create and stick to realistic New Year's goals. In addition to reminding folks not to aim too high or strive for perfection, the experts say it's helpful to find goals with a spiritual dimension. Read more here.
What are your new year's resolutions, and how do you keep them realistic?
A reader calling herself Gramma writes: "My clutter consists of piles of old magazines and newspaper clippings about important subjects: politics; religion; history; civil rights movement; black history; women's history; sociology; etc. After I got rid of about half of it, the remainder is keeping me from renovating my home, selling it, and moving to be nearer my son and his wonderful family. Although I know I would be much happier after I move, something (laziness?) is keeping me from finishing the job. The rut I'm in is obviously so comfortable I'm not motivated to climb out and achieve my remaining life's goals: writing my autobiography and several other books; traveling; and doing more volunteer work. Since I'm now 70 and still in good health, I need to 'get with the program' and achieve my goals before it's too late. What's wrong with me?"
What's right with you, Gramma, might be the better question. You're rounding a bend, and you sound deep enough "as is," without the papery clutter of those "important subjects." Don't hate the mess, but get outside help to liberate yourself. Hang a crystal over the worst of it, play exciting music as you clear it away.
posted by Chattering Mind @ 11:19 PM | Permalink |
Chattering Mind is a blog on motherhood, aging, health and healing, yoga, whole foods, spiritual music, meditation, as well as the struggle to manage time and clutter.
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If your hands, arms, and shoulders ache from long hours at the computer, you might glean good information by reading Ergoblog, a well-executed site that reviews the latest keyboards and desk chairs, and discusses the possible relationship between stress injuries and food allergies. 
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