Which are the artificial yeses?

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight... e.e.cummings

A reader's question from the last writing "the lioness and the oryx":  "I can so identify with where you are coming from. Of course, it raises the question -- which are artificial yeses?"

My artificial "yes" was institutionalized early. In the fifties and sixties, being female, I was trained by society to say, "yes": yes to wife-hood, mother-hood, religion-hood, and just about any hood my blind eyes couldn't see. My inner no's, my authentic self had pretty sparse ground in which to sprout.

Yet, those yeses gave me social value, protections, and security. Becoming a wife, I was no longer considered an "old maid, a spinster." The labels speak for themselves. Becoming a mother was the most important contribution I could make to society. (I had three degrees.) Leaving the children to work outside the home was neglect. I was also not to be smarter, taller or earn more money than my mate. These requirement/roles, too often starve my true lioness nature, my natural self. (My husband, who was a freer thinker than the norm, gave me support and space in which to explore these social roles.)

At first, I had to learn what was the "surface me" and then what was the "authentic me" -- how did they differ? I discovered I starved emotionally and spiritually every time I said yes when something in me said a deeper no: how many times did I say yes to sex when I did not want it, yes to company when I was exhausted, yes to measuring up to someone elses expectations rather then my own. (Actually, it is rather embarrassing to write this.)  I sought personal value from others, my yeses often put me in a box/situation that crippled my choices. I needed to make things right, keep everyone happy. To sum it up, I too often was gooy-nice rather than honest and true --  with a, "No thanks."

Socialization peels away a layer at a time and the odd time in chunks. Of course the trick is, even today, who am I, really? What expands my spirit, what resonants with my inner being, what freedoms wait there for me to play in? I try for a glimpse daily as it is always new ground.  Socrates said it several thousand years ago, "To thy own self be true." No one ever wrote to thy own self be artificial. If the lioness had been true she would be alive today.

Photo source: fotolia.com

Starving to death on artificial yeses...

"A lioness in central Kenya has baffled wildlife experts by adopting a baby oryx, a kind of small antelope normally preyed upon by big cats..." BBC News

My "yes" in the world becomes artificial and soul-taking when my inner being, my true self is shouting a resounding "No". One night on television I watched a documentary on Africa. A lioness was spotted mothering a young oryx which is a lion's natural, primary food (aliveness) source. Her true nature was to stalk and kill it. Eat or die. Yet she would not leave it's side to hunt for food for fear the other lions would kill it. They both became thinner and thinner. 

Her "yes" to the oryx betrayed her true identity. As I continued to watch the program, a sobering thought, "What "yeses" emaciate my spirit, make me untrue to my natural self? Maybe, those social situations that take my energy when a quiet walk along the lake would act like magic, leaving me with "a light and merry heart." 

Writing, too, is who I am, I love it and it loves me. Walking, hiking loves me back, as well. Yet, only a natural self gives that kind of feeling feed-back. Besides, allowing a couch-bound, procrastinated "artificial yes" to a poor TV program win, indeed, can leave me slightly emaciated. I shrink. Plus, I just plain do not feel good, after. 

A few weeks later, the oryx was killed by a male lion while the lioness, greatly weakened, slept. She was grief-stricken and angry when she woke. Yet her "artificial yes" had killed them both. No more oryx and she was never seen again. 

Photo source: fototia.com

Our energy body has no skin...

Scientists have proven beyond doubt that the physical world is one large sea of energy. Nothing is solid; everything is made up of non-physical energy.  You are literally made up of light, you are an energy being. *

Physical reality is an illusion, be it a convincing one.” Einstein

If Einstein, the physicists, and ancient seers have it right, we indeed are spiritual bodies having a physical experience. We are energy forms. We don’t stop at our skins; we are not our bones, our noses. I don’t even have to play with that knowledge. When I make my transition (die) into another experience I won’t be taking my little finger with me, which will be shed like a shell ending up with shocking speed as ashes or dust.

My cousin is coming this week. I am excited. I love her spirit-heart, her “me-ness”, where her laughter comes from, her special cousin-caring, her Presence.  In reality she has already arrived,. Her finger nails, nose, and ears I won’t even notice when they get here in a couple of days. Today she may be having a bad day, a headache, or having a great time playing poker. None of these physical things affect my experience of her.  The “good stuff,” her presence has already arrived.

Yet, refusing to be confined and defined by a physical body is hard. I fall so easily into thinking I end at my skin.  This perception shapes my reality, how I feel, how I experience most everything in my day. I touch my arm, a full stop.  I don’t go through an energy body to the desk. Both my fingers and this key board look and feel wonderfully solid; as do people walking by this window.  In fact, it is greatly comforting. In truth, I am not too eager to give “solid” up.

However, maybe I need to give up my comforts of seeing and experiencing reality as physical.  My cousin’s essence, her energy/spirit body certainly arrived before her physical body. I look up from this writing and see others in this library as solid and defined by their solidness, what they wear, their age, etc. A lie to who they really are.  Going for “the good stuff”, knowing physical reality is "one large sea of undulating energy." is becoming more of a responsibility. 

 * A paraphrase… 

photo source: fotolia.com

aliveness waits...

aliveness waits...

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitable earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)   e.e. cummings

I have had the flu for three weeks: sore muscles, fever, cough, etc. Like an intruder, this lifeless existence followed me to kitchen, desk, and living room – everywhere. I felt no joy, aliveness, or spirit. Certainly nothing e.e. cummings was writing about. Various experiences in my life – loss, failure, periods of bad days, negative thinking patterns, and grief have intruded for much longer periods.

Last week the flu left.  The feeling of aliveness, vitality, and the magic in the ordinary were waiting.  The difference of feeling between the two states shocked me. Gratitude flooded in. For two or three days I kept repeating, “I who was dead am alive again today, it is the sun’s birthday, the birthday of life, love, and wings.”

I know the body wants to heal itself. Something breathed this aliveness into my grey existence. I also know something beats my heart, I cannot do that. Something breaths me, I can’t hold my breath for long. Some great love, some great lover, and an essential natural self always waits and always beats.

*photo source: fotolia.com

What child is this -- this child of Christmas?

Children are full of joy, giggles and holy presence. As we say, what is Christmas without children? They may not know the stories, have life experience but they certainly know the feeling.

My two grands, four and two arranged the manger scene on the mantel last night.* They've never been to Sunday school, are not taught religion and yet the figurines were handled with excitement, great care and feeling. The donkey lost an ear, the Babe bounced from the mantle to the floor twice but both proved to be hardy. The children did not care, their eyes glowed as the two wise men and one wise women, the Mon and Dad took their place in the manger on the mantle.

The one foot Santa was unwrapped next. As the red suit and beard emerged -- an intake of breath. Eyes widened and mouths formed a perfect 0. A high octane sound of pure glee, innocence and deafening aliveness filled the room. Two children bursting their skin with an ecstasy welling up in an instant from a deep, deep land of joy, love, and aliveness.

Christmas is feeling and magic. "The deepest things after all are intangible."** All that matters to the two grands is the feeling -- the surge of joy, sweetness, and love from somewhere, some land within. Maybe this is the child our souls know about without religion, theology, without a face or a word, always waiting and always ready to birth in our mangers.

* Christmas 2012
**Nepo

the Christmas turkey...

My daughter is an environmentalist among other things. I try to be but do not want to sacrifice as much as she might. I came across this quote by Berke Breathed recently and thought of an earlier writing published here about the trees crying and the research that reveals plants and water respond to our feelings-intentions.  
So in honor of the turkey and all its kind this maybe the prayer at our table:

"Dear Lord, I've been asked, nay commanded, to thank Thee for the Christmas turkey before us... a turkey which was no doubt a lively, intelligent bird...a social being...capable of actual affection...nuzzling its young with almost human-like compassion. 
Anyway, it's dead and we're gonna eat it. Please give our respects to its family..."
                                                                                          Berke Breathed

Look, look, there is a star...

"I saw the backyard cedar...charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. It was less like seeing than like being...The flood of fire abated, but I’m still spending the power." Annie Dillard

Watching the yellow finches eating their breakfast, the old bird feeder caught the sun and a flame of light flickered from its edge.  Next time it flashed, squinting my eyes, I saw undulation, red, orange, blue web-like threads of light coming through the window, crossing the table, penetrating the coffee mug, and on into my chest.

 I sat there quite fascinated. Then, instantly, the rays of color were gone. I was left looking at the same old plastic feeder, yellowed by the sun. Beyond the feeder, the lake was ordinary blue and the trees were the ordinary green of the scrub spruce. Then a thought shocked me, "How dull I see."

 All of life must be alive like this. Certainly the new physics has proven everything is energy, light is a solid mass.  Mystics, scientists, and sagas witness to the awesome beauty of the ordinary.  The sun hits the car fender in the driveway, I squint, the rays move up the drive, through the door, down the hall and pass through me. One after noon, I spotted a broken CD lying in the dust reflecting the Tucson sun. The light and colors were brilliant.  My eyes took time to adjust.  I walked around the broke pieces watching light beams ripple prism colors, creating, extending, shimmering threads.

Laughing, I thought, imagine these gorgeous, undulating prism colors radiated from a bleached old, yellow plastic bird feeder, a car fender, and a broken CD.  I did not have to raise my vibration, move into a larger consciousness or be an evolved "light being". No feat of consciousness, just squinting.  

Watching the Christmas star on top of tree or looking at the stars on a dark, frosty morning I see the same beautiful, light beams -- long rays, pointing to and from the most commonest of objects. A wise woman once told me,"Look, look, the Christmas star. Don't be fooled, it's there in the ordinariness -- where the power is" -- like a babe radiating light from a smelly stable, filling the libraries of the world, without having a dime. 

photo source: fotolia.com