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Summertime in Maine

Stephen’s brother and niece are visiting us from the West coast, and it has infused some new energy into our daily routine that had become a bit stale and lifeless. It is so revitalizing to have family visit after a year of not seeing any relatives.

As July begins, I am reflecting on and trying to embody my word for this month which is joy. A simple word yet elusive to many including myself. I know when I feel it, but I can’t always grasp it. I have to wait patiently for it to come to me even though I believe certain practices can open ourselves up to receive more joy in our life.

My wise teacher Philip Thatcher asked my West Coast Institute class several years ago during our reading of Parzival, “What is joy?” My hand shot up immediately to answer, surprising myself, the quiet one who learned to keep my mouth shut and ears and mind open during most classes unless I felt I had something worthwhile to say, and as Philip called on me I heard myself speaking from a place of deep knowing–of course I know what joy is. Joy is that feeling and experience of holding pain and suffering while at the same time feeling your soul and heart expanding and bursting with love. For me, it’s the image of the mother, the conscious mother, I should add, fully awake and aware, in childbirth. Giving birth to my children was one of the hardest things I had to do physically in my life; it stretched me like nothing else could and yet the knowing that my child would soon be in my arms brought a fullness of heart that little else had in my life until then.

When I embody joy, it feels like an expansiveness and spaciousness, an acceptance and allowing for all feelings and experiences to be felt while knowing I am not alone. It has depth that happiness does not. For me, happiness remains on the surface but joy grows deep roots into the pain and suffering of being human by remembering that none of us is truly alone. I believe we all have an angel or guide and the Great Spirit who lives within us and all around us, making space for joy even through our tears of suffering.

As my telehealth psychotherapy private practice is beginning, I am reminded again and again of how we need to be gentle with one another. We all have our shortcomings, our failures, mistakes, and vulnerabilities. But we also have so many gifts to share with one another, the simplest and yet the hardest perhaps is loving-kindness. I tell myself frequently to be a blessing towards others and not a curse. May I bring more joy into a room instead of pain. May you do likewise this day.

I leave you with a quotation from David Driskell, a local artist whose work we saw at the Portland Museum of Art:

“When the indomitable human spirit rises above the chaos of violence, hunger and pain and soars to a heightened relief through the making of art, we are classless and raceless so long as we create the spiritual vision. As an artist of African ancestry, I have had to learn to live with racism, sexism, and all the prejudices. I often find refuge and, indeed, solace in the creative process. In the quiet of my small studio nestled in the majestic pines and white birches in Maine, two worlds merge in my work, one of sight, the other of vision. The beauty of nature and the creative world of the imaginations together express the joyous vision I have as an artist, responding to the spiritual urge within to fulfill my earthly task of making and creating my own beautiful world.”

-David Driskell


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Bring back the Light

The year was 2006 and I was standing behind a podium at the Los Angeles VA Hospital in a small conference room with an audience of my peers, other palliative care fellows, and a few physicians and nurses who stopped in to eat their lunch and listen to my presentation on spirituality and end of life care. It was near the end of my year long palliative care fellowship as the one social worker on the team. I had struggled the whole year for a sense of direction. I was a young 28 year old. What did I know about helping veterans with a terminal illness? What did I know of suffering then? I don’t really remember what I presented, but I do recall ending with Rainer Maria Rilke’s words from “Letters to a Young Poet,” Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Rilke’s words gave me the confidence to stand before those medical professionals and share my truth and also say I don’t know.

This year of the pandemic, the great political divide, and ongoing natural disasters of climate change have brought so many questions that we continue to live. On this winter solstice night, I leave you with another poem, Go to the Limits of Your Longing by Rainer Maria Rilke, from Book of Hours I 59 to hold onto in this time of darkness.

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the nigh
t.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing,
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.


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Searching for Spaciousness

My word for this month is peace, but all I’ve been feeling with each passing day is increasingly more irritability and stress. Every month until now I have felt a sense of accomplishment in moving towards greater courage, more creativity, discipline in getting up consistently around the same time each day even on the weekends, taking action, moving towards connection, understanding, and staying motivated, but peace eludes me in this last month of the year.

The constant “mama, mama” when I’ve responded multiple times already waiting to hear what is wanted, and all I get as a response is more “mama, mama.” How can I not respond with an irritated, WHAT? And then, “what can I dooooooooo?” How is it that my child is 6, nearly 7 and doesn’t know how to play? He’ll often gladly do work, help me fold clothes, bake muffins, or rake leaves. But play with his toys on his own? That is an impossible task for him.

I finally had to escape to my “office,” you know the office every parent has in their home where you lock the door and sit on your throne. Yep, that one. I pulled out a Sundance catalog I hid in the drawer and lost myself in the shiny, pretty things on each page. And then God found me again. Even here, I thought. I had to laugh and of course cry. There on the page of the Sundance catalog was a quotation from St. Therese, the saint I chose for my confirmation, speaking to me about peace.

Here it is below in case you are straining your eyes to read the photo above:

She said, “May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise, and love. It is there for each and every one of us.”

I was listening to the On Being podcast with angel Kyodo williams yesterday. She was talking about love as space. She shared “It is developing our own capacity for spaciousness within ourselves to allow others to be as they are–that that is love. And that doesn’t mean that we don’t have hopes or wishes that things are changed or shifted, but that to come from a place of love is to be in acceptance of what is, even in the face of moving it towards something that is more whole, more just, more spacious for all of us.”

I think that if I find more spaciousness, I will stumble upon more peace. It’s clear to me that I feel very small, compressed, squeezed dry when I am stressed and irritable. I have nothing more to give. And so when I left my “office” in tears, I had to tell my family that I needed to take some space for myself. I walked out to the screened in porch and wrote and breathed and let the sun shine on me. And as I put this day to rest, I tell myself–tomorrow is a new day to begin again.


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One Autumn Day in Maine

It’s Sunday morning and Zoey asks me, “Do you think God regrets having made humans?” I think how do I answer this question and then I just speak from the heart. No theology lesson here for my 9 year-old, just a deep felt sincere answer. In the split second before I answer, I think about the parallel between God viewed as “Father” or as a parent and the human attribute of God’s disappointment in humans and perhaps Zoey’s growing consciousness as a 9 year-old and her struggles to live up to her own parents’ expectations and perceived disappointment. I tell her no, I don’t think God regrets creating humans and I add on that the God she is learning about at school when she hears the Old Testament stories is how the Hebrew people understood God a long long time ago, but that it’s not necessarily how God is understood today, nor how I understand God. And of course I can’t pass up the opportunity to question what makes her ask. But she doesn’t explain. I continue to think about her question in light of the world events today. It prompts me to pull out my Jerusalem Bible and reread the creation stories in Genesis. It’s when I get to the Flood story that I see the line “Yahweh regretted having made man on the earth, and his heart grieved” (Genesis 6:6). This verse must have been living in her since her teacher told her the story of Noah’s ark last week.

I’ve been reading Untamed by Glennon Doyle, who I heard speak on Brené Brown’s podcast Unlocking Us, a new favorite of mine. There are so many gems in this book. Here is one I love for the times we are living now: ” . . .the deepest truth is not what we can see but what we can imagine.” What we can see can be limiting and in times like now disheartening, but the possibilities within our imagination are endless. In our imagination we can dream of a beautiful world where we tend to the earth and take care of each other regardless of borders, the color of our skin, our language, culture, or religion. In our small mind of the intellect, maybe we can only understand God as having human feelings and reactions. And if that is so, then yes maybe God is disappointed in humanity, how we continue to commit acts of violence in our actions and words and fail to live in right relationship with those around us and the natural world. And I don’t think it’s a big stretch to consider that Zoey might be wondering if her own parents regret having had her. I have had too many clients in the past who have shared their mothers directly voiced that they regretted having them. It still pierces me to the heart thinking of the pain of knowing your mother never wanted you. But I am not one of those women, who for whatever reason, wanted a different path for their life. Nevertheless, I do find myself feeling more frustrated these days as my instructions to Zoey get brushed aside as she does what she wants when she wants. And she sees my frustration and perhaps wonders do I have regrets? I pause and have to consider, am I just building a cage around this beautiful, kind, and loving being who strives to be her own person and am I trying to mold her into my own expectations of how she should be?

The autumn always reminds me that the cycle of death and letting go is a normal part of life. And regret and disappointment serve a purpose. If we let ourselves feel the regret and disappointment, it can open up space for change and doing something different next time. The biblical restart was what came after the flood. Perhaps for us in America our restart will be what happens after the November election.

What Zoey doesn’t yet realize is that we can never live up to the ideal. We may strive for the Garden of Eden before the “fall,” but who wants to live without human consciousness? There is no perfect human being. Part of being human is that you’re going to make mistakes and disappoint someone. And you have to learn as you grow what you need to let go of, what part of you needs to die so that something new may form and blossom. I am still trying to prune my need to please others. My need to please God. My need to please friends. My need to please my husband. I’ve somehow managed to get over my need to please my own parents. I have to let go of my need to control my beautiful butterfly of a daughter. I have to trust that as Stephen and I provide the safe boundaries she needs, she will find her own way of being in this world.


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Soul Food

Casco Bay

Yesterday Zane and I celebrated his half-birthday at Wolfe’s Neck Woods State Park. It wasn’t really our intention to celebrate his half-birthday, but it was a good excuse to get out of the house while Zoey stayed at home on dog duty, catching up on the Anne of Green Gables series she’s started watching. Zane and I went for a short hike, found a shady spot on a rock to have our picnic lunch, read a little from The House at Pooh Corner, and dug in the sand with seashells.

I’ve been reflecting on how slow our summer passed compared to our whirlwind adventure last summer. Our daily rhythm for the past month has seemed even slower than usual due to welcoming Ziggy, our 12 week old miniature poodle, into our family.

And yet at the same time, I feel like a new mother exhausted with the constant care of a newborn except that at least Ziggy sleeps through the night! I’ve been waking again around 5:30 a.m., some mornings closer to 6:00 a.m. if Ziggy is able to sleep in a little later. As much as I detest waking up in the dark, I love being outside as the dawn arrives and birds begin their morning songs. Two days ago I saw a porcupine on our front lawn as I took Ziggy out. Ziggy didn’t even notice.

We’ve also welcomed six Rhode Island Red chicks into our family. Three days after we brought Ziggy home, Stephen and the kids went to Tractor Supply and brought home the chicks. In about two weeks they should be old enough to move out of the basement permanently into the chicken coop Stephen built.

The kids have been taking them out to the coop during the day, but bring them back to the basement at night.

Although the warm days still feel like summer, the school year has begun. Zoey started school August 26th and Zane started on the 31st. They are making new friends and returning to the familiar rhythm of Waldorf education even though they are at a new school. Zane returns to one more year of kindergarten, just like his mama who needed a little extra time strengthening social skills. His class meets outside all day with everyone wearing masks. He’s been enjoying digging deep holes in the sandbox with a small garden shovel. Zoey has been climbing trees with classmates in the forest on campus, learning Hebrew for her first main lesson block of hearing Old Testament stories, learning French, painting, crocheting, doing math games, and playing the ukulele. Her third grade class is supposed to start violin or cello this year, but because they are unable to do much if any singing this year, her teacher thought they would enjoy learning the ukulele.

I’ve been using my 3 hours that Zane is at school (he has half day Kindergarten until noon) doing my online continuing education classes to reactivate my license. I’m considering some telemental health work options. As much as I would love to do my student teaching to complete my Waldorf teaching certificate, it doesn’t seem like the best choice for me and my family right now during this pandemic.

The past several months as I’ve read the news, I’ve carried in my heart the question of what can I do to bring about a positive change in this world? How can I be of service to others? Those questions have lived in me since I was a child in Catholic school. How can I embody Christ in my actions and words? I haven’t been able to live up to that ideal but I am striving. I fail again and again within my own family, but I start again. I was drawn to social work 17 years ago because I saw it as a way to connect with others, to bring some assistance and relief to those in need or who were suffering, and it was meaningful work that I saw as an act of social justice. I have never seen myself as an expert in mental health, but I still feel called to walk alongside those who are struggling and to try to bring some more light into their life.

I know I am not alone in feeling the heaviness of reading the news daily. Time and again I question how we could elect a leader who exhibits the very opposite behavior of how we want our children to behave. I shudder to think there may be a reasonable, intelligent adult in our country who upholds our president as a role model for their child. In the darkness and division we hear about and live in our daily lives, I think about this idea of “soul food.” Chris Bennett, one of my instructors at the West Coast Institute told my class one time about the importance of telling your students a story at the end of main lesson, that it’s important to give them “soul food.” He was referencing Rudolf Steiner’s idea that “Feelings are for the soul what food is for the body.” I think we all need some soul food right now, something that nourishes us and fills us in these difficult times. For me, I’ve been getting my dose of soul food listening to several audiobooks by Clarissa Pinkola Estes on Hoopla (for you Mendocino County folks). I love hearing her stories, some well known fairytales and others I’ve never heard before, in her own voice. I feel blessed with an inner strength after listening. In one of her audiobooks she retells the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes. If you don’t remember the story, which I’m sure you must have heard during childhood, go ahead and read it again in light of the current political reality we live in. Those who commit violence with their words, underneath there is much fear. And those who remain silent, unable to stand up against the bullies and oppressors in this world, they too have much fear. But I also believe that the wisdom of the child, like in The Emperor’s New Clothes, lives in all of us which is that ability to name the truth and to see things as they really are. Who among us will be brave enough to stand up for what is right and stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, political party, etc?

“Come to the edge,” he said.
“We can’t, we’re afraid! they responded.
“Come to the edge,” he said.
“We can’t, We will fall! they responded.
“Come to the edge,” he said.
And so they came.
And he pushed them.
And they flew.

-Guillaume Apollinaire


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How to Move Forward

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Popham State Beach, ME

I realize this blog title is misleading. It makes it sound like I am going to tell you how to move forward in these difficult times we are living. These difficult times we are living, as if the present has known more difficult times than the past, which we all know isn’t true. This is just life as it is evolving in front of us, as we live. I know you don’t think I have all the answers because I don’t. I’ve remained silent for too long, like so many, worrying I will say the wrong thing yet wanting to speak out. Yesterday I was reading this article “How to Start Making Real Change in Your Organization,” where Heidi Brooks, Yale School of Management leadership expert, talked about the mistake of keeping silent. She says, “Silence is not neutrality. If you’re saying nothing, what you might be projecting in your organizational culture, especially if you’re a leader, is the way that we deal with these things is through silence. If you’re thinking you’re kind of a neutral Switzerland in this, I would say silence is not neutrality right now.”

I was invited to join a small group recently to discuss consciousness raising, and I shared how I haven’t written on my blog because I don’t want to write something that will offend people. But the reality is that I will offend some people because we all have different perspectives. My experience is not your experience. I think perhaps I could rename this post “Allowing Ourselves to be Moved.” For a long time I would skip over news articles that were too painful to read. My excuse was self-care; working as a therapist and hearing clients’ trauma stories was enough for me. But perhaps a truer excuse is that I don’t like to feel uncomfortable. But I’ve known for some time now that growth happens in that place of discomfort and fear if we allow ourselves to stay there and pay attention to it before running the other way or distracting ourselves with what feels good. For me, the discomfort or fear starts as an ache in my heart and feeling unsettled in my belly. This internal feeling makes me feel restless, wanting to do some thing. As I live this 42nd year of my life, I’m trying to do that very thing that scares me, that makes me uncomfortable, the hard things, the impossible things. How can I translate this discomfort into healing, into a movement of action and compassion? 

In my own little world here in Southern Maine, my one little thing is writing on this blog. I can share with you how I am trying to learn and listen and reflect on the present and the past in order to inform how I can live into the future. Here’s a free online course Yale offers on African American History I am taking. I also highly recommend listening to Krista Tippett’s On Being interview with Resmaa Menakem. 

I recently finished reading When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. A former client, who was a practicing Buddhist, introduced me to her writing. Here’s a passage from Chapter 13 of the book to sit and reflect on, my offering to you this day: 
     “How are we ever going to change anything? How is there going to be less aggression in the universe rather than more? We can then bring it down to a more personal level: how do I learn to communicate with somebody who is hurting me or someone who is hurting a lot of people? How do I speak to someone so that some change actually occurs? How do I communicate so that the space opens up and both of us begin to touch in to some kind of basic intelligence that we all share? In a potentially violent encounter, how do I communicate so that neither of us becomes increasingly furious and aggressive? How do I communicate to the heart so that a stuck situation can ventilate? How do I communicate so that things that seem frozen, unworkable, and eternally aggressive begin to soften up, and some kind of compassionate exchange begins to happen?”

That’s a lot of questions, I know. But she has a starting point, a place to begin again and again. Pema writes, “Well, it starts with being willing to feel what we are going through. It starts with being willing to have a compassionate relationship with the parts of ourselves that we feel are not worthy of existing on the planet. If we are willing through meditation to be mindful not only of what feels comfortable, but also of what pain feels like, if we even aspire to stay awake and open to what we’re feeling, to recognize and acknowledge it as best we can in each moment, then something begins to change.”

I had to write these words before I could move on to writing about our day to day life with my little family. I’ll share what we’ve been up to next time.

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At Home Again

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We’ve been living in our new house in southern Maine for three weeks now. Our visit with my parents in California was cut short when we realized the increasing seriousness of the Coronavirus. The kids and I arrived at an empty house the morning of March 15th. After taking a nap in the parking lot of Cabela’s in our rental car, we bought the bare necessities i.e. air mattress to sleep on, towels, and a few kitchen items until Stephen arrived at the end of the week with our remaining things we had in storage.

We’ve had two snowfalls since we’ve been here. Zoey and Zane put on their winter clothes in the early morning following our first snowfall to go walk through the snow to make trails.

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Our backyard

We took a long three week spring break, one week during our time in California and then the first two weeks in Maine. It was a difficult decision whether to stay in California with my parents while Stephen drove our stuff across the country, knowing if we waited too long we might not be able to fly east and would be stuck in California for months on end but have food security, or fly to Maine before Stephen  and arrive to an empty house with no food in the pantry, not knowing how the grocery store shelves would look in Maine. We took the risk, and here we are settling into a new home that will take a while to furnish. As the weather warms up here to the 50s, I’m looking at our backyard thinking about growing a vegetable and herb garden. There is a raspberry patch and two apple trees in the backyard.

Our days here in Maine haven’t been that different than when we were traveling in our Airstream except that we aren’t traveling anymore. I am still homeschooling the kids, and we are playing endless games of Uno, Monopoly, Scrabble, and Sequence. Zane told me tonight that he really didn’t want to be my partner because I wasn’t a “winner.” Before we started our around the country trip last June, I was most looking forward to spending every day with Stephen and the kids. I would have to say that was the best part of our trip even though at times it was stressful and difficult. And here we are at home spending every day together again, but we have more room to spread out now.

I never had a chance to share photos of the last leg of our trip before we reached California. We spent three days in Sedona, Arizona hiking each afternoon.IMG_4932

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Outside the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona, AZ

After leaving Sedona, we stopped at Arcosanti for a tour and ate lunch in the cafe there. You can read more about it on their website.

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Last year, in the days leading up to the Epiphany, I spent some time each day writing and reflecting on a value to cultivate for each month of 2020. January was courage, February was creativity, March was discipline, and April is generosity. I haven’t observed Lent this year, but as Lent comes to a close with Easter on Sunday, being more disciplined in our consumption (we had 2.5 rolls of toilet paper when we arrived, and thankfully Stephen brought us a few more) and in our actions hasn’t been so difficult for me. What has been difficult for me is cultivating generosity–generosity of words, time, space, gifts, money, empathy, and understanding. Fear and anxiety usually get in the way, but I’m working on listening more to that nagging voice that moves me to action. I am inspired by stories from around the world, where people are reaching out to their neighbors and strangers in these difficult times. For me, that is Easter joy. We are all humans, vulnerable in so many ways, but we have an incredible capacity to be kind and generous to one another even in the midst of suffering.

I leave you with “A Verse for Our Time” by Rudolf Steiner.
We must eradicate from the soul
All fear and terror of what comes towards man
out of the future.
We must acquire serenity
In all feelings and sensations
about the future.
We must look forward with 
absolute equanimity
to everything that may come.
And we must think only that
whatever comes
is given to us by a world-
directive full of wisdom.
It is part of what we must learn
in this age,
namely, to live out of pure trust,
without any security in existence.
Trust in the ever present help
of the spiritual world.
Truly, nothing else will do
if our courage is not to fail us.
And let us seek the awakening
from within ourselves
every morning and every evening.

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Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona, AZ

 


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On the Road Again

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On Monday afternoon we left Grandmom and Granddad’s house after a 2 month stay to continue our road trip without our trailer. Stephen found a buyer for the Airstream while I was in Canada for my last week of teacher training. The day after I returned, we packed up all of our things that wouldn’t fit in the truck to be shipped to our house in Maine. Our first stop was Fredericksburg, Texas. We stayed in a lovely, old house that creaked at night. Stephen got up both nights we were there to check to make sure there really wasn’t a person walking around the house and was given a fright by the jackets hanging on the coatrack by the door. The following day we hiked Enchanted Rock. Stephen and the kids looked for the cave Stephen crawled through when he was in college while I waited outside to do some cloud gazing.

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On Wednesday, we arrived in Fort Stockton, Texas where we stayed one night. We spent Thursday and Friday in Fort Davis, Texas with a brief visit in Marfa. Stephen and I had a delicious kale and pistachio salad at Aster, a small cafe in Marfa where the local border patrol were also dining. We stopped briefly at Building 98, which was an active army base in WWII where German POW soldiers stayed. Zoey and Zane were eager to see the mural painted in the ballroom by a German POW that they heard about listening to the Sparkle story “Fifty: The Stars, the States, and the Stories” about Texas. Last night we drove up to McDonald Observatory for the Star Party. It was a cloudy night unfortunately, but we were able to see a few constellations and looked through two telescopes at the moon and Venus before heading inside for a brief show to look at photos of the Pleiades, Orion nebula, and the Andromeda galaxy.

On our drive today just outside of the soon to be ghost town of Valentine, Texas we did a double take while passing a Prada store in the middle of nowhere.  The store is actually just an art installation, and there are real Prada shoes and handbags from the Fall 2005 collection inside but no door to enter.  Pretty strange.

 

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We’ll be in Las Cruces, New Mexico for two nights, then a short stay in Tuscon and Sedona, Arizona before arriving back in California.

 


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Stretching Oneself

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A snowy morning at Benmore Valley Ranch Feb. 5, 2019

It feels like we are on an extended holiday as we pass the weeks at Stephen’s parents house. You might wonder how our time traveling around the country in our trailer might not also feel like an extended holiday, but it feels different. There is a heightened level of stress that we felt traveling from RV park to RV park, constantly finding ourselves in new towns and cities. Here we can rest in the familiar and the known and it feels really good to be with family.

Our Airstream trailer is in the shop getting fixed in preparation for selling it. We will likely be here in Texas until the end of February when I return from my last trip up to Canada for my teacher training. We’ve only had about a week at a time visiting with Grandmom and Granddad in the past, so this extended time together feels extra special. Even though we have shortened school days at home, Zoey said to me the other day, “I never get to see Granddad and Grandmom.” It was one of those moments where I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of her statement, and yet realized the depth of her feeling that we stopped our lesson so that she could go get a hug from Grandmom.

We’ve been staying fairly close to home the past month, hence the old photo from our ranch.  The weather has been mostly warm here, but we’ve had a few cold days. This morning we woke up to a sprinkling of snow and went for a walk after breakfast on the trails behind the house.

I recently finished reading Little Bee by Chris Cleave.  Stephen picked it out for me at a Goodwill store. It was one of those books that found me right when I needed it. If you want to feel challenged and need some soul stretching, it’s a good book to read.

I’ve been puttering around on this blog post for days now, searching for the words to write. And then Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes found me again. She writes in her Letter to a Young Activist During Troubled Times:

Mis Estimados: Do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered, very concerned about the state of affairs in our world. One has to have strong cojones and ovarios to withstand much of what passes for good in our culture today. Abject disregard for what the soul finds most precious and irreplaceable, and the corruption of principled ideals, has become in so many places “the new normal.” It’s hard to say which one of these most egregious matters has rocked the people’s worlds and beliefs more. Ours is a time of almost daily jaw-dropping, astonishment, and righteous rage over the last degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people. You are right in your assessments. The luster and hubris some have aspired to, while endorsing acts so heinous against children and elders and everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet I urge you, and I ask you, I gentle you . . . do not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially, do not lose hope, most particularly because the fact is: WE WERE MADE FOR THESE TIMES. For years we’ve been practicing, learning, been in training for, and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement. I cannot tell you often enough that WE ARE DEFINITELY THE LEADERS THAT WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR . . .

For a long time I chose not to read the news in depth because it felt too heavy to carry while also holding the stories of suffering of my clients. But now as I enter more fully into what it means to be an adult, I can no longer be ignorant of the world of today. Even though Dr. Estes wrote this letter years ago, the words still ring true in 2020. And it begs the question, what do we value in our leaders? And more significantly, what values are we instilling in our children who are observing with wide-open eyes all the so-called adults of the world today? They are watching closely.

 

 

 


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6 Months on the road

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Wormsloe State Historic Site near Savannah, Georgia

I forget every year how quickly the holidays fly by. Only 3 weeks ago I was in North Vancouver, B.C. for my Waldorf teacher training, but it already feels ages ago. And in 3 weeks we will celebrate Christmas with Stephen’s parents. I had no problem crossing the border into Canada, but my flight into Chicago was cancelled due to snow, so my Monday travel day turned into a Tuesday travel day and I spent several hours at SFO waiting for my evening flight. I joke about how I would love to spend endless hours reading, but whenever I am stuck on an airplane or inside an airport and could read for nearly the whole day crossing the country in a matter of hours, I weary of reading. A body needs to move after a time.

Two days before yesterday (in Zoey and Zane parlance), we walked around Savannah, Georgia and stopped in at E. Shaver, Bookseller to browse the books and visit with the three resident bookstore cats; all were very fluffy and big. We found an Advent Calendar (not the chocolate kind!) for the kids with an activity behind each window. Zoey requested we hide the cards each day for her and Zane to find just like the Martin and Sylvia Sparkle story. It’s a nice way to count down to Christmas without sugar. They’ve had plenty of that in the past 3 weeks and will be having a lot more once we hit the Cowan household, in Texas, that is. Just telling it like it is.  Nearly everyday around the 3 o’clock hour, Zane announces that he is hungry. Neither Stephen or I had packed a snack, so we ended up at the Gryphon Tea Room.

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Post-snack at the Gryphon Tea Room

The kids had a strawberry spritzer and I had a pot of cinnamon spice tea. The building was once an apothecary, a bookstore, and now a tea room/restaurant owned by the Savannah College of Art and Design. We ordered two sandwiches to share which felt like more than a snack, but two hours later, Zane was announcing yet again that he was hungry. We went to the Old Pink House Restaurant for dinner.

We left Georgia two days ago and arrived at St. Augustine, Florida. We went to the beach nearby, threw the nerf football around, and got our feet wet (or in Zane’s case most of his body) in the warm ocean water.

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I’ve been reading the book Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver over the past several weeks. I’ve always enjoyed her writing, and this book has made me ponder the big questions about our current political situation (don’t worry, I’m not going to talk politics here!) and how we live our lives here on earth. We’ve spent 6 months on the road, and I start to wonder how this trip has changed us if at all. How will we live our lives differently once we have settled and have a house again? I realize I can only ask these questions because we’ve lived a privileged life.

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I turned 42 in October and I told my friend Jen that I only now feel like I am taking up the reins in being an adult, or figuring out how to be an adult. And then I look at my daughter, and she gives me so much hope for our future. I’m sure you’ve noticed capable, young people in your own sphere of living. Our towel rack that hangs off the stovetop broke off on one side when we arrived at our RV park. Zoey noticed it and immediately went to the truck to get a screwdriver out of Stephen’s toolbox in the truck and went to work on fixing the towel rack. She fixed it in a matter of seconds. I beamed inwardly with pride that my daughter is so capable of fixing things, while simultaneously noting that I was going to leave it to Stephen to fix. I’ve lived most of my life waiting for someone else to fix things, but I’m awakening to a new consciousness that challenges me to do the things that don’t come naturally or easily for me. I wonder what it would be like if on a world scale we let go of inertia and fear and did the very things that were difficult and hard for us? Even if we just tried.

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Wormsloe State Historic Park