Archive for May, 2010
Happy Mother’s Day
I know mothers who feel that every day is mother’s day, and other mothers who feel that there couldn’t be enough days for us to remember and give thanks to our mothers. Moms work so hard, that much we know.
In my life I’ve been blessed with an amazing mother, a woman who’s given and given and given, who’s given me permission to follow my dreams. As we age we see our mothers as more than just our mothers. They are human beings, with so much more going on than we could have possibly given them credit for when we were kids. For the lucky among us, we embrace these human beings for the gifts they’ve given us. We forgive them the hurts. We forge adult relationships, and sometimes we’re even the parent.
I was thinking today how mother’s day, as much as it honors and should honor mothers, also honors the mother in all of us—even those without kids, even men. We have all been mothered and we have also all been the mother in our lives with someone at some moment. So happy mother’s day, Mom, and all moms, but also take a second to honor the nurturing mother in you, maybe the one who needs to mother her or himself, or maybe the one who needs to be honored for all that they do to love, nurture, and show up for the people love.
What is fun for you?
In guiding various people through their journeys of Intentional Transformation, I witness them face challenges, fears, confront inner and outer Con Artists, and sometimes wonder what it’s all for.
And then the day comes when whatever has been holding them back is suddenly gone, and this freedom and joy emerges from within them and they look and sound different. Many people remark that they feel younger, lighter; one woman even created a new word for it: living in “passionease.”
This morning I realized that the simple truth is it’s a lot more fun to be creative than it is to be reactive. So my question of the week is, “Are you having fun?” We often grow up and lose our childlike sparkle of having fun. What is fun for you? I would love to know!
Wake Up and Be Human
The story from New York about 31-year-old Guatemalan immigrant Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax and the new Arizona SB1070 immigration law (which legalizes racial profiling and targets people of color, mainly Hispanics) provide wonderful opportunities for inquiry.
These are some of the questions that have come up for me. Who am I? What am I capable of? What responsibilities do I have for my fellow human beings? Who is okay in my world, and who is not? What do I really own?
These are some of the answers: Who am I? I’m many things, but I’m surely a middle-aged American male with his fair share of blessings, issues, and problems. What am I capable of? Heroic deeds and shameful acts. Mostly I show up every day determined to do my best, to write poetry and deepen my spiritual practice. What responsibilities do I have for my fellows? It’s on me to act appropriately with compassion and forgiveness, and I need to find balance in this carnival-ride-of-a-world. Who is okay in my world, and who is not? Everyone belongs by being here. I’m no lord of this realm, and I’m no reliable judge. What do I really own? Nothing but my actions, my conduct. My thoughts and feelings are ever-changing and not always my own. Nothing material truly belongs to me, for I’ll leave it all behind when I go, if not sooner.
These are my answers. What are yours? Do they help me, or you, cope with what happened to a man who died because he tried to help a woman in trouble? Do they help us to make sense of a racist law? Maybe not, but inquiry is part of the process, and there’s no end to it. Though it may not feel like it, that’s good news.
Right now you have an opportunity to wake up and be human! Look in the mirror today and every day and ask, what must I do now? What can I do?
Here is one answer, a poem by Charu Colorado, published here with her permission:
Perhaps
When you answer my faded questions
with those same elaborate in fear pronouncements
I hesitate to navigate the newly engineered climate
that arrives on the horizon beyond the acres of peace
that wait—patient as stone—in the valley of wilderness
The grey goose guidance I seek
once provided security
with sincere and generous expectation—
It told us to decide to become allies—so the
continuity of blueness could fill our summer sky
with the ever so cool warmth of hope
But addictive aggression returned
and widened the cracked glass agenda
scarring the landscape again as it
destroyed the watershed of almost recent peace
Hope now leaves only a parched place of unresolved thirst
The auditory dullness that resounds
presses against all hearing and
pains my listening heart
Perhaps I could send my questions as prayers aloft—
then watch for a no-kidding scent of acceptance and
seasonal shift of light—
Will intuition guide my flight
when darkness marks the end of day?
What if I pray for a shift in the color of fear?
The dove of hope in hidden seclusion
could take wing and transform what’s probable—
If the patience of morning—
after a restful sleep—decided to
blossom into a courageous open space
not ever seen before—
we could become friends—perhaps
Transformation
It could be the letter never answered,
the one in which you declared your love
in such a tender way, admitting to every-
thing. Or when the shell you brought all
the way from the Philippines is dropped
by some loud stranger you never wanted
to show it to in the first place. It could all
unravel the moment the shell shatters on
your floor. Or on a summer bench, your
eyes closed, your fear about to vanish, the
heat bathing you as bees begin to fly.
It could happen anywhere you linger
too long, anywhere you stop hauling and
counting, when your mind spills its tangle
of lists. Often it comes with the relaxation
of great pain. When the hip finally mends
enough to step. Or your need to know
is broken by a bird lifting into light.
Or when succeeding in being something
you’re not. Being influential when you’re
shy. Or rugged when you’re tender.
Or while watching an old tree slip into
winter, like the one thing you won’t let
go of dropping all its leaves.
When the elements in all their beauty
reshape our eyes, it is God’s kiss: gentle
as erosion. When you could crumble in
an instant—all your pain, salt waiting
for a wave—you are close.
Interview with Mark Nepo
Mark Nepo was visiting the Bay Area this weekend, so we had a chance to do an in-person interview in Sausalito. Even in spontaneous conversation, Mark’s teachings are deep and resonant. In this 13-minute interview, Mark shares about writing, life before and after cancer, and one of his greatest inspirations.
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