Tag: beauty

Sacred Time

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“Although the world is very full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” – Helen Keller

Early the other morning, my cat came in with something in her mouth. It was so small, I couldn’t see what it was. When she put it down, I tried to pick it up and it fluttered against my hand and I saw a flash of green when it did so I discovered it was a bird. This was only about a week after the cat had brought a baby bunny in and both were during my sacred time, the 90 minutes I have to do yoga, meditate and write before the kids wake up.

I was irritated because I thought she was done with the phase of life of hunting little creatures.

I was distracted because wanted to go back to reading and writing about the precious things of life.

I was annoyed that instead of finding inner peace, I was scrambling around on my hands and knees doing the quiet angry whisper at the cat.

Despite all this, I managed to get the small lump of feathers between a greeting card and a paper towel and I took it outside. I thought it was dead and my plan was to just release it into the bushes off the side of my deck.

As I let go, the small lump of feathers fell for about a foot, then righted itself mid-drop and flew away. It revealed itself as a little hummingbird as it rose higher and higher.

Stunned, I just stood there for a long moment feeling the magic of that flight course through me. It was as if I had the after-image of that free fall into flight burned into my being. I had goosebumps all over.

It was life showing me that no matter what cat has got us in its claws, there’s always a chance that it will let up and we’ll fly away.

And to see it fly was poetry in motion that even as battered as we feel, we can always rise again.

Most importantly, I saw that this was my sacred time. This was the beautiful beat of life coming to me to be witnessed, held and let go.

Quote comes from a Real Life of an MSW post: Overcoming.

(featured photo from Pexels)

Photo of the week: Nov 20

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My mom captured this picture of Mt. Rainier this week when she was flying home from a trip. With 26 glaciers, Mt. Rainier is the most heavily glaciated mountain in the lower 48 states of the United States. But even so the hot weather this past summer melted the mountain so bare that it is such a relief to see her covered in white again.

This is the mountain that made me want to climb mountains. I’ve stood on top twice and spent countless hours hiking around and admiring her majesty and mystery. Even with this long history, every time I catch a glance of Mt. Rainer out the window or while standing on her flanks, I feel a rush of awe, inspiration and peace. She speaks to me of beauty, timelessness and the Divine and I listen.

Thanks for the picture, Mom!

Photo of the Week: November 6th

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The sky was so magnificently red as I was pulling out to drive the kids to school that I turned in the opposite direction with a car full of kids saying, “Maa-maa?” and “Where are we going?” I drove up a few blocks to my favorite spot in our neighborhood to watch God’s master class in color selection and beauty and the kids said, “Wowww!” Then we proceeded to school and weren’t even late.

The Magic Within

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“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” – W.B. Yeats

Yesterday I picked up a board book that I used to read my daughter in her youngest years and read it to my toddler. I hadn’t read it in years since my 6-year-old daughter has moved on to more complex plot lines. As I read the beautifully illustrated pages, I was inspired by the words that seem to me to be part poetry and part prayer for the sacred inner child. They brought back that feeling of infinite possibility and boundless love that came with each of my kids as they were handed to me in the hospital. Here is part of The Crown On Your Head:

With your crown made of glittering, high-flying things,
you’ve got wind in your pocket, your wishes have wings.

You can run like you mean it…so, let the wind blow…
There’s just no telling how high you can go!

Whatever it is you choose to do, no one can do it exactly like you.
Ride on the big slide! And if you fall down, remember your glorious, marvelous crown.

It won’t flicker or fade. It won’t dim. It won’t leave.
ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS BELIEVE.

Do you, my child? I hope that you do.
The world is a wonderland waiting for you.

And you get to share it with all your friends, too!
They each have a crown that is faithful and true.

No one’s is brighter, no one’s is duller.
It’s only a crown of a different color.

So sometimes, just every now and then, whisper “I believe” again.

Your crown is your best friend forever, by far.
It tells the true story of just who you are.

That’s why every night, when I put you to bed,
I’m careful to kiss the crown on your head.

The Crown on Your Head by Nancy Tillman

And I wondered, when did I stop believing in this about me? I don’t mean that in a self-pitying way but in a way that has forgotten that there is a sacred inner child within me.

It strikes me that somewhere in the transition between my parents wishes for the beautiful life I would have and coming to care for myself, I have mastered the practicalities but forgotten the magic. And while I am more or less fine with that because I get along well enough, I wouldn’t wish that same pragmaticism-only for my kids.

And beyond my kids, is it possible for me to recognize the magic in you if I don’t recognize the magic in me? There has to be a maxim here that if I’m moved enough when I read it to my kids because I have witnessed their magic then I must believe it just a little bit – otherwise why read it at all?

There must be a way that doesn’t leave them narcissistic, spoiled or entitled to remind my kids of the magic inside them. Believing in our inner magic doesn’t mean we won’t do our chores and go to work, but possibly we’ll whistle more and find deeper joy when we do. Or hopefully we’ll listen to our own inspiration more if we do.

I’m considering reading this board book to them at tough moments all the way until they are 52 years old and beyond if I happen to be on the planet. If it reminds me of the flame of possibility that burns within me for as long as I live and love, all the better.

Good Grief

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“I am becoming water; I let everything rinse its grief in me and reflect as much light as I can.” – Mark Nepo

We had to say good-bye to our beloved nanny yesterday. She is moving on to the next phase of her education and experience as it should be for 21 year-olds. But we shed a lot of tears and by we, I mean primarily me and the nanny. My toddler wasn’t dialed in to the import of the moment and my 5 year-old seemed to be distracted by the cards and posters we’d made for the nanny until the very last minute when the dam burst and all the tears came spilling out and she clung to us.

As I held my daughter in our tears, I had an instant of insight about grief that this pure grief that wasn’t tainted with any anger or regret allowed me to see. In that instant I saw how beautiful grief can be as a recognition that we all move on every day and there is something freeing about allowing that growth. It felt as if it was an act of letting go of who we all were yesterday so that we can be wholly we are today.

For me it held another aspect of grief. For almost 5 ½ years I’ve had people coming in to my house to help take care of my kids and now that they are returning to in-person school and full-time preschool, I don’t need that. But this beautiful collection of wonderful people that have cared for my kids have been my partners in parenting in so many ways – in observing my kids’ growth, in laughing about their antics, in ooh-ing and aah-ing about what they learn. I feel as if I’m grieving that community that has helped me grow as a parent. But that insight about grief holds for this too – I’m simply letting go of that so that I can lean in to the new communities we are entering.

My nanny is the daughter of my best friend from growing up. One of the bonuses of having kids when you are 50 years-old is that you have a built-in babysitting pool of college-aged kids from your beloved friends. While she isn’t going to nanny for me any longer, she isn’t going far. And that was the other thing about this grief from yesterday that I noticed. It included a recognition that this beautiful relationship that my kids have with this amazing young woman will outlast me. In the way that grieving my father has allowed me to grow into a person that inhabits him more on the inside, this relationship my kids have with my friends’ kids will carry forward without us but will always hold us near.

Coming Unstuck

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“Self-pity in its early stages is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.” – Maya Angelou

On Thursday morning my son cried all the way to daycare. He is such an affable little person that I was stunned that none of the usual tricks could distract him.  I pieced together from his two word sentences, Tay hoome (stay home) and EA come (his nanny come) he wanted to stay home and have the nanny come. When we reached his daycare and I was getting him out of the car, I started to stay, “When you cry like that, we…” and my daughter chimed in to finish the sentence, “suffer.”

I can’t say exactly what he’s thinking or how he’s grasped this but in the two weeks since his sister finished Kindergarten, he’s figured out that she’s staying home and the nanny is coming. I imagine he has some toddler sense of the unfairness that he still has to go to school three days a week. It’s unfair. Life is unfair. I think one of the easiest feelings to get stuck in. I think of this passage from The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo:

I know now that, over the years, my own cries that life is unfair have come from the inescapable pain of living, and these cries, while understandable, have always diverted me from feeling my way through the pain of my breakage into the re-formation of my life. Somehow, crying “Unfair” has always kept me stuck in what hurts.

The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo

At the time I first read it, I was stuck in unfairness. I was trying to undo the damage of the hurt done to me by an unfaithful ex-husband while everyone else seemed to be thriving. I read that passage and knew, really knew that the only thing keeping me in that place was me. That somehow I had taken the unfortunate chain of events that led up the implosion of life as I’d known it and made those my story, instead of the rest of me. There may have been a time that self-pity was fitting but then, as the Maya Angelou quote says, it had hardened around me and I was stuck.

I hadn’t intended to finish my sentence to my son with “suffer.” I was going to say, “When you cry like that, we don’t know what to do to make it better.” But suffer is pretty apt as well. When we get stuck in the unfairness of things, we suffer. No one around knows what to do to make it better. But all it takes to stop is to set the intention to find the beauty of where you are and do it again and again until one day you find you don’t need to. My son must have done some version of that because his teachers said he had a great day at school.

Sliding Glass Door Moments

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“Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty –
that is all you know on earth,
and all you need to know.” – John Keats

I was reading yesterday about how the English poet John Keats wrote “Ode to a Grecian Urn” while he was dying from tuberculosis at age 24. As tragic as that is for him, my mind immediately thought of his mother and how she must have felt. Clearly my becoming a mother has altered the angle from which I think about life. I’ve heard of decisions like mine to become a mother described as sliding glass moments – moments where you can see life on the other side and choose whether to open the door and cross the threshold.

I’m fascinated by our sliding glass moments because they define the major plot lines of our lives. They are the story we tell others when we first meet. I was stuck in traffic at 29-years-old and just had broken up with my boyfriend when I saw Mt. Rainier majestically sitting in front of me and decided to climb mountains. I was 39-years-old and my business partner invited me out to lunch to tell me of my husband’s infidelities and my life as I then knew it changed forever. I was 45-years-old and decided that I wanted to have kids and was willing to do it alone rather than rush a relationship that might not be right for all of us.

But as showy as those moments are, I think it’s equally telling how we live each day between them. Before my business partner told me about my husband’s infidelities I was drinking at least a bottle of wine each day trying to numb the fact that I was in a relationship I wasn’t supposed to be in. After he told me, I found meditation and the inner peace that comes with leaning towards life instead of away from it. Before I had babies I would cry hearing any story about the miracle of birth. After I had my kids, I practice my gratitude by writing at least one thing down every day for my gratitude box. If sliding glass moments are the plot lines, I think our daily habits must be the language and tone of how our stories are written.

I looked up the story of John Keats and found his dad died when he was 8-years-old and his mom died when he was 14-years-old. I imagine that his genius was in part defined by those moments and the words he wrote the way he lived each day processing them. Altogether they formed the life that brought the words to us – “Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty” – and in reading those we find the echo of both in our own lives: the truth of the big moments and the beauty of our days.