What if we were free?

Recently I have been contemplating the strange reality of people being obedient to laws or rules or policies that they believe are wrong or are not in their own best interest.   I think for example of the centuries of women who obeyed husbands who were controlling, violent or destructive to them.   Children similarly follow their parents directives even when they are harmful to them.  Police and military in dictatorial or fascist states have fired on their own people - on people who are their neighbors sometimes even their own family because they were following orders.  People have stayed in jobs they hate following orders or policies they hated or found immoral.  Slaves who were not always in chains stayed and did not run away even when raped and family members killed.

Granted threats of violence or economic controls often are insurmountable controls especially if acting without allies.   But really when you look at it deeply all these groups of people were socialized to believe that this was their lot in life.  In many cases religions or social beliefs taught them they were inferior or deserved to be treated this way - or that God wanted it that way or would punish them if they did not stay in situations that were bad for them.

I long for the day we will not think so badly of God.   When we could not imagine that a loving God would ever consign anyone to suffering or injustice.   I long for a day when religion would be a force for courage to stand up to injustice rather than to buckle to it and conform.   I long also for the day when religion enflames our heart with a sense of what an egalitarian and humanitarian society looks like and when our thirst for justice is so wrong that we cannot be still.   If societal norms can keep us in great suffering why can they not induce us to suffer for great good?

Call me a dreamer, but I have been thinking a lot recently what if all the women married off without a voice simply walked out?  What if all the government workers in any country who were asked to carry out an injust or oppressive law simply refused?   What if all the people in slavery walked off or refused to work?  What if each of us refused to do anything that we thought was morally wrong?  What if we each felt so much fidelity to our own soul that we would not take on bad karma?  What if we believed in ourselves enough to trust our own thinking and our own consciences?  Would we then be living in Heaven on Earth?  I'm not thinking this would be easy.   Some people would die (as they will now also).  But maybe it would be revolutionary. 

Cinderella - Modern Mythology and its' Lessons

Children's stories that have been told for over a 100 years take on the quality of mythology.  Like all myths they communicate information that is significant to the culture and underlies paradigms in the society.  So yes I am actually going to talk about Cinderella.   This ancient myth (the oldest variant apparently from 6 BC Greece and popular in Europe in the 1600s and incorporated into Grimm's fairy tales in 1812.   I believe this tale was popular for centuries because for centuries of class based society and female economic subordination - Cinderella represents the possibility of women being rescued from poverty by marriage to a "prince".   For the most part this is all we think of it - as a sort of sappy love story where true love overcomes evil step mothers.

However, I would like to bring out two aspects of this myth that I think are worth noting.   One is an important anti-dote to female co-dependence.   Cinderella takes matters into her own hands.   She does not settle for her step-mother's dictate that she cannot go to the ball.  She, granted with the help of magic, goes anyway.  As a psychotherapist for almost 25 years I have often had clients tell me while dealing with oppressive treatment that they are afraid of "hurting" the person oppressing them if they say no or refuse to do what they are told.   While finding a husband is not exactly a feminist mission, I would still say Cinderella, for her era, was way ahead of her time.  She was not co-dependently care taking her step mother or step sisters.   She was looking our for her own interests.

The other symbol I think noteworthy in this tale is the step sisters efforts to "stuff" their feet into a shoe to small for them.  (In fact in the Grimm's version they actually cut off their toes and stuff their bleeding feet in, so desperate are they to try to win over the prince if even fraudulently so.)  How often have we each done this?   Been so anxious to make something work, to see a certain outcome that we try to stuff ourselves into a situation or a time frame in which we really don't fit.  We try to force things to work.   And of course to no good outcome.  As the tale tells us, when it's right - the fit is effortless.  Many spiritual teaching are about the "way", the dao, the effortless path.

It is also worth noting the Prince's mission.  He sees what he wants and then with the only clue he has, a shoe, he goes about finding it.  What if we all held a clear picture of what we wanted and did not compromise for anything less than that?

Like Ants

Have you ever watched an ant colony?  Ants coming and going all seemingly very busy.  Occasionally you see two ants cooperating or apparently aware of each other but for the most part they all seem very focused on missions taking them in various directions and for purposes that are not clear to the observer.


Because of the school walk outs and Walk for our Lives I have had reason to see ariel shots of large crowds of people.   In some of marches people are moving in the same direction.   The DC march for our lives had so many more people than the Trump inauguration that people spilled out of the mall onto adjoining streets and from high up it looked like several rivers coming together at one outlet.   In one shot I watched of students who had marched to a cement square where they were waiting for others and no speaker was speaking: many were standing still but groups of two or three would move in a same direction but simultaneously people moved in all different random directions.

Recently I have been very aware of different groups of people moving with intend focus on tasks designed to try to improve our country.  I have been aware of gun control activists, DOCA activists, the renewed Poor People's campaign, climate activists, etc.  Like the ants sometimes they are aware of each other, occasionally collaborating but for the most part singularly focused on their own mission.

I have also been aware at the same time, usually from the media, of people singularly focused on things I regard to be utter nonsense: which movie stars are divorcing, some "innovation" in processed foods, attempts to collect obscure items from the past, the 5 hours a day most Americans spend watching tv, attempts to invent machinery which will be impossible to use in the climate future that scientist tell us we are on, time spent on hold on customer service lines for mistakes on our bills, hours and hours devoted to incremental gains in personal sports performance, hours spent balancing check books which years from now will be pointless, etc etc.  (I'm sure you have your own list of things you deem a waste of time)   In fact if on our death bed we could all trade back in the hours and hours of things we did that were a complete waste of time for more years of life we would all live decades longer!!!  Again I imagine some being very high up in the sky watching all that random and rather pointless activity and ....well seeing a bunch of ants wandering around.  Would it help any of us discern what is pointless activity if we viewed it from a distance, or asked ourselves will this matter in a year? In a decade? on my deathbed?

All of this has prompted me to wonder about human consciousness.  Buddhists speak about mindfulness as an antidote to a sort of mindless sleep walking - caught up in seeking pleasure, pride and vanity, carried away with strong emotion, and afraid of death or even change.  What would our world look like if we were not sleep walking?   What would it look like if more of us were in touch with our actual soul's purpose, if we were moving like the ants who know where they are going and why, rather than the ones who seem to aimlessly circle?  What would it look like if we were aware of all the other ants in our nest and our connection to them?  What would it look like if we shared a sense that our nest is threatened and our very survival depends upon our collective joint coordinated action?

Celebrating Holidays

This is the time of the year that the controversies break out about whether Christmas should not be publicly celebrated or whether "all holidays" should be celebrated.   I definitely understand that the way Christmas has been celebrated in the US for certainly hundreds of years has been an insensitive and oppressive way of treating a majority religion like it is everyone's religion and posing it as the "norm".    However, I think to go in the direction of celebrating no holidays is to deny the cultural richness of this nation and to impoverish us all.

I think there is something useful that can be done in the direction of celebrating all holidays - however as a friend pointed out to me today that also has to be done with cultural sensitivity and awareness.  I'm not suggesting we try to all celebrate rituals that are not ours - but I am suggesting we recognize they exist and show respect and appreciation for what they represent.  Christians often attempt to give Jewish people "equal airtime" by recognizing Hanukkah which in reality is a very minor Jewish holiday which happens to fall closest to the biggest Christian holiday.  At the same time Christians commonly schedule meetings and other important business events on what is the most important Jewish holiday which is in the fall in either Sept or Oct.   Rosh Hashanah is the first day of a 10 day period of repentant and atonement for personal and national sins.  Can you imagine how the US would be affected if we even for a moment considered what our "national sins" might be and were willing to be humble (let alone atone for them)?

Muslims have two different significant holidays (well Christians have Christmas and Easter).  Both are on Islamic Lunar calendars and so they shift around.  Eid Al-Fitr is celebrated at the end of Ramadan (a month of fasting during daylight hours in May or June), and Muslims usually give zakat (charity) on the occasion.  Ramadan is intended to deepen compassion and faith in God. Eid Al-Adha, the holiest of Muslim holidays, is celebrated on the tenth day of Dhu al-Hijjah and lasts for four days falling generally in Mid June through the end of Aug, during which Muslims usually sacrifice a sheep and distribute its meat in 3 parts: among family, friends, and the poor.  It is about the willingness to make sacrifices and be faithful even when what is asked of us may seem too much or too hard, and how God's purpose may surprise us.  Again what if US people considered the values of compassion, and faithfulness.   These are not values we generally focus on.

The Buddhists have many sacred days and they vary slightly in different Buddhist countries as well.  But Vesak, the birth of Buddha is the most important, also on a lunar calendar it falls in May.  Like the celebration of the birth of Jesus this celebration focuses on the story of his life and refocusing on the 8 precepts - that which Buddha taught. Follows are not to kill on this day (no eating of meat) and release animals and insects as part of a ceremonial focus on liberation.   Not to sound like a broken record but what if Americans reflected for a day on non-violence and on liberation of those who are not free?  It would seem a great improvement of our national character.

I could go on pointing out the holidays of various religions but you get the idea.  What if we had tv shows, symbols, talks about these holidays on the days they were celebrated?  What if we had flex time that allowed people of what ever faith to have their most important holiday off?  What if we actually had these on our calendars so we knew when they were? What if we considered these values in the cycle of our year - not in celebrating rituals that are not ours but in considering the values behind them?   
I have loved that our nation at least reflects on gratitude during Thanksgiving (but needs to lose the mythology as to why - which is a perverse rewrite of our oppression of the Native people who lived here before us).  It has led me to consider what values I wish our country celebrated and to consider creating traditions with friends and family that do uphold other values.  For example, I have long thought I should have a "cooperation day" celebration.  (In my head everyone would bring a soup ingredients and collectively make a soup and while it was stewing cooperate on some craft project which would be donated afterwords to the poor.  Since we have national holidays in Jan, Feb, April, May, July, Aug, Oct, Nov and Dec.  I have believed this holiday should be celebrated in June.

Stories of Faithfulness

What are the stories we tell about our own lives?  I have just been through a 4 day run of going to various different story telling events from hearing several Native American story telling styles to just a story jam where people told their stories.  I was asked why I as a therapist who spends many, many hours of the week listening to people why I would during free time listen to more stories of people?  The answer is that I am interested in how we tell our own stories…the meaning we put on events and whether or how we notice the presence of the spirit in our lives.  I am also fascinated by the ways in which our lives are interconnected, woven into a web even when we don’t know it.  

This weekend I heard three stories that were told in very different settings by people who did not know each other that speak to the amazing way the Divine connects us to each other for the purpose of healing.   The first story was simply one of how a woman was reached out to over the internet by someone who had been the Goddaughter of her Father.  This was significant to her since she never knew her father who left her mother right after she was born.   The woman told her she had some family pictures and mailed to her photos of her parent’s engagement and honeymoon.  It was surprising and yet healing to look at these pictures and discover that her parents had clearly been in love.  (A thought that had not occurred to her since she had only known her divorced and embittered mother.)

The next story came from a doctor told about a time when he was in residency and during his rotation in the emergency room.   He woke up on a Monday morning at 2am from a nightmare in which a young woman had come in having an asthma attack and despite everything they did to try to help her she had died unable to breath.   He was so upset by this dream that he went to the Pulmonologist asking to be instructed on all emergency steps he could take if someone in ER could not breathe. He told the Sr Doctor that he felt certain he would be faced with this situation.  The doctor felt busy and did not see the point of this and put him off till “tomorrow”.   He put him off every day for 3 days.  Finally on the 4^th day the Resident insisted the doctor make the time to tell him stating that we have used up all the waiting time.   As he began explaining the doctor did sort of get into it and the Resident was able to make a careful step by step list of options to try which ended with “and if none of that works you will have to call me, we will have to operate immediately and put her on an artificial lung”.

Within the next 16 hours a young 21 year old woman was brought into ER by her parents, unable to breathe.  The young resident followed carefully the step by step instructions that he had and nothing worked.   She was down to only 4% oxygenation level.  People die at 3%.   He called the Pulmonologist who indeed had to operate quickly and put her on an artificial lung.  Only because the resident had known exactly what to do and had tried everything quickly was there enough time to get the Pulmonologist in there and they saved her life.   Her parents were extremely grateful and then said: “It is the strangest thing our daughter actually had a dream Monday night where she dreamt that she had an asthma attack so severe that she could not breath at all.”   The resident asked what time she has this dream and was told at 2am in the morning.

  

It strikes me that only God can make an intervention like this.  Both parties, who did not know each other, were armed with the knowledge to save the young womans’ life.  What an act of faith it was for this non-religious resident doctor to believe his own dream.  It strikes me that our very lives may depend upon the faithfulness of strangers.

In a remarkably similar vein another story I heard this weekend was from a Native American man in his 50’s.   He told that in his twenties he was so ruined and desolate from his experience in the Residential Schools that he wandered for a decade drunk and homeless till a powerful native healer had come to him.   She had gone on a vision quest and when emerging from a sweatlodge an image of a small 5 year old boy who had grown up with straight water on one side and curved water on the other side (an accurate description of his Washington birthplace).   She also got that he had been damaged and that he needed her to find and heal him in order that he could do a great work for his people.  She searched for 3 years.  Finally one day she found him on the street hung over and dirty.   She sent him to shower in her hotel room and gave him clean clothes to put on.   They talked about his life and she spent two years on his healing.  He has been sober ever since. He also has worked to support other native youth and now to help Native people to stop the fossil fuel projects that threaten our future.

Again in this story I am amazed by the faithfulness of this native medicine woman to believe she could find grown up, a man who she had seen only as a vision of as a boy. She had the faith that the vision was real and that she could find him with virtually no clues or directions.   I am awed that she had the dedication to persisted for three years till she found him and two more years through his healing.   I am again struck that only God can plant such visions.   And from the small act of making sure someone gets some photos, to the medium act of being a pest till you get the expert answers you need, to dedicating of years and years to the healing of another.  It is so clear how deeply we are all connected to each other and how critical a difference our faithfulness makes in the lives of others.

What have you heard? Have you been faithful to it?  How has God used you for the healing of others?

Your Evolutionary Question

When the Celestine Prophecy, a spiritual novel by James Redfield, came out in 1993, it was widely read by spiritual types.  I however somehow did not read it till 2006.  I loved the various spiritual insights and truths he shared in the form of prophecies that the main characters were finding from thousands of year's old scrolls.  But the most fascinating part for me was his encounter with a priest, Father Sanchez who teaches him about the 6th insight, and in so doing also helps him to identify his evolutionary question.  For most people who have read this book when I mention the evolutionary question this has gone right by them and they don't remember it at all.  For me it is the most important part of the book.   Perhaps this is because I am also a therapist and I'm so impressed with how it weaves family of origin material with our being able to understand our spiritual purpose in life.

I have written elsewhere on this blog about the idea of chosing our parents.  Redfield also works with this idea and in the encounter between the main character and Father Sanchez, the priest guides him at looking at the qualities of each his parents, their sort of motto in life or stance towards it, what he learned from each, and what was the unfinished business of their lives.  From this broad over view the Priest helps him notice that he has woven these bits from his parents together into a spiritual question that he has chosen this life time to pursue and to work with.  This is called one's "evolutionary question" (because when we pursue it we grow.)  In a handbook Redfield wrote to accompany the book he has a series of questions designed to also help people identify these influences which shaped their journey.  Interestingly in Joanna Macy's Work that Reconnects there is one exercise entitled: My Choices in this Life Time which coming from a Buddhist perspective of reincarnation also posits that we have chosen the conditions of this life time and that we have chosen them to prepare us for the spiritual work that we are here to do.  I have in my practice developed a way to help people identify in two to three sessions what their evolutionary question is.

What a marvelous compass to have, to have a really big perspective on the events of our lives and the influences of our parents in shaping our spiritual purpose in life.   What an amazing thing to walk conscious knowing that you indeed have a spiritual purpose and to be able to cleave closely to it.  I have found that when one knows what it is, it is possible to ask on a daily or weekly or monthly basis where you are at with your question - to return to it a guiding force and a clarifier about the current experiences one is having and the decisions that you have before you.  What is your evolutionary question?

The Mother's within us

My daughter never knew my Mother.  She had died decades before my daughter was born. On a few occasions during her childhood she showed curiosity or tried to ask me about my mother, what she was like, etc.  That is a very hard kind of question to answer.  While we can give some superficial kinds of descriptors of another person, it is very hard to describe the breadth and depth of another persons personality and energy in the word.

When my daughter turned 11 she started babysitting.  It was an amazing and powerful experience to watch her in action, to see a maternal energy coming out of this one who was so recently a young child herself.  It was a little like when she first started talking and I felt like a curtain was pulled back and I suddenly knew what her mind was like, how she thought.   As I watched her with children there was this odd dejavue experience.   I partly recognized my own parenting style coming through her, but also I would have to say, I also recognized the way my mother was with children coming through her.

Science has now come to understand that from the moment we are born we carry the eggs inside us that will one day be our children.  On some sort of mysterious level those eggs "hear" or experience everything their mothers experience.   There is now in fact evidence of multi-generational trauma that is carried in our DNA.  I would like to believe there is also multi-generational joy and love that is also carried in our DNA.

In the past year or so it occurred to me finally to say to my daughter:  "You remember when you asked me what my mother is like?"  She nodded.  "You already know.  You have already met her in the many ways I carry her in my being and my way of being."  So on this Mother's Day, it does not matter if your Mother is dead or hundreds and hundreds of miles away.   She is with you.

This is my Mother holding my sister with me looking on.

For those of you who know me and my daughter you will 

note that genes do repeat!