Gratitude Day 9

For friends who are like family
food on the table
getting stuff done
the reminder that now is the time to forgive
cool evenings and warm days
not having to worry
prayer
kids making jokes
sleep
the comforts of home
possibility

And for so many things, I am thankful.

Gratitude Day 8

Busy and immersed, I am grateful for both.  It was a busy day, moving from one thing to the next - not time to think too much, to get bogged down by all the imaginary things that can seem so heavy.  There was just time to do what was in front of me, to get lost in laughter, to move as in the murmuration of birds - part of one small group and then another small group and another and flowing with whatever current ran there.  And to be with with the kids:

Suky is learning letters, beginning to recognize them and she is very possessive of the letter S.  S is for Suky. Her teacher said S is also for another girl at school, whose name also starts with S.  But Suky said, "No!  I don't want to share my S!"

On the ride home, with her sister in the car, we discussed S again.  They debated about whether or not Satvinder could also claim S as hers.  No, Suky said, "You don't have S.  You have zero!"  Satvinder countered with the initials of SKK being hers and that Suky could have S. Suky said, "Ok  That sounds like a good idea."

They are funny.

But yes, busy today.  And it was good.

Gratitude Day 7

Tonight I have to just keep it simple.  Everything.  Simple.

So here's a list of eleven easy, top of the head gratitudes:

1. That big beautiful full moon out there.  Are you seeing that thing?  It is bound to bring some good stuff.  Surely.
2. These kids.  Thank God for these kids every day.
3. Funny, interesting, and amazingly kind people in my life.  Today I was at the midwifery office for a bit and I laughed so much listening to the things that came up around a table full of women planning a festival.  (By the way, festival this weekend.  Please come if you are in town!)
4. The fact that an anarchist marching band exists here in Phoenix.  I just learned this today (at the above mentioned festival planning) and it amuses me to no end.  An anarchist marching band.  Well, I guess, why wouldn't there be?
5. My garden.  It is small but it is growing and that makes me happy.
6. Other people who love and help take care of my children.  Friends, family, school.  Grateful for them all.  For real, it takes a village.
7. Dinner got made.  People were fed.
8. My work-from-home job, it turns out, is continuing a little bit through June.  Glad for that.  A nice surprise to have a bit more time before that particular piece disappears.  Little bits of familiar are helpful.
9. Midwifery and the hearing and witnessing of women's stories.  It is a huge honor.
10. Mantra.   It is a tether to hold onto.
11. Love - because I do still believe in it.

Gratitude Day 6

Herbs.

I always thought herbs were nice and had noticed that quality mattered - but it wasn't until recent months, in a midwifery meeting, that I truly realized how much of a difference quality makes and how powerful herbs can be.  We tried out some herbs by Winter Sun Trading - some lavender and lemon balm*- and within seconds, my mind relaxed, my body softened, I felt the effects through my whole body.  The results were far greater than anything I'd ever felt in store bought herbs.

The midwife leading the discussion explained that these herbs were treated with respect and love, were gathered and prepared by someone who understands them deeply and uses careful, conscious methods of preparing them.  When I got home I ordered my own lavender and lemon balm tinctures and they have been helping me tremendously ever sense.  They are fantastic for stress and anxiety.  I carry them in my purse.  I use them every day.

Another experience recently was with a friend who gathers and prepares herbs and knows and loves them.  Her kitchen is full of beautiful herbs and tinctures.  I arrived at her house one night a total mess.  She poured me up a cup of tea that she'd brewed and I took it home, closed myself in my bedroom, and drank the warm tea in the dark.  I expected it to be comforting, the way a steaming cup of tea can be - but nothing more.  But that tea...it completely shifted me.  The freak out just fell away.  

It is amazing what can happen when things are done with love.

*Note: If you wish to purchase lavender and/or lemon balm from Winter Sun Trading, you have to call them.  They don't have those two listed on their website.  

Gratitude Day 5

We made this gratitude tree a few weeks ago and as friends have visited, they have added their own gratitude leaves.  It is a pretty sweet thing to see all that gratitude on the wall.

 I like that Satvinder wrote one for her blog: sisterofthebaby.blogspot.com:

Gratitude Day 4

I don't even know what potential my own heart contains.  I realized that in a new way last night as I lay in my bed, once again, waiting for sleep to come and feeling the constant ache in my heart center.  It feels like a forced expansion, a steady pressure, the sensation of something that is being stretched beyond its current size. Not quite ready but happening none the less.

For many nights I thought it was just straight up heart ache, something I identified as sad and needing to be fixed.  Some nights I thought it was more than I could take, I wanted to escape it, I tried so much to find a way to make it go away.  But last night I realized, Oh, the awakening of a heart...it might feel this way.  What if this will just open me to more love?  What if I give thanks for it and welcome it?

Perhaps I cannot even imagine how that love will feel.  Perhaps it is the greatest gift that life could give me.

Gratitude Day 3

You never know what the day will bring.

Completely unexpected, I got a card and gift in the mail today that took my breath away. I literally had to sit down when I opened it and Satvinder asked, "Mama! Are you ok?"  I know, it is probably annoying that I am not going to say what it was but it is not about what it was, it is about what it meant to me.  To me, it meant that love and support is abundant. I'm getting this message a lot lately.

My teacher, Yogi Bhajan (Siri Singh Sahib) used to say something to the effect of God always fills a vacuum - that when space is created, something will always fill it.  At a time in life when loss is such an overwhelming day-to-day feeling, I am constantly being amazed at the law of the vacuum, amazed at seeing the ways in which the space gets filled.

Every day someone reaches out to me.  Every single day I get a message, a phone call, a hug, or some expression of love and kindness.  These connections come from people I know well and from people I hardly know at all.  There has been emotional support, healing sessions, help with my housing situation, calming herbs, gifts and food and more offers to get together than I have even been able to schedule.  I have been given support in so many forms, far beyond what I ever would have expected.

So, you never know what the day will bring.  You never know what is going to come to fill the empty space. Things move out and things move in.  Today, I am grateful to be observing and experiencing that flow.

Gratitude Day 2

Light.

I am grateful for when the light returns as the sun rises each day,
the light in my childrens' eyes, shining love and sweetness and innocence no matter what,
the lightness I feel after exercise, the high, the release, the exhaustion of having moved so much energy out,
the lights of the Christmas tree we put up today, bright company as night moves over our house
until the sun comes back again.

Gratitude Day 1

From Thanksgiving:

Gratitude for many things on this day of giving thanks.  We just shared a meal with lots of sweet people on the lawn of the ashram.  Hugs and smiles and a vegetarian feast for all.

I joined a gratitude "event" on Facebook (Thanks to Darshan for that.) It is '40 Days of Gratitude' and the plan is to reflect each day for forty days and write down things we are grateful for.  It finishes out the year in gratitude.  I am thinking that what I will do is just write here about things, reflecting on gratitude and on life.  So this is Day 1.

There are bunches of things I could write about, bunches of things I am grateful for.  But today I want to share something that I am really appreciating is changed perspective that comes into my life exactly when I need it.

Sometimes the rawness and the emotion makes me forget.   I forget who I am.  I forget what life is about for me.  In those times, life feels very small and locked into the pain and I need something to help me reset.   My father-in-law sent me a book recently that has, each time I've read from it, given me that kind of reset.  I read it in little bits because it is so potent that I have to soak it in for a while before I can continue on.  It is called Letting Go: the Pathway of Surrender by David R. Hawkins, Ph.D.

The idea of letting go can be frustrating sometimes.  I get it - I get that surrender really is the way.  But when I am in pain, I think "BUT HOW? How do you just let go?" Well, this book offered me something today that was a subtle shift in how to view it and it really helped me.  Here is a little piece from the book:

In the human psyche, every feeling has its opposite.  The way out of negativity is, therefore, the willingness to acknowledge and let go of negative feelings and, at the same time, the willingness to let go of resisting their positive opposite.

This sounds so simple.  But it is really huge.  In that place of negativity, it can be incredibly hard and forced to just invoke a positive feeling.  Instead, this suggests just being willing to not resist the positive.  Being willing to not resist love when we feel angry.  Being willing to not resist generosity when we feel closed and protective.  Being willing to not resist courage when there is fear.

When in pain, the resistance is huge.  It is not just that the negative emotion is overpowering, it also that the positive emotions are being repressed, shoved down, pushed away.  It is a misguided self protection but it happens.  In some cases, just having the courage to not resist love is a hugely powerful thing.  It is another angle on the path of surrendering and it feels more like a gentle invitation to see what else is there, to recognize that, indeed, those other feelings can - and do - exist even when there is pain.

Birthday Images

We celebrated the birthdays of both Satvinder and Suky last weekend with a rainbow party. It was a sweet and busy day with wonderful people. 

I tried to limit identifying pictures of others since I'm not sure how everyone feels about having their picture on my blog.  Considering that it was a house full of other people's children, I want to be sensitive to that.  Every presence, shown or not, was so appreciated and enjoyed.

It's the Little Things

One thing: A tiny, Japanese fan-shaped card 

Today is Mangala's birthday.  Happy Birthday!  But what do you do for the birthday of someone who has been your family, your partner for eleven years and who now,according to some papers pending in a courthouse, is soon to be not-family?  How is it even possible to un-family someone?  In my mind, family is family so the concept is rather hard to comprehend.  I wasn't sure how to respond to a birthday.

I decided to give a card.  I made a couple vouchers that can be redeemed at a later time - I'll bake some cookies when you want,  When you know what you need for your new home, I will get you some kitchen supplies.  That's useful, right?  That's ok for family who isn't going to be family anymore, isn't it?

But the card.  Dang it.  The card nearly took me down.  Looking through my card stash, I came across the little, fan-shaped Japanese card that I've been carrying around for eleven years.  I bought it for Mangala soon after we got married.  We didn't know each other very well so I looked for things that fit the few things I knew about him.  He seemed to like Japanese stuff.  So I got this weird, little card to give him on his birthday and then, for some reason, I never gave it to him.  Instead, I have kept it in my card stash all these years, moving it from house to house, desk to desk.  So I found it today and figured I may as well go ahead and finally give it to him. The thing was I could remember the me that bought for him, remember the newness and possibility, remember that something was starting for us.  At that time, I never would have imagined that when I gave him the card, we would be getting divorced.

Oh, tiny fan-shaped card, who knew this was your destiny?  Who knew you would make me cry so much in 2012?

Another thing: A golden bookmark with the silhouette of a girl on a bike

It was given to me by Ms. Berry, my 7th and 8th grade Journalism teacher.  She gifted all of the "graduating" eighth graders with a bookmark, each one showing a different image that had something to do with them personally.  She gave me the girl on the bike because she said she thought I was "going somewhere with writing."  It meant so much to me that I kept it in a special keepsake box, another thing I moved around with me through the years.  Only in the last couple years did I take it out of the box and start using it.  But at some point, me and writing began to wrestle more.  And now me and life are wrestling.  And as the wrestling has become rougher and more messy, the golden bookmark and all that it means has fallen on the floor and gotten pretty mangled.  I would see it there on the floor, with a hundred other things that are there on the floor too.  I would see it and just leave it.  Thinking It used to mean something.  I used to be going somewhere.  Now what?  Now where?  No where.

But today I saw it and I picked it up.  I straightened it out a bit.  It is still bent and warped.  It will never be the same.  But it is still there.  And the girl is still riding.  And, I suppose, so am I.

Here is the Void and All is Well

One of the most striking experiences in watching births is seeing women face the rawest, most primal intensity, thinking speaking crying screaming that they can't possibly do the task that is unfolding through them. There can be an itchy, achy, yearning feeling as a witness to want to save her, to want to rescue her from that experience. But birth teaches me to be with it, to be with them, to lend what comfort I have to offer, and then to simply watch as they proceed to do the very thing that they thought they could not.

It is magic.  It is transformation.  It is amazing empowerment.

I find myself, in my own little way, in an experience that, to me, resembles birth.  Well, not surprisingly, it is birth and death all mixed up at the same time.  That's kind of the way it goes. And I know that I, too, do not need to be rescued.

It is interesting to see the ways that life shakes us up, tests our attachments, and forces us to move into something new and unknown.  I see it happening with many people these days.  We are being asked to trust and move forward into something very much unknown.

For me, that is showing up as a divorce, the ending of my 11 year marriage.  And then I found out I was also losing one of my jobs (the main source of my personal income.)  So that has popped me right out of life as I knew it and catapulted me into the vast space of unknowing (and of possibility.)

I really have no idea what I am going to do with my life.

And that's ok.

There is something very freeing that happens when that which you fear actually happens.  Then you just have to face it.  I am realizing now, as I go through this process, that I have spent so much energy pushing back the possibility of exactly this - this which is happening right here, right now.  But now that it is happening, I know that while it may really suck sometimes, we will be ok.  Actually, I know that some day I will find that we are far better than ok, far better than I ever imagined.  I feel the hugeness of possibility.  It feels very loving even in the midst of it, as if life is guiding us in a most beautiful, kind way.  It hurts and it is very confusing and there is so much, so much, so much felt and experienced.  And it is making me grow and learn and trust in all kinds of ways.

So this is happening.  And I do struggle with it.  And if you happen to be around me in person, you might even see me cry.  But I don't need to be rescued and I will do what I used to think I could not do.  I whole-heartedly welcome support and kindness and love.  Take a walk with me.  Send my kids some fun mail and tell them that you love them. Seriously, love up on my kids.  If you've been through divorce, tell me what helped you through the process, what helped you heal your heart. I am so grateful to all the loving support in my life.  I feel amazingly, amazingly blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life. To all who are going through their own facings of the unknown, I send you extra love.