Riding a Tiger

In Zen Osho Tarot, there is a card that shows a young man riding up into the sky on a tiger. I think the tiger represents conquering a fear of that which holds us back. But since there are so many things to hold us back, fear-based or not, this tiger will change its stripes often that like our hearts and minds! I was pondering my current "tiger" - the one I had thought I could not face, in fact, it had control of me for years. It was the foundation of so much that needed to change and I just couldn't do it. I kept hanging on even though there was no logic to it. My world would crumble to pieces or something if I didn't not hang on tightly, twist myself around it like smoke from the smoker sitting near you. I was sure that the singularity would occur in that moment of my embracing my tiger. Tigers are very scary, right? Man-eaters. Woman-eaters. But the time had come. There was nothing left to be gained. It was time to wrap my arms around my tiger while it was resting under the Bodhi tree, (I like Bodhi trees - the Buddha found enlightenment sitting under the Bodhi tree.) I dared it to eat me, if I died it might even feel good in some kind of twisted way. I was pretty scared. It felt like something had physically shifted within me as I gripped it. My eyes felt tears trying to burn their way out. But this tiger had scared me too long. No time for tears. Odd, it didn't eat me. It growled low and deep. The singularity happened and didn't happen at the same time. I realized in that moment that my tiger was not scary anymore. He had first looked at me with fierce hungry challenging eyes but now I saw acceptance and respect there too as I searched for signs of imminent death. The same acceptance and respect entered within my heart and mind as I saw it there, too. I was strong. Not weak. Free - er. Taming my tiger had made me far stronger than I had imagined it would. I had been afraid I might die. But I didn't. My tiger and I were one. ---- There will be a new tiger I know in my future. One with different stripes, lying under a different tree. The moment of knowing when it is time to embrace that tiger will come within the flow, be it suffering or joy, and it will not seem strange. The moment of knowing is one that the tiger is ready for just as you will be.

What's in a Name

I was given the name at birth of "Julie Romaine."  I was told, when I grew old enough to remember it, that it was the name of an actress in one of Guy de Maupassant's short stories.  An actress who loved and I felt died from love's injury.  I was born too with my Venus quincunx Pluto.  I looked it up.  It means that I become obsessional about loving.  I love, perhaps, not wisely.  My mother ripped out a few pages from her "Harper's Magazine," the other day, telling me I should read "it."  I looked through the few pages, found the first to be by the editor of Harper's, Roger D. Hodge.  He described the progressives' disappointment with Obama's broken promises.  It hurt to read it.  A part of me doesn't want to believe it can all be true - the apparent selling out to the pressures of business as usual in Washington.  I know it must be very difficult to try to be the one who brings change to those who resist it with all of their being.  I turned the pages and found a review of a translation edition of Guy de Maupassant's writing, Alien Hearts.  Knowing the name and its association with my name, I began to read the review.  Lorin Stein is a true writer herself.  Bravo! 

 

I was struck by her statement (based on an apparent deep study of de Maupassant as a person as well as a writer):  "What most troubled and delighted Maupassant's readers was his erotic identification with women.  He saw them as sexual objects, and he saw himself as a sexual object."  As a published writer of not quite a decade, he began at the end to look deeper into his characters, to express more than the words they said to each other, the thoughts they had about each other (which has been his intellectual and emotional choice) he began to be a writer of the "psychological" novel - thus, Alien Hearts is an example.  Along with my name, my experience of love, I have encountered another thing in common.  The choice to go deep.  Psychologically.

A birthday

I haven’t written in my blog for a while. I got rid of a couple of semi-hysterical entries (thank god we can do that!) and have been settling in emotionally since October.

I made an entry in my Google id page that described what I’m good at as “Being Mom.” It is what I am. Good or not. I manage anyway. I am not always as loving as I want to be, but I am always there, always willing to talk, to forgive, to reach out, to bend, and that’s “loving” in action. So that’s what I do.
What I am remains a work in progress. Haven’t figured much out there. Often I am in touch with some inner voice that lingers in the background saying figuring oneself out is an ongoing thing, not meant to STOP. I am not unique in this. It is the same for all of us. I realized recently that my period of grieving over what I thought might happen in my life and my youngest daughter’s life has taken time to heal.

I had to go through those stages. I looked them up and wrote them down in front of my computer for a while. And I doubt I’m done with them. But I feel more at peace with the way things are now. I react less. I accept more. I fall into just what is. I really enjoy the peace in my mind I have now. Not thinking so much. I can just “BE” more and more. Washing dishes, sorting clothes. Just doing. Not thinking the way I used to when I was suffering so, fighting against things so. I push too hard to make my little world what I THINK it should be.

Some of that is what my HEART wants too. I remember now, this moment, the story of The Alchemist (I entered a quote from it here on this blog – about the HEART – what the heart wants). I have relearned that everything going on within me and those I love is so much more complex and interconnected than I can possibly really get.
My heart is my heart alone. It is private and alone with its aches and wants. It beats its presence as a reminder and sometimes it beats faster when I connect with someone very dear to me. But it is always a private heart and alone. The Heart has no rights except to experience itself - to feel its own beating as a reminder that life continues – a reminder too that all beings live with the same Heart that is private and alone. What is it really that the Heart wants?

I hope. I trust. I appreciate. I pray for all of us. My heart urges all of that. My heart wants that. I feel my love. I live it - the best I can. Forgiving self and others as needed. Living life just as it has been given to me to do each day. Being Mom, being friend – daughter – sister – co-worker. Being me.

August 19 - Helping my daughter paint

I made it with Lily and her best friend, Russell, to my oldest daughter's home where she will live for the next year.  I helped her paint her room.  I did the most tedious part, painting the baseboard and around the door frames in the special color she picked out.  It was made much easier 'cause Russell taped the edges very nicely.  He has been really helpful to us on this trip.  I am appreciative of his efforts to make Lily happy and to be as helpful as he is, with such a good attitude.  Lily was having a hard time today while we shopped for things for her room.  My granddaughters were bored but uncomplaining.  After one more comment from Lily about what an awful driver I was (by now she was driving instead of me),  there was a realization that NOW my role is similar to what it is for my grandkids - come along for the ride, don't complain, don't make waves.  NOW is the time for letting go of the "mother" role, letting go the sense of doing something so very important, and instead relaxing into just what happens as young children do. It feels strange, this new awareness of relaxing and not organizing and planning so much around my daughter.  Not entirely pleasant though, I'll have to admit.  

  

August 12, 2009

I have decided, after seeing the movie "Julie-Julia" to document through my own blog my transformation as a woman without children at home - after 36 years of being a parent.  

I can't imagine what my blog will report over the next 12 months!  I find myself excited at the prospect of change - and growth.  And like the young lady known as Julie in the movie, I decided to set a time limit for the blogging of this, I hope, transformation. And put some pressure on myself to practice being aware of the opportunity to grow and change, explore and discover!

Next week, we set off for Illinois and Northern Illinois University, and the boyfriend is coming along.  My first challenge... 

THE HIKE

In the distance sat the mountains, jagged smoky gray. Sara woke each morning looking at the mountains in the far off distance that surrounded the flat-bottomed valley where she lived. One point, one peak, on the mountain called to her. It had something for her to know; she had noticed the mountain's insistence on delivering the message - noticed its growing insistence - her growing curiousity. To day, she would go and find out what it was.

She packed her lunch, a tomato paste sandwich and water in a jar. It was already a hot summer day in New South Wales. At 12, she had never hiked so far alone. It looked like it would be very far from home, but Sara never thought to ask permission or tell her younger brother where she was going. The mountain was calling to her. The message was for her ... alone. She knew.

When she got to the first fence, she climbed over into a different piece of land. It belonged to someone else's family. It felt alien to her. She was unwelcome in that place. The grass was knee high and yellow like straw. She often saw sheep grazing here, but not now. She walked forward through the high yellowing grasses and after she had walked awhile, off to the side of her path, she saw a sheep lying still. Dead. Its thickly folded fleece was oddly intact except around its neck and belly. There was blood, lots of blood stretched out, saturating the buttery yellow-gray fleece and the ground. The black flies had begun to gather. As she came closer, they rose and circled around the bloody openings and resettled. She looked at the open eyes death starring. The violence of the death struck her. She had not seen fresh death before. She imagined she could smell the metallic still warm blood. She wondered what could do this and then remembered that a pack of dogs, wild dogs, even dingoes would have done it. Australia had no other predators large enough to do this to a grown sheep.

The day was getting hotter. She had to move to feel the breeze again. She had to leave death behind; no more lingering. Sara turned to follow the mountain's call. The cacophonous noises of the galahs and magpies in the distant trees felt disturbing in the solemn mood of the moment, sounds of living things that knew no death was near. Then came a sudden laughing mocking sound. A kookabura then was also near.

Sara had bottled raised twin lambs the previous winter. She loved them and they had only just recently returned to their home flock. It might have been one of the orphans she had raised that lay there bloodied and torn. Feeding them day after day, knowing them, she had a deeper sadness for this sheep that had lain so still on the ground, hidden from all but the flies who rested and fed on her.
Sara walked on. There was a great house on this property. A very large Victorian style home. When she gazed from her bedroom windows at night, watching the Southern Cross move across on its arc, she had studied the shadow of the fine English-style house, seeing a light there. She had often wondered what it might be like to live in such a grand house. She thought of the house in "Jane Eyre," the one that belonged to Mr. Rochester, before it burned down because of his crazy wife. Curiousity distracted her, guided her forward. As she came closer, she realized that it was indeed a big house, grand, but it was as if no one lived there anymore, or no one cared for it any more. Windows were broken in places, curtains hung in tatters, bushes and grasses grew uncut. Chipped windows and doorsills spoke of long abandonment. Sara walked around the house and no one appeared to yell at her. Her fears of being found trespassing so close to someone's home began to lessen. She had previously imagined a family living there. Unaccountably, Sara felt disappointed, both in what she had mistakenly imagined to be there, and not found, and in the loneliness that wrapped itself around her, causing her to feel a growing coldness within. The house, too, was sad.

She turned away from the sad house. Off in the distance, the mountain - its peak, the point in the dusty distance, was more revealed with the sun overhead. She stopped to drink from her jar. She briefly thought of not going on. She could go home now. She felt tired. She looked again at the mountains. At the peak. It was calling still... and she was still curious. She noticed her stomach rumbling. She was getting hungry. But she promised herself she would not eat until she reached that spot she knew called to her. It would feel very good then. It would be her reward.

The land began to rise and the rocks became more frequent. Sara had to crouch over some of the bigger ones, using her hands and feet to climb up and round obstacles. Her pack and water bottle bounced on her back and swung around needing to be pushed away to keep her arms free to reach forward to pull herself up. Her straight hair fell into her eyes causing her to choose between her grip on the rock and her irritation at the itchy sweaty insistence on her skin. Her breath was coming faster. She wanted to stop, but a sense of urgency to reach that spot she knew demanded her would not let her stop. Perhaps she was just too hungry. Sara looked up to see the place she knew she would recognize as that place when she saw it.

There. That ledge, it was almost like the mouth of a cave, shaded by a large boulder, with a couple of small bushes and grasses growing nearby. That was it. She turned her head to look back over the valley she had climbed above. Sara felt excited she had come so far. Proud. She loved this place; it was so beautiful, so free, so open and unconquerable. A place that knew her and she knew it. She continued to climb and soon reached the ledge. The shady spot was cool and felt a bit damp. She drank in her breath deeply; a feeling of coolness after the heated air from the rocks she had clung to as she climbed.

She pulled her pack around, sat and took out her tomato paste sandwich and water. Sara could not remember ever tasting a sandwich so good, water so sweet. She felt a deep satisfaction at her accomplishment and awe too at the beauty all around her and within her being also. Sitting on that spot on the mountain peak that had called to her, telling her that it had something for her to know, she knew then what the mountain had had to tell her. The journey had been a part of the telling. Sara was deeply happy to have heard it.

First Love

The car veered sharply to the right. Sara slid easily across the warm seat’s slick surface next to him. No seat belts. 1966, New South Wales, Australia. A ride home from church. Jack was always happy, he said, to drive the 20 miles to get her and then bring her home. Sara was pleased by that, very happy deep inside.

Being sent for, by the sudden veering of the car, which she knew would come, made her heart flutter and a tense feeling start in the region of her belly. The firm solidness of his body meeting hers stopped the slide. The knowing smile as he pulled her even tighter made her blush and look away momentarily from his impish blue eyes. She felt so very alive with every cell of her body when he looked at her that way. A craving for this feeling to stay longer and longer grew within her.

Sometimes, lately, he would stop the car in a private place. Jack would kiss her. She wasn’t sure she knew how to kiss. She had never been kissed before Jack kissed her. The first time it happened, she was about 13 and he was 24. It was wrong wasn’t it. She knew she was a bad girl – letting him kiss her. Sara was in love for the first time. His warm smile and flashing deep dimples, sparkling blue eyes, even his hawkish Roman nose, all perfect to her. Her eyes and soul drank and ate of him as if he was food and drink to a starving person.. Going to church had become the central need of her life. No one knew. No one knew that he veered the car so she would be touching him. That they would kiss. She knew it was a secret. Must remain a secret. Love was not spoken of. Only the feeling of love existed between them.

Jack had 4 sisters and a 100 budgies in a huge cage in his garage. His parents were Dutch immigrants to Australia. Jack still spoke English with his own lilting accent. He built houses for a living. His body was strong and sunburned a dark blond. Sometimes he spoke of his work and she would listen to the sound of his voice, unique accent, and wait for the spark of excitement that flew from his blue eyes and prompted his dimples to reveal their presence.

Sara loved him with the heart of a woman though she had the body and experience of just a girl. She imagined him telling her that he loved her. She imagined that the reality of what could not be between them could disappear when those words were spoken. She could imagine a lot with those words of love spoken. But who would speak them. She was not brave enough though the love she felt was achingly real, threatening to pour over the barrier of her shy not-knowingness.

Then, one day, too soon, she learned she and her family would return to the States. The slick warm seat sliding under her as she fell helplessly into him with his devilish dimpled smile would not be felt ever again. The aliveness she knew only with him would be gone - forever. At 15, her first love was over. She would never see him again.

But, at 17, she did see him again. He and his American wife, who had been a missionary to the Church in New South Wales, and their infant, stopped over in Honolulu to see her. They were returning to Utah to live with her family. Sara went with them in the car around the island – to see the rainy side. It was hauntingly familiar to Sara being in a car with Jack again. Sara was in the front seat, on his left side now. Seat belted. The baby was breastfeeding in the back seat. His wife was looking out the window. Jack’s hand reached out across the seat for Sara’s. He looked at her, warmly, remembering, and squeezed her hand.

Impish devilish smile and deep dimples appeared. Sara drank him in with her eyes, fed off him, again, for that moment in time. Alive again.