Letting go of things I’m attached to is becoming a life lesson I’m getting used to, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel something when letting go.  Imagine an invisible umbilical cord to all the things you love and want to hang on to.  Favorite necklaces, earrings, dishes, relatives . . . at any point something can happen to sever an attached relationship.  Snip, and it’s gone.

Snip.  Snip.  Snip.

I suppose I was getting attached to my daughter’s long hair.  My son had long hair, but I wasn’t as attached to it.  I thought I was, but it was easy to let go and cut it when he was ready two weeks ago.  I wasn’t prepared to look around the corner and find my daughter standing amidst her locks, her friend holding the kid-scissors, smilingly proudly.  “Now Autumn has short hair, too!” she exclaimed.

I couldn’t help but laugh.  Indeed she did.  In that moment I could laugh or cry.  I could be angry or deal with it.  I opted for laughter and sent the girls to the bath.  I wasn’t planning on being stylist this night of pizza-making, but it had to be done.  Now Autumn’s hair is short, in a little bit of a choppy style, not incredibly unlike her older sister’s.  I’m not a trained stylist, after all.  While at it, I also trimmed the little friend’s hair.

It’s only hair.  They’re just kids.  It’s only life.  Why not experience every moment and choose life and love?  The practice keeps coming, the lessons growing stronger.

Life is sweet, and little girls with short hair can be so darn cute!

p.s. Uta, Autumn reminds us of Sonja! 

No one promises that letting go is easy.  Everything out there says that simplifying our lives is the thing to do.  Once we hear a call, we have a choice whether or not to follow it.  Following it doesn’t promise to be easy.  In fact, taking the scenic route through a Life well lived will undoubtedly be way more difficult than staying on the Interstate of life.

I had to take a step yesterday that was bittersweet.  I didn’t want to let go of something that I think is so important, of work that I know needs to be done.  However, I promised myself I would bring focus to my journey.  If I’m going to do something, I want to do it well.  We like to say we don’t do anything half-ass around here (“single-cheeked,” if the kids are listening).  If we’re going to talk the talk, we have to walk the walk.  That’s a lesson learned and lived while in the desert, right?  No time like the present.

So, if I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it well.  I wish the same for you.

When I tell my kids we’re going to do something, I might as well be forging it into stone or making a blood bond.  In their opinion, I’ve promised them something will be, and they’re counting on it to be done.  I remember those days in my youth.  I looked forward to something, usually doing something out of the ordinary, and felt the anticipation, excitement, and adrenaline mixing up a cocktail within me.  Heaven forbid plans change at the last minute.  I wouldn’t always (if ever) cry about it, but my children go for an Oscar with their dramatic displays of disappointment.   Inevitably, plans do change, and, I’m sorry, but a “maybe” is not a promise.

But let me not pretend that I don’t get that childhood anticipation cocktail these days, too.  It’s just not as frequent.  Perhaps it’s a defense mechanism as we get older so that our hopes aren’t always let down.  Honestly, though, hope and anticipation are not the same thing.  Can’t you feel the difference?

Our days here have been warmer.  I’ve seen daffodil buds and blossoming crocuses.  I re-potted most my houseplants and have spent two afternoons tidying up the yard, assessing what trimming needs to be done.  The forsythias’ buds are swelling, and I know it won’t be long before they burst into brilliant yellow, sunshine reflected.  Spring has been promised, and I know it will come.  That doesn’t mean there won’t be a few more frosts before then, though.  I may have to weather a few more gray days.

We’re also nearing the end of Lent.  Holy Week is just around the corner.  My practices this Lent have been a little out of the ordinary, and I made promises with myself that I have to keep to help me grow.  I also know the meaning of this time of year in my tradition.  Promises were made and continue to be kept.  Upon those promises, we ground a great faith and hope and Love.  Through these we live our days with a great compassion.

If I trust in the assurances of the greater promises, such as Spring and Rebirth, and enjoy the sprinkle of the “smaller” promises made and kept without great attachment, it would seem that being fully present in the moment would come naturally.  Another promise?  More practice.

There’s something about those moments when you find yourself teaching your kids life lessons.  Not the lectures about how they know what’s right and wrong when you know they aren’t listening to you.  I’m talking about the times when they are open, particularly when they’re really young, particularly when they want to learn.

Our three-year-old has taken to counting the feet of our pets.  “Bodhi has four feet!” she exclaims excitedly.  “Cosmo has four feet, too!”  After breakfast this morning, while she was petting the cat, I asked how many ears he had.  She looked at me, and we entered the teachable moment.  What ensued was an exchange of information, imitation, question and response. I learned that she wanted to match holding up fingers to the amount of numbers.  I also learned that she holds up two fingers like a Vulcan or like a scout.  She’s learning about math, and I’m learning about her.

But teachable moments aren’t just happening for my kids.  I’m getting them, too. I have teachers guiding me, teaching me, nudging me into new and unchartered territory.  There’s nothing like jumping into something familiar and experiencing it as new.  There’s nothing like humility to keep you grounded and appreciative.  There’s nothing like raw experience, beautiful and awful as it may be, to keep you in the present moment.  I’m learning, too, and my teachers are learning about me with their own mother’s patience.

The underlying truth behind all this is that every moment is teachable.  We just may not know whether we are the teacher or the student.  The fact may be that we are both, and the lesson therein being that we have much to learn from both sides.

Again, thank you for teaching me and allowing me to teach you.

Have I written about faith before? (Sorry, I can’t help the sweet sarcasm!)  I know I have.  I know I’ve mentioned that faith becomes most apparent when we take the leap from security, routine, and stability and plunge into unchartered territory.  Often this happens when we act on our intuition, trying to follow our hearts, trying to live into what we perceive as our “call.”

Well, my friends, we’ve taken that plunge and have been free-flying for a few months now.  There are a few things we have learned thus far.

• If you thought you knew how you would react if you “failed,” prepare to be wrong. I expected to be bitter, angry, resentful if we spent all our savings and extended our credit to its outer limits.  Thankfully, for the sake of the family, I’m not.  Also, perception of failure is a tricky thing.  Our greatest success in this venture is probably our change of perspective, our new understandings.
• Expect most of the growth to be within. As mentioned above, most of the changes we have experience are that of understanding, perspective, appreciation and joy.  Our relationships deepened.  What makes our life most rich has become apparent.
• Attachments are attachments. Mainly I mean attachments to material things.  We get attached to having the biggest and best, fancy this and highest quality that.  We have to let go of some things, deciding what is best for us individually and as a whole — a whole family and a whole world.    We learn what we can live without, and we learn what is truly worth the effort for quality.  Mostly, we want a quality life; this doesn’t always mean we have a top-of-the-line hi-def t.v.  “Live simply that other may simply live” applies to us all.
• You never go back to where you were before. Even if our daily routine looks the same as it was six months ago, it’s not.  Even if my husband goes back to a “desk job” (in quotes because technically he’s been working at a desk in his “time off”), he’s going back with his new understandings, renewed or even new appreciation.  Once we’ve attained a new level of understanding, once we know something as true, we can’t un-know something.  In time, I’m sure this new level will open other doors for growth as we continue to learn more about the life we live.
• Don’t underestimate your time. Be realistic about your needs.  Keep track of the bills.  Know how much debt you’re willing to accumulate, how much money it takes to live.  We’ve not been very good about this, honestly.  The lessons above were learned in enough time that we could have returned to the work status of before, before a financial crisis hit.  Be aware of this.  Give yourself a cushion, and if not, be willing to face the consequences.
• Take responsibility. We choose our way individually.  If we don’t necessarily have control of our environment and what happens, we have the choice on how we respond.  As in my first point, I thought I would choose to be angry if this business venture didn’t succeed at the rate projected.  When it became apparent that deadlines and projections weren’t being met, I had a choice.  For my own benefit and for the benefit of those around me, I choose love.

These are just a few of the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve taken flight.  It’s been an experience, a defining moment in our lives.  I know that in this past year, I have been pulled, if not called, deeper into my true nature.  Part of the magic of the leap may be that we get a clearer glimpse of what the kingdom of heaven is like, through the lens of faith and trust.

The Haitian earthquake happened January 12th.  I heard about it first in an e-mail from my priest to the congregation.  I finally made the conscious decision to look at photos on-line on Monday, the 18th.  The night before, over an impromptu dinner with friends, one of them told me, “Don’t look.  You’ll be buying a plane ticket or something.  [The pictures] are awful.”  I agreed that I’d probably want to go over there and re-lactate or something so that I could nurse an orphaned baby.

But I looked at the photos, mainly from The Big Picture, whose photo posts are always view-worthy though not always pleasant.  The photos are honest, raw, and exquisite in their clarity.  The Haitian photos are no exception.  Looking at the photographs, how can we not be connected to the devastation?  Smell the dirt, smoke, blood and decay?  Hear the screams of pain and wails of grief?  Taste the dust in our dry mouths.  Feel the tremor of our own body at the fear of the aftershock in the earth and in our own memory.  As hope begins to fade for finding survivors, is hope being kindled quickly enough for a better tomorrow, for rebuilding an even better future?  In a country so populated with poverty, how can I know anything about what that hope might look like?

As the 69-year-old woman who prayed for the week she was trapped, all many of us can do is pray, too.  In a way we are trapped in our sheltered lives.  As richly blessed as we are, we are bound by our attachments, often committed to too much, unable to be moved when it may most be needed.  So we also pray for our own freedom and the gift of understanding that which is beyond our comprehension.

So I send a prayer of peace to the people of Haiti, that amidst this chaos they might find a reservoir of deep peace to carry them through.  To the rescue crews, I pray for strength in body, mind and spirit.  Thank you for doing the work that not all of us can do, and we send you our strength of spirit to back you.  To those in authority of Haiti and those discerning how to allocate funds and goods, may you be pure of heart and keep those in need as your first priority.  For that which I cannot understand, I pray that all will be well.

In my last post, I mentioned mindfulness.  It’s a buzzword these days.  Just be mindful, and all will be well.  That would be like me saying to live every day simply.  In an unapologetically Buddhist way, mindfulness is that easy and that difficult, just as living life simply is.  Read that as you will.

Only you know what is most important in your life.  Only you know what requires your attention and most feeds your soul; they aren’t often the same thing, and we all know it changes on a daily, if not hourly basis.

But if, in a moment, you can be where you are, at once embracing it yet with open arms and feeling everything fully without being overwhelmed, then you can do what needs to be done with clarity.  You can make a conscious choice, knowing what is the best thing to do in that moment.  This is our best work, or our work at its best.  With this clarity and sense of purpose, there is a profound freedom to be experienced.  There is a sense of participating in the flow of life.

I am more than a little amused at all the self-help books out there, the variety of techniques that aim to bring us to a sense of peace.  Each of us could write our own book.  Those of us who write, indeed, write mostly for and to ourselves, for that’s all we truly know.  At the core of it all, though, is the one flow of life, one peace, one good, and that’s what ties us together.  That’s what, when we write, we hope to tap into, sharing a truth that might resonate for others.

Again, only you know what you need.  First you have to be conscious.  You have to be honest.  Then you keep practicing and keep working hard.  We work hard to be, just be, in peace.  This is good work.

(photo from everystockphoto.com)

It may not make sense to you, but it does to me.

The day’s light gone, the fireplace warm and inviting, all the notions of productivity flee, and I want to sit and (at least pretend to) knit by the fire . . . perhaps even watch a new DVD.  “We could just go to bed by 11,” suggests my wise husband before he returns to his desk.

I feel the inner struggle, stoked by the mug of coffee I shouldn’t have had after 7pm.  There are other projects I could do, things I need to get done.  I allow myself to stare into the fire for a few minutes.  Every moment of every day, we have a choice.  Those of us who are blessed and challenged with working from home, whether we get paid or not, there’s no one but ourselves to hold us accountable.  Thus, the inner struggle arising at all hours of the day.

The trick to feeling good about what we do may very well be making conscious decisions.  Mindfulness, if you will.  I like to feel in dialogue with the Universe/God/whatever you want to say.  How can I co-create with that which is greater than me?  If I feel good about where I am, what I am doing, then I radiate that positive energy, affecting not only those around me but also the rest of the cosmos.  This is a good thing.

Resolutions still holding firm, I removed myself from the fire, returned to my “desk” and made some notes on a project to jump-start the work I have to do today.  Creative, tangible, productive.  I went to bed feeling good.  I read a few pages in Angela’s Ashes before turning out the light, closing my eyes, and hoping for insightful dreams.

This whole week embodies an Indian summer.  We’ve had our first frost.  All the trees have come aglow, and most have dropped their leaves.  I chanced upon this ginko tree at the park the day before Halloween; they drop their leaves so quickly.  Their golden leaves must be too heavy to hold for long.

And this week (which happened to include my birthday) reminds me of the renewal I feel in the fall, the creativity, optimism and groundedness.  Quite simply, I give thanks.  My blessings abound.  My gifts continue to create a beautiful harvest and provide me with plenty of work to be joyfully busy.

Even when the sun hides behind the clouds, as it undoubtedly will sometime soon, and the nighttime increases, I’ll let the Light glow from within and cherish the time to let my hands create gifts for those I love.