misplaced mama

All summer long I saw the signs. Mid-day family break. You sit zazen. Your kids do artwork with a loving teacher. Fridays@ local Dharma Hall.

I meant to go every Friday, really, I did. But first there was something. Then something else. Then about ten thousand other things.

And then months and months and I decide it’s time. Being at the cusp of either coming or going, living or dying, I decide that sitting for an hour in Practice would take me to the proper turn in this scrambly and windy road.

This morning, excited, I explain to the girls what today’s outing will be. Mama: meditates. You: play. Together we get ready, dressing. Gathering boots and socks and mittens and snacks. Wondering if the kind caretaker changes diapers in case of an exploded poop? Pack disposables instead of clothes, just be to nice.  Thinking of calling the Dharma Hall to make sure advertised meditation with childcare is indeed still on. Forgetting to do that part, I speed into town, ignoring the ticket I received two days prior. Also ignoring the fuel tank on E, I glide on grace. I need to meditate. Punching up hills, flying down: I.will.not.be.late.  Shoulders up to ears. Screaming children wanting to listen to Circe The Beautiful Witch one more time. Tears stream down my face. Could it be true? One hour of sitting is just moments away? I wanted it so much.

{Don’t want it too much}

Bellingham is full of one-way streets and of course I get stuck in that misty mid-day maze and then parking as usual is a puzzle-like bitch to me, six inches in the yellow, five inches away from making it impossible for the person in front of me to get out.  Fifteen minutes after the Time my vociferous bunch enter the red cedar room. French doors between our noise and pure silence. I stumbled a bit, looking for sign that led to a basement that said: Park Kids. Go Heal. Four little eyes open wide on my side of the glass panes, watching a room full of people doing nothing, siting, still. One sticky almond butter hand hand knocks on it. I grab and pull her away. NO, I hiss.  Are they meditating or praying or both, she asks.  Yes, I answer. The other one whines, loudly, I wanna draw now!  SHHHH, I hiss.

What does one do in a hallway of a Zen center, late and wondering? Wait until the baby lets out a loud yelp and get ready to run out the door back to the car. Before you can hide your head completley and escape, enters from the still room: Nancy. Kind, quiet, blue eyes, clear.

Can I help you?

Is today family meditation? My hand is one one girl’s head. The other girl is taking apart a pumpkin-lantern flower. Three seeds she pulls from inside it and places on the Buddha’s lap. Half of the lantern she sticks on the top of his head, like a little cap. So pleased with her offerings, I see her dancing for him out of the corner of my eye.

Oh. No. Well it used to be. But Tim is in charge and he is out of town and… Oh dear, I’m so sorry. We should have taken the signs down. It ended in September, I think. But do you want to sit? I’d be happy to take the kids downstairs and draw with them.

Really?

The look in my eyes was thanks enough, an answer without words. She takes the baby out of my arms. I ask the girls if they’d like to draw with Nancy. They smile, excited of the newness, the sacredness of the space enticed them, the smell of Kyoto incense, familiar to them.

We quietly walk back into the room. She walks down the stairs and I take the last zafu cushion on the right. My bottom settles down, my right is cradled by my left. In: my belly expands. Out: it contracts. I.Am. Alone.

But not for long. The screaming starts. She must have realized I was not with Nancy or the girls. At first I practice unattachment from the screams and cries and the quiet shushes coming from the less than soundproof basement.

Well, I guess that babies are part of this all, screaming babies are on this earth and they might just be heard while 20 people sit.

Is she disturbing everybody?

Do I get up? I’ve only been sitting ten minutes.

No. This is my time. I think she is quieting down.

(screeching loud enough to make your hairs stand on end)

Christ. She never gives up. She’s so loud, that child! I think I just heard someone get up and leave. Oh shit. I am ruining their practice.  They are going to hate me.  Stop!  Let it be!

[blood curdling]

Hail Mary full of grace the lord……wait, stop. am I actually going to pray that to get her to stop screaming. Please, please, I beg you Z, please just calm down, mama is up here, please.  stop. Stop! This is crazy. This isn’t any good. Why am I even here?

[uncontrollable screaming]

Do I attach myself to this practice or to this baby? Do I unattach to both? Mind: Bitch slaps me: GO. Milk: Sprays Down. Heart: Answers: Her.

Slowly I pull one leg from under me trying not to make a soundscrape with my pants on the cushion fabric, but in this type of quiet, you can hear an eye blink.I quickly pull the other leg out.  I use my arms to push up and then scamper across the smooth wood floor with wool socks help. I tip-toe down gray carpeted steps into a warm and bright basement. The big girls happily munching apples and drawing. The little one; red, snotty, soggy, sad, mad. pooped.

She hands me back the baby, at the same time the baby leaps into my arms, sighs, and hold me her head reting againt my shoulder.  We tried, she says. We tried, I said. A few tears escaped my eyes. Embarrassed. I know, she says. I know.

We need to find another person for Fridays to be with the kids.  We really are family friendly.  I am so sorry we forgot to take those signs down.

I should have called. I just don’t think the baby was ready for this yet. It was sudden. She needs a few minutes to adjust.

Soon, she says. Soon.

Right now I guess my practice is nursing, I say. I pop Z on my boob and she is finally done sobbing. She is home.

I stayed downstairs while she went up, back to her cushion.  No need to trample back through their still space. The girls drew with red and green and black sharpies on large board room paper. Sula: an Angel Flower. Mia: The Sun and Moon at the Beach.

The bookshelf was filled with delicious books, books I have been wanting to read for lifetimes, all for the borrowing for a whole month at a time. I flipped through them, soaking them in, enjoying the the silence coming from upstairs, happy to know that above my head, they were all there, still. And I was happy, to be down here, with them. It was not my time. Is not. Will be. One day.

* *

* *

Upekka-parami:

My I develop mind of perfect equanimity, a mind that is just and impartial towards all beings, without preferences; a mind that cannot be shaken by the pairs of worldly opposites: pleasure and pain, praise and blame.

zaida echo skyla dove, 

i have typed these same down words before, when you stirred in my womb, while I watched the clock tick and wondered what it would be like when you learned to crawl.  And now here with me, crawling yourself into everything,  you say, "awake mama.  i am awake. keep practicing with me, mama.  it’s fun."  It is fun, this practice of continuous renewal, eye-popping wakefulness. It’s like SHA-ZAAM!  And then nothing more than a leaf falling from a tree today while you and I walked through the darkest forest and the wind almost knocked us over.   Z, you are my little alarm clock, you keep waking me up.   Forever grateful and with so much love, Mama.

 “Are you God?”

Siddhartha replied, No

Are you a celestial being?

Again, Siddhartha said no.

You must be a wizard! The man proclaimed, sure of himself.

Once again, Siddhartha said shook his head and said No.

Well, then what are you?

The man had to know.

I am awake.

I know. Poor Is The New Rich.

Right now more of us are bragging about how steep our credit debt is when last year we were basking in the equity that our homes gained. Over in these parts at least, we are stepping back, way back, (and let me tell you there wasn’t much more back to go) and cutting everything out of our lives that is not about cultivating whole food and creating comforting shelter. And I know I should be writing about Equal Rights and Justice. Visions for the New and Improved Future. Shamanic Sex. Fourth Corner Exchange. Paradigm Shifts. Food Storage. The Mayan Calender magic numbers of 2012. All that important stuff that sits on the tip of my mind. I certainly shouldn’t be writing about material consumption.*

But. I do love cute things. Bright colors. Gender Neutral clothing. Good lines. Modern Designs. And I love Melanie.

Melanie is a rocking mama of Ollie and Gus and I was lucky enough to own a business right next door to hers once upon ago when we were both growing our big first-born bellies. I’d help her with breathing techniques in frog pose and she’d help satisfy my obsession over Trumpette baby socks. Since those L.A. Days we both have found some solace in the country, more babies and businesses have been born. And she still has the sharpest eye for cutting edge design. Ittikid is her new virtual shop for the wee ones and beyond. Think modern Swedish meets Partridge family. With names like Velour Elf Pants and Clever Toad dress, you really can’t go wrong.

In support of a Mama-run business I have to give her a shout out. It’s better than buying your crap at the Gap. M-kay? website: www.ittikid.com. Coupon Code: OMAMA and you get 10% off your purchase Sweet!

 " />

{cute apple dress}

[*but we are a capitalist system and our money speaks loudly. And now is the time to put your money where you mouth is. Support small homegrown business.]

If you live in NYC and feel/felt the devastation of the Elizabeth Seton Childbearing Center door’s shutting in 2003, please go and be part of the support network in the opening of New Space.

On November 18th Babeland (oh how i love that this is taking place there! for more reasons than i have time to share right now) and Ricki Lake are hosting a benefit to help support the new and only freestanding, independent birthing/women’s health center in NY, New Space For Women’s Health that is to open in Chelsea in 2010.

The City that has everything is finally going to have something it truly needs.  A safe space where women and babies health is put first.

(Thanks to Jamye for letting me know).

First I threw up all the Columbia Crest Chardonnay. Then a snack of apples and walnuts with some maple creamline yogurt. Then came the lunch of spinach salad and slow cooked split pea soup and two chocolate chip cookies (I skipped dinner, too nervous to eat the beans, squash and quinoa we made for the girls) and finally the millions of black raspberry seeds that made most of my smoothie earlier that morning. For the record, tiny black raspberry seeds are torturous to puke. I threw it all up and then some, and then I dry heaved for another ten minutes. B pulled my hair out of my face and offered me small sips of water. I hunched over the toilet until my throat was swollen and raw, my teeth filled with small seeds and my body felt like a demon had squeezed it’s way out of my digestion track and splattered itself in mercury-like particles all of the porcelain

You going to be okay?

Yeah.

You just puked up a shit load. Did you drink that much?

Yeah.

Wanna take a hot bath?

Yeah.

He helps me undress, chilled and shivering and naked, over-grown leg hair standing on edge, toe-nails chipped, belly stretch marked. As I climbed over the edge of the tub into the steaming water, sprinkled generously with jasmine and lavender oil, I looked at him in the eyes and said,

I just threw up the last eight years. I think I just threw up the Bush Administration.

* * *

I was one of those people who wrote in Ralph Nader two times ago. Disgusted with the two-party rule, my belief system seemed so left it was on the flip side of the charts. I was living in National Forest, underneath the towering Sawtooth Mountain range and along the Snake River. My daily routine involved a lot of sitting and doodling on grassy banks and climbing snow encrusted ledges and lazying around hot springs . My mornings were tea with mist pockets and a yard full of elk . Afternoons were spent gardening while baby moose clomped along my drive, following their mama. It’s easy to get mesmerized by the preciousness of it all; an amazing biosphere, the only land we all know and stand on. All in the same breath it is ours and it’s not. It’s also entirely untouchable, it will be here long after we cease to.

Enter Bush: a new standard of greed and ego and Armageddon was born. His Kingdom was elsewhere, this earthly place was just a doormat and so many others nodded hard along behind him. I let go of that little girl in first grade who held up that sign, carefully crafted with glue and glitter: Go Carter. I ripped up my voter registration card and blew it into the fire. My only representation became myself and the way I lived. Anarchy would be what it was called, but there is no true definition of this. I became indifferent. Like organized religion, organized government, was a thing of my past. The two seemed to bleed unto one another and a very specific Judeo-Christian Dogma and State had re-newed its longterm vows and stayed in bed together, intertwined and incestuous. I stepped back. If presidents can live outside the law, so could I. The law they called Golden became my guideline.

Time clicked, which it does so well and fast and the Bush Clock was expiring. Words of this new person, this man who representing the nameless and the faceless, whose spirit seemed kindred to the Me’s across the globe. There was great and urgent reason for his bravery and he was quick to navigate a system thick with Original Bureaucracy and run for President. The meaning his words delivered were common, open for interpretation, filled more with a new energy than with a definition. There were no answers but all of us seemed to hear the same question: How badly do you want this? I took off my shoes and started to dip my toes back in the water. Candles lit. Prayers said. Maybe this is my country, too, after all. Hopeful.

* * *

Having a TV-less home posed as a dilemma. How were we going to watch the election? We could leave our cozy, flame lit house on the rainy Autumn night and invade a friend’s place or go to one of the numerous viewing parties in town, but with three kids, staying home past dinner is always the right choice. And truthfully, I wanted to watch this alone. I didn’t know what my reaction might be if the Unspeakable occurred. We lugged the old television out of the garage and dusted the webs from it and stuck in the corner of the living room and went to work. After an entire roll of tin foil was sculpted like a palm tree, shoved out the window trying to reach Reception Heaven, we still got no picture. We brought the box up to the next story, attached it to a DVD player, put in a movie about a bear whose best friends are a duck and an owl and settled the girls in front of it.

I had no desire to bring them deeply into the election. They recognize Barack Obama as a leader. Their little ears listened to NPR election coverage on the radio driving to school, until they would ask me to turn it off and put on the Ramones or M.I.A. or roll down the windows so they could hear the rain fall. Obvious was their awareness that they live on the cusp of change. As the election day got closer, I noticed less sleep more tantrums. Our stress is their stress. They sensed history was in the making. I believe our children are messengers/instigators of this very specific and real change we are becoming. They forge a path for their own womb blessings. They merge with the material plane, as we all do, with a soul map. There is no mistake these ones came to us right now. This is their time, this is their president. I must trust they will learn social and political empowerment as their world perspective unfolds and expands. Right now they are settling in with the Laws of Nature and Spirit, understanding shifts and change through the leaves falling and the temperature dropping. They learn about death and survival from the eagle swooping down, catching a spawning salmon with it’s razor claws. Within our own walls and the community that surrounds them they learn lessons of leadership, equality, stewardship. Once they have a grasp on their immediate, they’ll quest for a larger view. Religion and Politics? My job to is shine a light so they can find their own way.

All week long I removed myself from the hoopla. I concentrated staying present with the girls and lived the Hope and Change I was attached to happening. While the rest of the world was holding signs and canvassing, I was making bread. Each knead of my hands I floated in meditations of being sheltered by a home, cupboards filled with food, bills paid, troops withdrawn, the earth given reverence, kids vibrant and healthy and whole, all people given equal rights. Each loaf that rose high warm and chewy, gave me hope. If I could make a loaf of bread rise, this world could change.

* * *

We took the tin foil and arranged a similar like wave-attracting sculpture to the wireless card on the laptop. Living out here has it’s pluses but drawbacks leave us digitally impaired. We hung the card against the wall on a hook and propped the computer on the wooden salad bowl filled with perfectly juicy Chehalis apples. CNN.com began to stream, lopsided computer and all, but still we were in business.

He put the bottle of wine in front of me. Condensation created droplet around the green glass. I poured a tiny Ball Jar full and swallowed it down with the same ease of drinking water after a long run. I didn’t know I was this nervous, I giggled. I poured a wee bit more. And then some more.

The wine filled me up as did the tokes of the rolled tobacco inhaled on the porch as the rain moistened my face and wet my wool socks to saturation. My drunkenness was apparent when the sounds of the coyote were magnified and multiplied I could swear I saw tens of pairs yellow eyes fixed in on me. Glowing. An arms reach away.

As we watched little shapes pixelate to form a map of this nation fill up with reds and blues and then more blues, beyond my blurred vision, I could see we were transcending politics. We were transcending powerlessness and power. We were transcending being led and leading. We were slowly becoming the world we all have been drawing in our heart-shaped sketchpad and sculpting in our dreams journals for a long time. We opened a door, we walked through it. Half of us stand naked and eager. Energized, organized, spiritualized. Now what.

* * *

It’s obvious we are very divided by a gaping crevice of views; personal choices, war waging, energy harvesting, and economy suturing. We are all sure we are correct regardless if our choices are made under the guise of a dogmatic system, philosophical order or everyday intuition. It’s like my daughter who wakes up some days and is sure she needs cookies or ice cream for breakfast. She is sure of it as she drags her chair over to the freezer to reach the high shelf. And I am sure that I won’t give her any. We both are so sure. And then I think of her own body wisdom. Maybe she needs some sugar, and so I say how about a big spoonful of raw honey and then some juicy eggs? And yes, we have compromised and we both feel good about the way it all worked out. In my household, divided we struggle and with struggle we fall. We we come together and blend, we unite and evolve.

And now that it’s all said and done. How can we all feel listened to and respected? Safe and protected? How can we all feel like a whole part to our village, or state, or country or planet? I know for some time now I have felt like a foreigner on the only land I have ever known. The current administrations choices made me feel cast aside, unheard, alone. And now that the pendulum swings, there are people out there that feel like I did for a long time. This doesn’t make me feel relief. I don’t stand here with my hands on my hips, smug smile spread across my face, yelling over the red lines: So there! Now you know what it feels like! To hell with your old bible thumping, oil thieving old men! To hell with your judgments and your threats! Time for your stomachs to be tied into knots! No. I don’t say that. Personally, I’d rather be united versus watching an even thicker, angrier line drawn [once again] between us, even if this time I stand on the side-in-charge. I’d rather find some common ground; the air we breath, the blood that pumps through each of us, the land we explore and enjoy. The perfect entanglement of lovers bodies. The children we raise.

And beyond the dream of unity, how can we as individuals, separate but equal, form a new and peaceful society for the whole? This gift of shift, this very real change, is to strengthen the bond of humankind, not weaken with divide. It’s to wipe clean karma and gently apply medicinal salve to old, infected wounds. It’s an opportunity to learn to live first with self-love an then extend it, bit by bit, out There. We didn’t just vote for a man, we voted for Us, for our babies. But the question and the search and reason for all of this will always be: How can we live together non-violently. How can we hold space for everyone in tightly populated, tree-less corners with the messy and revealing after-maths of war and famine, slavery and terror? How can we let go of the apocalypse of our hearts and lift the veil of hate and see clearly the manifestations of love. How can we live in abundance and continuously transform with this newfound and electrifying energy? How can we keep releasing the anti-Christ from within, the dangerous ego that brings suffering and disconnect? We have done so much work, unseen and mysterious, tangible and calculated, heart and mind. After pausing for Great Thanks and some Good Partying: Now what. Who are we now, all of us. This is not a question to be answered. It is one to bathe in each moment of the hours that pass as we live this utterly precious life.

* * *

While walking in the rain along the interurban trail with kids, we stopped at the community bike shop. I am still investigated biking arrangements that can transport three kids ranging from 18 to 45 pounds (tandem bike pulling a chariot seems to be the answer). Among the patina of collective rims and frames, hop-knobs and knick-knacks, bells and baskets there laid a chalkboard, sheltered from water. Here is what was written on it:

I no longer expect things to make sense. I know there is no safety. But that does not mean there is no magic. It does not mean there is no hope. It simply means that each of us has reason to be wishful and frightened, aspiring and flawed. And it means that to the degree we are lost, is it on the same Ocean, in the same night.

-Elizabeth Kayle

*this is the name that was messily signed at the end of the quote. I can’t figure out who she is, but find this to be one of the most breathtaking thoughts: the same ocean, in the same night. If anyone has read anything else by her, let me know, please.

Yes!  Wake the town and tell the people! Free reggae music for you!  How can you resist?  Bashment time!  Light up a nice…candle, and download 6 hours of reggae music and dance around your house, or drive down the road, level the vibes, enjoy these moments, for real! 

Reggae is music for the people.  In sensitive political times, I always like some good uprising sounds; a foundation in cultural celebration and political tears, add in some lovers crooning, hottah than fire rhythms and always the re-re-re-reverb and the echo-co-co-co. And you have a damn good soundtrack for days like these, music that parallels the "earth’s natural frequencies" (my friend Cyp said that, not me).   It is future roots: made from what grows deeper and stronger into the grounds and yet reaching out for change, ever-evolving. 

It just so happens I married a man who has Whale Medicine:he holds the records of the sounds. The history of the music, the people, their lives. The path of purveyor is scratched deeply in the delicate fibers of his heart.  Plastic milk crates piled high and wide encase thousands of grooves etched in wax. He has been keeping them safe and loved and heard for over fifteen years.

I won’t share his impressive pedigree, just know that you are being offer an audio history of ska, rock steady, reggae, roots reggae, dub reggae, lovers rock, and dancehall from an A-1 Selectah.  Nuff said.

Commercial-free, kid friendly, The Free Clinic is his weekly show on experimental community radio.  I dare you to put down anything you are doing and dance all day long to this stuff.

Download the sounds. Call in and make requests or email him at greatstonesound@gmail.com.

There are very few places where you can get mixes this long and this quality for free.  Have fun.  My All Hallow’s Eve Day treat to you (new music up every week!)

 Dr. Rock’s Free Clinic.  Whatever ails you will be healed.

Photo of the Man Them Call Dr. Rock (scaling a wall) By Jason Byal (jasonbyal.com)

IRIE!