misplaced mama

Naked. Both of them.

Hair the exact color of bread and butter corn. Hair so close to the color of Malibu sand soaked in sunlight.

Lush soil, fluffy, soft enough to comb through with your fingers, as dark brown as dark brown can be, coconut shell meets espresso bean. Leafy stipped purples, wide green leaves, twisting vines growing up a wire fence.

The little one chases the big one with a hose. The big one runs and squeals. The little one is crying. She chases out of revenge.

* * *

there is no sun quite like this sun, who hides from us from us day after day for so many months, appeasing us with intermittent moments of light; day hikes, beach combing, park picnics, ferry rides. But dark months are dark months for a reason. We never doubt it’s existence, but we wonder what it feels like, what it would be like to draw it down from behind those harrowingly dark and low, marine clouds. There were days when I would reach my arms up try to grab the clouds, separate them with my hands, crack them a apart just a bit, just to say hi sun, missing you.

It’s out of hiding. The past is the past. Life is lived outside now.

* * *

mia: dada, will those sugar snap peas get bigger and bigger?

dada: The’re going to get real big.  especially if we take care of them.  water them.  sing to them.  give them a lil dance.

mia: As big as the world? will they get as big as the world?

dada: wow. That would be big, wouldn’t it?

mama: did you know the world was so big that it never ends, ever?

mia: I know it’s so so so so big. We don’t even need another one! It’s so big! It just keeps circling and circling and getting bigger and bigger.

mama: yup.

mia: mama we could plant another world.

mama: how do we do that?

mia: well we get the specials seeds from chrystal world fairy then we plant them and they grow beautiful trees and houses made like flowers and animals, cause they grow animals too, these seeds grow everything.

mama: cool. Where could we plant those seeds for a new world?

mia: I know! I know! The perfect place! We can grow it at that cupcake place by the bookstore that could be perfect! That would be a wonderful new world home.

* * *

Indeed. Perfect. Cupcakes. And a new world.

* * *

“ Dream-travelers, there is no path, paths are made by dreaming.”

-antonio machado.

ONE.

The dawn has awoken to your morning calls and the dusk has been called upon by your hungry bedtime wails. My little bird of prophecy and peace, of sensuality and fire; you have traveled around the entire sun. You have felt the harsh air of winter on your newborn cheek, and smelled the fertile soft earth after the spiring rain. You have napped at the banks of the river on warm sunny summer days. You have picked apples off trees strapped to my back under the sepia sky of Autumn. My third daughter, Lovey Dovey, you with many, many names: Happy First Birthday.

* * *

Dear World, I am choked in my throat and my arms tingle to just reflect on her beauty and the beauty she opens my eyes to. Contagious, stellar, warming, from above and below. We indeed must live in a brilliant place, a peculiar yet undoubtedly settled and thoughtfully crafted world right in the middle, a perfect place for a mother and child to hold each other, noticing the love and wonder of new life; trees, jellyfish, humans, birds, the blooms of a borage plant, turtle shells, the cocoa bean, moss, a baby’s small toe. It’s a wonderful place. So many teachings and comfortable nooks to rest our heads. This baby that now sleeps next to me as I type is proof that our hearts are all worthy of spilling open and receiving that pure nectar of prana. When I look at her I have faith in me. In you. She is not beyond the wonder in any of us and although it’s sometimes hard to notice my own soul seeds. so sweet, sweet enough to create such life, one sniff behind her neck and I am brought back to myself. We are all worthy of as much love as this small daughter of mine attracts. We all are. She taps me on the shoulder calls me to dig into my dusty heroine archives and pull out that never-ending scroll that holds record of how perfect our soul’s song and dance truly is.

Her spirit has filled our ravenous hunger like a hearty peasant soup, a colorful and wild seafood pasta tossed with only the finest oil of olive, a crusty outside chewy inside baguette, a bowl of farm fresh lemon custard, tender berries of blacks and blues and reds in big hand made bowl. She sparked our drive on the open road and cheered us on as we packed our boxes, manifesting movement for our nomadic bones. She held me tightly as I slept in a sand invested camper and peed all night long from an open metal door out on to forest floors, Come on mama, it’s an adventure. She calmed my nerves when I couldn’t sleep at the edge of land and rock, worrying about where I was and where I was moving to and why. Don’t worry mama, just take me to where the whales swim. And as each day passes she continues to instill in us a faith for our creative purpose. All things are possible she whispered in my ear the night I found out she lived within me somewhere under my heart. I come to your home because I want to watch you weave all the passions into One. She has taught us to shapeshift into parents of three daughters. There is nothing less than magic (or insanely wild) in that.

I pull her in between my arms devour her when I can. These days her protocol is to kick fast and free in boundless exploration on hands and knees, like flashes of lightning she is off to touch the stones or sparkly multi-faceted crystals collected by the older girls or to pull on the dog’s tail. She surfs the couch and the chairs to find ways to rip leaves off the plants or grab handfuls of potting soil or to get to the garbage underneath the kitchen sink. A small scrap of anything on the floor never goes unnoticed by her little fingers and curious mouth. These times are precious. And they move fast, as fast as the flow down river after days of rain. A note to me in 20 years: Don’t ever forget the glisten in her eyes when her face is above yours and you are looking up at her, her seductively long lashes shelter the shiniest, darkest, deepest secrets of your own soul.

She is ethereal and unformed, transparent and bodiless spirit. She is fierce and dwells in flesh, hot blooded, sharp nailed, chunky toothed, fast hands pulling at my long knotted hair, my peacock feather earrings, the saggy skin on my cheek. She is all these and more. Mellow and easy, sleepy and demanding, hectic and still. Alive. She is this body which lingers upon dainty and perfectly sized, a full backside and curvy thighs, muscular arms and quite possibly the most exactly angled toes atop the most graceful arch on earth. She grows this skeleton form here with me, this whole family. I think she really likes us.

* * *

Thirteen big juicy moons have shined down on you and thirteen dark moons have held you through the mystery of the shadow. This is a celebration. Of you. At night I crawl into bed next to you, pressing our foreheads together, our noses touching, our breath blending and I suck it in deep. I watch your eyelids form quarter moons, and your lips and cheeks deepen to apothecary rose as sleep becomes you. I can talk of all you are and what you do, but I do not know you in fullness, not in the way I crave to, in a way I never will. That’s not how it works. But the chance that each day I am gifted with knowing you a tiny more keeps my eyes and heart open beyond the screams and the spills, the diaper struggles and the exhausted pre-sunrise scratches in the face. The threeness of your placement in the family is beginning to fade from the confusing maze, the head smacking into walls and the many moments huddled in cobwebbed corners to that of a rhythmic tide, a knowing that I can do this. In the moments when I feel as if I am being pulled in by the undertow, I am reminded of your soft mystery, a quiet gift from somewhere Out There. The girl who brought me home, held my hand as I walked through the basement of my soul and who sat on my hip as we creaked up the rickety staircase toward a door that held even more darkness behind it. You are the one that said, go on mama, open it up.

You were born on the cusp of night and day during the loudest dance of wind and rain, the Mother of Birth and Death were having a soundclash, with skirts of skulls rattling from every corner, reminding me that with birth comes death and with death comes birth and we can’t do one without the other. The are the same face equally divided. And while you brought the beautiful gift of darkness as you emerged, you also brought the desire to truly heal, bare down to my soul’s bones, in the spacial marrow that connects me to all life. It is you who handed me the key to my own ancient story; once locked in a cave and scribbled with sharp vixen nails, I have finally found the eyes to read. There is a misconception that we need to bring Light into the Dark all the time. But now I remember how to gather the Darkness from the Light. I am finally on the path of being a whole woman; scraping away every last fiber of who I was, ripping off the comfortable ego, which was worn for show and pride, draped over me like a silk shawl, beautiful and worthless. I am able to say now: I am not just a mother. I am a woman, a wild animal, gardener who sows the dark seed and the light who enables it to bloom. I am the drum beat of my own heart. And all this, these words I write, you have given me.

It is no coincidence you were born only two days before Imbolc, where Goddess Brigit stands at the middle gateway between the frost of winter and the blossom of Spring. She gifts us with primal healing and glistening poetry. You are no doubt my talisman, just a glance your way, your presence on my hip or back or at my breast reminds me of my path: these words are meant only to heal.

I hold you up to the world and say Welcome to this New Year.

I hold you up to The Dark One, Kali Ma and give thanks for the firestorm of destruction that swept through me that night you chose to come. I give thanks for those months and months of postpartum rage and depression, for such raw abandon of everything so I could sit in front of my soul’s hearth and listen to the flames that were never less than a blaze. I give thanks for the opportunity to just burn and burn until now where I stand, nothing but a naked skeleton, bones missing, crushed, in piles on the ground in form of pure ash. Dead. Ready to ask: Who am I now? Where is my heart?

I hold you up to, Kwan Yin, Mother Goddess of many names, who wears the cloak of Compassion and Light for the rebirth of a wounded body and heart. I give thanks for her warm arms that held on to me when I was almost too tired and weary to hold on to you. I ask her to surround you in all your moments of weakness and strength.

I hold you up to the Dove, the bird that has shown it’s flight to me since you were just small buds of hands and feet and fast little heart-drum. It makes sense to me now, knowing this simple white spirit of flight has represented sexuality, creativity and holds the gateway to the feminine innerworld since the beginning story of ourselves. Dove sings the mourning coo of what has been while it wakes us up to the brilliance of what is now, the newness of the dawn.

I hold you up, Baby Girl, I introduce you to this massive world and call out your Name, your spirit name, which I hold in my heart as a secret and whisper only into your ear at night. It is your power name, for only you and the winds will know it. I hope it will ride through the air deliver the message to the heavens that you are here and safe, you have arrived into yourself.

I hold you up to your Spirit Guides, those magical beings who I bow in great thanks and honor. They have chosen you, they are by your side as I take on new journeys to fill my creative soul, embarking on new adventures. In those hours I may not be there by your side, know they always are.

I hold you up to Coyote, Great Trickster, in honor of the laughter, the absurdity of this journey, of all the falls and spills and ridiculous mess we make daily. To laugh it all off, this gift, I hope is bestowed upon you, my giggly, silly little girl.

I hold you up to Great Spirit, to The Mystery which is the source of of this every-giving sweet Love and yell at the top of my lungs: THANK YOU. There is nothing more to say about that.

And I give thanks to you, for letting me peak in on this life of yours, because it is all yours. I am only here because you picked me. Just show me what you need .

* * *

She doesn’t walk, but she sure talks: mama, Dada, light, thank you, thunder, moon, uh-oh, uh-uh, that, agua.

Her five teeth love eating. Anything I put in front of her. Quinoa drenched in sesame oil being a recent favorite. And her first taste of birthday cupcake (lemon vanilla with coconut rose frosting) was a big hit.

She is the best dancer we’ve made yet.

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the moment after I caught you.  mama loves you so much she’ll share this with the world.

and only a week before that, this is how you made me feel…

I love you Zaida Echo Skyla Dove Papaya Spiral Rock.  Infinity.

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.

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.

[mia, sula, zaida, and o sensei]

these bananas taste salty, like the sea, mama.  everything is the sea! like, the book, with the chocolate bar and the stars?  member, mama? member the book about the how everything is everything?

Daily training in the Art of Peace allows you inner divinity to shine brighter and brighter. Do not concern yourself with the right and wrong of others. Do not be calculating or act unnaturally. Keep your mind set on the Art of Peace, and do not criticize other teachers or traditions. The Art of Peace never restrains, restricts, or shackles anything. It embraces all and purifies everything.

mia! mia! it’s not a race.  sula, we’re here to see the orcas!  come on, we all win!

 

Always keep your mind as bright and clear as the vast sky, the great ocean, and the highest peak, empty of all thoughts. Always keep your body filled with light and heat. Fill yourself with the power of wisdom and enlightenment.

Each and every master, regardless of the era or place, heard the call and attained harmony with heaven and earth. There are many paths leading to the top of Mount Fuji, but there is only one summit - love.

DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADADADADADADADADAgheeeeegheeeeegheeee

iz a lotta work builtin’ a dood home, mama, wanna help?  you ah good at lifting big tings. lets built it, mama.

Protectors of the world And gaurdians of the Ways Of gods and buddhas,The techniques of Peace Enable us to meet every challenge.

mama, reach out yer hand.  open it up.  lemme give you a gift.  how bout ‘mericano wid cream and 2 raw sugahs?

 Now and again, it is necessary to seclude yourself among deep mountains and hidden valleys to restore your link to the source of life. Breathe in and let yourself soar to the ends of the universe; breathe out and bring the cosmos back inside. Next, breathe up all fecundity and vibrancy of the earth. Finally, blend the breath of heaven and the breath of earth with your own, becoming the Breath of Life itself.

Consider the ebb and flow of the tide. When waves come to strike the shore, they crest and fall, creating a sound. your breath should follow the same pattern, absorbing the entire universe in your belly with each inhalation. Know that we all have access to four treasures: the energy of the sun and moon, the breath of heaven, the breath of earth, and the ebb and flow of the tide.

 [this morning when i woke up a fire-breathing dragon, i sat down and breathed.  i picked up the art of peace.  i read.  i squeezed a huge load of honey into the mush just to make them smile and give me time to gather our things.  i smashed a bunch of stuff into a bag in record time-funny how when things just happen, they just happen- and we drove here.  despite the peed car seat, the denied credit card at the mean ladies coffee joint, the lost and then found wallet, the accepted credit card at the nice ladies coffee joint, the cellphone that almost got run over, and the minivan bumper that fell off and dragged, i’d say we had a fantastic day, me and my girls. this is why we moved here.  this is why i am alive.]

*all in italics from The Art of Piece.