I had the honor of attending my dear friend Sylvia's daughter Danika's arangetram, which is a dance recital/rite of passage from classical dance tradition in India. Danika has been studying dance for 10 years and her arangetram is her "coming out" as a dancer. Words cannot describe the beauty, grace and elegance of Danika's dancing. Accompanied by four musicians and a vocalist, Danika performed for two and a half hours, telling stories through poses, gestures and facial expression. I was moved to be invited to be there.The arangetram was held in the Hindu Temple, Sri Ganesha. I've never been in a Hindu temple before, although I'd be curious. The priest performed a ceremony with Danika and her parents at the alter before the dance began. I think it was done in Sanskrit so I have no idea what it was about other than probably blessing Danika and allowing her to give thanks (that's only a guess). It was interesting to be in a Hindu temple after writing about the lack of icons and symbols for God in my spiritual life. As I understand it, Hindus worship God/Brahman who manifests through many Deities/Manifestations. I think it's like God manifesting through Jesus and the Holy Ghost in the trinity. As I wrote in my last post, I relate to Jesus and, through Jesus, come to God. I have difficulty getting past what I was taught about idols to be able to open myself to expand my very narrow concept of God by learning about the ways others come to understand or know God. I also have a real dislike of anthropomorphising God. God is not human. I am human. I am made in God's image but I do not believe that I am all that God is. I can find God in creation and worship God through God's creation. I do not worship nature; I worship God through nature. I do not worship a fellow human but I can find God in others and come closer to God by opening myself to that truth ("that of God")."There's a Light that is shining in the heart of a man,It's the Light that was shining when the world first began.It's the Light that is shining in the Turk and the Jew, And the Light that is shining, Friend, in me and in you."
God is that Light. God can be called Spirit, One, Creator or Love. I can perceive God as the Holy Mother/Father or as Wisdom/Sophia or as the gentle healer and angry teacher Jesus. God is what unites us and gives us the spark of life.
Yesterday was my birthday. I took my mom, Zed and Carmac out to lunch at a Greek Orthodox cafe, Cafe Alektor. I'd gone there about a year ago and had seen a pendent with an image of Christ that stayed in my head all this time. I really didn't think it would still be there a year later but I figured we'd go for lunch and I'd at least look. It was there for me and so I bought myself a birthday gift. I also got a small icon pendent of Mary Magdalene.(as an aside-either the pendent shrunk a bunch or my eyesight has gotten a lot worse in the past year; I walked all over the shop trying to find enough light to see the image clearly. Yipes!)I've been struggling with my understanding of God. I need to allow myself to open in my perceptions of what God is. I grew up Baptist and am now Quaker: No icons, images, idols; no saints or avatars of the Divine outside the trinity. The church I grew up in had a large, simple wooden cross (flanked by the "Christian" flag and Old Glory) and that was it by way of symbols. Nashville Friends Meeting sometimes has flowers and, very occasionally, a candle. To me, God is something extremely personal. Yes, the still, small Voice. The Light. But what else? When I was a child, up to the point of rejecting any belief in the church of my childhood, I imagined God to be like an elementary school principal: kind and benevolent in a distant way; busy with important work until I messed up and got sent to the "office". As an adult I discovered God within me, sustaining and guiding me. The closest I can come to describing God is to say that I believe that we, each person who was ever born, were each made in God's image and God encompasses and is comprised of us but so much, much greater; that God is so Great that God can be whatever loving thing we each need to perceive God to be (this fits well with my understanding of the community of God being the "body of Christ"). But again, what does that mean to me? The symbol for God that I remember most often from my childhood I reject: Heavenly Father (how many pre-meal blessings did I hear begin with that one?). I don't have a problem with Heavenly Parent, or Creator, or Mother/Father but I can't abide by the patriarchal idea of God the Father. I don't care for Lord, either; it smacks too much of feudalism. Holy Ghost I'm fine with-I liken it to Spirit-but, to me, it is vague and undefined.Jesus, being an Avatar (or incarnation) of God, is better. Again, I've rejected a lot of the ways of relating to Jesus that I learned in my church of origin, but I accept Jesus-the Jesus I know by reading the Bible (not church teachings. Check out this hilarious spoof political video "paid for by 'Conservative Christians against the teachings of Christ"). Jesus the teacher, healer, peacemaker, friend and champion of the weakest members of society-women, the poor, sinners, and the sinned against- is why I am a Christian and Jesus is how I best understand God and God's love, at this point in my life.Could be my eyesight, but when I first saw this little icon, my impression was of Jesus sitting in the lotus position with his hands in mudras and an halo around his head. It's an Eastern Orthodox icon, so of course, that's not how Jesus is being depicted, but that's how I choose to see it: Jesus as guide to transcending ego to truly living in God/enlightenment.
I'm 43 today. It's a gloomy day, weather-wise. I don't mind growing older and usually make elaborate plans to celebrate my birthday but it's Friday and Hammy and I are both working and tomorrow, Zed is having friends over to belatedly celebrate his birthday (which was the 17th of February and we were all sick with the flu), so I won't be enjoying my birthday the way I usually do. This year, my birthday is just another day, which I sort of feel disappointed about. I usually love to celebrate being on Earth another year. My monthly cycle started Wednesday evening. My cycle is becoming erratic, again. Prior to becoming pregnant with Carmac, my cycles would be anywhere from 30 days to 90 days in length. After his birth, for the past 4 1/2 years, they've been on the short side: 25-30ish days. This month, it was long again. I don't keep really good track but I think it was about 10 days or so longer; long enough that I started panicking about being pregnant again. The fear of being pregnant is a strange knee-jerk reaction. Hammy and I have had very little opportunity for quality "alone" time since before I went to Chicago and he has had a vasectomy! You'd think I would logically conclude that my hormones are changing in my body. But I've had five pregnancies, only one of which was planned (two ended in miscarriage). When I perceive that my period is late, I immediately panic and live in fear, imagining "what if?".Yesterday, I rode my scooter to work. Riding, especially for work, takes a lot of concentration and organization as I have to be aware of all my work equipment, the scooter, traffic, helmet hair, etc. Being (excuse the phrase) "on the rag" also takes a lot of my awareness (you women know what I mean). Combining the two was a serious distraction. Usually when I ride I feel powerful. Yesterday, I just felt scattered and out of sorts. I found myself looking forward to menopause.I love being pregnant. I love being a fertile woman. But I know that time is passed for me. I'm much too young to be a crone but right now I feel I'm in a sort of hormonal limbo called peri-menopause. So, I'm 43 and looking forward to growing older rather than looking back to what I'm loosing. I'm not meaning to hurry time but I do look toward a time when my body becomes a little less disruptive and complicating to me.
Why? Oh why am I forced by my own nature to always, but always, color outside the lines? Why does my own drummer have such a syncopated beat? Why can't I just do like everybody else? Why must I always do things differently? I'm tired of always having to work so hard to do what most people never give a thought to.Yeah, I'm committed to living my life as long as I am able without a car. I feel called to make this a part of my testimony and feel right about this decision. But geez, I'm tired; my ankle hurts, my muscles are sore and my knees and hips ache from the miles I walked yesterday (and I'll be taking the kids to homeschooling this afternoon so we'll be walking and riding the bus again in a couple of hours). I left my house at 9:30 yesterday to work, walked miles in the rain (schlepping my work/computer bag and my winter coat with me because the temperature was supposed to drop) to a couple of my cases and returned home at 2:30 in order to grab Zed and Carmac and run back to the bus stop to go to aikido.Homebirth, cloth diapers, extended breastfeeding, family bed, homeschooling, recycling, living frugally and simply, trying to avoid too much media, trying to help my children be aware of the bombardment of marketing, governmental propaganda and cultural norms which are useless or even harmful. And now living without a car. I'm always swimming upstream. I'm always struggling against the flow. My calls to live an examined life usually result in a considerable amounts of sacrifice and discomfort-physical, financial, emotional sacrifice and discomfort. Usually I have righteous indignation to fuel me but I feel tapped out, dry; exhausted (pity my poor husband who only has his love for me to sustain him).It happened as I struggled through the rain with my very heavy computer bag down a cobble-stone street in my clogs (after having twisted my ankle as I moved quickly to avoid getting hit by a car on my street). Generally, rainy, cold, unpleasant weather doesn't bother me too much (except heat-I really do not like it too hot). As a matter of fact, I often take a kind of perverse pleasure in inclement weather, priding myself on my ability to not mind it. But yesterday was too much. I'm in the rain, struggling with the wind and my umbrella and I just thought: "WHY? Why do I put myself through this kind of discomfort and inconvenience? Why can't I just be normal? Why can't I just be like everybody else and not think so hard and work so hard and make everything a challenge for myself and against our culture at large?!"I just don't know right now. I need to hear something to sustain me. I need inspiration; a message of encouragement. I need to be affirmed for these crazy, stupid choices I make to live right.
I often bemoan the "lowest common denominator" mentality of my family. I feel I spend my life compromising and lowering my standards to get along with my husband and sons. I don't know if it's a male/female thing but I have a strong dislike of video games and they all love them. And, because the oldest one is almost 17, he can play games and watch movies that are not appropriate for younger children but often, the 13 year old and even sometimes the 5 year old wind up seeing them anyway. I was so careful, when Declan was young, to shelter him from harmful media and junk. But I had to work and my parents watched him and he watched network TV at their house and before I knew it, he was well-versed in "Power Rangers". And then we started homeschooling and he was younger than the other kids and didn't know how to make friends and they were all collecting "Pokemon" cards and so I bought him his first set. It's been a downward spiral of giving in to popular culture since then. Carmac has been exposed to waaaay more media and much more mature viewing than Declan or Zed ever were until Declan hit 12 or 13. It's so hard to shelter the youngest who has older siblings.
way but that I always have to compromise myself and my beliefs to keep some amount of peace in our home. This morning, as my husband (doing his best "Andy Griffith" impersonation) talked with one of our sons about his apparent "malingering", I thought of parenting as a hero's journey. This is the spiritual path. This is the path I am on; the only one for me. My challenge is to take this life and make it a 
spiritually centered one. I am the one who has to find the Light in the darkness of first person shooter games (not allowed in our house but sometimes snuck in anyway) and Swedish "death" metal (music). My job is to be aware of the fact that I am the hero in this journey and I have to find the high road. I am here to prepare my children for their own journeys. 
