Working It Out

[From October 2, 2012]

This afternoon offered the first good, long workout I’ve had in over ten days. I remember days when those words could not exist in the same sentence—good, long, workout—but we are in a different season, for now. Perhaps from now on. My mind began to release its form as muscles flexed and eased, contracted and relaxed. I began to remember the awareness that comes when I listen first with my physique, second with my profession. I don’t think I have used the word physique either, in those days gone by. So what made it good?

I’ve learned to trust my body more than I used to, for one. It’s good to move, enjoying an active and different relationship with the world than any idea I have of it at a given time. There’s an inimitable reality about being in the world—it is what it is, no more, no less. Sometimes, in this trust, I see body parts that seem new to me, though they’re just as old as the rest of me. My hips, for one. My mother told me when I was 12 that I had child-bearing hips, which was meant to ease my adolescent angst. I’ve felt ambiguous about them ever since. Did she mean ‘large for a purpose’ or ‘maternal’ or what? Today, I eased around the track, confident in my stride and appreciative of how these hips have borne me along the world’s ways. Sturdy, strong, even gracefully curvy. Or there’s my belly. My belly has been the source of some of the most stringently critical voices I’ve mustered within my head. “Could stand to lose a few pounds, couldn’t you?” this whiny voice would accuse. “How blubbery!” said another version of voice, with a mean-streak. Today, I remember how my belly holds estrogen to make my bones strong, how it complements my form with an image of ease and nurture. True, the anorexic, boyish models of fashion today would starve for days to rid themselves of this beautiful belly, but that is neither their fault nor mine. I’m more at peace with my belly than I’ve been in years. Perhaps ever. Part of me startles to realize that my body knows its way around this world better than what I’ve learned or used to think about the world.

It was also good because it came at the end of a spacious day, meeting women of interesting purpose and inquiry. One woman sipped her large coffee while telling me of her youth in isolated, German-Lutheran Nebraska ‘back in the day.’ She seemed embarrassed that she didn’t have a classmate outside the family until 3^rd grade in their one room schoolhouse. “Those TV shows you know? Forget about it,” she said quietly. We were to lead another group of women in a program-meeting, ostensibly “to get to know each other,” though she and I are really the only new ones. This quiet woman seemed to discount every beautiful thing about herself. How terrified she must have been to speak in public, about herself. The other woman I met for tea is of similar generation but vastly different spirit. This one has seen some things then smacked them back down again, with grace but severity. She knows who she is, though she struggles with anger when others—particularly men in authority—fail to see her, even dismiss who she is.

The day appeared a bookend of contrasts, to be offered up in a relaxing run of thanksgiving. A good workout of the bookends in me, I suppose—the little one who felt isolated and discounted her own beauty; the older one who has seen a bit of the world, enough to know that sometimes you have to strong-arm your way back to visibility, even if just for yourself.

Finally, it was a good workout because it opened new energies in me for what I do, how I see, who I’m connected with. I walked through the kitchen door, appreciative of the new countertops and the newly cleaned grouted-tiles and carpets. I made some strong ginger tea, the kind that Carrie Newcomer believes in, and wrote a letter I had been nudged to write. I drove to the post-office in the dusk of the evening, enjoying the silence and open-air breezing in through the open windows. I was reminded that my work is changing but as it is, it’s still really good work. A long hot shower eased the muscles that had reawakened gratitude, and I ended the day in comfy sweats and a favorite t-shirt.

Today offered the first good, long workout I’ve had in over ten days. May the next ten days be only one or two.

Learning Not to Write

I’m not writing these days, though they are being written.

The words are morning walks, ambient music, and long naps,

Colored pencil drawings and unfulfilling novels.

The adjectives? Useless, aimless, undirected.

How else to quiet the mind of earning’s achievement?

What does it mean to not work? For a body to listen?

Few of us know the shades or tinctures of this old way of being,

A life within the breath, directed by the body.

I’m not writing these days, though they are being written.

Home is a sacred grotto for a raccoon Mama and her babies.

They trundle up the sacred stones, the height of Mary’s memorial,

Then disappear into the vines and pines enclosed by a cloudless sky.

A white cat finds the pool to quench its thirst in the humid morning mist.

It has a gray tail and gray-gold eyes hungry for more than I can offer.

And did you know it’s possible to pray and smoke at the same time?

I saw a gruff soul doing just that one morning. He slouched on the bench

In his cacky shorts, a white t-shirt, and bright orange flip-flops.

My internal flame flared up, bright red with indignation, but

who says secondary smoke is not incense, to the One who can see?

I’m not writing these days, though they are being written.

Reedy bagpipes waft through the air at an Inn in the Glen

An accordion rests in its musty case, a sign of injury but forgiveness too.

An e-mail from a friend, replete with birthday-suit basking

And a question, “Is this what you mean by covenantal companionship?”

Ah for the porch sit and glass of wine in which to answer!

Rows of colored markers, each a different shade that beckons.

I hear only the six or seven I can imagine imagining.

How do they speak so much, so many, so softly to others?

Then there was the braised pork shank, atop a pool of demi-glace

and creamy potatoes; I don’t like pork but it wasn’t half bad.

I’m not writing these days, though they are being written.

An atheist mystic comes to stay, unexpected companionship

For a theist, immersed in the invitation of the familiar unknown.

A tin cup with twisted handle, a mother’s measure become

An artistic habit, shared between brothers. It trucks in flour, yeast,

salt, and water—all in the perfect bowl. Then a new lineage-bearer

receives the cup—part antique, part functionary, all gift.

A reunion of families writes its newest chapter. Uncles, aunts

Cousins, and more, red hair, freckles, and a sardonic ease,

shared across years and yearnings, a few of them spoken.

Treasure to be discovered, unexpectedly, in the turn of a phrase.

I’m not writing these days, though they are being written.

A new author appears to be in charge, but who? She is one who delights

In images, connections unseen, intimacies of mind and heart.

She breathes in and out with a slow paced walk, loose clothes,

And a love of unsweetened herbal tea. She is curious about herbs,

Just like the Madonna heretics she adores. 

She’s drawn to the unexpected. Or is the unexpected expectable?

My cautious beloved strains to perfect himself at an imperfect job.

I strain to not strain, carrying our anxieties deep within, precisely

where they do not belong. So our bodies strain to be heard amidst

perfection, imperfection, anxieties, and love. A bit of a raucous chorus,

harmonized when two souls find a breath, tell a joke, ease into the future

with the help of bath salts, a Jacuzzi, and a nice pinot gris.

I’m not writing these days, but I am learning. I’m learning

That life is too short to hurry all the time. I’m learning to play

The accordion, if only in the safety of my own mind. I’m learning

To remember. I had begun to forget the discipline it takes to listen, 

Love first, then respond to the world’s frailty and fear. I’m learning

To reconsider, but not everything. You see, not everything

requires consideration to be received. Most of all, I’m learning

There are beautiful seasons when life writes its own days

On the canvas of our bodies, minds. Being written is a wondrous gift

We can welcome, observe, even cherish in words not written.

How Was Your Summer?

An innocent enough question, looming with gloom and a cloud of anxiety, even disbelief, on the conversational horizon. What do I say of such a summer, in casual tone?

I left my profession of seminary teaching for a brief hiatus begun on June 4^th, ostensibly for a 5-day teaching in archetypal and cross cultural psychology held in Loveland, Colorado. I’m not sure all the reasons my husband and I spent the funds for me to participate in this event of professional development. Post-semester reprieve? Pursuit of work that had shaped much of the previous autumn’s scholarly endeavors? Opportunity cost paid up front, in case the teacher grew unable to teach in public again, with her advancing age? Regardless, I landed in Loveland a day early, to adjust to the altitude and to be shocked at the conference center entrance--a sign stating "The Emissaries of the Divine Light." Huh? Spending a week at a conference center that is also a commune had not been on my viewscreen. So, the first answer: my summer has been unexpected adventure into the Divine Light. J

The summer has blossomed a new business card in my professional work as well. Two separate occasions presented themselves to do some consulting about interreligious-multifaith matters on secular university campuses. On the first, I realized with some surprise that my gut refused to have any of my business cards on hand. A strange behavior, given I am a higher ed professional with both interest and skills in getting my work out into new environments, usually begun with a business card exchange. The second instance I had the new cards forefronting The Artisanal Way, fostering an expressive delight, one heart at a time. “Spirituality, practice, meaning and ethics; interreligious and multifaith learning.” The glossy front shows off the diversity of bread loaves that serve as background to the logistical information. So a second answer: my summer has birthed a new business card for understanding who I am, primarily as companion, scholar, teaching elder, and poet.

The bulk of the summer has been about listening anew for the gifts and graces to receive and offer in my life, my family, my community. I’d forgotten how difficult it is to listen first, and for a long while. To wait for the context and invitation to share that which I know, that which I have received, that which I am to offer. What does one do to show for one's efforts, communicating an active state of listening? Shading mandalas with colored pencils was one idea. Regular walks was another, with attention to the wildlife of the preserve--skunks, raccoons, stray cats and birds galore. Who am I without my work, without a project? I learned I have less idea than I originally thought. Higher education offers some prestige of academic achievement--a PhD suggests some tenacity within the life of the mind, or at least cognitive stubbornness, if nothing else. But it does not set the stage well to listen to embodied experience as theological method. One argument follows the next, all with attention to what literatures support or challenge the governing thesis. But what if one's best teaching comes through an embodied intuition, given shape in literature but originating in the flotsam-and-jetsam of messy human experience? This summer has begun to suggest that the kind of teaching for which I am most suited has less and less opportunity for expression where I currently serve and listen. Band-aids have been applied, and the year will tell what is able to be offered along the companionable way of theological formation. But these may or may not suffice for suitable opportunities over time.

The summer has blown open my imagination for what life might be, or become, for me and my beloved. In New Haven to present a paper while on location at a pinnacle of higher education, I hear it’s time to leave higher ed as I’ve known it. My voice but not my voice. Attentive to abdominal pains and the need to discover a “womb of one’s own,” I hear invitation to listen for forty weeks for what “a psychic representation of my reproductive body” might—could—be. Four weeks of abdominal massage therapy later, with an expressive willingness to live into a new path in the months and years to come, all abdominal discomfort disappears. Way opens for an introductory workshop into craniosacral therapy, then perhaps a 12-month mentorship while I listen for what kind of healer I might be, if I were one. And of course, while sitting at a shaded picnic table for my lunch hour, I share an hour of timeless, companionable space with an engineering professor from Alabama who's wrestling with what it might mean to be a Reike healer while immersed in higher education. Of course we would meet. My beloved insists on the massage table and saddle stool—signs of our mutual investment in a new path of bodywork and learning. “Exploring the incarnation in a non-traditional way,” shall I say? My summer has therefore been an invitation into learning new embodied ways of companionship through healing touch, as well as the obvious pursuits of mind and spirit in structured educational contexts.

On this last day of July, as I officially note the conclusion of my self-constructed monastery month, I am hearing that my summer has been one of much needed rest, a much needed reorientation toward discernment of gifts instead of institutional hungers, and many new (and much needed) practices for rooting my mind more deeply into my body amidst technological seductions and demands of professional achievement. What will re-entry be like, with intention to be a little less competent so that bodies may breathe and energies may become healthier? What will it require, to teach what I've learned, namely that we cannot accomplish nearly as much, nor as quickly, as our minds imagine? Such teaching would be unacceptable in some institutional locations, but not necessarily the one in which I currently serve. What to share, when one learns life is too short to hurry all the time? And how to proceed, when one has learned it's possible to open to the sensate awareness of Spirit and survive its wounding, known both in an expressive delight and a responsive demand?

How shall I respond, when I hear "How was your summer?" My summer was not remotely what I expected, but it was precisely what I needed, for Spirit's invitations to be heard and well considered. Or I suppose I could just say, "FanTABulous, thank you."

Discovery's Paradox

The paradox of discovery fascinates me. Plato named it way before me, of course, but the resolution to his Meno’s Paradox is not the point. It’s the entrance into the paradox that matters. How do you come to know something truly new if you don’t remotely know what it is you will come to know? How do you decide what you aim to learn if you don’t already know it in some fashion, so to aim properly in learning it? 

Plato’s Socrates creates some concoction of memory and recollection to resolve the question. In order to pursue knowledge of something, you must have some recollection or memory of it in order to pursue “it” in the first place. Buddhists would place this felt-sense in a previous life, this sense of seeking to learn something new that a previous you had already known. I don’t have much confidence in Socrates’ recollection or the notion of previous lives, so I’ll have to content myself with the amorphous notion of ‘embodied intuition,’ which, admittedly, doesn’t really help me much with my new quest (to come to know, perhaps even articulate ‘a psychic representation of my reproductive body’). Particularly if I struggle to know what I mean by 'embodied' and what I mean with 'intuition.'

You wanna know the first thing I’ve done in order to listen more deeply to my body’s speech? I went to the university library. I checked out books by Nancy Chodorow and Carl Jung. And they’ve been very interesting reads, as far as these things go. I get the sneaking suspicion that this is not the most germane path of discovery for my particular interest, however. Neither 'embodied' nor 'intuition' seems a focus of a research quest at a university library. Which is not to say they're not active in such a setting, of course. In this case, however, neither word describes my experience of this research.

I have spent a little time reviewing old blog posts and reflecting on the listening ahead of me this summer, however. This journeying really has been going on for quite some time. A year’s explorations of “authentic movement” and a more free-form but circle-practice called “wild heart,” allowing any form of movement, shared space, meditation and more within a covenantal community. Sustained commitment to physical training over a period of a year now, with specific attention to development of core muscles and awareness. A renewal of engagement in ChiRunning, a form-focused contemplative path of running aimed at integrating the wisdom of Tai Chi into long-distance running. I’ve been listening to my core for a long while now, though it’s hard to put into words.

I wonder if that work is what my new friend, Susan, saw? How does one see core or energy-work in a person?

Now I have an occasional evening-art listening practice to accompany my library books. Another new friend, at least while she wasn’t drawing beautiful, large naked women around her Sudoku puzzles, showed me a simple abstract way to express feelings and association on old typing/copy paper needing recycling. A perfect ‘medium’ for ‘end-of-day-listening’ before heading off to sleep.

I’ve also been encouraged to listen more intently to my dreams, which I’ve been a little less successful at these last couple nights. Upon return from some days away, at a 5-day conference in Colorado, the dreamworld felt so much more accessible, for a time. I think I resist it in my normal routines here at home, allowing only the tectonic ‘awakening’ dreams to surface when necessary. Kind of like never cleaning your room because when it gets really bad, the difference into a clean room is so much more satisfying than a daily clean, everything in its place all the time. I tried to convince my mom of that once. She didn’t buy it.

And I’m about to explore a new abdominal massage therapy, apparently. One of the women in one of my circles invited me to explore it a bit, when I told her I needed to pursue a little belly-listening. I wonder whether I’ll reach a point when I can no longer enter into worldviews so completely outside my own? How do we decide when there’s no more to be learned on any given path? Hmmmm…..

At the very least, there’s some snippy bumper sticker wisdom to be remembered here: “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.” Perhaps someday I’ll remember who quipped that aloud, but I do love its redress of Meno’s Paradox, which is where we began. You learn what you want to learn by listening to your own yearnings—whether they be recollections, memories, past lives, or not—and trying completely unexpected, new methods entrusted to you by companions along the way.

Perhaps I should just take the books back to the library for now. They’ll be waiting for me if I need them.

An Unconscious Womb...For Now

Something conceived last week. 

Typically, one would say “was conceived,” in passive voice, but I know that to be untrue. The conception required a stringent attention to my own voice, my own agency, while immersed in a 5-day teaching with a charismatic-journey teacher. It did not just happen to me but was brought into awareness as a labor of love, shared by many. Even so, I had no expectation or anticipation that the fruits of these monies and efforts would be as they are. The event advertisements said nothing about tectonic renewal and release. “New form” too, because as I reflect on the significant events of these last couple years, I do sense a familiar, companionable generativity that has been deepening and blossoming for a long time. Last week did not birth a new thing as much as accentuate a long-coming and continually-deepening awareness of…what? Or Who? I'm listening to find out...

A new-old spirit-friend befuddled me several times throughout the week with who she saw—sees—me to be, for instance. She asked whether my primary sense of myself was “here, and maybe here,” gesturing to her head and a bit of her heart/chest area. “Of course,” I said, wondering aloud where else one’s sense of articulate being would be. “I experience you much more here, and maybe a little bit here,” she said, sweeping her hands around her lower abdomen, stomach, and a bit of heart height. Up here,” gesturing to her head, “serves you where you are,” returning her hands to her belly, womb. Those may not be precisely her words, but roughly, that’s what I heard, understood. There was something in her gaze that I knew to trust, that I was willing to “try on” a bit for clarity, but I found myself wondering whether she knew someone in me I had not really met yet.

As I leaned into the trust for the week, I learned unexpected things that will take me a long time to distill into articulation. One is that I have a vast capacity to hold space for others, to balance light/dark energies when quietly surrendered to Her I know now as "Mom." But what does that mean, “to hold space for”? I learned to relinquish an attachment to the eternal quest for the One Teacher, which has roots going way back in my family, to Grandpa Ben and Grandma Ruth, even earlier. Being the "favorite" has a huge history in my family, as it probably does in many families. Placing this in a longer view, I was able to re-receive a past teacher in a new way, in healthy past-tense without attachment or aversion, yearning or anger. I learned that I come from a long line of embodied intuitives. I may even be "a healer," whatever that means.

Most importantly, though, I learned that I have an invitation to explore and name a "psychic representation of my reproductive body", whatever that may mean. If my intellect is to serve my core-body-awareness, then I need to learn more about what I will call this “subtle reproductive body.” Subtle seems apt, as this is not a “play pregnancy” or some unconscious desire because my beloved and I chose not to have children. I still love my life and my husband too much to want to alter either with the tasks of mothering and nurture of a young one or two. I’ve never had much desire for or facility with children anyway. Better for them and for me to remain as is! But I still have a reproductive body, as a woman. I have an entire area of my own body that I’ve not really known, except in restriction (i.e. birth control). Ah...here's how to say it: my womb is entirely unconscious.

Doesn't help much, does it?

The phrase, “a psychic representation of a reproductive body” comes from the work of Nancy Chodorow (in True Confessions: Feminist Professors Tell Stories Out of School, edited by Susan Gubar). I understand her to be saying, at root, that female wholeness and a healthy sense of self come with integration of all parts of a woman's being, whether actualized in a biological pregnancy or not. A woman cannot be truly whole unless she has, at the very least, a psychic representation of her reproductive body. If it is denied, neglected, hidden, or even evicted, a woman’s sense of herself is incomplete…unless she does the deeper, psychological work to honor all parts of herself, un-realized but active reproductive body included.

So I guess an early question arises for me here. A reproductive body can be active in ways other than pregnancy, or so my prose above suggests. Active how? I wonder.

At the very least, I accept the invitation I have heard. Being the contemplative-empiricist that I am (scholarly jargon for disciplinary cover in my work), I propose a listening project beginning with body-practices and intuitive avenues to identify and then explore. Seems logical that this new listening “spell” should take about 9 months, whatever else it involves. I’ve wanted to listen to my life outside of the regular presence of alcohol for a while, so a spell without the booze also seems logical. Interestingly enough, I suspect that will create some real dissonance at home. My beloved enjoys a glass of wine or bourbon regularly and is leery of enjoying it alone. I doubt he’ll want to join me in my “project” to that degree, but who knows? It’s also clear to me that because I am in covenantal relationship with him, his contribution to this new listening is crucial. We’ve already begun conversations that have suggested some really neat generative energies about what we might write and/share with a larger public about “choosing childlessness in the Midwest.” At the very least, he’s a marvelous partner to share a willingness to participate in something neither of us knows in any precise detail. Last night, I learned that there is such a thing as a belly-womb massage to be had as well. Hey, why not? What might that teach me?

I wonder if other women plan mid-life crises in such detail? J Said with a smile, mostly because if this is what mid-life crises feel like, more of us would be having them, planning them, exploring them. I’m fascinated even as I’m befuddled about what this could possibly teach me. The impulse and passion to pursue it is unmistakable, however, so…blessed be. Here we go.

A Touch of Light in the Dark of Wisdom (for Nona)

The charismatic journey teacher paints

A Caravaggio in every room, light and shadow

To be sensed, seen, sown. And mourned,

Grieving, witnessed aloud. For a

Crazy wisdom does speak in the life of light

That yearns to be shared. In questions

Trust and intimacy, awakening and sleep,

Agency and doubt abound.

There is more than one way to skin a cat,

We say, when we neglect or hide the pain of it.

Are you drawn to the light? Dream

Into the shadow, learn the blood, sweat

And tears of all the worlds’ pains.

Does the darkness tear at your heart?

Allow it to break open yourself, for only

Love of a heart revealed can see

Light in the chaotic holy dark.

There are many ways to skin a community,

We say, when one and all: to protect innards,

To give shade from the glare of the piercing sun

To create a container that can hold and

Behold, know and be known, love

Like a geyser within one and for all.

First Fruits -- a draft

The charismatic journey teacher paints

A Caravaggio in every room, light and shadow

To be sensed, seen, and sown. And

Mourned, grieved, witnessed aloud.

A crazy wisdom speaks in the life

of light that yearns to be shared, though

Questions of trust and intimacy,

Awakening and sleep, agency 

And doubt abound.

There is more than one way to skin a cat,

We say, when we neglect or hide the pain of it.

Are you drawn to the light?

Dream into the shadow and learn the blood

Sweat and tears of the pain.

Does the darkness tear at your heart?

Allow it to be broken yourself, for only the love

Of a heart revealed can see light in the dark.

There are many ways to skin a community,

After all--to protect all our innards, give us shade

From the glare of the sun, to create a container

That can nourish and be nourished, know

And be known, love and be loved. For all.

A touch of light in the dark of wisdom itself.