An Evolution of Spirit

“I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.” ~ Nelson Mandela

I talk pretty on my blog about kindness and compassion. My words are honest and I work every day to live by them. But I wasn’t always this person. We are born with open hearts, and then the world happens and shapes us and we spend the rest of our lives fighting to get back to that original place of faith in humanity. Every year I get closer. But I like people to know how different I was, to understand how much I have changed. Because if they do not perceive my change, how can they believe themselves capable of the same transformation?

“Loving ourselves through the process of owning our story is the bravest thing we’ll ever do.” ~Brené Brown

I used to be an anger ball. By that I mean I was very quick to anger. I was angry at the violence I had suffered. Angry at the people around me who found relief by taking out their pain and insecurity on others. I was angry at the hardness of a world I did not seem to belong in. I was no better. I curled in or lashed out, always one of two extremes, as a way of taking what I needed from the world to survive it.

“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” ~Mark Twain

I didn’t know there was another way. I was a heavenly body on the inside of the circuit, the sun that the solar system revolved around. I didn’t see that the world was smothering me because I put myself at the center of it. All I saw was that I was suffocating. And I couldn’t see a way out.

“The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.” ~Buddha

I was at a crossroads, my own personal Equinox. I was disconnected from myself, from the earth beneath me, from the sky above me. I could see the forest of trees but not the roots of them entwining and holding each other up. I didn’t know how to bend. I didn’t know how to flow. Everything was fire and lava. I wasn’t living in the world, I was burning my way through it.

“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. … We need not wait to see what others do.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

When we feel lonely we push out at the world, keeping it further at bay. I pushed everyone away before they could leave me, before they could hurt me. I thought pain was inevitable and that was the face I gave.

“Listen—are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?” ~Mary Oliver

It wasn’t what I wanted. I was at a crossroads and I made a choice. I turned away from chaos and insanity, from trying to fit in and struggling to breathe. I let go of the anger that was eating me from the inside out. I didn’t know what to do with it, so I just released it in small breaths. I didn’t know what to do with it, so I gave it up to the universe. I rediscovered faith and turned my attention to finding a path that felt firm beneath my feet. I took the time to get to know myself.

“Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?” ~Danielle LaPorte

I had defined myself for so long by what I didn’t like, what I didn’t want, and what I thought I was supposed to want, that I found I didn’t know what it was I did want. What did I like? Who was I? I first heard an answer in a ritual in the dark in the mountains. Deep in the core of you, what are you? I quieted my soul and listened, and the word that came from my mouth surprised me.

“Light,” I said, with tears in my throat. And later, the overwhelming answer I found was kindness, goodness, compassion, and joy. When I removed the protective layers from my heart, I discovered the brightness I had been searching for all along within me.

“The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It’s our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows.” ~Brené Brown

The world I live in is a better place for having me in it. I believe that. I feed it my hope and my optimism and my compassion. It does not mean I am perfect. It does not mean my heart is not weighed down by the violence and evil that men do. It does not mean that I do not cry in the quiet nights within the safety of my walls. But I cry because I am connected now. I feel part of the earth beneath me and the sky above me. I feel part of the roots connecting the trees beneath the surface.

“Softness is not weakness. It takes courage to stay delicate in a world this cruel.” ~Beau Taplin

“Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.” ~Iain S. Thomas

Do not be ashamed of the ways the world has tested you. Do not be ashamed of the times you have fallen, of the times you have failed to get it right. What matters is that you picked your head up. What matters is that you picked yourself up and you kept going, even though you did not have faith that what lay ahead was better. It is not our perfect moments that define who we are. It is the moments we are imperfect that shows the spirit that lies beneath the flesh and bone. It is how we carry ourselves through those moments that reveal the soul of us.

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” ~Buddha

We are meant to follow our own paths. It is never too late to change tracks and find your way back to you. Our original state is harmony and peace. The world is hard but there are others in it, lighting candles in their hearts against the dark, struggling to grow despite the resistance. Every action is a choice. When you stand at the crossroad, open yourself to compassion and hope. You just might be surprised where you find it.

“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.” ~Cynthia Occelli


[Originally posted September 24, 2014.]

Tolerance

Every morning the news brings me another story of some woman being harassed for wearing a hijab. It sickens me and saddens my heart. And now those stories are getting brasher. They are being discriminated against. People are refusing to service them. People are snatching their hijabs off their heads. That is akin to stripping them naked.

I don't understand.

At it's core, the hijab is a head scarf. It  covers the hair. It is a symbol of modesty. That is all.

Rather than preach religious tolerance, I thought I'd post photos of the other head scarves and wraps that religions and cultures have worn and still wear. They each have their own stories of discrimination.

Can't we just skip that step this time?

Remember that if you wish your beliefs and practices to be tolerated, you must extend the same courtesy to others. I'm talking about beliefs that do not interfere with someone else's right to life. Beliefs do not harm. Actions harm.

Be kind. Be open. Be tolerant.

[All photos used for illumination's sake are stock photos for public use.]

They're not wearing head scarves, but they are wearing wigs over their hair as a covering.

Just Like Harry Potter

Last year I woke Christmas morning in my private rehab room, legs thickly bandaged. My head was laying on a handmade pillowcase decorated with ivy and mistletoe. It was one of a few dozen gifted to the hospital to be gifted out to the long-term patients, of which I counted. I opened my eyes and reached for the cup of water I kept on my hospital table, along with my lotion, my gifted iPad mini, my glasses, Kelley's chapstick that she gave me, and a small notebook and pen... all lined up carefully before sleep, within easy reach.

But on Christmas morning there was also a stack of presents on my table! The first thing that went through my head was, just like Harry Potter! In the first book he wakes to find presents at the end of his bed at Hogwarts. Not having had any family who cared about him, it was an unexpected moment of pure joy.

In the hospital, I recognized that same feeling behind my breastbone. I had been so saddened to have to be there for the holiday. I had not anticipated or expected the hospital to acknowledge it at all. But there were four presents, wrapped in bright paper, waiting for me.

I later learned there was a woman who organized it every year. She came onto the floor with two carts full of games and toys and books the day after Christmas, and put them in storage until next year. I asked her to thank Santa Claus for me and she smiled.

It was a small kindness for her and a huge uplifting moment of childhood wonder and hope. The fact that someone did such a kindness for isolated people in painful recovery, it gave me new courage and strength. People are good. People are kind. Remember that as the love of the holiday season gives way to exhaustion and winter.

People are good. People are kind. Be among them. Where you see moments of possible random acts of kindness, take them. Be the catalyst for joy in the world. Pour that into the world and create one you want to leave behind for your descendants.

I will.

The Christmas Orange

In celebrating Christmas, my favorite family tradition involved the mystery of the orange in our stockings. While we waited for my Grandpa to drive over to our house to be with us while we opened presents, we would empty our stockings, filled with little toys and candies… and an orange. The memories are so strong that every time I hold an orange in my hands and smell the citrus fragrance of the rind, I think of Christmas morning, when I would peel it open and gobble the fruit down. There was an orange waiting for us every year.

My mom remembers having one some holidays, but not always. It was my dad who had an orange in his stocking every year. He said it sat on top of his stocking, hiding what was beneath it. And our oranges served the same purpose, to better hide the surprise of what prying eyes peeking around the top of the stairs would soon find inside.

In researching the tradition of the Christmas orange, the only thing that was clear was that its direct origins are still a bit of a mystery. Laura Ingalls Wilder references getting an orange in her stocking as a child in 1880, noting that it was a special treat. According to the Food and Nutrition Encyclopedia by Audrey Ensminger, with the advent of the new rail system, and the abundance of ripe oranges out of Florida and California, there was a fair supply of them available to the public in the 1880s.

What a special gift at a time of year when there isn’t a lot of other fresh fruit available. Lucky for us, winter is the peak of harvest season for citrus. In England, I found that putting oranges in the toes of stockings pre-dates World War II, but became a common tradition during the war. It must have been an especially delicious treat during rationing.

I found correspondences of the orange to the mythology of Bishop Nicholas, better known as Saint Nicholas, but nothing I could cite as factual. Nicholas was a good, wealthy man born in Turkey in the fourth century who spent his life helping the poor. Folklore says that he secreted money into three stockings of three daughters of a man who could not afford a good dowry and feared he would not find them good husbands. In the story, the gold melted inside the stockings where they hung over the fireplace and the young women pulled out three golden balls in the morning. It’s true that statues of Nicholas often show him holding three golden globes, but any claimed similarities to the Christmas orange as a symbol of Saint Nicholas’ generosity have been recently made.

I hold one in my hand and I smell Christmas kindness. I think any Santa or Saint would approve.

Making Decorative Pomanders

Pomander balls go back to the 15th century, used as natural air fresheners. To make them, you need oranges, a lot of whole cloves, and something you can use to pierce the skin like a toothpick, pin, nail, or wooden skewer. You can also use citrus fruits like clementines, lemons, limes, tangerines, or kumquats (kumquats make adorable tree-sized pomanders).

Some people like to make designs with their cloves and others cover it with them like a second skin. For best results, I recommend covering as much of the orange with cloves as you can as the clove oil acts as a preservative. Use your pointy thing of choice to poke in holes before inserting cloves (or your fingers will soon start to hurt). If you need a guideline for your rows, you can wrap a rubber band or masking tape around the center to get you started. Leave room in your pattern to tie ribbons around the orange for hanging and display. I use cotton cording that I can weave around the cloves. Then hang the pomander in a closet for a couple of days to allow drying time, as they can get moldy (one woman on-line said she puts hers in her fridge, but I’ve always shut them away in a closet). Scent-wise, these will last a few weeks.

If you want them to last through the season, you can coat your pomander with powdered orrisroot to help preserve it. For pomanders that both last longer and spice up your home, you can coat your pomander in a mixture of ground cinnamon, ground cloves, ground ginger, ground nutmeg, and powdered orrisroot; three tablespoons each.

            If you hang stockings, will an orange wait within it for you? Maybe another festive fruit? Or some tradition unique and special to your family?

Blessings to You and Yours

As part of my spiritual practice I celebrate Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year, which falls on December 21. I grew up Catholic, celebrating Christmas with my family on December 25. As an adult, I observe both holidays. I still celebrate Christmas, just a different kind. I love Christmas. I am full to the brim of Christmas Spirit.

Happiness. Peace. Kindness. Compassion. I celebrate Christmas as the holiday of family and humanity. I light candles to honor and revere the goodness inside each and every one of us. I wish for peace on earth, that the good will shine through, that light will win out.

This is the year for compassion.

When someone wishes you a Merry Christmas, say “You, too.” If someone wishes you a Happy Holiday, say “You, too.” If someone wishes you a Happy Kwanzaa, say “You, too.” If someone wishes you a Merry Solstice or a Happy Yule, say “You, too.” It doesn’t matter whether or not it’s something you celebrate.

People are wishing you good tidings in the spirit of brotherhood and joy as dictated by their faith. Return the favor. Don’t be a Scrooge. Who can’t use more joy and light?

[Adapted from a post originally published December 11, 2013.]

Human Kindness

One of my favorite things about the holiday season is witnessing moments of kindness between strangers as these events occur with more spontaneity at this time of year. Allow me a moment to plug the notion that we can carry Christmas and Solstice with us through the whole year. Human kindness always moves me and makes me misty. The most memorable and heart-warming moment I remember happened during the holidays of 2001.

The day of the attacks on the twin towers happened the September day before I was to start training as a cashier at a local grocery store. We had recently moved to a new city and spent the day of the attacks glued to the television we hadn’t even had hooked before we heard the news. When I clocked in the next morning for training, everyone was in a state of horror and shock.

I hadn’t been there long enough to know any of the regular customers yet, but what I saw were couples and mothers shopping to feed their families, day in and day out. It was their only agenda. They all had different colors of skin and different styles of dress and each of these was widely varied. After the attacks, I saw the majority of my community respond fearfully to the women in their abayas and hijabs.

In their fear they were not kind, and they felt free to make horrid comments to the women shopping that I cannot even write out for you. They literally walked up to unveiled Muslim women shopping, minding their own business, and accused them of killing people in New York City. Of hiding weapons beneath their abayas and demanding to see what was hiding underneath them. And much, much worse. In front of their children.

And what will those children grow up thinking about their place in the world?

I am grateful that my grocery store allowed the cashiers to refuse service to those customers who would not cease in harassing the Muslim families. And I did. Often, at first. I have always believed in kindness. It is always heartbreaking to me how cruel people can be from a place of fear.

What is it that makes us lash out like wounded animals at each other? How does hurting other people make us feel better? I understand being afraid. I understand having fear. We are each allowed to feel the emotions we feel. But we are not allowed to inflict them on others. We are not allowed to wield them like weapons against other people. We are all animals. That is true. But it is supposed to be our human compassion and brains that lift us above our animal nature.

Every day, those interactions were the shadow that fell over my joy of getting to know the community here and its humanity. I saw too much ugly at first- which may have been true wherever I found myself then. One day, on a holiday shift, one man’s generosity renewed my faith in the goodness of people. One small act of kindness was enough to tip the scales.

A Muslim man and his wife came through with their young son, buying healthy grains and vegetables and fresh meat and milk and eggs. It was the healthiest display of food I ever saw anyone bring down my register in all of my time at the store. She wore an abaya and hijab but the old couple before them paid quickly and muttered about letting burkas in the store.  

The electronic benefits line was down, as it often was back then, and their EBT card was denied. They began to count out their cash and put things big extras back, like the asparagus and the turkey. When they took back the only other extra, the box of cereal for their son, he did not cry in complaint. That moment stayed with me. It was obvious they were struggling to decide what else to take away.

An older man behind them asked me how much more they needed, while they sorted through their groceries. They only had twenty dollars and I whispered apologetically to him that they needed another eighty to cover everything, and that our system was down- that it wasn’t their fault. I was so used to customers being impatient and wanted him to understand the technology glitch was no one’s fault.

The Muslim woman started to apologize nervously to everyone in line around the same moment. But the man behind them smiled compassionately and handed me a hundred dollars. All he was buying for himself was bread, lunch meat and milk.

At first the couple would not take it, but he insisted. I will never forget what he said. “You need help, and I am in a place to give it to you. I would like to think that when I need help, someone will be in a place to give it to me.” The family thanked him profusely and gratefully. You could see the surprise wash over them. As they were leaving, the husband turned around and told the man that he would never forget his kindness. And the man shrugged it off, “Just repay the favor some day.”

When they left, the man would not hear me say anything about it, waving my gratitude and tears away. He said it wasn’t a big deal. “It was to them,” I assured him. And it was to me. I have never forgotten it either. I have paid it forward innumerably.

Sometimes kindness comes in the form of a simple smile. Making eye contact with your cashier during your holiday shopping. Taking a moment to saying thank you to all of your cashiers, to the waitress when she brings you a new drink, to anyone working in service for you. There are a lot of people in the world and we don’t know everyone. But at some point in our lives, even our closest friends were strangers to us. And every stranger is someone’s son, daughter, mother, father, friend. We have choices every day in what face we show to the world. Spread compassion and kindness throughout your days. It is the simplest and most beautiful language we can share and it is a language that will shape the world around us into a brighter place.

[Updated from “Human Kindness” published December 4, 2013.]

When Buffalo Brother Visits

When I was in the Burn ICU, I suffered from night terrors after waking out of my medically-induced coma. I was beyond fearful for a while. I was terror-filled and terrified. One night, when my room was maddeningly growing around me and I struggled to catch my racing heartbeat, a musky scent filled the room and I heard the familiar snorting of a bison.

A large warm body folded itself beside my hospital bed and my heart recognized Tatanka, my animal guide, immediately. (I know his name is redundant.) He laid his head down and I dug my fingers into his hair, griping him like he were the largest grounding stone in the world. I pressed my face to his neck, shutting my eyes against the mad hallucinations and the insistence of their realness. He felt solid beneath me, too. I can still hear the rhythm of his breath and I matched my heartbeat to it. 

Under such traumatic duress, I was so enveloped in spirit, trance,and  not-in-my-body-ness that a door opened and my animal guide came to me in my time of need. He placed himself between me and other doors so that I could rest. So that I could sleep.

I was told that I talked with Tatanka out loud enough that people inquired after it.

I have been building a relationship with buffalo for over a decade and we have been through some trenches together. To honor him, I want to post some previous passages I wrote about having bison as a personal totem.

Meeting Bison

When our local zoo was host to a pair of male bison, I could not resist the opportunity to observe them in the waking world. I had dreamt of them thundering across the plains. I had dreamt of running with them in buffalo skin and walking among them with human feet. At difficult periods in my life, I called on their strength to aid me in putting one foot ahead of the other, to keep moving forward no matter what was coming at me.

            But I had never seen one in person.

I went to the zoo every week, sitting outside their pen. I told them stories about their European ancestors, the ancient aurochs. I thanked them for the generations of bison who have been feeding and sheltering humanity. I told them about the bison cave drawings in Altamira, Spain that date to 12,000 BC. I told them about the drawings in the Niaux Cave of France. Mostly, after a while, I sat in silence, trying to become part of their landscape, more than a mere tourist.

I felt their strength in the sound of their footfall and saw intelligence in their dark eyes, with their beautiful lashes. When the older male looked at me, it was not with a dull gaze. He was observing as much as I was. Despite their girth, there is a grace in the way they graze the grasses. The older male began to greet me at the fence when I arrived. When I went with my visiting mother, we were in the adjacent goat pen. I turned around to find my bison friend’s face inches from mine, where he had stuck it through a hole.

Bison in the Wild

Bison are even-toed ungulates, which are animals that hold their body weight on the tips of their toes while in motion. They are usually hooved. Others among the diverse group of ungulate mammals are the rhinoceros, zebra, camel, alpaca, warthog, pig, hippopotamus, giraffe, deer, elk, moose, caribou, reindeer, gazelle, antelope, yak, auroch, sheep, goat, oryx, and musk ox.

The bison and the buffalo are both animals of the Bovidae family, but the bison is of the genus Bison, while the buffalo is of the genus Syncerus. They are related, but they are not the same creature. Their genes diverged 5 to 10 million years ago. Still, as we called them buffalo before their genus was determined, it is acceptable to refer to them by either name. There are two living species, the American bison, composed of plains bison and wood bison, as well as the European bison. There were four other known bison species that are now extinct.

Bison are the largest terrestrial animals in North America, weighing up to 2,000 pounds. The nomadic grazers travel in a large herd during the reproductive season from June to September. Otherwise, the females travel in their own herd with the young, including males under three years of age. The adult males travel together in a smaller herd; a bull seldom travels alone.

Both the male and female bison have horns, and are good swimmers, crossing rivers over a half-mile wide. Bison enjoy wallowing in small shallows of dirt or mud. They can appear peaceful and unconcerned, but they are unpredictable in temperament. Without warning they might launch into an attack. They can cover large distances at a gallop of up to 35 mph. Bison are most dangerous during mating season, when the older bulls rejoin the herd, hormones are high, and fights occur.

When there is outside danger, the female bison circle up around the young, old, and infirm. The bulls take position on the outside. When danger strikes, they come together to protect each other. The only known predators of the bison are the grey wolf, brown and grizzly bear, coyote, and human.

Buffalo Brother

My friend from the zoo!

I used to have anger issues. I began the Buddhist work of Lovingkindness as a means of reshaping that part of me, embracing gratitude, mindfulness, and compassion. I began to dream of Buffalo Brother, who gave me two options. I could snort and engage him in combat, or I could let my anger dissolve into the earth beneath me and graze quietly with him in the grasses. In our world, bison are humble and quiet and content to roam the wilds, but when provoked, they become giant, lumbering, movable mountains. I took this lesson to heart and adopted him as a guide. I connect buffalo to both my root and my heart chakra.

In many traditions, the bison is a symbol of gratitude. It represents the sacredness of life, the relation of all things, and the relation of all those things with the Earth beneath us. It is about honoring all living things, being humble enough to ask for help, and grateful for whatever help is given and offered. I’m going to repeat that: grateful for whatever help is given. That’s the point, right? If you ask for help and then are picky about what is offered, that is not gratitude. In that respect, buffalo medicine is also about prayer.

Bison turn their faces into approaching storms, standing firmly against them. Buffalo stands proud against the winds of adversity. Those called to this medicine should remember to temper themselves in dealings with others and allow tranquility and peace to enter their lives. Strive to see the positive side of all things.

Buffalo is about abundance. It’s about seeing that you have everything you need at your disposal. You do. But sometimes you have to dig into uncomfortable places to get to it. That doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Just because it’s not what you want, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Being grateful for what you have is true prosperity. Stop focusing on what you don’t have and focus on what you do. Keep a daily gratitude list. This practice will change the way your brain thinks, and you will start to see all the good in the world. It will change you from the inside, and you will find that you no longer need to worry about storing your frustrations inside, because buffalo teaches us to release them into the earth.

The Legend of the White Buffalo

The relationship between the Native People and the buffalo was beautiful. They killed what they needed, offering prayers of gratitude to the Great Spirit before the hunt, and having ceremonies honoring the life of the buffalo afterwards. The meat would feed the tribe. The skins and hides were used to make clothing and shelter. Even the hooves were ground down to make glue. Buffalo gifted the People life by sacrificing his own. Many hunters wore protective amulets made of buffalo bone.

Many Native tribes have legends of White Buffalo Woman, who came to the People and taught them how all things were connected. She brought them the sacred pipe and taught them medicine rituals. She promised to return to them in an era of Peace, and since then the birth of a rare white buffalo has been an omen of promise and hope, marking an end to suffering.

Pida miya, Tatanka.

[Contains passages originally posted in Animal Allies: Buffalo Brother on September 25, 2013.] 

What I Know of Forgiveness

Forgiveness

Within with my loving-kindness work, I have and continue to endeavor to understand the notion of forgiveness. As a child I learned “forgive and forget” and it was easy enough to say the words of forgiveness, but I could never let go of the hurt in my heart. I felt that I failed in being a good person. I was also taught to “turn the other cheek.” I tried to live by those principles, but found myself taken advantage of, over and over. My heart was bruised and untrusting.

Years ago, I went to a workshop where I brought up how I felt foolish for letting people hurt me over and over again, citing the forgive and forget motto. My teacher looked at me, confused, and said, “Why would you forget? You don’t forget. You’d be foolish to forget.” It was a life altering moment for me. No one had ever said that to me before.

This post is not the answer to forgiveness as if there is only one answer, only one way, only one path. There are many paths and many ways and not all of them will work for you. This is the one that is working for me. This is my path to forgiveness. I share it in case any of my words can be of help to anyone else, in the way that it was to me.

I had it all wrong, thinking we were meant to “forgive and forget.” We are made to forgive, because people make mistakes, because we make mistakes. We are not meant to forget, or else how will we hold the person accountable when they repeat their hurtful behaviors?

I repeat, if we forget, how will we hold the person accountable if they repeat their hurtful behaviors? That makes sense. Then why forgive?

We don’t forgive someone because we’ve been taught it’s the right thing to do. We don’t forgive someone because other people are pressuring us to. An empty gesture is an empty gesture.

When we forgive someone, it is not about them. It is about us. We forgive them because we are ready to let go of the hurt in us. We forgive when our hearts need us to, when the hurt we hold onto hurts us. It doesn’t excuse the other person for their behavior. We don’t even have to tell them we’ve forgiven them. Because it’s about us.

If we wait for an apology before we release that pain, we anchor ourselves in it. What if the other party is never ready to apologize?

Apologies

For me, apologies are not about solidifying who is right or who is wrong. At least, they shouldn’t be. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I am a huge fan of agreeing to disagree.

So if it’s not about someone being right, what is it about? Needing an apology is about needing the other person to acknowledge that they hurt you. Delivering an apology is about acknowledging that, whether intended or not, something you said or did hurt someone you care about.

If I offer an apology, I mean that I genuinely feel bad that I hurt someone and I acknowledge that the behavior was not appropriate for my relationship with that person, and I make a promise not to repeat it. At the same time I ask the other person to hold me responsible in case I do by pointing it out to me when I do it. Re-patterning doesn’t happen overnight.

When someone apologizes to me, I make sure I explain to them what it means to me. I offer them time to think about it and come back to me. I have learned my own worth and no longer say “It’s all right,” in an effort to make the person who hurt me feel better. The apology isn’t enough. Their actions afterwards matter more than their words.

Moving Forward

The last time I had to confront someone about how they hurt me (again), he offhandedly apologized so that we could “move on”… I told him that if he apologized to me, it was an agreement that he would never treat me that way again, that by apologizing he was acknowledging that his behavior was bad for our relationship.

I threw him off by not just saying “It’s all right,” like I had every other time. But it offered us a real moment of connection. I don’t know if he’ll follow through on his end and I have no control over that. But I feel like, for the first time, I have laid the groundwork for not accepting that behavior from him again.

Forgiveness will happen when I am ready to give it. I have forgiven the dead for hurts done to me, without regretting that they were not still alive to hear it. I have also made apologies to the dead, without condemning myself for not being able to put it into words sooner.

I have forgiven people I hope to never see again, because the trust they broke can never be repaired. And yet, for the actions they took, I have found a way to forgive them for the pain they caused, in order to free myself from the feeling of being victim, to take any power they held over me back for myself. No amount of hate can undo the past, but I do not have to live in it.

If you forgive someone, it doesn’t mean you have to trust them again. And just because someone apologizes, it doesn’t mean you have to forgive them. If you are still sitting in your hurt and your heart has not softened towards them, it’s not time yet. Forgiveness will happen when you are ready to give it. Just remember that our hearts are not meant to stay hard forever. 

Awakening Your Heart with Metta

The practice of Metta, of loving-kindness, began for me with a series of repetitive spoken meditations. The basic premise is simple enough: to have awareness of your emotional state, awaken your heart to gentleness and teach it to have compassion for yourself, loved ones, acquaintances and people you have difficulty with. I performed a twenty minute meditation every night before bed, wherever I was.

Besides being generally more relaxed and patient, and sleeping well, this work has gifted me the confidence to trust my own intuition. Maybe it was just the act of meditating every night that opened the door to reconnecting with my personal voice, but it was the decision to learn loving-kindness that brought me my awakening and I have gratitude for it.

I have my voice. I can express my thoughts and opinions without caring if people disagree with me or criticize me for what I think. If I want to be able to have faith in what I believe and share those beliefs, I have to allow others to do the same. Their differing opinions are not about me, but are woven from their lessons and life experiences.

We are all threads in the beautiful tapestry of life. Instead of getting upset or hurt, I use my compassion to seek clarification, so that disagreements breed conversation and discussion, which in turn allow my thoughts and beliefs to grow. I find myself acting from a place of kindness, and no longer out of fear.

How Awakened is Your Heart?

Or, I could also say, how present are you in your body? I use this exercise as a test to gauge the connection between my emotional and physical body, which helps me stay mindful. Relax and place your hand over your chest. As you say these three phrases slowly, one at a time, pay attention to your breath and your emotional responses.

Inhale. Say “May I be well” on the out-breath.

Inhale. Say “May I be happy” on the out-breath.

Inhale. Say “May I be free from suffering” on the out-breath.

Repeat multiple times.

If the words sound mechanical falling off your lips, you need to open a bit more to connect to your heart chakra. If you are overly emotional from the go, you will want to do them with the focus being control instead of opening.

Meditations for Loving-kindness

These meditations are based on the ones I learned from Whispering Deer. Spend however long feels right for you at each step until you feel genuine compassion blossoming in your heart. Be mindful and present with the words you are speaking.

Self: This is often the hardest step for those who are raised in Western Culture. Speak each of these phrases out loud. Reflect on how you feel after each one. Listen to catches and tremors in your voice that reveal your emotional state. Like a soft-focus gaze, you want to feel the edges around your heart soften as you repeat it:

May I be happy.

May I be peaceful.                  

May I have the causes of happiness.

May I be safe.

May I be protected from harm.

May I be healthy.

May I be strong.         

May I care for myself.

May I live in peace and harmony.

            May I accept myself exactly as I am.

This meditation is to be repeated, until you feel a softness in the heart. This is the start of having loving-kindness for the self. While it is easier to have compassion for others in our society, we cannot take care of others until we can take care of ourselves. Revisit this meditation again, once you have mastered the others.

Loved Ones: This should be someone you are close to and have an easy relationship with, someone you have loving feelings for.

May [name of loved one] I be happy.

May [name of loved one] be peaceful.                       

May [name of loved one] have the causes of happiness.

May [name of loved one] be safe.

May [name of loved one] be protected from harm.

May [name of loved one] be healthy.

May [name of loved one] be strong.  

May [name of loved one] care for myself.

May [name of loved one] live in peace and harmony.

            May I accept [name of loved one] exactly as they are.

Neutral Acquaintance: Think of someone you interact with, maybe not every day, but regularly, but not someone you know deeply.

May [name of neutral person] be happy.

May [name of neutral person] be peaceful.               

May [name of neutral person] have the causes of happiness.

May [name of neutral person] be safe.

May [name of neutral person] be protected from harm.

May [name of neutral person] be healthy.

May [name of neutral person] be strong.      

May [name of neutral person] care for myself.

May [name of neutral person] live in peace and harmony.

            May I accept [name of neutral person] exactly as they are.

Difficult Person: This can be someone you have trouble having good feelings about in general, or someone who has acted hurtfully against you. I recommend doing this part at least twice. Start with someone you just have a bad feeling about and move onto someone who has hurt you.

May [name of person you hate] be happy.

May [name of person you hate] be peaceful.             

May [name of person you hate] have the causes of happiness.

May [name of person you hate] be safe.

May [name of person you hate] be protected from harm.

May [name of person you hate] be healthy.

May [name of person you hate] be strong.    

May [name of person you hate] care for myself.

May [name of person you hate] live in peace and harmony.

            May I accept [name of person you hate] exactly as they are.

Any time things become difficult and you feel agitated or constricted, ease out of it and return to a category or person that is easy for you.

           

Tips for Meditation

If you’re someone who falls asleep easily when you try to still yourself, let me assure you that it’s very common. It’s actually a way of your body throwing up resistance. It may be helpful to do these meditations with your knees bent upward, if you choose to lie down. If you start to fall asleep your legs will fall and wake you, and then you can slip back into wherever you remember leaving off with the meditation. Another thing you can do is to sit/lay with your thumb connected to another finger on the same hand. That physical touch will remind you subconsciously that you are meditating. They were both helpful tools in my early practice.

Wrapping Up

There is one final stage, which is to have gratitude for all sentient beings. By the time you are ready for that step you will most likely discover you already have those feelings of compassion within you. This work is slow work. It’s not an immediate relief. It’s difficult to unravel a lifetime of negative thinking. Allow yourself your feelings and be gentle. Never forget to hold compassion for yourself first, so that you may be able to offer it to the world around you.

            [Updated from an article originally published September 7, 2011.]

Cultivating Loving-kindness

Eleven years ago, I attended a series of workshops that altered the course of my life. At my emotional core, I was full of pain and sadness. I did not know how to let go or forgive. New to my spiritual path, I didn’t yet understand the nature of faith. I know it now as a thing that religion has no ownership of. Faith exists without the need for temples, books, and miracles.

The woman leading the workshops, named Whispering Deer, walked us through the Buddhist practice of loving-kindness, also known as Metta. I was looking for that inner Zen, that place of peace inside me that hippies and yogis seemed to discover by sitting cross-legged with their hands on their knees and repeatedly humming to themselves- that was the only cultural visual I had to represent what I was looking for.

It’s amazing the stereotypes we create about things we simply don’t understand. These images act as resistance-barriers standing between us and the things we desire most. I wanted peace and compassion and yet I did not believe I deserved it. So I made fun of that idea of tranquility, as if to say, why would I want something so silly? Thus insuring I wouldn’t try for it… and fail. Again.

That weekend, listening to Whispering Deer’s story of transformation and seeing the person she had become standing before me, I finally believed that goal was possible for myself. And I wanted it more than I had wanted anything else in my life. I determined that if I could not find it inside myself, I would create it.

A new path bloomed before me.

The loving-kindness work I embarked on was a series of meditations to teach myself to have compassion. The side effect of the repetitive practice was the alteration in how I perceived events that happened around me. I had been stuck inside my own experience, and saw everything that happened as happening to me. It’s a nuanced line, and a change in inflection changes the meaning, but when you experience everything as happening to you, you cease to be in control of your world. You give that power up to the universe and put yourself at the mercy of its whims, like a ship adrift at sea. You become a victim of the world around you.

What I wanted was to be a part of the world with my hands firmly on the wheel. I wanted to be part of what was happening, of creating my own experiences. I dove into the lessons on compassion, spending 20 minutes in meditation every night, at the end of my day, just before bed. One of the things Whispering Deer told us was that the simplest Buddhist level of having compassion for oneself, was the hardest one for Westerners to master. She wasn’t wrong.

Embracing loving-kindness as a philosophy, requires you to build an awareness of how you respond to the events that occur in your life, and then to push into that awareness to understand those reactions. It’s a way of unlearning the way you have been taught to respond and discover your own intuitive way of walking through the world- which also requires that you be open to how different a path that might be.

If I step back and observe the world around me as a larger web, removing any personal attachments I have to how things work, I can see the pattern of emotional dialogue that plays out. We feel an emotion in our bodies and we react to it, at other people, without understanding where it came from or why we felt it in the first place. As a culture we lack awareness of our emotional bodies. How many times have you heard someone say, I don’t know why I feel the way I feel, I just do?

When we lash out against others because we feel a strong emotion, and we do it without seeking clarification, we commit acts of violence. Being angry/ frustrated/ irritated/ mad at anyone else is like sending out a tidal wave whiplash of your bad attitude. Others will feel it. Others will be hurt by it. I’m guilty of it. Whether you intended that hurt or not, you still have to own the responsibility for the effects of it. It’s why this path became so important to me. It’s why being a better version of myself became necessary.

This is a hard world we live in and it’s easy to be overwhelmed with the traumas, hurts, losses and failures we collect on our journeys. It’s no excuse for being careless with the people around us. Our world moves so fast and so quickly that, often, we feel like all we can do is tread water to keep from getting swept away or left behind.

Even our news headlines are sensationalized to best catch our attention and we’ve had to learn to accept exaggerations and misleading implications as truth. No wonder we get depressed by the world around us. This is a hard world, when everyone is only thinking of themselves. But it is a beautiful world, too, where people do work together and help each other out. In order to experience that, you have to be part of it. You have to participate in it.

We all have to be gentle with each other. We can afford to. We need to remember that we are not just individuals having a personal experience in this world. We need to remember that the face we put out into the world is how the world perceives us. We have to treat people the way we want to be treated. When faced with hard times and hard people, patience, compassion and gentleness are a better choice for the health of your own heart.

            [Originally published August 31, 2011.]

Death Grief Love

I’m at a familiar place in my life. Someone I love is nearer the end of their battle than the beginning of the fight. At the same time, I am juggling that knowledge against hope. I am sending prayers for healing out, because I believe in miracles. After all, I have read enough historical battles to know that the tide can turn, even moments after its possibility diminishes.

I have been here before, and will be here again, and in that, I am not alone. I came home the day after our Solstice celebration to a new blog post from artist/performer Amanda Palmer, about sitting vigil at the bedside of a close and beloved friend. She captured the surreal quality of standing on that edge of life and death.

I’m sharing the link to her post in the hopes that you go and read her words for me this week. The reverence alone, in how they cared for their dying friend, is moving and courageous. To look into the face of death takes courage. And the gifts are innumerable.

When I finished it, I was crying because she had captured words for emotions I had never been able to. And my heart was singing out: This is what death looks like. This is what grief looks like. This is what love looks like.

the day after the longest day of the year.

I Choose Peace

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the lives taken in Charleston, South Carolina. For the first time, I haven’t cared to read about the shooter’s background, whether or not he had a rough childhood, or how he learned to hate. I have no pithy statements. My heart is too heavy. Knowing his specific circumstances won’t revive the dead.

I thought differently a year ago when I decided to read Eliot Rodgers’ one-hundred and forty plus page manifesto last May. I’ll never get the hour of horror back as I kept saying, “This can’t get any worse.” What I took away from it was he was wrong in the head. Not mentally ill wrong. He believed he was entitled to certain things, simply because he was a man. And I really mean, entitled due to the fact that he was born. When he couldn’t have the things he felt entitled to (i.e. other people), he got angry and took it out on the world.

He didn’t know what he was doing was wrong because he didn’t believe it was wrong. And that’s what happened, again. So what do you do with people who don’t believe racism or sexism is wrong? What do we do with people who are angry at the world because it doesn’t exist the way they think it should? In my opinion, that is not mental illness.

I no longer believe knowing everything about what the shooter was thinking will give us any insight to help stop the next act of senseless violence. I am certain there will be more. [I agree with Jon Stewart, that this wasn’t a tragedy. This was an act of American terrorism.] There will always be circumstances and explanations. There will always be a “reason” that makes sense to no one but the murderer. And in the end, we will still be left with the loss and grief.

Nine precious lives were snuffed out, in their sacred space, in their temple. And that is where my heart is, with the loss of those lives and the realization that a twenty-one year old thought nothing of taking them. One young man stepped into his place in the world as an adult by taking nine lives. It boggles my brain, like I don’t even understand the words I’m writing out. They stretch out and twist in my gut and I am wary of others who display violent anger.

Anger isn’t a mental illness. Racism isn’t a mental illness. Excusing a murderer as mentally ill because they were angry is a disservice to the people who handle their anger every day. In our culture anger is easy, and we all work our way to the place of why we need to handle our own anger and stop making it anyone else’s problem.

I understand anger. I used to have an angry heart, like anger-ball, explodes-in-milliseconds heart. Beneath that I wanted peace, but I was so broken by my experiences in the world I thought it was impossible. I didn’t want to be angry. It was eating me up from the inside and it was infecting my relationships.

I had a small awareness that I was looking at the world and waiting for it to make itself better for me, so that my sensitive soul could fit in it. I didn’t realize that if I wanted the world to be a more peaceful place, I needed to feed it love, not fear. I needed to feed it peace, not hate. I needed to feed the world peace.

You can change your wiring. You can change your emotional responses to stimulation. It’s not easy but I’ve done it. The trick is you don’t let go of your anger and fill it with something else (like reparations or justice). It isn’t a give and take. You transform that anger into something new. You can’t expect to receive anything in the place of letting it go. You don’t let it go. You change it.

It doesn’t make being in the world-as-it-is easier, but the more I release my anger, the more I sink into our interconnectedness. The more I sink in, the more I see every life as the same, the more kindness I have for strangers. After all, if I want to live according to my beliefs, I have to accept that everyone else I see does, too. The only belief I think we must all share is that we cannot harm other living beings.

These shooters, these American terrorists, are disconnected from that web. They don’t see everyone as the same. They don’t give everyone the same worth. But we do. We can. And it starts with feeding the world our kindness, patience, and peaceful hearts, and allowing that to heal our angry, vengeful, anxious hearts, so that we may walk the earth leaving peace in our wake. Wakes ripple outward.

When faced with anger or love, I choose love. When faced with violence or peace, I choose peace. When faced with teachable moments, I speak up to diffuse angry moments before they can escalate.

I have had violence and rage directed at me. I do not want to be the cause of that pain and grief in anyone else’s life. When I anger, I feed it down to the earth through the soles of my feet, not out into the air with my words and breath.

“Sometimes we wait for others and think that Martin Luther should raise among us and Nelson Mandela should raise among us and speak up for us but we never realize that they are normal humans like us and if we step forward we can also bring change just like them.”  ~Malala Yousafzai, 17, Nobel Peace Prize winner from Pakistan

Thoughts on Crafting a Eulogy

When my Grandpa died, I couldn’t have known that I would later regret not speaking at his funeral. I had so many wonderful stories of him I could have told, if I could have conveyed them in my grief. I couldn’t have. I am often at a loss for words in the moment, too caught up in the ‘feels’…which, as a writer, I find wryly amusing.

I wouldn’t have been able to do my thoughts and feelings for him justice, but the idea of speaking of and for the dead has become important over the years to the ancestral work that I do. It’s about being in service to something greater than my grief. It’s about being in service to love.

Love is where we find the courage to stand in our grief, to put words to the truth of how the world is now, without our loved ones. How we dispose of the bodies of our beloved dead is about honoring both their memory and the physical temple they inhabited, as well as honoring their wishes for its end.

The funerals we hold for the dead are often designed with them in mind. If they had a specific practice, it will likely be a service of their spirituality or religion, and we the living are welcome to share in that space. It’s where those who are left without the dead are allowed to remember them. It’s part of our process of accepting the transition of death as it applies to our own lives. And I believe that it’s meant to serve the living more than it’s meant to honor the dead.

I have thought back often to my Grandpa’s service, and the poor retired minister who fumbled through every Old Testament story in the Bible and couldn’t remember the dead man’s name. What would my Grandpa have wanted to say? What would he have wanted people to take away from the last time they would gather in his honor?

How would he have wanted to be remembered? How should he have been remembered? How could I have been to bridge to convey that? How can I do that in the future?

But here’s my, this-should-be-common-sense disclaimer: I say that the service, the memorial, the wake… those are all things for those of us left behind. But it is still sacred space. It is still a place of honor and truth and love. The eulogy is not space to air dirty laundry.

You have to be compassionate for the grief of everyone who gathers. But keep it real. Don’t pretend you were close if you weren’t. But, for example, when my good friend lost his father suddenly, it was bittersweet. They had been estranged for some time. After years of being close, his father developed an issue with his sexual orientation, spiritual practices, and food preferences. I sat at that funeral to support him as he stood to speak, the only son of the deceased man.

He was beautiful. He was honest that he and his father had not been on good terms when he died. And then he brought up the good times with his father, the memories he would cherish from his formative years. And I watched him express grief that they had lost the chance to find their way back to being father and son. It was honest and sweet and I know his pragmatic father would have nodded his head and thought it was truly and fairly shared. I have never been more proud of him, or that friendship.

It’s stayed with me over the years. There is a way to be kind and truthful. There is a way to speak from your heart and paint a human picture, rather than the nondescript way the minister spoke of death at my Grandpa’s funeral. It was death that brought us there, yes. But it was our love of my Grandpa, and the fact that it was his death that made us come together.

In a file on my computer, I have started writing down thoughts about my beloved family and friends. I review them every year around Samhain, changing and adding stories as my relationships with them change, as I grow older and more reflective. I know some people will think my stating that I have been working on eulogies for my family members, who are nowhere near death, sounds morbid.

But it’s not. Sure, it reminds me of mortality. It also reminds me to love while I am alive and able to do so. Revisiting old stories reminds me what it is about my friends and family that I love.

Here are some of the prompts I used as I sat down to write. They were little bursts of inspiration that shaped the stories I decided to tell. These thoughts and prompts are meant to convey their character, as well as, in theory, allow me to heal by revisiting who they were to me- to me and everyone else who will grieve them. May it be many, many years before I have need of my words.

• At what point in your life did you meet the deceased?
• What was your first impression of them? How was that impression cemented? Or how was that impression proved false?
• How long have you known them?
• In what ways did they make your life better or brighter?
• What pieces of advice did they give you?
• What struggles did you see them overcome? What truths about their character did you learn about them?
• What is something you knew about them that other people did not?
• What are some good deeds they did?
• What basic principles did they believe in, that they would want you to convey?
• What important events in people’s lives did they step up to help out with?
• How can you pay what they taught you forward into the living world? How can all of you?
• What little stories can you share that illustrate any of these thoughts?

What has lived is remembered in our tales and what is remembered, lives on.