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.]

The Beginning I Saw in the End

Grandpa and me

I was speaking about my accident this morning, and about how my Grandpa Riddle came to me just before I woke in the hospital ICU. And I thought about how it’s almost the day he died. I always think of that when spring first comes, because that comes next. And I wanted to revisit this post, as it’s timely.

My Grandfather's Crossing Over

It’s been fourteen years since I sat in the hospital room with my Grandfather, watching him dance with death. There is no winning in the dancing, just an end of the music, the last pulling of strings humming in the air, becoming vibration with no sound, and then… memory. Waiting with my Grandfather, my heart was already heavy with the loss of my grandmother, three years gone. I could tap my grief out for you in my own soft shoe, but we all know the face grief wears, and the mask grievers don.

This story is not about the darkness of the waiting and unknowing. I saw the light in the death. I saw the mystery of the unknowing. I saw the hope in the grief.

He was struggling to breathe. We were painted in the room, separate tableaus across the same canvas. What happened to me did not happen to them. I was not ready to say goodbye to him, our rock, but I was ready for his suffering to end. I didn’t think he would be better off without us but I was ready for him to be free. I was ready to deal with my grief on my own time, not his. Being ready to accept the death made all the difference for me. In that room, with the clicks and the whirrs of the equipment and the slow, low rattling of his lungs, I was prepared to wait.

I was praying in my head, words my heart couldn’t bear to speak, telling him it was okay, that we would be okay. I don’t know how I knew he wasn’t going to wake up. I think we all did. But we hoped. Sometimes when death comes, hope is a dangerous blade. The fact was we were there because he had decided he was ready. Cancer may have claimed him, but his death was on his terms.

We never really talked about death as a family, as a neighborhood, or as a culture when I grew up. Someone died and everyone put their funeral outfit on and we were sad and gave those grieving some space and then life went on. It tells a lot about my family that they allowed the soft chanting from the corner of the room where I sat. Music helps me move through emotion more easily and we were all doing what we needed to do in those moments.

When it happened it was quick. One second. It felt as if someone opened a door in the wall beside me, soft wind rushing in, and that second stretched into season as winter welcomed in spring and spring turned to summer and the smell of tilled earth, warm with worms, tomatoes and cucumbers, filled the air around us. I was ready for what was coming. I felt the shift as it happened.

One person turned away. One person died and one person cried out. I was aware of two realities. The air in the room stopped moving and I heard the sound of a toe tapping as a green light stepped into the room through the wall beside me. I held my breath, afraid to shatter the moment. On the bed, my grandfather smiled and lifted out of his body. Whatever you want or need to call it, his spirit, his anima, his soul leapt towards the light that smelled like my childhood summers and blinked away.

I was back in the room and the warmth that held us there was gone. He was gone. The sudden cold sterility of the room was disarming. So quickly, the heat from his body was dissipating. I stood apart from the moment and the grieving. I wanted to stand in sorrow but I was left in wonder.

When I remember that moment, what I remember was that it was not awful for me, but left me full of awe for my experience and the gift I was given amid such a welling of sadness. Somewhere in the universe, in the ether, in the springtime around me, the energy I saw leave that room still lives, whether transformed, absorbed, scattered or inhaled, and the warmth of the man I loved became something new.

[Original post published March 23, 2011.]

I Believe in Santa Claus

Six years ago, my wife flew into the house, cheeks rosy and eyes bright, shouting that she had seen Santa Claus in the grocery store (insert childlike exclamation marks). I smiled while she elatedly described him to me, an old man with snow white hair and beard in a red sweater, slowly walking the aisles. He had candy canes and oranges in his cart and when she looked him in the eye, he winked at her. I felt the giddy welling in my own belly and wished I had been there to see him, too.

I would have said, thank you.

Whether you call him Santa Claus, Kris Kringle, Saint Nicholas, Sinter Klaus, Father Christmas or Pere Noel, the spirit of the myth that was once a man has lived for centuries in the hearts of people everywhere. Bishop Nicholas of Smyrna lived in the 4th century. He was the son of a wealthy family who used his money for the welfare and good of his people, performing miracles for those who might otherwise have been left destitute. He brought hope and light to the world. He was a real man before his spirit was blessed with immortality. In the passing of time and telling of stories a holy man became something greater.

He became a season of giving and a myth with many faces.

It is the legend of the immortal gift-giver and toymaker that most of us grew up with. I still remember my love of the “jolly old elf” as a child. I remember because I still carry that love in my heart. My favorite version of his mythology comes from the fictional work The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by Frank L. Baum. A babe left in the woods was raised in magic by the fairy folk and gifted the Cloak of Immortality for all of the joy he brought to an otherwise bleak human world, so that he might continue his good works forever. I like the idea that long after I am dead and gone, the spirit of the man called Claus will continue. Our world needs magic in it.

Our world is made of magic.

I wish that the joy and spirit of the holiday season could stretch out and blanket all of the calendar days, so I try to drink it in while I can, syrupy sappy happiness and all. I love baking cookies and delicacies and crafting presents for loved ones. I love the lengths people will go to in order to make a little Christmas magic happen. I learned that from Santa… and the spirit of him that lives in the heart of my mother and father.

How can belief in him be a bad thing? Santa Claus wants us to be good to each other. He promotes charity and compassion as well as candy canes and hot cocoa. I was the child who vehemently defended his existence far beyond what I should have, for as smart a child as I was. I’d done the math. I knew how much the presents we got from Santa Claus cost. Times that amount by three children. There was no way my parents could afford to spend that much on us.

I was adamant, fighting with friends on Grand Street on the way home from school and stomping home angrily because they didn’t believe me. They didn’t believe in Santa, when he was so good to us. I really wish I could remember how old I was then.

I remember sitting on my dad’s lap, in his father’s rocking chair when I was a bit older. He mentioned how important it was that I not ruin Santa for my younger sister, or other young children. I was bright for my age and always a bit ahead of putting pieces together. He assumed I had already figured it out and knew I was the kind of child who liked to share what knowledge I had. I will never forget the way his face drained of color when he saw the look on mine – when he realized that not only had I not put it together yet, but I had not even suspected the truth.

My poor father.

I had been a warrior for the Northern Elf for years and now my dad was saying that man was a figment, just an idea. I’m not embarrassed to admit to how long I believed in Sinter Klaus. If you know me you know that the magic and wonder of the holiday is a light that lives in me. It always has. My father’s admission did not take the magic away. I was not entirely sure that my father was right.

Santa had to be more than an idea. My eyes opened wider in the wake of that moment. I understood that the mall Santa was like the priest at church, speaking for a man who could not possibly be everywhere at once. I didn’t negotiate much beyond that until I realized something about my parents. They never bought things for themselves. All year, I watched my mom not buy herself anything and realized she was squirreling money away so that they could make Christmas the most magical day for us.

My parents sacrificed to gift us magic out of love. Because they remembered their joy as children, waiting for the sounds of sleigh bells in the night sky. It was a legacy they went to lengths to pass on. Isn’t that magic, too?

I remember well my days as a young girl, waking in my flannel nightgown, waiting until we were allowed to run into my parents’ room and throw open their east-facing window curtains. I remember every year, our mornings around the tree unwrapping presents. Those mornings opened a window into the child that lived in the heart of my parents and my grandparents. I understood that they were once children my age, excitedly opening gifts with their parents.

In my mind’s eye I can see the tree changing backwards into homemade ornaments and popcorn strands, paper chains and nuts strung. Rugs become rag wool become wood floor become dirt and straw… Always there is a child beneath the tree whose blood is part of me.

Always there is a child whose blood is part of me, back past Christmas, into Yule, into Modranight, into whatever group gathered together against the longest night.

The real Santa Claus lives inside all of us, like the divine energy does. We all have a santa and a scrooge, a light and a dark side. At holiday time, we find it easier to feed our inner Santa. We feel the desire to give gifts of magic to children around us and fight hard to help him defeat our stressed-scrooge inside.

Like the Native American story, we have a choice to continue to feed our inner Kringle and spread the joy and light of love, compassion and charity throughout all of our days. Whatever you believe, whatever you practice, whoever you love, take the best of the holiday season with you into world, through the long winter, well after the snows have melted.

An old Cherokee Indian was speaking to his grandson:

"A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. "It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil- he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other is good- he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. This same fight is going on inside you and inside every other person, too."

The grandson thought about it for a long minute. "Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one I feed."

[Originally posted December 14, 2011.]

Beauty in Grief

Grief. It welcomes itself into your life in multiple occasions of loss: jobs, homes, health, pets, loved ones.

I feel it now, even though the sun is shining outside of my office window. I am sitting in my chair typing, resting my damaged legs after a half hour of standing still. I could feel grief over the change in my health, and I do. But staring at the sun, my heart is sore because I miss my Grandpa.

He died right after the spring equinox. He was a bright light in my heart and the loss of him still hurts. But not as much. Not as sharply, which is normal. It's been over a decade now. It hardly seems possible.

It was gloomy the day he died, and cold still. But you could feel the change of season in the air. The day we buried him, the sun was bright and warm. He would have loved it. I didn't feel that way at the time, but I see that now. Then, I was grieving.

Grief is dark. It's smothering and it eats the oxygen from the air. It manipulates gravity until every push and pull of your muscles is a battle you don't want to win.

Grief is a tool of change and transition. It serves a purpose. Something in our lives has altered incredibly and will never be the same. Grief steals in and colors our world to better sharpen the contrast between what has changed and what remains the same. It reminds us so that our brains can't lie to us. Otherwise it would.

So when I look at the sun on a warming spring day, and my heart hurts, it is a reminder that my Grandpa isn't here to see that sun. But then I think about him. About him. Not the loss of him, but about the life he lived and the people he loved and those who loved him in return.

I tell his stories, about how he used to tell us he made dessert, and even boxed it up special, just for us. For years I thought he made the best coffee cakes, and just put them in Sara Lee boxes. I really did. And he almost had me until he said he grew a cantaloupe in one day... and the whole family thought I had known all along that he was joking about his baking skills.

I tell his stories, and they make me smile. Grief blankets the heartbreak so that it's bearable. And on the other side of it, the light becomes a welcome sight again. Green shoots poke their way out of the warming earth. Flowers bloom and birds return. So do the memories.

What is remembered, lives.

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. 

A Family Loss

Death.

It’s July, and for a lot of Americans that means family vacations, gardens, and sunshine. A few of my friends have delivered new life into the world and many of my friends have recently had to say goodbye to loved ones. Death doesn’t care if we would rather be on vacation. My Uncle Dave passed away Friday morning, after battling leukemia. He died surrounded by family at Hospice.

He was the funny one, we would say as children, while trying to remember the names of all our aunts and uncles. Uncle Dave was the one who always knelt down to our level so he could better talk to us like we were little people with our own likes and dislikes. Children are used to being hugged and shooed off to play. At the holidays there were seven siblings and their spouses as well as nine (or so, depending on the year) cousins running about. There’s an invisibility that comes with being part of a pack. But Uncle Dave always saw us. And he was funny, whether cracking jokes, stealing noses, or acting foolish, he liked to hear us laugh.

When I saw him at Christmas, we had one of those deep conversations like people do, where we knew it could be the last time, but fervently hoped it wouldn’t be, swaying around the actual words. He told me stories about his time in the Navy, on a ship in the water near Cuba during the missile crisis. He told me that he would have made the Navy his career, if he’d also been able to have his family. But he chose family, and he never regretted it. He could never look at his kids or grandkids without beaming and losing words for the love they gave him.

Many, many people are going to miss him terribly. For more about my uncle's life you can read his obituary here.

Change.

There are many circles orbiting my world, like the rings of Saturn. Each circle is another group of living loved ones, and together we create the galaxy, my universe. But from my perspective, they orbit around me, separate, but never far. My grandparent circle has greatly diminished as the years have passed. It is no longer solid. I can see a time where that ring will fade, when there is no one left alive to lose.

The circle that represents my aunts and uncles has always been strong and vibrant. My parents exist in that circle, as well as one of their own. Everything changes now. My Uncle Dave is the first loss from that ring. Its edge is no longer sharply defined and the color will grow diffuse as more loss comes. I am one step closer to the reality that more death will come. Mortality feels very real.

He was not just my uncle. He was my father’s brother, they were boys together. He was my cousins’ father, the man who raised them as my father raised me. And my heart fills with loss. My father’s loss. My aunt’s loss.

Prayer.

My family is gathering to pay their respects and lay his vessel to rest. I cannot be there with them, and am shoring up responsibilities so that I can go and be with them soon, which is difficult considering that my heart and thoughts are miles away. So I focus my heart and I do what I can from my office. At my ancestor altar, I call to the seven generations of my uncle’s ancestors.

I call to the lines of Eaton and Ruston.

I call to the lines of Eaton and Ruston; of Smith and Wicker.

I call to the lines of Eaton and Ruston; of Smith and Wicker; of Tenney, Dutcher/ De Duyster, Ireland, and Whitcher/ Whittier.

I call to the lines of Eaton and Ruston; of Smith and Wicker; of Tenney, Dutcher/ De Duyster, Ireland, and Whitcher/ Whittier; of Treadwell, Targee, Sears, Bird, Richardson, Lenton, Lusk, and DeLozier.

I call to the lines of Eaton and Ruston; of Smith and Wicker; of Tenney, Dutcher/ De Duyster, Ireland, and Whitcher/ Whittier; of Treadwell, Targee, Sears, Bird, Richardson, Lenton, Lusk, and DeLozier; of Gould, Peters, De Bois, Feagles, Brooks, Wilson, Morgan, Kittredge, and Raymond.

I call to the lines of Eaton and Ruston, of Smith and Wicker; of Tenney, Dutcher/ De Duyster, Ireland, and Whitcher/ Whittier, of Treadwell; Targee, Sears, Bird, Richardson, Lenton, Lusk, and DeLozier; of Gould, Peters, De Bois, Feagles, Brooks, Wilson, Morgan, Kittredge, and Raymond; of Skiff, Arnold, Andrews, Palmer, Coleman, Wright, Parker, Dow, Bailey, Erkells, and Richmond.

I call to the lines of Eaton and Ruston, of Smith and Wicker; of Tenney, Dutcher/ De Duyster, Ireland, and Whitcher/ Whittier, of Treadwell; Targee, Sears, Bird, Richardson, Lenton, Lusk, and DeLozier; of Gould, Peters, De Bois, Feagles, Brooks, Wilson, Morgan, Kittredge, and Raymond; of Skiff, Arnold, Andrews, Palmer, Coleman, Wright, Parker, Dow, Bailey, Erkells, and Richmond; of Hatch, Brooks, Luther, Townsend, Van Deusen, Lyon, Porter, Washburn, Pearson, Davis, Fowle, Zabriskie, Blackmer, and Caswell.

May my uncle’s spirit be at peace and at rest.

May the ancestors watch over and comfort the living he left behind.

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

Go to the Woods

Go to the woods, or the desert, or the plains, or the shore. Go to the spaces and places you live upon. Get out of your homes and your boxes and walls and sit in the natural world you have adopted as your own.

For people with an earth-centered spirituality, it’s an urgent heartbeat pounding at the back of our souls. Go to the woods. Sit by the river. Climb those rocks. Sail those seas. Bird watch. Forage for fungus. We are meant to want to be part of it all. The more attuned to nature you get, the louder that rhythm pulses through you.

In the city I can’t see that the sky is literally dusted with so many stars there is no such thing as darkness. In the city I can’t hear the symphony of birdsong over the sounds of traffic, both human and automotive. But I heard them in the woods, the beautiful birds in chorus with soft tweets and sharp whistles, punctuated by the percussive woodpecker and the scatting grok of the raven.

A week on a mountain and I was humbled in those woods. I was a human walking in their world. I was not threatening and, after a cursory examination, they paid me no mind. Catbirds swooped down to see what I was doing in their territory, and I acknowledged their claim to the space with offerings of birdseed and nuts.

Go to the woods, where the beetles and the chipmunks live. Go to where the wolf spiders and snakes are, to where the coltsfoot and burdock blossom. Learn to walk as part of their world, not as a predator in it.

Find where the wild strawberries grow and the raccoon kits take their first steps. Listen at dusk as the owls call out and the heron glides silent across the water. Open to the land our ancestors lived on. Open to the new world they experienced and relied upon. Have gratitude for your industrial comforts. And then, go to the woods.

We are one of many animal species, and we all make home from the same earth. It matters. Our sameness matters. How can we truly live in a place if we do not know it, if we do not understand it… if we cannot see it? How can we care about it? Or about what we leave behind for the coming generations?

So go to the woods. Go to the park. Plant a garden. Fill your bird feeders. Hug a tree and feel it bend in the wind. Feel it bend and sigh and speak. Watch the weeds find purchase in broken sidewalks. Nature has a will and nature finds a way. All is changing and we are made to be changeable. Be a part of the flow. Do not stand against it. Stand in the awe and might of the natural world and be of it. Be home.

Imminent Death

I wasn’t sure what to call this article. That sounded so urgent, but it’s what I want to talk about. I want to talk about those times in your life when death knocks. When you know to expect it… soon, and you have a little push time until it arrives. Where “soon” is the closest you can get to any certainty.

I’m packing for an annual retreat in the mountains, away from technology, away from traffic, and away from my senile, dying 20 year-old cat. It’s not that a vet has told us she’s dying. She’s 20 years old. That’s like, 96 in human years. She’s looking tired and worn. She sleeps twenty hours a day and walks stiffly through the house. We don’t know when, but we know it’s coming, likely sooner, rather than later.

I have a ritual now, before I leave overnight to go anywhere. I snuggle my cat, now affectionately called Grams, in a blanket and I cradle her in my lap. I listen to the familiar heavy-motor purr, the only thing that hasn’t faded. From just one touch of my finger she could run for hours, without breaking. I often woke in the night, distressed that something was different- only to discover that my kitty sound-machine had finally stopped purring.

And in my ritual, I listen to her purr. I tell her how much I love her. I tell her how lucky we were that she picked us in that winter storm in Fredonia. I tell her how happy she has made us. I listen as her purr turns to chirp as she headbutts my elbow crook. I listen to her chirp turn to chirrup turn to coo as she goes limp with bliss in my lap.

I use the special singsong voice she loves most. And then I sing to her, “Songbird” by Fleetwood Mac. My cat trills a special note she only uses when I sing. And I sit with my beloved friend, who has been in my life for seventeen years. The things she has seen no one else knows. The ways we have changed, only she has witnessed.

I know this. I hold her. I feel sorrow for what is coming. And I feed that sorrow my love. In that last moment, whether I am with her or whether I am away on retreat somewhere, I know I will not have regret, because I told her how I felt and I showed her what she meant. She will know how much I loved her, she will feel how grateful I was for her, and she will remember the vibrations of my chest on her muscles as I sang sweet words to her:

“For you, there will be no crying.

For you, the sun will be shining.

And I feel that when I’m with you, it’s all right.

I know it’s all right…”

I could talk about my uncle, the first of my father’s siblings to be gravely ill. I could talk about his fight that he’s winning and losing. I could say that I am afraid I won’t see him again, and I know that’s why we had the conversation we had at Christmas. Because he might not see me again, and he didn’t want to leave things unsaid.

In that moment, it broke my heart. I wanted to push him away. I didn’t want him to say the words because to me words are magic. But this is my work. This is what I do. So I stood and I listened, overwhelmed with gratitude to be witness to his life, to stories he’d never told anyone else. To be gifted a shared intimacy that will last longer than this flesh.

I would talk about it more but I am sensitive to those loved ones who may not want to hear the words, he is dying. He is, right now. But he could get better. But right now, he’s not. But I get it. Words are magic. To act as if he is dying, to acknowledge it so that loved ones can prepare for its arrival, is as if to invite it in sooner. As if you are lighting a beacon. As if saying you acknowledge you will die, sooner than later, is the same thing as saying “I’m ready.”

But what walled city saw the fleet of ships arriving with weapons drawn and said, “I’m ready to fall?”

Are we ever ready? I snuggle my cat close to me. I tell her it’s all right. It’s all right if she hangs out with her moments of dementia for more years. It’s all right if I wake up tomorrow and she’s gone. It’s all right if she passes while we’re away. As long as she knows we love her and what an important part of our family she is, will always be.

I think of my uncle, the funny one, and I feel bad saying he’s sick. As if somehow I am unweaving any healing work he is undergoing to get better. I pray to my Grandpa Mark and Grandma Ruth and ask them to watch over my uncle every morning, to give him as much life as he has in him. I ask them to watch over their other children as they deal with their varying levels of grief over the idea that, eventually, one of them will be the first to die.

I pray to my cats that have crossed over, Luna and Bella, and ask them to watch over Zami, and to welcome her across when she is ready to take that journey.

May we live each day with our eyes open.

May we know the light and the darkness,

and may we fear neither.

May we learn to feed the shadow with light.

May we know joy and sadness.

May we feed our sorrow with love.

May we live without regret.

May those we love know our hearts.

May our last moments be good moments.

May our last words be words of love.

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 the world.

“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 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 do feel the 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 the first time. 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

Saying Farewell to Childhood Friends

Twenty years have gone by and I cannot comprehend the volume of time that has past. Some days it feels like a mere blink, and I am unchanged. And then the moments come where I feel as if I have burned to the ground and rebuilt myself many times since the girl I was then. The way time feels is not constant.

And yet, twenty years later, my graduating class found ourselves together again. Many of us hadn’t seen each other in that stretch of time and yet it did not stand between us. None of us were the same, but we were familiar. We’ve all had life happen. We’ve all taken uncertain paths in the search of knowledge, success, happiness. We’ve struggled through dark days. We’ve felt more complex emotions than we could have imagined when we were last together, both sorrow and joy, and all of the shades in between. It alters.

            It was a good weekend with old friends. I wanted to know if everyone was happy. I wanted to see that everyone was well.

Then there came the point in the evening where we took a moment to acknowledge our classmates who are no longer with us. It was a longer list than I expected. Some died through illness, some through choice, others through horrible accident. I didn’t know them all very well but I remembered them from our hallways. A few of them I had known about, but two names in particular were a shock to me.

One was my neighbor and childhood friend, Tracy Lee Flint, Jr. We called him T.J. growing up and he begrudgingly permitted me to call him that during high school. We weren’t terribly close as teens, having grown up and out in different directions. But neither of us forgot those days of our childhood together, playing summer-long games of mock war and re-enacting Star Wars. With his dark hair he was always Han Solo.

Another was my friend, Christina Adkins, who we called Tina. She moved away, but before then she was one of my five closest girlfriends. We were a tight bunch, all dealing with our own personal turmoils together, spending most of our time outside of school together. I hoped that someday we would all find happiness, but especially her. And I hope she did before tragedy found her. Her ending broke my heart.

I excused myself. I splashed cold water on my face to shake it off, so that I could be there with those still living, and celebrate the times we shared. I was grateful to discover that the many of the bonds we made then were still strong.

A week later, I sat on the shores of Lake Ontario, a sadness sitting in my chest, with the desire to transform that emotion into something else. We create rituals every day. They’re about intention. That’s where the magic lives. So I conjured some to let the spirit world know that I remembered those who were lost.

I used what was available around me, my voice, the water before me, and what was washed ashore at my feet. I collected pieces of driftwood, one for each of my fallen classmates, and walked out to the end of the pier, the land falling away behind me. I waited until the tides turned outward.

I repeated the names of the dead out loud, including those of my childhood friends. I wished them peace. I wished them freedom from pain. I wished their families a balm for their grief, and a return to joy.

I sang a song to the water and the wind. I wished my living classmates safe travels, health, and happiness to their last breath. I know we will lose more as the years pass. It’s a part of life, this living and dying business.  

I watched the waves carry the water-polished wood away. I watched the waves carry my prayers away, my heart brighter. I remember.

Spring Equinox Cleaning

Equinox is upon us, the mid-point between the longest night of the year and the longest day. We already feel the effects of the lengthening days and we bask in the warmth we finally feel from the light. We’re itching to throw the doors and windows open and air out our living spaces, to shake out the cobwebs and clear out dust.

In our lives we are constantly shedding skins and starting over. Shedding skins and reinventing ourselves. Shedding skins and letting go of what is no longer needed. Every year, at spring equinox, I tackle a room or two of my house, going through my possessions and furnishings, culling out what has gone unused or forgotten. It invariably also becomes a spring cleaning of my emotional house, as I evaluate my attachments to the items I consider letting go of. This year it was my office, my nest. Included in that room was the dreaded storage closet of doom, filled with boxes that haven’t seen the light of day in over a decade.

I re-organized. I put hands on everything. I stopped to read through old letters and cards from specific places of my life revived memories I had previously left to whisper and rest. I am at a crossroad, roughly halfway through the years I expect to live. Sorting through that closet, my life unfolded behind me, mementos of everywhere I have been and everyone I have loved.

I smiled joyfully through most of it, as the memories rippled through me. What a treasure it was to remember, in my body, the friendship and love of such innocent times. It helped buoy the box of painful things that had been tucked away. But those memories didn’t sting so badly this time. Even that box held lessons for wiser eyes, ways to not repeat those mistakes. I read and I culled, and as I culled, I re-organized.

I found the hole the mice were using to get in and sealed it. I found the alien spider’s secret corner of egg sacks. I found a box of crafts and stories I thought had been lost. And I found the last card my Grandpa gave me before he died. Which made me pause again.

He’ll be gone 10 years this Monday and I find it hard to believe so much of my life has been lived without him, when he is such a firm part of my identity as a grown-up. I still have so much more life left to come. I will never stop missing him. I am aware that part of my flurry of cleaning each spring is related to the uselessness I feel in the things I have no control over, like when someone I love dies. Cleaning- the wiping, the scrubbing, the scraping- delivers instant gratification. And it gets things done.

I closed that closet door, covered in grime and feeling elated. It wasn’t just spring cleaning and de-cluttering. It was time travelling. I walked through who I was and the choices I have made, making more decisions about what to hold onto and what to let go of. I shed skins, old versions of me that no longer apply.

I learned more about the person I am now. I learned that I can’t regret the path I took to get here, because I like who I am. I like where I am. It’s another Equinox cleaning come and gone. I’m standing at the crossroads, looking back over my shoulder, while prepping what is needed for the next move forward, weighing the roads ahead of me. Wondering what awaits in the next turning of the year.

Sacred Vows

The first step I took in starting my work was to create an altar in my home as a sacred space for my ancestors. To affirm my dedication to them, I chose to make a sacred vow in their name. It was just between me and them, something I wanted to do to prove my intent.

Making the vow was not as important as keeping it. To break a vow taken in someone else’s name is kind of like swearing on your mother’s grave, when you know full well your mother is alive and taking breath. It’s a lie. Lies have no place in what is sacred. Words matter.

Breaking an oath means that you do not have the discipline or willpower to walk your talk. I’m not talking about making a promise to someone and then discovering that you can’t see it through. We’re all human. I’m talking about a sacred vow. I’m talking about something you know you can do that you firm you’ll see through, and not rising to meet it.

We can speak all the words we wish to speak. But at the end of the day, our character is defined by our actions. Not our promises.

A few years ago, when I read the book The Four Agreements by author Miguel Angel Ruiz, one of the things I took away from it was the agreement to “be impeccable with your word.” Maybe it’s a romantic ideal but, it seems to me that once upon a time, people were shocked to discover someone was a liar. Which leads me to believe that it was expected that people’s word was true, that their word was their bond. Their reputation was staked on it. To lie or break your word could ruin you.

That’s not true anymore. We assume that people could be lying, that stranger’s words could be untrue. Even in kindness, we lie to be polite, to spare feelings. We know that just because somebody says they’ll do something, it doesn’t mean they will.

I try hard, and sometimes fail, to mean every word I say. I try not to fall into speaking from a place of fear and anger and releasing words I won’t mean later. I try not to just say things to fill silences. Silences are beautiful. Silences shared are more beautiful yet.

There is a clarity that comes from being able to stand behind every word you say. All of your words have more shape. More volume behind them. I no longer speak in smoke and whispers. Now I speak from my truth.

Words are magic. The throat chakra, Vishuddha, is the energy center that sits at your throat and voice box. As your kundalini energy rises through your chakras, it passes through Vishuddha and opens to Ajna, the third eye and deeper consciousness. The throat is the gateway to a spiritual level. To speak out loud a sacred vow is a strong form of magic.

In making a vow to my ancestors, I wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to show my ancestors that, known or unknown to me, they were important. I didn’t just want to open a doorway to them, I wanted to build a bridge. My initial oath was simple and revolved around building that bridge and my awareness of them. I vowed to light a candle on my ancestor altar at the same time, every day, for seven weeks.

The ritual I created was straightforward. I called to my ancestors, reading the names I had. I poured oblations to them, offering them remembered nourishment. I lit a candle to help them find their way to me. And then I spoke my vow. I promised to light that candle every night for seven weeks, as seven is a magical number for me. I promised to perform my little ritual every night at 7 o’clock for seven weeks.

It is the speaking of words out loud that casts the spell around the oath. We should never say something if we do not mean to do it. The strength I found from seeing my commitment through was enormous. It became the firm footing I needed to begin my work. I always wondered at the images from history that show men making oaths on the blade of a sword. As a kid I thought the sword was the punishment for a broken vow, but now I understand the metaphor better. Where personal growth is concerned, the only one truly hurt by breaking a sacred oath is yourself.

Stewards of the Land

We are born to the earth, we live on the earth, and when we die we will return to it. Just as our planet rotates around the sun, so do we, in our infinite migrations, rotate around the planet. So why doesn’t the Earth sit more fixedly centered in our thoughts? In my life it’s not a choice. I have nieces and nephews. I have great nieces and nephews even. Knowing that they and their children will live on long after me makes living a life of being kind to the earth important to me.

Over the generations we’ve watched our changing landscape spread out, crawling across the open spaces and clearing away the forested ones. We’ve despaired against the loss of green and wild places as animals became endangered and extinct. And now, it is such a state of how we live that we can’t imagine it any other way. We think that we cannot be a force for change, that one action cannot be a catalyst for renewal. But our bones know that we are people of the earth and they know that is not true.

The earth is not just dirt and bedrock beneath us. It is alive. We were born from its matter and our bodies will decay into its dust when we die. The earth is our Mother, a real and tangible parent beneath us. And mostly, in our short lives, we take little notice of the way we affect change to her. When we run out of room for progress, we build our cities out, abandoning discarded industry to decompose. So we build out, carving more space from the wild, and then we complain when the coyotes, bear, and deer wander our city streets.

What we need to do is to protect the green spaces that are left, from those who would wish to develop them. We are too smart to think that more green spaces will be discovered after we have removed them all. So we have to stop now. We have to become true stewards of the land and watch over the plant and animal life that is left.

Many people are already acting as stewards of the earth. And their pursuit of earth-centered actions have had larger and wondrous effects. Like this video of what happened after wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park. Click here to view the 4 minute video How Wolves Change Rivers.

I’m not talking about a total re-wilding of the earth, though I have to confess, I do love images of nature taking the earth back, like in the films I am Legend, Twelve Monkeys, and The Happening. To my delight, I have even met trees already engaged in the process (see the picture at the top of this post).

Be a steward of the land, no matter what that means to you. Where is the place you can make a change? How can you teach your children to have reverence for the world around them? Maybe you will pick up litter, or plant a garden. Maybe you will feed the birds or rehabilitate wild animals. Maybe you will protest environmental destruction from industry. Maybe you will protect the whales in the sea. Maybe you will be a teacher. Maybe you will plant trees.

Maybe you will sit quietly in the forest and its language. Maybe you will call the crow, sister. Maybe you will call the raccoon, brother. Maybe you will hear the earth singing back to you and maybe you will understand that we are all kin, and that our purpose is to walk softly with the natural world. 

Thinking and Buying Local for the Holidays

In a holiday that has become largely commercial, we should all endeavor to support our own communities and artisans by buying local, especially at this time of year. How does this topic apply to Ancestor Work? It’s simple. We are the catalyst for the change we wish to see in the world. We make choices every day that shape the world we are leaving for our children and grandchildren, for our nieces and nephews. And that includes everything our dollars support. Every single dollar bill. Every cent.

Where do you spend your money? Independently owned businesses or chain corporations? Where do you shop? Where do you eat? If you spend your money on chain stores and franchises, do you know where *they* spend their money? What political causes do they fund? What humanitarian causes do they give money to? For all you know, you are spending all of your money in a store that funds everything you despise and disagree with.

When you buy food and gifts from local stores and artisans, you feed your hard-earned money into your own economy. Which is good for where you live, as it keeps that money circulating locally. It also keeps the carbon footprint of your dollar down with little to no expense for shipping and packaging. Peeling back another layer into this mindfulness, where do the products you buy come from? Why send money to China when there are artisans and craftsmen in your own city who need your support?

I know, I know. But this is *exactly* what I wanted. Sometimes, it shouldn’t be about getting exactly what you want or need. Sometimes, compromising on your vision due to money or geographic constraint is the lesson. And it’s usually where you start to work outside of the box and the magic happens. Anyone can buy a gift off a list or registry. But who else is going to get them that custom mug made just for them? Or that glass wind chime custom colored to match their house? The hand-forged kitchen knife with a handle made of wood from their favorite tree?

Do you want a mug poured in a mold that looks just like every other mug in the box? Or do you want a mug hand-thrown and glazed, with all of the artist’s energy and concentration poured into its creation? Which of the two do you think will feel better in your hands? In the hands of your loved ones?

Supporting artisans over corporate stores is first and foremost of importance to me. If you’re buying on-line, look into sites like the Etsy shops, where craftspeople sell their own items. I am blessed to have good friends who are jewelers, potters, bladesmiths, metalsmiths, candle makers, herbalists, visual artists, carpenters, seamstresses, poets, etc. I love giving them business and I love sending them business because I know where that money goes; it pays their rents and mortgages. It pays their utilities. It buys them more supplies to create more wonderful items. It means they can also have a good holiday with their spouses and children.

Being able to do that and/or buy items locally is of secondary importance to me. If I can’t find an artisan who can make the gift I need, I at least try to buy that gift from a smaller independently-owned store versus a chain. Take a drive around the yellow pages and see what little stores are tucked away in your community that you haven’t visited yet. Check them out and see what treasures they have to offer. If I have to buy from a chain store, I buy it from the one whose beliefs are most in accord with mine, based on what they do with their own money. We vote with every dollar we spend. I believe that.

This year, instead of trying to find gifts to appease people, buy them a unique item no one else would or could have (if you are capable of it, craft one for them). Find them that treasure that makes you think of them, so that they’ll see your heart in the gift of it. And if you are a potter, a toymaker, a dressmaker, a knitter, a felter, a jeweler, a carpenter, a bladesmith, a writer, a visual artist, a glassblower, a baker, etc… thank you for taking a risk. Thank you for sharing your gifts and your energy. Thank you for brightening my world.

Animal Allies: Buffalo Brother

Bison bison, photo by Jack Dykinga

A few years ago, our local zoo was host to a pair of male bison. I had never seen one in person, but 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.

I could not resist the opportunity to observe them in the waking world. 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 I sat in silence, trying to become part of their landscape, not a mere tourist.

Altamita, Spain circa 12,000 BC

You could feel their strength, and see 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, saying hello.

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.