As I prepared to facilitate a workshop on Spiritual Survival, my thoughts turned inward, and I began a search for meaning through self-inquiry and reflection on my connection to my own roots.
Lately my thoughts have been centered on Health and Healing Justice, and for me, health begins with maintaining connection and alignment through my spiritual belief system. Combining this with recent work in the area of Food Justice led me to think in terms of “Spiritual Food”, meaning: that which sustains my Spirit and my alignment with Divine Will.
I was guided back to memories of being a little girl, working in the garden with my Daddy, who made his transition a week after Father’s Day in 1999. My Daddy was a Cancer, a man of action, not words. Time in the garden was always quiet time. Daddy’s words were treasures to me because they were few but always wise, and always just what needed to be said, nothing more.
As a child I helped maintain the large garden in my parents’ backyard. I watched with careful attention as Daddy dug holes, planted seeds for tomatoes, carrots, lettuce…we even had a type of Burmese squash.
In addition to toting garden tools, scouting for earthworms to use as catfish bait, and bringing Daddy cold drinks, my other duties were to cut lemongrass leaves to make tea for my mother and grandmother in the late afternoon, as well as to harvest tomatoes and string beans, and dig up sweet potatoes to roast in the fireplace on crisp autumn nights.
As much as I have talked lately about getting back to our roots and teaching others the importance of growing their own food, since age 12 I had not sunk my own fingers down into the earth to plant anything until last Saturday while volunteering at Dillard Academy Charter School’s community garden.
From morning until sunset I spent my time remembering what it felt like to connect to the earth in this way. My overly analytical Virgo mind, which usually runs a million miles a minute, was made still, the only focus was the task at hand…problem solving in the moment to do the best job I could with my current resources.
I had a freshly laid garden bed waiting for Roma tomato plants to be caged, a wheelbarrow, a bucket for water, my two hands, and the guidance of a Teacher. As I worked, the worldly problems that consumed my mind slowly vanished, and at the end of the day, finding the best stretches to relieve the fatigue in my body from a hard day of honest work was my only thought.
In the garden, sweating, covered in dirt, I was continually renewed as epiphany after epiphany was made clear to me. I hadn’t used my muscles so intensely in a long time, yet I wasn’t as sore as I thought I would be. I had prepared my body nutritionally by having a living food smoothie (swiss chard, cashews, banana, mango, hemp milk and ice) for energy to start the day…it was working! I had done my stretching and yoga before heading into the garden, and as I worked, I was lovingly reminded to integrate yogic breathing and poses into my activities. I held warrior pose (as best as I could) as I shoveled load after load of rich compost into the rickshaw…exhaling as I expended energy to thrust the shovel into the mound of compost, inhaling, then exhaling again as I flipped the full shovel into the rickshaw. It became rhythmic, therapeutic.
Some of the garden equipment was stored in an unused school bus. When I stepped onto the bus, I was again flooded with memories, from happy, silly times sitting with my friends and giggling, to the name calling and harsh teasing of school bus bullies. I closed my eyes and imagined my inner child. I forgave and released all memories of my youth that were less than positive, focusing instead on the highest good and gratitude for lessons learned, knowing they have helped shape the person I am today.
Back in the garden, I experienced the spirit of my Daddy reflected in the Teacher/Shaman by my side, guiding me. Through his patience with my learning curve, his upright character, his quiet, selfless diligence, and his heart-centered commitment to do that which is right…he held space for me to re-member that which I had forgotten, while at the same time teaching me new ways to navigate the garden, and life in general.
I had to stay conscious of the consequences of my actions, as any careless step may have trampled the young squash vines at my feet. I remembered to move mindfully in each moment, with grace.
Thanks to a generous donation of plants from Barnes Farm on the other side of town, there were more tomato plants than I could count, many of which were intertwined at the roots. While separating the plants, I quickly learned that even the smallest amount of undue pressure from me would cause the tender stalks to break. All of life is interconnected, every cause has an effect, every action a reaction…so every interaction we have with another living being affects that being in some way and what seems small to us may have a huge consequence for another. I remembered to be gentle and sensitive, with consideration for how my actions may impact others.
I was tired, getting a headache from the sun in spite of my garden hat, and it would have been easier to call it a day and leave the work for someone else to do. I remembered the importance of seeing my commitments through to the end with integrity, because any lack of follow through on my part would lead to others doing extra work as a result of my selfishness.
At times I thought I didn’t have the energy to yell a question to the other side of the garden, much less get up from my comfortable kneeling position to walk across the garden to clarify what needed to be done…then I realized my silence or lack of communication may cause extra work later. I remembered that timely, direct communication is crucial, even if it takes extra effort on my part to speak my truth.
When walking up and down garden rows with a water hose, care must be taken that the hose doesn’t drag along the ground and destroy the other rows of vegetables. I remembered what it means to be a team player, to get out of my own little world and maintain 360 degrees of awareness for what is going on all around me, knowing when to quickly move into action and lend a helping hand.
Honest communication, healthy connection, and cooperative, collaborative teamwork is needed to get the work done for the highest good of all involved. This is true in the garden, and everywhere else.
I am doing my best from my current level of understanding to live authentically with integrity, and to make amends for those times I have been selfish, or told lies of omission, or been led astray by misplaced ego and limited perspective…all of which was made plain to me by seeing the inverse at work in the garden.
I am rejuvenated in Body, renewed in Spirit, with regained focus of Mind.
My inner child has been healed. It makes her happy to get dirty in the garden while planting food that will offer health-filled sustenance to others. She knows she is loved and safe, and she is smiling with radiant unconditional love and gratitude.
And I know, like I know, like I know…my Daddy is smiling too.
Peace.
Friday December 4, 2009
I woke up before sunrise today. As I gazed out of my window into the darkness, I realized for the first time how the daily sun cycle corresponds to the ROYGBIV spectrum of rainbows and chakra energy centers. The daily sun cycle illuminates for us a way to flow through our chakras, from our crown to our root.
At 4:30am, the sky was like VIOLET velvet, deep and thick like the velvety petals of violet flowers…which reminded me of alignment and connection to the cosmos through the violet crown chakra.
As I watched, the sky transformed into rich hues of INDIGO, the color of intuition…”indigo intuition”… encouraging me to keep my 3rd eye open and to pay attention to the messages I receive.
The sun rose higher and slowly, deliberately, the familiar pale blue, sky BLUE, came into view.
Why does the sky stay this color for most of the day? Why is the sky blue?
Aside from the wavelength at which the sun’s light interacts with atmospheric conditions to create a prism effect that results in our ocular receptors “seeing” what we deem as “blue”, another answer was given to me.
Blue is the color of the throat chakra, the energy center of communication…the color of “speaking your truth”. Perhaps the sky is blue as a cosmic, celestial reminder that all day long we are meant to speak our individual truths…to communicate, to express ourselves…openly, fully, and clearly…just like the full sun in an open, clear, blue sky.
The sun’s rays fall first on the pine trees’ GREEN foliage… reminding me that on a daily basis, the first interaction light has with this 3-D plane(t) is with the color of our heart chakra, our heart center. Every day, light’s first interaction with this planet conveys love.
The sun, the light-bringer, is a massive YELLOW sphere corresponding to the yellow solar plexus chakra energy center…the core of our personal power, a reminder to let my light shine every day and stand firm in my personal power.
As the sun sets, it turns into a glowing ORANGE orb. Orange like our sacral chakra, the sexual center…orange like flames from a fire, reminding me that passion, like fire, can consume if we are not vigilant.
Finally, as the sun sinks below the horizon, the sky is emblazed with RED…reminding me to ground myself, to sink (synch) my root into the Earth, just as the sun symbolically sinks itself into the Earth at the end of each day…
…until the lavender of early twilight deepens and the cycle begins again.
In exquisite, infinite unconditional love,
Audrey
The beauty we see in ourselves is what we want to be loved for… Sometimes others love things about us that we don’t even recognize within ourselves, much less identify with…
We have the ability to “love” anyone if we can do away with judgements and can hold unconditional positive regard for another. The ability to give love as well as to receive love is crucial. How others express and give love to us may not be how we WANT to receive love. Do you possess the ability to receive love in whatever form it is given? For most of us, a 3-year-old’s work of art presented with love is joyously received with an open heart, regardless of its physical attributes. It may be lopsized, so abstract we can’t comprehend what it is…it doesn’t matter. It is perfect in our eyes because it is perceived as the best they can do, and they offered it to us with pure love. With adults we tend to up our standards. We expect more, and, possibly, we expect perfection. But who is perfect? The question really is, who is NOT perfect?
In each moment, if we subscribe to the belief that everything is exactly as it should be, then we get what is perfectly orchestrated by the Universe for us at that precise point in time. There are no mistakes…only lessons. We get what we are in resonance with. If you get something you do not want, find the lesson in that. Why is that which you do not want being offered to you? Is it because you have not gotten clear on what you DO want?
Consciously set your “preferences” in all areas of life with clarity and resolve, or you will continue to get only the “defaults”.
Know too that if someone is coming from a place that does not resonate with you as healthy, positive, or nurturing, you do not have to blindly accept or internalize their words or actions.
There is a story about the Buddha and another prince. The other prince wanted to test Buddha, to see if he could “rattle his cage”. The prince was awful, hateful, and mean to the Buddha for months and months. However, the Buddha never waivered in his compassion and peacefulness toward the prince.
Finally, the prince gave up. “Buddha,” he said, “how is it that you show only compassion for me when I have been so spiteful and rude to you?!”
The Buddha replied, “What someone attempts to present to you is only a gift if you choose to receive it. I am always focused on the present“.
The double-meaning of the word “present” is what brings the point home for me, along with the subtle reminder that we cannot control anything external to us, except our own reactions to external events. Remember that you do have a choice on how to react, always, in each and every moment…so react with LOVE !
is NONE OF MY BUSINESS!
I wish I had heard that empowering quote when I was first learning to talk.
I’d have worn it out by the age of 6…maybe sooner.
In each moment I attempt to practice non-judgment. No, really. I do. I consciously work on my ego-management so hopefully the overlap (or lack thereof) of how I choose to identify and how each individual I encounter in daily life chooses to identify facilitates (and in no way hinders) us interacting with infinite open-heartedness…however…
While I believe in giving the benefit of the doubt to strangers, and I trust that everyone is doing the best they can from their current level of awareness/consciousness…suffice it to say that I find not everyone I encounter has chosen to practice non-judgment.
I recently cut off all my hair. I love it! It’s free-ing. It’s cooler. I love how I look. There are the passive-aggressive judgment givers who say, “If you like it, that’s all that matters.” Who are they fooling? Or how about “You are so brave, I could never cut off all my hair.” Yep. I am brave. Thanks for noticing.
Then there’s the obvious, “I can’t believe you cut off all your hair! What were you thinking?! You must be crazy!”
To them I say, “thanks for the segue”.
I attended my first women’s empowerment type event over Memorial Day weekend. I was overcome with a deep sense of sisterhood and rejuvenating exhiliration. There is much to be said about creating a safe, women-only space where we can commune with Nature.
One of several highlights during my weekend occurred at a workshop when the presenter told us her definition of love. She said, “Love is the freedom to allow someone to choose who they want to be without any requirement that they satisfy any of your needs, as well as the freedom for you to be who ever you choose to be without any requirements that you satisfy another’s needs. In other words, love can be defined as *unconditional positive regard for another*.”
This blew my perspectives on love and relationships wide open. How many times have I been in relationships that I wanted to leave because the other person “didn’t make me happy”? Or, they didn’t do things the way I do them or the way I think they should be done. What dense egotism! As if my way is the only right way. As if conformity is ever desirable. I might as well clone myself and ask myself out. But then, would I really say “yes”? hmmmm……sounds like a topic for my next blog….
Alls I know is, 10 years ago if you asked me to define God, I would’ve stumbled over words and not had much productive to say. At that time my spirituality was stagnant. However, over the last few years I’ve come up with a working definition of God that works for me, and as a result my spirituality has expanded exponentially, and continues to grow each moment.
I am so grateful that I now also have a working definition of *LOVE* that works for me, and I know that my capacity to give and receive love is now growing exponentially as well.
I truly thought I had dealt with my father’s passing. It will be 9 years next June and I still remember a time when I thought I couldn’t bear living one single day without his wisdom and guidance. I was 24 when he passed and hadn’t begun to consciously walk any type of spiritual path. In fact, it was my father’s passing that pushed me to align with the divine. I figured that since Daddy is in heaven now, I better get right with Jesus if I hoped to see my beloved father in the hereafter. Hey, we all have different reasons for turning to God, right? All that matters is that I chose to start The Work.
So I embarked on my spiritual journey in June of 1999, soon after my father’s passing. The path has been an interesting one, filled with diversions, pit stops, unanticipated detours…but that’s a story for another day.
I’ve replayed the events leading to his untimely death a million times in my head. He was diagnosed with lung cancer and was told it was most likely related to Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam. He did the chemo, did the radiation, we all thought he was on a path to remission. In early June 1999 He came up to Raleigh for a work conference and it was the first time my daddy stayed with me in my own apartment. I had graduated from NC State and was now a working woman. I finally made enough money to be able to comfortably pay for both our dinners at the Steak and Ale. We were both proud. ;o)
A friend was giving me an entertainment center for my new place. We went to pick it up and Daddy helped me carry it into my apartment. Later that week, when he was back at home, he was having trouble breathing so he and Mom went to the emergency room at the base hospital. The military doctor on duty thought it was a good idea to do a stress test, and asked Daddy to get on the treadmill. A few minutes later his lung collapsed. It wasn’t until years later (after the statute of limitations on malpractice had run out) that a nurse friend informed me that a stress test can be done via injection for patients for whom treadmill testing isn’t a good idea…such as a lung cancer patient who is having trouble breathing, perhaps??
My father always told me not to stress over situations I cannot change. It took awhile for me to put that into practice in this case. What if he had overexerted himself helping me lift that entertainment center? For months I had dreams of visiting him in the hospital with the doctors saying, “We were wrong, your father is alive!” and would wake up in tears as reality hit. In reality, nothing could bring him back of course, so all I could do was figure out how to go on with out him. I realize now that the old saying “Time heals all wounds” isn’t exactly accurate. What time really does is give you a chance to adapt to the new circumstances in which you find yourself. My first step in healing was to forgive the doctor I had been holding accountable for my father’s death. My next step was to allow myself to feel gratitude that I had 24 years with a man I considered to be the perfect father. I was working through it. As I said, I thought I had finished grieving.
A few weeks ago, something triggered thoughts of my father randomly, as is usually the case. A song lyric will remind me of him, or I’ll see a movie that we watched together a zillion times whenever it came on cable, like any Indiana Jones or Star Wars flick. This time, my thoughts returned to those last hours in the ICU. My father was unconscious in a hospital bed with an iron lung doing his breathing. My mother was overcome with emotion and faced the decision of continuing my father’s life on the iron lung or turning off all life support. He had always said he didn’t want to be a burden on anyone and he didn’t want to be kept alive artificially. The iron lung was turned off. The thought occurred to me, as I sat in my living room those few weeks back, that my mother had a choice in that situation…and what if she had made the other choice? What if my father could still be here, but was house-bound? Would it be worth it?
If you haven’t experienced a similar situation you may find these thoughts to be selfish or offensive in some way. All I can say is, you don’t know what I’ve been through, you haven’t walked in my shoes. You can’t possibly imagine the thoughts that run through your mind in such a situation. I found myself questioning my mother’s decision. He could still be here. I grieved anew.
The next day, my eyes still swollen and blurry from the tears, I found myself on Google researching some new thought that had come to mind. I randomly landed on a news site that had posted an article of a woman kept alive for years on an iron lung. What a coincidence.
http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/022002/hea_0220020028.shtml
After seeing the picture of how this woman lives her life I cried again, this time tears of gratitude that my father was spared this fate. He led an active life, there was no way living on an iron lung indefinitely was a viable option for him. I am thankful for synchronicities like this that let me know I am truly always connected to the Divine Source. I truly see this as a message from the Universe letting me know that all is as it should be.
All that matters is that my Daddy is at peace, and I’ve learned how to forgive and adapt.
…is the enlightenment that you bring to the ocean. ”
I don’t remember where I read that quote, or who said it. But it seems apropos after this past weekend.
I spent the weekend at a small beach town with 12 friends. It was such delicious fun.
On Sunday afternoon I was walking along in the seafoam and noticed a brightly colored shell stuck in the sand. “Ah ha!”, I thought…”at last I’ve found the perfect shell that has been eluding me all weekend.” My hunt for seashells had been unproductive until that point. I stopped and stooped to pick my treasure from its sandy resting place.
The piece of shell that was above the sand’s surface had striations in beautiful shades of pink and orange. I anticipated nothing less than symmetry. When I lifted my find from the sand, I was instantly disappointed as my dreams of the perfectly shaped shell were shattered….literally. The section of shell that had laid hidden under the sand had cragged edges, and at least 1/3 of the shell was missing. I held the shell up in the sunlight and mourned it’s imperfection.
Suddenly, that small still voice that speaks to me said, “Everything is always exactly as it should be.”
The shell was perfect in it’s imperfection. I smiled and started to put the shell into my pocket. I intended to bring it home as a reminder that it is our unique attributes that are to be celebrated. The small voice spoke to me again.
“Let go of all attachments.”
I laughed at myself and tossed the shell into the turquoise sea. Point taken.
A Spiritual Scribe 