InnerView

This posting is one I thought might be interesting (at least to Lauryn and me). I used to be an avid watcher of Inside the Actors Studio and always found the ending questionnaire entertaining. So I am posting my answers to the questionnaire, to be followed by Lauryn's posting of hers.
Terry asked the questions and wrote down my answers


What is your favorite word? I don't know....silence.

What is your least favorite word? Control

What turns you on creatively,spiritually or emotionally? Feeling connected with other people, (pause) community.

What turns you off ? Self-righteousness, especially my own.

What sound or noise do you love? The low sigh of relaxation.

What sound or noise do you hate? Traffic.

What is your favorite curse word? Frack...in homage to Battlestar Galactica.

What profession, other than your own, would you like to attempt? Circus performer...just kidding.(pause) I guess a healer, more energy fields or emotional healing. Not a doctor.

What profession would you not like to do? Politician or lawyer.

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say, when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? You figured it out. TA DA!

So those are my answers to the 10 questions. You are up next Lauryn!

A Mothering Rant

As the day wanes, on this Mother's Day, excuse my spur of the moment, heart driven, rant about mothering. It is at best a job filled with joy and discovery. Seeing your children grow, develop and learn new things give many moments of  satisfaction. Of late I have conversations with my grown children, hearing values and lessons they have learned by example. Oh, it is true what "they" say, actions speak louder than words. Children learn what they live. I can only hope they glean the best I had to offer and forgive the rest.

Krista and Lauryn in younger days

Baby Jacob

All three of my children are adults now and beginning separate lives with loved ones or in communities of peers. Out of the nest so to speak. I miss them and look forward to calls and visits. I do my best to keep judgement out of the mix, but it is difficult to stop the parent child dynamic and relate as friends...equals. I like to believe my life experience has some value, and in the form of guidance or counsel, it is freely given and may be accpeted or rejected without loss of love. Unconditional love. I think I experience that with my parents. Both of my parents are still living and are on their own still, but I can see a time when they will need help and I want to be able to give back that unconditional love I grew to depend on as I matured. Mothering is a delicate job, being supportive and caring while allowing room for independence.

My mother-in-love, Dorothy Menard

My mother, Evelyn, and me

I am fortunate to have had two mothers in my life. My own dear birth mother and my mother-in-love, Dorothy Menard, who was a dear friend. My mother who is always there to support me and continues to be important in my life. And Dorothy, who always made me feel as if I were her own daughter, not simply her daughter-in-law. What I remember most about her is she let love lead the way in her life. It was as if the more she freely expressed who she was, she blessed others and had those blessings flow back to her. She gently mothered her brood, giving all, her unconditional love. Dorothy is lovingly remembered on this day as is my mother, Evelyn.

So what is my motherly counsel on this day?

•  Live authentically. Be happy for no reason.

• Stop finding fault, as no person or event determines the shape of your life unless you allow it. Don't give away your power by seeing yourself as a victim.

• Simplify. Clear the clutter in your life. Make room for openings and surround yourself with uplifting people.

• Be selfish. Translation; selfishness is really about being yourself so fully that you are able to share yourself fully with others.

• Integrate and heal. Let go of guilt, pain, anger or unworthiness. Know you are enough.

• Cultivate compassion. Expand your world and see the oneness of all life.

• Surrender and "hand over the keys" so to speak and allow spirit within you, the intelligent, powerful creative being you truly are guide you, knowing where ever you are in this moment is perfect. 

Allow your heart to speak. Happy Mother's Day.

It's the pits

Continuing with our current koan, I would like to discuss some struggles I've had with beauty practices currently expected of women in our society. Basically what I would like to tackle in this post is hair. Yes, we all have body hair. Some more than others but, once we hit puberty, we've all got it. And most women spend a whole hell of a lot of time getting rid of it.

Armpit hair study #1 - pop art

Personally, I have never really connected to the reasons behind shaving, waxing, plucking, etc. I know that it is considered attractive and appropriate for a woman in our society to have as little noticeable body hair as possible. I know that the same level of hair removal is not expected of men, though some level of grooming is expected.

Armpit hair study #2 - sepia

For me, removing my body hair was always something that I did to fit in. With the sole exception of occasionally shaving my legs, I never did it because it made my body feel better. Here's what I remember of my indoctrination into our culture of hair removal:

• My younger sister asking me if I had thought about shaving my legs. Before this I had been blissfully ignorant of any hair on my body beyond what was on my head. I was 13 years old.
• My mother teaching me to shave my legs with a beige, electric razor from the 70's that pulled out more hairs that it ever shaved.
• My sister ordering this green goo from Australia that was supposed to remove hair in some manner that was better and easier than shaving or waxing. I had no interest in said green goo, but was talked into being a guinea pig. Let's just say ... never again.
• Sitting on the bus, my freshman year of high school, listening to my two best friends tell me that they had talked to a guy friend of ours who said I would be really pretty if only I plucked my eyebrows. Before this I had been blissfully ignorant of any hair on my face having any impact on my respective attractiveness.
• A few weeks later in a hotel room before my grandmother's memorial service, I asked my mother to pluck my eyebrows for the first time.
• At a pool party in high school, having painful awareness of red bumps on my bikini line from where I had shaved "down there" for the first time. No sunbathing for me.

Armpit hair study #3 - colored pencil

Retrospectively, what makes me uncomfortable about the above experiences is that they reinforced for me the idea that I had to shave, pluck, etc. in order to look clean, good, right, or attractive. It's taken a long time, and being in a supportive relationship, for me to be able to start to deal with my internal conflict over my hair removal practices.

Armpit hair study #4 - thermal camera

I gave up on my bikini line years ago and buy swim wear accordingly. It's been over a year since I've plucked my eyebrows though I still have a habit of pulling them out when I'm stressed or nervous. I haven't shaved my pits since the fall and am getting used to seeing hair there when I wear tank tops. My legs are currently nice and fuzzy. I can see myself shaving them when the weather is warmer, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Graceful organic change, well maybe, okay yes!

My gardening hat



Azaleas from my yard

 Two salamanders showed up in my life this weekend. Recently Saturday mornings are about getting up early and the half hour drive to the community garden site I helped to create. I meet new people or work beside groups of people who already know one another (it's fun to eavesdrop). I am on a quest for learning about all things outdoors, after having spent a great deal of my last years working indoors. I mean I did go outdoors, but it was either very early to get to work with a very short exposure time to the actual elements, or noon to possibly eat outdoors and maybe read or meditate (but still only twenty minutes and still only maybe) or after six oclock at night for a bit of time to rest on the front porch or back deck. If you think about it, not really being outdoors at all. Since I retired from teaching, I have come to realize there are mid-morning, early afternoon, and late night outdoor explorations to consider and for much longer periods of time. Amen to the time thing. Who knew?

I think I always knew, but chose to ignore. So after working hard tilling soil for a couple of hours yesterday morning, I wandered over to another project going on at the church where a labyrinth maker (don't know what else to call him) was finishing directing a group of volunteers, who were implimenting his labyrinth design, laying the last few bricks in the pattern. He began setting up for the labyrinth blessing ritual bringing out wonderously old icons, statues, and ceremonial STUFF! My eyes just took everything in ...the serious placement of this object here and that object there. My ears listened to the buzz of comments and questions about what all this represented. Outside under clear blue sky, I felt the gentle breeze and the warmth of the sun. Finally he spoke. He spoke about energy, direction, negativity, correction, connection. He spoke about linking heaven and earth, Himalayan singing bowls, Egyptian and Native American cultural symbolism. Then he told us what he would do to activate this site and bless the labyrinth. We watched. He took his time and it was very interesting to see each phase. After he completed the ceremony, the wind picked up and completely changed direction. We were invited to walk the labyrinth and he bowled us before entering, which means he struck the Himalayan singing bowl (which is thousands of years old) in front of us and then we stepped onto the path.


My singing bowl and salamander rock I found

Now considering I did very physical labor and had a lovely time participating in a really cool labyrinth blessing ceremony, you'd think I would be done for the day. Not a chance. I drove home, ate lunch and went back outside to do more yardwork at the homestead. It was here I encountered my first salamander. There was an old,vinyl covered, pressed wood tabletop decaying under our deck. As I am sprucing up the yard for a public labyrinth blessing party for my own newly constructed stone labyrinth in the backyard, the rotten tabletop had to go. After I took off the metal strips and had decaying pressed wood pieces laying around me in various size chunks, I picked one up and thought I saw an earthworm, not an uncommon occurance. It was a salamander. So after I showed my unusual find to Terry, I found another lovely moist spot and let him go. And I continued to spend time clearing and cleaning.


Standing in my completed 7 coil classic labyrinth



Today we had the official ribbon cutting ceremony for the new organic garden at my church that I and many other dedicated individuals have been working on for the past six weeks. It was pretty much your usual cheesy, let's take pictures to remember this occasion ceremony with a prayer or two. Nice. The real fun happened after for me. We put red wigglers in all the raised garden beds and when I put a bunch in one of the beds I spied an "earthworm" again or so I thought. It was a salamander. So I'm thinking maybe it's worth checking on salamander animal symbolism just to ponder. I can't wait to get home and check it out. I stay to water all the raised beds. 





First salamander I found or did it find me?

 Two salamanders in two consecutive days. Interesting to note...in Greek and Roman mythology salamanders live in the very heart of a fire. They are considered to be a very powerful alchemical symbol. Salamanders are associated with purity, faith, heraldry and the fire of pasion ignited in the heart of the courageous. Their symbolism speaks to igniting a creative spark. They are a solar power animal, yet are mostly active nocturnally. This duality speaks to creating balance in life. Using the best of both the day and night times or wisely balancing opportunities are ways to create it. Renewal and development. Okay, I figured it out; I am resisting change. I know I want something to happen, but it to engineer that change seems scary to me. I need it to be organic. To flow. Can I really embrace change? I want to. I believe salamander is asking me to evolve in my own life. Physically active, outdoor activity is calling to me. I choose to move in that direction. I will embrace change.

No one said it would be easy

Highly edited photo of a sticker at the bottom of a street lamp near our apartment in SF.

Around the age of 13 or 14, even though my strongest subjects in school had always been math and science, I latched on to the idea that I wanted to be a novelist. A writer. I loved imagining that someday the dog-eared book on someone's nightstand would have my name on the cover.

Now even though I wanted to be a writer, I didn't really spend a lot of time writing. I wasn't bad at writing, but I didn't do it unless there was a reason - an assignment, report, paper, etc. On the other hand, I loved to read. Summers were spent waking up to pull the novel from my bedside and reading it until I could barely walk downstairs because I was fainting with hunger. Libraries weren't safe from my methodical hand (still aren't) as I would check out as many books as they would allow at a time.

Still, the idea of writing books was so strong in my imagination that I purposefully went to a university with a Creative Writing program. Ever the over-achiever, once I was at college, I found myself adding a second major - Music - and soon falling in love with Dance, which would become my minor on top of my two majors.  As a side note, they don't let students at my university have two majors and a minor any more and I totally understand why. Yet somehow, amidst all of the rehearsals, classes, performances, my campus job, studying abroad, etc, I managed to get myself in the position of writing a thesis for my Creative Writing major during my senior year.

Now a thesis for a Creative Writing major sounds great, right? No research. No documenting sources. No experiments or data. Just doing what I had dreamed about doing - writing. My thesis was to be a novela that told the story of young girl from an Arthurian story I had read in one of my literature courses. She was a minor character in the story who did an amazing thing that was glossed over to get to the more important parts about, you know, the men. So, I was going to give her a voice and story. Sadly, she ended up stealing mine.

Early on in the process, I started to panic a little bit.  Over three years, I had never created a habit of writing so actually making the time to do it was very difficult. And when I did make the time, I couldn't think of anything to write. After a few months of struggling, I had pretty much psyched myself out. My story revolved around my character doing nothing over and over again. I couldn't articulate my problems to my advisor, so I just kept trudging along, alone and afraid of when everyone would find out that my work wasn't really going anywhere.

Needless to say about three weeks before my thesis was due, the lack of anything substantial in my writing came to light. And the stress and negative feedback from my advisor over the following weeks was enough to make it completely impossible for me to write for the next two years. Slowly over time and with help of amazing mentors in the dance community, I was able to begin writing again. It's been seven years this May since I graduated from college and I still struggle with writing today.

But each little step - carrying a notebook around to jot ideas in, writing a grant for the organization I worked for, starting a blog with my mom - is helping me get over the trauma of that experience and to continue struggling towards my dream of my own dog-eared book.

Telling Our Stories

Butterfy tagged and ready to be released at Tremont in the Smoky Mts.

This venture into writing is intimidating to me. My story is my story and comes from my unique perspective. Or does it? I begin reflecting on my own privilege and good fortune as compared to the statistics and the numbers are staggering. The fact that I am well fed, can read, write, use a computer and live in safety puts me in a category of small numbers compared to the world at large. I am grateful for the goodness in my life. If I have gained any wisdom over the years, it is to count my blessings. So I have incorporated being thankful as a daily practice. I can only imagine what true struggle for survival must be like. I am indeed fortunate and though I tend to take my life for granted on a day to day basis,  I like to think I am aware of the bigger picture. For me it comes down to the question, "What kind of difference does one individual make? There are many examples of individuals I can think of that have made a difference in my life and the lives of others through their impact on society. Here are just a few.

• Maya Angelou
• Martin Luther King Jr.
• Thomas Jefferson
• the Dali Lama
• Maria Montessori
• Dorothy Menard
• Eric Butterworth
• Willard and Evelyn Jones 

But for most of my life I have felt that I did not make a difference in any area of my life. The choices I have made and the people I have encountered have influenced me, but I have always had a hard time believing I impacted others in any meaningful way.

I have come to understand part of this tendency is because of my personality type. Intellectually, my understanding is, that the impact is there because I believe everyone is interconnected. We are born needing connection. In my many interactions with others they have expressed both positive and negative feelings about what I have said or done. As a teacher, I impacted the lives of my students and as a mother, well, I hope I have had a positive impact overall, but there have been times in my parenting (and teaching) I have been ashamed of my actions or words (or both)and forgiveness is a blessing. I've been reading Brene Brown's book I Thought it was Just Me, and in her introduction she writes about the basis for her research and studies about shame.

We are wired for connection. It's in our biology. As infants, our need for connection is about survival. As we grow older, connection means thriving-emotionally, physically, spiritually and intellectually. Connection is critical because we all have the basic need to believe that we belong and we are valued for who we are. Shame unravels our connection to others. In fact, I often refer to shame as the fear of disconnection- the fear of being perceived as flawed and unworthy of acceptance or belonging. Shame keeps us from telling our stories and prevents us from listening to others tell their stories.

Here is a link to Brene's blog Ordinary Courage. Near the end of her entry she talks about the value of struggle and how important it is to give our children the gift of seeing us struggle. She says, " Watching us struggle gives them permission to struggle. Talking openly about the difficulty of forgiveness is an invitation to them to talk openly to us." So I guess my story isn't just my story after all. To live authentically and with wholeness is to value the connections in our lives. Our stories have meaning and so I am a little less intimidated in sharing my stories, given that I belong to a family, a community, a country and a world where my showing up each day matters.

A privileged life she leads

Mosaic/mural in the Mission/Castro district of SF

Struggle is not a word that I would use to describe my life. That's not to say that it has always been easy. I have experienced challenges, grief, fears, disappointments and regrets.  I have felt overwhelmed, depressed, scared and out of control. I have struggled with emotions, relationships, experiences and beliefs, but I don't feel like life has been a struggle. Which has made it difficult for me to tackle this new koan. In many ways, it has brought up for me, again, awareness that, in this world of 6.5 billion people, I am an extremely privileged individual.

Consider these things:

• I cannot remember going hungry a single day of my life
• I was assured a K-12 education and due to my grades & support from my family was able to go to a private, high ranking university for my Bachelors degree
• I have never been physically or sexually assaulted by anyone
• I grew up in a family and community that allowed my to explore my own ideas and beliefs and that did not force me to take on theirs

I'm not sure how many 28 year-old women on this planet can say the same.

I mention my age because I know that I say all of this from the relative perspective of youth. I have a lot of living to do and I expect there will be challenges and experiences that I struggle with in the future. As terrifying as it is, there is one bullet point above that I can never be sure will remain true. And as one gets older and more entrenched in this world, the opportunities for grief and injury grow more real.

I am also aware that I began looking at this koan from perhaps the opposite perspective that my mother did. While she thought of the struggle of the individual experience through the story of the moth, I thought of the massive struggle of human and women's rights. So, having stood upon my soapbox and reminded us all of what we may often forget, I have decided to look at this koan from a more personal lens in my next few posts and really explore struggle within my life experience.