the dream life

The stream of my consciousness

My brother’s birthday was yesterday and the baby niece’s birthday is tomorrow (since she’s three, I’d hesitate to call her a baby but for the fact that this is how she refers to herself. Recently, her mom explained to her that none of the adults at the table were available to play because we were chit-chatting and she said, “I don’t like chit-chat, I’m a baby.” Fair enough.) Dinners and shindigs are in the works, but the girls may or may not have the flu and so all of this is up in the air…It’s also Boomslang weekend, and March Madness performs on Sunday, and there’s much to see and do and be a part of, but notices of illness are appearing on Facebook at an alarming rate, and I did not like the sound of that cough coming out of the person with whom I shared my office yesterday…Last night, we needed groceries, so I suggested we have dinner from the hot buffet the Co-op. “You wanna eat at the flu bar?” Tracy asked me. That gave me pause (but we went right ahead and the sweet potatoes and kale were outrageously good.)…I’m thinking vitamin C, though, and preemptive hot tea. I might put some bourbon in it…Seriously, people, I need to clean my house, but October is booked up with goodness and adventure and fall is always the time when I most want to be out in the world with my hot apple cider and my sweaters, just walking around feeling the blessed bittersweet ache of this season…We got our first real handwritten card from our eldest niece (in cursive, no less) and her pengirlship was flawless. We’re going to frame it and behind that frame will always be the mental image of a six year old girl sitting at her kitchen table, taking the time to carefully script our names and a heartfelt thank you…My Parents Were Awesome and this made me cry and Sunday is National Coming Out Day and my heart is filled with love and support and awe for everyone who plans to speak his or her truth on that day and claim his or her own life and say this is who I am, and also for everyone who is not yet ready to do so in a public way. May we make this and every day the time to passionately speak out in support of the rights of gay, lesbian and transgendered peoples everywhere. May we nurture and honor one another always. May there come a day when no one ever feels pressure to be in the closet about anything…Us and them is a big lie. It’s just us…

Spring Equinox and victory gardens and feeling alive, alive

I am inspired this spring.

Tracy has been working tirelessly on reducing our spending at the grocery (you should e-mail him if you’re interesting in learning about what he’s doing. He’s cut our food spending by over sixty percent and we’re eating well) and reorganizing our kitchen for efficiency. We’ve loaded up the car with donations for this project as a way to streamline our own lives while extending a friendly hand to others, and it looks like the sun has come back to stay for a while.

What a beautiful day to be an American

I am overcome by the historical importance of today. I don't know how to write about my emotions; I'm sure that others will write eloquently, and I will link to them in gratitude. Still, I must say something. I must mark this day in some way as I sit here, just one tiny American, one tiny citizen of the world, in awe.

Today we swear in a president who won with 53 percent of the vote, a president with a 78 percent approval rating. That's significant, but this, today, is much bigger than politics. I'm so happy to sit here today and hear both liberals and conservatives talk about their pride and excitement, listen to them wish our president well.

Inauguration day is never about idealology. Always, it is about hope of a new day. Today our country needs that hope. I heard a phrase today - "the convergence of crisis and opportunity." I believe that's exactly where we are. We can find strength today, not only in the celebration that is taking place in Washington D.C. and around the world, but in the truth that we live in a country that allows the peaceful transition of power. And the truth that history isn't something that happens to us. It's something we create.

What we do now will define us

I've been trying to figure out why, after such a monumental presidential election about which I care so deeply, I've felt as down this week as I've felt high. Yesterday, Jill sent me this. This morning, I read this. Both of these pieces of writing helped me formulate what it is that I'm feeling. Both of these writers express what I'm getting at better than I can, but I must also weigh in here. (Because that's what I do.) 

At first I thought it was because I'd taken in so much negativity. I went from being a person who rarely read the news to having three news feeds spilling into my email 24 hours a day. I read and watched and digested every piece of information I could get my hands on for months. Maybe that, I thought, had depleted my emotional energy. But I knew there was something else. While many of my close friends did vote of Obama, I have other friends and acquaintances and colleagues who did not. For the most part, we love each other. We don't have a problem, and this, of course, is normal presidential election stuff-Democrats and Republicans disagree, we get over it. 

But in many ways, this was not a normal presidential election. 

And when I read about the death threats, when I feel that energy, I am paralyzed. This election has illuminated things for me. I know things now that I didn't know before and some of these things have surprised me and some of them, I'm still grappling with. 

And then last night, I started looking through a photo pool on flickr where people had taken pictures of themselves holding messages for the president-elect. Overwhelmingly, they were loving messages of gratitude, but I began to notice that many of them said things like, "Don't let us down," and "Don't screw up," and many of the messages were desperate pleas for help. 

There are so many people expecting so many things, depending on them. 

And then I saw President and Mrs. Bush on the news last night and they were visibly emotional about the transition out of the White House, and I felt for them because even though I disagree on every level with how President Bush has conducted himself in office, and even though his actions and decisions have angered and terrified me, I know that he is a man and I know that he may have been acting in what he believed was the best interest of the country, and while I may deplore much of what he did, I don't hate him. I want to be clear that I'm not making light of things like authorizing torture. Sometimes compassion is hard, but it's what all of our great spiritual leaders have asked of us and it is what makes us fully human.

Those of us who supported Obama did so for a variety of reasons. I, for instance, really like what he has to say about healthcare, but I know other supporters who don't like that at all. No matter where we stand on policy, though, we mostly agree that what inspires and motivates us about this man is how he offers us the hope of change and how he makes us feel that we, as citizens, have power. He has offered us transparency and he has offered us compassion. As I stated previously, it was how he responded to the attacks on his character that showed me who he was and how he would lead. 

But the president isn't all-powerful. We must be careful now, I think, not to place the world on his shoulders and expect him to fix it. We must now do our part. This is change that we are making together. We can't fall into the trap of thinking that we've elected a new president so everything will be all better. 

We must be the change we want to see in the world. 

And we must be careful not lash out at one another. Because beneath anger, there is almost always fear and beneath fear, there is almost always sorrow. 

There have been nights during the Bush administration when I have lain awake all night, stopped by fear, my mind swimming with horrible worst-case scenarios, my heart breaking for the world my nieces would inherit. There have been many times during this campaign when I felt attacked and, because I am human, I have wanted to strike against those attacks, but if that is what we do now, if we take the stance that this is payback time, we haven't created change at all, as Wil Wheaton pointed out. 

It sounds lovely and inspiring to speak of this country's inhabitants as a tapestry of humanity, and we are that, but what that means is, we don't all live by the same ideology. We don't all have the same value systems or the same religions or the same list of priorities. I do believe, as I always have, that we human beings are far more alike than we are different, but when it comes to core differences in opinion and belief – I don't always know what to do. 

But I know that hostility breeds more of the same. 

On Wednesday afternoon, driving home from work, I looked over at a house that I pass by twice a day. Since the morning, a sign had been erected. I turn to it now, each time I drive by. It stretches across the front yard. It says, "History—in our lifetime." 

This, what we've done here, it's big. It may take us a while to find our footing.

*This post has sparked an interesting debate in my home as Tracy is more militant than I. I also asked him if he thought I could get security clearance to work in the White House, as I would really like to be a part of the Obama administration. He guessed his blog would be the thing that would knock me out of the running.

Oh. and please read this

This. 

Hello from here

I sat down this morning with the understanding that I couldn't carry on with dream life business as usual without first acknowledging what I was feeling and experiencing about the election. I wrote a post but I couldn't get it right. It wasn't what I really wanted to say. I kept editing and editing until finally I just deleted it.

Midway through the afternoon I felt so emotionally depleted I considered signing in here and telling you that my blogging days were through. I'm still, in fact, struggling with what it is I'm doing here and why it is I'm doing it. 

I feel much like this and also much like this but I feel many other things, too. I feel changed and also completely, utterly exhausted.

Today I've shared moments of jubilation with friends and family that I once couldn't have imagined. I've experienced and energy of love and joy and amazement so profound I can't find the words that fit it. 

I do respect you, all of you, McCain voters, Obama voters, even the undecided voter I met on election eve. We go forward now.

But first, I'm going to get really really quiet and cry myself to sleep, so proud of my country and my new president.

We voted for hope

I've voted in every election since I turned 18. Today was the first day I was ever moved to tears in a voting booth. For the opportunity I was given today, I am deeply grateful.

Why I'm voting for Barack Obama

The size of our challenges has outgrown the smallness of our politics.

                                                                                                     --Barack Obama

For weeks I have wanted to post here about why I’m supporting Barack Obama. If this is a place where I express myself and talk about what’s going on in my life, then it is necessary for me to talk about this election because I’m pretty much consumed by it, and I’m not just voting for Obama just because I’m a Democrat. One of the many things this election season has taught me is that I will never again walk into a voting booth and vote the straight Democratic ticket without first listening, reading, and analyzing what the candidates are saying, what they stand for, and who they are. I have been inspired by many people these past months and some of them unlikely--people like Colin Powell who put aside party affiliation in order to support the candidate he feels is the best for the job.

I have wanted to write this post, and you should see the draft I’ve saved in my attempts to do so, but there’s a reason I haven’t pushed the “publish” button until today. Every time I have sat down to talk about my support for Sen. Obama, I’ve gotten hooked. I’ve ended up writing about my disgust and terror at the tactics being used against him. I’ve found myself recoiling into a position of defensiveness, lashing out at the viciousness, the fear-mongering, the hate-talk, the flat out lies. As a woman and an American, I have felt battered and shocked and horrified, and when I’ve tried to write about it, I’ve only raged and ranted. And no one needs that. It doesn’t help anything. I’m not proud of the part of myself that’s so quick to react. It is counter to what this campaign is actually about. It’s one of the many things I love and respect about Barack Obama that he hasn’t run that sort of campaign. He stands calmly amid the fray, seemingly unruffled by the mean-spirited attacks on his character. Barack Obama knows who he is.

Charles meets Barack

Good words

I had to go into work tonight. I had to go hear a speaker and take some pictures at a reception. I didn't really want to go. It was Sunday night, the wind had blown like crazy all day and I had done not one thing and I really wanted to keep doing nothing.  But I had to go, so I went.

And I'm terribly glad that I did. The speaker was Dr. David Walton, who works with an organization called Partners in Health. He spoke off the cuff, from his heart, about the work that he does in Haiti, and showed slides.

There's nothing I could write here about the basic human right of healthcare, about the conditions in Haiti, or about humanitarianism, that you couldn't read in a better-written, more insightful version someplace else. If, for instance, you wanted to know more about the work of Partners in Health, you could read Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder.

Still, I feel compelled to mention David Walton because the words and images he shared tonight reminded me that we do not have to be extraordinary people to do extraordinary things. "Find what you are passionate about then figure out how to do that thing and help others," he said.

Isn't that a wonderful thing to consider? Doesn't that make you feel energized? Find what you are passionate about -- find the thing you love, find the thing that makes you excited to get out of the bed in the morning, then figure out how you can do that fantastic thing in the service of others.

Seems like a real and powerful way to heal the world, if you ask me.

My Olympics

In general, I don't like to watch sports, but I do like to watch the Olympics. My interest isn't rooted in a desire to see the U.S. win gold, necessarily. I'm not so much concerned with who "wins," I just like the human story of it all and the dramatic context. I enjoy seeing people at the top of their game, their bodies in peak condition.

Of course, my favorite part of the Olympics is when the teams march in during the opening ceremonies That part always makes me cry a little. I especially love the countries that only have a few athletes and I award extra points for outfits (costumes? uniforms?) that I like. The African countries are always my favorites in this area. (I'll spare you my reaction to the team USA outfits this year, but it wasn't good.)

Last night, we were watching swimming and the commentators kept talking and talking about how the men's 400 freestyle relay team couldn't possibly win. Impossible, impossible, impossible, they kept saying.

So, when the win happened, Tracy and I were both cheering ("Hey," he said. "You like competition a little bit." Well, that was one impressive race) because it's inspiring to watch people do impossible things. That win was just cool to see (especially since we knew the French team had been talking smack.)

We'd spent the earlier part of the evening watching women's gymnastics, which, like figure skating, is one of those things that I love to watch but know nothing about so what often seems to me to be utter perfection turns out not to be, and sometimes what seems to be a mistake isn't. It's all very mysterious and hypnotic.

I can relate to swimming because even though I sucked at it, I swam on a swim team when I was a kid. Gymnastics, on the other hand, is something I can't even fathom. I can't understand how people can get their bodies to do that stuff. It would be no more surprising to me if those little girls sprouted wings and flew up to the top of the stadium.

Many, many years ago, I was able to do something that slightly resembled a cartwheel. My goal was to turn it into a round-off but I lost interest before I succeeded. I could also push-up into a backbend, but I don't think that counts as gymnastics.

Free Burma

International Bloggers Day for Burma
Send Love.
Be Love.

The Buddha’s Last Instruction

“Make of yourself a light”
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal-a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.
An old man, he lay down
between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire-
clearly I'm not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches,
he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.
--Mary Oliver

U.N. International Day of Non-Violence

Red posted to show support for Burmese monks.

International Day of Non-Violence

Thank you, Marilyn.

Seeds of Peace

Vigil

What we can do now is send love.
We can send love and light to those who were killed yesterday and those who survived. We can read their names and acknowledge them. And we can take the more difficult path of sending love and forgiveness to the shooter too, knowing that what happened had nothing to do with good and evil, but illness and something gone horribly wrong.
We can stay true to the simple powerful act of walking fearlessly in love. It is something we can do for the Virginia Tech family and for everyone on this planet who suffered yesterday, is suffering today, will suffer tomorrow.
What we can not do is make the world perfectly “safe.” Life is, by its very nature unsafe.
We are a global culture, instantly aware of accidental death, debilitating disease, sudden and slow physical departures of our fellow humans. I think we are even more shocked by violence like that which took place yesterday because we are so aware of the natural risks posed by living itself, knowing that people died as a result of senseless violence is profoundly chilling.
I am deeply saddened for the people involved - the victims, the survivors and their families. I wonder how communities pick themselves up and go on after mass violence, but of course, they do. We go on after loss and grief and atrocity.
Anything can happen. This temporary, precious life can be over in an instant. That is why, I think, we cling to these stories. Because we are all one thing - one big human animal living this shared experience. We know how it is to be those students in German class one minute, playing dead the next, grasping for survival at the hands of violence. We know in our shared heart, even though we may not have lived it ourselves.
Tracy and I stood tonight with college students who wept and held light in the darkness.
These small things are what we can do.

Letting go of fear

We are constantly bombarded with negative thoughts and images. Through newspapers, news broadcasts on television and radio, and perpetually updated online news sources, unless we make an effort to avoid them, stories of pain, violence, loss, theft, rape, murder, war, anxiety and disease march in a steady stream through our consciousness.

I recently read a news item “by accident” that caused me to cry and hyperventilate. Reading the story damaged me in some small way, and there was really no need for it. There was no real reason that I, or anyone not immediately involved in the incident that was described, needed to know the details of what had happened. It was gratuitous and gruesomely disrespectful to the parties involved.

I'm certainly not suggesting that we shouldn't have compassion for one another. Quite the opposite. But we've become a culture that feeds on melodramatic retellings of the low-points in other people’s lives, a culture that thrives on fear. 

There is an importance in bearing witness. Suffering happens and there are stories we need to hear, stories that need to be told and not forgotten. There are people who need help and we need to know about those people.

And there are, of course, genuine risks to our well-being that deserve attention. I think we should be doing everything we can at the moment to remedy the damage we’ve done to our environment and the food chain, for example. We should absolutely be focusing energy toward Iraq and Darfur and hundreds of other situations and causes and conflicts that need to be resolved and healed.

But the healing, that’s what I’m getting after. 

If you believe, as I do, that our thoughts create reality, then what does it mean to digest a steady stream of negativity without taking action to reverse it? What is the result of holding examples of the worst life has to offer in our minds and hearts without also opening to love, forgiveness and hope?Just as I don’t believe violence can be solved through violence, the physical manifestations of fear can not be healed through fearful thought.

It has become so normal to state and hear and read negative fearful statements, that we hardly notice it anymore. Just last week, I heard a news reporter describe an incident as, “…the latest in a long-line of teachers entering into sexual relationships with their high school students.”

Including the story that broke this morning, I can think of five such stories that have made the news. I think it’s a bit irresponsible to refer to that as a “long line.”

In regards to the same topic, I read this morning, “…these teachers are feasting on our children…” Think about a statement like that. It would have us believe that our high school students are in mortal danger, that their young female teachers are chomping at the bit to get at them. In reality, do the five female teachers whose affairs with students have been publicized represent the majority? I don’t think so.

A lot of times, the fear that is pumped at us is unfounded. Sometimes, it’s just misguided. The recent e coli outbreaks, for example, have been terrifying, but somehow not taken as a warning. Instead of looking at these as examples of how our notions of farming and food production have gone awry, of how we may need to reevaluate just how it is that we’re approaching the business of food, many of the reports that I read seemed to focus simply on being afraid.

I am afraid, deeply afraid, of the meat and dairy from cloned animals that will soon be hitting the shelves, and the genetically modified seed that is right this minute blowing on to organic crops, but you have to dig to find those stories, and if you do find them, the message seems to be this is the way it is, don’t even try to reverse it.

Does seeing the world through a lens of fear actually prevent us from taking action to change the situations that we want to see changed?

Have we anesthetized ourselves with false fears so that we don’t have to deal with the real and present threats to our well-being?

Or are our thoughts themselves the biggest threat?

Sometimes, when I walk down the street, I catch myself expecting that there’s someone lurking in the shadows meaning to do me harm. Often, when a situation doesn’t go as I thought it would, when there’s a conflict or a misunderstanding or a confusion, or someone just looks at me funny, I assume the worst.
If we are always prepared for the worst, if we expect the bad to happen, eventually, we’ll make it so.

All of this long-winded ramble is actually to get to a point and the point is not my opinions on the latest news stories. It is actually about what I draw to myself and how I create my life experience. The point is about how the first thing I think when I wake up in the morning is something like, “Ugh,” and the second thing I think is how I still feel tired and the third thing I think is how I don’t want to go to work and the fourth thing I think is how I wish I wasn’t so fat and maybe, maybe the fifth thing I think is a thankful prayer and a good intention for the day.

The point is about how often I, and others in my life, start a sentence with, “You know what makes me so mad?” or “You know what I just hate?”; or how often we respond to what the world is offering with negativity, fear, sadness, remorse, guilt or suspicion; or how often we complain instead of praise; or how often we give ourselves over to anger and self-righteousness; or how often we make some snarky comment about a person on television, someone we don’t even know, a fellow human traveler; or how difficult it is to forgive.

I’m wondering how it is that my default emotional settings got set down here instead of at a higher vibration. And I’m wondering how to change that.

I’ve heard of people setting up jars in their house and fining themselves for cussing. Maybe, I’m thinking, I’ll set up a jar for negative statements. Maybe the rule will be, make a negative statement, pay the jar a dime. It’s not that I think the fine will be a deterrent, but I’m thinking that watching the dimes pour in will serve as a reminder. If we can retrain ourselves not to speak the language of the fear culture, then we can retrain our minds not to think it.

And maybe, if we’re living in the reality of knowing that we are perfect and good and healed, if we are living in a state of gratitude, expecting joy and miracles, knowing that we are powerful, that our hands are hands of light, maybe then we can do something about the ills of the world, maybe then we can truly be of service (instead of stomping around in our perpetual moan, wishing things were different, but not believing they really can be.)

Maybe when the dime jar gets filled up, I’ll donate it to a charity that I believe in. That would be the way, I think, to show the fear who’s boss.

Right after writing this post, I read this. (How’s that for kismet.) Marilyn says some things I was trying to say (but didn’t) about collective thought, and she links to some things that get at my point, I think.

It’s a skewing of the idea of manifestation or positive thought to assume that it’s only about grabbing as much money as possible for one’s self, I think, or that it’s about the failure to acknowledge the pain and suffering of others.

Positive thought is not about burying your head in the sand and refusing to accept pain. It’s about reclaiming power and shaping the world in which you live.

You know, with love.

It’s through positive thought that we will diminish pain-ours, but most importantly, others’.