3 immortal presents
by Sri Chinmoy

I have received three immortal presents
On life's Christmas tree:
Detachment-bud
Concern-flower
Love-fruit.

With the bud I shall begin
My self-inquiry.
With the flower I shall achieve
My self-discovery.
With the fruit I shall enjoy
My self-mastery.

by Sri Chinmoy


Because of its lack of wisdom,
A snake drinks milk
And emits poison.
Because of his vast wisdom,
A saint drinks poison
And offers milk.
This is wisdom in oneness,
Wisdom in perfection,
Wisdom in God-satisfaction.
All of us must act like a saint.


My ignorance thunders:
You are nothing, I am everything.
My knowledge declares:
You know something,
But I know much more.
My wisdom whispers:
You and I know nothing of everything
On earth,
And everything of nothing
In Heaven.

Just thinking of friends coming and going throughout my life. facebook has given me opportunities to reconnect with friends from the past, present and future........I kind of wanted to dedicate this page to some of my hopes and dreams. I want my friends and family to know that I do have hopes and dreams. with a bit of a wish for the heavenly things all tied up in there somewhere. sometimes I feel too much of what it means to hear weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth as a good part of my life is lived in a mental state much like the crazy woman in the story of Jane Eyre..... before i dwell on that too much, i want to say how nice it is to experience nature. outdoors. listening to the cheerful sounds of children making their own fun. trying to come up with the perfect approach to having important discussions with them about morals and values of respect, love and friendship. walking home from school, reading stories and bedtime, working together on chores, taking a walk outside are all great times to talk with the kids. so what about my hopes and dreams? All tied up in change. the most consistent thing about my life has been change. changing body, relationships, dwelling places, changing awareness. TBC

learning something about things in the present that trigger remembering of stressful unresolved issues of the past. tonight i was taking my turn doing kitchen duty. i had a trigger moment so i went in the other room to talk with Greg. there is always this urgency to my voice when i have these moments. as we talked and listened it came down to realizing that i was reacting to a time when i was 20 years old. married, had a child, living with parents apart from husband who lived in another state. We had made decisions not to accrue any kind of debt whatsoever, and as a result I was left to live in an abusive situation (abuse was happening to me from my father) for another 14 months. At the time I believed my husband was responsible for providing a way for me to come live with him. I did consider my father another resource and asked several times for his help only to hear him say horrible things about my husbands inability to care for me and that i would be better off staying where i was. At the time those are the only choices I believed I had. Eventually, my husband found a way to pay for me to leave, but I never resolved the emotional stress that situation caused for me.........fast forward to today. I use certain situations in my life to recreate these feelings of being held hostage against my will and outside of my ability to do anything about it. I've pretty much been doing that for all these years. Situations have changed over the years but in all of them I have found some capacity to perpetuate essentially the same story. While it is embarrassing to realize the ridiculous lengths my mind and life has gone to perpetuate the hostage story, it is also a relief to realize and say that's what's been happening. The best thing i can do about it now is to first, weep. cry. accept the insanity of the abusive situation. and then say no more fooling around with it. Breathe and love. Let the love for myself come in and let the shame and guilt disappear like uninvited guests to my lifes party. I have hurt others in certain situations where I have used others and their lives to a certain point to recreate the story, for that I am truly regretful, but I have seen those people move on, some in very happy and productive ways. It is nice to finally feel the possibilities of that for myself.

saw part of fiddler at hale center theatre. went with susan and came back at intermission. very powerful message there. about traditions. about following your heart. overcoming the social pressure to make decisions that are contrary to your hearts desire.....so, coming home from st. george. Spent the week relaxing with the younger two and taking care of Joseph. I spent some moments trying to notice the unsaid social expectations of men and womens roles. trying to notice if and when those expectations were apparent. (I am waiting for Elaine to lend me her book on sociolinguistics....the study of communications between people of different gender, age, social status, and ethnic background, etc.) i have to say that my awareness of LGBT issues has greatly expanded my ability to acknowledge the presence of a collective social conscious. that was something I rarely considered before. Now I have questions as to how and why societies decide to establish certain traditions.I also desire to understand more fully the history of social attitudes toward those things that differentiate us from eachother.

Lindsay asked me what profound lesson I learned during the week I was there. the cutest one I learned was how Joseph communicates his love and interest in the world and people around him. i loved it when was holding him and he would turn his head around and catch my eye and then look ahead again, but he kept doing it several times like he was playing peek-a-boo or something and had just the cutest little smile about it. soooo sweet. However.......by far the most profound and funniest was that I need to remember to take a hammer next time I go. The only place I could find for a private conversation with Greg was to go to Joseph's room after the kids were asleep. I totally forgot about the baby monitor. It is one of those things I will probably never forget or live down. ah well. I won't soon forget Greg's horrified scream when I told him that Lindsay just announced that the baby monitor was working a little too well! hahaha.

today was awesome to be subbing again. the kids were great! they tried really hard to do their best! It was really nice to walk home with Saydi. She usually complains on the way home, but we just talked and goofed around this time. it was fun!!