"Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother. "
- Kahlil Gibran
"A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism;
but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."
~ Francis Bacon
As quoted in "The Secret Teachings of All Ages" by Manly P. Hall
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Tolerance
“Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be,
since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.”
~ Thomas A. Kempis
“You see, when weaving a blanket,
an Indian woman leaves a flaw in the weaving of that blanket to let the soul out.”
~ Martha Graham
since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.”
~ Thomas A. Kempis
“You see, when weaving a blanket,
an Indian woman leaves a flaw in the weaving of that blanket to let the soul out.”
~ Martha Graham
Death and Letting Go
Miss Me But Let Me Go
"When I come to the end of the road
And the sun has set for me
I want no rites in a gloom-filled room.
Why cry for a soul set free?
Miss me a little--but not too long
And not with your head bowed low.
Remember the love that we once shared,
Miss me--but let me go.
For this is a journey that we all must take
And each must go alone.
It's all a part of the Master's plan,
A step on the road to home.
When you are lonely and sick of heart
Go to the friends we know
And bury your sorrows in doing good deeds.
Miss Me--But Let me Go!"
I was at a friend's house the other day, and the person was on the other side of grief from me, so I could get a good look at it. I think friends are good at showing you yourself if you care to look at it that way.
I have grief, lots of grief. I sometimes feel like I have "processed" all the grief and then more layers show up underneath the ones I cried out. But I saw a friend stuck in grief and unable to move on, and this made me think how I was appearing to others with my grief. Is it like watching a dinosaur stuck in a tar pit? Or is it like sentimentality? Or is it the summing up of a life and its affect on those around it?
I wanted to say to my friend, don't let ghosts run your life. And yet there is always this empty chair, this empty feeling in my arms, this sense of milestones lost and a presence felt that never goes away from the place my baby daughter left when she died of cancer as a toddler.
Letting go means you are free to "move on" whatever that really means. To live your life more for yourself again, than when the other person needed to be accommodated and considered and loved. But it was that very accommodation, that giving of love, that gave me so much. Taught me to be what I am, and shaped me. I don't need the training wheels of maturity anymore. The learning what it is to live as much for others as for yourself. But going with out the training wheels requires emotional balance. A centeredness, that doesn't require the compass of another's immediate needs/wants/desires to show me how to have compassion and awareness of the other sentience around me.
I am sure that's what my daughter would have wanted, and my friend's mother would want for her, if she could see past her pain. I want to walk that road for her, but it is a road to walk alone, yet we all are on it together, just at different points along it, I can see her along the path at a distance but she has to take each step herself, like I did, and still have to.
"When I come to the end of the road
And the sun has set for me
I want no rites in a gloom-filled room.
Why cry for a soul set free?
Miss me a little--but not too long
And not with your head bowed low.
Remember the love that we once shared,
Miss me--but let me go.
For this is a journey that we all must take
And each must go alone.
It's all a part of the Master's plan,
A step on the road to home.
When you are lonely and sick of heart
Go to the friends we know
And bury your sorrows in doing good deeds.
Miss Me--But Let me Go!"
I was at a friend's house the other day, and the person was on the other side of grief from me, so I could get a good look at it. I think friends are good at showing you yourself if you care to look at it that way.
I have grief, lots of grief. I sometimes feel like I have "processed" all the grief and then more layers show up underneath the ones I cried out. But I saw a friend stuck in grief and unable to move on, and this made me think how I was appearing to others with my grief. Is it like watching a dinosaur stuck in a tar pit? Or is it like sentimentality? Or is it the summing up of a life and its affect on those around it?
I wanted to say to my friend, don't let ghosts run your life. And yet there is always this empty chair, this empty feeling in my arms, this sense of milestones lost and a presence felt that never goes away from the place my baby daughter left when she died of cancer as a toddler.
Letting go means you are free to "move on" whatever that really means. To live your life more for yourself again, than when the other person needed to be accommodated and considered and loved. But it was that very accommodation, that giving of love, that gave me so much. Taught me to be what I am, and shaped me. I don't need the training wheels of maturity anymore. The learning what it is to live as much for others as for yourself. But going with out the training wheels requires emotional balance. A centeredness, that doesn't require the compass of another's immediate needs/wants/desires to show me how to have compassion and awareness of the other sentience around me.
I am sure that's what my daughter would have wanted, and my friend's mother would want for her, if she could see past her pain. I want to walk that road for her, but it is a road to walk alone, yet we all are on it together, just at different points along it, I can see her along the path at a distance but she has to take each step herself, like I did, and still have to.
Red Hat Warning
Warning
"When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple."
~ Jenny Joseph
Jenny Joseph was born in Birmingham on 7 May 1932.
An Oxford graduate (1953), she became a journalist in UK and South Africa.
Her first collection of poetry was published in 1960.
'Warning', the poem above, is her most popular work, and the inspiration for the Red Hat Society.
I want to put on a Red Hat.
I love this poem. Its about social freedom. I want to wear a red hat sometimes and be allowed to be quirky and innappropriate sometimes without being judged, blamed, shamed and shunned. I wish it were as simple as putting on a hat, or wearing an armband, or a button on your shirt, or a certain uniform.
But I guess this poem could also be considered to be about getting to the point in life where you and your behavior have become irrelevant to society, and so you can walk around the edges of it, incognito, invisible, but free.
But I also work very hard to be the kind of mother I would want for myself. (As in "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.") Which means following the current social norms as much as possible so as to not embarrass and humiliate your children...
Early on, I summed it up in my mind with one word; 'wholesome.' My pattern, my model, was the mother in the old TV show "Leave It To Beaver."
June Cleaver. She was calm, understanding, forgiving, involved, clean, organized, pretty and well dressed. She cooked and cleaned and made being a stay-at-home mother seem like a privilege in a time when most young women were thinking of it as drudgery and had dreams of doing other things. I was one of those young women once. I went to college and dreamed of being Mary Tyler Moore, a working single woman with her own life and career, who made being a woman living on your own seem not just respectful but fun and "spunky."
So as a mother, whenever I am making some tricky decision, I try to ask myself the question "What would June Cleaver do?"
The change came when the children did. My children changed my life. It was very visceral. All of a sudden, it wasn't about ME anymore. The next generation had arrived, and they were as important as mine was and is.
Someday I will wear a Red Hat. But not just yet...
I wonder, does the June Cleaver character, as a woman over 50, with her two sons grown and on their own (hopefully) wear a Red Hat sometimes now?
"When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple."
~ Jenny Joseph
Jenny Joseph was born in Birmingham on 7 May 1932.
An Oxford graduate (1953), she became a journalist in UK and South Africa.
Her first collection of poetry was published in 1960.
'Warning', the poem above, is her most popular work, and the inspiration for the Red Hat Society.
I want to put on a Red Hat.
I love this poem. Its about social freedom. I want to wear a red hat sometimes and be allowed to be quirky and innappropriate sometimes without being judged, blamed, shamed and shunned. I wish it were as simple as putting on a hat, or wearing an armband, or a button on your shirt, or a certain uniform.
But I guess this poem could also be considered to be about getting to the point in life where you and your behavior have become irrelevant to society, and so you can walk around the edges of it, incognito, invisible, but free.
But I also work very hard to be the kind of mother I would want for myself. (As in "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.") Which means following the current social norms as much as possible so as to not embarrass and humiliate your children...
Early on, I summed it up in my mind with one word; 'wholesome.' My pattern, my model, was the mother in the old TV show "Leave It To Beaver."
June Cleaver. She was calm, understanding, forgiving, involved, clean, organized, pretty and well dressed. She cooked and cleaned and made being a stay-at-home mother seem like a privilege in a time when most young women were thinking of it as drudgery and had dreams of doing other things. I was one of those young women once. I went to college and dreamed of being Mary Tyler Moore, a working single woman with her own life and career, who made being a woman living on your own seem not just respectful but fun and "spunky."
So as a mother, whenever I am making some tricky decision, I try to ask myself the question "What would June Cleaver do?"
The change came when the children did. My children changed my life. It was very visceral. All of a sudden, it wasn't about ME anymore. The next generation had arrived, and they were as important as mine was and is.
Someday I will wear a Red Hat. But not just yet...
I wonder, does the June Cleaver character, as a woman over 50, with her two sons grown and on their own (hopefully) wear a Red Hat sometimes now?
The Philosophy of Lettuce Planting
"When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce.
You look for reasons it is not doing well.
It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun.
You never blame the lettuce.
Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person.
But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce.
Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and arguments.
That is my experience.
No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding."
~ Thich Nhat Hahn
Today I discussed Asperger's Syndrome with my son's teacher. She has a new child coming into the school who thinks it is "cool" to curse a lot, and she asked me how I dealt with that issue with my son, who doesn't curse at all.
Among other things, I mentioned my philosophy of what works with raising an Autistic child. To correct him, I use what is called a "neutral no." Its a "No" or a correction delivered in a way that a computer might say it. Not personalised. No blame, no shame, no guilt. No additional emotion.
Autistics are not socially motivated. Well, they are, but it isn't in the typical way. The social indications of others, their impulses and responses often get crossed and mixed up and lost and confuse the Autistic, and so, the confused information tends to get tuned out as being like emotional "noise." Particularly since as normal people mature, the social nuances become ever more subtle and complex, and often normal people say and do the opposite of what they "really mean" using body language to reverse the words spoken (which is the essence of sarcasm.) To a normal person, this is less boring as being direct and honest, and is considered playful and interesting. To an Autistic it is puzzling and frustrating. To us they are a puzzle, yet we are just seeing what they are feeling and mirroring to us...puzzled.
The extra emotion doesn't help make the point with a person who is not socially motivated. It only tends to escalate the anxiety of the person without helping them to manage their behavior better.
The thing is, often they are already too emotional, anxious, stressed. And adding more emotion to it doesn't help if they are already out of control emotionally or at the brink of control.
Yet the feedback, the simple information, stripped of the emotion designed to influence the ego of the normal person, helps the Autistic to think more clearly about his/her behavior.
So don't blame the lettuce.
You look for reasons it is not doing well.
It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun.
You never blame the lettuce.
Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person.
But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce.
Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and arguments.
That is my experience.
No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding."
~ Thich Nhat Hahn
Today I discussed Asperger's Syndrome with my son's teacher. She has a new child coming into the school who thinks it is "cool" to curse a lot, and she asked me how I dealt with that issue with my son, who doesn't curse at all.
Among other things, I mentioned my philosophy of what works with raising an Autistic child. To correct him, I use what is called a "neutral no." Its a "No" or a correction delivered in a way that a computer might say it. Not personalised. No blame, no shame, no guilt. No additional emotion.
Autistics are not socially motivated. Well, they are, but it isn't in the typical way. The social indications of others, their impulses and responses often get crossed and mixed up and lost and confuse the Autistic, and so, the confused information tends to get tuned out as being like emotional "noise." Particularly since as normal people mature, the social nuances become ever more subtle and complex, and often normal people say and do the opposite of what they "really mean" using body language to reverse the words spoken (which is the essence of sarcasm.) To a normal person, this is less boring as being direct and honest, and is considered playful and interesting. To an Autistic it is puzzling and frustrating. To us they are a puzzle, yet we are just seeing what they are feeling and mirroring to us...puzzled.
The extra emotion doesn't help make the point with a person who is not socially motivated. It only tends to escalate the anxiety of the person without helping them to manage their behavior better.
The thing is, often they are already too emotional, anxious, stressed. And adding more emotion to it doesn't help if they are already out of control emotionally or at the brink of control.
Yet the feedback, the simple information, stripped of the emotion designed to influence the ego of the normal person, helps the Autistic to think more clearly about his/her behavior.
So don't blame the lettuce.
Postulates For The Graduates
"If"
"If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master,
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!"
~ Rudyard Kipling
"If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master,
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!"
~ Rudyard Kipling
The Twelve Teachers
“Fate gives all of us
three teachers,
three friends,
three enemies,
and three great loves in our lives.
But these twelve are always disguised
and we can never know which one is which
until we’ve loved them, left them or fought them.”
~ Gregory David Roberts, "Shantaram"
I have learned so much from my children. I expected to be their guide and teacher, and yet they have taught me more than I have taught them.
I don't have what I consider to be enemies, but those I thought were against me have ended up bringing me gifts that I could not have accepted any other way.
The best part of being over 50 is knowing how everything "turned out" and seeing how all the stories have ended...although no story truly ends, and that is another thing I have learned. We all have ripples that go out and cover the world...and intersect with other's ripples creating the holograms we share as our experience.
three teachers,
three friends,
three enemies,
and three great loves in our lives.
But these twelve are always disguised
and we can never know which one is which
until we’ve loved them, left them or fought them.”
~ Gregory David Roberts, "Shantaram"
I have learned so much from my children. I expected to be their guide and teacher, and yet they have taught me more than I have taught them.
I don't have what I consider to be enemies, but those I thought were against me have ended up bringing me gifts that I could not have accepted any other way.
The best part of being over 50 is knowing how everything "turned out" and seeing how all the stories have ended...although no story truly ends, and that is another thing I have learned. We all have ripples that go out and cover the world...and intersect with other's ripples creating the holograms we share as our experience.
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