Cultivate Harmony

In search of clarity? Me, too. Here's a Lau Tzu quote and a new meditation/poem to help us on our quest.

In Japan, 2009. photo by Emily Erwin.

Cultivate harmony within yourself, and harmony becomes real;
Cultivate harmony within your family, and harmony becomes fertile;
Cultivate harmony within your community, and harmony becomes abundant;
Cultivate harmony within your culture, and harmony becomes enduring;
Cultivate harmony within the world, and harmony becomes ubiquitous.

Live with a person to understand that person;
Live with a family to understand that family;
Live with a community to understand that community;
Live with a culture to understand that culture;
Live with the world to understand the world.

How can I live with the world?
By accepting.

-Lau Tzu, in the Tao Te Ching



In waiting for opportunity, I've denied it.
Fearing failure, I've dismissed success.
In struggling for ease, I've crafted difficulty.
Acquiescing, I've withheld my truth.
Asserting ability, I've forgone capacity.
Attempting to contain, I've lost control.

Welcoming humility, I dismiss failure.
Acknowledging fear, I banish shame.
Resisting action, I bypass reaction.
Accepting weakness, I allow release.
Declining responsibility, I dispel obligation.
Avoiding attention, I circumvent tension.

Imbalanced, I allow myself to fall.
Forgoing power, I regain self.

-a meditation on clarity, March 28, 2011
  

Trying Times (Keep on Trying)

Thank you to everyone who spoke out against the deregulation of Roundup Ready alfalfa. I appreciate your support, phone calls, and shared outrage and concern. I can't help but feel extremely disappointed by -and in- our government at this time, and the short-sightedness that led to a decision that is so obviously dangerous to our environment, food supply, economy, and the health and well-being of not only Americans, but all our relations, across the globe.

At the same time as this is happening, though, I am encouraged by people's interest and creativity regarding ways to grow, support, sustain, and "green up" their local communities.

The paradigm is shifting; I can feel it. Not everywhere, and certainly not all at once, but it is happening, and in enough different and symbiotic ways that I remain hopeful and loving despite this calamitous setback. We CAN join hands. We CAN open our hearts. We CAN reshape the patterns that no longer serve us, welcoming in a new day of service, understanding, and respect for others and ourselves.
We are not waiting for change, we are changing. We are growing. And once again, we are holding the line of Light against what seems like the darkest part of an unending night; keeping the cold at bay with nothing but the warmth of our beating hearts. Yours in faith,

Blackbird's Daughter

Backstory, Bounty, and Blessings from the Universe (sometimes painful, always good)

A great big "Thank You!" to whoever slipped fifty dollars into my coat pocket at some point between Georgia and Mississippi. Seriously? Seriously. I'm tickled and humbled and totally grateful.

Everyone keeps saying these adventures of mine will make a great book, but I'm pretty sure the above example and the following Cliff's Notes version sum it all up:

I travel. I give away herbs. I open my heart, strangers open their homes, and miracles occur. Together, we turn Enough into Plenty.

How far-out awesome is that?

................................................

Of course, that's not the full story.

A year ago I told my students I was leaving.

I didn't tell them how sick I'd gotten; how my adrenals were shot and my heart was heavy and I could barely make it to 2:15 before collapsing at my desk. I didn't tell them what I couldn't yet tell myself; that my six-year relationship was also reaching its desperate, terrifying, life-altering end, and with it, all the dreams and stability my partner and I had worked so hard to craft. I didn't tell them how hard I was trying to hold things together, or how scared I was of not knowing what would come next, or how I was so busy vacillating between euphoric and desolate, I couldn't tell if my inner self was singing, screaming, or just plain numb.

Instead, I told them how much I loved them, that I was looking forward to traveling and cooking and learning about plants, and I hoped someday they'd do the same.

I had no idea that three months later, I'd find myself on the other side of the world, prostrate and sobbing before the Goddess of Compassion. Or that three months after that, I'd move to a tiny, one-room cabin at the edge of the woods, throw myself into a new job, and leave three months after that, so I could spend the next three working my way from Pennsylvania to Mississippi, cooking breakfasts for strangers out of my car and dispensing tinctures and chocolates, bath salts and teas, from the depths of an ever-rotating reserve.

A season of death. A season of germination. A season of growth. A season of change.

Once again, we've come full circle, and I find myself marveling at the painful, wounded, necessary place I was in back then, and how little it resembles the (sometimes) painful, (mostly) healthy, and completely necessary place I've arrived at now.

Then again, a year ago, I still thought the right combination of willpower, stick-to-itivness, and emotional duct tape could keep the swiftly severing threads of my chosen life-rope from snapping apart. A year ago, I had no idea that in the end I'd find the strength to saw through them myself, choosing to lay the clean-cut ends down with love and reverence, rather than tear myself ragged in a futile tug-of-war against the inevitable.

I remember driving through the frozen streets of Burlington, singing and re-singing the same two lines of a song I've yet to complete:

I had nothing left to cling to
once my bridges were all burned
I felt ashes slip through my fingers
each a lesson that I'd learned.

................................................

Change can be a scary thing. Sometimes it manifests as a choice, and other times, it leaves us gasping and flailing, scrambling to stay upright in a newly-overturned world. Whether we're responding or reacting, anticipating or recovering, it's all part of the Journey. No one's immune. No one's exempt.

And no one's alone.

Namaste,

Blackbird's Daughter

PS- Funny how the other definition of change - the leftover bits of riches that most of us have scattered through our pockets and cars, the dull and shiny pieces we pool together when we're desperate and worried that we don't have enough - means pretty much the exact same thing.

Lazarus Rose Tonight, Right Down the Road. (or, How My Life Is Myth). Take your pick.

I interrupt this mythic retelling with a glimpse into my mythic dwelling.

I spent last night with the Haghighis, my newly adopted Iranian family (I have a godfather now! Hooray!), and was planning to leave for New Orleans tonight, but when they invited me to their bible study group ("All Iranian. Only 5 people come - you make six," said Mina), how could I refuse? So we all piled into their van, and off we went, not to the Jehovah's Witness church we'd been to last Sunday (fancifully located in a neighborhood called Sherwood Forest, which gave a whole different meaning to the concept of tithing), but to the gigantic, famous, three-giant-white-crosses-conveniently-towering-over-the-highway-next-to-Walmart Baptist church, where a small group of Spanish speaking folks met in one room, and the Farsi speaking folks met in another, and everything else was closed, and clean, and vast.

Mohammad, the leader of the group, explained to me that it's a study group for new Christians, and that they review different basic themes and pray together. He talked about the movement towards Christianity in Iran (largely underground, completely banned, heavily persecuted, and strongly funded by some US churches, the one we were in included), and what it means to be a follower of Christ, both in Iran and America. I mentioned a Pakistani woman I met after 9/11, when green cards were no longer freely reissued to folks from the Middle East.
A Christian, she'd fled her homeland under death threat, only to have her request for asylum denied by the US government. She'd hidden in her pastor's apartment for months before fleeing once again, this time to Canada, where she was guaranteed religious asylum - if she could get there.
A one-time volunteer with an organization that helps refugees resettle, I'd hosted her for the night before driving her over the border the following morning. It was an intense experience, both culturally and personally, richly resonant and harrowingly simple.
She taught me how to cook a traditional chicken and rice dish, and gifted me with some of the few things she had with her, gifts that held such obvious meaning that I couldn't refuse: A ring. A sweater. Half a bottle of perfume. And some, even more difficult to sidestep, though infinately higher in value: a good match with her pastor's son. A wedding dripping with gold and happiness and music. A chance to be like a daughter to her, forever close, for always...
I tried to calm her mounting panic, prayed with her and awkwardly hugged her, made phone calls and small talk and attempted to navigate linguistic barriers and cultural boundaries. (No, I didn't want to share a bed. No, I couldn't marry the stranger on the phone, but thank you, how kind, oh, thank you, but no...) Young and naive, I did my best, though I felt I didn't do enough.
I will always feel I didn't do enough.
Tonight, hearing again of the horrors people go through to practice their various faiths, I thought of her again; thought of how alone she must have felt, and how I still wish I'd offered to share a room with her instead of leaving her alone in the dark.
Tonight, I send her my prayers, wherever she is, and wish her well. I wish us all well.

After about fifteen of minutes of chatting, a few glasses of tea (I'm pretty sure I drink more tea than most Iranians, but Mina says "is OK", so I believe her), and a prayer in both Farsi and English, Mohammad turned on a DVD of hymns in Farsi, and the group began to sing. Behind the text, a background of beautiful scenery from the northern part of Iran scrolled by: waterfalls, flower gardens, forests, a castle, snowy hillsides, a small thatched church... and as they changed, and I listened to the few voices raised in prayer, I visualized the land that I've wanted to plant since I set foot on Dave's farm, and the herbal business I want to grow, and haven't stopped thinking about since I left Pennsylvania.

Only instead of wondering how I'll do it, or what my business plan will be, or when I'll even start, I saw it all clearly as the sanctuary that I've always wanted for myself, but expanded beyond my immediate circle (and wildest dreams) into a sanctuary for people of all faiths, from all over the planet. A small organic farm and herbal body-care business, the real magic of the place came (comes? will come?) from the fact that it's also a temporary home to those who need one, those who may have never harvested a flower or mixed a salve, but who are willing to work in exchange for a time of respite and peace, safety and food, new knowledge and the chance to worship in the way they desire, putting prayer and hope into products that bring joy and healing to the world.
I saw this, and it felt good, and tender, and possible. It felt beautiful, and important. It felt true.

The song ended, and I found myself praying, fervently, that I can take part in something that connected and useful, that I might use my life to craft a place with that much meaning. Just then, one of the women asked a question.
"Who is..how do you say..Lazari--?"
"Lazarus?" I asked, with a shocked sense of connection.
"Yes, Lazarus!" Mohammad smiled.
The song they'd been singing was about Lazarus. Mohammad translated a line for me, as I sat, reeling, suddenly close to tears.
"From the loneliness of darkness to the fullness of light."

Does anyone out there want to craft this vision with me?