A Season of Surrender

Resting my body between warm sheets and cooling my brow with the breeze through the window, I sigh, feeling the ache of a weekend lived well. My belly feels soft and full, the tiny seed of a child noticeable in the center of my awareness.

In the center of my awareness always is the beginning of you. I wonder about all you will be, little one. I marvel that the seasons will pass more quickly than I can imagine until you are welcomed into the world by the blossoms of May. I cannot yet imagine the balance you will invite our family to strike, completing us by offering the fourth element: grounding Earth. To your father's Air, your mother's Fire, your brother's Water, you offer the nurturing soil for roots and stability. Even in your gestation, you are already teaching me differently from your brother.

Your brother rested his body across my lap and slipped suddenly and heavily into slumber this evening. His body curled instinctively into mine, his face lax, his sweet and sleepy breathing as soft as when he was a baby. His trusting surrender reminded me poignantly that he is still my little boy, thank goodness, no matter how tall he looks or independently he moved through the world, who sometimes wants his mama to nurse him to sleep. His hair still smelled like the golden leaves at Cherokee Park.

At Cherokee Park this afternoon, we made an adventure through fields and woods, over bridges and to creeks. Kairi and Roxas, our pit bull puppies, led the way as Oak and his parents followed close behind. Human and canine companions were thick on the path; as Robby guided the dogs and I carried Oak, we received each one as a guest and they received us. Our direction meandered and our pace was erratic...and our eyes delighted in the crispness of leaves just waiting to erupt into color, our lungs in the freshness of air that heralds a new season of surrender.

A new season of surrender is turning in my soul. At The Guest House, we held the question, 'What do I need to sacrifice? What could that new energy bring me?' I want to do everything right for my family, to fulfill my purpose, to make the good choice so as to not squander my life. My striving at times gets in the way of my hope for true freedom. I must let go of the thought that I can decipher the plan. Like the arrival of a second baby in my womb, like each phase of Oak's growth, like the surprise in finding in plain sight the love with whom I could create this beautiful family, like the questions that will remain forever unanswered in me, each gift and guest is right on time.

Right on time, the clouds began to part and the blue sky showed through as the Saturday afternoon wedding ceremony transitioned to a celebratory reception. Children ran through the grass, music wafted across the lake, roses beckoned guests to sit and laugh and delight at long tables around which food and blessing were shared. I looked into my husband's eyes as we held one another close. I thought back to nearly five years ago when we ourselves had pledged to weather all storms, to endure all seasons together. We only knew the edge of what could be our struggle and suffering. We only knew a few dimensions of our particular, ecstatic joy. We only knew a touch of the humility of turning toward each other again and again.

Again and again, in all our unknowing, we have said "Yes" with courage and conviction. A life lived well is not one that is understood but one that is kept close as something to love and tend with all one's heart. As we stood with our oldest child in our arms and our next child between us, the circle contained a small infinity. My love felt as wide as the evening sky.

The evening sky, in its ethereal brilliance, left behind the grays of noon and shone in vivid pinks and blues to remind each onlooker that, before the night guides us home, we will be greeted in mystery and majesty by the grace we have given in this short, magnificent life. The beauty will not evade us. It will flash like a sunset, then sink into eternity's memory to become the colors of a new dawn, which none of us will ever see.

No Separate Shores

The little boy, my son, on his belly and knees with his arms by his side, is gently resting his cheek on sheets, not foreign sand. His eyes are closed in slumber, not death. The sweet ebb and flow of his breathing, like the tides, is a safe, secure rhythm of survival.

I, his mother, watch him through eyes bleary with tears, not sea water. My breath is shallow not because I am fighting for my life, but because I do not have to. We will live tomorrow. We are so safe. Our comfort is decadent. My rage roils in gray waves and retreats under the white foam of despair.

The little boy, OUR son, was carried in waters too shallow to ferry the suffering of his people to the hearts of those who could have saved him. His lifeless body, delivered by the water, was a bottled message from humanity to humanity: "There are no separate shores."

The salty ocean of the world's grief can drown our apathy and wash us anew in compassion. We can respond before another person is thrown overboard without dignity. We can cradle this child in our hearts, his dead mother and brother, his bereaved father, his family left behind, his people - our family left behind, our people.

May this holding keep us from throwing our hands up. May our children, the living, breathe easier tomorrow because we have sent them a fleet of lifeboats. May our children, the dead, forgive us our evils.

The spanses of Earth's water are not walls, but channels. May we seek to traverse the distance with our hearts and walk together on new shores where children play, where they wonder what beauty their lives may hold, where they fall asleep in peace under the stars.

This I Believe - 2008 and 2015

Seven years ago, I wrote and read a "This I Believe" essay at The Rudyard Kipling. Today, I wrote one for tonight's Finding Our Voices event. What has changed in seven years? Only that I continue to know less and less. I can't wait to see what I write (i.e. learn) in another seven years.

The face of my savior is the face of a young girl I met in Haiti when I was fifteen years old. Her eyes were warm and wide-set above a shy, genuine smile, her head crowned with springy dark braids that glistened in the tropical sun. I knew her for only a few days. I cannot remember her name, but I will never forget her shining face, nor the way her voice stirred me as she whispered my name in her beautiful lilting Creole, calling me to a moment of transcendence that revealed to me the deepest truth I’ve come to understand in my short life. As we gazed into one another’s eyes, the barriers of division put in place by the world melted away: we were neither white nor black, poor nor rich, young nor old. We spoke not the same language, except that poetry that now danced between us, the wordless expression of commonality, of shared humanity, of belonging to the world and to one another. She smiled at me, and I smiled back, knowing that we both understood. In that moment, I felt that I could sense every heartbeat on the planet, every pulsation of every creature in the air and the sea, each breath of every tree, the stars swirling in the cosmos. I would feel this way almost exactly a year later as I hugged a homeless man at the St. Vincent de Paul shelter right down the street as he cried that he couldn’t express the gratitude he felt knowing that someone saw him as more than a bum, a nobody. I sensed this as I fed a paraplegic man at Active Day two summers ago and he grasped my hand, looked into my eyes and said, “You are a very beautiful girl,” and I realized he saw his own beauty reflected in our simple act of taking time to be present to one another. I am liberated in the same way as I sit quietly under a canopy of trees or dig my feet into the sand and gaze out across the ocean, recognizing that I and my sisters and brothers of every species belong to this earth, and it is all one.

This I believe: we are here for one another. Dissimilarity is an illusion. We must come to grasp our unity through short lives lived in a world into which we are seemingly born apart; it is our deepest and greatest spiritual challenge. Thomas Merton once said, “In the end, it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything.” I am ever grateful for the gift my Haiti-sister and savior gave to me: a life of ever-present redemption through relationship, a life lived in reverence of the oneness that connects us all."

- Mandy Zoeller, "This I Believe" Essay         The Rudyard Kipling, 4 June 2008

~*~

The face of my savior looks back at me with my own brown eyes and smiles with his father's chin. He came into the world because his father and I longed to be as close to one another as two humans can be. He originated in mystery; he grew in secret; all the while, I felt him as myself. By stretching the most vulnerable places in me so far I did not think I could hold together, he opened a doorway to the infinite. I did not hold together. His birth caused me to die...and be born anew.

My body and soul expand as he grows. My breasts and belly are carved by a tracery of sacrifice and surrender. My breath, my pulse, my life rhythms no longer belong to me. They never belonged to me; they were given from an ancient lineage of ancestors who hurt and bled and birthed and loved. Now, I give to him. Because I carry my son in my heart, I am reminded each moment that life comes from death comes from life. His arms around my neck, his breathing "Mama" in my ear - an inhale. His little feet carrying him away to some new adventure - an exhale. Every day is an end and a beginning in the story we write on the cosmic tablet of time.

This I believe: only our children, the Life that comes from and continues beyond us, can save us from ourselves. Each beguiled giggle, each sharp tear of knowing pain, each wonder at the complex art of the world unfolding marks a stage in his journey of becoming something I will never know. My son belongs to a world I cannot inhabit and can only cultivate in his tending. I have known no greater teacher, no more humbling master, than the little one who looks at me with my own brown eyes.

The only response to his lessons is to change my life. My being is heavier because I cradle the question: What will his world be like? How can I prepare the way for what he is meant to be? Loving him has compelled me closer to everyone. In such radical intimacy, our collective destinies come together in the simple commandment: Hold on to one another. Walk through the infinite doorway. Give up your life for love.

- Mandy Olivam, "This I Believe" Essay                    The Loft, 28 August 2015

CONNECT - Listen.

Written as a reflection on CONNECT at Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest.

"Listen."

Under the trellis, hung by a string, floated a paper with the image of an ear and this simple invitation written on its visible side. My curiosity piqued, I reached out and turned it over to read more - "What are the closest and farthest sounds you can hear?"

My body responded to the question before I could make a conscious decision to comply. The human chatter from a nearby beer tent; the rattle of insects; distant drumbeats; my little boy's delighted exclamations at the wonder of plants and people all around - these came into sharper focus as my awareness honed to my body's particular portals for Sound. I felt my oft relied-upon sense of vision muted in favor of a different vibration. I closed my eyes.

"Listen." This time, the invitation came near musicians' strong rhythms. The pulsations curved palpably through the air, turning each body and tree into a percussive instrument of attention. As I reflexively received the guidance of the beat and thoughtlessly altered my gait, I wondered what systems the pulse of my heartbeat may direct day-to-day by simply doing its work. I swayed in tune.

"Listen." On a bustling path through the woods, the word spang from the sea of leaves and people curtaining an approaching bridge. The still forest and serene lake startled me with their silence in contrast to the milling crowds. The word lingered there, insistent, drawing me into the paradox. I let go of my distraction and fell into the question. Suddenly, I felt transported into the old trunks and ancient waters, vessels for deep resonance. "It isn't just about identifying what you think you can perceive," they whispered in language beyond what my ears could hear. "Sometimes, it's a matter of noticing what you don't know you can sense."

"Listen." As the day slowly darkened, the shift happened without my help. The sunset colors gave way to the muted shades of moonlight on clouds, and my ears began to ring with insect song. My vision dimmed; with every step, the night seemed to be calling more clearly: listen, listen, listen. Soft lights flickered all around, but the blackness steadily narrowed my focus to my most immediate sphere of connection. Soon, I could not even see my child's face - I could only feel his weight in my arms and hear his sleepy breathing. His ear pressed against my cheek.

Sound transcends barriers to light by allowing communications from what we may not see. The calls of distress or delight from creatures upon which we may never lay naked eyes can become a map for kinship with more diverse Life. As I made to return to my familiar habitat for sleep, I felt that my body carried a heightened sense of all things near to me and a memory of all things far, enabled through a slower wavelength. My cells reverberated with the unique, fresh frequency of being alive and engaged.

"Listen," I heard, as I drove home in quiet.
"Listen," whispered
Woods by the road,
Trees by the highway,
Stars above the city,
River below,
Rabbit in the grass,
Moth in lamplight,
Oak tree over our house,
Boy sleeping in his bed,
Moon shining in the window,
Earth, my cradle,
my heartbeat as I closed my eyes.

Scenes of Paradox and Illumination, and What Lasts Forever

...getting stopped by a slow train at the end of a long day, feeling anxious to finally arrive home and rest...then looking up into the majesty of a black line of geese floating on ribbons of pale blue and pink clouds, which I would have missed if I had kept going.

...speeding along, driving through the internal and external traffic patterns that distract and numb me from true attention...then glancing over at just the right moment to see a lone deer nibbling grass in a quiet field behind the trees.

...noticing the slender girl just entering her womanhood curled up in the arms of a tall, thin boy at the bus stop and wondering fearfully to myself what possessive power he exerts on her...then understanding that their limbs construct a tender Pieta, that their posture is a prayerful icon, that her weariness and his protectiveness are sacred in their palpable humanity.

...seeing billows of smog trailing from the garbage truck making its early rounds, loathing its ephemeral poison and even more my own habits that keep me complicit in the planet's destruction...then marveling at the mystical beauty of the smoke's suspension in air, the refreshment of cool morning breezes, the wonder that anything exists at all.

...looking across the dinner table and realizing I will never fully know the depths of the one I made my life partner, nor will he entirely know mine...then looking into his eyes and feeling the ebb and flow of love's waters on our separate shores, remembering that the multitudes are not what we contain, but what we share - what contain us.

...watching work into which I have poured my heart and hope be put to rest or forgotten, tasting labor's bitter futility...then discovering the tools to make something new from the embers of my inspiration and seeing that it is all part of collective evolution.

...realizing that life's labyrinthine pathways lead to the same places no matter how far I think I have come, that progress is cyclical, that many have been where I am and will be where I am going...then sighing at the gift of claiming my particular part, choosing it, and trusting the Greater Work unfolding in and as All Things.

...gazing into my son's eyes and feeling the familiar terror that I will miss significant stretches of his life, that he will have such heavy burdens to bear with the other children left to heal what is harmed, that I cannot protect him from his fate...then being filled with awe by the force of his spirit, the steadiness of his destiny, his tenderness to my fear, his directive toward connection, his innate knowledge of a world I will never see.

...surrendering to today's dark sleep full of unresolved questions and incomplete offerings...then rising tomorrow as something new to begin my work again.

Flower Life

Summer, autumn, winter, spring -
season-petals, Flower Life -
destined path of every thing.

Lessons

What should have been a fun family walk to the park tonight became difficult and challenging, then full-out stressful. It happened because, first, I didn't listen to my own feelings and respond accordingly. When my sweet husband asked how long of a walk I was up for, I should have said a short one because the day had been tiring. Instead, we took the long walk. I felt too tired. I snacked on a little of Oak's orange to tide me over until we got home.

Then, I didn't listen to Robby. He knew it was too far to go to the playground at the opposite end of the park, but I was so fixated on my understanding of what our time would look like, I couldn't stay flexible and receptive enough to do the right thing. I also had no idea it was already almost Oak's bedtime. As a result, poor Oak was way overextended - he had to sit too long, we didn't have much time to play, and then it was really late when we walked home. And his mom had stress-eaten his snack-distraction. Then, he hit his head on the stroller when we went over a bump on the sidewalk. Cue meltdown.

Strained energies and sleepiness made the tearful walk home almost unbearable. When I am not in a good place, I tend to project my perceived insufficiencies in a moment as the reasons why anything that is hard or unclear in my life is hard or unclear. Pumping my sore legs and pushing with sweaty hands, I fought back my own meltdown the whole way home. It helped that my gentle husband carefully corralled the dogs and tried to be positive and patient, but I felt even worse for messing up this chance for a nice time together.

I got my act together once we were home and my boy was tended to and fast asleep. First, food to take care of the dizziness. Then laying down to rest tired body and spirit. Some tears to relieve the stress. A kiss to my hubby and gratitude. Then a pause to reflect on my lessons.

They sounded simple, even rudimentary, when I considered them: Trust yourself, Mandy. You know best what you need and want. Listen to people who know you well. Trust your intuition and understanding. When in doubt, be less ambitious and more present. Remember that everyone has times they disappoint themselves and their family. Remember that you are doing the best you can.

As I slipped into judging the reality that I am still learning these lessons, I suddenly recalled sitting in the grass at the park, hot and frustrated, wrestling Kairi and Roxas on their leashes, and huffily looking at the playground for Robby and Oak. I thought of the moment I spotted them:Robby with a big smile, holding up his arms for a push, and Oak flying with joy in a swing, rising higher and higher into the air with mounting delight. They took my breath away.

Their complete happiness readjusted my internal posture in that moment. Tears, happy tears, sprang to my eyes. Those are my precious boys, I thought, my dear, beloved boys, so fully in the *now* and captivated by the fun that they aren't worried about getting it right or wrong. And the mistake I made in pushing us there led to a moment of beauty. My puppies even enjoyed watching them play. Mercy glowed around me like the setting sun and the love of my two, wise teachers.

Thank goodness I have a lifetime to make mistakes, find the small graces in the paths they create, and walk with companions who help me to see what it's all about. What a gift, this bittersweet, long walk of a life that makes our bodies ache but leaves our hearts full. How poignant it is to struggle and enjoy, then fall into rest with the knowledge that the spectrum of experiences come part and parcel to one another, and it is good.

Sweet dreams, one and all, and mercy on you tonight.