Category: Gratitudes and Thank Yous

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Home Baking

On By MezzoSherriIn Gratitudes and Thank Yous, Self-Acceptance, Stuff about Stuff1 Comment

I stumbled across this post today —

[SIDEBAR] Okay, let’s be real: a friend of mine posted it on Facebook, which is just about how all the articles I write about on JALC initially come to my attention. I like to pretend I’ve minimized Mark Zuckerberg’s presence in my life, and I certainly try not to use the platform as a way to “show off” or brag on my life. Clearly, though, I spend rather a lot of time there, if the frequency of my JALC-sourcing articles posted there is any indication. In all honesty, there’s a lot of nights (tonight included), where I pop on over for the precise purpose of finding bloggerly inspiration. [/SIDEBAR]

Anyhow. So, I “stumbled across” this post today by Glennon Doyle Melton writing about her kitchen. Evidently, she’d written about her kitchen recently and then been flooded with all sorts of helpful ads and offers so she could remodel it to make if more acceptable. Melton talks about how that initial flood of pretend-helpful criticism prompted her to feel some insecurity, and even consider starting the wheels on some sort of kitchen remodel.

But as I lay down to sleep, I remembered this passage from Thoreau’s Walden: “I say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes and not a new wearer of the clothes.” Walden reminds me that when I feel lacking- I don’t need new things, I need new eyes with which to see the things I already have. So when I woke up this morning, I walked into my kitchen wearing fresh perspectacles.

Melton’s descriptions of the everyday miracles that can be seen when looking through “perspectacles”* are brilliantly on the mark. I think my favorite is the coffee maker —

I can’t even talk about this thing. Actually, let’s take a moment of reverent silence because this machine is the reason all my people are still alive. IT TURNS MAGICAL BEANS INTO A LIFE-SAVING NECTAR OF GODS. EVERY MORNING.

— but it’s ALL well worth the reading, and it reminds me of a favorite Louis CK bit:

(I don’t care if I’ve posted this here before. I may post it a million more before I’m done with JALC.)

Melton’s ultimate point is pretty well-summed-up here:

In terms of parenting, marriage, home, clothes – I will not be a slave to the Tyranny of Trend any longer. I am almost 40 years old and no catalog is the Boss of Me anymore. . . . I know how I like my house. I like it cute and cozy and a little funky and I like it to feel lived in and worn and I like the things inside of it to work.  That’s all. And for me – it’s fine that my house’s interior suggests that I might not spend every waking moment thinking about how it looks.

Sometimes it seems that our entire economy is based on distracting women from their blessings. Producers of STUFF NEED to find 10,000 ways to make women feel less than about our clothes, kitchens, selves so that we will keep buying more.

This dose of perspective is especially timely since Mr. Mezzo and I are actually preparing for a kitchen remodel. Or planning for one. Or preparing to plan for one — that’s probably the best statement of where we are in the process.

It’s not like Melton’s perspectacles are making me rethink the notion entirely. As far as I can tell, there are a few key distinctions between her situation and ours. To begin with, and most importantly: not all the things inside of it actually work the way they’re supposed to. Everything in our kitchen is original to the house’s late 1980’s construction, and the age has begun to show. The oven’s temperature control is wonky, the dishwasher racks are beginning to rust, and I’m just waiting for the day our microwave gives up the ghost. In addition, there’s a few other features — poorly designed pantry, completely unwanted trash compactor, an island that’s bigger than we want and a wasted wall that could be used for more counters and cabinets if we shrunk said island — I would enjoy changing, which is why then it makes more sense to go for the full redo rather than just replacing one or two appliances.

Also, unlike Melton’s title (“Give Me Gratitude or Give Me Debt,”) we don’t have to go into debt for this project. Our house prices was “discounted” from what you might expect this house and zip code to have been priced at — in large part because of this old, teetering-on-the-edge-of-functional kitchen. So we’ve been able to save and set aside a small nest egg that is earmarked for the kitchen remodel.

resist-peer-pressureStill, as we prepare to evaluate new designs for the kitchen, choose appliances and cabinets and counters, I know that Melton’s warning about falling victim to the “tyranny of trend” will be good ones to carry with me. ‘Cos, you know what? If it helps our project stay within budget, maybe we don’t need to get the most expensive marble countertops, or whatever the top-trend new shiny kitchen things are. A better designed space where all the things inside it work? So I can once again have the capacity to bake bread and cookies?

It’s a great way to think of the core goal.

* I am SO adding this term to my daily lexicon.

———-

Image credit:

https://www.threadless.com/product/1685/Resist_peer_pressure_All_the_cool_kids_are_doing_it

 

“Showing Up” In Virtual Space

On By MezzoSherriIn Gratitudes and Thank Yous, Meta-Blogging, Self-Acceptance, The Voices in My Head3 Comments

Okay, I’ll admit: I am not feeling flush with inspiration tonight. I’ve looked at some of the go-to feminist sources on my Facebook feed for something to pontificate about. I’ve been thinking about what’s going on in my life to see if there’s something insightful or reflective that I want to say. And I got nuthin’.

However, I’m quite aware that I skipped posting Friday and Saturday night (though I did try and compensate with a split-the-difference Saturday afternoon post), so I’d like to turn that trajectory around by getting something up.

secret-to-bestseller

Especially since I’ll be off-the-grid at the end of this coming week and through the weekend — meaning, inevitably, more silence — and it’s another crazy deadlines week starting tomorrow — which may mean yet still more silence.

So what’s a young girl middle-aged blogger to do?

———-

I’m sure we’ve all heard, at one time or another, the notion that the most important ingredient to any learning/mastery/creative process is to “just show up!”

For example, this quote from an interview with Isabel Allende:

What’s the most important thing you’ve learned about writing?

Show up. Show up in front of the computer or the typewriter. And if I show up long enough – it happens.

Or this post from a blogger who cautions against advice that makes writing seem too “difficult” — an excuse for us to continue procrastinating, he says — and who insists on the simple necessity of the “just show up” message:

I am not about to tell you that writing is easy. Writing is hard. Writers never stop fearing that what they write isn’t good enough. They can’t come up with good ideas. They come up with brilliant ideas that don’t work. They write terrible things and good things. And they try to make sure that people never see the terrible things, and that as many as possible see the good things.

No writer I know thinks writing is easy.

But no writer I know thinks writing is complicated.

If you’ve been waiting to write because you think that one day someone will give you the advice that makes writing easy, stop waiting. No one can make it easy.

All we can do is make it simple.

Show up. Write.

Or there’s any number of similar sentiments in this collection of bits of writing advice from actual real writers.*

And I get this approach. I do. I believe in this approach. Even though I eventually decided not to finish my dissertation or my Ph.D., I will tell you that my most productive months on that project were once I was able to shift from a place of full-on “frozen by depression and writer’s block” to embracing the idea of daily writing on the project. Every day, putting my inner critic into her lockbox for at least a tiny little bit and putting fresh words on the page. (I know the recommendation of a Ph.D. dropout may not mean much in this context, but this was one of my productivity bibles. I can’t speak highly enough for how it benefitted my life and my work.)

So, yes, I’m a believer in “just” showing up at the page.** It’s why I strive for a daily journal-writing practice. It’s why I am often the one at work most willing to send out that “sacrificial first draft” to get a project moving. (‘Cos this much I know for sure: if we don’t get started, we ain’t never getting to the finish line.)

Mucha-MuseIn short: I am not the kind of writer who sits waiting for my muse to waft in looking like an Alphonse Mucha engraving, with her artful Art Nouveau tresses and dresses wafting on an unseen breeze. But I’m not yet sure I’ve figured out the finer points of bringing this insight into my blogging practice.

Because everything I know about “showing up at the page” is predicated on the notion of there being a first draft — whether you call it “sacrificial” or, following Anne Lamott, “shitty” — and then an editing process by which the first draft becomes something more polished, worthy of publication. But when the draft-to-publish cycle is as truncated as it is in the blogosphere, what does it look like to have the practice of showing up at the (web)page? Does it mean publishing things that are half-formed, rougher? (In short, publishing shittier things?) Does it mean cultivating more of a practice of drafting, revising, and editing for blogposts? (Which, I’ll admit, feels a touch daunting for my life’s schedule. Maybe I should cut back on even more TV…)

I don’t have this conundrum worked out yet. But, with the willingness to navel-gaze and write about the writing process, I at least found something to reflect on that justifies a post for tonight.

I’ll take care of tomorrow’s post — if there is one — tomorrow.

* ‘Scuse the snark — the post’s title, although clear as clear could be just hit a nerve tonight. D’you think maybe we’d be expecting writing advice form fry-cooks or makeup artists?

** Had to use the scare quote, ‘cos the word “just” in “just show up” kind of cheapens how essential showing up at the page is. It obscures the raw, radical courage of showing up.

———-

Image credits:

Secret to a bestseller: http://elizparker.wordpress.com/2014/04/30/writers-show-up-by-getting-a-writing-buddy/

Mucha, “Muse”: http://www.alfonsmucha.org/Muse.html

Advertising Awareness

On By MezzoSherriIn Flagrantly Feminist, Gratitudes and Thank Yous, Pop Goes the Culture, Practicing in the Heart, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My HeadLeave a comment

Although it was all over my Facebook wall a month or so ago, I never forwarded the Always #LikeAGirl ad before today, nor did I choose to say anything on JALC about it.

My hesitation was similar* to that when Pantene urged women “Don’t let labels hold you back” several months ago, in an ad Sheryl Sandberg helped take epically viral, or when the Dove “Real Beauty Sketches” ad went epically viral some months before that:

My feelings about these female empowerment campaigns ad campaigns are always pretty similar, one to the next. Basically, I feel conflicted. On the one hand, these ads do bring up aspects of my own lived experience, whether it’s the double standards I’ve faced around being “bossy” or “bitchy,” or my habit of being hyper-self-critical, around my physical appearance and, sometimes, pretty much everything else about me.

On the other hand, it’s a little bit galling — okay, a lot galling — to have these quasi-empowering “accept yourself” messages come from companies for whom a significant percentage of the profit margin is based on the proposition that women will feel bad enough about themselves to buy your product so that we can be groomed, tweezed, moisturized or shampooed in such a way as to overcome our innate debased female-ness and become more socially acceptable.

Quite frankly, my conflicted feelings about this trend have reached a high enough level that I never even bothered to watch the Always ad above, or Pantene’s went-viral-one-month-ago “Sorry Not Sorry” ad before tonight when I was preparing this post for JALC.

So, yeah, I’ve never been in the corner of Dr. Bernice Ledbetter, who writes over on HuffPo that these ads are “truly a banner in the battleground of the feminist movement.”

I actually find that perspective quite sincerely and incredibly baffling. Do you not see how the women in the Dove ad are mostly, white, thin, not-too-old, and conventionally attractive to such a degree that the deeper message of the piece can easily function as little more than “The hearts of conventionally beautiful women can grow a little warmer today”? Can you explain to me how women getting shinier, bouncier hair is a viable solution for misogynist attitudes and prejudices against female intelligence, agency and ambition? As Emily Shire observes about the #LikeAGirl ad:

Yes, it’s far more appealing on the surface to have pads and tampons promoted as somehow part of a larger goal to change the meaning of “like a girl.” But the campaign is shamelessly emotionally exploitative. It demonstrates real problems—femaleness as a derogatory statement, decrease in self-confidence as women mature—in a beautiful and clear way, but then pretends a corporate manufacturer of panty liners meant to “help you feel fresh ever day” can solve them.

(And again, notice here how problems that are deeply-rooted and systemic, based in cultural norms, problems that are perpetuated and policed as much by external messages as by internalized ones — the very nature of what I call “the miasma of misogyny” — are presented as something to be solved by women’s policing of their femaleness and their female bodies.)

And yet, however much I’m able to see the problematics in these “short films,” their innate and even troubling limitations, I still admit I kind of like them. My affection hasn’t been strong enough for me to join in amplifying their viral distribution, or perhaps my awareness of the flaws has been too strong to allow me to join in the fun. But I don’t have it in me to work up the same kind of feminist outrage about these ads as I’ve displayed here on other occasions.

Which is why I so appreciate Natalie Baker over at Bitch Magazine for reminding me today that it’s possible to live in a yes/and rather than an either/or place.**

So here we are, once again, stuck in another good vs. not good enough debate: either these ads are radically tackling sexism through a historically appalling medium or it doesn’t matter what these ads say because corporations don’t actually care and will say anything to make a buck.

What if it’s both? That is to say, what if these companies are forwarding feminist messaging despite not actually caring about it? And what if that still helps us?

Like Jezebel said back when the Always ad was first released:

While all ad companies are bullshit liars to a point, willing to do or say whatever it takes to get your money, I would rather have empowerment cheese over shame-based guilt, which seems to be the two usual suspects in a capitalist economy.

That’s a sentiment I can get on board with, especially when I think back to Super Bowl Sunday’s usual dreck. To return to Baker:***

For those of us who surround ourselves with intersectional anti-oppressive ideology, what’s considered progress in the mainstream can feel like a joke. But that’s our piece of the jigsaw—to be progressive is by definition to be ahead of the curve. While we don’t need to be naively over-celebratory about billion-dollar conglomerates pandering to female consumers, I do get immense enjoyment from the fact that such companies are doing so, not because they want to, but because they have to. . . . I can get down with those messages, even when they’re being generated out of corporations’ self-interest.

In fact, I like that they’re doing it out of self-interest. I don’t want feminism to be charity. I want companies to consider supporting feminism to be necessary for their survival.

(Emphasis added.)

son-you-throw-like-a-girl-raised-in-a_12707Yeah, it’s all advertising, so at some core level it’s all inherently corporatized and bullshit on account of that perspective. On the other hand, if the growing prevalence of these ads indicates (and even encourages) movement towards the tipping point when the patriarchy/kyriarchy transmutes? I can get on board with that.

So, maybe less of a banner moment (sorry, Dr. Ledbetter!) and perhaps more of a weathervane. Showing the shifts in the cultural currents, a change in the wind of how people think and talk and feel.

* Okay, my hesitation was a little different because I hadn’t yet revived JALC, so I didn’t have to make the “blog or not to blog” call on it. Just the (arguably more public) “to Facebook or not to Facebook” call.

** Yes, this was posted 3 days ago, but I read it today. As such, she reminded me today. And I am grateful for that.

*** In case I haven’t said so clearly enough, please go read the entire post in its entirety. All of it.

———-

Image credit: http://www.funniestmemes.com/funniest-memes-son-you-throw-like-a-girl-raised-in-a/

A Test of Spiritual Maturity

On By MezzoSherriIn Gratitudes and Thank Yous, Practicing in the Heart, Spirituality, The Subtle Body, The Voices in My Head, Topics of StudyLeave a comment

So, my next retreat weekend is in two weeks. Yup: very close in time to my return from The Trip, so I’ll admit I’ve been wrestling a bit with the decision of whether to go or not.

On the practical side of the scale against going is the fact that I just got back from a big ol’ trip and I’m not really loving the idea of getting in another plane and missing more workdays so quickly after the big vacation. It’s also true that I’ve come back to the office in time for a couple intense projects, which makes me even more uncomfortable about skipping work. Especially since one of the projects coming to deadline during this fortnight is one that I’m particularly excited and inspired by.

On the practical side of the scale towards going is the value I hold for this work, and the ways I know to my bones that it has helped move my life and my soul’s mission forward.

So, looking rationally, there’s not a super-strong weightiness towards either choice on the should I stay or should I go? see-saw. Which at some level, isn’t surprising. My life at work and at home here in Massachusetts are sufficiently rich that I bet I could always come up with a list of reasons to blow off a particular retreat weekend.

But I don’t ever skip the weekends. Like I said last time around: the weekends are always hard work, but I have never regretted going. In fact, I have always felt the gratitude and benefits of going.

And so, a week or two before The Trip — well after my usual 5-6 weeks ahead of time discipline in buying plane tickets and making travel arrangements — the fact that I hadn’t been able to bring myself to make time off and travel arrangements had me really curious. Some part of me, some strong identity, was really not wanting to go to this particular weekend. And the resistance was stronger than anything I’ve felt before.

I mean, I’ve had times where I contemplated skipping a weekend — there was one right after we moved into the house here, and I remember taking a good long look at whether it made sense to be on a plane so soon after moving. But the temptation to skip was never this strong this far into the game, so I really began to wonder if maybe the soul-centered decisions this time around was to stay in New England after returning home from Europe.

So I was putting a lot of reflection to the question. Like, a spinning myself into a panic level of reflection. After talking to a couple friends and classmates, I realized that, being as the source of my resistance was in the energetic/instinctual/emotional realm — and quite frankly, being that the primary value I hold in the work is similarly energetic and instinctual (though probably energetic/instinctual/spiritual rather than emotional) — this was not a decision I was going to be able to think myself to. I can make all the pros and cons lists I could possibly wish, but that sort of rational tool isn’t going to help me make what is ultimately a soul-based decision.

So I let go of the question and prayed to Spirit for a sign. A nice, clear, brick to the face kind of sign.

Nothing pertinent showed up during The Trip itself. (Not too surprising: there was so much to see and learn on other fronts, what room was there in the days for a message about this particular question?) So, Friday morning, I used my normal journal-writing time to pull cards on the question.

And the cards were as clear as they could possibly be: it is in my best and highest good to go down for the retreat weekend.

spiritual-disciplinesAnd I have enough spiritual discipline and maturity to follow through when the signs are as clear as this one was. So my plane tickets are purchased, and I worked with my teachers and the Center to create a somewhat-modified schedule that will allow me to balance my responsibilities to work and then take the last flight out of Boston Thursday night.

But I’ll say this much: it’s a hell of a lot easier to follow Spirit’s guidance when the cards are telling you to do what you already want to do. In this case, when the the ego-identities and emotional body are still running strong with resistance and rebellion? It is a veritable challenge to hold centered in that.

At some core, mature soul-centered place, I know I’ve made the right choice. (The sign in the cards was that clear. Really and truly.) Now I just need to hold the ego-identitites and fear-selves with a mixture of compassion and discipline. I know you’re scared. I’ll keep comforting you, and I’ll be here the whole time. But we’re going. Together, we’re going.

———-

Image credit: http://sportsandspirituality.blogspot.com/2011/11/personal-inventory-sports-spirituality.html

J is for Jetlag

On By MezzoSherriIn Gratitudes and Thank Yous, Meta-Blogging, Self-Acceptance1 Comment

Okay, so there have been a few glitches here in JALC-land.

First off was a certain irregularity in the pace of scheduled posts. This has nothing to do with WordPress and was purely operator error: I had time before we left for the airport to tag and schedule the first 4 of the 6 posts I had “in the bank.” I chose an every-other-day pace, because I assumed it’d be easy to find little bits of time during travel and evenings to quickly tag & schedule the remaining 2 posts, and also to take my Game of Thrones idea and lay some quick text down.

Except then I got swept up in vacation mode, and the pace of travel and excursions was so intense, that the blog pretty much completely left my head until I sat down on our last at-sea day (21 July) to lay down that Game of Thrones text and realized — much to my chagrin — that nothing new had ben posted since the 16th. ‘Cos I’d never actually tagged and scheduled songs number 5 and 6, you see. Whoops.

jet-lag-is-comingSecondly, I know I’ve been a touch delayed in getting back to writing since returning home. Chalk this up, as well, to a touch of over-optimism on my part about my available time and energy. We landed early evening Wednesday, and although I was wise enough to know I wouldn’t have any writing in me that night, I did expect to be ready to type something quick come Thursday. Friday, at the latest.

Reality check. I am not as young as I used to be, and it turns out I was sufficiently tired-out and jet-lagged that I was in bed at around 8:30 both Thursday and Friday night. (Yup, partying like a rock star.) So, obviously, no blogging either of those evenings.

———-

first-world-problems-shampooNow, Im hoping that none of this is coming off as whining. Because a few missed blog posts and a little bit of jet lag are a tiny price to pay for a once-in-a-lifetime European trip.

So please understand: I am not complaining about any of this. (Were I to do so, it would really be the obnoxious epitome of first world problems. To the extreme.) I am filled with gratitude for where I have travelled, what I saw, what I was able to learn. What I am sure I will continue to learn as I reflect on these weeks, and as the unwinding of my life’s journey brings new layers of meaning and insight to these events and sights.

Instead, I’m simply reporting out on the various bits of foolishness that have led to JALC being in a bit more of a gone fishin’ mode than I’d expected or hoped might occur.

Now that I am (mostly) caught up on my rest and feeling (mostly) human again, I expect to be catching up on the news, which will likely inspire the occasional feminist screed. And yes, there will be some reflections on the trip and what I learned, and my usual hodgepodge of ongoing learning, reading and introspection.

TL;DR: I’m back at the keyboard.

It’s good to be home.

———-

Image credit:

Jet Lag: http://www.fitacrosscultures.com/jet-lag/

First world problems: http://moneyramblings.com/first-world-problems/

 

25 Songs, Day 7: Of Battles and Beautiful Banality

On By MezzoSherriIn Blogging Challenges, Gratitudes and Thank Yous, Pop Goes the Culture, Practicing in the Heart1 Comment

(Part seven of my exploration of the 25 songs in 25 slightly-more days blogging challenge — a way to bank and pre-schedule a few posts for JALC while I’m off a-travelling.)

25-songs-25-days

Day Song 7: A song that reminds you of the past summer

Since we are are still in the midst of summer 2014, I began thinking about this prompt by casting my mind back to the summer of 2013, even looking up a couple of those “songs of the summer” lists. And there were a few titles that jumped out at me. Imagine Dragon’s Radioactive playing into the closing credits for season 6 of True Blood, as a group of Hep-V vamps closed in on Merlotte’s to attack it. The mini-kerfuffle around Daft Punk backing out of their appearance on the Colbert Report, and the brilliant dance video Colbert and friends concocted in response to the “crisis”:

But when I really thought back on my summer, it became very clear to me that my song choice needed to go in a different direction:

Obviously, I’ve mentioned here and there about our move from Philly to Boston, but I don’t think I’ve talked in detail about how things unfolded. I came up first, in March, signing a short-term lease on an apartment so I could start the new job that was precipitating our whole New England adventure. Meanwhile, Mr. Mezzo stayed behind to put our house on the market and start his own job search.

And we have much to be grateful for around this, because things went about as smoothly as you could possibly hope for. The Philly house sold within a couple months, Mr. Mezzo had a job offer in the same couple weeks we were executing the house sale paperwork, and he and all our worldly goods were up in Massachusetts come late-July.

All told, we were only apart for about 4, 4-and-a-half months: a much shorter time than it could have been, and a much shorter time than we’d feared it might be.

Still. I don’t recommend it, and it was NOT fun. So we tried to be very intentional about doing things to stay connected to one another, even while living apart. And one of those things was our weekly Game of Thrones date night.

Even though most of our TV-watching is done via the commercial-forwarding magic of the DVR, we made the commitment to watch each new episode during its first telecast. (A commitment easier to keep by HBO’s lack of commercials and the knowledge that real-time viewing was going to be the only way to stay ahead of the water cooler recaps in our separate offices come Monday morning.) Then, as soon as the final credits and “exciting scenes from next week” had concluded, one of us would call the other and we’d talk and compare notes. What scenes we’d enjoyed, what we thought would happen next, what plot twists had surprised and shocked us. (I’m sure you can imagine our conversation after the Red Wedding episode…)

It was a completely everyday, frivolous, fun sort of conversation. And that’s what made it so wonderful. Amidst all the other things we were needing to talk about — contract this, inspection that, employment status here and there — having this weekly ritual helped us stay connected with the sort of everyday, seemingly-banal sort of contacts that are such an essential part of weaving the tapestry of a shared life together.

So, thank you, George R.R. Martin. You may be a murderous bastard who kills off everyone I most love in Westeros, but you gave Mr. Mezzo and me the gift of connection during a tough time. Honor and gratitude.

———-

Image credit:

25 Songs, Day 4: In Praise of the Divine

On By MezzoSherriIn Blogging Challenges, Gratitudes and Thank Yous, Pop Goes the Culture, Practicing in the Heart, SpiritualityLeave a comment

(Part four of my exploration of the 25 songs in 25 slightly-more days blogging challenge — a way to bank and pre-schedule a few posts for JALC while I’m off a-travelling.)

25-songs-25-days

Day Song 4: A song that calms you down

I am not really much of a meditator. You might think, what with all the ways I talk about my consciousness work and my striving for spiritual awakening, that I’d be exactly the kind of person who had a regular meditation/mindfulness practice — but that’s not the case.

Well, that’s partly the case. If there is a type of person to have a meditation practice, I daresay I would be that type. I understand the value of such a practice, and I sometimes give thought to the question of how best to establish a regular sitting practice. But right now, for better or for worse, my regular reflective practice is my morning journal-writing

Even though it’s not a regular practice for me right now, I have had a sitting practice for short stretches of time during the last 6 or 7 years. During those times, I was much better able to focus my attention using mantra meditation and chanting than with silent meditation. Which brings me to today’s song: the Gayatri Mantra as sung by Deva Premal.

essence_180I believe I came across Premal’s work early in my attempt to learn more about Eastern religions, about meditation and about chant. I’d started with Krishna Das and the Ravi Shankar/George Harrison collaboration Chants of India. Wonderful, uplifting, heart-centered works, all of them, but as I listened, I was aware of a deep longing to hear a female voice to model my own baby-bird chant-croakings after.

So I bought Premal’s album, The Essence. And when I put it into ye olde CD player and started the first track, her singing of the Gayatri Mantra entered my heart and soul.

Om bhur bhuvaha svaha
Tat savitur varenyam
Bhargo devasya dhimahi
Dhiyo yonah prachodayat

Praise to the source of all things.
It is due to you that we attain true happiness on the planes of earth, astral, causal.
It is due to your transcendent nature that you are worthy of being worshiped and adored.
Ignite us with your all pervading light.

I still listen to this mantra now and again. At work or at home, as a centering background in the midst of some stressful task or another. Every so often, to sing and chant along with Premal. Sometimes I listen just because it’s beautiful and I love it so.

———-

It wasn’t until I went to the CD booklet to type the lyrics and translation into this post that I was reminded that the Gayatri Mantra has a deep, personal connection for Premal as well. This page paraphrases the story told there:

My father has been on the spiritual path since the 50’s. . . . He taught himself Sanskrit and began chanting mantras. When my mother was pregnant with me, their welcome was to sing the Gayatri Mantra throughout the pregnancy. . . . As I grew up we continued to chant the Gayatri Mantra together regularly before sleep. I didn’t really know what I was singing… and why. I just did it because I was told to. It wasn’t until much later that I came to appreciate these precious times. . . .

One day I heard the Gayatri Mantra being sung by a friend in England. It was a different version to the one I had grown up with, and knowing the text so well, I was touched and excited by what I heard. I felt re-connected. This time I could feel the power of the mantra as never before, the strong effect it had on me, and the sacredness of it.

We began featuring it in our concerts. At last I had found my song! I had found something that felt like ‘mine.’ I felt at home with it, and I watched as it touched people night after night. I began searching out more mantras and before I knew it, I soon had enough for my first album! We recorded it in my mother’s flat–the same one I was born in, where the Gayatri Mantra had been sung to me all those years before.

The page ends with a shot postscript describing the death of Premal’s father in 2005:

I feel so grateful that I could be there until the moment of his death. We were singing the Gayatri Mantra to him until the end and so the circle is complete: He accompanied the beginning of my life with it and I the ending of his. I am also very touched by my family…how they were all joining Miten and I with the singing for him and how we are totally in tune with each other about how to deal with everything now…

I am deeply moved to discover the depth of authentic feeling Premal has for this mantra. I am sure that authenticity has imbued the recording, and that it is part of why this recording of the song has come to be so precious to me.

Not only does it calm my restless spirit: it opens my heart.

———-

Image credit: http://www.devapremalmiten.com/deva-premal-and-miten-information/articles/my-journey-with-the-gayatri-mantra

 

 

 

25 Songs, Day 3: In Praise of Denim

On By MezzoSherriIn Blogging Challenges, Gratitudes and Thank Yous, Pop Goes the Culture, Practicing in the Heart, Self-AcceptanceLeave a comment

(Part three of my exploration of the 25 songs in 25 slightly-more days blogging challenge — a way to bank and pre-schedule a few posts for JALC while I’m off a-travelling.)

25-songs-25-days

Day Song 3: A song that reminds you of one or both of your parents

Obviously, both of my parents were part of the story back for Song #1 when I was discussing ABBA. But let’s be real: even though ABBA was on the list of music we all could tolerate, between my two parents, my mom was much more of an ABBA fan than my dad was.

Dad was a Neil Diamond fan. And his favorite of all of Neil’s songs was Forever in Blue Jeans:

Money talks
But it don’t sing and dance
And it don’t walk
And long as I can have you
Here with me, I’d much rather be
Forever in blue jeans

Honey’s sweet
But it ain’t nothin’ next to baby’s treat
And if you pardon me
I’d like to say
We’ll do okay
Forever in blue jeans

(AZLyrics)

There’s lots of ways Dad was the example of that old Horatio Alger ideal. He grew up in a Pennsylvania steel town; both his parents died before he was out of high school, so he went into the Air Force and then used his GI Bill benefits to get the college degree that helped him start the business career that would (pretty quickly) allow Mom, my sister and me to live in the comfort and middle-class privilege that I remember from my childhood.

jeans-iconThere was one time when I was a little girl that he first shared a compliment with me — with all of us? I can’t quite recall. A co-worker or a boss had said something to him about how he “was as comfortable with a Big Mac as a filet mignon.” That praise meant a lot to Dad. I think it told him he’d managed to “better himself”* without becoming a snob.

And even though I’ve taking things in a much more intellectual and politicized direction, I wonder about the ways that my desire for social justice, and my ongoing practice in unpacking and understanding my privilege is a different flavor of that ideal. From a spiritual perspective, I wonder about the links between Dad’s (admittedly imperfect) egalitarianism and my desire to find compassion within myself  for people and my (hugely imperfect) practice towards the sort of acceptance that would allow me to open-heartedly “meet folks where they are.”

Maybe those are stretched connections. Maybe not.

What I know for sure: I still smile and think of Dad whenever I hear a Neil Diamond song.** And since this summer trip is an itinerary he wanted to bring the family on — we just didn’t have the chance to do it before he died — I might just be thinking of Dad a lot during this stretch of days.

Maybe I’ll load a Neil Diamond playlist on the iPod before I go.

* I know, I know: that’s an incredibly loaded and problematic way to put it. But I do think it kinda captured his perspective on the distinction between his childhood experiences and the middle-class life he was able to build for us.

** Except when I’m tearing up. Even five years later, grief can be a tricky tricky thing.

———-

Image credit: http://fashiontribes.typepad.com/main/2007/06/forever_in_blue.html

 

Men and Women of (Liberal!) Faith

On By MezzoSherriIn Flagrantly Feminist, Gratitudes and Thank Yous, Pop Goes the Culture, Spirituality3 Comments

I’m not sure this counts as yet another post in the whole Burwell v. Hobby Lobby series. Perhaps it’s a tangentially related work living in the same universe — think, for example, of the relationship between The Animatrix and the Wachowski’s original Matrix trilogy. Because my train of thought is prompted by a couple articles in the ongoing cultural unfolding about the SCOTUS decision, but I think I’m going somewhere a bit more generalizable.

At least, I hope I am.

The articles separately depict attempts by progressive Christian/religious groups to protest the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby decision, its messages about women’s reproductive rights, and the way it has been so quickly seized to justify anti-LGBTQ discrimination.

First, the protest against the newly-established limits on women’s reproductive freedoms:

A group of clergy handed out condoms to customers in front of an Illinois Hobby Lobby store on Wednesday, staging a creative, faith-based protest against the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to grant the craft store giant religious exemptions from the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate.

The action, which was reportedly initiated by a local United Church of Christ (UCC) minister in Aurora, Illinois, included representatives from the UCC, the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), and Planned Parenthood. . . . “I’m just hoping that (people who see the demonstration) realize that this opinion (of Hobby Lobby’s owners) is not the opinion of religious people as a broad spectrum, but that religious people have many different opinions,” Rev. Emmy Lou Belcher, a UUA minister who was at the protest, told the Daily Herald.

Religious leaders also said they hoped the move would draw attention to the danger of allowing employers to privilege their own religious beliefs over those of their employees.

“You can make the religious freedom argument, you can make the argument about contraception, but ultimately, for me, this is about power,” said Rev. Mark Winters, a UCC minister. “Jesus had a lot of issue with powerful people using power over the powerless.”

And now, an excerpt from an article detailing similar advocacy against the faith-based orbs trying to seize Burwell v. Hobby Lobby as a way to justify anti-LGBTQ prejudice:

Serene Jones, president of Union Theological Seminary in New York City, published an Op-Ed over at Time.com this afternoon saying that she was “devastated” by the letter, and argued that the proposed exemption should be left out of the executive order.

“I was saddened, I was embarrassed, I was appalled, [by the letter]” Jones wrote. “The faith that fought for justice for so many is now being used to justify injustice. The faith community that taught me to never throw stones was asking that Christians have a special permission to throw stones if they wanted. It’s simply theologically indefensible … I do not support a religious exemption that permits Christians to behave worse than their fellow citizens, and the president should not include it.”

Sources close to several progressive faith groups have also informed ThinkProgress that a coalition of denominations, faith-based advocacy organizations, and seminaries are crafting their own letter to President Obama asking him not to include the exemption. In fact, several other faith-based groups have publicly opposed the idea of a religious exemption ever since the Obama administration first announced their intention to issue the executive order a few weeks ago. As Sarah Posner points out over at Religion Dispatches, pro-LGBT faith groups such as Equally Blessed, a Catholic organization, have been vocal opponents of any stipulation that would allow for the discrimination of LGBT people, a sentiment echoed by Rev. Welton Gaddy, head of the Interfaith Alliance, who voiced his organization’s opposition to the exemption by saying, “The tenet that religion should never be legitimated as a license to discriminate remains our core belief.”

“The tenet that religion should never be legitimated as a license to discriminate remains our core belief.” I love this.

“Jesus had a lot of issue with powerful people using power over the powerless.” Preach it!

———-

jesus-facepalmThere’s lots of times where public discourse about religion and spirituality — and especially about Christianity — show a disproportionate representation of individuals using their faith as the foundation for conservative/”right-wing” values.* So, given the over-representation of conservative Christians viewpoints in the public/media landscape of American religion, it could be easy to fall into stereotypes about the negativity of organized religion in general, and perhaps about the problematics of Christianity in specific.

I’m glad that in the midst of this week’s events, where a very specific strand of Christianity has been used as the justification for a morally repugnant court decision, I have so quickly been reminded of all the ways that Hobby Lobby’s strand of Christianity is part of a much larger and more expansive tapestry.

And I even have hopes that the public discourse about being a person of faith might start shifting, bit by bit.

[A]ccording to a new survey by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) in partnership with the Brookings Institution, the religious balance of power is shifting in ways that could make the religious left the new “Moral Majority,” figuratively speaking. If current trends persist, religious progressives will soon outnumber religious conservatives, a group that is shrinking with each successive generation, the data show.

PRRI reports that 23 percent of 18- to 33-year-olds are religious progressives, 17 percent are religious conservatives, and 22 percent are nonreligious. By contrast, only 12 percent of 66- to 88-year-olds are religious progressives, while about half are religious conservatives. The survey used a religious-orientation scale that “combines theological, economic, and social outlooks.”

I know from my own personal, lived experience about the deep traditions of social activism and liberal faith the run in the United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalists. I know that similar streams of social justice and activism run in the rivers of other faith traditions — even if I am too ill-informed to be able to provide much in the way of detail.

I hope that, as the world spins forward, that every time Christian conservativism is used to justify some miscarriage of justice, as it was in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, that there will swiftly and surely be a chorus of voices rising, just like Rev. Emmy Lou Belcher, Rev. Mark Winters, Serene Jones and Rev. Welton Gaddy. Rising to proclaim: “We are men and women of faith. We are connected to God, we strive to walk a path of soul and virtue, and this (fill-in-the-blank-for-whatever-new-atrocity-has-arisen) does not represent our understanding of God’s will for humanity!” Let their words be broadcast and shared widely, let the media catch up to understanding that Christianity /= conservatism, and that many Christians believe that Jesus was a liberal.

Let the Good News be spread.

So mote it be.

* Such as the curtailing of women’s reproductive freedom, the perpetuation of marriage inequality, science denial around evolution and climate change, and just a whole bunch of different angle trying to impose a Christian theocracy instead maintaining the USA’s cultural religious pluralism and the political separation of church and state. Y’know, those kinds of things that make me feel so ranty and rave-y.

———-

Image credit: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/08/the-distinctive-characteristic-of-liberal-christians.html

Writing for my Health

On By MezzoSherriIn Blogging Challenges, Gratitudes and Thank Yous, Meta-Blogging, Practicing in the Heart, Spirituality, The Voices in My Head, Topics of Study5 Comments

More time with the Writing 101 backlog. Tonight’s entry is brought to you by the number 18 — the day whose prompt I should be responding to — and the letter “U” — for how uninspired that Day 18 prompt has me currently feeling. So let’s look at Day 14 instead:

Pick up the nearest book and flip to page 29. What’s the first word that jumps off the page? Use this word as your springboard for inspiration. If you need a boost, Google the word and see what images appear, and then go from there.

Today’s twist: write the post in the form of a letter.

———-

Journaling, the world seems to agree, is a good thing.

~ Janet Conner, Writing Down Your Soul

Dear Spirit,

It’s an interesting coincidence that the Writing 101 prompt asks me to “write in the form of a letter,” when that same approach is a key technique Conner suggests as a way to help “journal-writing” become “soul writing.”  The ritual of addressing the words externally, whether to God or Spirit or Inner Wisdom, serves as reminder that someone is there to listen to what I write and even sometimes to provide an answer. Whether you understand that “external” someone as out in the cosmos or housed in that still, small voice within, I think this reminder of writing’s capacity to be in dialogue and meditation is a potent one. And a reminder well-worth receiving.

During the last crazy stretch at work, I not only fell away from blogging publicly, I also fell away from the daily practice of writing in my pen and paper journal. And let me tell you, Spirit, man oh man, did I ever start to feel the ill effects of that choice.

journal-writingBy halfway through the 9-day break from my morning journaling, I could quite literally feel the bile and the poisons building up in my system — frustration, anxiety, negativity of all shapes and sizes — without release. Without a safety valve. Without giving myself the space to vent off the poison and, by the very nature of that process of writing and voicing and studying, to — often, if not always — create a distance between my core self and the negative ego-state I was venting off. To always be able to write myself to some space of release, and to sometimes be able to write myself to a solution, or at least to a deeper level of insight.

For all that I could see the cost I was paying by last Monday, I wasn’t quite able to manage my time adeptly enough last week to reconnect with journal-writing* during the final crazed days of proposal work.

I finally cracked back into my journal last Friday morning. And the internal space and clarity I feel now that I’ve been back to this morning practice is palpable. It’s like I can almost feel that old-fashioned pen nib drawing the poisons out of me, like it draws ink out of a bottle.

This shift, last week to this, is loud enough for me that I’m going to consider long and hard in future proposal cycles — or other busy times — whether I can really afford to take this resource away from myself.

That particular question will actually be a study to take on sooner than later. We have a big family vacation coming up in July, and my sense is that the travel and excursion schedule may be sufficiently robust that morning journal-writing could be damn hard to accomplish. But on days where the morning routine doesn’t work, could I still commit to 15 minutes’ writing meditation later in the day? Before dinner? Before bedtime?

And once I experiment with the benefit of a daily journaling practice — independent of when in the day the writing occurs — is this something I can bring back home to use during crazy work weeks?

That’s definitely my prayer for tonight.

* I am still avoiding the phrase “soul writing” — I’m only about halfway through Conner’s book, so I don’t yet feel clear on 1) what exactly distinguishes “soul writing” from other forms of journaling; 2) whether my daily writing would “make the cut” to be considered as soul writing; and 3) whether or not I even want to reach that standard. For now, I’m talking about my journaling as “journal-writing” — ‘cos I know that term fits and is something I value.

———-

Image credit: http://yogainmyschool.com/yoga-journal-writing-a-window-to-the-soul/