My Mothering

After a lifetime of wondering what others wanted from me, so that I could seek to fulfill their fantasies, I am faced with wondering what I want for myself in my life. This seems to be the plight of many women my age who were taught that our mission was to mother all on earth. We were informed that we should not make any move without checking out our actions with others, and that we should keep a constant eye on others for their approval as we progressed in any direction.

This "emotional intelligence," or empathy, was the hallmark of being a good woman. Sadly, I find this to still be the case so in many circles of females. We are still taught to honor our empathy above all our other skills. So much of our rhetoric is about mothering our earth and all on it. What about those of us who want no part in eternal dependency of our progeny and those that come after them? If our children never grow away from their need for our assistance, I believe we have failed them. Did I work so hard at impressing independence on my own children only to be a pariah among other women in my old age?

I am sick to death of the conferences of women spending all their time and energy seeking to heal their own inner children, rather than in forming game plans for healing the earth in which we all live. The soft, sweet voices that tell us all to remain calm in the face of the continued destruction of our planet and all on it seem mostly misguided to me.

Moses, MLK, Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela did not spend all their time contemplating their own navels and shopping for shoes. They made their marks on our earth by identifying their own strengths and drawing to themselves those with complementary characteristics. They planned actions and marched forward with steely determination, dressed in a manner that did not threaten their oppressors.

The women of old knew that women's sensuality was as important in winning wars as were weapons. I am excellent at feeding and creating fun for males, in order that they should relax. When they are relaxed, they will often let down their guard and listen even to women and children. When will we bring the men most threatened by our militancy to our tables and ask them to help us protect them and their progeny? Where have we lost the real glory of our own gender?

It matters not to me what makes my men most comfortable around me. I would wear a burka or chador, if it worked to make the language of my eyes more intense. In my country, we have finally found that even nudity doesn't necessarily bring men begging to be held to a woman's breasts. It is imperative that each of us, in our own arenas, use all the gifts granted to us by the universe to help sway the conversations between males and females toward action that promotes world peace.

My version of mothering is to continue to bring resources to all who will join the effort in helping others share in just success. I may not bail you out of jail, but I'll support you along your mission's trail.

All Are In the Self I See

When one lives life as a sacrament, it can become too intense for others to enjoy. Upon the death of my youngest brother, my mother curled up in my arms and wailed that the last words she had shared with Albert had been harsh. I got it in my mind that I should live every moment with every person as if it was to be my last. I wanted every encounter to end on a high note.

The more I loved a person, the more important it became to me that we would never let the sun set on our anger. Other people don't act like this; they trust that the relationship will continue no matter what words are left in conflict. I have consequently become a big burden for others to bear.

The near-deaths of several friends and family members and the losses of so many relationships during Hurricane Katrina only added to my sense that I had to end every day with peace among those with whom I usually share good will. To say that I became obsessed with peace is simply an understatement of immense magnitude.

All of this was also impacted by the whole heaven and hell system of my mother's religion. She said that she believed that only those following her faith would make it to heaven, but her child died without notice enough to "get right with God" before he passed away from us. The same scenario subsequently happened when a sister and older brother died. All of them had moved on from the faith of our father and mother.

It became totally unbearable when my daughter was diagnosed with cancer. She is a devout follower of the Christian religion in her religious, professional and personal lives. I, who follow no religion, still had enough of the fear that informed my mother's faith that I became adamant about finding a way to assure that my daughter and I would share peace in the hereafter. I could find no words to assist us in sharing our beliefs and I didn't know how I would celebrate her life with her and others if I didn't have the proper words to describe what she meant to me and those around her.

I also didn't know how to handle the fact that her religion teaches that people like me don't see our loved ones after they have passed from this earth. For years I have pondered this problem in solitude, giving up relationships rather than continue to run the daily risk of offending someone I love. And talking faith and religion is the fastest way to offend. If I don't interact with people, I certainly can't offend them.

What I came to realize is that energy shared with another lives on in each person, place, or thing that we encounter. No matter how much I may have fought with another, the good memories will always come back when I least expect them. Their energy has become a part of me that I also observe in others. Every time I cook, I feel my mothers in my kitchen with me. When I write, I feel my daddy informing how I think about things. Every beautiful day brings back my baby brother, and ironing includes the person who taught me, my older brother.

I never visit our bayou family without taking along my deceased sister who shared in their hospitality when we were sent to the country for summer vacations. My daddy, who my sister fought every minute of her life, is also laughing along with me in his sister's living room. I don't know what others may see from their places  in the hereafter, but I know that I will never stop seeing them in myself and in so many people that I know.

Watch out world, here I come again!

Sanity Is Simply Too Terrible

It seems that the only sane thing is to accept the "inevitable." Those who dare to see outside the box of recurring human errors are destined to be marked either crazy, visionaries, or miracle workers. It is amazing how many crazy people in their own time on earth are admired as saints and geniuses after they are dead.

I have long grown weary of those who look to our abusive ancestors for ways to follow their purported faiths. Isn't it time that we understand that many leaders have come for the express purpose of leading us away from our recurring human errors?

I can imagine that Moses was sent to put an end to the foolishness of offering physical goods and flesh as homage to a god outside of all earthly experience. This seems to have been the first inkling that the way to honor our origins is to take care of ourselves and others in a manner that improves responsible compassion on earth.

I am fairly certain that the reason Jesus lived and died the way he did was to carry the concept and example of responsible compassion away from the belief that it was born into people. I believe his main message to Homo sapiens is that full humanity is a choice, freely made by each individual. I believe he also meant to lay to rest the belief that there is a spiritual salvation gained by accumulating and hoarding physical things to show great virtue by offering these things as sacrifices, as we lord it over others.

When will we move past the desire to offer to gods that which is already part of the very essence of what is sacred on our earth? All we really have to offer is what we are to each experience on our earth. What we leave behind is what we have offered, both negative and positive, to all. It will all become blessed in the end; it is up to each of us to either expand the positive or to eventually completely disappear.

I accept that these thoughts must mark me as insane, but the alternative that I was taught as sanity is simply too terrible for me to bear.

Fight, Flight and Our Future

Is anger the only effective fuel against fear? Aren't humans supposed to have the capacity to cope with more reasoned means? While it is true that other animals may only have capacity to flee or fight, Homo sapiens are supposed to have the ability to back away until we put our energies together in forming productive plans to make changes that will effect the future course of our earth.

Those who believe that Homo sapiens are destined to continue committing the same sins, because of Karma or the words of our ancient ancestors, look forward to peace only after we have destroyed our earth. I refuse to subscribe to a heaven other than what we are creating in our physical universe. I don't believe that I will see those who have lived and died after I'm dead, except as my own energy contains the energy that they already shared with me.

In this life, I see and hear my sisters and brothers, fathers, mothers, and all the friends who have touched my life. In my dreams, I actually feel their touches, as I did while their bodies were still on our earth. Who is to tell me that my dreams aren't simply parts of my life here on earth? I don't enjoy interpreting them, but I do often embrace them.

I simply don't see the difference in definition between then and now, the physical manifestations and the energy existent in the universe. I do expect that those who want to be treated as humans, not simply Homo sapiens animals, prove that they have the ability to channel their energies into progressively positive endeavors, for their own generation and all that come after theirs.

It is time that we define humanity as separate from the animals called Homo sapiens.

Golden Rule Gone Awry

I submit that it is dangerous to equate the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." with what Jesus meant when he is reported to have said, "Love God with your heart soul and mind, and you neighbor as you do yourself." I have had too many friends and family live and die by this misinterpretation to stay silent on the subject.

I believe that Jesus came to earth expressly to give us a new view of "God," based not on Abraham's interpretation, but on the need to "get right with our earth" as the only way to "get right with God." Jesus's greatest ridicule, we are told, was toward those who believed otherwise. This says to me that Jesus expected humans to see The Sacred Spirit inside themselves and in others around them, like him. He also expected us to honor The Sacred in ourselves enough not to do ourselves or our children harm. He, and his earthly family and friends, exemplified how to do this.

In interpreting his great commandment as The Golden Rule, we allow ourselves to deny The Sacred Spirit alive in all who embrace it in ourselves and in others. Addicts share their substance and sex induced bliss with each other. Those who deny control over their own actions take their children, and the children of others, under their wings of lust and greed. Doing unto others as we would have them do unto us, without a higher purpose than lust fulfillment for our lives on earth, is fraught with the danger of destroying all that is sacred about our physical time on earth.

What we sow, not only do we reap, but all on earth reap what we have sown, both good and bad for many generations that follow our physical manifestations on earth. This is what we each should remember as we pretend to have the keys to heaven in hands that harm and/or hoard all that is holy right here on our shared earth. We must first acknowledge The Sacred in many manifestations on earth, then share only, and all, which is sacred with others. For this ideal many martyrs, including Jesus, have given their lives and have died. Most of us are only asked to give our lives over to the effort.

I Wish I'd Been an Oldest

I wish I had been born an oldest because I'd be certain of all that I do;
Oldest child, oldest daughter, oldest son; any would help me through.
Unfortunately, for my authority, I had an older of both sister and brother;
This secured my position of inferiority, with them and with our mother.

When siblings reached to me for guidance, food, or a loving home,
I welcomed them with open arms, no matter where I roamed.
It only caused much jealousy when my younger siblings came to me;
Their complicity in my persecution was something I couldn't see.

I'll never know how I, with no authority, have come to be blamed,
For so many of the family problems, and many yet to be named.
The oldest of our brothers is dead; our oldest sister is a living saint.
Somehow, their authority continues to, my reputation, taint.

I am not the one who tortured our siblings, at our mother's insistence.
I am not the one who brought down our father's wrath, with my resistance.
I am not the one who beat our ineffective mother in front of her children.
I am the one who offered to share all my resources, and those of my men.

Still, I am a pariah, when I share family secrets that have been told to me,
Hoping, through them, to define family values on which we all could agree.
The problem which I see is that many are convinced of absolute truth,
No matter what, in human history, has been shown to be power's abuse.

I cannot deal with those who refuse to acknowledge progress in humanity,
Believing that all who protest for human progress are victims of insanity.
I have turned myself inside out in attempting to understand their positions;
To defect from their versions of humanity has become most sane of my decisions.

Only those who walk in paths that lead to peace while still on earth
Will be, by me, seen as the messiahs for which they were given birth.
Any father, god, or prophet that hopes to control me by inflicting fear
Will never be a god or leader that I will hold, in my values or life, dear.

Goodbye my sisters and brothers who believe in parroted dogma and rules.
Goodbye to those who believe that all worth knowing is learned in schools.
Goodbye to religions that believe in anointed gurus, prophets, and priests.
I believe it's time for all hierarchical religions and caste systems to cease.

Preparing Progeny

There are people in the pool and sailors on the seas. How can the view be better than this? Watching others enjoy the blessings of their being is probably the greatest pleasure I have in my leisurely life.Can it be possible that appreciation is a vocation?If so, I have certainly found my reason to continue breathing the air gifted to me.

The boats are back for summer sailing classes, a yearly event that draws me to live on the water.
So many seasoned sailors freely donate their time to teach young people safe sailing techniques. It takes days of preparation and intermittent harbor patrols, I assume to check for sunken obstacles and placing buoys to mark what is unseen in the brackish water's depths. It is a delight watching the smooth sailing, and an equally enjoyable activity watching the young capsized sailors regain mastery of their crafts.

I have always wanted to be a teacher, but my lack of confidence in myself always leads me to over-identify with the struggles of others. This is not a good trait in a teacher, as a teacher must exude confidence and a certain detached superiority to which a student must aspire. A teacher must also have infinite ability for repetition of tasks, as the students repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

I was, unfortunately taught that all mistakes, once being told the "right way," are punishable offenses. Instead of punishing my students, I learned to punish myself for not explaining the process properly. A bit of this tendency may be compassion, but too much of it renders me helpless to keep my own boundaries intact.

Meanwhile, I love watching those who can guide and protect the progeny of others, never doubting their own abilities to give them the skills and strengths they need.