Sometimes
When I feel like I’m going to fall apart
I hold my ribs, all the
way around.
Both sides.
My ribs hold me together.
Like glue.
They keep my breath close to my
Heartbeat.
They keep my soul from escaping in
The hollow where my ribs meet.
I hold them there in the memories
Of slow, sorrowful music and
Porch steps.
I hold my ribs, until I feel solid.
Until my legs are tree trunks and
My fingers are fruit.

~ Ember Ward – written when she was 17 in
Paint Me Like I Am: Teen Poems from Writers Corps
(Harper/Tempest, 2003)

I have mourned lost days
When I accomplished nothing of importance.
But not lately.
Lately under the lunar tide
Of a woman’s ocean, I work
My own sea-change:
Turning grains of sand to human eyes.
I daydream after breakfast
While the spirit of egg and toast
Knits together a length of bone
As fine as a wheatstalk.
Later, as I postpone weeding the garden
I will make two hands
That may tend a hundred gardens.

I need ten full moons exactly
For keeping the animal promise.
I offer myself up: unsaintly, but
Transmuted anyway
By the most ordinary miracle.
I am nothing in this world beyond the things one woman does.
But here are eyes that once were pearls.
And here is a second chance where there was none.

~ Barbara Kingsolver

This week’s WORRY: How can I lessen the morning chaos?

You’re trying to have everything set for the day before your partner leaves you and your new baby for the day, or maybe you are struggling to get your four year old to eat breakfast…. Perhaps you feel so rushed its hard to breathe, or maybe you are just grappling with a general sense of disorder in the morning…. Whatever your particular situation, you sure would love to have more peace in your morning routine.

There you are sleeping….

… laying still, silent and immersed in a deeply inward state of consciousness. As dawn approaches, you slowly, cell by cell, return to the lightening world and open you eyes…. It is a gradual and imperceptible shift….. and yet, we think we should hop out of bed and jump into light-filled action…. just like that.

Its kinda like when you take a cold pot of leftovers out of the fridge and put it on the stove. The food is cold. The pot the food is in is cold. Its just a big ball of cold cold cold-ness…. You turn the burner on and nothing happens for quite awhile. You get frustrated and turn it up to high….. and likely burn the bottom of the food and get frustrated…. kinda like morning times.

Ok, so here’s the thing:

Transitions take energy…..

When we are in the zone of an experience we flow in the stream of momentum. It is effortless and we feel a sense of ease, maybe even joy, or simplicity….. It is easy to forget the energy it took to get into that flow, especially when sometimes we are flowing between similar things… and then we hit up on these times of flow-less-ness and we wonder what’s wrong with us, or what the heck happened….. Why is it that only some transitions are hard? Well, there are lot’s of really personal reasons, but there are some universals too:

Bigger Transitions take more energy than small ones…..

…. and take extra time and care to traverse. I mean, when you are heating up fridge leftovers you’re not just taking them from room temp to warm…. that would be a lot easier…. Yes, it would still require energy, but a lot less. So what does this have to do with morning chaos? Well imagine if you woke up and took the leftovers out of the fridge and let them come to room temperature before trying to heat them up…. You might even want to put the cold food into a clean pan from the shelf instead of the friger-rater chilly one. That way you will need LESS ENERGY to make the transition. It won’t be such a big leap…. and it would feel less chaotic and more doable.

Here are the two most difficult transitions human beings ALL face daily:

1. Dawn
2. Dusk

During these times the whole world is transitioning from stillness to action and from action to stillness. Our bodies have big shifts to make (all kinds of chemical changes occur), and we wonder why things get a little hard and crazy at these times….. As a culture we drink coffee to assist our emergence and alcohol to assist in our winding down. And they can get us by….. but there is a cost.

You can make these transitions, and what follows after them, much easier by doing a few simple things:

1. be rested: go to bed early enough that you can easily wake up 2 hours before we have to leave home
2. be present and connected: take a moment to sing or recite a verse to name and honor the transition
3. break it down: identify smaller shifts within the big shift – daily morning traditions

At my house, little ones need to go to bed at 7pm in order to awaken refreshed and renewed at 7am. We big people need to be asleep by 10pm to get up happily at 7am with our children – pre school starts at 9am. We sing a little morning verse when our children awaken in our big family bed… greeting their fuzzy dreamy eyes with a song of welcome and reflection…. and a reminder that we are at an important transition into daytime…. Here is our verse. Use it or find your own:

We smile, and laugh, and tickle and talk about breakfast….. You might be tempted to skip over the verse-thing. Perhaps thinking it is dispensible….. less practical etc. But really, the verse is the most important part of this 3-part prescription. It’s the worry stone part. The part that works a little magic. Its the part that we try to do even if we don’t do anything else!

AND when we don’t do it for awhile (which is the part of doing it that no one mentions) the return is always so comforting and beautiful…. gives wandering from the path a raison d’etre….

That’s the rhythm of life…. in and out of practice….

and the returns are delicious.

Here is our list of things we do every morning. We group them into sets of three and use a little bell to initiate the doing of each:

1. morning potty
2. comb hair
3. get dressed

1. eat breakfast
2. make snack
3. get shoes on

Human beings love repetition especially when facing Big Transitions like morning time…. Having a simple verse that sets a rhythm into motion, along with enough time to be spacious, can change a battle zone into a harmonious time of family connection. It can bring our slumbering selves up to room temperature – a much more comfortable place to start the warm up of your day.

Share your verses, and traditions in the comments!

Until next week’s worry,

Krista

The Loom of Dreams

I broider the world upon a loom,
I broider with dreams my tapestry,
Here in a little lonely room
I am master of earth and sea
And the planets come to me.

I broider my life into the frame
I broider my love, thread upon thread
The world goes by with its glory and shame,
Crowns are bartered and blood is shed:
I sit and broider my dreams instead

And the only world is the world of my dreams,
And my weaving the only happiness;
For what is the world but what it seems?
And who knows but God, beyond our guess,
Sits weaving worlds out of loneliness.

by  Arthur Symons.

THE SILKEN TASSEL
While in the early glimmerings of Spring
My little feet were dancing with the flowers,
I found a purse tied with a silken string
Hanging out from the hands of honeyed hours.

The treasure that it bore was not of earth,
And yet it had the stamp of human face ;
I hid it in my heart : I knew its worth :
One coin could buy all beauty’s garnered grace.

Since then I’ve walk’d the rainbow-paths of Life,
Amidst the orchards of the earth and sky ;
This purse has helped to win the time-old strife,
And link’d the distant heaven and earth more nigh.

And now, I spread the carpet of my soul
Before thy feet, and place this nazar poor ~
The Silken Tassel of my purse unroll
And scatter its contents upon the floor !
– Aedeshie F. Khabardar

The word “tassel” is derived from the Latin “tassau” which means a clasp. It is a universal ornament found in every culture of the world. For me this has been the winter of the tassel. I have been meditating on them ever since I came across a mesmerizing tassel in the New Mexican Desert at a roadside gas mart. It spoke to me immediately and deeply and I took it into my life as a sort of teacher. I collect tassels and have them hanging all over in my world. They hang at the threshold of my kitchen and from my light fixtures, from the doorknob and the cupboard handles. They are beaded and woven, with shells, and bells. This has been going on for while, but this year when I met the red lady I knew I had to delve deeper into the meaning of the tassel, acknowledge its place in my apothecary. And, so I made warm woolen tassels as part of our solstice celebration, and gave them away as Christmas gifts. I discovered Khabardar’s poem about the first glimpses of Spring and realized how fitting these ornaments are for welcoming back the light, moving again toward Spring. And, so among our other projects, both inner and outer, we will make Tassels for Imbolc – the traditional day for the anticipation of Spring, and the sharing of our talents, the expansion of our wisdom, the spilling open of our purse, offering up our coins and treasures… to re-birth.

My daughter has come home this season from her darling Waldorf pre-school singing Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer and talking about Santa Claus.

At first I felt a little edgy about these characters reminiscent of my own rather bleak childhood. We started referring to Santa as an Old Gnome, and redirecting Rudolf singing to the Holly and the Ivy, or even Jingle Bells.

But, then on the eve of Winter Solstice, my almost-3-year-old daughter reminded me of a great truth, that magic exists everywhere, even at the heart of consumptive culture and commercialized ritual:  After telling a folktale by the fireside, and a brief ceremony in which we cast Holly into the fire to symbolize the release of the darkness and then Oak branches as we each made a wish for the coming Light-time, my daughter, instead of surrendering to the close of the ceremony, commenced another ceremony with herself as the intercessor.

She offered us each a branch of cedar, placing them ceremonially in the center and as we sat quietly, honoring her impulse, she began to tell her story.

“Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer had a very shiny nose,” she started.

“Then one foggy Christmas eve, Santa came to say: Rudolf with your nose so bright. Won’t you guide my sleigh tonight.”

As I sat and listened, I felt, instead of my usual urge to shift gears and redirect (that constant task of mothering), I felt myself surrender to the wisdom of my child, her obvious clarity, confidence, and knowing, that somehow the Story of Rudolf was appropriate, that it fit right there, in that part of her ceremony.

And it began to dawn on me: Rudolf the Red-Nosed reindeer had a very peculiar light to shine, and though it was Santa who first recognized its value, soon everyone around including Rudolf himself understood, appreciated and celebrated his red jewel.

Isn’t this one of the most primal transformations we all long for?

To be seen, appreciated and useful as we offer our true, albeit awkward and unusual light.

So, next time you find yourself redirecting any small child (especially that small child within) away from something, take a moment and consider the lesson of Winter Solstice, that light arises out of darkness, it returns to our doorstep not as we avoid it, but as we approach, enter its depths and allow its particular lessons to touch us.

And so, I am wishing you all a Rudolfian Solstice chock full of mundane wisdom, awakening, and deepest self-celebration as we greet the return of the Light.