Dreaming in The Dark

Tonight is the longest night of the year for those of us in the northern hemisphere. Some friends and I got together tonight and did a ceremony to honour the fertile darkness and celebrate the points of light within us and around us that are not always visible under the bright lights of the day. These friends and I have been celebrating this turning of the wheel together every year for over twenty years, Tonight as we shared stories, prayers, reflections, and intentions (not to mention some great food) I was struck by what an honour and a priviledge it is to journey with others over many years, to see and support each others unfolding.

For me it has been a year of some unexpected endings and beginnings. My marriage ended, and I had to leave my home, many dreams and most of my belongings behind. The disconnection was painful. But returning to live in Toronto I reconnected with many old friends and found new connections with others. A little over a year ago I started posting weekly blogs and this, along with starting to post on Facebook, blossomed into new online connections with people from all over the world. What an honour it has been to participate in thoughtful, inspiring, questioning and respectful conversations in both forums.

I see the time between the Winter Solstice and the new year, as a kind of crack between the worlds, a time for being still, for turning inward and for dreaming deeply. So, to honour this, I am going to step away from my computer for this time. I will resume posting regularly on FB and doing my weekly blogs in the first week of January.

I send out prayers of gratitude- for life and all that it offers, for the world and all that it asks, for friends and family and the broader community who have reached out and touched me with their support and presence during the past year. I send out prayers for peace- within myself in the places where I find myself resisting what is, for those of you who are struggling with personal challenges, for the world in all of it's sacred beauty and crazy chaos.

May we dream deeply in this time of darkness- a dream to replenish the personal and collective spirit of respect and peace and justice, of collaboration and cooperation and compassion. With deep gratitude for all the blessings of this life, Oriah

How We Wake Up- Literally!

Years ago I heard Barbara Marx Hubbard say, “It used to be that when I woke up and jumped out of bed in the morning, I felt I was already behind.” It reminded me of periods in my life when I’ve felt driven to do more, move faster, try harder- years when I too felt like I woke up behind. People who lived with me said I “hit the ground running.” Some mornings, particularly after I developed CF/ME, I just plain hit the ground.

Barbara’s comment made me turn my attention to my experience of waking up in the morning. I began to notice my experience when I first opened my eyes. Don’t get me wrong- I wanted and hoped to wake up centred and grateful for the day, full of calm, clear energy. But what I wanted more was to see what was true: what I was actually experiencing upon waking each day.

Lately, as I lie in bed reviewing dreams and becoming aware of the feel of the smooth cotton sheets and warm duvet on my body, I am filled with an ecstatic sense of gratitude for my life- for my body-self, my home and friends and family, for all the changes and challenges in my life over the past year. . . for simply being where I am. I literally wake up smiling.

The thing that is startling to me about this is what has changed, what I am not experiencing that had been pretty much a constant for a very long time.

I heard Barbara’s comment about how she used to wake up over ten years ago. And, as I turned my attention to my experience upon waking, I became aware of a constant thread of tension beneath the surface of whatever else was happening. Whether I was feeling physical pain or energetic enthusiasm, whether I was looking forward to or dreading the day, there was beneath all of this, a strange and familiar tension that ran through my body. It was like a thin taut wire running down the centre of my arms and legs and looped once around my heart. For days I simply observed and wondered what this was. And then one day I realized: I was waking up every day with a sense of bracing for a blow. Beneath all of my other experiences of the start of the day there was a sense of anticipating and getting ready to absorb a potentially damaging blow of some kind. It wasn’t rational or literal. It wasn’t even a thought. It was a tensing against what felt like the high probability that sooner or later something was going to metaphorically “hit” me.

I don’t know when this began but I am guessing that it had been with me for a long time. I hadn’t noticed it until I deliberately looked because it was a constant, like a familiar background noise you don’t even hear anymore. I didn’t judge it or try to get rid of it, and it didn’t stop me from often feeling gratitude and joy. But, whenever I paid attention as I awoke, it was always there.

And now. . . . it’s gone. Really! I’ve watched for months. I’m not even sure how long it was gone before I realized it. But there it is- gone! I know this may not sound like much, but to me it’s like a small miracle. And as I lay in bed these mornings instead of “bracing for a blow” I’m filled with deep overwhelming gratitude for being alive. I’m not trying or remembering or cultivating gratitude- it is just there, by grace, filling me. And I cannot help but smile.

And, as I observe this open-hearted gratitude, I notice how relaxed I am in my mind-body-heart-self. I feel a deep sense of rest. Now, if you’ve read The Call you know that rest is not something that has come easily to me. Rest, for me, has often been elusive, partial and non-restorative. But in this place, every breath restores and the sense of rest is cellular.

So, here’s what I know: One of the many gifts of the gratitude that comes by grace is a deep restoration of body, mind, heart and spirit. Because, when we’re filled with and held by gratitude we can’t simultaneously try to pull away from what is, can’t brace for a blow- real or imagined, remembered or anticipated. I don’t know that we can make this all-encompassing gratitude arise, but we can cultivate our own willingness and awareness to receive it when it comes.

Did I find rest because I felt gratitude or was I filled with grateful appreciation for life because my habitual “bracing for a blow” was dissolved by a combination of changing inner and outer circumstances and again- more grace? I don’t know. But I do know that it is difficult to really completely receive anything- rest, another, life, joy, the moment- when you’re bracing for a blow. And these days, I awaken filled with gratitude, able to receive the moment, surprised to find my eyes filling with tears of inexpressible joy simply for the blessing of being alive.

How Do We Know?

When things don’t go the way we’d hoped in our lives we often wonder, “What was I thinking?!” It is both the curse and the blessing of being a writer that I can actually go back and find out exactly what I was thinking and feeling- because I wrote it down!

So I recently pulled out the journals I’d written during the first year of my relationship with my now ex-husband. Please understand me: I was not trying to determine if I could have avoided the pain of separation by not going into the marriage. Nor was I looking for a foolproof way to only make risk-free choices in the future. I am a human being, and I am old enough not to waste energy trying to be something else.

I did want to learn as much as I could- for myself and those I work with- about how we know what we (think/feel we) know and what determines whether or not we are true to or abandon our own deepest knowing. I wanted to know if I’d seen what was coming and ignored it, or if I hadn’t foreseen it at all. It was hard to know what to hope for- the former would mean that I’d gone unconscious and ignored what I knew, and the later could mean I just hadn’t been very aware, or that, as is always the case- a great deal is unknowable.

And, as these things can pretty much be predicted to go, it turned out it was a little of all three, although the thing that surprised me most was how much of what had been hard and ultimately made continuing together impossible, was there in those early journals. Alongside the record of the heady ecstasy of falling in love and my intermittent flashes that we might not share as many core values as I’d hoped, were my rationalizations for ignoring inner misgivings- arguments that dismissed my uneasiness as understandable nerves (I had been down this road before), that I was too picky and needed to learn to stretch emotionally, to trust more deeply, to accept the other as he was and let go of my attachment to things being a certain way. (Sadly, I did not extend the argument for acceptance to myself and what mattered most to me.)

Reading the journals raised a couple of important questions: How do we know what we think or feel we know? How do we know if the sense of a seemingly clear “Yes!” or “No!” is the voice of intuitive-instinctual wisdom or if it’s what Jungians would call one of our “complexes”- clusters of emotionally charged and emphatically clear aspects of our unconscious, usually clustered around old wounds. How can we tell when we are tapping into the trustworthy instinctual-intuitive wisdom of psyche (soul-heart knowing) and when we are being driven by the emotionally skewed perspective of unconscious and unhealed wounds?

I do not have any foolproof checklist, but I have found a few clues, indicators that might help us discern when we may be “off” about what we think/feel we know:

• Instinctual-intuitive knowing comes most clearly when we are aware of the body-self, because it is the wisdom of embodied soul. So, if in doubt: do something that pulls awareness into the body-self (go for a walk, lie down on the earth. do some yoga breathing and postures, dance.) And if you don’t know what brings you into your body-self awareness- experiment, find out. In contrast complex-ridden certainties tend to take us away from body-awareness, are heady- often presented as rational arguments in circumstances where logos it is not particularly useful (for example, when considering personal preferences and what has real feeling value for us.)

• Instinctual-intuitive knowing tends to be relatively simple, straightforward and instantaneous- a quiet and clear “yes” or “no.” Justifications for complex-ridden decisions tend to be convoluted and complicated (and often very entertaining!) only revealing the “right” choice at the end of lengthy argument (if only with ourselves.)

• Instinctual-intuitive knowing does not need to be justified. I know it because I know it. Questioned it does not become defensive or self-justifying. In contrast complex-driven decisions tend to become highly charged when challenged by inner or outer voices, and an air of self-righteous justification arises quickly and emphatically.

• Instinctual-intuitive knowing does not claim to know things it cannot know- like future outcomes or divine purpose. It is most often based on a sense of knowing the next step of the journey. Period. Complex-riddled decisions often claim to know what we cannot know: that our decision is being guided by if not dictated by a divine purpose or a “higher” power; that the outcome will be pain-free and wonderful on all levels for everyone involved. These kinds of claims ought to make our antennae tingle!

• Complex-driven decisions tend to push for speed to avoid imagined disaster. When this sense of I-must-choose-fast rises it’s a pretty safe bet that the choice being made is at least in part being driven by old fears and wounds. So, buy some time. Tell anyone else involved, or yourself, you’ll sleep on it, journal about it, dream with it. Take a beat. Give the quieter instinctual-intuitive wisdom a chance to find you.

You see the pattern, the flavour difference between the two? We each have to find our way of discerning between these two. It may take a lifetime to sense with consistency and will no doubt never be one hundred percent clear. But the taste of the two is decidedly different because they each serve a different master: one serves the soul’s agenda of expansion into and offering the world more of who and what we are; the other serves the agenda of the often frightened smaller self, seeking safety and the perpetuation of an illusion of sovereignty and control.

If we want to make our choices from the place of the soul’s priorities we have to develop the ability to discern the difference between the knowing of psyche/soul and the knowing that arises from old survival strategies. It’s a work in progress. It’s why we are here. And we do this, not to avoid pain or challenges, but to weave the one bright thread that is ours- the one that mirrors essence in the particular shape of the man or woman we are- into the collective tapestry of this shared dream.

Beneath Denial

Let’s talk about the difficulty of accepting what is, the temptation to go into denial about some aspect of ourselves or the world that we desperately want to be different. Let’s start simple.

I can’t go out in the evening.

There it is: the reality of my physical limitations at this time. A truth I have been tinkering, bargaining, and arguing with for years. I’ve been pretending that maybe if I just understood this reality better, just negotiated a better “deal,” I could change and control (just a little) that which is getting in the way of something I want.

It is of course not that I really can’t go out in the evening. I can. I do, particularly when I am feeling like my underlying health is somewhat stable. And every time- every single time- no matter how much the gathering or event inspires or relaxes, no matter how much the content or people are close to my heart and deeply valued- I end up in bed for most of the next three days or more. And let me be clear- I am not talking about staying out past ten, or imbibing any substances that might take a toll on the body. I’m talking about going to a writing group, or a friend’s art opening, or a small quiet gathering to celebrate the solstice. Really.

I’ve had ME- Myalgic Encephalomyletis (or Chronic Fatigue as it is called in those parts of the English speaking work under the influenced of American health insurance companies) for twenty-seven years. There’ve been acute periods of severe disability and much longer times of chronic illness largely managed by accepting some limits. I can’t drink alcohol. I don’t eat food with any artificial chemical content. I can’t travel extensively. (When considering a trip to Turkey a few years ago my doctor casually asked how anxious I was to see the inside of the Turkish hospital system.) I’m okay with these and many other limitations. I accept them, allow that they may change, work around them, and have come to have deep faith that none of the limitations this illness brings stop me from being and living who and what I am completely.

But. . . I just want to be able to go to a friend’s for an evening meal and still get up and function the next day! Is that too much to ask?!

Hear my frustration? Hear my unwillingness to accept what is? Hear how I create suffering for myself by going out and then railing against the consequences of my choices?

Recently, a friend told me that New York psychiatrist Mark Epstein once told him that he saw people who were in denial about something as “caught in an old sorrow.” It took my breath away. Naming others as being “in denial” about something that seems oh-so-clear to us (and aren’t we all stunningly brilliant about another’s blindness?!) has become a bit of a bad habit in many spiritual and psychotherapeutic communities. It implies a deliberate ignorance. Epstein’s phrase- “caught in an old sorrow”- says so much more, speaks to the inner struggle, and allows us to see the other/ourselves with real compassion.

So, as I lay in bed berating myself for once again going into denial about my inability to go out in the evening, I wonder: where am I caught in an old sorrow and what might that sorrow be? And I get that funny sinking feeling that comes when we know we’re onto some essential and less-than-pleasant truth about ourselves. And I remember.

I remember in my body, the feeling of being desperately lonely as a teenager. I lived in a very small, conservative town in Northern Ontario, and I was always asking questions about faith, beliefs, ethics, and social justice. I read and wrote and loved to learn. I was decidedly out of sync with the majority of my peers. I wanted to be included, connected, to belong, but I just couldn’t stop trying to start discussions about why God seemed to answer some prayers and not others, or the merits of literature and art in creating change in the world. At sixteen, I was not what many would have called a fun date or a party asset!

When I came to Toronto I was delighted to find fellow travellers, and my work in studying and teaching shamanic practises connected me to a wonderful community of delightful people with similar interests and questions. People who primarily do their socializing and sharing in the evenings because they have jobs during the daytime.

And so, I revisit the old sorrow that fosters denial about my ability to go out in the evening. Knowing this, perhaps I can tend that old sorrow and be with what is in this moment- not anticipating or trying to avoid the loneliness that sometimes comes when we cannot join with others, whatever the reason.

Where do you find yourself fighting reality? Where would those who love you say you slip into denial? Perhaps there is an old sorrow that has you caught, that clouds your vision of what is, that needs a little attention so it can let you go and you can be with what is without suffering.

Taking the "Should" out of Giving Thanks

When I was a child being thankful was more about manners than real appreciation. When Aunt Lucy insisted that that my brother and I take the candies she’d dredged up from the bottom of her purse covered in lint and other unsavoury and unidentifiable bits, my mother prodded us with a hasty, “What do you say?”

We of course responded on cue, our small voices chanting, “Thank you,” with compliance if not enthusiasm. We were not expected to enjoy the candies. We were not permitted to refuse them. We were expected to express thanks.

The confusing messages about gratitude didn’t stop there. Growing up, if I tried to get up from the supper table without finishing the peas that had been put on my plate (you know the ones- pale green, from the can and simmered for twenty minutes to finish off any texture or taste that might have survived the canning process) my mother would call me back with an admonishment about starving children on other continents who would be grateful to eat the peas I did not want. Once- and only one- I suggested that the offending vegetables should be shipped to those who could fully appreciate them.

Then there was the general principle of gratitude that was presented as one of a long list of “shoulds" emphasized if we wanted or asked for something. We should be grateful for what we have. We should be grateful that we are not starving, that bombs are not falling on our houses, that we have a long list of freedoms that others in the world do not have.

Expressions of gratitude that are compelled by rules are often reduced to empty gestures devoid of real appreciation. And the “shoulds” around gratitude don’t stop with childhood. Just today I've read two blogs that, in preparation for the American Thankgiving, explicitly tell readers how and why they “should” be grateful. It’s not that I don’t think that cultivating gratitude can’t be done or that it isn’t a good idea. I just have doubts about our ability to experience the full joy of appreciation on demand.

Once, years ago, when I confessed to a therapist that I was disappointed- mostly with myself and some of what I had and had not done in my life- he cut me off before I could finish the sentence. “Well,” he said, “you know what the antidote for disappointment is, don’t you?” I waited. “Gratitude,” he said with a kind of fierce conviction. “Count your blessings. Be grateful, and you won’t be disappointed!” Feeling chastised I never brought my sense of disappointment to him again.

Counselling individuals who are often going through difficult times of confusion, ill health, financial crisis, divorce or other major losses, the statement I hear most often in initial sessions is: “I know I shouldn’t be feeling this sad (or angry or confused or scared.) I know I should feel grateful for what I do have. . . .” It’s not that people are unaware of those things of value in their lives. It’s not even that they aren’t grateful for caring family, or friends, or the job or home or health they may have. It’s that something else- some painful circumstance or choice or loss- is calling for their attention at the moment. And, if they feel they do not have the right to turn their attention to that pain because they “should” be grateful, they can neither fully appreciate what they do have nor take care of the painful inner or outer situation that needs tending.

Developing the habit of courteously acknowledging the things others do for us or offer to us is a good thing. It helps us live side by side. And, if I slow down and really see the other, I can put my heart into even simple words of common courtesy and convey real appreciation. Similarly, setting aside time on a regular basis- daily, weekly, and/or once a year- to do prayers or practices that acknowledge what is good in our lives can surely increase our ability to appreciate what life has provided. But, like all spiritual practises, if the intent has been lost in the rules, if we find ourselves having to deny the reality of the moment to try to feel something we think we “should” be feeling instead- it won’t work. Like most spiritual practises that bring us deeper into life this is not an "either/or." It’s an "and/but." It’s not- either I am grateful for my home or I am discouraged by my health. Some days it’s- I am discouraged about my health and I am deeply grateful to have a safe, comfortable place to live and rest.

Because the thing I am most grateful for, that aspect of life that I have learned to appreciate most deeply is that it is large enough to hold it all. We do not need to wait until everything is perfect in the world or our lives before we make room for deep gratitude for being alive today. But we also do not need to deny the pain or confusion or despair that may be present in this moment in order to be deeply grateful for the life we have been given. Life can hold it all, can hold us all. And for this I am deeply grateful.

Leaning into Faith

What does it take to listen to the voice of soul, to let it guide and shape our life choices?

I recently attended a workshop with Jungian analyst James Hollis whose work focuses on the the task of individuation. I see this as the work of making choices that enable us to offer the world the particular shape that the sacred mystery wants to take through our being.

One of the things that I appreciate about Jungians is that they don't demonize the ego- that necessary sense of the smaller self/identity in the world that is hopefully developed in the first half of life and can take care of the daily details. Without a well developed ego we become ungrounded, unable to cope with daily challenges, and susceptible to being tossed about or paralyzed by the inevitable anxiety that accompanies growing up and going into the world. This necessary sense of functional identity is largely shaped by the values and messages of our social, cultural, parental context. A strong ego container fortunate enough to have the resources (inner and outer) for some success in the world (and if you are reading this you have met the minimum requirement for “success” in terms of survival) begins to have delusions of grandeur, starts thinking of itself as being “in charge,” as having some kind of sovereignty. In fact, we start thinking that this small identity is all we are.

Now comes the good news/bad news and it’s the same news: sooner or later in our adult life, we encounter something we cannot control: loss. It may be loss of health or wealth or loved ones, loss of home or relationship or control over your own body.

I remember the first time I really got that I was not entirely in charge of everything that happened to me. I was twenty-two, and I was flying across the kitchen of the small apartment I shared with my large, (six foot five) strong, young husband. In a fit of rage, he threw me. The thing about physical violence is that it dissolves any illusions about being in control. You do not have to co-operate on any level to arch through the air and hit the floor. The left side of my face hit the floor first. I remember the sound of the impact more than the feel of it. And I remember thinking, mid-air, as if watching the whole thing from a distance: this is really going to hurt; I hope he doesn’t break my glasses- I don’t have enough money for a new pair. It was not the first time he’d hit me, but it was the last. And part of what made it possible for me to leave was that the aspect of self that thought she could and should make things right no matter how wrong they had gone by trying harder- my ego- finally saw the delusion in her assumption of control. That allowed a deeper, instinctual and soul-full sense of who I was to make another choice.

I wish I could say that from there on soul directed all my choices, but it is rarely such a linear process, and the smaller surface self (ego) relentlessly tries to re-establish its sense of sovereignty. Now the ego's strategies (whether distraction, distance and/or dancing as fast as it can) were developed for survival and safety at a time when, as children, we had little power to make independent choices. From a species perspective this makes some sense- it’s our version of “See tiger- run!” (when the tiger may be a disapproving parent.) What we are talking about here is changing this- learning to hear and obey a deeper voice that may be saying, “See tiger- stand still and face tiger.” That’s a tall order and, at least in the moment, completely counter-intuitive. So, it seems to me, that to do this we are going to need some faith, some sense that despite all the evidence in front of or within us, a different choice is called for and will lead to a fuller, deeper life.

What would it have looked like thirty-five years ago if I had been able to hear and heed this voice? I may have walked out the first time my husband was violent. Or, I might have seen it coming and never married him. But my faith that life was good and love was not violent was all tangled up with semi-conscious beliefs I’d been taught- that sex meant marriage (sooner or later) and marriage meant forever, no matter what. When it came to marriage my mother often warned: “You make your bed, you lie in it.” (I am sure my mother never meant to condone violence, only to reinforce the belief that you could, with enough effort, make any relationship work.)

So, I’ve been thinking about where we find the faith to listen to and base our choices on the life of the soul when this feels life-threatening to the smaller self, the ego. The soul’s desires and directives do not guarantee specific outcomes in areas that preoccupy the ego, and any particular choice may or may not work for different individuals. Someone may leave a relationship and find living alone difficult, while another may stay and find a different kind of loneliness. We may leave a job or community and find ourselves struggling to survive or thrive elsewhere. We may choose to stay in a challenging place, and the challenge may not get easier. No particular choice is right or wrong for everyone. But what Hollis contends is that what matters is which aspect of self the choice we are making seeks to serve- the desires of soul/psyche or the ego’s need for illusions of sovereignty and safety. Soul choices are pulled by the desire to live who and what we are at an essential level and offer that to the world by living it. And that may or may not be challenging or lonely or lucrative, but it is almost always, to some degree, unpredictable. The ego- the one who makes the doctor’s appointment, picks up the kids, and buys groceries so there’ll be something to eat- does not like unpredictable.

So where do we find the faith that allows us to live the soul’s desires? It comes by grace. We cannot earn it, although we can make ourselves available to it, recognize it and give thanks when it comes. Sometimes it comes in small ways when the world touches us with its beauty- in the taste of food that nourishes body and heart, sunlight after a storm, the cry of a newborn, the kindness of a stranger. Sometimes we lean on the faith of others, those who are put in our path when we need to borrow a little faith so we can keep listening, keep breathing, and keep allowing the soul’s life to guide us. In this sense we are all midwives to each other. When I was giving birth to my son and my husband told me I was “doing fine” I growled at him in disbelief. What did he know!? We both looked to the midwife whose faith was based on her experience and intuitive knowing. When she smiled and reassured us, we leaned into her faith, took the next breath, and faced the next contraction. Because believe me, when you’re giving birth to a twelve pound ten ounce baby at home without pain meds, somebody in the room better have faith that this can be done when the whole thing feels impossible. And that birthing was a walk in park compared to the on-going challenge of making choices to shape my life in service to the needs, values and desires of my soul.

That’s what we do for each other. And what grace it is that we do not all need to have complete faith in every moment in order to hear and heed the call of the soul, that we can lean a little on another’s faith today and allow another to lean on us tomorrow. We cannot hear the choice another’s soul wants to make but we can by our presence, though our companioning in faith, whisper, “Listen” and “Trust.” As I write this, I think of the overall title I gave these blogs, “The Green Bough,” and the accompanying proverb. To keep a green bough in our hearts is to cultivate faith, allowing it to grow and flourish. And with faith, we can hear and heed the voice of soul- the singing bird within that can guide our choices.

From Dreams of Desire

Recently, several people requested that I post some of the poems I wrote more than fifteen years ago that were published in a small chapbook of poetry called Dreams of Desire (now out of print.) Prompted by these requests I went back and had a look. It’s a strange sensation reading old writing- like visiting a friend you haven’t seen for years but would still recognize anywhere. I’ve decided to share three of the poems here: “Twyla” (based on a conversation I had with Seneca elder Twyla Nitsch of the Wolf Clan), “Night Tears,” and “My Breasts.” These poems are about living intimately with ourselves- with our longing, our grief and the body-self that is inseparable from mind, heart and soul. When I read them now I hear, beneath the stories and the emotions, a great tenderness for the sometimes challenging, often confusing, but nevertheless sweetness of our human experience.

Twyla

At her kitchen table
sharing tea
in the pale morning light
I ask the widow,
"How long were you married?"
And she replies,
“I am married.
Though my husband died twelve years ago
he is still
as he was for eighteen years
before that
my husband."

I can see in her eyes
and in the way her hand reaches
for the cream
that it is true.
And I know
last night,
alone in her bed
as she slipped across the borderland
she felt him curled around her
the soft hair of his chest
against her thin back
his strong thighs
along the curve of her aging buttocks
his wide fingers
gently cupping her softly sagging breast.

It is, as it has always been.
The separation
of years
or even worlds
cannot
dull their ache for each other.

Silently
her watery blue eyes
watch my face
as my fingers
trace the sun's patterns
on the plastic tablecloth.

I long for a great love.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer © 1995

Night Tears

There is a crying
that happens at night
that does not come
while the light is with us.
There are things that cannot
be evaded
once the sun goes down.
Small nocturnal creatures
with sharp white teeth
silently gnaw at the edges of
belly and heart
when the darkness descends
and the void inside
grows larger.

It can split you open.

And bone
in the centre of your chest
aches
like the cracked wishing bone
from the turkey breast.

And if we are strong enough
to be weak enough
we are given a wound
that never heals.

It is the gift
that keeps the heart open.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer © 1995

My Breasts

My breasts
are my mother's breasts
sagging, stretched, flattened
large brown-pink nipples
flecked with small dots
like the tiny bumps on the uncooked turkey
where feather quills have been removed.
The areola is edged with thin blue veins
and sometimes sprouts wiry hairs
to be plucked.

At nine years old
I walk into the bathroom
filled with warm steam
and the scent of Chantilly Lace talcum powder
and look away quickly
when my eyes touch my mother's breasts
as she bends over to dry her feet.
But she catches me
and answers my look
with a slash of her voice.
"Yes, this is what you did to me-
you and your brother.
My breasts got smaller with each of you.
Good thing I didn't nurse or I'd have
nothing left."

Year later I’ll realize it’s not
the size that is mourned
but the smooth firmness
and the delicate shell pink
of unstretched nipples
reaching up to meet the world.

At nine, I look down at my blue sneakers
ashamed at the ugliness of life
and wonder what she feels she has left
for herself.

She tells me how she refused to nurse
repeating the story
of the woman next to her in the maternity ward.
The nurse yelled at the woman for
eating too much fruit,
said it had caused her nursing baby's bottom
to turn red and raw.
I have heard this story so often I can see it:
the nurse in starched white reliable efficiency
indignantly removing the offending fruit basket;
the woman in her pink bathrobe
indulgently lying in bed
her face stricken with shame at her gluttony;
the baby, its bottom like raw meat
wailing in agony.
There is a fierceness in my mother
as she tells the story and adds,
"Who needed that!
You had to watch everything you ate
couldn't go anywhere."

I wonder where she wanted to go.

I wonder how so many untruths
so much shame
could be sown and cultivated so quickly
and so strongly
that a whole generation of women
stopped the impulse of millennia
to suckle their babies.

Her doctor, she tells me, was old-fashioned
and angry at her decision.
Asked her what she thought those things were for,
anyway - putting under sweaters?
I see her in the red matching sweater set as she tells
me proudly how she held to her choice.
It must have taken great courage
at nineteen
alone in his office
to defy the absolute authority
of God the Father, the Doctor.

When two hard bumps appear on my chest
like traitors in our midst
I say nothing
until she accuses me
of stuffing the front pockets
of my peach-coloured blouse
with Kleenex.
Ignoring my denials
she rams a hand
into the offending pocket
and opens her eyes in surprise
as I wince in pain
and she finds
no tissue.

The bumps grow,
never large
but round enough
to bring forth my Grandmother's
declaration that those of us
without bras
or girdles
or corsets
or stockings
are all "bouncing around like cows."
I never saw my grandmother's breasts
behind their cages
of linen and wire
and do not dare to
imagine them
even now.

Not too much later
on a warm summer night
parked by the lakeshore
in an old Dodge Dart
the boy whose kisses
were improving with
practice
moves his fingers tentatively
across the soft cotton of my
halter top
lightly brushing my nipples.
Bolts of electric blue
flash through me
making my back arch
and my legs tense
and my mouth ravenous on his.
My response is so explosive
he jumps
and, with one sleeve caught
on the gear shift between us,
somehow gets the other
wrapped in the steering wheel
sending a loud long blast of the horn
out over the lake.
Angry cries erupt from
others parked in nearby cars.
And I laugh and laugh from the centre
of my soft belly
until my sides ache
at our awkward innocence
and at the discovery
of the delicious and frightening desire that
pours through my limbs
from these small breasts.

A year later I arrive,
a girl from the bush of the north
in the big dark city.
I walk from the bus terminal
to my small rented room
with my back pack
long hair loose down my back
dressed in my blue jeans
and a white T-shirt
over unfettered breasts.
A man passes
stares at my chest
and speaks loudly,
"What kind of girl are you to be walking
around like that?"
I cross my arm over my breasts and feel
the crimson heat of shame.

Years later
my breasts grow with milk
straining, filling
firm and dripping
for the hungry mouths of my sons
each in his turn
drawing his life
greedily from me
with small sighs
and moans
of exquisite contentment
at all hours of day and night.
At times I sleep for an hour
trying desperately to fill myself
and awake to his cry
of hunger
or loneliness
or fear
and offering my breast
watch as he
sucks that one hour of rest
from my body
leaving me empty
and struggling to stand again.
I never regretted it
though my body struggled
and fevers raged in aching limbs.
I wanted to offer the best of what I had
for their beginnings
unsure of what wisdom I had to give
in the on-going journey.
I smiled
even at 3 a.m.
when one of them
finally finished,
stretched, arching his back
and wrinkling his velvet brow
sighed
and lay his pink cheek
shiny wet from the sweet milk
against my breast
hoping
as we all do
to sleep and dream
connected to the source of peace
and contentment.

My mother
came
and saw
and left.

Years later,
my sons half grown
and my breasts half shrunk like
those I saw on my mother
in the bathroom years ago,
a would-be lover
at a workshop on spiritual sexuality
suggests a little plastic surgery
might move me
closer to the image of the Goddess
I want to learn to embody
in the sacredness of my female form.
Closer to the image of the Goddess he is seeking,
more likely.
I move away from him
but the idea is planted
and I roll it around
like a marble in the mouth.
I collect a little information:
the costs
the risks
the options.
But only one bit sticks:
there is a loss of sensation in the nipple with implants
and a touch
a kiss
or a well-placed tongue
can still send waves of light
through my limbs
though rarely so strongly
as in the Dodge Dart
and never so unanticipated.
I will not surrender this small pleasure.

I have no daughter
in whom to leave
these stories of the breast.
Perhaps it is just as well.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer © 1995