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What my Kewpie Sisters Taught Me About The Mojo of Jomo

I just spent the weekend in the Kansas City celebrating a landmark birthday (one with a zero in it), along with a dozen other women who are exactly my age. Hint: we’re all from the first wave of Baby Boomers. Okay. Seventy. We call ourselves the Kewpie Sisters. Because that is what we are, alumnae of Hickman High School, home of the Fighting Kewpies. For real. Would I make this up?

We gathered smack dab in the middle of the flyover zone. The group of women who came together was as diverse as this country, held by a common bond of caring that is far stronger than “the great divide” we keep hearing about. But we didn’t have time to talk about that. We had better things to talk about.

Mostly we laughed and shared our common memory banks to reconstitute teenage versions of ourselves. Then we reflected back, mining the experience and offering up the perspective that we have collected in the last 50-plus years. What showed up was something I believe is called Wisdom in some people’s minds, including my own. At this time of life, it’s indescribably satisfying to be able to share the take-aways from life’s apparent setbacks and challenges. And I always love honoring my curiosity about what I don’t know (which, when it includes the mystery of life, is a whole lot).

Gone were the social roles, the need for acceptance that seems to come with the teen years. My own strategy way back when was to join every activity and choir and group available except women’s sports, and I’m not even sure we had those teams in the Stone Age.  But my major motivation was this: I just didn’t want to miss out on anything.

This habit hasn’t changed all that much since my adolescence. Twenty years ago a friend diagnosed me with FOMS, the “fear of missing something.” In recent years the acronym has morphed into the pop psych meme FOMO, or Fear of Missing Out. So my ears perked up when my friend Vicki talked about being in a state of contentment, being satisfied with her “ordinary” life. This is a woman who has raised four children who are global citizens, who has traveled extensively to keep in touch with them for many years. So when she mused that she was done with travel it got my attention.

I still have a few airline miles to cash in and a few travel goals that will keep me busy as long as I’m fit enough to pursue them. BUT, I completely resonated with her description of a satisfied life. More and more, I’m opting out of things. It’s been a gradual process, hardly noticeable except inside myself. I started to see that often when I choose to not slip into the loop of doing or the belief that I should do more, have more, be more…my mind settles down. I breathe. I watch the birds. Or the trees. I move slowly, like the “old person” I never wanted to become. And it’s blissful. How could I have ever known, with all my joining and searching and moving around, about the surprising quiet joy of this time of life? Ironically, in my determination to not miss out, I’ve been missing something far more subtle and sweet.

Mojo of JOMO. The Joy of Missing Out. The name came to me at the reunion. And then, returning home, Vicki sent me a link to a blogpost referring to another forty-something’s post on this same topic from a couple of years ago. So I guess Baby Boomers don’t always get to be first. As a matter of fact, perhaps this is the great learning of what I’m claiming as the True JOMO Years. Finally, at long last, we get to miss out on being first, the leaders, the trendsetters and rule breakers. It’s about time. JOMO to me includes the relief of giving up all old identities, including that one.

Several questions and wonderings arise. What did I actually miss when I was so busy strategizing how to not miss out?

A life lived with openings for whatever shows up, comes the answer.

There’s so much to be gained when I’m not busy chasing what I might be missing. What new openings are created when I don’t do, when I don’t fill my time with all the tantalizing offerings before me? I get curious.

Today a friend posted these words by the 87 year-old sage Ram Dass, one of the respected mentors of my generation: “Aging has its own beauty. It is a beautiful stage for doing inner work. You have a chance to not be so dependent on social approval. You can be a little more eccentric. You can be more alone. And you can examine loneliness and boredom instead of being afraid of them. There is such an art and a possibility in aging…”

Once again, he nailed it.

 

Image by Scottdoesntknow [CC BY-SA 3.0], from Wikimedia Commons

Singing For Life

This spring I returned to sing in a choir of my Homies called Jubilate!

It’s a different experience than chanting as a yogic practice. But it’s a practice still, singing harmonies with these women of all ages and stripes, songs about heart, about spring, and about what it means to stand up for what matters. This practice reminds me of what’s important, especially right now, when times can be pretty dark.

Last month we serenaded the local Marchers for Life, where about a tenth of the population of my town showed up. When we started I barely managed to squeak, flooded as I was by the tears and the beauty of all the layers of past and future that came together in the faces I saw. When I got home, it turned into a poem of impressions, a poem that could remind and inspire me. For Life. For Love. For these times.

 

One Foot In Front of the Other, and Lead with Love!

A choir of 30 women, named for jubilation,

We sing, sway, clap, and dance to the river of determined

Marchers for our Lives.

 

Arms linked, signs as varied

As their new bodies, their life-worn bodies, and in-between.

Pink flowers with the names of the fallen.

A skinny tween-aged girl carrying her advice:

Use Ur Indoor Voice. Don’t Yell at Us.

 

The songs, the river, the people keep flowing,

Never Turning Back.

We are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting for, we sing.

Won’t Let Nobody Turn us Around,

 

Mind holds a prayer:

May I remember this.

The constant constant constant beat

The never-ending flow of

The pulse that holds it all. The refrain:

It is time now, and what a time to be alive

In this Great Turning we shall learn to lead in love

Following the Glimmer, Not the Glitter

Midwinter at my home means a fire in the wood stove, a stew or soup bubbling on top, and a hover of crows cawing and landing in the meadow behind my house. Fitting subjects for contemplation. Like a crow, I’ve spent a fair amount of my life grabbing the next shiny object. I’ve collected experiences, workshops, credentials, books, and teachings like any good spiritual materialist. No regrets. Sometimes there’s been a huge pay-off for my curiosity, and sometimes I’ve gotten myself in some pretty tight situations. All of the resulting course corrections have taken the form of a learning curve. But at this stage of life, something a bit more subtle is operating.

Instead of grabbing onto the glitter, I’ve been leaning with curiosity into the glimmer and also suggesting my clients learn the difference.

When I get a little quiet with myself, my mind begins to imagine all the exciting and glittering futures it could create. This is when catchy YouTubes and online classes take me right into the sink hole. Next I wonder where the time has gone and how I’ll ever find the time to read the next self-help or spiritual book. And whatever time I’ve scheduled for writing or self-reflection is over. Carpool time, dinner time. Once again the taste for glitter has taken over.

But…when I remember that I’m not a crow, that I have a choice of where to put my attention, I’m more likely to spot a time-sink wormhole and bring myself back to what truly soothes and uplifts me. I’m more able to listen for something else, for a slight uplift in my body. If I slow down and look, there’s sometimes a cinder left from the past, some longing or inner curiosity. I can ask my heart to find it. Remembering the fire I built to keep away the chill, I can blow on the glimmering coal.

Staying curious, I watch for the glimmer to grow. Sometimes a slow, steady flame is ignited, and sometimes it’s an ember that dims and becomes an ash. I notice where it sparks, find some appropriate kindling by taking the next step. Only that one. After that I watch with curiosity, see what happens next, what resonates in the heart and the gut as true. After that, I keep it simple. I take the next small step that occurs to me.

I continue to watch, find a little piece of kindling, gently blow. On and on. Keeping it simple, I watch for life to show me the way. Then perhaps I sign up to sponsor that child in Nepal; perhaps I make some calls to a policy-maker, perhaps I take up tango or salsa.

It’s a subtle art, much less dramatic and stimulating than the shiny object approach, but instead of being stuck in tight places of my own creation, instead of being over-committed to everyone else or to the wormholes competing for my attention, over time I have a glowing life that sends new sparks and glimmers and offers new possibilities. But, best of all, I have a place to warm my hands.

The Lingering Gift of the Flu

I’m just emerging from the profound depths of this 2018 flu. I’ve developed a battalion of illness-fighting forces over the years, and it’s been decades since I actually experienced the full ride. But this month the little virus buggers wanted to set up shop, and they had their way with me.

While I was fighting them back there was struggle and stress. But then I remembered to ask one of my favorite questions of myself: How might this be a good thing? “It’s over. Give up the fight,” came an answer. After that, such a deep surrender. An opening. Peace. The mind stopped its incessant solving and strategizing. I simply couldn’t think that anything needed (or even could) be done. There were no appointments to be keep. No calls that needed to be made. No battles to be fought (or thought).

And what was left was breath, silence and spaciousness. The body had aches, fevers, coughs. Yes. And I can’t say that it was pleasant, but some other part of me could see that this existed inside something else, something vastly deep and powerful. Something that I could trust to either kill me or heal me. Suddenly nothing about it was personal.

I was already aware that sometimes these viruses take no prisoners and make no sense. So the breakthrough surrender wasn’t like a magical New Age carpet ride of positive thinking. I’m old enough to find evidence of my own ultimate fate all around me. A woman I know died of the flu three or four years ago. She was in her late fifties, fit and full of life force, on her way to Hawaii with her first grandchild and her children. There was no sense to it.

During the worst part of the flu, I remembered her. And instead of fear I experienced a deep understanding of my own powerlessness in the face of the most mysterious of forces. Without the words to frame it, there I was (or wasn’t) again. Simply a deep and powerful state of surrender and vast space.

It’s been a couple of weeks since this realization, and now I feel a lot like I did during my pregnancies. Once the morning zest (aka coffee) wears off, the tiredness comes…and goes…and moves around. I’m focused on catching the old habit of “pushing to overcome,” because I have somehow believed that this is the same as thriving. I don’t want to lose this new perspective.

There’s a different sense of things now, just at the edge of the fatigue. Something big, ineffable, irrefutable. A softness. A deep willingness to trust in the way of things.

It’s not altogether unfamiliar; it’s a way of being and living that I have sensed around the edges before. I’ve used words in an attempt to describe it. And I’m using words now. But ultimately words are no match for the peace. It’s an experience. And that has no words.

What’s left of the flu is a felt sense that I used to call fatigue. But now it feels more like gratitude.

From Dark to Light & Back Again

This season never fails to bring with it a little confusion for me. The source this year is no longer my Holiday Shopping List or the cacophony of ads and events vying for my attention. It’s just that the dark and cold naturally draws me to quietness, and yet Christmas lights are starting to beckon. When I think back, I realize my own version of seasonal mania in years past came got worse when I denied my real need for a Long Winter’s Nap.

So I’m trying out an experiment this year. I’m follow my inclination for sleep and dreaming. I’m allowing myself more time for dream journals and meditation in the early mornings, and I’m planning small field trips to the shops and lights of the holidays.

My strategy is this: by routinely allowing time to go within, I’ll be able to notice the subtle beliefs that would keep me off-center during a holiday when I’d like to experience more peace. I’m anchoring myself in the mystery of darkness so that I’ll replace stresses of holidays past with joy and excitement of a third-grader on a field trip. A non-sugar-driven, non-hyper holiday field trip. Then I can come home to savor some quiet, some warmth, and visions of sugar plums.

I’ll keep checking in. Let me know what you’re dreaming and how you’re keeping seasonal perspective.

Making the Darkness Conscious

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious.”  Carl Jung

Since I’ve returned to the Northern Hemisphere, the cold nights have drawn my imagination.   I’ve been sleeping, dreaming, and journaling up a regular winter storm.

As I sit in the early evening darkness, there are plenty of figures of light that come to mind, especially vivid having just completed a brightening , enlightening journey. One image keeps coming to mind in the darkness and richness of my unconscious, image-laden mind.

I notice an urge to drape myself in black and white. One of the first visual cues that one is in Bali and not tropical color of the gardens or green of the rice fields.   It’s black and white.  Whether you’re a sculpture of a god or demon, a temple pillar, a director of traffic, or the corners of intersections, it’s likely that this will be your costume:  poleng fabric of large black and white checks, and, in hand woven, versions, blocks of grey where the two come together.

This serves as a constant reminder to the Balinese about the importance of balance between the forces of light and those of darkness, which are seen as opposing forces.   While I was there, I was told more than once that “there’s good in both. Same same.”  White (good) contains evil (black), and vice-versa.  Much of Balinese ceremony and ritual is devoted to keeping the two opposing but complimentary forces in balance.

And so I sit with figures of light and dark, black and white, embracing the darkness and honoring its teaching as I await the return of the light.

A special “heads up” for blog readers.  There’s a strong chance I’ll be working with the Balinese Institute for Global to offer a small group experience in Bali during the week of March 10-16th, during the Balinese lunar new year. This would focus on balance between the outer and inner worlds,  and would culminate with Nyepi, a national “day of silence,” the traditional new year’s beginning. Stay tuned for further announcements.

From Full Sun to Full Moon

This last month I disappeared from life as I typically know it to celebrate a big anniversary with my husband across the planet and South a little.  We just returned from Bali, Indonesia, a couple of days ago, and I’m still waiting for all my brain cells to arrive.

I spent Thanksgiving feasting on babek (Balinese duck, which takes 24 hours to prepare) and American-style turkey with Balinese and American friends.  I missed Black Friday, but Saturday was pretty blacked out on planes airports.  This year holiday mania hasn’t seized me yet, and I hope to keep it that way.

I’ll be sharing more about my ongoing involvements in Bali in the coming days, but now I feel compelled to notice this dramatic transition.  From full sun and saturating warmth to full moon and winter chill.

There’s beauty in both. As much as I love summer, the dramatic change from fall to winter nurtures my inner oasis and the longing of my introvert to be finally heard. So moving from vivid color and full sun to the nuanced shadows of full moon reflects perfectly my soul’s longing.

As much as I savored the magic of Bali (and I do mean magic.), it feels right to return to this deepening season of moving within.  More than right.  As the days shorten and the nights lengthen, there is such deep peace in finding the whisperings of inner direction during this season of preparation and longing.

How about you?  What is your longing?  What are your hopes?  This is the season to go deep and discover what you find. Let it incubate or share it with others, right here or elsewhere in your world.

Is it true?

This is the 24 carat question. It’s truly astounding to me how often I don’t stop to ask it, even after more than five years of inquiry where this is the first question (The Work of Byron Katie).  The more mindful of my choices I become, the more assumptions I notice I have about the world.  This is the source of all my personal restriction.

Sometimes it’s hard to catch the belief (see my blog on Thought Catching).  Often this comes after I notice a habitual pattern of acting that keeps me stuck.  I notice I frequently don’t allow enough time to get places, to be restfully present when I arrive. I notice the stress that comes into my life. 

Oh my gosh.  I’ve been believing two things my whole life: that I have to rush.  That I don’t have enough time. Is it true? that I don’t have enough time?  That I have to rush? Be honest with yourself.  No. But by the way I act you’d never know it.

There are other profound and powerful questions in this process.  But sometimes asking just this one takes me right out of a old, robotic way of living and brings me to the present moment, where I can create something different.

Try it out for yourself.  Ask this one question and notice what other wisdom emerges.

As for me, I’m going to take my time packing for my morning exercise routine right now, testing out whether it’s indeed true that I needed to rush.

Juicy Question Collection Project

A couple of weeks ago I started a personal inquiry process to begin “living the questions,”  I began with the question Who am I right now? Since then I’ve brought the question out of my pocket at least a dozen times.  I mean that literally.  I wrote it on a little sticky and carried it in my pocket.  It continues to bring me back to the present, to a deeper sense of authenticity as I live it. I noticed I want to share the process with others, so I’m calling it the Juicy Question Collection Project and inviting everyone to chime in. I’ll keep posting my question and yours and we’ll see what we learn together.

Juicy Question Two: What am I believing right now? To get the best traction, I’m going to a place where I feel stuck.  I have a couple (or more) areas I can find more than a little stuckness, but the one that shows up as a guide multiple times a day is mindless eating.  What am I believing when I reach out to food to reduce the feeling of stress? As I work with myself, just as I do with clients, I notice that finding these beliefs takes practice, but then it’s easier. I have a top ten list of beliefs that cause me to leave the moment and reach out for “comfort.” Here’s number one: There’s not enough (time, not enough of me, you name it). Read More>>

Indian Summer, Wabi Sabi, Seasonal Questions

We call it Indian Summer. The light at this time of year is slanted.  Just a few days ago light and dark were in perfect balance. It’s a time between worlds, a perfect time to catch up with yourself.

The Japanese have a word to describe the deep yearning that autumn brings. Wabi sabi. It’s a way of seeing and a recognition that all things are temporary.  This experience of impermanence is the key to the  subtle beauty of the season. As we open to the beauty of the fall, we become aware of the constant flux of the natural world. We are called to deep appreciation of each moment, before it fades and becomes the next. This moment.  The one right here. Now.

After full-tilt boogying through life, there’s a yearning to go within, to get a little quieter. To bring home the harvest of the growing season.  To balance inner and outer worlds. To appreciate the subtle fluctuations of life. We open to the sweet impermanence of the season, the passing beauty of a leaf, a baby’s face, the light hitting the window just so.

When we move into a darker and quieter time, we  find out what’s in balance and what’s not. We  discover the little resistances and the limited thinking that would be keeping us from being our most peaceful and free versions of ourselves. This is a perfect time to ask ourselves some questions that call us into deeper living. Read More>>

Living the Questions

Many years ago I came across these words by Rainier Maria Rilke, in his Letter to a Young Poet:

“Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

I’ve been compiling a list of questions that I love to ask myself and others ever since. When I’m feeling confusion or stress, it’s usually because I haven’t taken the time to ask myself some good questions.  I notice this is true for my clients, too.  With that in mind, I’m sharing some of my favorite questions in the next few blog entries.

Here’s the one that shows up today: Who am I now? I’ll be carrying it in my pocket today to find out, as the day progresses, as I live with it.  Here’s what I notice this moment.  I’m finding my way back to my center after the last month’s whirlwind of activities. I’m noticing I’ve been missing me when I’m responding to everyone else.   Read More>>

How a Long Marriage is Like the Grand Canyon

As of this week, I’ve been married forty years to the same person.  Okay. Not the same person.  He’s changed.  I’ve changed.  And it’s not the same marriage.  It’s changed and we’ve changed. In many ways, it’s been more like a series of two or three marriages,.

When new friends ask what wisdom we have to share. I ‘m struck dumb. Those of you who know me understand what an unusual occurrence this is.   Looking back there’s the same feeling I had when I first set my eyes on the Grand Canyon. It’s just too big to grasp.

Generalities fly through the air. Kindness, rooted commitment.  Then specific words come to mind:  communication (learning what that means and how to do it better), acceptance, tolerance.  But mostly there’s a parade of images, single frames that become a whole, like flipping a book of line drawings that create animation. Viewing my own mental snapshots of these two young strangers and watching how shared joy and grief and pain has changed them together and separately simply boggles my mind. Read More>>

Getting Traction, as Opposed to BEING in Traction

When I’m caught in the web of my Frequently Recycled Thought Loops, it’s like being in traction.  I’m strung up, and I have a very hard time moving. And I’m in such a trance to the fruity loopy thinking that I won’t budge until I can see the predicament. Often I need to simply sit down with a pen and paper and write down what I’m thinking so I can slow the whole loop down and see my way out of traction.

Doing this, I find a different kind of traction.  I GET traction to get unstuck.  Once I can find a painful thought, I can begin to inquire (usually using my favorite 4 questions a la Byron Katie.)  And if I’m too locked in the loop (or strung up in traction) STILL, I can get someone else to help me find it.  I love being facilitated as much as I love facilitating other people. As I find the place of traction, my mind gradually gets unstuck all by itself, as it comes to understand itself. And sooner or later (usually sooner) I’m unstuck.  And if I’m not, I know how to find another thought and move deeper into the process.  Join me as we all get more unstuck. Using some traction to get out of the traction of our thinking.

Octogenarian Observations

This week I’m leading a service to celebrate the life of a dear friend and an inspiration, Connie Foulke.  An ardent teacher, parent, and community leader, Connie was one of my reference points for how to live a good life for over thirty years.  A while ago she organized a group of “young friends” (most of us were only in our late 50’s, after all) for lunch and tea.  Our honored leader even gave us a name:  the Pleiades, and she requested we each choose a the name of one of the stars of the constellation, research the mythology behind it and select one that fit. After all, Google was a wonderful invention that would help us out.  Connie was that kind of thoughtful. That kind of thorough. She was what used to be called “a class act.”

When I turned sixty  I flew back to Kansas City for a gathering of high school friends who were also celebrating that passage.  I asked Connie to give some advice to those of us twenty years behind.  She was rather frail at that point, and I expected her to dictate  a couple of lines over the phone.  Not Connie. What I got was a call, four or five days later, that I should come and pick something up. When I opened the bag Connie had left for me, there was  a double-sided page of thoughts in an ornate old English font, printed on fine parchment-style paper.  The title was “octogenarian observations.”

I’ve been inspired for a year by her well-honed life, and her careful advice. I thought about excerpting this and sharing it in pieces because there’s so much wisdom that it’s hard to digest in one sitting.  Then I decided to post it as it is, in its entirety.  It’s such a testimony to a brilliant mind, a wise heart, and a generous heart.  Not to mention a model of conscious aging that I continue to find helpful. Here it is:

Octogenarian Observations

Laugh a lot, even when it hurts.  You’ll feel lighter for it.

Forget the feeling that you’ve forgotten something.  If it’s really important, it will eventually sneak back.  If not, so what?

Listen to classical music.  It will soothe your soul and envelop you in peace.

Consume quantities of chocolate!  There is never too much.

Dump people, possessions and practices you don’t want or need any more.

People:  “Remove from your life those who offer you depression, despair and disrespect.” (Nikki Giovanni)

Practices: give up compulsions.  For example, if you don’t enjoy sending Christmas cards, quit.  I did two years ago.

Love and enjoy your children and grandchildren on your own terms.

Be grateful!

Drink plenty of water.  It is good for your innards and keeps you active with frequent journeys to the bathroom.

Take the phone of the hook if you want to nap or read undisturbed.

Wear whatever suits your fancy, new or old.  But comfortable.

Use lovely perfume and enjoy your own scent.

Take your favorite jewelry out of the box and wear it for your own enjoyment.  (You didn’t acquire it to keep it in the box.)

Nap frequently and enjoy your dreams!

Damn the clock.  Keep your own time.  Get out of bed when you feel like it and stay up as late as you wish.  (But to be on time for appointments and engagements that involve others.)

Spend time on crossword puzzles and Sudoku to challenge your brain and enjoy the success of solution.

Eat quantities of fruits and vegetables, especially local produce.

Travel–actually, via TV or film, or in remembrance of things past.

Sometimes hang out with young people; their energy and enthusiasm may be contagious.  It is surely uplifting.

It’s OK to need a little help.  Use a cane or someone dependable to lean on.

Peruse old photo albums and vicariously enjoy fond memories.

Look at the clouds, the sunrises and sunsets, and MARVEL over creation.

Occasionally retreat into your shell and look at the iridescent nacre inside, like highlights in your life.

Believe in what’s good.

Vote for Obama; he’s the hope for the future of our beloved country.

Finally, as Micah said, Do justly, Love mercy, walk humbly with thy God.