Keeping the Dream

(First posted at my healing voices forum)

Presenting Frederika Yumei Kocoronis, named after both grandmothers according to Greek tradition. I had a choice of my first name or Chinese surname, by my daughter, changing the tradition a bit. I chose my Chinese surname, as my mother carried it, both her daughters carried it as a middle name, and both my daughters carry it as a middle name. Now the name is passing to yet another generation.

She arrived Saturday morning close to 11:00 (mother and baby doing very well!) but I have been so busy caring for my grandson that I have not had a chance to post much sooner!

At the hospital, I held Ricca (for short) in one arm…what a treat that was for me! My lightest baby was 8 1/2 pounds and my last was 9 1/2 pounds! She was like holding a little doll to me!

I am in love.

It’s almost 4:00 in the morning. Just moments ago, my oldest daughter left for the hospital with her husband. She is in labor.

Earlier I was rubbing her back, her shoulders, breathing with her as the contractions came and went, closing my eyes and feeling generations of women before me and the power of this connection that will continue to reach out after me.

I sit here now and savor those moments and think about how much we have become disconnected to this great flow of life with the very technology that is supposed to increase the odds of that life. And how ironic that our technological advances can connect a world and yet disconnect us from our roots and the wisdom of our ancestors.

But in those moments, before the wires and gadgets and sterile rooms, it was as if time stopped, and within that stillness, I felt a sense of primal connection. It was rich and deep and if it had a smell, it would be of dark, fertile soil.

And I wonder, if somehow we have not created a cage of safety for ourselves like birds that have all the food they want to eat and no worries about predators, but no room to fly and no sky to reach.

But now, in these early predawn hours, my thoughts turn to my daughter and the baby who will soon be here. I see an endless horizon of possibilities and wonder. And I see a bond that spans through the generations. I know that the connection is still there and always will be.

We need only accept its eternal invitation to be aware.

Woke up early this morning. This is not unusual, but I did something I haven’t done in a long time. I started my day with prayer.

My spirituality is so important to me, and yet, somehow I find that I have let my conscious practice of it slip away. I would get up, do some quick “clearing of the mind” morning pages, and then maybe be silent for a minute of two, before rushing off to meet the day.

And though I’d stop to think every now and then about my connection with Spirit throughout the day, it was always on the fly.

So this morning I landed. I took the time to just stop and give myself the space to really go within, to let myself stop and enter the silence and feel the presence of God.

I need that. The pressure and stress has really seemed to be rising, and I feel very hard pressed to meet all my obligations or to be there for the people who seem to need me.

But I am learning. I’m learning to carve space out for me. I’m learning to let go. I’m learning to trust in the process to a much deeper degree.

It’s funny, but in the midst of a very stressful last week, I received an email out of the blue from someone from the other side of this country, who spoke words of encouragement to me and just happened to be someone who has made it her life’s work to advocate in the very area I was struggling with. A total stranger, a gift of insight and support.

This morning slowed me down enough to ponder the wonder of this synchronicity and allowed me to relish this feeling of being loved.

Quiet moments can do that. But you have to let yourself have them. They are not forced upon you, for even if you are bedridden, you can still race miles away from where you are.

Quiet moments are a state of mind. When your environment matches up with your quiet state of mind, so much the better. That’s why I like early morning hours, but you can carry that state around with you.

That’s the challenge, I think. Even more than what’s on your plate, the challenge is what’s in your head. Thoughts of peace, feelings of trust or chaos?

This morning, I choose peace.

That’s what an enabler does. She robs another person of the right to be accountable. She thinks she’s protecting the person she loves, but what’s she’s doing is a kind of abuse. It’s not just an aiding and abetting of a crime or an addiction. It’s a theft of another person’s actualization into adulthood.

Enabling can be a very controlling thing. On the one hand we can tell ourselves we’re helping someone, but what we are doing is keeping them dependent upon us as we enable them to continue in whatever hurtful behavior they are engaging in, by continuously cleaning up after them.

I am guilty of this. It seems to be a big part of my identity. I call it being an “advocate”, and I am…but I don’t know when to stop, and then advocating for someone becomes something else.

Advocacy that usurps accountability is not advocacy. It’s enabling. It’s a cover up. And sometimes it’s an effort to keep someone weak.

Parents have to watch out for this. And people involved with others who have addictions, whether drug, alcohol, obsessive spending or whatever forms the compulsion to avoid the real self takes, need to take a good look at not only their intentions but the deeper and actual impact of “helping”.

“Accountability theft” is a serious thing. It not only robs the person of the chance to take control of their own lives, it drains the life out of yours.

[I actually wrote this a few months ago, but wanted more time to pass between this actual event and the publishing of it. This situation affected a number of people and I wanted to honor their space with the distance of time. But it was a very important moment for me and I want to share it.]

I can’t begin to explain this, except that I witnessed something that was hurtful - very, very hurtful. I experienced some of it, myself, but most of it I saw happen to other people.

There were many reasons to keep quiet. One was the fear of reprisal, but I spoke up. It was not easy. I languished over some of it and after I had spoken, I had to go back and add a thing or two I had forgotten. I hated that the most.

But I knew I had to do the right thing. I knew I had the capacity and the skill to speak out, not only for myself, but for others, and that I could articulate and keep focused on the issue that so easily kept wanting to get sidetracked away.

It was abusive. I could not back away.

I was afraid and I was very sure of the rightness of what I was going to do. So I spoke. And I was heard. Other voices, also, were heard, but I know I made a difference.

And this made a difference in me, because for the first time I spoke up against something I saw as extremely abusive, I pointed out the duplicity, I clarified the abuse so that others could see, and I did it from a centered and clean space. I was not out to hurt anybody. I was out to stop the continued hurting of other people and myself.

For the first time in my life, I didn’t just take it or helpless flail against an injustice that continued virtually unheeded by my objections. For the first time, I was not only believed among friends who whispered among ourselves.

I stepped out into the sun and spoke what was in me, my awareness, my knowledge, my perception.

I did it.

Some things were triggered - namely the fear of reprisal for myself and for another. You know, the warning that if you tell you’ll be sorry or someone you love will.

And that threat stays with you forever if you first heard this threat as a child.

But it doesn’t keep you down. Because I felt it, and I told anyway.

Not as a child would, but as an adult would. And the two of us, who I was and who I am, celebrate.

Empowerment means different things under different circumstances. Sometimes empowerment means saying yes to a situation. Sometimes it means saying no.

One of the things I’m learning is that empowerment is not reactionary.

To be reactionary is to say “no” to every “yes” and “yes” to every “no”. It’s finding yourself on the end of a string with the puppeteer counting on your defiance. If someone says “yes”, you have to say “no”. If someone says “no”, you have to say “yes”.

You might think this means you’re powerful. “You can’t make me do what you want me to”, but if we go through our whole lives enslaved to having to have the exact opposite stance to whatever is presented to us, then we are no more free than if we acquiesced to every request and demand.

And sometimes being empowered doesn’t mean acting as if there was nothing wrong, but acknowledging the pitfalls and shortcomings of any given situation and making the best of it. This entails addressing each situation that affords you the greatest respect or honoring of your human dignity - even if none of the choices are particularly great.

I had to make a choice between not being with people I really care about, because of convoluted dynamics existing between other individuals or to be there anyway and censure myself the entire evening. I chose to go without the company of people I liked this time rather than to not be myself. I would exercise my ability to create other opportunities for a more authentic time with my friends.

While neither were great options, and I did feel disappointment at missing this evening, I made the choice that felt the least abusive and most respectful to me as a person. That’s empowerment.

Empowerment is making choices that are respectful of who you are and what you believe in, even if the choices themselves are limited.

Last Thursday, my youngest daughter, Brhiannon, and I went to see The Spiderwick Chronicles. I wrote a review of it here, in my new blog, Inclusive Homeschool. Well it’s actually an old blog that I brought out of “retirement” and started anew.

I spend the vast majority of my time either homeschooling or researching and putting together material for homeschooling or driving my daughter to functions as part of her homeschooling (which is part of why I have little time to do anything else). So I decided I really do need to, at least, share some of my experiences and resources online, so others may benefit from my work as I have benefited from the work and sharing of others.

Anyway, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Brhiannon and I loved the books, hated the movie. Correction: I hated the movie, Brhiannon enjoyed the special effects, but disliked how they changed the story. I explain in detail in my review here.

Watching this total disregard for the storyline, neat CGI effects notwithstanding, lead me to think about storytellers and other artists and our throw-away society.

We have no regard for the keepers of the stories, no respect for the act of writing or the stories themselves. In our special effects world, where flash is more important than roots, we look at things for only their momentary value. Whether it’s the story, the treasures of its message, or the running streams and their life sustaining gifts, it’s all about “What can this resource do for us?”

And the storytellers, the music makers and the natural flow of nature itself, are exploited and silenced in one swift blow. I’m glad for Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi’s success. They deserve monetary success, absolutely. But I am sorry for the loss of the story and the effective muting of Holly’s voice on it’s way to the big screen.

Which makes the telling of your story all that much more important. Maybe it won’t find it’s way to IMAX, but that makes it…makes you all that much more important.

So how are you? Time has gone by so fast.

January was to be the month I took some time off. I needed some space, in part to the emotional flashbacks I was receiving through Megan’s suicide, in part to the growing stress at work, and just in part that I needed a break.

My time is spent between trying to homeschool my daughter and work. That’s about it…and trying to maintain some kind of internet presence through my blogs. These writings, the ability to step apart in this way and express my thoughts and feelings are very important to me.

But January was far from restful. Issues concerning work intruded upon my first shift off, and then when my second approached, we had a major fire set by one of our clients at the apartment complex where three of our sites are located, one of which is mine.

So, to make a long story short, I returned to work to be with my clients and now my company is finding itself kicked out of the complex.

So we’re in a major transition now. And I feel like that is reflective of where I am personally. On the one hand I could panic. All the variables are unknown at this time. They tell us that all the employees will work for Bell, however, they don’t know where or in what capacity.

I know my requirements are very specific at this time. I need to be able to continue to homeschool my daughter. I need to be in a area that is within the center of all my driving.

But at the same time, I want change in my life. I want to be able to maintain a regular routine with my daughter. She needs it. It’s crucial to her learning, and I haven’t been able to maintain that, because of the very work hours that enable me to homeschool her in the first place! I work nights and the shift varies from week to week, which enables me to have her, but that weekly variation also creates its own problems.

So I don’t know what to do. And I don’t know what to ask for. That’s not true. I don’t know what solution to ask for, but I do know what I want.

Maybe that’s where faith comes in. When you can’t see how it could work…not with what you know, then that is the time to leap beyond what you know and trust that something, someone will catch you…or at least meet you. That it will work out.

I can do that.