Thoughts on Grace

My word of the year to explore has been Grace.  I've always had problems with the word. It seems so... ephemeral. Like it means something but what it means has always been really vague to me.  It feels weird and abstract as a noun. As something you have. What is it that you have when you have grace?  

In terms of spirituality, grace is often spoken of as passive, as in being the passive subject receiving blessings not necessarily deserved. The granting action, however is not passive - it's an act of compassion. We are, I believe, called to both give and receive compassion in life. 

In terms of movement, you are said to 'have grace' when you move with elegant precision - when you move economically using neither more nor less strength/power than you need to in order to achieve your chosen goal. Another way I have come to think of this action is moving with accountability.  If action requires only a light touch, only use a light touch.  Sometimes action requires a heavy hand, do not use a light touch when a strong statement is required.  

Grace then is an action of compassionate accountability.  It is not compassionate to withhold accountability, and accountability does not require one to lack compassion.  They work hand in hand, and the balance of compassion and accountability is grace.

As I reflect on many recent events, I turn to Ma'at and ask for Her to hold us each, in all our very human humanity, in compassionate accountability.

CC0: ArtsyBee Pixabay

Liminality, Schrodinger’s Cat, and Dis/Integration

Originally posted at http://www.lepismatidae.net/blog/archives/1218. 

There is a lot I don’t write online anymore, for a lot of reasons.

One of the things I’ve been struggling with is that I’m very good at compartmentalizing. Who needs to see which Venn diagram of the pieces that comprise me. Who is allowed into one safe space, but not another. Having a rubric of ‘what do I gain from sharing this with this part of the diagram, where and who is likely to find a way to use this against me? And what is my plan of defense if I need one?’ And there is virtually no public safe space. What happens when it becomes too much to manage all those pieces of the Venn diagram. What if the pieces that used to provide structure are merging and blending? What if, as those compartment walls become exhausted, I/we were allowed to integrate them into our being instead of watching everything fall to pieces in disintegration?

When I tell a community that I am an invisible part of that they matter to me, even though some of the people that I am directing that message at and meaning, truly, from the tenderest parts of my heart are not allowed to see that part of my Venn diagram, and even though I suspect that due to other parts of my Venn diagram, I don’t actually matter to them… It’s sometimes a heavy weight to carry. The price for ‘appropriate’ compartmentalization.

And when through experience I know that it’s dangerous and terrifying to stand up, stand out, and that even when I do, the validity of my voice, my opinion is questioned and judged or outright ignored or not heard. And when despite the danger and terror of standing up and trying to stand out, I do try to stand up and stand out, I am still invisible until I am heard and shouted down or ignored until I no longer have a voice, or the will to keep speaking.  Whether that’s on a timeline where the algorithms bury me, or a business room where I can never find the right way to ‘show value’ (or maybe it’s that I’m in my 40s and no longer a young, fresh, face — there’s a reason that age discrimination laws exist, or maybe I just suck at ‘showing value’), there is an echoing loneliness.  And as an introvert, sometimes I find more company with the wind, and the rain, in the dirt, the whirring of a spinning wheel, the pieces of me you’ve never seen (to steal a line from someone else).

Where is the possibility for wholeness? Where is integration? Some days even keeping Venn diagram pieces of me showing up is exhausting. Bringing the whole puzzle to the table seems… illusory and dangerous.  I am so proud of my people with the loud and strong voices, the right words that come at the right time, in the right order, in the right framing, in their wholeness.  And for the rest of us, in the in-between places, it has to be ok to be in liminal spaces.  My heart aches, I am tired.

Am I too much for ‘living out loud’?  I don’t perceive myself as whole, and picking my pieces apart threatens the integrity of my being.  And being told I am too much for sharing what I do share — even now that I don’t share at the levels I used to share — tells me, my whole self is “valued,” but please keep it contained and quiet and you don’t need to talk about that and what kind of ‘value’ is that?  But pieces keep escaping from their compartments awkwardly, demanding to be said when they shouldn’t be said because there is so much not to say that sometimes they break their constraints.  And then sometimes, they wilt in the deafening silence having been said.

Doris Lessing wrote a book called The Golden Notebook about the fragmentation of self & society, and one woman’s attempts to overcome it eventually by trying to combine four different journals into one ‘golden notebook.’ These days, it might be called the ‘bullet journal.’  I have this space, I have another blog (or two), I have a notebook with therapy notes, a bullet journal, a general reflection journal, five DayOne journals, calendars… and others. What does the ‘whole self’ even mean when even in the best of times, I can only expect even those close to me to see a facet of myself?

There is no graceful way for me to end this. I am experiencing the breakdown of my compartments as integration of my whole self, and the fear remains of others picking over the pieces of those evolving compartments and leaving me doubtful, silenced, hurt and all of me present, but still in pieces.

ALL THE WORDS

I have had ALL THE WORDS lately. It's been sort of awkward.  I go from not having words, to having so many that it overwhelms me and is possibly sort of overwhelming to be on the receiving end of.  I'm writing everywhere. Here, my old blog, my journal, a reflection practice, a gratitude practice, a side-project I'm working on, a couple paper and pen journals...

The need to prioritize all the words, so that I convey the most important information first, so I convey only what is necessary because there is not time for it all, is hard -- I don't always know what the most important things are until after I've started emptying my teacup.  My teapot is spilling all over the floor -- no mere teacup can hold it.  Again I hear the echoes of any number of people -- 'you're too much!  What am I going to do with/about you?'

I need to learn to step into and own my multitudes.  If I am to be too much, then accept my bigness and don't try to cut me down into something manageable for your tiny minds!  I AM LARGE, I CONTAIN MULTITUDES.  And yet... and yet, I don't wish to overwhelm.   It is a conundrum, no?

“Trust me, I'm telling you stories. ... I can change the story. I am the story.” ― Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body

Teacups

My leadership coach thoughtfully provided me with a parable the last time we talked 1:1.  It was this:

A business man trying to get to the next level in his business tried everything he knew of and was not making progress.  He asked everyone he knew and no one could help.  Finally he met someone who told him of a faraway master who could solve anyone's problem, be it love, health, business, or anything else.  The man thought to himself, "I will go see this master, perhaps he can help me.  So he travelled across the sea, he travelled through the desert, he travelled through the mountains until finally he came to the master.  The master asked, "What have you come to me for?"  The man explained why he had travelled so far.  The master said, "You are not yet ready.  Come back again when you are ready."

Mystified, the man left.  He travelled back home, back through the mountains, back through the desert, back across the sea.  He went back to work, wondering what he was missing that would make him ready.  He worked very hard for many months.  After these months, he thought surely he was ready now.  So he gathered his travel plans, he travelled across the sea, he travelled across the desert,  he travelled through the mountains, until he again came to the master.  "Master, I am returned, I believe I am ready now."  The master looked into his eyes, paused, and said, "Go away.  You are not yet ready."

Perplexed and a little upset, the man left again.  He travelled back home, back through the mountains, back through the desert, back across the sea.  He went back to work, wondering what was missing that would make him ready.  He worked very hard for many more months.  After these many more months, he thought surely I am ready now.  So again, perhaps with more trepidation this time, he gathered his travel plans, he travelled across the sea, he travelled across the desert, he travelled through the mountains until he came to the master.  He said, "Master, I am returned.  I believe I am ready now."  The master looked into his eyes, paused, and again said, "Go away, you are not yet ready."  

The man said, "Master, with all due respect -- what do I need to do to be ready to even receive an understanding of the steps I must take?  It is expensive and frustrating to come this far only to be told I am not ready!"  The master said, "You are not ready, but let us take some tea together."  The man thought, "Finally!  We are getting somewhere!"   

They sat down to tea.  The master, as the host, bid the man, as his guest, pour himself a cup first.  Then the master poured his own cup, and then reached over to pour more tea into the man's cup.  The man's cup was already full though, and the tea started spilling on the table.  Still the master kept pouring.  The man said, "You are spilling the tea, what are you doing!?"  Still the master poured.  The man jumped up and away from the table to keep the tea from spilling on his clothes, saying, "Why do you continue pouring, the teacup is full and the tea is spilling off the table!?"  The master finished emptying the teapot, sat it back on the table, leaned back and looked at the man.  He looked deep into his eyes and said, "When you come to me, you cannot hear what I have to say because you come with a full mind.  Until you empty your mind, you cannot hear what I have to say anymore than the teacup could accept any more tea.  Anything I said would have been lost on you, like the tea on the table."

She told me this story with a specific intent (of course).  I had been telling her that someone I met with seemed not to ever want to listen to me.  Besides the obvious of sending this individual a prioritized agenda ahead of time so they would be able to prepare on the topics of importance, she said, sometimes people need to empty their minds before you can get to the matter at hand.  Let them empty their teacup.  It might take 45 minutes to an hour the first time you meet, maybe a half hour the next time you meet, and so on.  Some people need to empty their teacups before they are ready to discuss in a collaborative way, so best to let them empty their teacup.

This has been very useful.  When my introvert daughter started talking the other night, I committed myself to letting her empty her teacup.  She and I talked for four hours.  When I wanted to interrupt to share something, I reminded myself, she needs to empty her teacup first... My quiet girl has maybe a teahouse going on, many teacups. My younger extrovert girl empties her teacups all the time rather than building a house out of them.  Often still tea everywhere, but that is how she connects.

In accordance with my pledge several months ago, I have found a therapist.  She asked me if I share things with my friends the day after my leadership coach shared this parable with me.  I said, "I have some friends, that I share... some things... with..."  I often feel though as though my friends come to me to empty their teacups, but that teacup emptying is not reciprocal and that they do not want me to share either my tea or empty my teacup.  Often I opt not to, because like my oldest daughter, I have a virtual teahouse at my disposal stored away and I have much to share that I want to share.  Often I opt not to because... Often I opt not to because I perceive their troubles are weightier than mine and I should not add mine to theirs.  Or sometimes it feels awkward to share something lighthearted after hearing something sorrowful or difficult.  Or simply, I start and it becomes obvious to me that while they wanted to empty their teacup with me, they don't really want me to empty my teacup.  Sometimes I know that people want me to share my tea and empty my teacup with them, and because I so often feel pressure not to share my tea or empty my teacup, I find it very difficult to do so.

For now this sits as an observation.  If you feel I am not emptying my teacup or sharing my tea (I suppose, and you'd like me to), be patient, ask some leading questions.  I may not have answers to your deepest questions, you may not have answers to mine, but come to my teahouse and share in my tea and empty your teacup and I may empty mine.  (If I don't, it's probably because I'm trying to figure out quite how if you seem reciprocal. It's complicated.)

Words Mean Something

Chronology, the time which changes things, makes them grow older, wears them out, and manages to dispose of them, chronologically, forever. 

Thank God there is kairos too: again the Greeks were wiser than we are. They had two words for time: chronos and kairos. 

Kairos is not measurable. Kairos is ontological. In kairos we are, we are fully in isness, not negatively, as Sartre saw the isness of the oak tree, but fully, wholly, positively. Kairos can sometimes enter, penetrate, break through chronos: the child at play, the painter at his easel, Serkin playing the Appassionata are in kairos. The saint in prayer, friends around the dinner table, the mother reaching out her arms for her newborn baby are in kairos. The bush, the burning bush, is in kairos, not any burning bush, but the particular burning bush before which Moses removed his shoes; the bush I pass by on my way to the brook. In kairos that part of us which is not consumed in the burning is wholly awake.

--Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet 

Words mean something. They do, they surely do.

 I talked a little about the Be, Do, Have framework in my reflections from my first Leadership workshop last month.

As Yeshe Rabbit & I were talking through the Distance Aspirant Ethics plan for this weekend, thinking about one of the exercises triggered something in my head that I thought I would try and see what happens.

Part of what I've included in my daily practice is requesting assistance for some very specific qualities that I need to embody.  "Please help me..."  "Please grant me..."  Looking for these things as if they would come to me from outside me.  As I was thinking about the framework of this exercise we'd set up, I thought about the "is-ness" of it (am-ness?) and it occurred to me that I should see how that changes the feel of my daily practice, especially since the exercise we're proposing for them will also become part of my daily practice.

It sounds mundane, but the difference between 'Please help me find the keys...' and 'I am the key...' or 'please grant me wisdom, strategy, and strength' and 'I am wise, strategic, and strong' is tremendous.  I look forward to seeing how this tiny-not-tiny change in language ripples out into the world.

It's little things, the difference between intellectual and experiential knowing in the practical application of known things.  The difference between changing happenings from chronological to ontological time.

Writings from Writing From The Spirit Retreat

Stone meditation:

• The big soft-edged grey stone that called to me from the edge of the curb near the canal. It is a little bigger than my hand and so solid & grounding. Scraped from where the different tires had pushed it along the road & curb-sides.
• It called out to me, the perfect rock, perfect in its imperfections, holding it’s essence though under what seemed like less than optimal circumstances. It called out to me to take it home.
• It’s heaviness is grounding. So solid, brigs me back in the flurry of uncertainty -- that airy, drifting disconnect.
• It tells me secrets of the alchemists — it is not what goes into the crucible, that is the essence of the being. All the magic that happens in the crucible is possible because of the boundaries of the crucible. The boundaries keep the elements of magic within appropriate proximity to act and react and merge and separate. The crucible retains the boundaries and allows magic to happen within but it remains consistent at the end, whatever else has been going on.

It’s an alchemically philosophical rock!? Then again, it was the one that called to me to bring it home...

• The crucible is the vessel that carries, can be rinsed clean, and is what always remains.
• Through transformation, we can add things to our crucible, to our stone soup pot, to our vessels ourselves, but the transformations that stand up to time are the transformations that rinse us clean, back to our essential natures. “What is essential is invisible to the eye.” (St. Exupery).
• Transformation through the elimination and removal of our limiting beliefs. The false stories we tell ourselves about who we are, that sometimes we don’t even know are false. When we become wrapped up with having and doing rather than authentic being.
• The final message of the rock:
  Shed your limiting beliefs and transform by going back to that which is essential to your being.

Thank you, rock, for grounding me today and last fall. Thank you for reminding me that the essence of being is that which is immutable and that which remains when all else is washed away.

———

Writing for me is a practice of processing. Human beings are ‘sense makers’ (or at least some of us lean that way). We want to know why things happen. What just happened. What’s going to happen. Does it make sense? All of the religions in the world, all of the divination systems in the world, all of the beliefs in the world (limiting and freeing) are stories we tell ourselves to try to help us make sense of the world.

Sometimes the world is non-sensical. Things don’t always happen “for a reason” or the things that happen are incomprehensible. Sometimes we try to apply a framework to those stories that don’t fit, trying to make sense of them according to something that has helped us make sense before but is not appropriate now, and may not have been appropriate then. Sometimes that leads to more nonsense or guilt or harmful/not right action. Sometimes our frameworks require review and adaptation and correction.

I write to make sense. To take the strands and ends, the odds & sods that appear in my brain, and lay them out in front of me. To take the jumbled pieces and see what patterns appear in front of me. Sometimes my stories are correct and true, and sometimes they are colored by my perceptions and application of frameworks and my limited perspective. Sometimes I need to process as best I can to keep trying to move forward.

———

Alas, I missed the next writing exercise — life is what happens while you’re making other plans.

———

Yeshe Tsogyal writing meditation:

• Perfect memory — that memory that surfaces what needs to be surfaced, correctly in the correct moment.
• Bees bringing wisdom to and from the flowers.
• Watching the incense rise and curl in a sun beam, being and knowing in the moment.
• I’m sort of mesmerized and distracted by the curls of incense. The shades of blues and greys, twisting in the rays of the sun.

…

• She says,
  Being and knowing in the moment. It’s ok sometimes to just be. And know. Let it be.

Some Weeks There Are No Words For

It is amazing how remarkably tough and incredibly fragile the human body is.

So many thoughts running through my head, so many words, and yet they all seem inadequate.

Thoughts on:

• The fragility and business of life 
• The sustainability of the world's human population in the cultures we've developed to support our sheer mass
• The wind roaring in the tree tops
• The sound of children laughing
• Love

And so much more.  So many words required to sort out my thoughts, and so sound and fury.

The old lady cat is taking her place in the window to bask in the afternoon sun. 

I think the only thing I can articulate succinctly right now is, srsly, fuck necrotizing fasciitis.   

Words That Follow Me

Yeshe Rabbit asked on Facebook:

My dad Dick Matthews has a felt scroll that always hung in his closet that says, "The glory of God is man fully alive." My mom Linda Matthews has a plaque on her dresser that says, "Duty makes us do things well, but love makes us do them better." Personally, I have two blocks of wood that have mottoes painted on them, "Kindness matters" and "Be extraordinary." These little phrases we choose to have in our spaces are interesting to me. What mottoes do you maybe have hung up somewhere for observation in your own daily life? What are the words that follow you around from room to room?

On Facebook I answered:

Since YesheRabbit asked, I have too many to list here, but maybe my favorite is: 

Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it's personal. And the world won't end. And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don't miss them and new ones will find you and cherish you. And you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think Emma Goldman said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution." And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaknig your truth, and that is not speaking. -- Audre Lorde 

But this isn't Facebook, and I can ramble on as I please without length limitation so here are at least the ones that live in my work office with me (which includes the above).

"I always try to come from a place of love.  But sometimes you just gotta break it down for a motherfucker." -- RuPaul.

"Incremental Goodness: what small step can we take today to make things better?" A.C. (an awesome woman I work with).

"Content Strategy: a shared set of goals, guiding principles, and success metrics that guide the creation, delivery, and governance of content across an organization."  I don't have it attributed on my whiteboard, but I believe it's Christina Wotke.  You can replace "content" with anything else and it still holds true.

"Breathe. (pri 1) [gratitude, compassion]."  That's a reminder to myself when things are getting stressful...
"Drink water too."  What can I say, sometimes when things get crazy I forget some of the basics...

"Real, radical change happens when someone in a position of authority turns to a blowhard and says, 'You are wrong. Stop talking.'"  Bee Lavender.  I have a whole post linking to the article this is from.  It is Required Reading.

"Stop not being awesome."  From the Discardia blog.

"ISO: 21st Century -- Information wants out of three ring binders.  ^And microfilm!"  I can't remember where I got the first part, the second part was something I added.  Though, given the rapid shifting still in digital content formats, they may become unreadable faster than microfilm, and I acknowledge it was sort of tongue in cheek as my inner archivist whimpers sadly off in a corner.

"No one can go back and make a brand new start but anyone can start now and make a brand new end."  Can't remember where I saw this one or who it came from.

"Assume the best!"  One of our directors used to say this, things are better when the group culture assumes that everyone is trying their best to do the right thing.

"Ownership is not making the decisions.  Ownership is being responsible for the results."  I think this is another Christina Wotke thing.

"You don't have to attend every fight you're invited to."  Dorothy Parker.

"Before a revolution, a revolutionist leads a daring and romantic life.  After a successful revolution, she must erect a distribution system for olives." -- Sparrow.  Sort of the same idea of  'before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water - after enlightenment: chop wood, carry water' but I think this captures the anticipation of big achievement, and the sense of pragmatic, practical efforts, *work!* that must still take place afterwards better.

Aaand, now that I mention it, 'Before/after enlightenment: chop wood, carry water' is also represented.

Lots more words in here.  "Keep calm, carry on." (I put googly eyes in the crown, because reasons).

"Every day is a good day in library automation." -- Richard Jost

"Do not get distracted by teh dum.  FOCUS."  Work politics gave rise to this one. I was having a very bad day and there was so much to do.  Doing the things that need to get done gets everyone further than getting caught up in the drama and politics...

All sorts of meme stuff that is amusing ("When life give me lemons, I squeeze them over life's eyes" & "What which does not kill us will regret not finishing the job," etc.).

I also have our company mission and values which are too long for me to go into here, but it's important for those things to be visible to my teams and to me as those are our organization's guiding principles & they're good solid ones.

So many words.  I think the last one that I'm going to type out (because I am a word collector and this is getting long!) is something I got from a friend about assessing what work to take on, because I think these things are important to consider.  All four of these will ideally be complementary.  :

• How do I like to work (within an organization, and does this project/job/etc meet these qualifications)?
• What is success (for the project, for the client, for the organization, for the team, for me)?
• What do we get out of it?
• What do I get out of it?