This scene of our littlest grandchildren so earnestly at work moving sand this way and that and the Mary Oliver Poem, Song Of The Builders collided in my mind on an early morning, just past sunrise, this week.
As Mary Oliver sat one morning to contemplate God she witnessed a grasshopper hard at work moving grains on a hillside. She see’s both humility and great effort in the grasshopper’s task.
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Learn more about what happens in our brain during ‘cool’ and ‘hot’ moments and what huge differences it makes in our relationships.
We are only three weeks into the summer and already there has been a lot to learn. Most of us continuously find ourselves judging others and making assumptions about other people’s behaviors. We do this continuously in a scanning function in our brain. These assumptions justify our defensive behaviors. Our untested ‘realities’ give rise to disconnection, wall building and subtle and not so subtle negativity in our relationships.
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This phrase comes to me on a walk to the river. Why is it so comforting?
“My wanting has no end.”
The first thing I notice is there is no judgment attached to it. If I say it this way, “there is no end to my wanting,” I hear judgment. Judgments I have heard my whole life — “You are a bottomless pit and you are too needy.” I feel the familiar shame of my needs and wants. And almost before I feel this I feel an even more familiar litany of anger at all those who deny me. To be honest this “why haven’t you, why didn’t you?” plays in my head for a great majority of every day in a constant stream of turmoil and unrest.
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When I took my first serious writing class I learned a startling fact: To write you must read. “The more you read the more you will be inspired to write and the better writer you will become,” my teacher said. I had never linked these two activities.
As an only child I kept myself company with books. The characters became my friends. The children’s book The Lonely Doll, by Dare Wright in 1957 expressed my dilemma. “Once there was a little doll. Her name was Edith. She lived in a nice house and had everything she needed except someone to play with.” I was four when the book was published.
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One of the most common problems I hear about is the habitual tendency to turn on oneself or turn on another. Someone has to be blamed in order to avoid feelings.
“Splitting is defined as the failure in a person’s thinking to bring together the dichotomy of both positive and negative qualities of the self and others into a cohesive, realistic whole. It is a common defense mechanism used by many people.”
In the Pathwork, The Guide calls this our dualistic thinking and describes the challenges of being human in a dualistic world where our natural dualistic divisions of good and evil and life and death are not actually the truth.
Recently, I spent an hour with a group of people stumbling around a room with translucent plastic grocery bags over our heads. Eventually our eyes adjusted and we could see shadows and light. The point? Our human perceptions are so limited and we believe we have the whole picture. From this illusion we take our stances of opinions, cases, judgments – we do our splitting….
“Life goes on without us.” I never imagined how challenging this phrase would feel and how difficult it would be to experience so many transitions in one year. Transitions promise transformation if mindfully felt … Read more to learn about my recent experiences.