An early start on an easy load!
(Taking pre-orders before it’s even dry.)
It’s your mother calling
October 6th, 2009 - 9 Comments
All wisdom is a matter of call and response.
The sun comes up, your eyelids flutter.
The bell rings, you answer.
Work appears, you do it.
Mail arrives, you open.
Sadness fills, you cry.
A stranger nears, you smile.
A crack opens, you fall.
Hunger rises, you eat.
Quiet descends, you quiet.
All struggle is resistance to response.
That’s why I will always respond.
Announcing June 12 in Seattle.
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funny pages
October 5th, 2009 - 3 Comments
11 Reasons to Drink Water – and thirst isn’t one of them.
5 Ways to Age Naturally – trust me, there’s only one way. Age.
101 Ways to Say I Love You – and “I love you” isn’t one of them.
13 Tips to Doing Less – first, don’t read the story.
8 Reasons Why You Can’t Pay Attention – I only counted one before I lost attention.
How to get wet
October 1st, 2009 - 11 Comments
Today I stuffed the envelopes and mailed the welcome letter for those attending next week’s Minnesota Plunge at Assisi Heights. It took half the day but it filled me with quiet wonder and glee. The Plunge will be marvelous, I’m certain now. It has shaped itself into a circle, as life always does, replicating my visit to the original Assisi 15 years ago.
Truly, every place is holy, and every place is home.
I’m ready to plan more Plunges in the places you live. But here’s the thing: there’s only one of me. If you are one of those who has asked me to come to your town, now I’m asking you to help me. I need the eyes in your head and your feet on the ground to locate the right venue for our group. I’ve written some short, snappy guidelines on how to spy the right spot. If you’d like to put things in motion for me, just shoot me an email at kmiller(at)turningwords(dot)com or leave me a comment with a way to connect. I’ll send you my one page instructions on “How to Get Wet: Having a Mother’s Plunge Where You Live.”
Cities on my to-do list are Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Chicago, Kansas City, Dallas, Washington DC and anywhere in New York, New Jersey and New England. If you can help with any of those, or one of your own, I would love to hear from you.
Let’s make it rain.
The big Q, the big A
September 29th, 2009 - 1 Comment
How is your daughter? How is your husband? How are your in-laws? How is your job? How is your boss? How is your dog, your fish, your garden, your laundry, your dishes, your life?
How do you answer?
It’s easy to think that Buddhist practice is about the big questions. Birth and death, cause and effect, form and emptiness, delusion and enlightenment, attachment and non-attachment, and whether a dog has Buddha nature or not. I just hope you’re not actually thinking about any of that stuff.
My Zen practice is koan practice, and every time I meet with my teacher in dokusan, or face-to-face interview, I present my understanding, so to speak, of the inscrutable koan I’m working on at the time. I recite the koan and its verse, which by this time I’m pretty well convinced that I’ve nailed.
After we talk a bit about how far along I am, the state of my spiritual genius, he’ll wrap up the interview with what sounds like a simple social courtesy:
How’s your family?
Read the rest and leave a comment on “The Laundry Line”
my blog at Shambhala SunSpace
my blog at Shambhala SunSpace
The Big Answer: The winner of the giveaway of the Feeleez Empathy Game is C who blogs at Once. Thanks to all who answered.
When the last bluebird sings
September 28th, 2009 - 8 Comments
I’ve been watching it for some time now, anticipating the end and knowing what it would mean.
When I left my lonely life of accomplishment behind, when I first moved with my husband to this house, to my stark empty-handedness, I called my mother soon after. She had raised three independent daughters, three whiz kids, and I had never said the words that tumbled from my blubbering lips:
I need you.
She came to visit, but before then she sent me a houseplant. It was the kind of plant sold at grocery stores and florists, just a pot of common ivy and indistinguishable indoor greenery. For decoration, it had a slender spike stuck into it with a bluebird on the end of it. I’ve had it since then, all 12 years, in one spot and then rotated to another. I treated it like a talisman, and then a memorial, thinking to myself:
This is my mother.
About a year ago it started to fade. The ivy yellowed and dropped off. The other stalks shrunk. Little remains but the spike with the bird on top. It seems to have bugs now, or some kind of blight. I know it’s time, and so I moved it to the patio. As part of every morning service at the Zen Center we chant this line, and so I chant it now:
The four elements return to their nature as a child to its mother.
It’s time to let the old girl go, to let it all come to rest. My mother is telling me to go, to take flight, to sing my own song. A few weeks ago I heard myself say, as if reading my own heart, “I don’t want to write about parenting any more. Motherhood is about so much more than the kids.” Yes, it’s true the kids are part of it, I said, pounding my chest, but my life and work have moved to a larger purview now. Like what, you might ask, if I haven’t lost you in this pile already. And so I tell you:
The laundry.
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Barefoot and pregnant with meaning
September 24th, 2009 - 5 Comments
Going to sit a three-day sesshin on this anniversary of September anniversaries.
Details to follow.
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I hate you*
September 22nd, 2009 - 89 Comments
*and other ways to say I love you.
Today I had a: conversation/fight/tantrum/major meltdown.
The fact is, I’m having a tough time with the transition to: going back to work/daycare/no sleep/solids/no nap/the big bed/the twos/the threes/a new sibling/the layoff/the new job/kindergarten/fourth grade.
I’m just so frustrated with: naptime/potty training/bedtime/no time to myself.
I shouted/screamed/slammed the door/broke down/sobbed/made her cry.
I should have: seen it coming/stopped in my tracks/used my words/taken a break/left the room/given myself a timeout.
This is so much harder than: I thought/anyone told me/it was last year.
How can I: learn from my mistakes/do better/raise my child differently?
My friend Kris Laroche sent me a Feeleez game recently to give away on this blog. Because of all of the above, I feel happy to share it with you now.
Kris is one of the founders of Feeleez, which originated tools to teach kids what some folks call emotional intelligence.
Getting along peacefully is what we all want to do. A tool to help our children identify and talk about their feelings helps parents talk about their feelings too. Personally speaking, that has always been a more urgent need in our household, and that’s why I’m so glad to offer you this gift.
Kris was an early adopter of Momma Zen, for which I feel so grateful, and she checked in with me recently to find out how else I was feeling. Frankly, Kris, I’m feeling relieved now that I said all this, and empathize with all the moms who I know are having a rough go of it these days.
I’m giving away a beautifully crafted and packaged Feeleez Empathy Game with 25 matching pairs of Feeleez cards to help you and your children learn to recognize and express feelings in a non-confrontational way. It comes with a guide for several game ideas including memory games and charades. It’s a lovely addition to your home or classroom.
To enter, simply leave a comment telling me how you feel right now, including a way to contact you by blog or email if you win. Seriously, I feel sad when I choose a winner that I can’t contact! The giveaway ends next Monday, Sept. 28. Enter as often as you like whenever the feeling strikes.
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The secret is out
September 20th, 2009 - 10 Comments
Back when The Secret was making the world spin, I read a blogger rave about it. It seemed every time she applied the technique, she found a choice parking spot at her favorite shopping center. The kind you never get. It feels good to find a parking spot, and with such a modest gain, the woman didn’t think she was being greedy. But then I wondered, “Why doesn’t she just give the parking spot to someone else and feel really good?”
It’s no secret. These things keep bubbling up like hot wax and we get stuck in gooey dissatisfaction and self-service. We may think we know a secret, but we’re always exposed for who we are. We’re just the last to see it.
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Peek inside my medicine chest
September 18th, 2009 - 26 Comments
It’s the time to reach for a tonic.
For fatigue: Be tired.
For impatience: Be still.
For inflammation: Chill.
For despair: Empty completely.
For fear of getting nothing done: Get nothing done.
For having no time: Take time.
For lack of love: Love.
For disappointment: Dance.
For inadequacy: Give.
For no reason: Be unreasonable.
For others, pray.
For these and all other symptoms, exhale.
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Every bit love
September 15th, 2009 - 12 Comments
The other night I stepped into the living room to deliver the announcement: Timetobrushyourteethwashyourfaceitsbedtime! My husband and daughter were watching an ancient baby video, one of the ones we haven’t watched in, oh, nine years or so, a dozen obsolete formats ago.
We were starstruck.
She was not yet two. We watched her waddle in circles around the lemon tree, and then repeat a circuit around the yard, climbing the steps over and over, little feet sailing, arms flailing, head tucked and hell-bent on a mission called growing up.
She stood in sunken, soggy diapers twirling her goldilocks curls and rubbing her bedtime eyes.
She danced in a loopy bounce to grandpa’s ragtime piano, bathed in a spotlight of self-immersion and propulsion.
She emptied her first Halloween bag piece by piece, cooing a drooling baby talk of approval, chirping a drunken birdsong of eees and opps and umms that we understood perfectly.
I said to my 10-year-old, “Now do you see why we love you so much?”
Everything seen and unseen. Heard and unheard. Known and unknown. The confusion, the fear, the fatigue, the worry, the doubt. The rage, the gulf, the hurt, the tears, lonely sleepless anxious terribleness, all of it, the ugly underside of it, and the unwrapped rosy red yummy of baby’s first bobbypop. It’s all love.
My sweet lord. Every bit love.
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Buddhists and gardeners raise your hands
September 14th, 2009 - No Comments
Shortly after my husband and I moved into our house with its old garden, we invited the experts and academics over tell us what to do. Some would say that our backyard is Southern California’s oldest private Japanese garden, dating from 1916. Some would say that it isn’t; that by virtue of geography, topography, plant selection and cultural anthropology, it can’t ever be Japanese. We were twisted into a fit by these and other debates about the right way to care for the place. Heaven forbid we make a fraudulent move when we were already paralyzed by ignorance from the get go!
You might not fall victim to this kind of dialectic. You might be able to sweep it aside with the simple observation that the Japanese garden originated in China and the Chinese garden originated as a Persian pleasure park, and that a garden is a garden no matter what you call it.
One day we stopped asking the experts. That was the day we got dirt under our fingernails. Conventional wisdom holds that our garden isn’t the real thing, but try telling that to the pine tree.
Read the rest and leave a comment on “The Laundry Line”
my blog at Shambhala SunSpace
my blog at Shambhala SunSpace
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It takes a mother
September 11th, 2009 - 2 Comments
Last night at the back-to-school picnic, a few of us moms looked around for a garbage can.
We were on the front lawn of the neighborhood school where all our kids and a good number of dads sprawled having summer’s last sandwiches and drinks. There wasn’t a trash can to be found.
“We don’t need a trash can because we have moms,” I said, and it was true, each of us with hands full of apple cores and bread crusts, totes of green waste and recyclables, water bottles sweating rivulets inside our stained handbags.
It takes a mother to spread a meal and make it disappear.
It takes a mother to clean up after.
It takes a mother to adapt, undo, invent and start over.
It takes a mother to heal a mother, a sister, a brother and a father, a nation, the world.
A mother to be a mother again.
I’ve given up thinking that the good old boys, with their bully monsters and toys, will get a damn thing done.
It takes a mother to make it better.
A mother first and a mother last in line.
I wish it wasn’t so, and it’s not always.
If you’re a father and you do all this, that’s how good a mother you are.
And I bet you have a sack of trash to prove it.
***
If you, your friend, your mother, husband, sister or brother are thinking about joining me at the Rochester Mother’s Plunge, now is the time to commit. If you have the means but not the time, consider funding a full or partial scholarship. I have mothers waiting for a fairy godmother to appear. Email me at kmiller (at) turningwords (dot) com to make a mother’s day.
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