The Darkness of Winter

What is it about the human mind that makes us think that if opposites exist, then one must be good and one must be bad?  What makes us think that opposites are really all that opposite?

As part of my "learn to love December and winter" plan, I've been thinking about darkness.  Why do I assume darkness is bad?  Darkness can be good.  Darkness can focus our attention on where the light is.  Why do you think they dim the house lights in a theatre or concert hall?

Darkness can make us pay more attention to our other senses.  In the dark, you rely much more on touch or sound than you might if you had the sense of sight available.  Does darkness scare us because it can hide the unknown?  It shouldn't.  It only hides from us what we would normally see.  There are other ways of knowing.

The darkness of winter brings a time of rest, a time of introspection.  I recently read that darkness is not the absence of light, but the absorption of it, meaning that the darkness gives me a chance to explore that light deep inside of myself.  I can nurture that light until it is once again ready to reveal itself.

I still rejoice in a day of sunshine, but I'm learning to see the beauty, value, and inspiration of the darkness.

Snow

Today we had the first major snow storm of the season.  In the morning, I thought it was lovely.  As we got closer to noon, I started worrying about getting to the school for the 2PM performance.  I like snow, just not on the roads, in my driveway, and on the places I need to walk.  As I thought about snow and winter, and my goal to find something good about it daily, I found this article that compares snow to knowledge from God.  Do I get picky too picky about when and where I want to receive my knowledge?  Do I only want it at times and places that are convenient for me, or am I open to that gift whenever it shows up?

Attitude Adjustment

I hate December.  To be fair, some years are better than others, but so far, this is not one of them.  Winter is not my season.  It's cold.  It's dark.  It's slippery.  I drink gallons of water, but my skin still dries out.  I use super-duper-heavy-duty-can't-get-any-stronger cream, but my heels and finger tips crack.  I put on lip balm and lotion at least once an hour.  I become the queen of static.  I fry the display on the thermostat when I forget and touch it before I touch some metal to get rid of the shock.  

There are too many things to do in December.  Parties.  Shows.  Recitals.  Concerts.  College recommendation letters.  College audition recordings.  Shopping for Christmas presents.  Planning for January events.  Basically, I just want to crawl in bed between my flannel sheets and under my four heavy blankets,  and just stay there until Spring.

I've decided that I don't want to hate December or winter anymore, so every day, I am going to find something to like, or something that brings me a little inspiration or peace.  Plus, I'm going to post about it.  My updates may show up here, or on Facebook, or on one of my other blogs, but I'm committing to changing my attitude, at least for a few minutes a day.  I can do this.

Today, I shared the FB post of an author I adore, Anne Lamott.

Vulnerability

I've been thinking a lot about vulnerability lately.

I teach about vulnerability in voice lessons.  Singing is about taking chances.   Kids have issues with performing sometimes because singing is so intimate.  I'm not saying that playing for a piano or flute recital won't scare you, but if you make a mistake while playing an instrument, you can always blame it on the instrument.  "This piano is stiffer than the one I'm used to playing on" or "The key stuck".  At the very least, you have an instrument to hide behind.  But not with singing.  It's you on that stage with nothing between you and the audience.  Even if there is an problem with instrument (your voice), it is still part of you, and therefore YOU had a problem.  And in our current world, particularly in the arts, anything less than perfection is failure.

Vulnerability is essential to singing. Singing, real singing, is about baring your soul for the world to see. It's trusting them to see the beauty through the flaws.  It's trusting them to know that sometime the beauty is the flaw.  It's trusting yourself enough to let the beauty created by the poets and composers carry the performance, and not getting caught up in what the listeners think about you.

A few weeks ago, a friend made a reference to these videos in a Facebook conversation.  I've done quite a bit of reading about vulnerability and shame, so I thought, "That's nice.  I'll come back to that later."  After multiple friends shared these videos, I decided that maybe the universe was trying to tell me something.  One watching was not enough.  Next time, I'm sitting down with a paper and pencil and taking notes.  Yes, the videos are that good.  





My third recent encounter with vulnerability was reading the book The God Who Weeps.  In a few days, my book review will be up on my new book blog.  One chapter is specifically about God's vulnerability.  God feels our pain and sorrows and frustrations.  God chooses to love us, and because of that love he opens himself to sympathy and empathy, and weeps with us.

When I was a child, I was taught that we could become as God.  If we lived this life well, we would eventually become gods and goddesses ourselves.  To be honest, this has always bothered me.  My heart weeps for this world, and this world is not my creation and these people are not my spirit children.    I invest a lot in my students and it is hard for me to see them struggle.  I don't really want to watch billions of my children hate and kill each other.  I just don't think I could live with that kind of vulnerability.  I think I would have to be a god like so many people today have decided that our God is:  one who sets things in motion, but then turns his back, unwilling or perhaps unable to do anything about it.  I would have to separate myself to prevent the pain.

I am extremely empathic and sympathetic.  I've built walls, not just to protect the core of me from the outside world, but to protect me from being overwhelmed by the pain and suffering.  Over the last several year, I have become much more open to letting the world see the real me.  On that level, I think I'm getting good at vulnerability.  The walls that protect me from the pain and suffering of the world aren't solid brick.  They have doors and windows that I can open to let it in at the small doses I can handle.  At this point, I don't know if I am supposed to be learning to open the doors and windows wider and more often, or if I am supposed to take down the wall completely.  What I do know is that love and connection can't get in or out through the brick walls.  Moving through the open windows and doors (and maybe even taking down the wall) is the only way that compassion can work.  And I believe in empathy and compassion, so maybe it's time to explore more vulnerability.

A Change in the Pattern

Several months ago I wrote this post about what had become a pattern in my life--I push myself too hard and then my body rebels as its only option for getting what it needs.  A new pattern is beginning to emerge.  My body decided that it doesn't need to sacrifice itself any longer.  It has recruited all things electrical and electronic to get me to take care of myself.

First, my car battery died--four times.  As I waited for someone to come jump start the car and as I sat at the shop waiting to see what was wrong with it, I had some wonderful opportunities.  I saw snow softly falling and then the sun coming out at its brightest.  I felt the sun against my skin as I did tai chi and qigong in my driveway.  I read a wonderfully inspirational book as I sat at the car shop. And I took time to breath and enjoy the every day beauty around me.

Second, my phone freaked out and totally froze up.  I didn't have time to fix it right away, so I just let people know to email or message me on FB instead of calling or sending texts.  Unplugging from my phone for a couple of days was wonderful.  I did get it fixed, but I value the time that I had for other things because I wasn't constantly checking my phone.

Third, my smoke alarm/CO detector keeps beeping at 30 second intervals to tell me that there is a malfunction.  No, it's not telling me there is a problem, it's telling me that it isn't working well.  Maintenance was out and did something to it on Saturday, so I'm hoping I won't have the weekly beeping anymore.  Seriously, 3 weeks in a row(the events were almost exactly a week apart) the thing would beep and I would go take it down, take out the battery, put the battery back in, and put the thing back up. I was just about to say that this was the one electric/electronic event of the last few weeks that I couldn't see a benefit to, but then I remembered that one time while I was there, I got to meet my neighbor.  My furnace room is actually under my stairs and accessed through a door right by the door to his apartment.  I've seen him before and probably waved a time or two, but we hadn't really met.  So it was nice to meet and have a short chat with him.

Fourth,  my internet has been so slow and temperamental.  I think it's probably an internet provider issue, rather than really one of these energy related events, but whatever the cause, it gave me a chance to do a little reading while I waited for things to load.

I'm happy that my body no longer feels it necessary to remind me to slow down.  Now I just have to start listening the first time energy fields/electronics tell me there is an issue.

Perfect Authentic Cadences, Closing Movements, and Life

I'm the kind of person that takes extreme satisfaction in finishing something.  And I hate to begin if I won't be able to find a satisfying resolution.

When I'm working on a new song, I like to start at the end and work backwards so that I can always feel like I have a strong ending.  And if the song ends with a Perfect Authentic Cadence, life is even better.  Admit it, nothing feels as good as ending (a song or a practice session) on a strong V I with the tonic in the highest voice.  OK, maybe it's just me.

I had a little epiphany this morning as I was driving to work.  Last Monday we started a new group of students in the Sun 41 class that I am the teaching assistant for.  We spend about a third or half of class doing exercises that serve both as warm-ups and instruction in the principles of tai chi.  They we teach a new section and polish and refine what we know.  After working the new group through the first few movements, the teacher showed them closing movement (which is really easy to do) and said that wherever you stop while doing the form you can add this to end it.  And this morning, I thought of how I need to find a closing movement that allows me to let go and do something else in real life even if I haven't finished the form or found my PAC.

As an all-or-nothing personality,  I've had to work very hard to do things in little chunks.  Right now, with my health issues and my schedule, I have to be able to do a little at a time and be satisfied with that.  There is no other option.  But it is so hard.  It's hard not to beat myself up when I can't finish a project right away.  And it's hard to listen to my body when it says it's had enough, but my brain wants to keep going.  So, I'm now on a search for a form of PAC or closing movement to use in everyday life.    Maybe I'll just start with singing a nice Sol Do or doing the actual Sun closing movement.

Homing

I'm in a book group that is currently reading Clarissa Pinkola Estés amazing book, Women Who Run with Wolves:  Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype.  Chapter 9, "Homing:  Returning to Oneself" is my favorite chapter so far.  Maybe because this chapter itself felt so much like coming home.  It was a new way of looking at the old and familiar, and it was a much needed reminder.

Estés begins each chapter with a myth, fairy tale, or story and then takes it apart, exploring the deeper meanings that it holds.  I knew I would love this chapter because it begins with selkies, and I have had a fascination with those stories for years.

(While searching for a free picture of a selkie that I could add to this blog, I found this beautiful digital painting by Elizabeth Sherry.  To me, it perfectly captures the longing for home, the sea.)

(Here is a stunning picture I found of a seal.  Now I really need to quit looking for something free I can put here and just write.)

In her introduction to her literary version of the story, Estés says,

"The story tells about where we truly come from, what we are made of, and how we must all, on a regular basis, use our instincts to find our way back home."

Estés gives examples of how we lose our pelts.

"The soul-skin vanishes when we fail to pay attention to what we are really doing, and particularly its cost to us."  (page 286)
"The issue is not about these energic cash withdrawals themselves, for these are an important part of life's give and take.  But it is being overdrawn that causes the loss of the skin, and the paling and dulling of one's most acute instincts.  It is lack of further deposits of energy, knowledge, acknowledgment, ideas, and excitement that causes a woman to feel she is psychically dying. (page 288).

We lose our pelts when we give continually, but have no season of replenishment.  We lose our pelts when we do what we think we should do rather than trusting the voice within in us telling us what we need to do.  We lose our pelts when we hold back instead of taking the steps that will move use forward.  We lose our pelts when we isolate ourselves from our soul-selves.

"So, in a hunger for soul, our own ego-self steals the pelt." (page293)

I love her discussion of the ego and the soul-world.  It is too long to copy here, but read through pages 291-293.  It made me wonder if perhaps her description of this struggle between ego and soul is what Mormons mean when they talk about the natural man.  This makes much more sense to me than how I have previously interpreted that scripture.

On page 306, Estés lists numerous ways we can return home, recharge.  In church, we may talk of filling our lamps.  I really think we are talking about the same things here, just using different terminology.  What is home?  It's not just what happens after we endure all the mess of this life.  It is a place that we can go to here and now to give use strength for what happens in this life.

"Home is a sustained mood or sense that allows us to experience feelings not necessarily sustained in the mundane world:  wonder, vision, peace, freedom from worry, freedom from demands, freedom from constant clacking."

Some of us may need to return home more often, or stay longer in order to cope with our daily lives.  And by daily, intentional return to home, we also bring a little of that world back with us.

Like the selkie kept from the sea for seven years, if I do not feed my soul by returning to my home, I too will become weak, crippled, and blind.

Discussion questions:

In what ways do you lose your pelt?

What is the voice that calls you back to the sea?

How do you return home?


My answers:
The most common way I lose my pelt is by trying to live according to other people's ideas of what I should do.  Too often, I stay too long on the land because that is what other people expect of me.

I don't listen very well, so often I miss those gentle calls in the night asking me to return to the sea.  Instead, I don't often go to the sea until an illness or injury drags me there.

I know where home is.  I know how to get there.  Beauty (nature, art, music), simplicity, reading, writing, and quiet are the keys for me.  A nature walk, or closing my eyes to listen to the sound of a favorite song, or listening to my own breathing can take me there.  I'm one of those people that has to go home often, which means I need to make more time both for the long spa day approach and for the quick little escapes.