May I not become trapped ...

"May I not become trapped, caught or entangled in false inner networks of negativity, resentment or destruction toward myself. May I treat myself as the nest of God...."  John O'DonohueMay I treat myself as the nest of God!  What would that look like?  The first thing that pops to my mind is the humility it would require.  The ultimate "don't know" mindset.   When I get really quiet and look at the Pride of Barbados flowers just outside my window, there arises in me an awareness of my being the nest of God.  Just for a moment.  Just a glimpse.  I don't really know how to describe this.  I have a hard time staying with it.  It is wondrous and frightening too.  My monkey mind slips into the experience by whispering something like "...danger, danger...move away, back slowly out of this room ... it isn't meant for you.  You will get hurt."  Or it says  "Who has time for this?"  Or "You can do this later, you better do X,Y or Z now"But who will I become if I am not a nest of God?  And in these times, these difficult and fearsome times, when the news features children separated from parents at the hands of the US Government;  I realize how much work there is for me to make of myself a nest of the divine.  I must look into and be with my fears and my immense grief.  How can I be a sturdy warm protection from the energies of hate, fear and shame that swirl around us all?  For I do not want to cradle the Divine with the fear I often find in my heart these days. What is to be done with it?  Surely this is what the Holy Spirit of my Catholic girlhood was for, to help me create a heart that is beyond the geography of fear and worry.  Just that thought brings a measure of piece.  I will seek to grow a heart that is a nest for God, a heart so open, so wonder-filled, so safe and warm that the Divine could indeed nest here.  Is just the wanting this enough?"When the Guest is being looked for, it is the longing that does all the work."  KabirI will nurture my imagination for that is what humans can do AND I will double down on my longing for a heart that is beyond fear and all constriction.  A heart that could be the nest of God.    

Winter Greeting: 2017

Winter Greeting: 2017Winter has long been the season of reflection so, get cozy, pour yourself a cup of something and let’s chat.This year for the first time I started my decorating, shopping and gifting early. Ask my siblings; I am notoriously a last minute girl. Myers Briggs P through and through. But this year, I think I needed her more.  Her? She is Light, Hope and Mercy.  Mostly Mercy. “Her” is Grandma Anna, the grandmother of the universe as well as the grandmother of Jesus, and mother of his mother Mary in the Christian faith. She is the part of the universe that is infinite love and mercy. Mostly Mercy.To my mind, Christendom’s celebration of the birth of Jesus is also a celebration of the triumph of light, hope and mercy over all that stands against their expression.   (Mostly Mercy.) Did you know that around the world there is some sort of celebration of light at this time of the year? Whether it is the birth of Jesus, the light of the world, or the Jewish Hanukkah, or Kwanza or Denali…worldwide there are celebrations of light returning. Increasing hours of daylight means the promise of new beginnings, of redemption, and for me in particular, the triumph of mercy and empathy over fear and constriction.There are a number of seasonal firsts this year for the Wonders Dearings. In addition to getting an early start on the season we are taking a trip and hosting our first open house. After years of promising that one year we would not do Christmas gifts etc. but would instead take a trip, the Wonders Dearings finally did it. The 24th found us on the road to the Gage Hotel in Marathon Texas and exploring Big Bend National Park. The 27th we discovered the magic of Marfa, Texas, home to artists and spiritual seekers.   We renewed and re-discovered the magic of our connections, of our shared passions and learned to be a bit more elegant in navigating our divergent temperaments. It is no small thing to put three solo adults, all more leaders than followers together for a large amount of time and in close quarters.   We did that.  It brought us closer together as these kinds of conversations do.  We had and made time for them.  We are better for them.  Each of us.Another first: No true Christmas tree with all the ornaments our memories can conjure, but instead something I have long wanted; decorating with nature and light. An abundance of greens, flowers, candles. I have thoroughly enjoyed the change, maybe even more so because it was so long in coming.And … and … and yet, I feel this melancholy. Even in this long desired reinvention of how we do this season, (and my heart flutters at the thought of any kind of reinvention), yet this unshakable melancholy persists. Why?Even in our togetherness there were poignant moments of time passing too quickly or where-has-it-all gone. Even in the best of experiences, the extraordinary drive through Big Bend replete with hiking the Santa Elena Canyon, the vastness of the Chinati museum, and time unbounded a bit, it persists. This curious combination of deep thankfulness mixed with some unnamable loss. Like the vast beauty of the desert that also holds all manner of prickly cacti and fierce critters.Maybe this is aging and the nostalgia that comes with it? Maybe the desert sky renders this feeling larger? Or maybe it is realizing that more Solstice celebrations of the return of light are behind than ahead of me?  Or the dawning (and unbearable) awareness that I will not accompany my children (physically) through all the pivotal moments of their lives.I remember my sweet and humble academic father, who never saw his grandson graduate from MIT, now studying at Harvard Law School. Papa missed this all and how it would have thrilled him.  Zachary Robert Dearing, you can't possibly know what this would have meant to your grandfather. He would not have even dreamed this as a possibility, it was outside of his rural and humble beginnings to hope or dream for these institutions. But please trust he would have been both humbled and proud by your remarkable achievements, especially in the face of your dyslexia. And my mother would have been beyond wowed at her granddaughter Katharine Lillie Dearing’s culinary talents and the culture shifting work she is creating in the world. Even though it might confront her political and worldviews, she adored her Katie and would have not been able to easily dismiss her series, Woman of a Certain Age, and it’s Tribeca acknowledgement. There are so many things my parents are missing. As we too miss sharing these moments with them.  A granddaughter married and their first great grandson. Another granddaughter is engaged and planning her wedding while making a new life for herself in fashion in New York.My life holds so many gifts and blessings...and always has ...but as I play the Leslie Odom, Jr.’s Simply Christmas CD (the new) alongside Barbara Streisand’s Christmas album and so many other old favorites, I wonder: Is this the magic ...(albeit bittersweet) of Christmas? Is this annual seasonal celebration a direct line to everything that came before and everything that will yet come to pass?  A direct line,  AND all at once!  How do we sweet tender human hearts hold that kind of complexity? How do we grow hearts large enough to continue to rise up with a full throated “YES!” to each day, ever more aware of time moving on? This daunting challenge is more and more my daily companion. In small and large ways, I am reminded I must apprentice myself to the beauty of impermanence.Recently, I have sensed, just a hint or a glimmer, that there is a singular and stunning ~ heart stopping ~ beauty in this part of life’s trajectory. For this very young-at-heart woman, this woman whose life has been firmly planted in innovation, emergence, and possibility, how will I find those beginnings in my decline and death?  I love, adore maybe even worship the expansiveness in beginnings. Can I uncover a different expansiveness in loss? Is that even a thing?I am sure it is beyond words, it is unspeakable.   Yet, I feel compelled to attempt to incarnate my new sensibility of this time.  I continue to sense that there is an abiding but different security and comfort in impermanence. Please don’t ask me to explain it. I also can’t explain why I simultaneously cry and feel a deep abiding peace driving in the desert. Something about the soul piercing starkness of this beauty. Is this the face of God?  Is this wonder and awe?Isn’t it interesting that in the bible when the angels come to visit a human their first words are “Be not afraid.” Indeed, this impermanence is of the divine and I/we humans initially respond in fear. “Be not afraid my soul whispers, but my mind resists.”   Is this the blessing of life? Succumbing, surrendering to the Unfathomable but not in fear rather in love? AND with that surrender, do we glimpse the beauty beyond all naming? A beauty as majestic as the Marfa, TX desert sky. Impermanence is not what we think we want. But we aren’t always the best judges of what will truly make us happy. I know from my own life that what I thought would make me happy, often failed me miserably and paradoxically what I was sure I didn’t want, often fulfilled me in ways beyond my wildest imagination.  I no longer think I am the best judge of what will make me happy. And that makes it easier to welcome and embrace what is, even when it falls very short of my desires.As we move into 2018 in the era of Donald Trump, with abundant natural disasters and nuclear threats, it might be more important than ever to love what is. That includes each of us loving our own flawed and imperfect selves. Enough self-improvement! Instead a full-on embrace of how we are made; the good, the bad and especially the ugly. And then onto our equally imperfect family, friends and neighbors. Maybe there is something inside of each of us that is truly inviolate, wise and as vastly loving as the West Texas sky. Touching that sweet spot with far more regularity might be the gift that never disappoints.So, in the spirit of the Beauty and the Joy of Impermanence I wish each and everyone one of us  a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, a Sweet Solstice, and Happy New Year.  

Rejection is protection!

What?Rejection is protection! How can that be?  This is a saying in 12-step programs.  When someone rejects you, or your proposal, it is actually a sort of "whew...dodged that bullet!" because even though you wanted "it" or wanted a relationship with this person, your IDEA of what you would actually receive in the bargain was just that:  YOUR IDEA.  Not the reality of what would occur.This is one of the hardest passages of adulthood.  Recognizing that the voice inside our head, the strategic mind that tells us what it thinks is good and bad, is actually not what is wisest in us.  There is another voice, "that small still voice within" that knows more but often scares that strategic mind and so it shuts that voice down.  I have a long time friend, going on 3 decades.  She is a recovering alcoholic.  She told me once that first time she tried a 12 step program it didn't work.  The step (maybe first?) that asks you to surrender to your higher power?  Well, she really believed that "She was her higher power".  And I don't blame her.  First of all she might be the most competent person I know, and I know so many, that this is actually a huge complement.  Second, she grew up where there was no reason to trust any adult around her and every reason to assume she was the only person that was for her.  The only person she could trust and the only person who would protect her, was herself.But when she said it ("I always thought I was my higher power.")  my first thought was "She is just like me."  I too find it easier to trust my idea of what should happen instead of trusting "life" or "God" or even that small still voice deep within me that whispers, maybe it is better this way.  My strategic mind hates that voice.  It doubles down on its list of why things should be the way it thinks they should.For most of us our idea about a job, a marriage, really any endeavor we wish for ourselves never materializes that way.  It is always something different.  Sometimes better, sometimes worse, but always different.  So silly me, why do I really think I know what is best?  So, picture me raising my right hand and swearing:  "When the "no" comes, on any front, I resolve to recall all the times a "yes" made me unhappy and say "I probably just dodged a bullet, and I don't know why yet."  Care to join me?  

"When you are very sad, the only thing to do is to go learn something."

"When you're very sad, the only thing to do is to go learn something."  Merlin to Arthur in The Once and Future King.  (Full passage below).For those of you reading this who are intimately familiar with loss and sadness right now, this is particularly for you.   But it is for the rest of us too.  For those of us who are sad about the world, or about health issues, or a lost love, or maybe just "what might have been" we need to learn something too.  Why does learning help? I will answer that with a story.  When my 89 year old father died about 10 years ago he didn't give us much warning.  On Thursday we were told his lab results and he was gone by Saturday night.  My mother had a very difficult time processing that her husband of 50+ years was gone and to compound matters, 30 days later she was told she was in the early stages of dementia.  When it rains it pours.  AND it surely did on our sweet mom.My parents history was complicated as all marriages are, in one particular way.  My mother had a long list of "honey do's" that my ordinarily kind and sweet father adamantly refused to do.  Go figure!  So my wise and loving brother who was equally stunned by the loss of his father and best friend came over every week for two years and took something off the list of "honey do's".  And then when it was complete, he started coming up with things to create, to add to her home that he suspected she would really enjoy.  My mom never truly fell apart in the ways we all thought she would and certainly had every right too.  I believe the love and attention she received from my sisters and I was a part of that but I truly know in my heart that having something new to look forward to every week told her hurting soul, that while life held loss and endings, it was not just that, it also held discovery and beginnings.  My brother was as wise as Merlin, in the face of the biggest ending in my mother's life, those constant new beginnings helped her through that very rocky passage.  So too with learning something new.  It fills you with beginnings and with discovery.  Learning is not just good for us as we age because it keeps our minds agile it also keeps our hearts and spirits young.From the Master himself, in his own words:  “The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.” ― T.H. White, The Once and Future King  

"There's that feeling you get when you see something that you don't understand..."

"There's that feeling you get when you see something that you don't understand the origin of ... wonderment."The Brooklyn artist Swoon was quoted as saying this in the New York Times and when I read it so many things came together for me.

• Why adults and adolescents love small children.
• Why it can be difficult for us as adults, to be curious in the face of the unknown.  The uncertain.
• And why poetry so often appeals to us, especially at the most difficult times in our lives.

I think most of us "smart and savvy" (and maybe a bit world weary) adults do just the opposite of wonderment in the face of what we don't understand.  We don't get curious, we don't allow ourselves to be drawn toward the unknown, instead we just shut down and/or armor up.  We assume something negative and turn away.  What poetry does (think Robin Williams in the Apple commercial) is usher us into a larger world where wonderment is more easily accessible.  It helps us make or see things whole, including our own difficulties and our own lives.Of course, I realize there is real danger in the world.  My goodness look at the front page of any newspaper around the world.  Death and disease are everywhere.  On a large scale the world is beautiful and terrifying.  All the more reason for us to seize moments of wonderment.  But to grab hold of them we most notice them first. Let's start by looking close to home, people we know or situations at work.  When a colleague or loved one says something that I don't understand the origin of what do I do?  Too often I tell a story, make meaning based on my past experience and the culture I am part of ... but what might happen if instead I go to "wonderment".  To wonder and awe as in ..."that makes no sense to me, I wonder what s/he is seeing or experiencing that I am not."  Can you sense, that in that moment we are drawn in, we are drawn closer, just like a child to the first doodle bug they see? We all have this capacity.  We were born with it.  But it gets covered over with our preference or our habits of predict and control.  For just today, instead of making meaning, good or bad, in the face of something or someone we don't understand, why not try wonderment, real open hearted interest and curiosity about what we don't know?  Let's enter our beginner's mind or "don't know mind" and see what happens.