Embodied

We all have one – a body.  Life experiences we have are manifested through physical selves.  My mind, the psychological self which resides in my body, is chewing on this idea with its mushy, lumpy, fleshy little teeth and the digestion seems slow and attentive.  It is the embodied self that is the real deal, the package in which we rest. 

Embodied is listed as a form of the verb embody in the entry found at dictionary.com.
1.  to give concrete form to; express, personify, or exemplify in concrete form:  to embody an idea in an allegorical painting.
2.  to provide with a body; incarnate; make corporal:  to embody a spirit.
3.  to collect into or include in a body; organize; incorporate.
4.  to embrace or comprise

Also at dictionary.com The Online Etymology Dictionary, 2010 Douglas Harper offers that embody traces to c.1652 in reference to a soul or spirit invested with a physical form.  This word history captures what I am pondering this morning.  I happen to hold fast to the idea that we are spirit.  But at this moment we are bodied spirit.  I cannot be otherwise.  I am corporal.  My fingers are typing.  My belly is digesting.  My lungs are filling and emptying.  My brain is chug-a-lug-lugging along crafting sentences for this blog, listening for the laundry cycle timer, wondering what’s for lunch, anticipating the grocery store, thinking I should have some hot tea.      

Being embodied is so straightforward and obvious yet for me has taken a long time to figure out.  How can that be?  Perhaps because in my social history exists years of learning that the body is to be denied, is bad, is an enslavement, that all help for me is outside myself.  But new ideas offer me the body as a path to the soul.  Knowing it.  Moving it.  Being present in it.

I’m not advocating a wild physical free for all, for that is not honoring the body or the soul.  Abusing one’s body is not a path to true self but a numbing agent.  Understanding how our human body works, how best to care for it and live in it, knowing how to make choices that are good for our physical selves lends itself to the spiritual growth that blossoms into contentment.  Or at least that’s where I’m placing my bets.

              Physical Education

              Roaring flame-red rubber ball stings soft stomach skin
              skidding from fingertips fired fast behind the lines, telling

              in and out of traditional bounds, the court rules everybody
              fools somebody sometimes selling distractions.  Nobody

              knows the great guts it takes to build a balanced body, baby
          first swimming, screaming into prerequisite skin life begins

              cells and senses, bones, limbs and lips, lungs, eyes, elbows
          hunger and feces finding happy homebody hasten to rest

              sitting with a neighbor getting the scoop of being anatomy
              busybody breathing the business of life, learning incarnate.

Falsehood

The silent observer of self is powerful.  To watch (without judging) one’s actions is amazing.  I recently watched myself react strongly to something in essence small, washing dishes.  It happened while reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Miracle of Mindfulness in which he suggested one could wash dishes mindfully, simply for the act of washing the dishes and not for any later moment but for simply being there, doing dishes!  Luckily I was reading for a yoga weekend which offered opportunity to move toward what motivated my anger.  I realized I had attached a falsehood, a non-truth for me, to daily dish washing. 

Dictionary.com defines the noun falsehood.
1.  a false statement, lie.
2.  something false; an untrue idea, belief, etc.
3.  the act of lying or making false statements.
4.  lack of conformity  to truth or fact.

Somewhere I stored a belief that dish washing is a menial task reserved for the subservient.  Where did I learn this?  Dunno.  How long have I believed this?  Dunno.  Is it true?  Absolutely not.  Turns out, after quiet listening, I don’t believe the idea I was clinging to.  Other falsehoods I have over time discovered in myself sound like this:  Boys don’t like smart girls.  I am not naturally athletic and therefore will never find any exercise I enjoy.  Cooking a fabulous meal every night is essential for being a good mother.  A big house will make me happy.  I don’t need sleep as long as there is caffeine.  If I have eaten one cookie I might as well go ahead and eat the entire row.  When someone is yelling it means I have done something bad.

Generalizations that we ingest and make our own sneak into our lives often unnoticed.  Perhaps from personal experiences or the media.  Perhaps from unhealthy relationships or too much time alone.  My dish washing dilemma is a superficial one in terms of what else is possible, but I use it because it is fresh and a reminder that we are allowed to (in fact I think supposed to) examine our beliefs and see if any of them lack conformity to our own truth or fact.  Leonard Pitts, Jr. recently wrote an editorial for the Miami Herald that was picked up in my local paper.  He offered the axiom, “if you repeat a lie long enough, people will accept it as truth — even the people being lied about.”

What falsehood about ourselves do we accept as truth?  Some are easy to find, others challenging and often painful in the actual story unfolding of ourselves. 

            Certainty

            Finding truth is labor.  Shoveling
            what lies atop layers of life, blood
            and guts, somewhere we have it
            the source, Truth, that which slices
            paper sharp edges thin and fierce
            found at last.  Real hurts and heals,
            soft seeking  finger pads, tiny cuts
            when touched throb for attention
            sting while being washed clean
            set soul free body breathing I am.

Monday

Seriously?  It’s Monday?  How did this happen?  In the un-normalness of this national holiday with no school offering a defined schedule to stick to, I forgot it was Monday until somewhere beyond the middle of the day.  Sitting with friends in a sunny spot I realized I had not pondered a term this morning!  At that moment I knew that since morning’s opportunity for musing passed there was going to be a first-time event this week – musing Monday evening. 

Monday is, as defined at dictionary.com, the second day of the week following Sunday. 

Indeed, today is such.  And my prediction six hours ago has come to pass.  I am typing a few final far-flung thoughts for the day after tot-tucking.  Life energy after bedtime is very different than at dawn.  Once the inertia of a day full of kids kicks in there is no stopping for shopping the shelves of my brain for thoughts of any substance.  Today’s middle was riddle with a Monopoly game, Polly Pockets, pizza, the park, and soccer practice.  Evening brought a failed attempt at a new recipe that resulted in cereal for dinner, flannel pajamas and some days’ end thoughts.

       Following Sunday

       Sometimes a whole day gets away

       utterly without wondering at all

       no thinking, just dance doing flash

       dash from sun salutes through snack

       fruits, a pizza buffet, friends come

       to play the mind found nothing to say

       busy being bit of a sunny social holiday

       whose history kids meant to look up

       empty dawn seated spot for choosing

       a word worked for a musing moment

       moved past living day fast, full, fleeting

       as it was:  the second day of a week.

Pile

The New Year verve leading to a totally clean desk has come to a sliding end.  Testament to this are slipping stacks of stuff scattered beside my computer and on the floor beside my filing cabinet.  Seriously, over the winter break after Christmas I went through and filed, trashed, or otherwise processed everything on my desk.  I was scrupulous!  It has only taken forty-four days for it to regrow!  And today, my friends, is the day I must again attack the pile. 

Dictionary.com offers the following entries for the noun pile.
1.  an assemblage of things laid or lying one upon the other:  a pile of papers; a pile of bricks.
2.  a large number, quantity, or amount of anything:  a pile of work.
3.  a heap of wood on which a dead body, a living person, or a sacrifice is burned; pyre.
4.  a lofty or large building or group of buildings:  the noble pile of Windsor Castle.
5.  a large accumulation of money:  They made a pile on Wall Street.

I hear the good advice, “Only touch each piece of paper once.”  I believe it.  I don’t know how it is possible.  I go through the mail every day and kids’ papers when they come home every week.  I trash a ton of stuff, truly.  Yet there is still a mound of things laid upon one another that need to be looked at later or kept for financial files or stashed for story ideas.  All valuable, right?

The devil over my left shoulder would love to scoop the entire stack and stuff it ceremoniously in the garbage while offering an evil laugh at such rebellion.  The angel on my right will not, however, let that happen.  That guardian reminds me that I put those papers and things in half-processed places because I valued something about them or found them essential for keeping.  The invisible convincing goes on to say that considering how much I do throw away, far more than I keep, there certainly must be value in that pile – stuff I believe I cannot do without.  This is a mental situation as much as a physical one.  Removal of accumulated stuff suggests a life-long task, perhaps one on which we might lay a few sacrifices to burn.

          Unfinished Business

          adding pages and papers, properly paid
          partnered with perused articles that might
          some night need to be reread, receipts
          for things one could need, valued as what
          to keep and file, responsible pile
          grows deep and festers finally
          fetid with old ink and printed text
          telling worth or thoughts from Oz.

          Well-meaning think must keep the heap
          that climbs and slides, often moved aside
          so people can eat at the family-time table
          where junk abides rising higher
          the stack remains, old book reviews
          carried, carted, divided, parted
          sorted eventually when it masses
          too large to carry, hide or ignore.

Distraction

Today my thoughts are slow to arrive and coagulate.  Seems distraction descended about the time I got out of bed.

Dictionary.com offers the following definition for distraction.
     1.  the act of distracting
     2.  the state of being distracted
     3.  mental distress or derangement
     4.  that which distracts, divides the attention, or prevents concentration
     5.  that which amuses, entertains or diverts; amusement

Also listed were synonyms:  madness, lunacy, insanity, craziness. 

At my computer simultaneously staring at and feeling a LARGE whiteness, I review my morning seeking something to muse.

Alarm sounded from my new-fangled phone with a clock app.  I accidentally activate a flashlight when I pick it up.  Mind splits into three tasks – stand, stop alarm, stop blinding beam.  I wake two kids and make their breakfast while packing three lunches, assembling a quiche and talking about back muscles with my husband.  I kiss two kids out the door on my way upstairs to wake another sleepy head. 

Back downstairs while collecting crust crumbs I call the school for details regarding an athletic team try-out, check the weather, instruct regarding wardrobe for the day as it is twenty degrees cooler than yesterday and scramble an egg having forgotten to actually put the quiche in the oven.  While putting on my shoes and sweater, gathering my keys and replying to a text about today’s carpool, I decide quiche will be a nice lunch.  In the van, strapping my seatbelt, sipping tea (when did I make tea?) I start the engine and drive to school. 

I enjoy a phone chat, gather trash and an empty water bottle in the seven minutes it takes to return home.  Once inside I realize I forgot to take the quiche out of the oven.   It is, gratefully, slightly browner that I would have chosen but certainly not ruined.  I eat some quiche while getting my vitamins and clearing dishes into the sink.  It is now 8:30am.  I microwave my cooled tea and sit at my computer to check my email (which I have ignored for two days – yikes!), update online banking, print some necessary forms, and try to feel creative.  By 11:00am I have not been able to even decide what I am musing because my attention is so divided. 

I suspect I am not alone.  In households everywhere mornings look like this or even crazier.  The madness seems weaved into my culture.  I was happy to be reminded by the fifth entry for distraction of an option.  Distraction can also be a thing that amuses and brings joy - fishing or reading or resting or meditating, a warm cup of tea or perhaps a bit of poetry.      

          Mental Divide

        wonder what is
          the disturbance
          words, duties
          money and mail
          electronic rings
          debts, ads for things

          we need
          the time, the food
          find or cook or eat
          the mind
          will wander
          often scattered
 
          salt through sea

          tossed by waves
          churn, burn energy
          action and inaction
          deranged
          distraction.

Dissonance

My body and mind are buzzing, sorta vibrating with a lot of static.  Much energy.  Little focus.   This mind-body feeling-sound harbors dissonance.

Dissonance is defined as a noun at dictionary.com:
1.  inharmonious or harsh sound; discord; cacophony.
2.  (music) a simultaneous combination of tones conventionally accepted as being in a state of unrest and needing completion.
3.  (music) an unresolved, discordant chord or interval.
4.  disagreement or incongruity. 

Why the discord?  Some of it is yoga teaching me to find ease in my postures (moving on the mat and moving through life, right?).  Some of it is feeling irritated by responsibilities.  Some is just habit.  Mixing in me are the vinegar and oil of what I think I have to do and what I think I want to do.  Also in the shake are the spices of what my life is, what I thought it would be and what I predict it might become plus my ever-chugging mind.  These ingredients flavor my life. 

I question, “What if the incongruity is that my idea of what will make me happy is not a correct one?  Not MY actual truth?  What if I have been trained by my past to think certain things are important but am finding it not to be so now?”  This is cognitive dissonance, anxiety resulting from simultaneously having two contradictory attitudes.  I must wash the dinner dishes before bed AND I don’t care if the dishes are done before bed.  Reading is essential AND I don’t have time to read.  I thrive if I get up fifteen minutes early to sit in stillness AND I don’t want to get up early.  Somehow the buzz must find resolution.

There are truths I have discovered to be authentic to me.  Low energy, junk foods leave me and my family feeling low energy and junky.  Early bedtime is essential for a happy mommy and happy kids even if it takes a lot of personal oomph to make it happen.  I have also discovered throughout days of living, moments arrive that aren’t expected - somehow not the thing anticipated wherein I must look for the truth.  An unresolved state of unrest may be what introduces us to the present as it is, not as we thought it would be.

                                Dissonance

                                Tonal life notes offered as child tales

                                told, hopes mold anticipated

                                rising a whole step at a time, unless

                                seated sometimes in stillness

                                slowly opened spine colors show

                                what you thought is not real

                                lee, ta da dee dee, C.   Then D. 

                                All choices happening seem certain

                                unfolding as expected, up

                                appropriate scale with each hand

                                ranking satisfaction higher

                                flowing prescribed path proffered

                                until perhaps no one can be real

                                lee, ta da dee dee, now E.  

                                That the mount might actually fail

                                to follow prediction, a grade

                                unpleasing to the heart

                                tips the balance toward individual

                                truth, test before the fifth chakra

                                for telling what is you real

                                lee, ta da dee dee.  F sharp.

Freedom

Freedom keeps beeping on my radar.  The word freedom popped up over the last week in several things I am reading, the news, my middle school daughter’s laments, serious adult conversations, and television commercials.  It is an emotionally charged word, much desired, and filled with promise.  Yet freedom seems a hard noun to pin down to specifics.

Freedom is defined by the Collins English Dictionary 10^th Edition online.
     1.  Personal liberty, as from slavery, bondage, serfdom, etc.
     2.  liberation or deliverance, as from confinement or bondage
     3.  the quality or state of being free, esp. to enjoy political and civil liberties
     4.  the state of being without something unpleasant or bad; exemption or
           immunity
     5.  the right or privilege of unrestricted use or access
     6.  autonomy, self-government, or independence
     7.  the power or liberty to order one’s own actions
     8.  (philosophy) the quality, esp. of the will or the individual, of not being totally
          constrained; able to choose between alternative actions in identical
          circumstances
     9.  ease or frankness of manner; candor
     10.  excessive familiarity of manner; boldness
     11.  ease and grace, as of movement; lack of effort

Hard to pin down indeed!  Eleven entries – and I intentionally chose this source because it was the most brief.  Apparently freedom does mean many things.  Freedom for each person differs, I suppose, in the thing by which they are trapped.  It can be a physical state.  It can be a political state.  It can be a mental state. 

Our very nature beckons us to be liberated from confinement.  Certainly slavery and bondage inflicted upon people by other people is deeply unjust.  But, alas, can we not also be our own captors?  The restriction I seem to be mulling today is that in which we might keep our own selves.  Acting without forethought reduces access to certain rights or privileges.  Addiction to bad habits may keep today the same locked paddock of yesterday as we repeat stale, rote actions hoping for different results.  Living stuck in yesterday or paralyzed in fear of tomorrow removes the liberation of today.  Mistaking personal freedom for the right to go willy-nilly through the world with no thought of others is a trap we lay for ourselves - shared destruction will not lead to increased freedom. 

Certainly, physical deliverance from captivity is paramount as are civil and political freedom.   But after that, who holds us back?  Who tells us we are not free to choose between available alternative actions?  Who defines our freedom? 

Her Freedom

Her freedom is not leaving and is not going

            not running, somehow knowing

she belongs to herself.

To stay or go daily is choice, ultimately a time

                will arrive when no one needs

her to simply survive.

She will recognize Pantanjali’s truth:  freedom

                rests in living so presently that

she sees no regrets.