Category Archives: Education

Anticipation

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It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in this house! Bean is especially excited.

Our tree (before the star topper was decorated):

tree plus new tree skirt chosen by Bean

I made the star 25 years ago when I was broke, using tin foil and cardboard. Bean added glue and glitter!

decorated star

Santa’s little elf can’t wait for Christmas. Every gift I wrap that she gets her hands on goes under the tree.

under the tree

I glued the little wood spoons that come with sherbet cups. Then Bean painted both sides, and put glue on, and then put the sequins and star on (both sides).

ornament 2010

And our stockings are hung by the chimney with care.

stockings hung by the chimney

Our advent calendar (which now has two ornaments stuck to it).

advent calendar

And yesterday, Bean said, “Santa Claus makes special love so I feel happy in my heart and my heart feels love for everyone, and when they feel my big love I give them hugs and kisses.” Of course, she also wants a zillion toys from him too, but I think she understands the essence of the holiday. We read her picture books about the baby Jesus too, so she will understand the correlating story about this time of year.

It’s all about celebrating light and love this time of year.

How We Get Here Part 2: The Identity Project

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To continue with my exploration (see this and this), I’m posting some thoughts from Singh’s book. I’m not certain I have the energy to do more than quote her, as I’m emotionally buffeted by some personal family issues lately (on both sides of our family).

So, we are born and we grow. We encounter “splits” in our being as we develop and the ego grows. Who we are narrows into mostly mind. We focus on developing language, rationality, competency within our world. Language is so powerful, so immersive, that we tend to forget we are in it. We mistake it, and thought, for reality. Our culture, the biosocial band, is a filter of myths, stories, and worldview that we are born into. We have not only a self, but a self-image. The ego is “an identity that conceives of itself as a separate and inner entity, existing inside the body somewhere in the region of the head, and assumes it is commanding the body from on high.” Singh continues:

We all believe and act as if our identity were something with substance, with reality, and with enduring characteristics. In point of fact, however, our identity is nothing more than who we think we are at any moment in time, a compendium of inner desires, aversions, memories, and tightly interwoven beliefs. Identity is something that exists only in being conceived.

We talk to ourselves incessantly to establish a sense of our existence. We narrate our lives, issue judgments, articulate opinions, engage fantasies, and chatter to ourselves constantly in our heads. We believe our identity is our name, occupation, relationships, diplomas, biography, etc. We are capable of introspection and self-reflection.

When the adolescent ego begins to look at itself, it encounters an existential abyss of fundamental dimension. When it begins to look inside, it knows that it is, but hard as it tries, it can never quite grasp what exactly it is. In some vague and slightly nauseating, slightly terrifying way, the mental ego senses its incompleteness, the flimsiness of illusion upon which it is constructed. The abyss is quickly side-stepped.

And where do we go as we dodge away? We embark upon the identity project.

The identity project, which arises at first out of defensiveness against terror, becomes a lifelong endeavor. We choose a persona (or several over time) and focus on becoming that. It might arise from our profession or relationships. For example, I was a a perpetual student and later a therapist. I was a single woman and am now a wife and mother. We work to solidify and secure these concepts of ourselves. And you know what? We achieve great things in this.

The level of ego is an elevated and encompassing level of consciousness — quite an achievement for our evolving and beloved species. Certainly, hosannas can be shouted for what we have achieved in our identity projects wiht the use of our faculties and talents. We have become capable, technological selves, acting upon the world in ways that further our own evolution. We have quintessentially lifted ourselves by our bootstraps.

And yet, we also create our own dramas, our own suffering. We are embroiled in the soap opera, forgetting that we are not the show. We are more than that, but we have forgotten.

Most of us plateau here, until we are informed that we are terminal and have a short time to live. Then we face the fact that we (as defined by our ego) are not in control. Nor are we complete or whole. While this terrifies us, it is actually good news. We’ll get to go home. And for some of us, we find a way to go home before we leave our bodies, through a dedication to meditation over many many years.

This is an extremely simplified synopsis of the journey into ego in Singh’s book. As I read it, I had an understanding that exploded between my eyes (in my third eye?). I get what Jesus meant. He was trying to enlighten people, to help them understand that this is not all that is, but that as long as we cling to our “treasures on earth,” we’ll not see this. His death was a way of showing what the ego must endure — its annihilation — which is required before we can transcend to unity with the Ground of Being. And I knew this, growing up I understood this, but it was laden with fear and ideas of hell and punishment and worthlessness. Later on it was tarnished by the stupidity of the simplistic “born again” prayers/positions espoused by the churches I was in. It was like buying eternal life insurance. Say these words and all is forgiven, but the focus on “being saved” from my sins and from damnation was misleading and eventually rang hollow for me.

The mental ego must die before true life, whole life, heaven, nirvana is found. And everybody will enter whole life, find unity, because every body dies. Buddha said it. Jesus said it. Many prior and subsequent mystics and philosophers have said it. The message is we each will get there, and we don’t have to wait until we are dying to do so (or to try). We can arrive at enlightenment; we can be born again. What does that really mean? What is that really like? What is transpersonal consciousness? What is connection with the Ground of Being/God/Unity? The ego, the identity we cling to, is deeply established. It must actually confront its fear of death (which pretty much qualifies as hell for me) as we travel the path of return. We will only know as we go.

I don’t even know if I should be writing all this here. It’s not polished. I’m tired and have little time for finesse. But that’s what I’ve got, folks.

How We Get Here Part 1

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This is a rough and unrefined condensation of some of what I’m reading. I don’t claim to have answers but I will write without tenuousness. I’m not entirely sure of all the concepts and am not seeking debate. I’m just looking to sort it out for myself here.
———
I am going to die someday. Sooner or later, fast or slow, it will happen. I was raised in a religion that depicted heaven, purgatory, and hell, and I felt fear. I left that religion and in my early 30s was bound up in it again, until the absolutism of the dogma and some epiphanies in graduate school prompted me to part ways entirely. I’ve been inarticulate about dying and what happens since then.

I used to wonder what I was before I was born. An atheist will simply say that we just did not exist, and after we die, we just won’t exist. Aside from the terror my ego feels (how can I not exist? what happens to me?), I know there is something else beyond this life. But before I can get to that understanding for myself, I need to understand how I came to be where, what, and who I am now.

We start out within the Ground of Being. We are part of it. The Ground of Being is life, and it is non-life. It is consciousness and not-consciousness. It is energy, it is matter. As Douglas Adams titled his book, it is Life, the Universe, and Everything. Before we are born we are part of it. This is a pre-ego state, a state of preconsciousness, a state of undifferentiation and no individuation. We are raw material.

So how to we get to where we are, with identities and attachments and all that this life entails?

In Singh’s book, she writes:

As we emerge out of the Ground of Being and into the physical world as a separate life-in-form, “trailing clouds of glory,” we are in a preegoic, prepersonal state. At birth we are only minimally differentiated from the Ground of Being. Inner and outer realities remain somewhat fused initially, and all awareness lies inarticulate, still partially embedded in the Ground of Being.

We start out this way, and at first we are all body: hunger, fatigue, touch, instinct. If you’ve ever been with an infant you know this. Then the remarkable changes happen as the infant’s brain grows, as concept and words develop. We develop a sense of self: me, mine, and of other, not-me. Babies start out unaware of separation and then become a aware. The First Dualism emerges on the journey to the ego.

We develop a sense of space and what is and is not ours. We realize where we end and another begins, the gap between subject and object. Then the Second Dualism develops: the sense of time, an awareness of past, present, and future, life and death.

The First Dualism, the first boundary, separates us from the experience of wholeness. Anxiety appears, as does repression and defensiveness.

Primal repression is a psychological as well as physical posture that, inwardly, begins to seal off or repress pure, inpouring Energy, the animating power of the Ground of Being. The Ground of Being, with its enchantment and ability to engulf, begins to be perceived as threatening.

Thus in our early childhood we close off our connection to the Source from which we came. We continue to split ourselves in early to middle childhood by forging a distinction between mind and body, the Third Dualism. “We lose our deep integrity, the unity of body and mind, which is the unity of feeling and attention — the ability to be present.” Our mind is given more authority as a judge or filter of reality. And then the Fourth Dualism arises: The split between persona and shadow, that is, between the person we believe we are, that we accept, that we show the world, and all the other parts of us that we disown, dislike, judge, fear, and hide from ourselves and others.

And this, according to the Christian theology I grew up with, completes our ejection from the Garden of Eden. We are part of the garden (Ground of Being), we are born, then we taste knowledge (the Dualisms, development of ego), which separates us from unity with the Ground of Being. I just don’t buy the crap about Eve (woman) being the one who fell to the temptation first (does it really matter?), and I don’t think of the “fall” as really All That Bad. It is just what is, and it is part of our evolution, our journey, through the experience we are having in this form and function, in this physical world.

And now my child is calling from her nap, and I must dash.

Spirit

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Back in 2004, when my father-in-law was gravely ill, I happened across a book that I was compelled to buy: The Grace in Dying: How We Are Transformed Spiritually as We Die, by Kathleen D. Singh. I began to read it, and in the introduction the author suggested that if the reader was in the process of dying or reading this because a loved one is dying, to do the following: know that you are safe, all is well, and put the book down.

I took her advice. Four months later my father-in-law died, and I was with him for his last week nearly 24/7. It was a daunting, draining experience. I watched him take his last breath. In the process of his dying, it occurred to me that it seemed much like a labor. And having had a child since, I know it is indeed labor. But what, I wonder, is in the process of happening? Is dying just dying? The lights simply go out? What happens to the entity called “me, myself, or I”; is it really annihilated?

Or is it a transition, a birthing into something else?

I was raised religiously and have traversed a varied spiritual path. In recent years I’ve applied the term “atheist” to myself, though “agnostic” is probably more accurate. I do not need “god” as humans are able to articulate the term; I believe the universe is marvelous, and science is a way to explore it all, and isn’t that miracle enough? I am drawn to Buddhism, particularly Zen Buddhism, although I have not become a practitioner yet.

However, I did have a remarkable experience back in 1996 that at the time, I believed (as much as I could believe, which was really a process of trying to convince myself to believe) was the Holy Spirit. When I left the Christian religion (for the second time in my life), I categorized the experience as an anomaly, as an experience of self-hypnosis or psychological wish fulfillment.

I was a member of a conservative, bible-based, fundamental Christian church. The story behind the path that led me to that after years of atheism can be read here. Anyhow, one Saturday evening I remained after service. It was common for members to remain and pray with each other. This was a church where people sometimes experienced the “baptism of the Holy Spirit,” evidenced sometimes by people speaking in tongues (seeming to babble) and being filled with the Spirit, evidenced by joyous, continuous laughter. Not hysterics, not banshee laughing, just a robust laugh as one would do watching a funny show.

One evening a woman sat on the floor experiencing this laughter. I observed awhile, curious. Another woman came over and asked, “Would you like to join and be filled with the Holy Spirit?” I answered yes, but expressed a worry that it wouldn’t “take.” She said, “Just trust. Let thoughts and worries go and just be with whatever is.”

I sat next to the spirit-filled woman, put my hand on her arm, closed my eyes, and waited. To my wonder, I felt a tingling warmth from her enter my hand and flow up my right arm into my body. Whatever words I summon to describe the experience won’t do it justice, but here goes: As I was filled with this feeling, I felt light, both weightless and incandescent. I began to feel a laugh bubbling up in me. I allowed it to come forth. I sat for however long, bathed in this energy, laughing gently, feeling joy. At the same time, I also felt a part of me was still there, observing. I was not generating or creating this. Nothing was forced by me. At the same time, I did not feel “possessed” or taken over; I still felt I had agency. It was an experience unlike anything I’ve known before or since.

At some point I felt satiated, full, and decided I was done. I removed my hand from the woman’s arm and opened my eyes. I felt new. I felt connected, united with myself and with everything. As I walked, my feet connected in a way that felt like I was the earth and the earth was me. I had a feeling of well-being, life, and love. This feeling remained with me for many hours. After the night’s sleep, it had dissipated. I did not seek this encounter again, and one year later I came to terms that I did not agree with aspects of this church’s dogma and no longer wanted to pretend I did. But I remembered this experience and cherished it awhile.

Then life happened, and the incident faded. Whenever I thought about it, I lumped it in the “I’m not certain what that was but it probably wasn’t real” category. Except… it felt real, and it still resonates like an authentic experience, an encounter with the energy that makes up the universe. While I don’t believe in an anthropomorphic god, I do believe there is something that makes the universe go, something science does not explain completely yet, that it is real, we are made of it, and that we can access a connection with it. (As Carl Sagan said, “We are star stuff.”)

And now I have reopened Kathleen Singh’s book to face the question of dying, of what it’s about and what might follow. The experience I had in 1996 was a glimpse. My hunch is that this connection is possible, is accessible via meditation practice over many years, and that it is our destination at the moment the body dies. As I read her book I will process some of my reactions here.

Inspiration

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The moon followed me home tonight
kissing me with her brilliant light
wishing sweet dreams for my sleepy head
then tucked me gently into bed.

——

It’s a beautiful night, with a waning full moon. The heatwave has broken. A breeze blows. Lately we’ve been reading The Rainbabies, which features the beautiful Moon. (And it has an unexpected sweetness for me because the main characters are an older couple who dearly long for a child, and are given the miracle of that gift.)

Thus a small poem!

The Test of Twelve

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I’m not a parent who buys into the “stranger danger” propaganda. By this, I mean that I’m not worried that a kidnapping or molestation of my child is just around every corner. I’m a big supporter of the Free-Range Kid movement. Occasionally strangers attempt to harm people, but the majority of harm done to children is usually by someone they know.

Bean has a collection of Pooh stories (not written by A.A. Milne) that she loves; one is called “Don’t Talk to Strangers, Pooh.” I dread when she asks it to be read to her, and I always re-word it as I read. I don’t want to instill a fear of strangers into my daughter. How is she to make friends in this world, or find her way, or ask for help when she needs it? I simply want her to understand never to go off anywhere with a stranger. I want her to learn this until she is of age — that is, a confident adult who can assess risks and listen to her intuitive signals.

When I was a child, my disposition and personality attracted bullies. I was a sentimental child with zero self-confidence. (I grew up into a depressed adult with zero self-confidence, but with enough gumption and drive to heal and overcome this.) I have vivid memories of being taunted:

  • a bully yanking a play necklace off me in kindergarten, watching the beads scatter everywhere, hearing him tell me I could not stand on the school porch and he would kill me if I did (thank you Mark S.);
  • an older child riding his bike around me in ever tighter circles as I walked to piano lessons a few blocks from home, threatening to run into me;
  • being choked (hands tight around the neck) by a boy in third grade when I would not give him a book that I had brought to school (thank you Tony F.) — fortunately the teacher was nearby and pried his hands from my throat;
  • being tormented throughout fourth and fifth grade by a “friend” who happened to be the local Presbyterian minister’s kid — she hid my belongings, said terrible things to and about me, ganged up with another girl against me (thanks Suzanne H.). I was so relieved when our fifth grade teacher told me she was moving away to Massachusetts that summer;
  • being punched in the stomach by a class bully (a girl no less) in fifth grade (thank you Colleen F.);
  • being exiled from my four friends with whom I shared a table (and locker) in sixth grade — all girls, who are great at emotional bullying.

That last incident was the first — and only — time I ever fought back. It began on a Wednesday, escalated into Thursday; that night, after being physically ill with fear and worry about what they would do next, I vowed the first one to harass me the next day would get kicked in the stomach. One of them approached me with a taunt, and I kicked. Then I fled, hysterical and sobbing, to the principal’s office. I asked to call my mother, and I begged her to come take me home. The principal intervened and said they’d figure out what was going on. I was terrified that I’d hurt the girl, that I was in big trouble, that I was hated by the entire sixth grade. I spent the day with the school counselor processing all this. He came with me when I went to apologize to the girl. This was a Friday. The principal called the other girls’ parents to tell them about the ostracism. The following Monday (I agonized all weekend about what might happen next), the girls came to apologize to me and make up, and I was accepted again. That was the day of the class picnic. Life was wonderful again, for the moment.

This was all exacerbated by the fact that from age 8 through 12, life at home was not placid and secure. In fact, throughout my teen years this was the case, but by the time I reached high school I had primarily withdrawn from school life and was mostly left alone. Oh, except for the nasty rumor that I was having an affair in 11th grade with my social studies teacher; I had a crush on him, but more importantly, he listened to me pour out my troubles and referred me to the school psychologist, whom I began to see and whom I credit with keeping me intact through graduation. I’m not at liberty to describe why my home life was as it was; it’s only important to know that the milieu, combined with my personality, combined in such a way as to make me a target.

I know that it’s an animal instinct to go for the jugular, to attack the weak one. I know that fearfulness, simpering, flinching, and crying triggers the meanness in others. I have felt that meanness in myself, been tempted by it, and have occasionally indulged it. When I grew up, I realized that if I had a daughter, I want to help her to know that it is perfectly all right to defend herself. Now, my daughter is not me — she has a differently personality and home life — and I’m careful not to project my past onto her. Still, there are things worth knowing.

When I was twelve, there was a carnival down the road at Taunton Corners. Every year it came for the Firemen’s Field Days. At that age, I was allowed to walk down there myself, about a mile away. The man running the duck game flirted with me. I was taken by the attention. I flirted back in the innocent way a 12-year-old does. Then he made a suggestion to me, that I should come back that evening when the carnival was closed to spend time with him. I was intrigued, and tempted, and scared, and unnerved. Something felt icky about the way he looked at me, about the suggestion. I felt uncomfortable, and I never went; I also never back to that game. That was a good decision. I listened to my intuition, and it did not guide me poorly.

I ignored my intuition when I was 31. I ended up sexually assaulted. Not that it was my fault. It’s just that, looking back, I see the signals that I ignored because I was trying to be “a nice person,” (such a strong cultural expectation for women). I remember my reluctance to fight back, to scream; my desperate attempt to reject what was happening.

So, how does one raise a child to be secure but not naive, savvy but not paranoid? There are two books filled good guidance to answer this question, both written by Gavin DeBecker. I am pulling an excerpt from one of his books below. It is a “test” of sorts, one which he suspects many adults would not “pass” if they asked themselves these questions.

I’m not advocating raising children to be violent, to be bullies, to be snots and brats. Yet in certain circumstances, it is vitally important to be able to know and do the following. The questions pertain to interactions children have with adults, but in some cases it may be useful to think of them in context with kids who are bigger and older than the child in question.

Do your children know…

  1. How to honor their feelings – if someone makes them uncomfortable, that’s an important signal;
  2. You (the parents) are strong enough to hear about any experience they’ve had, no matter how unpleasant;
  3. It’s okay to rebuff and defy adults;
  4. It’s okay to be assertive;
  5. How to ask for assistance or help;
  6. How to choose whom to ask;
  7. How to describe their peril;
  8. It’s okay to strike, even to injure, someone if they believe they are in danger, and that you’ll support any action they take as a result of feeling uncomfortable or afraid;
  9. It’s okay to make noise, to scream, to yell, to run;
  10. If someone even tries to force them to go somewhere, what they scream should include, “This is not my father” (because onlookers seeing a child scream or even struggle are likely to assume the adult is a parent);
  11. If someone says, “Don’t yell,” the thing to do is yell (and the corollary: If someone says, “Don’t tell,” the thing to do is tell);
  12. To fully resist ever going anywhere out of public view with someone they don’t know, and particularly to resist going anywhere with someone who tries to persuade them.

–Gavin DeBecker, Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane)

Sunday Fun

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Two batches of shells from the dollar store provide at least an hour of fun on a Sunday morning. Fill the sink with water…

sunday fun

Then sort! Later on Bean had her Little People friends play among the shells at the beach.

she sorts seashells

Then she decided that today was Space Bunny’s birthday (a little jingly rabbit toy she’s had since birth). So we got out construction paper, scissors, and glue. We made presents, cupcakes (with sprinkles!), and a cake with candles.

Bean and I made all this

We also made paper flowers with marker, paper and pipe stems. Then Bean held the bunny and everyone sang happy birthday. Everyone had fun, and soon enough it was time for dinner and an evening walk, then bath and bed.

space bunny's birthday party

No Muss, No Fuss

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We do a fair amount of painting around Chez Harper, but once in awhile I want a less messy activity. So today I tried an idea I saw at Frugal Family Fun. I may have had more fun making them than Bean did playing with them, but they’ll be around awhile for those moments of boredom when a quick distraction will do.

homemade mess-free paint

I took file folder and cut out a 5″ by 7″ window. Then I decorated them with markers. Then I took a gallon-size heavy duty zip-top bag and put in the following:

1/3 cup of mineral oil
1/3 cup of color A
1/3 cup of color B
A dash of glitter

Gently press the bag so all the air is pressed out and seal. With packing tape, seal the zip-top. Then I taped the bags inside the file folders and taped the folders shut. If I’d had quart-size bags it might have been a bit easier — in that case I’d have used 1/4 cup of each item.