"I am from ... "
Anthropologist and psychologist Mary Pipher gets credit for this exercise: These “I am from” poems are an identity exercise. They are poems that includes something about place, religion, and food that trace back to where/how you are “from.” I chose to do this for my birthday this year, in honor of my mother whom I buried last year and all of the women and men I am from. Also in honor of the midwest, particularly Wisconsin where I lived my first 30 years. I am a woman who did not easily fit the land and people I am from. I loved them but my latin soul, was a bit too expressive and wild for the natural vibe of Wisconsin. I moved to Texas. Now, at a distance I can truly see what I left behind in Wisconsin. In Texas I could realize the positive side of the things that made me a "out of place". My exuberant soul and affinity for loud, joyful laughter. My tendency to always go for "more" and for the "fun" option no matter the cost, liked Texas a bit better. But in truth, I am both of these cultures. Writing this poem made me so grateful for all of me, for all of my roots, Wisconsin and Texan. I, like the skies of a Dallas sunset over Stevens Park Golf Course, dream big and believe anything is truly possible. God Bless all of America and all aspects of our unique and wondrous selves. The Exercise:Start each sentence with I am from...and write whatever comes to mind. You might want to consider, place, food and religion...anything really that makes your roots distinct.I am from army blankets ...as forts...as July 4th picnic blankets ...as warmth in Wisconsin winters.I am from Bob Wonders and Mary Skotske who recycled, resused and "made due".I am from prevent, control and tame.I am from Friday night lake perch tavern fish fries.I am from sheepshead, bar dice and bingo.I am from meat and potatoes ... chuck stew and mashed potatoes.I am from the place where ordinary and predictable are good and where wild and random are bad.I am from brooms, dust pans and carpet sweepers in motion everyday but Sundays.I am from gray, low skies, gray homes, gray buildings and steel colored lakes and rivers.ANDI am from where miracles are believed to be real. As real as daily rosaries.I am from damped down; cards held close the the vest.I am from ready help, if you ask for it. Sometimes even when you don't but it is obvious you need it, and we wouldn't offend by the offering.I am from people who stop for strangers.I am from regular or whatever is the opposite of distinct and particular.I am from next door to Prairie Home Companion, which is a little too flashy for my people.I am from navy blue, gray and tan as colors not as neutrals.I am from "people are assumed to be good and decent until they prove otherwise".I am from the first state to outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation...WISCONSIN!I am from a place where progress is slow on small things and fast on human rights ... on the things that endure.I am from love whispered not shouted. Loyalty ever present but not on display. And where prayer and religion were private affairs.I am from a land where people are trusted until proven otherwise. This poem is offered In honor of Bob and Mary Wonders and the family they created, the good they did and the values they passed on to their children.Nancy Claire Wonders
"What will you do, God...?"
From the great poet Ranier Maria Rilke...“What will you do, God, when I die?I am your pitcher (when I shatter?)I am your drink (when I go bitter?)I, your garment; I, your craft.Without me what reason have you?..."
It is true, for each of us. We are a little piece of God. A particular expression of the Infinite and if we pull back on that expression, when we judge that expression, we judge Divine, we doubt. We think we know best, but the part of us that is doing that thinking is the protective system called the ego or strategic mind. This part of us is on the defense. But if, instead of listening to it, we turn the other direction, we do and be what we love, we wholeheartedly move toward what we love, then we give God full reign. AND we “feel” like God…big "G" not small. Feeling like a small "g" god, is grandiosity and hubris. It may feel good in the moment but it is what Jungians might call being caught in an "inflation".BUT if instead we know, we actually experience ourselves as a particular expression of the divine, then we want to kneel and kiss the ground. We do not feel certain or powerful. We feel awe. We feel wonder. We feel humility. We feel like,“really, really? I get to be and do this? Oh goodness," or "'Beam me up Scottie'. When what you love, loves you back!”What if that is the secret? The really big well kept secret? What if that is God? What you love? Don’t settle for god, it’s like trying to live on only cake, or only adrenalin. It ends up leaving you empty, literally and figuratively. The ultimate high that drops you to the ultimate low. BUT there is another path, literally that puts allows you to move to another level.Einstein said, “you can’t solve the problem at the level of thinking that created it” so instead of HIGH and then LOW and then HIGH…etc. how about something that is not in between, or in the middle of those two, but rather of an entirely different order? That order is akin to the wonder and joy we felt as children, or on Christmas morning, or when watching a doodle bug curl into itself, or the first time we realize we are riding our bike without training wheels. That feeling the Infinite's way of giving us a green light to keep going in that direction. The direction of what we love. What if it is really that simply? And those doubting and critical thoughts? Well, they never enlarge us. They never call us to become someone we can truly admire. Instead they call us to play it safe. To stay separate and to protect and cling to what we have. They call us to distrust not only others but ourselves and ultimately our destinies.If like Rilke, above I truly trust the little piece of stardust that is me...well, then paradoxically I quit judging myself and focusing on myself and whether or not I am good enough. What I do instead, is simply go out and express my little piece of heaven. Just like the old song said..."this little light of mine...I'm gonna let it shine..."[audio m4a="http://www.nancywonders.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/03-This-Little-Light-of-Mine.m4a"][/audio]
They're really saying I love you...
They’re really saying “I love you”…Everyone who has heard this song loves it. It is a song of wonder and joy. A song of seeing deeply to the heart of what is happening. Yes, on one level that person that just reached out and said “Hi” or “What’s up?” or “How’s it going?” is following a customary greeting practice when we meet someone. But what Louis Armstrong knew, is that this was only the surface of the interaction. At the heart of the greeting was “I love you”, a desire for connection and community; an example of caring and kindness.I can almost hear your smart minds going, “How can s/he know that?” Or maybe it is saying “That is a sweet idea but really? Come on.” Here is what I know for sure: we are all a mess of different feelings and motivations and intentions. We are everything. None of us purely good or bad. That’s what makes us so interesting … and impossible to predict! For me it doesn’t matter if the idea that someone is reaching out to me is accurate or not. When I choose to see a greeting as a request for contact and connection, my better angels take over, I become someone I admire. AND the world becomes a little brighter, softer and filled with wonder! Just like the song says.So, where can you shift your seeing and hearing just enough to hear "They're really saying "I love you"? Often it is only those smart minds of ours that cover over our experiences of wonder and joy with the mind's need for predictability and control. Predictability and control are fine for machines and schedules but they can hurt living things, like relationships. The choice is ours moment by moment. This new year, I apprentice myself to wonder and joy. To turn my dial to the frequency of ..."they're really saying, I love you" I so hope you will join me.
"These are the days of miracle and wonder..." Paul Simon
When I left my homestead of 25 years and moved 6 blocks south to my dream cottage home, a 1928 craftsman bungalow,I envisioned an ache in my heart that would never really leave. I mean my babies grew up here. They only home they ever knew. And we had to say goodbye to it and those memories. A lump in my throat accompanied me as I went through getting the home ready for sale and then packing up to move. I NEVER envisioned, being back at said homestead on retreat while the men who own it now, vacation elsewhere. I thought I would have to say goodbye forever.But today I sit next to a newly re-plastered perfect pool, in a new remodeled home that still structurally holds the best of my "old" homestead. And I am amazed at how wrong I was about what I thought the future with my children's and my home would hold for me/them. AND more importantly I so created unnecessary suffering by getting out ahead into a future that ...never happened! Instead I got to leave a home that was too much for me and move into a new chapter in my life. AND I got visiting privileges. How great is that?!"These are indeed the days of miracle and wonder..." The miracle of shifting your mind and the wonder of opening your heart abound. Had I trusted the future and trusted myself to meet it, I could have saved myself some unnecessary pain and heartache.
- Where do you need to open your heart and trust yourself to meet the future?
- Where are you out ahead of today with a story that diminishes you in large or small ways?
- Where can you make a miracle just by looking at something differently?