Fair Trade? It’s Personal…

Posted on by
1

Theologians talk about a prevenient grace that precedes grace itself and allows us to accept it. I think there must also be a prevenient courage that allows us to be brave – that is, to acknowledge that there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, that precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm.  …This courage allows us… to make ourselves useful. It allows us to be generous, which is another way of saying exactly the same thing.

-Marilynne Robinson

To affirm that men and women are persons and as persons should be free, and yet to do nothing tangible to make this affirmation a reality, is a farce.

– Paulo Friere

If you can’t feed a hundred people, then just feed one.

-MotherTheresa

 

 

In addition to being National Bike Month, Mother’s Day, Beltane and so many other things, May celebrated World Fair Trade Day (May 16th).  This blog’s been live since January of this year and strangely, I’ve managed to not mention Fair Trade…not once.

 

You’ve maybe noticed of late, the Fair Trade movement has been getting a lot of air time.  Certifying agencies are at odds with one another, struggling with the impact-and-scale quandary:

“If we go BIG, the standards will be diluted, we’ll surrender to the sub-standard norms accepted across a flattened, global economy,” versus, “If we DON’T go big, we will never attain the scale required for this movement to have world-changing impact.”

 

Round, round the dilemma goes…

 

What do I think?  I think our world is a big webby mess.  And like the myriad other ecological, sustainability-related questions routinely rolling over in my head and heart, I arrive at my answer, an active response: make it personal.  Sort of like theBuddhasaying, “Don’t take my word for it…,” I arrived at my commitment to support Fair Trade by exploring the concept as intimately as possible.  Here’s what I mean:

 

5:30amfinds me most mornings in the dark and in my pajamas (how’s that for intimate?).  Whether off to the Berkeley Y for a spin work-out, or mentally running through my agenda for the day, the first thing on my mind is coffee.  I happen to LOVE the stuff – “nectar of the gods,” I call it – and I look forward to it pretty much every morning of my life.  After a few sips, I feel a certain at-one-ment, a readiness to be with whatever presents itself in the hours ahead.  My morning coffee is more than a caffeinated beverage, it’s a ritual that falls in the category I call, “ordinary/extraordinary.”  It’s so mundane, it’s sacred; it’s so simple, it’s a miracle.  Knowing this and not wanting to be unappreciative, I traveled to Guatemala in 2011…to make it personal.

Flor, Raniero, Lauren - Lake Atitlan 1/2011

This is Raniero, and his niece, Flor.  Raniero coordinates a Fair Trade cooperative in Guatemala.  His cooperative supplies parts of Europe and most of Whole Foods (Allegro coffee) with fair trade coffee beans.  Upon landing in Guatemala City, Raniero and Flor drove me out to the shores of Lake Atitlan to meetMariaLuis.

 

Maria Luis, aside one of her many bags of coffee cherries

 

To find her, we scrambled up a steep, jungle-covered mountainside.  It was a Saturday  morning which meant Maria had the help of her sons, most of whom were adamant they would not grow up to be coffee farmers.

 

Maria Luis, aglow & storytelling

 

Maria Luis smiled as she told the story of her organic, fair trade coffee cherries (beans), start-to-finish.  She gestured up the slope, explaining the land was hers and that she oversees a women-owned collective.  In the months between the planting and harvest, she and the women cook and sell their meals for folks in town.  This year, the profits from their coffee crop would be pooled to create a covered infrastructure to better support their catering business.

 

 

 

Members of Maria Luis's collective, standing in their newly-constructed catering headquarters

 

If coffee cherries are picked incorrectly from the plant, the stem will fail to produce next year

 

Caressing the coffee cherries in her basket,MariaLuisgently laughed, “my husband left a long time ago….he said he couldn’t understand me.”

 

Listening, weeping

As I listened, I wept….I was so touched by her vision, by the prideshe held for her work, by the joy she exhibited in sharing her life with strangers.  A cherry slipped from her basket and I scrambled to pick it up.  Each one was suddenly worth a fortune!  These coffee cherries – no bigger than my fingernail – were fundingMariaLuis’s sons dreams of attending college…and how many of those cherries-become-roasted-beans do I groggily grind each morning for my perfect cup of deliciousness?  Never again could a bean fall to my floor and find its eternal fate beneath my refrigerator or stove: perish the thought!

 

So much story in this little cherry!

 

 

Thanks to the city council, local businesses and the great volunteers from the Fair Trade Berkeley steering committee, Berkeley became the 19th Fair Trade Town in the US, in July, 201o.  When I returned home from Guatemala, I thought ofMariaLuisand cringed a little each time I saw an abandoned, unfinished cup of coffee.  It had become personal.

 

 

 

And it happened all over again on May 16th , when a few of us had the chance to celebrate World Fair Trade Day with Lata ji, a Fair Trade activist, visiting the US for the first time, from her home in Barmer, India.  Thanks to the influence of Fair Trade in Lata’s village, a source of amazing textile work, girls are attending school, women are receiving vaccines and the town is funding irrigation systems to address years of drought.

Lata ji and FT Berkeley friends

Will the certification standard changes being made by some dilute the potential of Fair Trade as its felt by the producers and their villages?  Maybe…and I hope not.  Will the certification standard changes increase the reach of the fair trade movement to create a game-changing impact?  Maybe, I hope so, and only if more of us play.

 

In that ordinary/extraordinary way, may we intimately know and generously admit, “there is more beauty than our eyes can bear.”  Our response needn’t be to save it all, to feed hundreds.  Instead, we can honor what’s precious, and in our hands.  Make it personal.

 

FT Berkeley Declaration Celebration, July, 2010

 

 

Blessing Bicycles: worship and tongue-tied reverence

Posted on by
Reply

 

When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the the future of the human race.

-H.G. Wells

When man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments.  Here was a machine of precision and balance for the convenience of man.  And (unlike subsequent inventions for man’s convenience) the more he used it, the fitter his body became.  Here, for once, was a product of man’s brain that was entirely beneficial to those who used it, and of no harm or irritation to others….

-ElizabethWest, Hovel in the Hills

Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.

– SusanB. Anthony 1896

 

A good friend took me to task after my March post, “Lauren!” he emailed instantly, “You forgot Bicycles!  ‘Bike,’ begins with ‘B’!”

 

Gadzooks, it does!  How could I blog about Boys, Births and Bees and fail to mention my true love, the B-i-k-e???  Worry not.  I was simply waiting for May, National Bike Month.  I figured a month devoted to the two-wheeled machine would help couch my enthusiasm.  The honest truth is:  I feel self-conscious about my love for the bike.  It’s just so….extreme.

 

I say “the” bike, because, while I love my bike(s), it is the act of biking itself combined with all that a bike might represent (freedom, whimsy, courage, speed, economic brilliance, strength, efficiency, community, fun) that renders me breathless and tongue-tied.  It’s not unusual, when trying to explain what goes on for me with a bike, to begin weeping and just shrug in surrender.  Once upon a time, I felt this way about singing.  And I think it IS this way with our yogas — the practices that unite us with Spirit, God, the Great Mystery.

 

Direct experiences, those so sacred they don’t readily lend themselves to description, are a blessing in today’s communication-laden world; and our “divine charge,” if you will, is to embrace them.  So, to celebrate National Bike Month, I partnered with other cities across the U.S. and called upon my friends at the East Bay Bicycle Coalition and the City of Berkeley to create Berkeley’s First-ever Blessing of Bicycles.

 

Blessing of Bicycles, 5/5/2012

I began my thoughts with the quotes above and the words of Martin Buber who wrote, “God made so many different kinds of people: why would God allow only one way to worship?”  Those gathered, instantly got it.  Looking around the circle of cyclists – racers bedecked in their sponsor-graffitied spandex, and fathers pedaling their Extracycles with toddlers in tow – heads were nodding in consensus.

 

Renee Rivera, ED of the East Bay Bike Coalition, reminded us that while we were gathering to bless our bikes that, in truth it is our bikes that bless us.  Are we, on our rides, awake to the blessings they offer?

 

Renee Rivera & Mayor Tom Bates

I was transported, in that moment, to a workshop I’d facilitated two weekends before where I’d invited participants to use magazine pictures to collage an image of God.  The workshop was nearly over, with ten minutes remaining, when in walks Jack. Jack, I’m guessing, was in was, his mid 60s and looked about 49.  He was vibrant, with twinkling eyes and an enormous smile.  “Is this the ‘Million Faces of God’ session?” he beamed.

 

“Yes, it is,” I welcomed him, “Perhaps you’d like to see if there are a few pictures on the table here that describe your image of God?  I don’t want to rush you, but the rest of us are about to share.”

 

Resting his bike helmet on the floor, Jack set about to find an image in the first magazine he saw.  And then, while others shared ornate collages with intricate, twisting descriptions of God imagery and theology, Jack asked if he could speak next.   With a soft, pleased delight he offered the back cover of Bicycling magazine; it was an ad from New Belgium Brewery, where a young woman is standing near her cruiser bike and a frothy stein of beer.  Technicolor trees and birds swirl about.

 

“This picture,” he said somewhat shyly, “is an image of God.”  And then gaining confidence, “I bike everyday and from my bike, I see people and things I wouldn’t see in a car traveling at speed.  I go more slowly on my bike – slow enough to smell, appreciate.  I can make eye contact and smile at the world going by.  And this beer…(he sighs)… Well, I don’t drink except at communion on Sunday, but this glass just reminds me of the Eucharist and ties it altogether.”

 

Thank you, Jack.  I really couldn’t say it any better.  The words I would use are different, and they might be reflected in some of the interfaith blessings you’ll capture if you watch the video link below.  The late Carl Sagan, in his own way, offered a bike blessing with these words, “If constellations had been names in the 20th century, I suppose we would see bicycles.”

 

Happy May!  If you haven’t done it for awhile, dust off your handlebars and go for a pedal – ride to the park, the market, visit a friend.  And if cycling doesn’t do it for you, then lean into the practice that rapts your attention – is it gardening or hiking?  Meditation, cooking, music-making or prayer?  Fall in love.  Do it now.

 

Bikes & Cyclists, duly blessed

You can watch highlights of Berkeley’s First-ever Blessing of Bicycles here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6TH26PQUbs

Please NOTE: the video is 13 minutes long and I would recommend advancing to the following highlights: 1) minutes 1&2 –  curious individuals gathering, 2) minute 3 – Mayor Bates offering his whimsical blessing, 3) minutes 5:30-11:30 – clips of interfaith clergy extending blessings.

 

 

 

 

 


Rites of Spring Begin with “B”

Posted on by
Reply

Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.

– Ranier Maria Rilke

 

Earlier this week, it happened; the sun and earth danced in such a way that, for equal portions of time, we knew light and dark.  And then, just as quickly, we were pushed beyond the balance into a new season –- for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, Happy Spring!

 

Spring Rites abound: birds returning, daffodils bravely pushing through cold, dark soil to reveal their strong, sensitive beauty, and of course “longer” days – the journey home from work includes appreciating the sunset, each one later than the evening before.

 

More personally, I noticed this week that my Rites of Spring Begin with “B” for Blessings:  Blessings for Boys, Birthing, Blogs, and Bees.  I’ll be Brief:

Isaac extends Blessings

 

 

  Blessing Boys – please enjoy my post on the Ritual I co-created with Joel and Jessica for their sons,    Isaac and Emmet;

 

 

 

Tristy & Justin Birth Anew

 

 Blessing Birthing – learn about the Ritual I co-created for Tristy and Justin, honoring their journey   from  unsuccessfully trying to make a baby to birthing new, child-free possibilities;

 

 

 

Blessing Blogs – when you read my blog it feels like a blessing! And, new this week, there’s a SUBSCRIBE feature, so you don’t have to miss any new posts!! Thank you, so much, for reading.

 

Blessings Bees – Ah, yes! Well, I don’t want to tell you everything all at once, so stay tuned for this story. Sneak preview? I bought a beekeeping suit yesterday. Buzzz, buzz…begins with “B.”

 

Happy Spring!!! Now stop reading this, Silly, and get out there to enjoy it…

 

Go Forth and Blossom...

 

 

RITUAL: A Journey from “Infertile!” to Choosing “Child-Free”

Posted on by
Reply

RITUAL:  A Journey from “Infertile!” to Choosing “Child-Free”

 

I have been on a 6-year odyssey to make a baby with my husband. This included all the usual

methods(!), as well as fertility treatments like taking the drug Clomiphene. We were not

successful in our quest and last year we decided to “stop trying.” While my husband more or less

happily moved on to start his new business, I felt stuck. I had poured my whole heart and soul

into making a baby and now that we were done with that chapter of our lives, I realized I had no

idea what came next.

-Tristy Taylor

 

Sometimes the things we can’t change end up changing us.

 – Unknown

 

Tristy’s Ritual: Grief, Shiva, and the UN-Baby Shower

March 3-11, 2012

 

Needless to say, Tristy’s grief began long before March 3rd.  And her extensive efforts to move beyond her grief brought her to my home one morning, early in February.  She began the conversation with a wise pronouncement: “I get it now – and it’s hard to ask – but this requires a ritual.  My grief isn’t going to leave until I ask for help from my community, and from a deeper source.”

 

Why was it hard to make this request?  Why, when women are so quick to shower one another with advice and gifts and mothering tips for those pregnant with little humans, have we not also found ways to celebrate, tend and care for the ones who incubate ideas, gestate projects, birth artwork, tend gardens, rear nieces, nephews, neighbors?

 

Maybe it’s because we haven’t first acknowledged the sadness that comes from attempting and failing at one’s birthright: making a child.  Infertility is a shame magnet, and choosing to live and love in ways that doesn’t include bearing children often mystifies.  And so began an exploration of acknowledging the grief, honoring a time for transition, and celebrating a willful choice.  Here’s how Tristy’s ritual went.

 

Saturday, March 3rd: Giving Up the Grief

Like giving up the ghost, the women who gathered late Saturday afternoon were there to support Tristy in fully expressing the sorrow, disappointment, and rage she’d been holding as a result of her six years of trying and failing to conceive a child.

Tristy in the Oak Grove

In the safety of twilight and with the guidance of Tristy’s talented priestess and friend,Lila, who offered her comfortable home, Tristy and a handful of wise women gathered to meditate, drum, and mourn.  The women, each in turn, invited her uterus to speak – and Oh, the stories!  Details of the night were held in sacred confidence by the ears that listened….and ultimately each one was surrendered to an Oak Grove, where it was understood the trees could transform it all. When it was over, Tristy’s husband,Justinretrieved her, taking her home for a week of resting in what was, and in what would become….

 

Sitting Shiva

For the next 7 days and 8 nights, Tristy sat Shiva, a Jewish custom following death.  To experience more of this part of the ritual, you may wish to read Tristy’s blog.

 

Sunday, March 11th: Tristy’s UN-Baby Shower

The flock of women who arrived at Tristy and Justin’s home Sunday morning arrived in precisely the fashion women do when they are showering a loved one — uproarious giggling and cooing, one arrival after another — alive, vibrant and a flourish of feminine chaos.   As the gathering, greeting and welcoming continued, Chef Justin wowed everyone us with a delicious brunch, featuring eggs (of course!!!!) and other bounty!  Settling in with a round of introductions, the women were asked, and consensus was found: it was everyone’s FIRST  UN-Baby Shower.  In short order, unanimous agreement resulted: it was an important event.  There were mothers and non-mothers in the room, each of them so grateful to be included, so moved by their friend’s courage, so willing to support Tristy in her choice to begin a new chapter as a child-free woman.

 

Hand on Heart

 

Each guest was asked to bring a quote from a woman who had not born children.  Quotes ranged from Dolly Parton to Julia Childs to Whoopi Goldberg; and as the quotes were appreciated and celebrated, so too was Tristy’s body, with colorful body paints – not just her womb, but her back and her chest and each appendage.

Artist's at Work

We called upon each facet, capable of imagining, making and mothering new creations.

 

 

Justin's Finishing Touches

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tristy’s friends showered her with creativity-inviting gifts: art materials, plants, libations and recipes!

Gifts for Bearing Fruit & Creativity!

Gifts for Bearing Fruit & Creativity!

 

To finish the ritual, we asked Justin to join Tristy.  Encircling them both, we acknowledged Justin’s role and voice as co-creator and co-parent both in what had been and in what will be.  With hands upon Tristy and Justin, the community set sacred intentions for the couple’s next chapter.  We prayed for surprise and delight and adventure in their choosing to be child-free.  And then, we told them how much we loved them.

 

We Love You, Tristy and Justin.

 

Flower Exchange Ecstasy

 

The UN-Baby Shower ended with some frolicking in the sun and a flower exchange (each woman brought a bouquet of flowers that were co-mingled and redistributed in bouquets to take home and enjoy.)  Brilliant!

 

Lauren & Tristy, Frolicking (lightly)

 

The Intimacy of Texting

Posted on by
3

My Dad and Juanita (his wonderful wife), came for a visit in February.  They were here over Valentine’s Day and to celebrate, I had some friends over for a dinner party.  One thread of conversation at the table that night revealed varying opinions on the cost-and-promise ratio of text messaging.  “I think it’s making us stupid,” said one friend.
“Nah, just less verbal,” said another.  “It’s about dopamine,” someone else suggested.  “I think it’s about intimacy,” I said.  “Interesting…,” stated a voice; “…Depressing?” floated another.  And then, those of us willing to reveal our affection/addiction for texting, mentioned that several of the “Valentines” we’d received that day had been via SMS.

I set out to do some research, and in a nutshell, here’s the deal:

  • Initial studies  suggested that dopamine controlled the “pleasure” systems of the brain, but newer studies reveal that dopamine causes seeking behavior – it’s what makes us desire, want and seek.  From a survival standpoint, we can be grateful to dopamine for keeping us motivated to move, learn, find food, etc.
  • A compliment to, but different from dopamine, is our opioid system, the stuff that makes us feel pleasure.  In short, dopamine makes us search, and satisfaction (pleasure) helps put the pause on our seeking practice, and find rest.

Guess which system is stronger in most humans?

  • Yep, we seek more than we are satisfied.  AND, with finely tuned and insanely accessible seeking instruments at our fingertips (literally), we can actually put ourselves into dopamine-induced loops: seeking, being rewarded with a new prompt, and seeking more.  Interestingly (…depressingly?) the dopamine system doesn’t have satiety built-in.   [Reminder: clicking the hyperlink WILL induce your dopamine system.]

Ah-ha!  I’m well acquainted with the aforementioned “dopamine-induced loop.”  Are you, as well?

A few days after the dinner party, I was riding my bike home on a dark, crisp evening.  My headlight was flashing, the cool breeze was finding my neck, my nose and my cheeks.  I felt happiness in my chest, exhilarated as my pedaling legs pushed me through the darkness.  I thought, suddenly of my brother, who’d been feeling sad recently, and how I wished I could text him what I felt in that moment.  I wanted somehow to share this feeling of contented aliveness.

And this is what I meant when I suggested that texting was in some way a bridge to intimacy (“in to me see”).

I’m a bit of a luddite; call me a (really) late adopter. I’ll be the first to admit, though, that I LOVE to see the text message icon smiling at me from the screen of my smarter-than-me phone.  “Who wrote?” I wonder, and, “What will the message say?”  Sure, often it’s practical details, logistical instructions.  There’s a sexy satisfaction in the highly efficient delivery system of texting or looking something up on google – but it’s short-lived and it doesn’t sate my opioid side.

Where, when, how do you practice Pausing?  Where, when, how do you practice resting in satisfaction? Resting in Pleasure?  I’m not talking about hedonism; I’m talking about simply experiencing what is and tasting it in its completeness.  Intimacy with the moment.  No striving.  No seeking.

I couldn’t “text” the rush or the joy of that evening ride to my brother’s phone, perse, but I did send him an attempt, and he texted back.  And the sentiments conveyed in these messages?  I wouldn’t trade them for anything.  They’re the messages that trump the dopamine-loop.  They’re invitations to love, revel and rest in the appreciation of,  “in to me seeing” with another.

What if we were to make a pact with ourselves and those we love, to temper our dopamine tendencies by leveraging our information-fueling devices to send pleasure in equal or greater amounts?  I’m not even sure I can appreciate what this means, but I know the taste of relief and sweetness that comes when I step off the seeking-cycle for a spell of satisfaction.

May a dose of enoughness find you…and may you spread it lavishly to others.  And if this post has filled you with a desire to seek, check out these Valentines (belated) that I SO wish I could text to you!

RITUAL: A Blessing for Children

Posted on by
Reply

Every Person Born into This World*

Every person born into this world represents something new, something that never existed before, something original and unique. It is the duty of every person… to know and consider that s/he is unique in the world in his particular character, and that there has never been someone like him before. For if there had been someone like her before, there would be no need for her to be in the world. Every single person is a new thing in the world and is called upon to fulfill his particularity in the world.

-Martin Buber, Jewish philosopher/religious existentialist

 

A Child’s Blessing for Isaac and Emmett

February 19, 2012

 

Gathering – Upon arrival, each guest is invited to write words on colored ribbon — words of blessing forIsaac (3 years old), Emmett (7 months), and words of encouragement for parents, Joel and Jessica. The ribbons are tied to two young apple trees, one for each child.

Love Ribbon, photo courtesy, L. Muller

 

Welcome!  (Lauren speaks to the importance of ritual, stressing that the unique presence of those invited to attend a ritual are largely what makes a ritual sacred,)

Rituals create space for us to make real the prayers we tend to keep most close to our hearts; rituals create space for us to honor and to celebrate.  Let’s begin with the simplest one:

Isaac, big brother extraordinaire, photo courtesy L. Muller

 

What are we celebrating?  That these healthy beings,Isaac and Emmett have been born to Joel and Jessica; that Isaac, it turns out, is an EXCELLENT big brother, and has happily accepted this role.

What are we honoring?  A couple things.  We’re honoring the bliss and joy of parenting.  Among the sacrifices and challenges Jessica and Joel have accepted as parents, today we are creating a moment of pause for Joel and Jessica to acknowledge that now, well into their roles as mother and father, they are finding their way beautifully, and loving what they are a part of in the lives of Isaac and Emmett.

We’re also honoring the love of this community.  The roles each of you play in     providing the patience, the laughter, the insight and support needed by parents and young people, alike. Within this community, there is more than enough wisdom, and more than enough love for this family to grow, grow and grow.

Joel, Isaac, Jessica & Emmett, photo courtesty, L. Muller

What are we praying for?  As a community who loves this family, we pray for the continued love and patience bondingJessicaandJoel; that they continue to discover both practical strength and romantic surprise to sustain one another in every parenting challenge that finds them.  And we’re praying for courage.  What does it mean to be a young person in these times?  Today, we pray for the spirits of courage and curiosity to fall abundantly on these boys so they might readily employ the divine creativity sown deeply within them – and so dearly needed in our world.

 

Candle of Remembrance – A candle is lit to call close those who are not physically present, but who are the lineage that is Isaac and Emmett.  The flame, remembers us to those who’ve passed on or who are not able to join us today.

 

Lauren officiates, photo courtesy L. Muller

Martin Buber’s words (above) instruct us accept the truth of our Divine heritage, to know that our life’s work is delightfully simple: to offer the goodness within each of us, by living life to its fullest!

Within Judaism, there is a tradition of burying a son’s foreskin beneath a fruit tree.   Today, we are embracing and re-envisioning this custom by planting two boxes beneath this fruit tree.  In this way, we are symbolically recognizing our roles the lives of Isaacand Emmettto fertilize, tend and enjoy their growth.  May Isaac and Emmett, like the trees, grow strong and resilient, embracing each season and the changes life brings!!

Joel and Jessica will plant the two boxes beneath the two trees. Joel will offer the traditional blessing in Hebrew and English.

 

Buddies Ribbon, photo courtesty, L. Muller

Offerings from Those Gathered

“Nana Sharon” reads a beautiful letter she has written her grandsons  to honor this day. Lauren invites others to share words they’ve written on the ribbons as an offering to Jessica, Joel and the boys.

 

Blessing Isaac, Blessing Emmett – Lauren provides Joel and Jessica essential oil and offers words of blessing forIsaac:

UponIsaac’s head;

Isaac, you are connected, protected, loved, and blessed by the Divine. 

His heart:

Isaac, your heart is blessed so that you may feel compassion for yourself and others. 

Anointing Isaac's Hands, photo courtesy, L. Muller

 

His hands:

Isaac, your hands are blessed so that you may reach out to the world. 

His feet:

And Isaac, your feet are blessed so that you may connect with the earth and stand your ground in this world. Know that your spirit is strong and it will guide you through this life. Know that you are not alone, that you are deeply loved and that your presence brings overwhelming joy. 

 

Then, Isaac is given oil forEmmettand we repeat the above for his baby brother.

Isaac anoints Emmett, photo courtesy, L. Muller

 

Parents’ Blessing – Lauren reads from Khalil Gibran’s, The Prophet:

Your Children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself.  They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts.  You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.  For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

Please have a mandarin! photo courtesy, L. Muller

 

Fruit Offering – Isaac proudly offers a mandarin to each guest, symbolizing the gift that his own life is and will continue to be, a tree bearing fruit for others to enjoy.  Amen!


Emmett, feeling blessed, photo courtesty, L. Muller

 

 

 

* – Inclusive language mine

Praying with Trees

Posted on by
2

Forests…appeal to all and awaken inspiring universal feelings. 

…It may be that sometime an immortal pine will be the flag

of a united and peaceful world.

 -Enos A. Mills

 

And you, how old are you?  I asked the maple tree. 

While opening one hand,

he started blushing.

-Georges Bonneau, Le SensibiliteJaponaise, 1935

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

It’s true: four days into February and I’m still blogging about New Year’s…because on some calendar, somewhere, it’s always a new year.  Two weeks ago, the Chinese rang in the Year of the Dragon and this coming Tuesday, February 7th, the Jewish calendar will celebrateTuB’Shevat, the New Year for trees.  That’s right, trees!

 

The celebration of Tu B’Shevat stems from a passage in Hebrew scripture, Leviticus 19:23-25, which explains that fruit from trees may not be eaten during the first three years and it is only after the fourth year (when the fruit is for G-d alone), that the fruit may be eaten.  The New Year for trees, therefore, was a way of commemorating the tree’s age and its pending harvest.   Historical reasons aside, I’m just still delighting in the idea of celebrating a Tree New Year.

 

It’s blog-worthy.

 

And while I could spend the next paragraph writing about tree conservation and reiterating why we need them for erosion evasion, water filtration and air purification, I’m not going to.  Nor will I use this New Year to recognize the many tree activists whose stories inspire me every time I consider their efforts: JohnnyAppleseed, Elzéard Bouffier, John Sterling Morton, WangariMaathai, Julia Butterfly Hill…and the monks of Thailand (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0I3Nz4cOeI).

 

Instead, and as plainly as possible, I want to thank the trees.

Tibetan nuns chanting beneath the Buddha's Bodhi Tree, Bodhgaya, India. 2003

I readily admit my life depends on them – they breathe in my discarded CO2, while providing me O2 in abundance, of course; but they also serve as metaphor in so much of how I make sense of life.  In my work with clients, for example, I’m constantly referring to trees: “What’s in your roots?” “You are growing a solid trunk,” “What have you offered up, in your branches?”   Do you do this, too?  Borrow from trees the strong, regenerative image they represent?

 

In my last post, I mentioned the frustration I was feeling toward the short-sightedness plaguing our culture.  Reveling in the long-sighted, patient nature of trees, I take deep delight in the Georges Bonneau quote above…

 

So do it now: picture your tree.  We all have one —  the one in the backyard, from which the tire-swing hung; the one we went to after school to exchange secrets, kisses and important social dirt; the one we’ve sought out for time alone, to whom we cry out, or confess, or find solace when the world’s busyness has become deafening.

 

Might this week be a time to thank our trees?  I encourage you to offer some gratitude at its trunk, speak your love poem into its bark, bring its fallen leaves to your dining table and offer your thanks to these beings, ever-wise, ever-patient, damn resilient, and ever-generous.

 

Dear Trees, Thank you, thank you, thank you….and Mazel Tov!  Happy New Year!

Tree Gratitude along Avenue of the Giants

 

 

Here Be Dragons!

Posted on by
Reply

Here be Dragons!
– Early European map makers’ warning

It never does to leave a live Dragon out of the equation if you live near him.
– The Hobbit, J.R.R.Tolkien

I always wanted to ride a dragon myself, so I decided to do this for a year in my imagination.
– Cornelia Funke

I love dragons.  Easy for me to say, having never physically met one, but I love the stories surrounding them.  Metaphorically, dragons offer warning and wonder.  In this Year of the Dragon, the warning signs are everywhere.  To be honest, I’ve been feeling pretty depressed by it all: warnings of the Keystone pipeline, warnings of drought, lack of snow and tornadoes in January, warnings of Planned Parenthood being shut down by a short-sighted right-wing agenda, infact, warnings of short-sightedness, in general.  I feel utter disbelief and pending despair about our society’s inability to be uncomfortable for longer than 30 seconds to simply think through our options and to be somewhat planful about our collective future.

But I don’t want to get stuck in despair and I’d like my disbelief to grow into something more inspired, which is the wonder piece.  I mean, a giant, winged, fire-breathing, riddle-solving creature?  Aren’t you a little curious?

What if the dragon didn’t simply have to be slayed, but could indeed be tamed, transformed into an ally?  Then, like CorneliaFunke, we could ride a dragon!

The warnings surrounding us in this New Year are plentiful, and like any good dragon, they’re inviting us to sound the alarm and engage our wonder.  I wonder if we can create new jobs without injuring the earth.  I wonder if we can forge new relationships with our enemies and come to some new understandings about the things we mutally care about.  I wonder if we can begin – even in small and slow ways – to tolerate the uncomfortable, and blaze some paths to places we couldn’t possibly yet know.  Here be Dragons!  I want to meet them…who’s coming with?

Inciting Epiphanies

Posted on by
1

Hello, and welcome to Lauren’s Blog!

Yesterday was the Twelfth Day of Christmas, or Epiphany.  For Christians, Epiphany marks the day the Wise Men finally arrived, having followed a star, to behold theChristChild.   It is, in essence, a “making real” of the event.  After the rather homely beginning in a manger with shepherds and barn animals, and after the rest of us respond by staying home from work, singing “Silent Night,” and “Away in a Manger” lullabies, and celebrating with our loved ones, the Magi arrive and up the ante: “This baby is a big deal.  We need to protect him and there are repercussions for us all!”

It’s a good story on its own and symbolically, there’s a LOT here.  I am arriving in these first days of the New Year feeling so grateful for the ways Nature pointedly guides us through the final days of December – the DARKEST days of the year (Northern Hemisphere native, that I am) – and provides a transition plan so that we might receive the increasing length and brightness of the Sun (or Son) in the days to come.  I’m obviously not describing yuletide practices as instructed by mainstream media, but if you’re reading this, you’re likely not either.

In short, Epiphany seems to me a great season to go *live* with my blog.  This entry and the one before it (Dec. 31st) mark my own movement from 2011, through the Solstice, and into the beginning of a New Year.  I would be beyond pleased if even a morsel of something written here incites an epiphany for you, or someone, somewhere:

epiphany [ih-pif-uh-nee] 

1. an appearance or manifestation, especially of a deity;

2. a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or
essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple,
homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.
(dictionary.reference.com)

More importantly, as you live into these first days of 2012, may epiphanies happen!  Plain and simple.  May they happen within you, in the lives of those you care about, in the lives of those we do not know, in our communities and throughout the world.  A new day dawns….

Happy New Year and thanks for reading!

Acknowledgements: This blog has been loooong in coming.  I would be remiss if I didn’t offer gratitude to those who nudged and pushed me along in its creation: Dad-lee, T. Taylor, A. Brucker, M.M., CMK & the EOL community, C. Morris, “V.P.K.,” B. Arnall, Davemo, M. Abed, A. Lattanand, M. Himel, and the students at ChI.

Performing Salah: Bowing to 2011

Posted on by
3

 

“People who have not been in Narnia sometimes think
that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same time.”

-C.S. Lewis

“I want to tell you about love… Even the word, ‘love,’ is not adequate
to define the force that wove the fabric of space and time.”

-Drew Dellinger

 

“Asking good questions is half of learning”

-attributed to Muhammad

 

When 2011 began, I made some plans and I set an intention.  My plans included concrete things like moving out of the shed where I’d lived for 11 years (a great story, but different blog) and meeting a great man with whom to share my life.  My intention was to actualize these plans (and others) while trusting fully in the practice of grace. Grace?  For me it means trusting that I don’t have to, “make it all happen,” or be, “in control,” and that, quite possibly, by asking for help and being a bit vulnerable, Ease, Synchronicity and Confluence ably offer a better picture than the limited one I would’ve created on my own.

 

I think we all agree: 2011 has been busy.  Grace-filled victories reminded me throughout Spring and Summer that, even in the more stressful moments, I was learning to trust life in a new way.  It stretched me!  It felt good!  And then, I got my heart broken.  With no explanation, a story I was loving just stopped and like a science fiction movie, part of the universe opened-up and pulled me into an abyss of blackness.  I hadn’t felt grief this painful since…oh, right.  Since the last time was heart was broken.  Tearfully, stubbornly, I refused to let go of the grace….

 

A week later, during the closing ritual for the Islam module at the school where I work, I was invited to participate in the Muslim Call to Prayer – an embodied submission to Allah that happens 5 times a day.  It was in the act of dropping to the floor and submitting to, “the Other,” when it rushed in and shook me to the core: “I do not WANT to submit to something else!  Have we not been through this?” I bellowed to my inner cast of characters.  “So many years of grappling with, defining and RE-defining my relationship with the Who or What, ‘Out There,’ for whom I must prostrate and bow to!”

 

Tears of recognition.

 

Grace.  I am bowing to grace!
I am bowing to all that I cannot control
and I am bowing to that which I cannot radically accept: being rejected and being unable to ‘fix it.’  I am bowing to the no guarantees
and life’s uncertainties.

 

Myself.  I am bowing to myself and I am bowing to
my ego’s wish
that everyone else were more like me.  I am bowing to my tendency
to compare my path to others – particularly those
who never seem to need
to bow
to anything much
at all!!!
I am bowing to my fear that they may know something
that I should know
too.

 

I am bowing to the seduction of fame,
and a latent panic
that my life and work will not amount to anything
world-changing.

 

I am bowing to my alienation from the All.
I am bowing to Everything,
and I am bowing to No
thing.

 

I am bowing
and thrashing
and sobbing.

 

I am bowing to the Powers that always win
and I’m bowing to the
possibility
that we will discover another way; a different way;
a better way.

 

I am bowing to my ambition. I am bowing to a sometimes-wish I feel to,
“check-out” and to let others
carry the load – YOU be the do-gooders for awhile!!!!

 

I am bowing to my desire to know love and wholeness,
and I am bowing to the place in me
that may forever hunger and thirst simply so I might bow again and again and again.  I am bowing to my contradictions.  I am bowing.
I am bowing.

 

In a mother-to-be’s womb, the amniotic fluid is changed every 3 hours, or 5 times every 24 hour cycle.  This is one reason Muslims pray 5 times a day.  Each day, we are invited to tend our wombs: to grow the seed of the Divine within, to labor with the Divine as we give birth to and celebrate our True Nature. Gracedidn’t promise I would get to choose; grace promised to hold me in the process of all that is.

 

I bow to the answer not-yet-found, the direction not-yet-known, the hearts of others not-yet-ready.  I bow to the possibility of NEVER knowing.  What else can I do?  Thank you, 2011, for all that you have been.  I bow to you.