Tuesday, February 11, 2014

the ring on my mat

For years friends have asked why I take off my wedding ring when practicing yoga and I've always responded with short and/or ambiguous answers.  Here's the rest of the story. 

I first started taking off all jewelry when practicing even before I was married, just to be more comfortable and less distracted.  But once I was married, this small and simple choice started to carry more impact.  I think the more that I got asked about it the more my purpose solidified, even if I couldn't articulate it.  Now that I've taken some time to be back with just me on my mat, (outside of studios and thus questions) I feel like I can articulate why this is important to me.  

My wedding ring symbolizes the most important human relationship in my life.  It symbolizes a covenant I made with God and with Roy and it symbolizes my commitment to both of them. I have heard it said that the circle of a ring signifies eternity with no beginning and no end, but for me that is not what this band reminds me of.  I believe that our marriage is a beautiful, awesome gift to be enjoyed on this earth, with divine purpose, but certainly not something we will take with us when we leave this life. (Not to mention, a plain circle is not the mathematical symbol for infinity.) If there's one thing that this circle reminds me of, it is the cycles of life and relationship.  (Such as the cycle of honest and gracious communication, where defenses melt lower and lower, or the cycle of painful and accusatory communication, where the walls are built faster than the new Wal-mart.)  

  The amazing power of choice seems to be one of the recurring themes that my ring reminds me of, and yet it isn't all that.  Choice is an amazing gift - a divine gift - and it is in the freedom of choice that I can find what love and surrender and submit mean.  But also when I look at my ring, sitting innocently at the end of my mat, I'm reminded of how God is completely sovereign, in Roy's and my life especially. (Haha- only a youngest child would feel that God is "especially" _____ just for her!)

Taking off my ring reminds me that I am not my marriage.  My worth, my value, and my identity, are not given to me from my marriage.  I have those things straight from the source, and I can offer them to my husband, my children, my community.  My mat is a safe place where I can physically and emotionally and spiritually just be. I think this kind of safe place is what Jesus was talking about when he mentioned being in your closet: somewhere where you're willing to take everything else off and get real with God.  For a few time-stopping moments I don't have to be anything for anybody, even myself or God.  I get to just be.  I can experience grace washing over me, and love filling me.  

And somehow once I've poured myself out and I pick up my mat, when I slide my ring back on my finger it is so intentional; it is so meaningful; it is so not my identity, but such a precious gift.  

Friday, February 7, 2014

State of being, verbs and such

As a homeschooling mom of 3 youngsters, who loves Emily Dickinson's poetry, and holds a dual belief in the absolute possibility of complete emotional and spiritual and physical healing and wholeness side by side with an understanding that the 2nd law of thermodynamics is a proven way this world as we know it operates, I have something to say.   If none of that made sense, don't worry; it doesn't to me either.  Which is why I have Aristocats on and fled to my keyboard.

We've memorized the state of being verbs recently.  And by "we" I mean that Janie is the only one who continues to waltz around the house chanting "Am. Is. Are Was Were. Be. Being. Been." As we were learning to differentiate from when a verb is used simply to state existence as opposed to helping another verb, I did a lot of explaining about the worth of existence.  I AM.  It's a complete sentence.  (Yes, we talked about God telling someone that one time…) YOU ARE.  That's another complete sentence.  If we go on to say, for example, "You are yelling" or "You are beautiful" or we say "You are pelting me with raisins right now" then we are using that verb "are" to help say something else. But when we need to just explain that something is we just use the state-of-being verb by itself.  And that's a complete sentence.  And kids, it's a complete sentence because it expresses a complete thought.  And the complete thought that it expresses is YOU.  It's not what you're doing (although you can do awesome things), it's not what you look like (although you happen to be gorgeous), it's not what you have ('though you have a lot), that gives you worth.  You have infinite value because you exist.

As I've been reiterating this to my children in the last few months, I've been listening too.  A few months ago I became aware of some root chakra blockages I had, and have been learning to listen and surrender to God more and more in this area - this very inner, primal, most basic part of myself.  And I have seen lies that I have believed.  That I can let go of.  That I can turn away from, and turn back to my Creator, Redeemer and Lover to be healed and made whole.  And during this refining process there's sadness that comes from seeing things that have held me; and there's other pain of dead parts, parts that died long ago, that are still connected to living parts and need to be healed.   I get the Buddhist attraction: get rid of attachments and get rid of the pain that they inevitably cause.  And yet whenever I pose this question to myself, I realize I'd still choose to risk attachments with subsequent pain over no attachments, because there is something in me that says life and eternity are about a connection with something other than myself, and that to experience this I need to be open on all levels.  So I believe in healing and wholeness, and I believe that pain and injustice are the inevitable companions of love and grace.  And while holding those two beliefs in my head and heart and seeing that they don't reconcile, I must come back to trust that in God's hands and His eternity, it does.  He is the difference, because He is.  

CXLI
The healed Heart shows its shallow scar
With confidential moan,
Not  mended by Mortality
Are fabrics truly torn.
To go its convalescent way
So shameless is to see,
 More genuine were Perfidy
Than such Fidelity.
~Emily Dickinson~

This poem burned itself in my memory many years ago, and I remember wondering at the time if I just had a resistance to healing because I wanted to wallow in self-pity for an indefinite time, such as the rest of my life.  And thinking, God no; no, I don't want that.  But neither do I want some shallow band-aid or addiction that causes me to run from myself for the rest of my life.

 During this time that I was off-and-on suicidal and very depressed was the first time that I came to some conclusions about the worth of existence.  I realized that I had allowed myself to not simply place my love on someone, but myself, my identity and worth and dreams and purpose in life were attached to that person, and when they were ripped away from me I didn't know who I was.  And then I saw that I wasn't any of those things.   If I were to go on living, I had to know who I was. I was pretty sure the me that I knew existed in my body was not any of the things I had previously associated with me.  I played out a lot of scenarios in my mind: if I lost all physical abilities (let's say whole body burns where even my face was melted and I didn't have most of my physical senses, or became quadriplegic and couldn't run or play violin) - who would I be? Then I'd flip it around, if I lost my mind and ability to reason and think, who would I be?  And at that time, I came to a pretty basic understanding of me. I am.  That is all and that is where my worth resides; I can't add to it or take it away. And since I didn't create me, I chose to surrender to the one who did- to leave my life very literally in His hands.  That's when I decided to leave alone my ideas of ending my life and just see where the ride would take me, because it couldn't get worse and I knew theoretically this was just a season, a chapter.  I remember feeling that I had been initiated into life.  I now knew what the cliches meant; "broken heart", "dead man walking", "life sucked out of her"...  And in putting one foot in front of the other I started spending 1 day per week with one of my nieces or nephew. They quickly taught me that attachments to people are absolutely worth the risk - it's called living life in color, and allowing the dark colors to be right there next to the bright.  It's about the beauty of being out of control, of allowing highs and lows, riding the waves and sometimes going below them.  It's about loving others, not becoming others.

Life continues unfolding in ways beautiful and mysterious. And I am so grateful for the overwhelming grace of God and his sovereign hand over every detail of my existence.    As that Emily Dickinson poem resurfaced in my mind I was pondering about my healing and about places that still aren't healed. Maybe some things don't get healed- they just have to be released.  Like a gangrenous foot, you just have to let it go and then heal the place where it used to be.  Yet I believe and have experienced a supernatural God who heals the unhealable, but when and where and what and how is not mine to determine. Following Jesus and allowing Him into those places is what I have determined, and while its sure not comfortable it does feel real.

No, this didn't tie together nicely; and there's not really a point.  <sigh…>    Got that off my chest.