Recreate the connection

I don't know how we got hurt at such a young age.  I don't know why I felt so unwelcome.  Sometimes I wonder if I am unusually sensitive...which may be true.  Kids from chaotic households have to learn to gauge the mood of the adults around them.  I know that I my stress level was influenced by Dad's moods.  And I know my kids had to do the same with me.  I do know how it affected me.  We all have our standard Mommy-Lectures, those spiels we can repeat without thought because we say them over and over and over...One of my top lectures was:  "Don't lock your sister/brother out.  This is home and we are all safe and welcome here.  You are not allowed to take away their safety."  And I made sure my kids knew they could come home whenever they needed to.  I don't care if they are 62 years old.  If they need refuge, they are welcome with me.

When I think of this, I wish we had community.  Can you imagine living next door.  If Clare was flipping out, everyone could go hang with Aunt Maggie.  And vice versa - kids would have had an escape and peer/cousins...

You made it through the institutional harassment in your life and are stronger for it.  You made it through the physical sensations and found it didn't kill you, and so you are stronger.  I hate this method of toughening each other up though.  It is so violent...and now we have to work so hard at finding the vulnerability inside of us.  Maybe we need to redefine strength as flexibility rather than a tough hide.

I was thinking about enemies, about the something other that we get to hate in order to feel community.  I also read something a Quaker I have met wrote.  And I read a bit of Eckhart Tolle at a friend's house before I fell asleep.  All three coagulated and I have been playing with a new idea.  Our enemy is other, it is outside of us.  God is other, also outside of us.  God has been presented as a father figure and we get to go beg and beseech.  Maybe he listens, maybe not, and we know that we get only what we deserve.  If we really are connected, then our enemy is part of us, as is divinity.  We separated ourselves out, now how do we recreate the connection and find our place back in the oneness?

I went outside yesterday, into the wind, and tried to feel the air movement move my molecules.  I felt like a bubble wand with the soap film stretching, then coming back to one sheet.  It was strange, but fun.  Today I took a long walk  (it is gorgeous outside!) and tried to feel my foot become one with the Earth, to barely merge, with each step.  I have no idea if this will be effective, but I want to feel that I am part of the whole.

It promises to be a beautiful week, I think I will go out and see/feel/smell/sense what I can...

Hey world, I love my little sister!

Clare