Samhain Meditation: Inhabiting True Self

Our Samhain Altar

I awoke this morning at dawn and smiled at my thirteen-month-old son, who gazed at me for a moment and then offered one of his sweet grins. We lay next to each other in the quiet of the early morning, simply being. I realized that he is possibly the only person ever with whom I feel completely myself, totally calm and unaltered. I wondered if this is because he is still a baby, or because of who he is. I think a little of both.

When I am with another person, even a dear friend, my husband, or my daughter, I wear a sort of mask or costume. It's not that I am fake, exactly, just that I am not inhabiting the peaceful real self I am when alone, or first thing in the morning with my son. I often see this same mask-wearing in my daughter and husband and it irritates me. I want them to be their real self. Which of course is me wanting to be my real self and not knowing how.

We all wear these masks and costumes. We fear the vulnerability of being truly seen. Why? I think the true Self is powerful. Literally - full of power. Power centered in the self. When one is centered in her true self, she can be threatening to others who are used to getting their power not from within but from those around them. Ah, narcissism. My dear father was a narcissist, as was his before him. One of the things about living with a narcissist is that you always feel like you have to make them okay - and to do this you have to hide your power and cater to their emotional needs of the moment. We get used to doing this, and then it is second nature to hide the Self.

I think in some ways most of us are narcissists. We suffer from low self worth and seek power from others by denying them their power. It's not a conscious or malicious thing, it's just how we as a species tend to interact with each other. And it's how we teach our children to interact.

As a mom I don't want to perpetuate this pattern any longer. I know that the only way to teach my children to be themselves and for them to feel safe calmly inhabiting their true Selves even in front of others is for me to do the same. I am making this my Samhain meditation this year. It's amazingly hard. First I find that centered self and then I work to maintain it while interacting with another person by holding on to the body feeling of centeredness. I notice any sort of feelings that arise, like vulnerability or even anger. I just notice those feelings and learn from them. I keep coming back to center, noticing, learning, growing. It's a powerful meditation. I invite you to do it with me if you like.

Have a blessed Samhain. May the veils be thin for you.

Who Will Pay for Environmental Clean-Up?

I'm reeling a little thinking about environmental ethics.

There is a company, Abtech Industries, that has created a Smart Sponge that cleans up oil and bacteria into a stable state that can then be recycled or burned to create electricity. How cool is that?!

The technology is NOT being used to clean up the gulf oil spill or pollution in Puget Sound (where the orcas are the most toxic marine mammals on earth) or anywhere but the test sites (as far as I know) in California, Connecticut, and North Carolina. See the pdf with more info here.

Why not, you ask? Because no one can figure out how to pay for it - or WHO should pay for it. Alabama ABC news said, "BP hasn't placed any orders." See the videos (which are several months old) here under Abtech Videos. I don't know if further talks in order, but it brings up a huge question for me.

If we humans possess the technologies to fix our environmental crisis, solutions like the Smart Sponge, solar panels and hydrogen cars, but we won't implement them because we're looking at the bottom line, at money, then where does that leave us? Pretty screwed, I think.

Obviously it takes money to manufacture sponges and cars and solar panels, and money to implement them. But it takes money to fight wars, too. It takes money to do anything. So why are we not spending it on healing and cleaning up pollution and preventing our children's cancers and saving wildlife?

Who will pay for it all? And what is stopping them?

Green Spirituality Library

If I were to create a library of books on green spirituality, here is what I would include:

   



(By the way, I don't make any money from the sales of other author's books here, it's just easy to use the link widget from Amazon.)

Also,

The Way of Hen: Zen and the Art of Raising Chickens by Clea Danaan

The companion to Zen and the Art of Raising Chickens,
Meditation and the Art of Beekeeping by Mark Magill,
also available on Amazon.co.uk






Also check out this list, publications from GreenSpirit.

What else would you include? I'll add to this as I think of and discover other books on green spirituality.

Blessed be and Namaste!

What's So Spiritual About Chickens?

My newest book, Zen and the Art of Raising Chickens: The Way of Hen comes out October 31, 2010. The book examines the renewed popularity of urban and suburban chicken ownership, and delves into how hen keeping can actually be a part of a spiritual life. It sounds silly  - and believe me, there is a lot of silliness about chickens - but when I looked more deeply at the reasons for the backyard chicken movement, I found a depth and meaning not immediately obvious.

People keep chickens in their backyards for sentimental reasons, or because they just like chickens. Raising one's own flock helps one become a little bit more self sufficient. Collecting a few brown eggs every day feels earthy and good. Given the price of free-range organic eggs, raising your own saves a little money. But the desire to keep hens goes beyond these reasons, too, or perhaps over time keeping chickens becomes more than that.

Raising birds in the backyard brings us right up close with the cycle of life. A chicken is a pet that offers us food, nourishing us both emotionally as all pets do and physically, just as we nourish them through our feeding and care. A small flock of farm animals juxtaposed with the bustle of city or suburban life offers hope, that we can have it all, that we are not bound by historical ways of thinking and categorizing, and that we can change. Keeping chickens is also a fun project, and embracing joy and simplicity are key parts of spiritual living.

Do you keep hens or know someone who does? Have you always dreamed of having your own chickens? What have you learned from hen keeping?