I've had a glimpse of what's possible in my parenting lately (from Parent Training and a hike in the woods with the girls today), and been thinking about the idea of letting myself dream of how I want our family's future to be as a starting place instead of trying to force my mind to decide some outcome or other.
My mom quoted a dear friend of hers in saying that sacrifice means doing something wonderful because you can't not do it. Your heart is just called by it, and your whole being answers with it's life. That sounds like a good way to find your way in life and avoid regret and mid-life crises. Time to open my heart to dreaming. Where else can goals come from?
I've trained myself to ignore what I want (with success sometimes, other times not;)) in order to deal with the constant demands of my job, and now that voice has gotten weak, and I don't know what I want cause it's not talking. And I mean want in the big life sense. What do I want to hope for? What do I want our family to accomplish? What do I want to have done in the next 10 years? 20 years?
Sounds like it's time for reflection. I'll probably be going to Louhelen in a few weeks (by myself). Maybe I'll get some uninterrupted thinking time then.
Oh, I just remembered I had this dream last night (not directly related to anything in this post) that we lived in a house that was too big for the four of us by far. The master bedroom had two wings, each with a king size bed and a vaulted ceiling. That's how big it was. Then one night I heard a noise and discovered more rooms in the house under the eaves of the roof (ok, not really possible in real life). They were little bedrooms with skinny beds full of people sleeping. They were ghosts sort of, but they needed a home none the less. There were 9 young men, all Latino and speaking very little English and one very defiant Caucasian boy (who cussed me out for disturbing them and in defense of their claim to our house) and they were all orphans or something like that. Billy and I looked at each other, and we both thought at the same time what we needed to do- we had too much space, and here were a bunch of young people that needed a space, so we traded rooms, and ended up adopting them all into our family. Lots of other weird dream things happened, including a rat invasion, but they were just peripheral distractions.
Posted by Bahiyyih at June 5, 2004 12:44 AMI do like your style, Miss Bahiyyih. Listening to your inner voice, avoiding future regrets, working birthday un-parties. All original gems from a truly thinking woman. Louhelen is a great vehicle for contemplation.
Posted by: Amy Eades at June 5, 2004 01:10 AMOops, I missed the last part about the dream. How fabulous! Sounds like a rather Jungian version of extremes of wealth and poverty solutions, hey? If that made sense.
Posted by: Amy Eades at June 5, 2004 01:12 AMThanks Amy, I like yours too. Always ready with a word of specific praise and encouragement when it's needed the most. See you soon.
Posted by: Bahiyyih at June 5, 2004 01:54 AMThat part about the weak voice...how you don't know what you want because it's not talking. This reminds me of one of the verses in a pretty good song called "How 'Bout You?" as sung by New Grass Revival. Here's the verse:
Save all your tears for that someone
Who's lost but won't cry out.
Why, he might have a voice like an angel,
With nothing to sing about.
Metaphorically, SING BAHIYYIH, SING!!!! It's how you find out who you are. Not Bahiyyih the daughter, or Bahiyyih the sister, or Bahiyyih the wife, or Bahiyyih the mother, or all those other Bahiyyihs that are defined by the things they do for others. I'm talking about your essence, your "true reality" as it were.
My mother has a dream where she is traveling in a very rugged and rocky terrain carrying a baby wrapped in a blanket, and there are all these bad things that are happening and she is trying to protect the baby from the bad things: rain and wind and lightning, the blanket catching and tearing on jagged outcrops, it's dark and spooky and she doesn't know the way, etc, etc. At some point in the dream she realizes that the baby clutched to her chest is her own soul that she is struggling to protect. This realization is accompanied by a feeling of immense love for the baby.
Like many people, I tend to lose sight of the point: getting to know the capacity of my soul, testing it (me), stretching it (me), developing it (me). I tend to get caught up in the "struggle" of life - and spend much time systematically (and usually successfully) ironing out the GABILLIONS of little things that pop up all day/week/month/year long. Focusing on keeping ahead of the struggles keeps me so busy I forget I'm holding the baby and I'm supposed to be transporting it somewhere. I guess I'm telling all of us to sing - me too. We have so little time in this fine and beautiful world.
Posted by: Janie at June 22, 2004 02:48 AM
Thanks Janie! That's a lot to think about and really great.
Posted by: Bahiyyih at June 22, 2004 02:05 PM