Mirror, mirror on the face!!!

I had a surreal experience during the weekend. The experience brought a scene back to me…a scene from many many years ago!

You know how it is… you can live your daily routine of life, go to your work and talk to people, respond very intelligent responses, cook, eat, do the laundry, play, laugh, even cry…and still somewhere deep in your brain or heart or subconscious or where ever it is (!!!), something is playing over and over like a broken record.

But let me take few steps back….

Have you read Demian from Hess? One of my very favorite authors….
There is a paragraph in that book:

“The things we see are the same things that are within us. There is no reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people live such an unreal life…”

Well, sometimes something is so deeply rooted in our psyche that years and years will pass and we do not even know about it…and one day something happens and BOOM! You will be hit with the memories, sensations and what they represented to you ALL YOUR LIFE!

Saturday night, my little boss was running…as usual full force, not really paying attention to any obstacle on his way…more like: “Oh you are there…I am sure by the second that I reach you, you will disappear or I become Hercules and take care of you somehow”…I swear, I sometimes have to close my eyes to save myself from heart attacks that I might get just by sheer panic of “WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN IF….”

Anyway, the little man was running full force. Somehow the prospect of bed time charged his battery more than usual and in his P.J. he was chatting and running from one room to the next and his path was so close to our stair case with its wooden carved rail…so obviously it is not his problem that the wooden rail is there or if he hits that, it might hurt him!!!!!!!!!!!

As I am walking toward him to somehow calm him down for “nighty night”, I just saw the whole thing in slow motion…he hit the side of his head and face to the rail while he was running in my direction full force…He screamed, ran into my arms…I kneeled down and was trying to sooth him from one hand and assess the trauma from the other hand…

Well he had a little red bump that would become a bruise in few minutes…nothing that a dose of good old Arnica could have not helped…I started to instruct my better half to hold him and put some gentle pressure and ice on the site of the accident while I went downstairs to bring Arnica (and by this time little boss forgot all about the “boo boo” and was more annoyed that why we are not allowing him to run or play…)…

I was walking downstairs that it all hit me…I almost got buried under the avalanche of a memory…Me being 13 years old, the parking door bounced back and hit my head with full force…I could not see anything because of the blood flow running down into my eyes, the shock numbed my system so much that I did not feel any pain and yet I saw my parents kneeling in front of me…their faces were HORRIFIED…their faces were so unbelievably shocked and scared as if they were looking at the most scary scene ever….those pairs of horrified eyes brought me out of my shock and I screamed “I want a mirror!”…

Think about it: I recall so well that I did not feel any pain at that moment, but I was so scared of what I might see in the mirror…well I ran to the car to use its mirror and I was shocked. My face was all blood and the only thing I could see was the open wound in the middle of my eyebrow…the rest is just foggy memory of my parents rushed me to the hospital and I do not remember a single memory after that…Oh but I do recall my sensation: “I look terrible, I look deformed!”…

I am not sure was this because of my parents shocking faces at that first moment that they looked at me or because I looked at the mirror or for any other reason…well the wound healed, I have a scar in the middle of my eyebrow that with passing of years it is truly much less visible and with minimum make up it is totally invisible…but in reality it took 19-20 years in order for the scar to become invisible to MY EYES. I don’t think of it or feel it anymore…

I think my perception of being beautiful changed that night. I was always being told that I was a beautiful baby and a stunning girl. At age 13 while puberty starts to show its sign with awkward facial features and body growth, I still remember being praised a lot for my beauty. But after that night, whenever I heard someone telling me I was beautiful, I would feel utterly disconnected from those words. They were shallow words with absolutely no meaning for me. The words did not make me sad or happy…they were just white noises.

The reality was that I never felt beautiful from that year on. The only time that I felt totally and absolutely beautiful was on my wedding day. I was truly a stunning bride, everyone said that and more important than that I felt it so deep. I did not need to hear others or look in the mirror to know how gorgeous I looked. There was nothing wrong with my face, makeup, hair and my smile!

I remember after the wound healed properly one day my mother gave me my very first piece of make up equipment: an eyebrow pencil. She showed me what I can do with it. I mean for a person like me that really is not into make up – and do not have patience or any interest for it what so ever (I talked about it in one of my earlier posts) - that eyebrow pencil became part of necessity….

My mother and I never talked about it after, until couple of years ago. By that time I really did not have an ugly perception of my wound. A subject came up and I brought the story of my first eyebrow pencil to my mother’s attention. She looked at me with sad eyes and told me she was so afraid that people might tease me and this is why she thought the best way is to show me how to hide it.

We do the best we can in situations. Those “best” come from our own perceptions…but still it is the best, especially if there is a noble intention behind it. I now believe it with all my heart.

But I wondered so many times that the alteration in my perception happened because of those shocking, horrified faces in front of me…or was there any other reason? The story could have unfolded another way and I might have been teased or not…and if I would have been teased, I might have taken it to heart or not…well we never know, would we?!

The memory showed its face exactly the moment that little boss hit the wooden rail…But this time it was not the memory of the sensation of being ugly or deformed. It was the memory of a parent’s eyes…

I am a parent now. Accidents will happen…we all know that whether we are parents or not…mothers will skip heartbeats with every wound and scratch…and now I am so aware of my face, the face that will look into his eyes when he has a pain…he will look into my eyes and use them as a mirror and this mirror will tell him so much… He will ask this mirror consciously or subconsciously: “mirror mirror on the FACE…” and this mirror can change his perception for a very very long time…..sometimes for a life time…

Special Delivery

My dear little boss,
Tomorrow you will be 22 months old. Soon it will be your 2 years birthday. How can another year have gone by so quickly? Where did time fly my boy?

OH I remember your birthday so well…For me it was just yesterday that I gave birth to you, in a hospital's room that was as dark as possible due to request of your ultra sensitive Mamma….

It was just yesterday that I hold you for the very first time and whispered in your ears how much I love you, how thankful I am that you chose me to be your Mamma and how gorgeous and adorable you are….It was just yesterday that I kissed those tiny fingers and toes endlessly….It was just yesterday that you peed on me for the first time (and let me tell you that it was not the last time my dear boy)….

You cry and I melt. You laugh and I melt. You make me crazy with your constant running, “disobedient”, tantrums and your mischievous acts …and I still melt.

I am always afraid of forgetting all the little details that are just there for mothers to see and feel.

I've wanted to note all the things you've been doing… all the things that change from week to week, month to month, year to year. I've wanted to record them down somewhere before I forget. But life keeps getting in the way.

It's a tight ship we're trying to run, especially with the fatigue of the end of the days that carries on to the next mornings, day after day….

There is all kind of things that must get done, all kind of not very important but never the less necessary in life: Cooking, Cleaning, Laundry. Doctors' appointments…Mundane tasks and everyday chores…Daily routine of life…. It is so easy to forget what really is worth cherishing and remembering.

I know I will forget when was it exactly that your hair started to become curly…but I will remember how thrilled I was with the sight of those familiar curls, mirror of mine.

You showed your personality to me from the very first night that you were out of me. I say that and people give me strange look of “impossible”…but it is true. Even the nurse in the hospital told us that….There are certain qualities about you that are so unique and so persistent…you my boy, knew what you want from the very first night. You did not want to be in that hospital bassinet from the very first hour, even though the bassinet was right beside my bed the entire time. You made sure that your opinion be heard….thus you spent the entire first night in Mamma’s arm…Whole night, you were calm and at peace, in my arms….while I spent the night looking at you – and did not sleep even for one minute- you spent your first night content to sleep in my arms…I had to wake you up to breastfeed otherwise you were very happy with your warm and soft “bed”!

Indeed you are a wise, curious, chatty and sympathetic soul. You are in love with water all your life and can become very naughty when you want to play with water at ANY cost…

From very early on I realized that you are very sensitive to sudden noises. You were only 2 months old that I realized you do not like it when I play piano…that is still a mystery to me considering that you absolutely LOVE music and are very tune to rhythm. Still after 22 months, the fear of piano is there. People tell me; maybe it is because I played Piano when you were in my uterus. But interestingly in the whole 9 months I only played piano 3 times….

You are a stunning child; a watcher and a mover. Your ability to observe amazes your father and I…and more stunning than that: you can be a non- stop mover and an observer all at the same time.

In past month you started to show a very delicate sense of humor. I am amazed by how profoundly humorous are the subjects that make you laugh.

You are a toddler now. At least that is the correct use of vocabulary. But you will always be MY BABY.

Memory is a tricky business my love. We humans have a tendency to remember the many challenges but few of the rewards….But I know there was absolutely no challenge in last 22 months that was not rewarded to me 10 times more.

I know there will be times that as you bounce and run and chat and play tricks, I just want some quiet. I know there will be times that I will beg for an instant of peace…I know there will be many times that we disagree and go head to head…but that is OK my love. That is ebb and flow of life…change will come and as sad as they make me, they also bring joy to my heart.

Life can be such an interesting thing…I pray for you to be in love with life. To remember that life is a blessing and should not be wasted….I pray for you to live to the fullest of your dreams…But all those wishes can be left for another letter….

Memory…Memory is a tricky business my sweet….a tricky business. But I know for sure that I won't ever forget the kisses you started giving me with great exuberance….I will never forget the very first time that you told me “Mamma, I Yove you!”…How could I ever forget that?

Oh my boy, each day since you came has been another in which we all seem to wonder what we did without you.

You are a delightful soul my dear. It is a pure pleasure to spend time with you….I never knew the depth of joy and love, until you came to my life….

Remember, I will ALWAYS love you…and I try my best to make it unconditional...

Mamma

Let me out…I don’t want to play the game anymore!

Do you think it is anything out there more difficult than relationships? I mean no matter what type of a relationship it is, whether it is between two lovers, parents and child, siblings, friends, colleagues, neighbors or two strangers in the bus…what ever the rule of the game is, it comes down to being a game….

I mean more intense the relationship is, more emotionally you are invested in it, more energetically you will be consume by it. Each participant in the relationship have his/ her own set of rules for the game (and the politic of the games sometimes brings the desire in me to just CUT…a sharp, clean cut of the knife and NEVER look back)…

Each player in the relationship has his / her own set of backgrounds, emotional baggage, memories, hurts, wounds, and perception of the world around him / her…OH PERCEPTION!

Couple of you, commented few times that I love the concept of “perception”. I really do. The more I live, the more I realize that ALL is perception.

This weekend, thanks to a series of hurtful personal events, the intensity of my daily routine went few hundred Richter higher than usual (and physically it was really not good for me but what can one do other than go through them)…. and like any good chemical reaction, when that kind of energy being released it can generate a “snap”…for me, the snap was more inward…as that is more my style. I dived into myself, went “to my cave to lick my wounds” as one of my very good friends will say…or I went for a time out to “feel”, “dwell”, “analyze” and “contemplate” as my better half will say!

Well if we allow the shock and hurt (and all range of emotions in between) to pass – then we might let ourselves dig deeper into the meaning behind all the “stories” and “games”….or at least in a healthier situations, one will do that eventually.

For me, when a day, a week, a year or sometimes a life time passes, and the hurts fade away (and as I said some of the wounds bleed for a life time so no chance to deal with it this time around…bummer!)…then what always mesmerizes me is how there are recurring scenarios in ones life that triggers such familiar and strong emotional responses.

Really in a bigger scheme of one’s life, it is like scenes after scenes are being played by different actors but the story line is exactly the same.

In reality, the situations that the most feel like a thorn in your side are those that pose the greatest potential growth in your life. But most of the time, the hurt is too much, the cut is too deep and the shock of the event is too intense that the recovery time takes a long time, even a life time…and of course in the mean time, life continues, and another scene sooner or later comes along with the exact story line only different players.

Of course let’s not forget, the more one is “attached”, the tougher it is to disconnect and “just observe”….

Harmony is the key word that everyone hopes for in any relationship…and yet look around you!

How many times per day you see a non harmonious relationship? No matter how deep or superficial that relationship is...granted, the less attached you are to the participant of the game, the easier it is for you to walk away…and relatively much less deep the cuts are at those times….

But then there are those individuals in our lives that are as vital to us as our lungs or our hearts…attachments are being formed so early in life that the concept of walking away is not even comes in the dictionary of those relationships. The cut comes so much deeper in those scenarios. I have a good number of bleeding wounds in different part of my soul, thanks to those beloveds of my life….and yet without them, life as I know it will cease to exist.

Is it possible that expectation plays a role in inflicting those wounds? I believe so.

I mean we expect a certain emotions and actions from our lover, our parents, our children, our best friends…and what happens most of the times is that those expectation is so unreal…they are based on our own perception of life, based on our “games”…they are so far from how the personality and the character of those people are…it has absolutely nothing to do with the other party in these dances.

How many of us “accept” unconditionally? And love is nothing but unconditional acceptance…so how many of us love UNCONDITIONALLY?

I am contemplating this concept in last few days. I came to a very very sad discovery. I don’t think anyone – or anyone that I know- accept unconditionally…me included. The degree of acceptance is more or less in people, some more accept with less condition, but the key word is that “less” condition….sometimes that “less” is really “less” and those are the times that we are truly lucky…but with NO condition…well I am searching the world now with a flashlight in my hand…

I was looking at my son when I realized this very very sad truth in my life. Right there and then in my heart, I promised him that I try my best to love and accept him UNCODNITIONALLY. I shivered…because to reach to that degree of evolution, one is almost back to Garden of Eden!!!
But I promised I “try” and that is the best I can do.


P.S.: Have you watched “Love Story”? I always weep so hard when it comes to this sentence:
“Love means never having to say you're sorry.”…
How do YOU perceive it? I mean it can mean different things to different people. Do you perceive it as:
“You love each other so much so there is no need to apologize here. Becuases you know the other person didn't mean to!!!”
or does it mean
“if you love me, why did you hurt me?”….
WHY DID YOU HURT ME?!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not a happily ever after...

A note of caution: This is a LONGGGGG post...Reading this post may cause discomfort, frustration and boredom....after all it is not being considered a juicy subject...it is just about our creation....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Once upon a time there was a man – which apparently was unbelievably clueless and gullible- and there was a woman which came from the man’s rib and was very naughty…and there was a serpent that carried the mission of seducing the woman…and then the woman obviously in her naughtiness seduced the man…and the little gullible man listened to her and they both ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge that made them be aware that they are naked head to toe…and right then and there the SHAME was born….OH THE SHAME!!!

Then the man, the woman, all their children and the children of their children and so on, and of course the serpent for that matter, were condemned to doom and gloom…

Well that is really the gist of the story…that is what became the basis for so many blames that was upon the women through the generation, that is the foundation for why the human race has to go through hell all the time and this whole little not so happy ending story is why we are plagued with death and disease…one should wonder that for people that ate the fruit of tree of KNOWLEDEG, our race ended up being more clueless than before, more dumb than ever…

This little “not so much fairy tale story” always tempted me…I never forgot the “condemned” look that I got from my religious teacher when I asked her why we are not celebrating Eve? Didn’t she show enormous amount of courage? She was a curious woman and pushed the boundary and wanted to KNOW…so what is so sinful about it?
Well I think that day I also learned how to censure myself from that moment on….Another grate religious lesson….

Years passed by, I became the student of mythology and through that I came to encounter the “Goddess” worship in the history of humanity…the worship of “Mother”... and then I started to learn how "all" got twisted…Some where along the road mother became this evil force that could be seductive, destructive and easily tempted and father became the poor little man that was just listened to his little wife and was mislead….It is amazing how our “Goddess” worshiper race suddenly became such a patriarchal beings….

Well you can read this little story in very well known resources. After all, all three “holy” books talk about it. They refer to this little “happy couple” as “Adam and Eve”…You can find their not happily ever after life in the Torah, the Bible and the Quran.

If one really is into researching, he or she can find so many references in Genesis, the Talmud, and Gnostic texts. Jewish tradition sometimes has some references to other wives of Adam’s. But Eve is the heroin of this glorious story!!!!

Among all the monotheism religion, Islam is the only one that regards Adam as “the first prophet” for the rest, Adam is just the man…the first father….

But the main gist of the “story” is the same…poor Adam, naughty Eve, the blissful garden of Eden, the serpent and the fall…oh the fall…the eating of the forbidden fruit.

In so many sculptures and paintings, you can even find the Edenic serpent being pictured as a “woman” and sometimes being referred to as “Lilith” (Hebrew לילית).

For me the most interesting one of these art works is the sculpture of Adam and Eve and the very visible (female) serpent at the entrance to Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. It is truly a work of art and a work of “MAN’s” perception….but I am getting ahead of myself here….

The interpretation of the Female Edonic Serpent refers to the seductive nature of that particular serpent (seductive and logically should be more feminine!!!) as well as emphasizing on its relationship to Eve.

In Jewish tradition they even take it one step ahead and interpret that Hebrew word of “Heva” is not only the name of Eve, but in its aspirated form is a female serpent.

In Islam there is not any direct reference of Eve’s creation, it is not recounted in the Quran. Some Islamic philosopher talked the biblical tale of her creation, that she was named because she was created from a living thing (her name means living).

The Torah gives an etymology for woman, or rather the Hebrew equivalent (ish-shah), stating that she should be called woman since she was taken out of man (ish in Hebrew).

In Christianity the story of Adam and Eve had the major impact and became the basis of the doctrine of “Original Sin”. Saint Paul even talks about the fact that “death” is the result of “that” sin which “that” one man committed “and so death spread to all men because all men sinned,"…. (and don’t ask me how this generalization should happen…one man sinned and therefore all of us did / do / will be held accountable…whatever!!!)….

Even the origin of Baptism is thanks to our little story of Adam and Eve…as a mean to “wash away” the “stain of the hereditary sin”…In all accuracy the whole idea of “Original sin” is no where to be found in either old or new Testament.

Although both of them very frequently talk about the sinfulness of humans but neither talk about “original sin” and even “ancestral sin”. This whole idea – like many others “doctrine” in the Christianity – is there thanks to the “Paul the apostle”!!!!!!!!!!!

The Quran blames both Adam and Eve for eating the forbidden fruit and as a punishment they were both banished from Heaven to the Earth and were forgiven after…and because they got the punishment for it there is no ancestral sin.

Interestingly (and surprisingly) Muslims interpret that this even does not pose a problem of women inferiority to men. The concept of “Original Sin” doesn't even exist in Islam. But again there is so many “equivalent” to “Paul the apostle”…the ones that became more Muslim than the original Islam (so to say) and thanks to all those gentlemen (and all of them are gentlemen) we have a lot of blame on female gender….

The whole idea of Eve coming from “the rib” is specifically comes from Jewish tradition. According to the Torah God is described as causing a deep sleep upon Adam and then removing part of his body -usually this part Is being interpreted as a rib though in all accuracy the literal translation is non-specific, referring to "side".

I have to add this here that in another Jewish tradition God originally created Adam as a hermaphrodite and in this way the “human” was bodily and spiritually male and female both at the same time. God later decided that "it is not good for Adam to be alone", and therefore created the separate beings of Adam and Eve…somehow the whole idea of two people, from two separate spirit and body joining together to achieve a completion can be trace back to this one….You know what I mean: YOU COMLETE ME!

And then we have the FALL OF MAN…or what is simply being stated as “THE FALL”:

In Genesis, the first book of the Jewish and Christian bibles, God creates Adam and Eve... God forbids Adam and Eve to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

The tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was a tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden and God directly forbade Adam to eat from it and Eve at that time has not been created.

Life apparently going on blissfully in the Garden and I can imagine how bored Mamma Eve was. So….One day…

A serpent persuades Eve to eat fruit from the forbidden tree. Eve tempts and seduces Adam to share the fruit with her AND they immediately become ashamed of their nakedness….Actually that is the ONLY DIRECT result of eating the fruit of "knowledge" tree…makes one wonder: Ummmm the only knowledge in life is related to “nakedness”??? WOWWWWWWWW

Well what comes after that is very interesting.

The short version of the ending is that the couple and all their children and the children of their children were banished from the Garden. Apparently the whole reason for banishing them from the Garden and sent them to the Exile of hostile Earth, was to deny them access to the Tree of life (and, hence, immortality). So one can see where the theology got the idea that the death and disease is part of the punishment.

The detailed version of what comes after is little bit more interesting:

To the serpent God said: you did this and because of that you are cursed among all animals and wild creature. You shall be always on your belly and eat dust…and I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers

To the women God said: I greatly increase your pangs in childbearing. In pain you shall bring children and your husband shall rule over you and yet your desire shall be for him.
[Did anyone out there is starting to get some feeling of conspiracy theory here? I mean some how this can be a classic case of abuse]

And to the man God said: Because you have listened to the voice of your wife [Do you get this part? The man is apparently so dumb that only listened blind fully to the voice of little wife], and have eaten of the tree, curse will be upon the ground because of your sin [and this part for the life of me, I never got!!!!!].

The ground shall bring thorn and thistles for you and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground… you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Considering that “the ground” is actually the “mother earth” and is the domain of the “Goddess” from the start of time with cave men AND having in mind that Goddess, the mother, was responsible to give blessings to “earth / ground” in order for any agriculture purpose, this whole little twist of punishment is even more interesting to read. So Agriculture "by the sweat of [their] brow” is a punishment….

Actually this whole “earth becoming part of the punishment” for the couple is also stated in Quran. But in actual text it does not says that first Eve got mislead, then Adam. It says: Iblis (Satan) misled Adam and his wife Eve to eat from a tree that was forbidden for them by God. Due to their disobedience, God ordered the removal of Adam and Eve out of paradise and down to earth. God promised that “the earth will be a dwelling place” for them and their children for a limited time (Until the Day of Judgment)….and it goes and says: If men and women obey God, they will lead a successful life on earth and be admitted into paradise as a reward.

I was fasinated when I found out that similar trees appear in other religions. The most relevant comparison of all is the iconic image of the tree “guarded” by the serpent which appears on Sumerian seals. The tree is the central feature of the Garden of the Hesperides in Greek mythology where again the GUARDIAN serpent has the name Ladon. In Buddhism,the Buddha became enlightened under the Bodhi tree.

And the most interesting link…the biblical tree is usually interpreted as representing sensual pleasure, other references to THE TREE in mythology and other poly theist religions talk about pure transcendent knowledge when there is a refrence to THE TERE.

In Hinduism, the Tree of Jiva and Atman is usually interpreted as a metaphor (yes you read it correctly: A MEAPHORE) concerning the soul, mind, and body.
There are a group of scholars in Christianity that do believe the Bible is filled with parables and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is actually a library or some other form of educational writings.

So somehow this little story became the base for knowledge, morality, judgment, shame, guilt and eternal stain on human race…. And then it starts: the war between him and her….

For me, this little story represents a very powerful woman. A woman in search of “wisdom”… a wisdom that had nothing to do with knowledge of nakedness…she wanted to know, to find out possibly what so many of us want to understand one day… that who are we? What are we suppose to do? Why are we alive? Is there ANY purpose, any dream, any responsibility toward ourselves and others we have to fulfill?

She pushed the limit…Did the punishment fit the crime?…well I am not sure she was punished. I think “men” punished her….is punishing her…the same way that wise women was burned on the fire for being wise, for being different, for being unique and daring…for being so much wiser than men….

I truly don’t have anything against wise men. I am a daughter to a wise father; a wife, lover and best friend to a wise husband; and above all I am a mother to an innocent boy which I hope one day becomes a very wise man….so I love, cherish and admire this creatures with Y chromosome. I just have to laugh when with these “stories”, with this wrong interpretation of myths, they make themselves so gullible and with no mind of their own.

Well who are we to say anything when men make themselves LOOK less wiser than they can be…

But again my God is a gentle, loving and forgiving one…my God is mother and father and anything in between….My God….

Complete me...

As usual, right after my better half came home from work, I ran out of the house to take care of some tasks that I had to accomplish without a “toddler’s tornado"…

By mistake instead of turning on my CD / iPod, I turned on the radio…there was a music on with lyrics about loneliness, desperately searching for love and with hope to be completed one day….changed the channel, there was another music with a melancholic melody and lyric of being dumped after he mistakenly believed that he indeed found his other half and his soul mate…changed the channel and this time in my mind I made a bet: “there will be another desperate soul in search of a soul mate to complete her”...Ladies and Gentleman we had a winner!

My mind started wondering around. I am not sure was it the effect of that powerful moon or just the lyrics….I went down my memory lane…painful, happy…all mine…

Years ago thanks to Joseph Campbell, I fell in love with mythology and symbolism and like any other love of my life, I dived into it with whole body and soul…I started to study it very deeply and methodologically. The journey took me (and is still taking me) through anthropology, astrology (both western and eastern), mysticism and ultimately alchemy (...the journey is still going on in those roads slowly but steadily)…all of them acted like an “Emerald Tablet” and forced me to transmute and gain a new awareness about myself…Part of that awareness was understanding how superficial and in fact selfish my understanding of love was / is….

Well I came to understand that there is no such thing as “another” person or a soul mate completing us…I think the whole idea is the illusion of “Hollywood” – let’s not forget the “Ahhh moment” of “Jerry Maguire”: “You complete me!”…..

Or possibly the whole ordeal is a desperate attempt of our psyche and a survival mechanism to numb the deep painful longing of our soul…

Even if one be lucky enough to find the “perfect” match (whatever that’s suppose to mean), still the need to become complete one day, will be there…

As long as I remember I searched for “THE” soul that complete me…that was my “Holy Grail”…And like “Galahad” or any other mythological hero in search of the grail; I knew that I must prove myself worthy before being able to unite with that soul….

Well I was in my very early 20’s when I met the person that became my best friend, my sole trusted companion in life, who later became my beloved husband…

I did find that “perfect” match, I refer to him in this blog as my better half and indeed he is my “better” half…

Our encounter for the first time was nothing short of pure synchronicity. When later on we went through all the events that came together in order for our path to join for that moment in time, we both were amazed in all the powers that were working somewhere behind the scene. Like any other couples we went through growing pain and still once in a while we go through them – after all life is not standing still and nor do we, we are changing and growing and pain and bliss are both part of that…and through all the ups and downs I believe he was and is my “perfect” match…

In my very superficial definition of love, for such a long time, I thought we are going to “complete” one another…well years passed, he brought so many other dimensions to my life, he took my soul to the most magical and supportive trips of lifetime and above all he made me laugh…he is possibly the only person in my life that can make me laugh whether I am very mad or very sad or both at the same time….and still I had the longing in my soul…I did not know why I do not feel complete?

How come I had the “love of my life” and I was still feeling the abyss of loneliness every time that I was diving deeply into my soul….

Oh that deep loneliness that was there since I could remember it…well what can I say? “Loneliness” was one of the demons of my life. I think I battled with it since I was in the womb of my mother and for sure it is one of my earliest memories in life...

We all have our own demons. Their names and shapes and subjects are different…and more important than that how we deal or not deal with them, will affect the course of our lives…

I came to believe that this particular “need” of my soul will be there until the end of time and nothing can be done about it.

Until few years ago when after a good painful period of my life, I came to a turning point and an epiphany…part of that epiphany was a deep change in my perception of life…and of course a change in my perception of love….

I came to realize that expecting to be completed by someone else is indeed a very selfish act…In my belief it is the ultimate dependency and like any other dependency ultimately it can cause so much pain and regret…

A love is suppose to free us, it is defined as the force that should make us brake all the boundaries…and yet we, with our actions, enforce boundary on it the moment that we “expect” something in return from the other party…and wow the highest expectation of all is the “need” to be completed by someone else...what a heavy responsibility that must be on the other person’s shoulder….

I came to understand that no one can fulfill that task for us…we need to become completed all on our own. The road to that destination is unique for each and every one of us. It is indeed a work in progress and sometimes the pain and discomfort of it makes us want to run to the other direction and give up the whole ordeal all together….

It is difficult, painful and maybe it takes all our lives to accomplish half the task…But does any one out there have a better idea? I mean why else do you think we are “living” at this moment of time on this particular universe that we call “home”….

Swiftly I turned into our driveway….turned off the engine and sat there in silence. My hand went toward the radio and turned it on again…it was the angelic voice of Enya, singing a song that I know by heart – ironic that with these verses I will end my trip down my memory lane:

“Forever searching; never right, I am lost
in oceans of night. Forever
hoping I can find memories.
those memories I left behind.

Even though I leave will I go on believing
that this time is real - am I lost in this feeling?
like a child passing through, never knowing the reason.
I am home - I know the way.
I am home - feeling oh, so far away.”

The journey…The destination

If you go for a simple walk around your neighborhood with your toddler and if you are patience enough to ditch the stroller, you will be amazed at the little curious explorer that is walking beside you...

He will stop to check almost every small object on your way:
All the rocks which apparently are different from one another and apparently are one of the wonders of the worlds; then there are those dead leaves, sticks and simple dirt on the side walk and let’s not forget about ants…

The trip can be VERY long…and you have to remind yourself many times that not go crazy and this whole dawdling is just amazing…and if you allow yourself to be aware of “here and now”, somewhere in the middles of saying WOW for the 100 times to the smallest dirtiest rock on the road, “it” hits you

It hits you that for this little wise man the journey is as exciting as the destination…and the small details of the world are unbelievably irresistible…and precisely that is when a little “ZEN moment” happens…

I had those Eureka sensations most of the times that I had the pleasure of accompanying my little boss in these little trips…

But especially these days it is really easy to get out of the “adult” world and go into a little “Power of now” workshop when your mind is numb as a result of pure exhaustion and your heart has to take a coffee brake from all the mundane anxieties of life after few intense sick days that your little boss had…

I do not recall “Eckhart Tolle” says anything about above mentioned elements in his never ending pages of his famous book (or his practice guide for that matter!!!!)…well I am little judgmental of all the self help books in general!!!! – Another entry all together!

Somewhere in the intersection of life and necessity my body took a leap to Buddhist “stillness”….

Then the “Zen” moment ended – unfortunately – and as always busy mind took over…when this happens for me, I always experience a withdrawal sensation…and in this particular one I started to think when did “this” happen to me or shall I say to all of us?

For a second I wanted to say to all “human race” but I truly think there are many places on this earth that people still live there in a condition that we – the first world nations- consider as primal state….and I do not believe they go through “this”….

I truly believe that it is “us”…the people that are consumed with the self imposed rat race…the fear that comes with it, the sensation of duality and split that surrounds us as the result of all that "need" to survive in this “jungle”… and the abyss of loneliness that eats our soul every silent moment of our day and night….

Most of the times when I drive back from my clinic I think of these thoughts. I see patients that are NOT happy…not because of any and all physical ailments that they have…as a matter of fact for a long time now I came to this conclusion that not being happy, not “live” your life, happens way before the ailment on the physical body…

I mean everybody in some shape or form is in search of “peace”…of some kind of “salvation”…Let’s just face it, mostly that is the main reason why we get in the loop of possession…and when consciously or subconsciously we realize the fatality of all these attempts, the flood of depression hits hard…

Years ago, in my very personal and privet journey, I hit that place…that dark and bottom less abyss…at one of my lowest points a very wise man (who I know him as my dear “alchemist” and my “magician”) told me:
“This moment is that dot in time and space that you are one step away from despair and one step away from enlightenment….”

When I look back to that moment of my life, I can feel the rush of energy in all different directions…. I can feel that “dot”, the potent energy of it, the heaviness and lightens of the air that was going through my lungs and was coming out…as if that “dot” in the universe was the intersection of many different parallel universes that “my character” was playing parts in them…

Believe it or not, I still can recall the exact moment that I made the “jump” from one universe to the other…the moment that I “chose” one road over the others….

But it is so easy to reach to that point in life no matter which parallel universe you are choosing to live in…I see that every time that I take a patient case…I see how much people are sad, dissatisfied, depressed and braking down…people are poisoned with the bitterness…it is sometimes so potent that after those session I have to take sometime off to “spit it out” from my system…

Most of us live with no enthusiasm, no curiously, no love or even hate…there is a deep lack of passion that is ruling the daily lives…and then what happens is that there is absolutely no “desire” left…no desire to live or even to die….

We lost “peace”, we exchanged that with a life that we are leading, and we exchanged that for such a bargaining price that it is heart braking…

We treat our life in the compartments that we made in it and then we are wondering why we are loosing the sense of unity…

Somewhere down the road, most of us forgot that the journey is indeed as magical and wonderful as the destination…and that is what I mean by: “this” happened….

When did we let that wisdom slip away?
After all, once uopn a time all of us were toddlers, looking mesmerized at all the rocks in the road….weren’t we?

Vacations are so over rated!

So little boss does not feel good since Saturday night….close to midnight. Why is it that all “hell brakes loose" when it is close to midnight and especially when it is weekends? I wonder!

So it was the good old fever first and then in the morning the bowel went crazy and loose and good old fashion diarrhea. He is 21 months old and since the first spoon of solid that went into his mouth, I am the one that cooked for him and prepared everything myself… in last few months he is eating what all of us eat (or I better say we are eating better because of him as all his food is organic and I prepare one meal per whole family - less salt in the food, no hot spices and NO SUGARE...not yet!)….So I am sure of the fact that it is not any food poisoning or any strange and unhealthy food…but when the baby goes to playground and touches everything... let’s not forget the very much cherished way of “put hands in the mouth…especially when you show signs of teething”…well all kind of things can go in there…and then come out one way or another!

I spare you from details of how it is coming out….you can imagine any shape or color that you wish….The fever is down since last night but we are working to heal the digestive tract…the grand HWY of life!

But that is not why I came to you tonight my dear blog…I came to your doorstep because of the conversation that I had with someone today….about “Vacation”….what an incident…to constantly change colorful poopy diaper, worry about his little body’s electrolytes, try very hard to maintain calm and cool when anxiety is consuming your heart and fatigue is consuming your body head to toe… and talk about vacation!

Well someone said “OH, how I wish I could go to a vacation..., I bet you do too?” and my automatic response was “NO! I don’t!”…my friend was familiar with our last get away (just the two of us - my better half and me)…and let’s just say it was a DISASTEROUS experience top to bottom…everything went wrong one way or another…and even my very optimistic hubby can not stop laughing when I tell him “find one good thing in that whole 5 days?" - well he still says: “Come on! Even all that hellish experience was funny!! and we were togeteher...that was so sweet and nice!”….really I am not sure he is optimistic or delusional!!!!

To be totally honest the one good thing is that when all goes wrong you feel very close to the one that is going through that whole ordeal with you...so he is right, we enjoyed being closer to each other by being utterly stunned and sometimes miserable by our vacation experience...

Still...optimistic or delusional??!!!!

So being familiar with all that, my friend said: “OH, I can understand…of course you don’t want to go anywhere”…

Later I thought about my answer and I realized I did not think of my glorious disastrous vacation when I replied to her…I though of what sensation the word vacation brought to me…

The sensation was this:
Vacation is just a code word for our adicted generation to work, work and more work…a code word for “lets spend unbelievable amount of energy (even more than our daily routine of life) and do all kind of different things and just pray and hope that we will have fun and…oh ya…lets not forget lets pretend we are independently wealthy and we are not worry for the bill that we will get after we come back home….

COME ON!!!!!!! Lets admit it….the truth is most of the people need another one of those “vacations” to get over the first one….

So when did this happened? I mean am I so sleep deprived, utterly tired and unbelievably beaten up by my days and nights that can not see any rest even in a so called vacation?

Well I am!

Why to pretend otherwise?

Let’s just say at this moment in “time”, right here and now – where the heck this here and now REALLY is?! – my ideal vacation is a hotel room with a comfortable bed and a good curtain to shut the light out…and I will lie down on their good mattress – preferably with my own water pillow- and sleep for god knows how many days and nights….

Well I can dream at least that I will do that…because the reality is that my gene defect personality will not allow for me to sleep for days and days…my ultra anxious nature will not allow for me to not think of all that goes on in that busy mind of mine…and above all I WILL MISS LITTLE BOSS SO MUCH THAT MY HEART WILL YEARN FOR THE POOPY DIAPER….

Welcome to motherhood!
It is messy, it is smelly, it is energy consuming, it is like living in a fog most of the time, it is an out of this world experience, it is heavenly, it is divine…no argument there! NONE WHAT SO EVER!

Please my little boss…feel better very very very soon…Mamma misses your constant running and all the mischievous acts that come with it…

Happy birthday Canada!

I am proud to call myself Canadian… for many reasons and one being that I chose this country to belong to, on my own and not just by some twist of faith or accident or whatever you want to call the process of "being born" in a land!

With clear conscious and deep belief I can sing our national Anthem especially the line that says:
“From far and wide,O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.”

While more and more I am convinced that human race has a serious genetic disorder with the topic of tolerance to “individuality”; Canada is one place in this globe that I know, where all the people from different cultures, religions, languages, back grounds and life styles come together and LIVE... or at least try their best to live and let others live FREELY…WOW…the depth of possibility for human race!!!

My dear Canada, may you be showered with blessings today and everyday, the same way that you showered all of us that proudly call ourselves Canadian!

May God keep you “Glorious and free”.

May you always be healthy and wealthy…and while we are in the process of birthday wishes…may you never see any recession:):)

With all my love...