Musings

Prayer Bundles

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 1 Comment

A couple years ago, as I was traveling down one of the internet’s rabbit trails, following the deeper definition of a word, I came across an idea that caught my attention and fired me up.  Like a dream that slips out of focus and disappears but still hangs at the edges of consciousness with an urgency, begging, “Remember me, remember me,” the word and the web page have eluded me as I have tried to run down the memory, to find the source of this idea.

Here is the basic premise: You gather a small grouping of interesting materials, pack them tightly into a smallish bundle, leave it out in the elements for a period of time, then bring it inside, unpack it, and make a work of art.

I have made little bundles in the past, little magic spells or prayers that help me to carry my intentions, to hold the dreams and visions that I am willing into being.  Then when the vision is complete, when the work is done, the bundle is returned to the elements.  But wouldn’t it be interesting to do a prayer bundle like those little art bundles, so that part of the prayer or magic involves exposing the bundle to the elements while I am working on the intention?

What if I gave my bundle to the transforming power of the sun’s fire as I am giving the vision the fire of my own energy?
What if I released my bundle to the working of water in rain as I release my own emotional attachments surrounding my desires?
What if I offered my bundle to the rich power of earth as I am willing my own dream to manifest itself?
What if gave my bundle to the changeable working of breezes as I am clarifying in my own thoughts the vision that I seek?

So.  Thursday is the first day of Spring, a time when we celebrate the hatchings and the first shoots of plants reaching above soil into sun.  I am going to begin a prayer bundle for this season, to see if it helps me to carry and transform my own vision of what I want to bring into my life in the next few months.  For me, the process will be about finding fulfilling work that uses my skills and creative impulses, and brings in the stabilizing element of greater financial security for my family.  Feel free to join me.  It might be a good way to focus a desire to rid oneself of an addiction, or to make a lifestyle change.  It might be a good way to help focus on the essentials, or on becoming more fully your own free self.  Here are some of the questions I am looking at for myself as I begin.  I plan to do some journal-writing about these in the next few days.

What is my heart’s desire in this season of my life?
Keeping in mind that who I am now is already good, what do I want to change, and why?
Where am I now on the journey?
What are some steps that I need to make in the concrete, real world in order to meet my goals?
I want to brainstorm a word or phrase that I can return to, like a prayer, like a mantra, to keep myself focused on what I am looking to accomplish.

Now, in the next few days, along with meditating and journalling about my goal, I am going to start gathering some materials.  Pieces of cloth to wrap the bundle.  String and yarn.  Images (from magazines or my own drawings) that represent my desire.  Small tokens or symbols.  Because part of my process in the next few months will be to decipher the particular vocational path that I want to follow, I think I will choose some items that represent my teaching certificate, my work history in the college setting, my farming work, poetry, editing, and my work at Radiance.  I also want to find some strong symbols to represent the work-family balance.  And perhaps a little something to represent prosperity.

On Thursday, I will wrap up the bundle and leave it outside for the spring season, to open up on May 1 and create a piece of artwork.  Join me?

Gratitude List:
1.  Liver and onions
2.  Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Spirit
3.  The slant of sunlight in spring
4.  Successful Leprechaun traps
5.  Time to write and mull and brood

May we walk in Beauty.

Molding the Conversation. . .

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

So many threads of conversation this weekend, so much to think about.

During a long and intense conversation with friends this morning, one friend’s 12-year-old daughter sat at the table with a pencil and paper, doodling.  Trees and squiggles and a stylized heart.  Eyes and rain and a tree with a hole.  Tangles and webs.  At one point, the conversation turned toward the drawing, and we started asking her to talk about bits and pieces.  “I am molding the conversation into the drawing,” she said, pointing to a tear that she drew when we had spoken of sadness, to a cradling arm with the word Protection within its bowl, to the way the tree had its flaws, just as we all do, to a web that she said represented complexity within each person.  I felt so heard, so understood, so carefully held by this silent and thoughtful witness to our conversation.  What a vulnerable and tender gift to share.

I often doodle, too, when I talk with people, when I listen to others talk, and I think I understand a little of what she meant about molding a conversation into the pictures, though I have never done it with quite the intentionality that she did.  Wouldn’t it be an interesting exercise, with willing friends, to take this thoughtful girl’s idea into conversation with intention?  To have paper and pencils on a table while conversation is occurring, perhaps to pass a sheet around, each adding a piece to the doodle as the conversation moves along, and then to quietly listen as people talk about the ways they were holding the ideas and each other by the symbols and ideas that they drew?

Gratitude List:
1.  Being listened to and heard.  Friends who are honest mirrors.
2.  Ideas flying and soaring.  Heart-expanding conversation.
3.  Taking responsibility for my energy.
4.  The expanded kitchen/dining room to host friends around the table.
5.  Milkweed.

May we walk in Beauty!

Who Inspires You?

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

I saw a photo the other day of a list that someone had made of people who inspired her.  She’d written the names by hand, artistically. That was part of what caught my attention, but the idea of keeping a running list of people who inspire me has really grabbed hold of me.  I plan to start a list right away.  When I get to one hundred names or so, I’ll look it over and see if I can discern themes and ideas that give me some clues to what I hold dear.  And I want to make sure that there’s variety there.

If you want to join me, here are some ideas to get us started.  You can list several names in each category, of course:

Someone in your immediate family.
An elder.
A peer.
A child.
A revolutionary person who helped to change the world.
Someone who changed the world quietly, behind the scenes.
A musician or band.
An artist.
A great thinker.
A historical figure.
A novelist and/or a poet.
Make sure that you have a good representation of gender, a good mix of races, of countries of origin, of historical periods.
Hmm.  How about a fictional character or two?
A religious or spiritual teacher.
A dancer or other athlete.

What other categories might you choose?

Gratitude List:
1.  The cardinal in the top of the chestnut tree singing, “Pretty, Pretty, sweeeEEEt, sweeEEET!”
2.  Afternoon sun on chicken feathers
3.  Walking between worlds.  Not sure how else to describe it.  Holding your story and yours and yours.  Being here, but there, too.
4.  Iron.  I know I need more of it.  The Earth supplies it.
5.  How everything and everyone changes and evolves, even me, to become more and more ourownselves.

May we walk in Beauty.

The Social Contract

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

How can I trust that you are who you say you are?
How can you know I am who I represent myself to be?
Don’t we all have several selves that we show to the world?
Aren’t we allowed a few secrets?

Sometimes in my life I have felt the burden of social expectation, the claustrophobia of sitting in a box not of my own making, because people expect certain behavior from my particular subsets.  I carry so many labels, as you do, and they can become burdensome.  There are expectations for the Mennonite Girl, the Missionary Kid, the Wife, the Mother, the Teacher, the Organic Farmer.  In some of my earlier decades, as I was wrangling my own vision of myownself from all these labels, I deliberately set out to break the rules, to be an iconoclast about the boxes that threatened to silence me.  I think I’ve been a late bloomer, only really starting to realize somewhere in my 40s that I don’t need to be the box and I don’t need to explain the box, and I don’t need to break the box.  I just need to live who I am and let people figure it out the best they can.

But there’s another side to this idea of the social contract, a good side, a really redeeming side.  While I don’t want you to assume that I am a certain person based on the many labels that mark me, I DO want you and I to both be able to make certain assumptions about each other, to be able to trust that unwritten social contract.  I want us to believe that the other one will do her best to keep her promises.  I want us to be able to assume that each other’s children are cared for as lovingly in private as they are in public, that we’re true to our spouses and partners, that we’re not playing fast and loose with people’s hearts, that we’re people of honor and faithfulness.

Yes, you need your personal private space, and I need some secrets of my own.  Yes, I am a slightly meaner parent in private than in public–sometimes.  Yes, I may hope that you think of me as an adventurous spirit even though my adventures are mostly vicarious, through the medium of novels that I read.  Yes, I sometimes feel like I am enacting some sort of con when I call myself a poet.

If you are a pious and thoughtful spiritual person, I promise not to be shocked by the tattoo of a dragon on your back.  If you are someone who speaks kindly and lovingly in public settings, I promise not to gasp when you get a little snarky in a moment of rant. Let’s give each other a little leeway.

Still.  I hope we can balance that kind of looseness in our social contract with some higher ideals.  Let’s expect of each other that we will be kind to our children and the other people and animals who share our space.  Let’s expect fidelity of each other, in friendship, in love and marriage and partnership, in our work.  Let’s expect each other to be honorable.  I know that I will likely fail your trust in some of the little things, as you may fail mine.  But holding each other to the basic principles of honor and fidelity and kindness seems to be the heart of the social contract.

If we want our words to have power and meaning, then I think that actions and aspect, words and behavior, need to rhyme in some way.  If I can’t keep true to who I say I am, I let all my personal power leak away.  If we lie to each other, we decrease our ability to be effective in the world.

Gratitude List:
1.  Good friends.  True and wise and faithful friends.
2.  Boundaries
3.  Iron ore and magnets
4.  Concentric circles
5.  Trust

May we walk in Beauty.

Thinking About Lent

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

2014 March 001

 

I am a big fan of 40-day journeys in any religion. And, while Mennonites used to eschew anything that seemed too much like a high church tradition, in my growing up years we began to explore the idea of Lent with more and more fascination.   I don’t always choose something to give up, and I don’t always go about it very intentionally, but I like to mark the season, to be aware of the changes in the world and in myself during these 6 or 7 weeks, to be a cheerleader for others who are walking this journey with deliberation and intention.

In the solar year of 360-odd days, you can divide that up into eight roughly equal pieces of pie, which are all about 45-ish days in length.  It is no surprise that we seem to choose 40 days as our time period for initiation journeys that lead to personal transformation.  I like to live by those seasonal segments. And Lent, like Ramadan, is a floaty sort of journey, never at the same place in the year. Mysterious. Moon-chosen.  While I can trust to the regular rhythms of Solstices and Equinoxes and their cross quarters, Lent and its riot of a starting party, Mardi Gras, jump out of nowhere with a bright “aha”!

I know why people repudiate Lent, and I can understand the concern with the “I’m a worm” sort of processing that sometimes gets attached to it.  I believe in the free spirit, the hopeful soul, in loving and treasuring our own selves.  But things can always be interpreted in so many ways, and I think Lent can be a powerful time of remembering our place in the cosmos and our connection to Radical Love. It’s a chance to re-set our habit life, to Choose to live with intention, rather than to be slaves to our addictions. And this can be a joyful experience.

I did not set out to write this with a specific Lenten Intention for this year, but as I have been writing, two ideas have begun to crystallize.  They are both related to the general theme of Self-Care that seems to have worked its way into my story at this time.  I try to work with these things in everyday life, but perhaps giving them the weight of Lenten Intention will help me to establish them more clearly in my living.

One has to do with my relationship to Things.  Periodically, I have gone through periods of time when I try to give away at least one thing every week.  This Lent, I will try to go through the house every day and choose at least one thing to give away.  It will serve to de-clutter the house, but also to help me re-set my attachment to stuff.

The other has to do with eating joyfully.  Last night I shared a joyful meal with friends who are leaving the country for several years. I want to make memories around tables.  I want to deepen and expand my understanding of the powerful connection between the Earth and my body.  I want to become ever more attuned to what nourishes me, body and spirit.

Whether or not you make a specific journey this Lenten season, I wish you the power of your intentions, the hope of new life springing forth, the embrace of Radical Love, and a deeper connection to your own Source.

Blessings and Benedictions

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Blessing.  Benediction.  Benison.  In Old Irish, beannacht.  In Swahili, baraka.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the act of blessing, of passing on the blessing, of sharing benediction with each other.  Such churchy words, eh?  Don’t let that distract from their universal power.

This evening I watched my incredible niece give her senior presentation at her school, a somewhat daunting rite of passage that requires each student to give a 20-minute presentation on herself (or himself), her goals and ideals, her personal story.  My niece focused a great deal of her presentation on her family and her community, and it was clear that this is a young person who is grounded in her connections to others, who finds meaning in relationship and conversation and interaction.  I am a very proud auntie.

While the senior presentation is a rite of passage designed to challenge the students to express who they are, where they have come from, and where they are headed, it was clear that a vital role of the whole process was to have a moment to bless each student individually.  This was a ritual of benediction.  The students, in telling their stories, receive from their teachers and gathered family and friends a sense of the importance and vitality of their own stories.  They are now empowered with the sacred duty to fulfill their destinies, to find meaning in their lives.

I know people who do this in their everyday story, effortlessly and “unshowily,” humbly: constantly passing blessings on to those around them, to the people they meet.  Un-self-consciously offering to others that sense of purpose and connection to something bigger than themselves.  The way these people treasure the stories they are offered makes the story-teller feel validated and blessed, as thought they, too, now have a sacred task before them.

Gratitude List:
1.  My marvelous niece Lara.  And all my incredible nieces and nephews.
2.  Blessings
3.  Earthshine
4.  Spirals
5.  Winter aconite

May we walk in Beauty!

In the Dream Labyrinth

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

My sister says that there is a building somewhere in Virginia which was designed to confuse the sense of direction, to force people to stop each other in the halls to ask, “Do you know the way to Conference Room C? Or even how to get to the third floor from here?”

The labyrinth of halls and underground passages and stairs and places that seem to go nowhere is designed to force the wandering souls to interact, to find their way together.  I find the idea intriguing, and something in my waking self steps forward with excitement at the challenge, at the genius of creating a space which intentionally unmoors people in order to force them to depend on each other.

But on the other hand, this is the landscape of my most deeply frustrating dreams.  I am always wandering down hallways, running up flights of stairs, only to find that I’ve arrived at the wrong end of the building, my appointment was set for an hour ago, I’m late for class, and I haven’t studied for the test.  The year is nearly over and I forgot to go to class all year, and if I could just find my way through the halls to the office, I could set everything straight.

Perhaps those dreams lie at the heart of my own anxieties, social and otherwise.  There’s a structure there that everyone else seems to get, to understand.  I seem to be the only one in the dreams (and sometimes in life) who can’t find my way, who can’t figure out how it’s supposed to be laid out, who has forgotten where to go and even why I was there in the first place.

Next time I find myself lost in the labyrinth of an institution in my dreams, perhaps I’ll stop and ask someone for help, see if I can inject a new way of interacting with the space of the dream.  Perhaps that will in turn inform something in my waking life, give me a new perspective on my own ability to wake up more fully to my own story.

Gratitude List:
1.  Simple Musings, a new booklet written by a whole group of friends–reflections on the season of Lent
2.  Snow Geese: a large flock (hundreds?) circling a corn field north of Columbia
3.  This image: Just a few fields down from the geese sits a farm that is bisected by an old railroad siding.  The siding is raised on a little bank to keep it level, and a fringe of trees grows along it and in front of a farmhouse.  This afternoon an old long-horned bull was standing on the siding as we passed.
4.  Storm downgrade
5.  Benediction, blessing.

May we walk in Beauty!

There Was Going to Be a Poem

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

There was going to be a poem about the little birds,
but that didn’t happen.  Of course, all the poems come back,
at some point, to the little birds, so there’s that.
And then I would have been writing about shame,
or rather, I did write about shame.  For days.
But then I never took it past the messy draft,
and so this big space opened up and then the bit about grief
started to rise like dough in the back of the oven
near the pilot light.  But I’m sort of an amateur myself
when it comes to grief.  And I don’t want experience–
please, Universe, keep me naive on that score–
but I want to know how to hold it, because it’s always there
in the soup we swim in, always edging up to someone,
somewhere.  And I want to know how to hold it,
because it is part of the essential story, yours,
and someone else’s, too.  Not just Mary watching her son
die up there on that hill.  It is, well, part of the soup.
And then there are, of course, the little birds,
and the way they hover over the flowers at sunset
or dart through the brush, whisper-like and timid.
The way shadows grow over the fields in the afternoon
and the breezes begin to settle into the hollow.

Gratitude List:
1.  Friends who, intentionally or inadvertently, light a fire under me when I need it most.
2.  Considering the semantic shading of gratefulness and gratitude.
3.  Vermilion
4.  The wild excitement of coming down the home stretch on a long-term project.
5.  Re-fashioning, re-crafting, re-purposing, re-making, and not just in the realm of the physical, you know?

May we walk in Beauty!

Tomatoes

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Keeping a youngster on task with homework tonight is taking just about all the psychic energy that I can muster.  I was going to try my hand at a prose poem, inspired by the work of Kristy Bowen in the current BloodLotus, but I’ll just give you the link to that and let you be inspired, too.  I am especially fond of the one about the birds.

Gratitude List:
1.  The Mystery of a tomato seed,
2.  how it contains within its tiny envelope
the blueprint of a jungly tomato plant,
3.  how it waits, still in the cool soil,
for its moment,
4.  then cracks through its little shell
with root always downward
and sprout reaching up and out,
5.  to create its very own fruit and seeds.

May we walk in Beauty!

Are You Dancing?

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

“Is the wind at your back?” asked my friend Saheeb when I saw him today.  “Are you dancing?”

What a marvelous greeting!
How is the universe conspiring to show you your truest self?  
Is the sun shining on your face?
Have you answered the invitation to heal the world?
What does the rhythm of the cosmos tell you?
Is the wind at your back?
Are you finding the keys to your desires?
Are you dancing?

Gratitude List:
1.  Helpful questions from a compassionate heart
2.  Reminders that sometimes it’s okay to stall, to rest, to wait, to pause: this is different from paralysis or stagnation, though it’s hard for me sometimes to tell the difference.
3.  Playing with the stones at the shop.  I named one large piece of iron ore The Stone of the Waking Dragon
4.  Staying attuned and awake.  This is a blessing and also painful, but still I am grateful to be awake and awakening, to be part of it all. 
5.  Two five-egg days in a row!

May we walk in Beauty.