A Hindu on Her Birthday

I have glimpsed The Truth, The One Way, and The Light.

But my Way to it is different than yours.

No crowds at White Water World on a rainy April 10.

This has been my problem with the Christian doctrine ever since highschool.  Before then I firmly believed that there was One Way, One Truth, One Path through Jesus Christ Our Lord and all that other stuff they told me.  I felt sorry for other people who weren't Catholic.  Or American, for that matter.  I mean, didn't it bother them that they were following the wrong thing, that they were going to hell, that they had an inferior brand of religion?  Nationality?  Belief structure in general?

I mean, how can it not bother all you other people to be wrong?!

Come out of the rain Ian!

I would have made such a great missionary if they had caught me early enough.

Great thanks to the atheist sitting besides me all those Sunday mornings in mass, whispering irreverent - and often absurd - commentaries in my ear. 



Ruumy- O during the worst of the downpour.

I worried about him at first, that atheist.  Grandma, a devout Catholic, complete with rosaries and Mary statues, stayed silent on the subject.  Mom just sighed.

"But aren't you scared to go to hell?" I asked him.

"No.  I will be buried and that will be the end of it."  answered Dad.

Although this, at the time, was an even scarier concept than hell, it did give me something to think about other than church doctrine.

As good a family photo as I am going to get.

I had nearly a decade off of English language masses while I was in Europe.  I explored Buddhism, lived among Muslim families and learned their traditions, and became a Mormon groupie.  Really, this is not irreverent.  Greatest bunch of people ever.  Totally cool Church.  Great Halloween parties.  Family oriented.  Love God and Jesus.  I just finally realised that if I wanted a bunch of old, white guys - ie a Church hierarchy - telling me what to believe I might as well go back to the brand of Christianity I started with. 

And then I heard the whole One Way, One Path, One Light through Jesus thing in English again and it disturbed me in a way it hadn't disturbed me in French or German.  French can make anything sound beautiful!  So can old medieval German churches!

Ian meet Kangaroo.

Or maybe it's like swearing in a foreign language.  It doesn't hit you with the same force as in your own language.  And while this wasn't swearing, it hit me hard, and it hit me wrong and it hurt.

At least the Catholic Church let me have Mary. 

I follow the Tao, but it turns out I need my gods.

Ian in charge.

So that when Aidan handed me a childrens' book at the library over the holidays, I was ecstatic to read the first line.   (He handed it to me on April 9, the day before my birthday, meaning April 10th - which we spent at White Water World / Dreamworld on the Gold Coast - now has a double meaning for me, the beginning of my physical manifestation here in this lifetime and the beginning of my awakening here in this lifetime.)

"A Hindu believes that there are many paths to reaching the goal of being at one with God."

I feel a little white-bread to call myself a Hindu at the moment, but it certainly is the central tenet of my core beliefs.

Ryan's day.  Poor kid, we DRAGGED her to Dreamworld!

Ryan and Ian and I were in the car last week when Gloria Gaynor came on the radio.

And I sang a little break -up song to the Christian God that had been thrust upon me my whole life.

"Just turn around.  Walk out the door.  Go on now.  You're not welcome anymore.  Aren't you the one who tried to hurt me with  desire?  I won't crumble.  I won't lay down and die."

I will survive.

Fun and games right up til the end!
 

Because that god, that Christian God of my childhood, is up there next to Brahma and Thor and Isis and a pantheon of Greek Gods currently hosting a god seminar on Mount Olympus, sipping wine and eating grapes and laughing at the antics of the druids out in the gardens.

That god, my god, is happy that I am finding my own way to Him. 

I am living the light, the love and the truth, not the doctrine and the dogma.

Nameste.  Om.  And Amen!

Footsteps Revisted: Because I Can Always Use a Remind!!

Footsteps

Everyone knows that beautiful poem about the footsteps in the sand. There is only one set during the most troubling times of that person's life. And it turns out those were the times that Jesus did NOT walk by his side, but carried him.

Nice sentiment.

I have learned this week that everyone needs to walk their own path. That I can be there to help someone with their journey, but that everyone is ultimately responsible for their own journey.

I cannot make everything better for everyone. I cannot help those who do not wish to help themselves.

I cannot carry you along your path. (And I cannot force you to come down mine.)

It's a liberating sentiment for me. That I do not need to take personal responsibility for every sadness I see, that I do not have to right every wrong, save the world and bring about a burst of universal consciousness that will have us all loving one another as brothers and sisters in a united world of peace and love and...

Brothers and sisters fight like cats and dogs.

I'm a tough person to please. I not only want you to like me. I want you to like everyone. And everyone to like everyone back. I want us to live in balance and harmony with one another, custodians of a peaceful eden on earth, where where there is enough food and water to go around, there is no poverty or war or injustice, where we are solving the problems of disease together, where everyone has dignity and purpose.

So if I seem a little frantic at times, now you can see why.

I do not think too much. It is a gift.

I do not care too much. It is my legacy.

I started my own journey running confidently alone, sure in purpose, with no need for anyone besides me. I tripped a few times along the way. I staggered bleeding through dark times.

And now I am slower, a peddler in old shoes, with fraying baggage, no longer a child sprinting barefoot through flowered meadows, confident of the rainbow at the end of my path.

As a peddler I am learning to see others, on their own paths, and to let them be.

Do I still want universal harmony, universal consciousness, the eden on earth, paradise, lasting salvation?

Damn straight I do.

But I can only follow my own path to find it.

As I sat in the park this week, a profound feeling of my own insignificance finally hit me. Not that I have to struggle to help everyone else to see the light, but that I am such a small piece of the puzzle that there is nothing I can do for anyone. Except myself.

This would all be extremely profound if it wasn't already stated in the Tao thousands of years ago.

So that I am still a peddler on a journey. But a peddler who has laid down some of her baggage.

And some of yours.

Namaste.

ANZAC DAY Without War : Last Year's Tribute

Sorry!  We, uh, had a birthday party to go to this year.  Still love watching the kids march.  Still love being the good guys.  And still pray, pray, pray that one day we can put soldiers to use for purposes other than war. 

ANZAC Day Without War

Proud new patriots at last year's ANZAC parade

I held back tears at least year's ANZAC parade. Mostly because I had been here only half a year and I was embarrassed to be so worked up about a country that hadn't even granted me permanent residency yet. (I spent that first year unable to make it through the national anthem at Friday's weekly school parade without tears too. Might have been the pregnancy hormones. But mostly I think it was the intense relief and gratitude I felt the moment our plane touched down in Brisbane.)

Sometimes the most loyal patriot is a new patriot.

In any case, people were scared to sit next to me at assembly last year.

This year, it always stuns me when people ask where I am from. "Uh, Strathpine, north of Brisbane." Until they then ask where the ACCENT is from and I remember that I had a life before Australia.

TWINE! Tomato, potato and water as well. (Although when I recently pronounced potato correctly - in the middle of my American accent - it brought just as many laughs. Apparently I sounded English, not Australian. You people are very hard to please sometimes. KARTOFFEL! So there.)

Lawnton State School students at this year's ANZAC Day Parade

I love having my kids march proudly on ANZAC day.

Veterans Day in the USA always held associations with Vietnam and probably now with Iraq and with whether we should have been there or not. There was a lot of ambiguity over whether we should be proud or not. And there were definite sides - the far right which felt we HAD to be proud or else we were traitors to the American flag - and the far left which felt that the soldiers sent to Vietnam were criminals. It's mellowed some with Iraq; even those against the war itself had learned enough from the divisiveness of the Vietnam era to respect the soldiers being sent over to fight while at the same time protesting the fact that they were being sent over there.

You see what I mean? Blah blah. The Americans can't march without sides being drawn.

Matthew and Andrew at the War Memorial in Kallangur last year

The Germans don't march at all. (Which makes the rest of Europe breathe a sigh of relief any day! Ha ha. Sorry I couldn't resist that one.)

There is a Day of Remembrance for victims of WWII but it is a quiet day off, not a celebration.

It came to me today that if Germany could acknowledge their collective guilt and move forward, they would be my heroes for owning up to what happens when everyday people make very bad choices.

(An Aussie friend of mine went to Germany on holiday recently and toured a concentation camp while she was there. After seeing the piles of human hair and the shoes and the other horrors that the German guide had no problems showing them she asked if the Germans had apologised for what they had done. Ah, the innocence of Australians always surprises and pleases me! "It was war." she was told. "You don't apologize for war." Ah, maybe you might want to consider it, mate.

Matthew watching from the sidelines at this year's parade with a 102.5F (39.4C) fever

It would be in very bad form to honour a military that, according to Valkyrie (the movie with Tom Cruise) anyway, had more than one chance to do the right thing - get rid of Hitler - and continually chose not to.

Of course that doesn't stop me from mourning the 12 year old boys they sent into battle at the end.

But he rallies bravely!

Being a pacifist does not stop me from being grateful to soldiers who had to fight to protect the freedoms that we have today.

As the spitfire flies overhead at the end of the parade I think back on our trip to Dresden and how horrendous it must have been to hear that sound in Europe and know that bombs were on their way.

I remind my kids as we walk to the march that war is an evil that kills indiscriminately.

I talk to them about the other purposes a military could be used for: building roads and schools and hospitals, immunizing children, providing clean water and teaching about proper sanitation. Helping people help themselves.



As the spitfire flies overhead I think of the young soldiers today - Australian, American and other, who come home from Afghanistan today and drop to the floor trembling if someone drops a bag of groceries in the supermarket.

Or of Damon's uncle who still suffers from night terrors since he returned from Vietnam 4o years ago.

ANZAC Day is a day to be proud of our country - sorry Cara, countries! - and of our soldiers.

Honouring soldiers of past wars

And future soldiers I hope never have to go to war

It is a relief and a joy to be in a country always seen as the good blokes, the mates, the ones who come to aid, but not the ones who start anything. Free of moral ambiguity and political implications.
(Compared to the Americans and Germans anyway!)

But for me any commemoration of our soldiers will also be a day to remember the horrors that war brings.

Who ARE these people. Ryan a year ago, sitting on a pregnant Mommy to hide her belly!

And to hope that someday soon, when I am at the parade watching my grandkids march perhaps, we will be honouring soldiers who haven't had to fight a war at all.

Creation, Destruction and Balance

It occurs to me that this might all be the work of Shiva, The Destroyer.

Without destruction, there can be no creation. 

Without death there can be no rebirth.

Without change there can be no growth.

No Shiva, no Brahma, no nothing.

Oh. 

Is that how Buddhism sprang from Hinduism?!

In any case, I've had Vishnu all wrong too.  As Brahma is the Creator and Shiva the Destroyer, Vishnu is the Preserver, the balance, harmony.  In times of trouble he comes to earth as an Avatar, the last few being Rama, Krishna and Buddha.    Hmmm.

Balance isn't any more static than creation and destruction.

There is a time to every season and all that.

I keep thinking that to be balanced I have to have a strict routine, that I have to get up EVERY DAY at 5 AM to exercise, that I have to keep the house neat ALL THE TIME, that I should have a specific day for laundry or for groceries, a routine again.  That Ryan and I should work specified hours every day at the specified time.  That I should write very night.  Or every afternoon.  Or at least when Ian is napping. 

Except that is often when I am working with Ryan.  Or cleaning the house.  Every now and then I lay down for fifteen minutes myself.  Sigh.  This is less often than I would like, once a week at best.

Today I worked out from 5:30 to 6:30, got the twins ready for school at 8:15, set up Ryan on the computer for an hour of work while I drove Andrew to district soccer try-outs being held from 9 - 2.  I didn't stay.  I came home, helped Ryan with a minor personal drama, reviewed her short story, sat and read with Ian while she rewrote the ending, worked on fractions and then, at 11:20, sat the two of them in front of Sesame Street while I vacuumed and picked up the house for a last minute meeting with the real estate agent.  Then the pool safety guy came by.  Lunch.  More maths.  Gypsies.  Picked up Andrew.  Grocery run.  The twins.  Set up for soccer at 4:30.  One hour to work on my story before my writing group, dinner and off. 

Last night we did homework and reading.

Friday night we played board games.

Sometime in the last two weeks I've cleaned the bathrooms.  Maybe three.  Weeks not bathrooms.

I haven't written much of anything until just before our meeting.

Working out, writing, keeping house, feeding everyone and most importantly, BEING PRESENT, are all important to me.

But I have two hours  from 5 AM to 7 AM to either workout, write or - and some days I just need this - sleep.  I can't go on four hours sleep for more than two nights.  SIx is doable for longer.  But at some point I need eight.  Preferably more.

Being present for my children has taken priority to an immaculate home, to a finished novel and to down time for myself.  Sleep I need.  And exercise and writing.

What I am learning is that there are ebbs and flows to this balance as well.  Some weeks, or months, I am more capable of staying up late to write.  Other weeks I need to run or work-out.  Yoga. 

It doesn't make me a less-balanced person to go with these natural ebbs and flows.

Because the true balance in my life right now lies in being there for my children.  The rest are necessary, but minor, counterweights.

If I can't find God in my family, if I can't find God in myself, then I am looking in the wrong places.  My children are my Destroyers, but they are also my Creators and my Preservers.

Hindus believe that there are many paths to the One Truth.

My family grounds me enough to allow me to find my own.

Vicissitude

Now THIS is the word that describes my life!

Ryan and I found it today as we were reading about Gypsies and their incredible adaptability and flexibility under difficult conditions.

Webster's New World Dictionary defines vicissitude as a condition of constant change or alteration, as in a natural process, such as the vicissitude of the sea.  It also refers to unpredictable changes or variations that keep occurring in life, shifting circumstances, ups and downs.  It is often associated with adversity.

In the past two weeks we have had one car in for electrical problems they haven't been able to solve for the last year and a half, a huge problem in Queensland since this involves a loss of air-conditioning in 30+ degree weater, another car collapse entirely onto itself as the axle gave way, and the loaner vehicle given to us as a replacement car for the first vehicle, rear-ended during a freak hail storm on the way home from school pick-up.

Meanwhile Matthew finally described his reading difficulties to me by explaining how hard it was to differentiate between the words 'plant' and 'planet' when that 'e' kept shifting sizes and disappearing from the page. 

"When that e goes all funny, they look exactly the same though Mom, don't they?"

As if I should know what he's talking about.

"It's like that god movie, Mom."

What?  And then it hits me.  We'd been watching Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief the week before.  Percy is actually half-god, the son of Poseidon.  He is also dyslexic.

A second set of special bifocals for Matthew and some reading exercises.

Andrew's dentist is sure he should get braces asap.

Ryan's ASD testing is coming up. 

And then they notify us Friday that they can't renew our lease since the balcony is falling apart and the owner can't pay to repair it.  This after finally getting the pool fixed,  the leaking aircon serviced and the faulty oven repaired.  All in the past month.

That evening my yoga instructor's weekly words of wisdom were "when the difficulties of life are wearing you down, try to remember other difficulties you have overcome in the past to make you stronger."

Difficulties?  These aren't difficulties! 

The lowest time in my life was that move from Altdorf, those last days packing frantically while Damon copied work papers onto his computer, euthanising the dog in between packing up the car, preparing the apartment for inspection while planning for an October in Germany, summer in Queensland and selling the rest.  Except for what went into the container. 

We might need to move a few kilometres in the upcoming weeks?  PLEASE!  Don't waste my time.

The other stuff I have been thinking of as the normal baggage of a middle class lifestyle.

I mean, really, when you can complain about two cars and the pool not working, you're better off than you think you are.

There is no one shooting at us, or bombing us, or threatening us in any way.  We aren't starving or ill. 

This is the universe, or God, or Brahma, or the Tao, giving us a kick in the pants and telling us to get a move on.  You are too comfortable where you are now.  Stasis does not become you. 

Our biggest problem is the abundance of opportunies around us and the need to choose a path.

This are the ebbs and flows of  this life, the price of being a spirit in a human body, what we need to learn while we are in this form on earth. 

Vicissitudes.

It's how you view your circumstances that makes all the difference.

These aren't problems.  This is life and opportunity.

And we are so fortunate to have them.

So Not Normal!

It's funny, there are some things I could just never see myself doing when I was a child.  One was growing up and holding down a boring, steady, leave your house in the morning and lock up, return tired at night, kind of job.  I just figured I would grow into it, like everyone else.  You now, grow up and be normal.

December 29, 2012 South Bank, Brisbane

What I did always envision was myself in a wheelchair, overcoming some handicap with admirable pluck and determination, somewhere in middle age.

I'd always imagined this to be a physical handicap I would overcome through perserverence and profound inner personal strength.

It occurs to me now that I have been fighting a battle with a handicap since I was thirteen, that I have done so with admirable determination and pluck, that I have shown great perserverance and inner personal strength.

The handicap wasn't the Asperger's.  The handicap was my unawareness of it.

On the Big Wheel in South Bank

Thirteen was the first time I recall standing in my grandmother's bathroom running something sharp across my skin just to feel something. 

I don't want to make a big deal out of that.  I wasn't trying to kill myself or even inflict self-harm.  I was just dead inside, I was numb, and I wanted to feel something, make something hurt a bit just to feel real pain.  I didn't understand what was wrong with me but it sucked.

Of course I was diagnosed with depression in my late teens and early twenties.  Wasn't everybody?

Being diagnosed as depressed made me feel like a personal failure, like there was something wrong with me, a personal flaw I should be able to overcome.

Being diagnosed as Asperger's feels like a personal triumph, like there isn't something wrong with me after all, a personal strength that makes me unique.

I've worked so hard my entire life, way more than most people would bother.

But I've accomplished more than most too.

Now that I know that I have Asperger's - and okay, I don't officially, but I am fairly sure! -  I don't feel like I have a handicap anymore.

I had always had this feeling there was something wrong with me, something inadequate. 

Except for when I've felt superior.

Now I don't feel either.

But I do feel different.  I do feel extraordinary.

Performing at South Bank.  We CAN do magic!

What I feel is like taking that wheelchair and racing it down the biggest hill I can find!!

Is that normal?

Doesn't matter.  I am not normal.  I am not like everyone else. 

I am free.

Self-Affirmation

Self-Affirmation Pledge for those with Asperger's Sydrome  written by Liane Holliday Willey  (Willey 2001, page 164)

Words to live by, for all of us!

Boreen Point, January 2013

I am not defective.  I am different.

I will not sacrifice my self-worth for peer acceptance.

I am a good and interesting person.

I will take pride in myself.

I am capable of getting along with society.

I will ask for help when I need it.

I am a person who is worthy of others' respect and acceptance.

I will find a career interest that is well suited to my abilities an interests.

I will be patient with those who need time to understand me.

I am never going to give up on myself.

I will accept myself for who I am.