Nightmares

"Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.” Erica Jong

As my son has gotten older and is trying newer and scarier things, I have been having nightmares. Nightmares that I bet are not uncommon amongst parents- nightmares of not being able to "save" my son from danger. Nightmares that horrible people are doing mean or cruel things to him. Or he runs out into the street and I am not able to catch him before he is hit by a car. Or a nightmare that has him fall out a window, just out of reach.

I know from experience that these dreams are not prophetic. I have enough gift dreams to know what they feel like as they are happening. No- these are anxiety dreams. My son is growing up and I am realizing that I won't be able to protect him from everything all the time. He will experience pain, heartache, and sorrow. And there is nothing I can do about that fact. And it is painful to me.

Other parents- how do you handle it?

Love

In my Sex and Spirit class at seminary, we've been reading about and discussing the topic of love. A huge subject, certainly one with theological as well as every day implications. One of the dilemmas that we grappled with is coming up with a standard definition for love. There really aren't any. One of readings that we were given (by bell hooks) really resonated with me. In it, she quotes M. Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled:

(Love is) "... the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth."

I like this definition, because it cuts through all the crap that people experience in relationships that they assume is connected to love but isn't very loving at all. In this essay, bell hooks postulates that love and abuse can never coexist and that people mistake a feeling of connection (cathexis) for love.

I think about these things so much more now that I am a parent and have such sway over another person's life. I strive to be loving in my interactions with my son. I find this fairly easy- I am a force of nature in this kind of love it comes automatically and forcefully. It's also easy because he is at a stage where he doesn't challenge me (yet!), and I have never felt this connected to anyone in my life. It is easy to love a baby- I look forward to the challenges of loving a willful toddler, child, adolescent!

But here's the work: I also want him to see models of relationships that are loving. And for that, I need to be able to demonstrate what a loving friendship, a loving partnership, a loving pet relationship looks like. I find that latter task harder. I know that I am not unlike most people- I get caught up in my everyday life and tasks and forget to stop and be present with others. I don't listen as often as I should. I get caught up in what I want, that I forget I am not the only person to consider. Modeling loving relationships to my son is hard, but it is the work that needs to be done.

... "Love is as love does. Love is an act of will- namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love, we choose to." - M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

Lessons for My Son: Discernment and Integrity

This is the second installment of a regular feature called "Lessons For My Son". In it, I hope to express ideas and concepts that it has taken me 40 years and many mistakes to learn.

The lesson today, Rowan, is that there is no shortcut to becoming an good person. There is no one religion, one book, one guru, or one exercise that will assure that you will make the right decisions, respect others, and be compassionate. All that work must be done on your own. Obeying the law and being a (fill in the blank religion here) does not necessarily build character or make you ethical.

Integrity comes from a lot of hard self work. It does not come from a prescribed set of laws or morals from either government or religion. That is a shortcut for society at large that largely does not work or make for ethical people. (Church going child molesters and cops who murder are examples of this sentiment.) I intend on helping you build your own set of strong ethical convictions, and can help you along the way by modeling, exposing you to as much diversity of thought and experience as I can, and asking strategic questions along the way- but this is your life; your project.You must do the work to make you a good person.

In Feri, we believe that the human soul(s) need to be aligned with the Divine in order to follow what we call "Flow"- or Law- the natural order of things. (Law is a point on the Pearl Pentacle for good reason, coming immediately after the point Love- God Herself's Law is Love)*. When you are aligned with the Divine, you cannot possibly commit evil (like murder, rape, genocide), because evil is borne from the state of disconnection. Evil is disconnection itself.

In a scientific framework, we are all connected to each other. Feri and other religions takes that idea one step further- that we are connected to each other AND the Divine (or that the connection itself is Divine in nature). When we align our soul(s) and tap into that connection, we are "in the flow". When we disconnect ourselves (which in this culture can easily happen) from each other and nature, we lose the flow. That's when things are a struggle. That's when we wage war, cut people off on the freeway, and think of ourselves and not others. It is only in this state that we can commit evil.

Staying connected and compassionate is hard work and requires a regular practice and diligence, Rowan. Much like the Buddhists, I personally do some of this through a sitting practice. Our religious tradition also has amazing tools of alchemy that help transform and purify us (so that aligning with the Divine is easier to do). But don't think that you can do it once and check it off your to-do list. It is not a constant state; instead, we are constantly striving for it. And because we Feri witches deliberately strive for it daily, we are highly integrated, discerning, and ethical people. (That's not to say that we don't make mistakes and aren't mean sometimes. Some of the best people I know slip and fall from time to time.) Feri is a warrior tradition. Using the tools of this tradition makes you strong. But Victor Anderson reminded us that not only do we "not coddle weakness", we also "respect our frailties" as well.

Integrity comes being accountable for our actions. And while we cannot know all the consequences of our actions, I hope you understand that I am teaching you that we are responsible and accountable for what we say and do in the worlds. I hope that you can report years from now that I set a good example for you to follow.

Rowan, you should know that mommy and daddy are witches, but not all witches think the same. Our religious tradition may differ from other forms of religious witchcraft, so I am only speaking as a Feri witch here. Given that many traditions (mine included) are initiatory mystery traditions that you must study, experience, and be initiated into firsthand, I can only speak for me and mine. And given that I have not yet been initiated (commonly one studies for at least 7 years before that may happen), I do not hold ALL of the mysteries yet. Daddy is one step ahead of me on the path.

* The Pearl Pentacle is a tool of Feri alchemy. The five points on it are Love, Law, Knowledge, Power/Liberty, and Wisdom.

The Nature of Love

So I prepared myself as best as possible for this thing we call parenthood. I took classes read lots, talked to other parents, and did internal check-ins about what was happening to my body, my life, and my mind as I progressed in pregnancy.

But to be honest, nothing prepared me for the emotional wallop of having a child. I know it sounds sappy, but I never thought I could love someone so much. Yes, I have been in love, have had long-term relationships, etc. But this is different.

The experience of loving an adult is like building a house. It is a deliberate act to create something nurturing and sheltering with someone. If you do it right (and often we novice house builders need more than one pass-through to create a house that will stand!), you start by building a great foundation, and add bells and whistles from there. I have built fancy turrets without a proper foundation, only to have it crash down around me. I have also built huge deep foundations and failed to build a living space that was fanciful enough to capture my imagination for the long haul.

Loving my son, though- that is more like being a force of nature. (Because I am!) Sometimes I feel as though I could rip through someone, utterly destroying them, if they went to harm my son in any way. BEWARE the mama bear.

And the intensity of this love scares, exhilarates, and surprises me. I know I can never be the same again, because of this love. I know that I will never be completely worry free ever again, either. But it is a fair trade-off, I think.