Archive for October, 2009

The Person Behind the Mask

We’re a week out from Halloween and like many people these days, at the Little Yellow House we’re busy getting ready for the big night. Our porch abounds with plump, robust orange pumpkins in various sizes and distortions. Inside scarecrows, skeletons and spooky trees perch haphazardly from wherever tape will hold them in place. Elf and Giant’s costumes hang in the closest, next to their carefully selected orange and purple candy bags. Flashlights are charged and stored close by.

My children will assume new versions of themselves next Saturday night. At the end of the evening, as we trade stories about our favorite costumes and favorite pieces of candy, we will fold up the kid’s costumes and prepare them for their new life in the dress up box. We’ll sample some of the goodies from Elf and Giant’s candy bags and then their father and I will lovingly tuck them into their beds and wish them the sweetest of dreams. On November 1st, they will wake again to their authentic selves. But I wonder, how long will they enjoy this luxury of childhood? When does the fluid experimentation stop and when do masks become more permanently etched into our spirits and minds?

You’ve gotta admit it: the mystery of pretend is a lot of fun. Masks are the stuff of Halloween and pretend play, but they’re also the stuff of adulthood. Masks can be goofy, fun and silly or they can help us be brave. At times, they even help us survive. Which masks do we assume voluntarily? How do we come to hide our true selves, even from our own selves? And what is lost because of it?

Recently I had the pleasure of reading Laurie Levin’s new blog on ReEnchant Planet Earth, Genderwise. She writes, “I believe my mother, a highly intelligent woman and strong leader, would have enjoyed a successful career along with motherhood, yet I’m not so sure she would have pursued one given social pressures of her time. Our limiting gender identities exist still today and are like 2 sides of a coin; a coin that holds little value compared to its potential.”

Ms. Levin couldn’t be more right. Male, female, nature lover, logger, old or young, denying who we are and our histories is binding. As binding as pretending to be someone or something we aren’t.

How is that we lose hold of who we really are, lose trust in ourselves only to hide behind a mask? I challenge each reader to shed his/her mask – if only for a moment – to see the beauty, the honor and the freedom there is in being authentic and real. Will it be scary to look out at the world without our usual shields? Absolutely, it will be scary. However, not to try is more limiting than the act of courage that it takes to try. So…

Take off the mask of adulthood and play with your kids, even if you think you look and sound silly…

Take off the mask of pride and call someone you’ve had a fight with and get to work on patching things up…

Take off the mask of superiority and ask for help…

Whatever mask you wear, take it off slowly, take it off carefully…and then breathe in the fresh, light air that’s always been around you.

Until next time, blessed be,

Chris

Holding the Earth in our Hands: Blog Action Day 2009

This past week, one of the largest social change events ever to occur via the internet reached 17 million people across the world in a single day. Thursday, October 15th, marked Blog Action Day 2009. Bloggers in 155 countries across six continents took the time to write about a single issue that impacts us all: the Earth’s rising temperature.

I’ll be honest; I missed all of the excitement surrounding Blog Action Day. I didn’t even know about it until it was too late. Little did I know that we were all on the same page metaphorically speaking. While folks all over this great planet were hunkered over their laptops and computers writing, Elf, Giant and I were out braving the cold, wet and rainy temperatures in search of pine needles and pine cones.

You see, Giant is fascinated with trees. From Ashes to the mighty Redwoods, it really doesn’t matter to my little guy. He likes to climb them, read about them, paint them (ah, a topic for another day) and examine them. Recently the obsession is with pine trees. Giant will stop, touch and gently place pine needles and pine tree cone droppings into his collection bag. He’s also been known to jam on his bicycle breaks out of the blue to stop and pick up pine needs and pine cones, which frankly can be dangerous and a bit cumbersome especially in the early days into the pine tree love affair when I made the mistake of leaving home without a collection bag! (Tree sap can do some real destruction to the inside of a diaper bag. Then again, the bag has a certainly piney fragrance to it that it never had before…)

Giant’s pine tree obsession isn’t all bad, no, not at all. It’s actually become a family-wide interest. Elf excitedly joins in during collection outings and hubby is on a father/son collection trip even now as I stay home to write this entry.

So while many folks stayed inside staying warm last Thursday, Elf, Giant and I were outdoors in the Climate that appears to be so clearly in jeopardy. We were outdoors, discussing pine seeds, emerging theories about how pine trees grow best, why they grow best where they do and what we can do to better protect them.

Honoring as well as instilling a love and appreciation of nature is what I was doing that day with my children, but I clearly wasn’t alone. Countless bloggers were hard at work, too. On that day many people across the world planted ideas, generated conversations and facilitated action. Whether you’re writing about the planet or holding a piece of it lovingly in your hands, raising awareness about the natural world and the responsibilities associated with living in that sacred space is the right thing, the timely thing and the necessary thing to do…now more than ever.

Photo source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loblolly_Pine

Messages in Green Envelopes

As some of you know, we bike to and home from school every day. This week we were fortunate enough to chance upon an adult praying mantis standing right in the middle of our path. Just standing there and staring at us as if to say, with a cheeky attitude and a hand on its hip, “And just what are YOU looking at?” We spent considerable time visiting with this animated creature that definitely looked like it had walked off a set from one of the Star Wars movies. Its bright green tear-drop shaped eyes slowly and methodically followed Elf and Giant’s movements as they hovered above. And those eyes shined bright with what appeared to be keen curiosity. I have to admit, this praying mantis seemed pretty smart and tuned into us – creepy and cool all at the same time.

According to http://www.whats-your-sign.com/signs.html, an appearance from the mantis is a message to be still, go within, meditate, get quiet and reach a place of calm. The website further advises that it may also be a sign to be more mindful of the choices you are making and confirm that these choices are congruent.

The previous night, my husband and I attended a lecture by an internationally recognized author. At the door, each member of the audience was able to choose a plastic bracelet from a basket. Each colorful bracelet had a word printed on it. My shockingly green bracelet proudly announced the word: CHOICES. So did my husband’s. We laughed the coincidence off, but we’d be lying if we said that we didn’t hear the soundtrack theme from the Twilight Zone playing in the background.

And so, my question is this. What is this “choice” message about? What am I supposed to be mindful about? What are the choices I’m supposed to be thinking about and reevaluating? Is there any reason why there’s so much green associated with these messages?

And finally, what good is a cosmic message anyway if you can’t or don’t interpret it the right way?

And so, I’m on the alert. It’s never a bad idea to be more mindful of our significant and even our minor daily choices, so perhaps I’m just lucky to get a healthy reminder that in theory, choices foster a feeling of empowerment, fresh ideas and new perspectives.

Now that’s my kind of reminder.

I wish you well until next time,

Chris