My Animal Totems

My animal totems are elephants, owls, bears and snakes.

Elephants have been my favorite animals since I was a baby, when my mother's uncle brought me back from India a small carved wooden elephant. Nelly, Nelly t'nelephant.  I cut my teeth on her.  This same uncle, who was in Burma before the war, sent me a book about elephants working the teak logging in Burma, and " Elephant Bill" who took care of all of them and their mahouts.  

(I met an elephant in person once at South Beach Park at a gathering; she had crusty, flaking skin and even though she snotted on my shoe (pink, fabric, Mary Jane), she was definitely communicating with me, on the order of -get me out of here-I want to go home-real home, home home, not where I live now-I am so miserable. I am so unhappy.  You love me. I don't trust you. You won't take me home, will you?)

Elephants are hard workers, devoted, with wicked senses of humor, very intelligent, and comfort loving.  I aspire to elephant. 

(On another side note, one time in the Pacific Northwest, I can't remember if it was Seattle or Portland, there was a smallish white whale, a Beluga, in a tank. There were glass walls underwater so I could see in. She was going around and around. When I was standing on top she circled near the surface keeping her eye on me.  When I went down the stairs to see through the underwater walls she circled under and kept an eye on me through the underwater window.  I opened myself up to her and heard her.  She said, let me out, oh let me out, oh let me out, let me out, over and over again, around and around the tank. My heart breaks remembering.

Animals should not be captive.)

Owls are wise and beautiful. Soft and fierce. Deadly and comical. I aspire to wisdom, to beauty, softness and fierceness.  I aspire to owl.

Bears are big; no one messes with mama bear. Bears are nurturing. Bears are womanly.  Bears have the very best sense of belonging.  I aspire to bear. 

Snake is more mystical than physical.  Snake is a totem I received from ISH at Guidelines. Snake owns her power. She is all spine, fire flow and divine. She is not the do-er.  She is not the thinker.  She is pure force and forward motion. She yearns to connect with the Most High.  

(A fiercely vocal cluster of parrots is flying overhead as I write this.)

Four Yellow Plates Consciousness

I'm going to re-post this entry because it has become an up-front focus for me this year. Maybe I'll have enough moxie to carry a narrative through the process as it unfolds this year. Meanwhile, enjoy this post.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Four Yellow Plates Consciousness

Poppy died yesterday. Poppy was my best friend's father. I sat by his bedside for hours on end, watching him breathe, holding his hand, loving him. And thinking thoughts that roved across all my experience and touched on a whole encyclopedia's worth of subjects. My thinking always returned from these travels to alight on the subject of mortality.

Poppy is dying. I am alive. Friend Veronica is pregnant. A baby begins. This baby will be born and live and die and look, the cycle. I am (probably) more than halfway through my allotted cycle. Sitting with Poppy, I bring out the magnifying glass to examine my cycle.

I will see my life's total by looking at current events, situations, challenges, and triumphs. Whew! This is SO appropriate a pensee for the last week of this year, the last week of this decade.

Twice a year, at the turn of the year and roughly six months after, on my birthday, I do what I call Janus work. Janus was the Roman god of the gateway. He had two faces, one in front and one in back, so that while guarding the gates, he could see who was coming and who was leaving. The Janus work looks back, looks around and then looks forward.

Looking back consists solely of counting wins, triumphs, and times I did it right. Love to do that. Looking around attempts to be honest, to see clearly and to banish ostrich tendencies. The ostrich is a very powerful gene in my family. We try very hard not to see those things that are difficult to look at. I will take a moment to describe what looking forward consists of in Janus work, and then I will return to the present and take a look around.

Looking forward has a two-pronged approach. First, someone once asked Mark Twain (I think it was), who was a very prolific writer, how he managed to turn out such a volume of work. His method was to write a minimum of 1,000 words a day. A thousand words is approximately three handwritten pages. A year's worth of handwritten pages could complete a novel. Just keep plugging away. Have a daily must, a daily minimum, and things get done. I have a list of daily musts, only five of them, which comprise my thousand word equivalent. Each year I review, refine, add to, and edit out this list. It serves me.

Second, I craft some focuses (foci?) for the year. These are not resolutions; they are very like a journey. Setting out from Miami, the most basic directions to Boise, for instance, call for going north. Further refinements on reaching the Georgia border, would change the basic heading to northwest. In the beginning I don't need the street by street (although the Garmin thinks I do), but as I get farther down the road, the specifics of each highway, beltway, etc., become more important.

This particluar rant is going to be about my first focus for 2010, "FOCUS ON - Four Yellow Plates Consciousness." My first direction for this focus needs to be a definition of what FYPC means to me. I heard a story about a Buddhist woman who was perfectly happy and satisfied with her four yellow plates.

Come to a full stop.

In the Depression my mother worked in Macy's fine china department. She had no money, was paid little, but developed an exquisite sense of value in china. And she yearned for, almost lusted after, fine china. Over the years, with a more abundant pocketbook and opportunity to travel, she acquired some truly lovely china. Four yellow plates? Satisfied? Happy with? Uh uh. Don't think this didn't rub off on me.

And I have this acquisition syndrome in areas other than plates; books, music tapes and CDs, furniture, craft supplies, textiles, linens and fabrics, and above all, information. My lust for information is magnified by having been born with a Gemini sun. All Geminis could well have the middle name, "Curiosity". Curiosity is my driving force. I want to know everything.

I read (or skim) up to 10 books a week (thank you, Miami-Dade Public Library). I watch 60 Minutes, 20/20, Dateline, Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, Keith Olberman, Rachel Maddow, Food TV, etc., etc. I prowl Wikipedia and Google and Bing. I read approximately 20 magazines a month. Sheesh! And because I am now the oldest I have ever been and am experiencing "senior moments" of forgetfulness regularly, I cut articles and stow them away in files and piles lest I forget.

No wonder the notion of a pairing a Four Yellow Plates Consciousness with a feeling of satisfaction has brought me to a screeching halt.

Would I be satisfied with four? Of anything? No. Could I pursue a "satisfied with four" consciousness? Hmmm. I could nibble around the edges. What form would "nibble around the edges" take?

That is a Focus for this year. Let me start with examining what lares and penates exist. Then assessing each one (plate, paint brush, piece of paper) for its satisfaction-producing keepability. Third, assign each kept item a permanent place in my house (we know this from all the self-help books on organization). Keep, give, toss, etc. Fourth, Look deeply at my process while step three is going on. My emotional burden will weigh in for every decision. Understanding my emotionals thingie will allow me to tweak my responses, perhaps to re-form them in the general direction of satisfaction with four. I have no quantitative goal here. I don't need to get down to , say, three shelves of books, or two file drawers, or a service fo eight and no more. I do need to find a satisfying qualitative goal. Again, returning to the self-help books (do read Julia Morgenstern on this), do I love it? Does it make me happy? Does it fit who I am now, or does it dredge up a personage I was in the past. Etc.

On this blog, I intend to document my year of working towards a Four Yellow Plates Consciousness, paring down my posessions and my emotional burden at the same time. The end product? Satisfaction.