The Truth of Love, and the Art of Subtlety

Recently someone asked me if my parents talked much about dying, in the last few months of their lives in particular. I’ve thought about this a lot, and especially as I continue to learn what it means to a mind to think more deeply, to listen more intensely, to enjoy the intensity of “still waters running deep.” Our mother was famously subtle rather than overt in her expressions; to her, subtlety WAS overt. There were always ways of making your point to those who were willing to listen. Subtlety is its own art form. As her children, we appreciated this about her, and also adapted it in our own ways and personalities. We developed beliefs about communication, about listening, and share pleasures and the occasional challenges of similar interpretations because of this. Our Dad was also subtle in his way, and in some ways simpler than Mother. Their personalities were interesting, individually and together. I write this not to analyze their personalities, but to express what the question about their communication about dying prompted me to think about.

My mother seldom wanted to even talk about “being sick.” She teased me sometimes about my passion for organic food, and yet over time, when we would visit, she bought certain things she knew I would like, and “approve of,” as she said. I began to learn, through our interaction, even more about listening, about the energy of love, about the subtleties that mean so much. I didn’t intend to judge when I didn’t want to eat packaged sausage which had chemicals I didn’t want to ingest. Yet, over time I began to learn the difference in the energy of knowing my own “truth,” and how loving myself through my own free choices, when “true,” also flowed into the smiling way of live and let live, still, honoring all. I continue to learn this, as I learn to know my own mind, to grow my own mind, to love better.

Mother wasn’t a complainer. She had a high pain tolerance, did not appreciate whiners, and always preferred that people “get on with it,” rather than belabor anything. This does not mean she did not appreciate the subtleties of one gesture, or the right word placed just so. She certainly did. Less was always better, but only when appropriately so – the truth will show itself and be known, simply.

We children would try to find out more from her about what her doctors said, after she had appointments. We would ask how she felt. We were concerned about her, didn’t want her to “suffer.” Even this word, “suffer,” has its associations so intensely from religious belief. Middle English, French, Latin – the words “to bear,” have a different connotation than to “suffer” in my mind. “Suffer in silence,” is a familiar phrase. As time passed, and we all lived the day to days, we helped each other to pay attention to the nuances, to support as we could, as we knew to do. My brother wrote a beautiful poem in honor of our Dad which included these words: “because I am his son, I go, called to attend to, Perhaps witness/the black presence of illness…  his world is breaking open, mine as well…. Do you see this? He points, because I am his son, I see these things…” Dad was not a complainer either, which explained why his confusion at incapacitation at the end was what did him in. He was a lover of life, of people. He loved birds, he loved the simple pleasures of cornbread in milk, fresh tomatoes and salt, even instant coffee as long as it was the right temperature for his palate.  To Dad, life is through when you couldn’t DO. He would marvel at “things” as they revealed themselves to him – feel this, he would say, pointing to a knot on his head. It would hurt, and he puzzled over what caused it. He would smile when given answers. Once I asked him, many years ago, are you afraid of dying? He looked at me horror-struck. No! he said. Why would I be? He lived the truth of his convictions. There was no room for fear. Mother’s faith was equally strong, though her mind explored thoughts differently, I think. They had both grown up in families whose work ethic was strong and whose communication about emotions was more physical than verbal. An orange and a new pair of dungarees for Christmas on a good year, Dad would say, smiling at the memory. There were intimacies expressed in ways only that family unit might relate to, until told. The time, the environment, the beliefs, the scenarios invite opening, appreciating, acknowledging the growth as we live. Dad constantly expressed how we had so much to be grateful for, especially a loving family, the sharing of lives. Not long before he died, when I was visiting him in the Nursing Home, he told me he had been talking to God – this meant dying. He said it in relationship to being ready to “go.” I’ve been talking to God about it, he said, with utmost humility, and that little smile.

I have thought about what it means to die, and what it means to live. As I live and learn, particularly with the guidance of Spiritual Philosophy which builds on and around the religious foundation our parents taught us to illuminate the deeper roots of “thought made flesh (matter)”, I feel the strength of knowing more and more what it means to live, and therefore what it means to die. As energy, we live on – our memories live on. The idea seems simplistic, and yet the most beautifully simple and complex divine idea ever created. The original creation is life? How do we define life? As Kathy talked about her memories of nursing and asking patients what their beliefs were as they lay on their deathbed, I thought about all of this again. I have introduced myself again and again to the subtle and absolutely profound nature of change as the constant in our life, and the overt message does not escape me now: In Change we trust!  True thinking requires a motivation deep within us whose roots are love, and I understand more clearly than ever how we grow through the levels of fear-to-love as we live our many lives, even our mini-lives days and nights. How do we feel about “energy”? How do we feel talking about “energy”? Not just the solar power, wind power, turbine and nuclear, oil and the spill. The overt subtleties are there for us to appreciate, enhance, change, share as we become more aware. These are the gifts that keep on giving, despite what we do for a living, how many children we have, how much money we make or lose, what losses or gains we experience.

The dignity of life asks for honor, reverence, appreciation, love, which means communication, but not only in the ways we might want, or expect. Messages come in all ways. The key, I’m learning, is to know what message I’m sending, and to express consciously, beautifully, elegantly. Even if silly! The truth of love will be felt, and remembered forever. What’s left is there to build on, to shape as our own, to sculpt as we think, as we share, as we grow, as we think on our own.

They Call it Stormy Monday

I read David Byrne's Journal (blog) now and again, and lately I was reminded to visit by an NPR review of his latest musical (ad)venture with Fat Boy Slim - a conceptual creation of the theatrical potential in Imelda Marcos's "life as theater."  All the world's a stage?

Here Lies Love -“The story I am interested in is about asking what drives a powerful person—what makes them tick? How do they make and then remake themselves? I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be great if—as this piece would be principally composed of clubby dance music—one could experience it in a club setting? Could one bring a ‘story’ and a kind of theater to the disco? Was that possible? If so, wouldn’t that be amazing!”—DB, from the introduction

In the Journal I also read this: "In the most inexcusable behavior I saw a manifestation of a common human trait - that when all restraints are removed, we tend to lose our moral compasses. I think it could happen to any of us." Byrne talks about Abu Ghraib as an example - people put in a situation where they are handed absolute power; that the whistleblowers in this case were not the soldiers themselves but the leaked pictures. This brings a familiar saying to mind - absolute power corrupts. Why?

I've thought a lot about this, as lately our philosophical hot topic has been "what does it mean to live the Ethical Values"? To live as an Ethical Being? "Trust is the behavior of truth" is one pearl we have been thinking about in our dialogues.What is our "moral compass"? Where does it come from? What makes us aware of it? We've talked about conflict and confrontation. I used to believe that confrontation was a negative behavior. Confrontation meant challenge, challenge = provocation, and provocation led to argument, or ultimately, to war. Still, I used to argue a lot (habit!) What I thought I believed was not how I behaved. A thinking friend told me she realized an old belief she had that to speak her truth meant she would be treated badly. When we begin to accept truth as the ethical energy of our spiritual being, these perceptions fall away as we live.  It is only one step to recognize and acknowledge that "my truth" may be different, is different, from "your truth." Beyond that awareness begins the awareness of an absolute value of truth - as love, and the equality of being, as energy. Ah, details, details, details...

In the May issue of Food & Wine magazine I read another great example of this awareness in an article by Ray Isle called "Red Wine & Vegetables: Friends of Foes?" He wrote about Randall Grahm (California's Bonny Doon Vineyard) and winery chef Charlie Parker and their collaboration. Grahm, known to some as the Willy Wonka of wine enthusiasts, has made a lot of changes recently due not to the economy but, as Isle notes, a "philosophical crisis." A short description of Grahm's growing the Bonny Doon "public image" through the 2000s then leading to the net "reinvention." Here's how Grahm describes it: "I was giving speeches and writing articles about biodynamics and terroir, saying terroir was the only interesting thing about the wine business ... But there was nothing congruent between what I was saying and what I was doing. So it was clear I needed to make a big change." 

 Last week I got angry at having to respond to DMV bureaucratic rules (long story) - a remedy seemed simple, yet the steps to get to the solution seemed too many and too slow, an exercise without true purpose except the procedure itself. I felt the energy funnel of my anger as I waited, telephone in hand (again), remembering all of the time taken, the energy expended. The energy of our memories moves us, motivates us. Our emotions move and change within us with all the character of clouds. It is silly to get so frustrated at such a "thing," yet a casual patience sometimes simply reinforces that not only is the frustration (and I know I'm not alone!) understandable but that simply commiserating adds to the sense of conflict too, more than the resolution. Our thoughts are absolutely powerful! There's an old saying, Rules are made to be broken. They remind us, if we're open to "seeing," that we made them - they did not one day appear from thin air, cast in stone.

Courage is an inherent characteristic of our human spiritual design, and communicating with the conscious sense of change in motion adds momentum and excitement to experience. Change invites that golden laughter that rings like music to almost any ear.

While going through files I came across an old letter from when I was working at the Library of Congress. The letter was one sent to a handful of us re: "Meritorious Service." Here's the quote - "demonstrates your concern" for the nation's patrimony. In this regard, your work serves as a model..."  I've been thinking about courage, and about the language in this letter. Such awards acknowledge appreciation on behalf of several levels of "community." In our culture and in our world, we've created ways to honor "meritorious service" as we determine its value to us. Humanitarian awards acknowledge the level of our global community.

To act in concert with the Ethical Values of our human design means to honor the best in us at all times. In the LOC, I did what I was asked to do. As the events unfolded, I learned about the world of thievery, and my "insight" and awareness expanded as I watched, listened and talked with others. I haven't thought about this event for many years. I'm glad I kept the letter. I read the words in a different context now. I recognize a layered pattern of "honor code," as the Ethical Values which make up our design, and the strength and joy that come from honoring and respecting them as a way of life.

Think of these phrases: "just for the sake of argument"; "devil's advocate"; "facts"

Every thought counts. The energy of every word becomes a playground, an arena, an ocean to an open mind. What motivates the thought, action? Honor? Respect? Truth? Value? Appreciation?  "I need proof." What do I accept as proof? Change? Conflict or resolution? Peace or war? Who do we want to be? Trust is the behavior of truth.

Kid Sparrow Loves

Last night we watched La Vie En Rose, a film about the life of Edith Piaf, in the Varsity Theater across from UNC. The Franklin Street theater is small, with an air of lots of use over years, though not stale. Upstairs leading to the restrooms are a few seats, a smart set-up with bright colors that say retro fresh. My friend had a lemon-mint ice cream combination that was a taste burst of sweet-fresh brighter than the theater itself. Seeing the film brought back memories of grad. School when my friend Tom and I would listen to Edith Piaf sing as we sat in his dark living room. Jacques Brel, old theater set pieces, were conjured up by some of these listenings, and the drama of them lingered in the air. “The Little Sparrow” had lung power and a voice that championed little girls, “little people,” common ground, the force of being alive – very early on, after many had heard her for the first time and were astonished and pleased, an artist admirer told her, You are an immense artist” (en Francais), and she answered, amid the New Year’s hubbub and laughter, “I’m wearing high heels.” Her face and gestures became so distinctively part of her presence that they seem sometimes exaggerated. Those stunning blue eyes seem both purely direct in their gaze and wide open as an ocean, to the vulnerabilities of life and all the winds that blow. What a presence, what a life, what a look, what a voice she had. Moments linger, such as when she first sang, at 9 years old when her father, a “contortionist” was trying to make money for them by twisting up his limbs for passers-by in the street, and the lingerers wondered what talent she had. Her father prodded her to act, so the audience wouldn’t leave, and she stepped up and opened her mouth to sing the French anthem with a sound and strength that brought slow smiles and claps from the gathering listeners. As they sat on a beach an interviewer asked her – what would you tell a woman, a child, any advice – Love, she answered. “Je ne regrette rien,” she sang, at the end.

At dinner we had been talking about choices, how and why we make the choices we make, what it means to use our mind as a sense, to live with our senses as the life force of love that we are designed for. “There but for the grace of choice go I,” my friend said, and we laughed at the depth of this thought rippling in the pond of our lives and lifetimes.

We scan for details of a personal nature when we want to know more. When I think of Edith Piaf and her life, as it is depicted, I scan with my mind as fingers the scenes and ripples I feel as I watch and think. Those hands she had to be encouraged to use, that voice which kept her alive. She shouted often, dismissive of many. Yet she loved deeply. Care was there in moments that stood out in that hard-scrabble early life, and the tragedies that followed. She was bent and sedated by the time she died (cancer), still young but also ancient. She was 48.

I have to sing at least one song, she said (or something like it), or I will forever lose faith in myself – this near her death-time, her collapsing, remembering her fondest career moments as every time the curtain rose. Think of it: An actress acting a part written for the “real woman,” characters chosen as the supporting cast, to represent that supporting entourage of hers, faithful friends. We accept these, moved to tears and more, so why do we question our reappearance on stage after stage, in life after life, with supporting casts of our own? A good moment appears when Edith dismisses an orchestra she had kept waiting, and a Radio official, distraught, says, You can’t do that! She plants her palms on her hips and says, Why not? What’s the point of being Edith Piaf if I can’t? It’s a good scene that sounds a resounding chord. We’re so accustomed to operating by rules and regulations as fact that we forget we created them, that they are not Nature’s laws. We choose what we do. The energy we are becomes part of our every environment, as our environment is what we create.

A friend told me she called another to ask him to come over and join their swimming – what? At 8:30am, this early? He said. Is there a rule about that?, she said to me. Her son remarked about not having to mow the lawn. We use this “competition” mode in every way. I see this better now. With every thought I use that way my energy adds to the bucking-horse energy, the bull-rider out of the gate at the rodeo, with the crowd watching and a stopwatch ready. I listen to remarks about ex-wives and husbands, another friend’s refusal to respond to her ex-husband because he is being judgemental or instructive. I understand her forceful defense of not wanting to be criticized. Not being told she is not doing something right, not good enough. Also, her impetus to want to “stand up for herself,” when she feels her own structures of life (marriage) have not held the weight she thought they did for her. When each thought is new, the world is fresh, and there is no stale air in our interactions. We are free to choose. Je ne regrette rien.

Love, Truth and Perception speaks to these changes that free us from these beliefs. “The emotions that we feel for ourself will always be our definition of the love that we feel for another.” (LTP, 175)

“The intellect and ego is judging itself in relationship to its ability to be loved by others. But being loved by another eases the sadness, pain, and longing only temporarily before our loss is again triggered by the soul and spirit mind saying, ‘ you still haven’t found me’ as our soul and spirit seeks to become one with the intellectual mind.” (LTP, 173)

“But we will forever seek to fulfill our unquenchable thirst for the beauty of love, because love is the hidden power of our life. “ (174)

Our knowing that love is essential to our life comes from our soul motivation, which keeps us searching.

“Our perception of love is accepted from the reflection of our self-image that is reflected back to us from the veil of the ego.” (174) We do not perceive that the love which we physically seek is in truth the love of ourself and our life. The vision that we see of ourself is what we will seek. If we see ourself as physical, we will seek physical love.

My reflection was an image of a “strong female,” i.e., equal to a male, a “male in a female body.” Because I did not see myself as a “strong female” - despite all evidence to the contrary, I did not believe there was such a "thing," and did not even know I believed it! What does it mean to be "strong," willful, free? What does it mean to find your own voice?

“For many individuals who have continued their unexplainable search for true love, there is no logical explanation within their mind to explain the motivation for their actions. They simply feel an overwhelming need to continue their search and they follow their sense of ‘need.’” (174) The external love that we seek is the physical symbol of our internal path as our intellect seeks to unite with the love of our spirit.

One reviewer of Le Vie En Rose wrote, "Piaf's will to live is inspiring even in the face of self-destruction that makes Judy Garland's own battles with alcohol and drugs seem minor in comparison." Marion Cotillard's performance is incredible. She was born in Paris, in 1975. She aged realistically in the film, in hours, through torment, triumph, and with power. Love, Edith said. We are all connected within our spirit consciousness and the spirit never fails to honor that love.