Strength of a Call

The true strength of a calling seems to emerge when the shadow does and you get to see how you deal with that.

Joseph Campbell once said that "where you stumble, there is your treasure," referring to a story from the Arabian Nights in which a farmers plow catches on something in the dirt, and despite much struggle he can't dislodge it. He finally stops, digs in the ground, and discovers that his plow has caught on a metal ring attached to the door, through which the passageway leading to a treasure. Wherever our mossy primal fear reside ? our fears of the dark, of death, of being devoured, of meaninglessness, of lovelessness, or of loss ? chances are good that beneath them lies the gems of wisdom and maybe a vision or a calling. Wherever you stumble ? on a tree root, on a rock, on fear or shame or vulnerability, on someone else's word, on the truth ? dig there.

Whatever lies beneath the surface will usually put up a fight to stay there, and this goes for some of the wildlife we're likely to encounter in diving into our own pasts. We're up against that which doesn't want to be remembered and wants to remain anonymous, invisible, mute, to  cover itself with dirt and leaves and hide while the posse gallops by.

We're up against whatever we have rejected throughout the run of our lives; the parts of us that split of and went tumbling away; our unlived life; the animal that sleeps at our doorstep.

These unlived parts can include 'negative" qualities, such as anger, fear, weakness, aggression, vanity, idealism, lust, laziness, tears, everything we were instructed n ot to talk about because it was too embarrassing and too private, all the ghettos and back alleys of our psyches. The unlived parts of us can also include "positive" qualities, like power, leadership, trust, compassion, commitment, sensitivity, creativity, faith, exuberance, and the contents of that 90 percent of our brains we haven't figures out how to use.

These rejected parts include whatever wasn't loved, respected, and accepted in us by ourselves, our parents, teachers, peers, religion, and culture. Carl Jung called it our shadow. Robert Bly calls it "the long bag we drag behind us." In all those qualities that were disapproved of by the people whose approval we needed in order to survive, or believed we needed.

In whatever we rejected, though, is something that a part of us wants, and there lies a calling that we should follow, if only for the sake of completing the jigsaw and healing the past.

Faith will eventually ask of the faithful "What are you willing to give up in order to follow your call?" Sacrifice, says Thomas Merton, is "the shadow in the calling". It reminds us that we pay a price for every choice and that life doesn't hold still. It constantly gives over this for that: it wears down its banks and changes course; it's a propeller that spins so fast it appears to be solid but you don't dare and try to grasp it.

If calls take us toward what we most deeply want anyway ? authenticity, integrity, the full complement, the uncut version ? then shining a light into the shadow is part of our deliverance to that outcome, part of our passage. "Everything rests on awareness that a hidden life exists," the writer Joy Williams says

Name the Pain," theologian Matthew Fox says.

By naming our demons we diminish their power over us. We reform them from demons back to diamons. Daimons were the origin of demons. They were divine spirits, demi-gods, intermediaries who passed notes back and forth between gods and humans. The Latin translation of daimons is soul. As such, they can be either creative or destructive, depending entirely on whether we receive them or reject them. By negating them, we turn them into angry spooks, consigning them to what poet John Milton called Panadaemonium, the capital of hell, and an apt decription of what happens in the human psyche when our guides are driven underground, when a force as powerful as the shadow is scorned.

Since shadow is largely what is unloved in us, and in some cases with good reason, reintegrating these parts will mean attempting to love them as if they are strangers who might be gods-but it's still critical to keep our wits about us. Loving our own cruelty, rage, or vengefulness or narcissism is different from identifying with it or giving it license. Treating the devil with respect is not the same as worshipping the devil. Dealing with the shadow demands the ability to deal with paradox. Shadow must be love and transformed. It is intolerable and it is in us.

Novelist Isabel Allende says "A scary cellar accts as a stimulus to the imagination," which is why she hides, in her own basement, "sinister surprises" for her grandchildren: a plastic skeleton, treasure maps, trunks filled with pirate disguises. Myth is also full of dualistic nature of the diamonic:

Pluto the Roman name for Hades, god of the Underworld, is also the god of Wealth.
We need to acquaint ourselves with our shadows and past in which it leaves it's tracks, however, in order to become aware of as much of our experience as we can, to have as much information as possible to draw on for our own journey. We need to go bodily down through activities such a journaling, active imagination, bodywork and have spend some time just mucking around and getting to know the place. We really are meant to stick our noses in our deep strata. Annie Dillard once wrote. "When you move in, you try to learn the neighborhood."

Danger lies not in the shadow itself but in the panic; in the acute anxiety that grips some people when confronted by some of the material there; in the fear of losing their footing in the conscious world because of what they find in the unconscious; in the fright of what they truly feel.

Above all, says Thomas Merton, take it easy. "The shadow is a frightening reality, and anyone who talks blithely about integrating it as if you could chum up to the shadow the way you learn a foreign language, doesn't know the darkness that always qualifies a shadow."

Not all suffering, to be sure is redeemed with gifts and talents-some times people grow up in sick families are just crippled by it ? but the cold truth about turning a wound into a gift, if that is its nature, is that first you must FEEL it. You've got to be willing to go back and re-encounter the grief of it, starting with the brute fact that you got a bum deal, that justice is beside the point, and no one is going to make it up to you. The past cannot be changes only our attitude to it can be.

The past shapes us, but by following the deep calling to heal ourselves and throw off old curses, we may be able to reshape our response to the past and perhaps even the way  in which we remember it. Sometime we are called to move backward so we can move forward with a greater sense of ourselves, and with a greater confidence.

After the Funeral
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Becoming a Motherless Daughter
The loss of the daughter to the mother, the mother to the daughter, is the essential female tragedy.

                                                                                               -Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born

Tonight Joannie Rochelle carries the Canadian Flag at the closing of the 2010 Olympic ceremonies.As one door closes another opens. As the celebration in the pursuit of excellence ends a celebration of a life well lived begins. After the cheers from the crowd, the celebration with her team mates, coaches, family Joannie will begin to hear a silence she has never heard before.

Mourning works like any series of cycles: one ends and a new one begins, slightly different than it’s predecessor, but with the same fundamental course. A daughter who loses a mother does pass through stages of denial, anger, confusion, and reorientation, but these responses repeat and circle back on themselves as each new developmental task reawakens her need for the parent.

When I was 14 I lost my mom to a stroke. In the midst of the initial shock and numbness, I did not grieve -  for me this was best way I could grieve. But four years later at my graduation and shortly after as I stood on the 50 yard dash line as a Miss Saskatchewan Roughrider contestant I found myself suddenly deeply missing my mother. Years after this I was struck with deeply painful mourning after the birth of my own precious daughter.

At each milestone I came up and I know Joannie will also come up against new challenges that we as motherless daughter’s are frightened to face without a mother’s support, but when we reach out our mom is not there. The old feelings of loss and abandonment return and the cycle begins again.

Tonight Joannie Rochelle carries the Canadian flag for the closing of the 2010 Olympics. Tonight one door closes for Joannie and another opens.Without a doubt Joannie is being transformed. Job well done Joannie and life’s work well done Therese’ ... may you rest in peace.

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Braving Conflict

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Curtain Call and Mothers Die
I literally controlled the ice that night. Jumping with uncanny ease, I seemed to jump to heights never reached before and with full turns of 3 rotations. I made the jumps that were destined for the late - night sports highlight reel. It was the Olympic figure skating championships and I was to bring home the gold for our team and our country, no one could take our team to victory but me. As I skated to the curtain I felt as though the world was watching. I would place my name in ice rink greatness. I felt as though I touched the " Zone"? no that's wrong?I owned the "ZONE".

 It was short lived to be sure. My first blade stroke  past the curtain and the sound of my name being announced would label " my victory" as merely a fluke, a slight brush with greatness. Desperately trying to recount the days routine, what did I eat??how much sleep did I get the night before??what was I wearing??seemingly nothing would return me to that place and time, on a night I was capable of feats mere mortals could only watch and witness.

Since that day I can remember a handful of occasion where the feeling returned, be it ever so brief and rare. Not all were sports related. It appeared to be non selective occurring maybe at a business presentation, community function, or at a time of crisis. The feeling of complete comprehension, and total control of my destiny and surroundings?a focus or drive unmatched by those around me. It's a resource that I can't seem to tap at will. Is it always within me??do I somehow trigger it's surfacing by an event or an emotion? Is it mental, physical, or perhaps genetic?

 All I know is that I want it BACK!

 I know it exists?I must learn about it?study its nature?find out if I CAN APPLY IT TO EVERY DAY EXPERIENCES?my return to ?  " the ZONE"  

Prior to this major event my MOM died. I was 14. My mom was 41.

My years as a teenager left me wondering if in any way my mom’s death created a shift in my identity.It was on the night of that actual performance my quest began.  Was there any connection to why for so long I could not connect into the Zone.  

After many years of studying the mind/body connection in 1995 I found the answer and reconnected to the ZONE.  

 Last night I wanted more than anything to be able to watch Joannie skate. However, I was on board a flight with malfunctioning TV screens. Nothing by coincidence. Throughout the flight I kept sending her love and empowering thoughts of strength and encouragement.  Late last night I got to watch the replay.Watching her skate I could feel her mothers’ presence, guiding her, their connection lending Joannie the strength to jump, to spin, to complete what they as a team had started so many years ago.

My heart aches  knowing what she has yet to go through by now being a motherless daughter but I also know that this is part of her personal journey.

During her short program Joannie was able to stay in the Zone. All her logical levels lined up.  I pray her identity does not shift before her performance on Thursday so we all get to experience the true meaning of the Zone of Excellence.

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