Yay, I'm Wrong!

More Foolsgold. Chapter 16.

After Susan's poppa died she had her mother come for a visit at the co-housing village where she lives and they attended a spring equinox ritual celebration together. As she describes her mother's participation in the festivities I'm reminded of my "wedding shower", a wild woman's Shiva/Shakti celebration that I invited my mother and my daughters too. My girlfriends came with wine, chocolate and other decadent treats. We dressed in sensual clothes and anointed ourselves with oils. We drummed, danced, sang, recited poetry and played together as wild women like to do. In one ritual I shed my clothes and sauntered slowly through a double line of women who lovingly caressed my body as they offered me blessing of tantric ecstasy with my beloved. We swam naked in the pool and reveled in the beauty of our sisterhood. Although my mother's participation was mostly as an observer, I'm thankful that her love for me allowed her enough sweet surrender to expose herself to my strange ways over the years.

We are opening up in sweet surrender to the luminous love light of the one.

Chapter 17. A Henry Miller quote:

I know what the great cure is: it is to give up, to relinquish, to surrender, so that our little hearts may beat in unison with the great heart of the world.

Susan talks about how sometimes it may just be a good thing to allow ourselves to give up. To stop all of this outside business and just be. I'm reminded of one of my favorite teachers, Abraham, who tells us to act from inspiration rather than motivation. Inspiration comes from within. Sometimes it arrives like a lightening bolt and just strikes me hard, insisting that I do it's bidding. Other times its very gentle, a subtle stirring that nudges me in a certain direction. I may not know why I'm heading that way, why I'm choosing this over that, but in the end I discover I've pieced together a puzzle and it's a beautiful work of art. Motivation on the other hand seems to come from my mind. It's all this outside gunk, external lists of this and that, things that I think I need to get done. It's my get it together and stop being lazy voice.

In Chapter 18 Susan gives us Yun Men, along with damselflies and dragonflies. Ah, my totem animal.

The whole world is medicine. What is the self?

Susan encourages us to rest in nature, taking the time to not produce anything. It's necessary to allow the periods of gestation in our lives time to complete their cycles, the birth will come in its own sweet time.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche in chapter 19:

Cultivate willingness to be a fool.

Susan offers this beautiful line "Paralyzed with righteous indignation..."

I have often referred to my own "self-righteous indignation" in reflecting on my reaction to a certain life situation. Susan tells a story about her reaction to, and judgment of a group of teenage boys, "rampaging hooligans", whom she later discovers are on a mission of goodwill.

My mind is so quick to judge. I make assumptions, perched on the lowest rung of my ladder, pontificating the wrongs of others. Like Susan, I am "slowing learning to allow myself to be wrong." My self-righteous perceptions serve as my jail cell while the simple acknowledgment that I am wrong is often the key that unlocks my trapped mind and sets me free. Susan exclaims "Yay, I'm wrong!" Me too Susan, me too.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.
--William James