Fragile?

The Olympics are done for another four years. I prefer the winter over the summer, probably because I spent the entire 2002 winter games on the couch with a back injury. This afforded me the opportunity to acquaint myself with the intricacies of speed skating and snowboarding, as well as the stuff I grew up watching on Wide World of Sports—alpine skiing, figure skating and the like.

The games in Pyeong Chang were riddled with the usual assortment of political scandal, heartbreak, and upsets (some happy, some not). They also featured swan songs for a number of athletes who have been staples in competition for years, and showcased the next generation of champions who will follow them. Ter and I watched the hockey (no gold medal game should be settled by a shootout) and the figure skating, the latter being a favourite because of the artistry as well as the technical skill. Truly, I can’t tell a salchow from an axel or a lutz, never mind counting the number of rotations in midair, but the beauty of the human form in flight rivals that of a horse at full gallop.

Our compostable containers are miraculous works of engineering. The things they can do on an Olympic scale are astonishing. Strength, agility, flexibility, speed, endurance ... in every competition, I saw something amazing. The slow motion replays only accentuated the marvel that is the human body.

At the same time, it doesn’t take much to knock us out of whack. A twist in the wrong direction will tear a tendon. A sneeze will cause a muscle spasm to seize us in our tracks. A hard fall will break a bone. A hard hit will scramble a brain. A crash in training will sideline an athlete for years and maybe kill their dream of Olympic gold. That’s how fragile our flesh and blood forms are.

Then there’s Mark McMorris, who recovered from a broken pelvis to compete in the snowboard event this year. The British pairs skater who shattered a kneecap and came back to skate in Pyeong Chang. The hockey player who broke his neck a year ago and won bronze for Canada. I can’t even name the others, and there were more than a few. They came from all nations with the same story: debilitating injury and a refusal to concede. So while the human body may be fragile, it seems the human spirit is far from it.

And that’s not only true for Olympians. It’s true of every soul inhabiting the planet. The indomitable power in each of us can rise to the most daunting challenge. The nature of this mortal coil means we can’t overcome everything, which presents a challenge of a different sort: the challenge of acceptance, which can be as difficult as fighting back from injury. Knowing when to stop may be the toughest hurdle of all.

Us? Fragile? Nah.

Wordplay

Boy Sister does double duty as my wee sister’s elf. She’s not a particularly harsh master, which means he can get a bit uppity. One day at the Wall, he acted up to the point when she finally demanded to know what was wrong with him. He shrugged and tried to look innocent.

“He’s just being obstreperous,” I said.

“What does ‘obstreperous’ mean?” she asked.

“Difficult,” I said.

She gave me a Why didn’t you just say that? look. Aloud, she muttered, “Writers.”

“Sorry ’bout that, kid.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I just prefer words with four letters or less. It’s quicker.”

Not to mention more effective.

But it got me thinking. I tend to throw big words into a conversation, mostly to keep it interesting rather than show off, and a recent metaphor likening employee service seniority to divorced parents switching out the kids at Christmas got big laughs at a staff meeting. “I vote for ‘the divorced parents’ model,” one of my more comical colleagues remarked to me the next day. (I’m lucky she thinks I’m hilarious, as she gives me good reviews when new people join the office.)

I don’t restrict myself to conversations in company, either. The title of a favourite CD gave me something to think about while I was waking up one morning. It’s called “Nightbound” (an instrumental collection by David Lindsay now in heavy rotation), and while the train tracks on the cover photo suggest a traveller heading toward night, it occurred to me that the word “nightbound” could also mean one being tied to – or bound by – the night. Or shade or shadow or the Dark Side, or any of the other synonyms for “not day”.

Which gives me an idea for a story ...

I know, I know ... Writers.

Get a Heart On

I move that we ban romance from Valentine’s Day. Love comes in many shapes and sizes, but let’s face it, romance is about chemical response and doesn’t go the distance. How many diamonds bestowed today will sparkle for the same lover five or ten or fifty years from now?

Oh, Ru, you’re being cynical.

Okay, maybe so. I may be taking the bait set out by the same big eastern syndicate that made Christmas a crass commercial racket. You know the message: that you’re not a winner if you don’t have a lover to ply you with roses and chocolate and a strand of costly bling.

Pah! I say! Who needs a lover when one has love? And I do. Boy, do I ever! I have a life full of people who love me, and whom I love in return. No love of mine is unrequited... except perhaps the torch I carry for John Taylor. Ah, contrast.

I digress. Love, as I say, comes in all shapes and sizes. Love for a friend. Love for family. Love for a pet. Love for a plant. Love for oneself—and this is no small thing. Too many of us think we’re unworthy of being loved and this is simply not so. Everyone deserves to be loved. Everyone is loved by someone, somewhere.

One of the most beautiful poems I have ever read was written by Ravindra Kumar Karnani. I have no idea what inspired me to post it here, but it seems an appropriate sentiment to help anyone who may feel lost, alone or unloved on this day when love seems more important than on any other (which, by the way, it’s not):

God, Speak to Me

The child whispered, “God, speak to me”
And a meadow lark sang.
The child did not hear.

So the child yelled, “God, speak to me!”
And the thunder rolled across the sky
But the child did not listen.

The child looked around and said,
“God, let me see you” and a star shone brightly.
But the child did not notice.

And the child shouted,
“God, show me a miracle!”
And a life was born but the child did not know.

So, the child cried out in despair.
“Touch me God, and let me know you are here!”
Whereupon God reached down and touched the child.

But the child brushed the butterfly away
And walked away unknowingly.

Rest assured, you are loved.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

The Frankincense Incident

Ter called it “a room interrupted”. Despite rearranging the furniture to open up the feng shui, I remained so reluctant to go into my writing room that I began to wonder if it wasn’t me so much as it was the room itself. Sure, my writing had been stalled for some time, but on any other day I was eager to revisit my half-finished projects and maybe start something new ... but whenever I went into my room, I couldn’t settle. I couldn’t lose myself in the flow. I dotted around from piece to piece, getting nowhere but frustrated and quitting well before tea time. Eventually, excuses not to write became conscious decisions not to write. “Nope, not today,” I would say, and eventually I had to ask myself why not. And I had to be honest with the answer.

I think I always knew, but it seemed so silly and implausible that I was embarrassed to say it aloud. It couldn’t be right. It had to be something wrong with me, with my conviction, my commitment, my whatever. It couldn’t be what immediately came each time I asked the question.

Finally, I bounced it off my cool inspector. She would tell me if I was losing it or making (more) excuses. She would also tell me if I was on to something. So I said to her one day, “I don’t want to go into my writing room.”

“Why not?” she asked. “Don’t you want to write today?”

“I think it’s the room, Ter. It doesn’t feel right.”

She gave it a little thought before she answered. “That’s no surprise. It’s a room interrupted.”

She went on the remind me of its history. It began as her bedroom, but she had to give it up because she couldn’t sleep with the neighbour noise downstairs. Her armoire and all her clothes are still in the room, and so, perhaps, is the residual energy of that frustrating time. Then there’s the bathroom upstairs where, as she so eloquently put it, “people shit on that room every day. That can’t be good for anyone’s creativity!” She thought a little bit more, then suggested we do a space clearing. She pulled out one of our trippy hippy guru books and flipped to the applicable page. “Frankincense will do it.”

Not a lot of people have a bottle of frankincense on hand. Naturally, we do. “How much?” I asked, pulling it and the diffuser from the cupboard.

“Eight drops,” Ter replied.

“Does it say that in the book?”

“No, it’s just my sense.”

After thirty-plus years together, I no longer question Ter’s sense.

We set the diffuser on a shelf in my room, cracked open the window to let the negative energy out, and went about our regular business.

I cannot explain how, but it worked. Almost immediately, the room felt better, as if the energy vibration had lifted to a cleaner, more positive level. Since then, I’ve been happy to come in and write. I’ve been comfortable, motivated and able to go with the flow. Whatever magical properties were in that oil, the end result was success!

I suppose I could try to explain. It’s probably better that I don’t. Maybe it won’t work for someone who doesn’t believe it will. So many of our perceptions are based on what we believe. Physical laws always apply, of course. An apple won’t fall up just because I believe it will—but because I believe in a friendly, loving and generous Universe, my reality reflects this belief. I understand and accept contrast (another pesky physical law), but on the whole, my life is charmed in ways I would not change for anything. I know people who fear everything. Their Universe is cold, harsh and frightening—and so the energy of their belief creates a life riddled with things to fear. It’s simple and it’s complicated and I think I just tried to explain the Frankincense Incident, didn’t I?

Gender in Spirit

During an episode of Philosophy Quest at the Wall, Boy Sister once asked me if I thought souls are gender neutral. I replied that I thought not. My being female in this phase, I reasoned, is a physical manifestation of my soul’s essence, therefore “Spirit Ru” must be female. We debated this for a while, ending the session – as usual –with more questions than answers.

Later on, I reconsidered my response. Perhaps I am presently female simply because my biology dictates it; that perhaps Spirit Ru is not specifically female, but is either a perfect blend of both energies or a singular form of neither. Biology colours so much of our experience in life: how we perceive ourselves, how we react to others, and how others react to us. It also provides the setting for our individual stories, i.e., I’m playing a female character in this particular tale (though I admit, I haven’t yet sensed an existence as a man). Boy Sister’s experience in the same circle is different because he’s got that pesky Y chromosome – and thus, you’d think, the advantage in our patriarchal he-man culture. Yet he also exhibits care, compassion, and self-sacrifice; traits which our patriarchal he-man culture has labelled feminine in nature and thus derides as weakness in a man.

Let me say here that, as boys carry the X chromosome as well, a balanced XY won’t fear those “feminine” traits within himself and will be, I believe, a better man as a result.

Anyway, on recalling high school biology and releasing my identity’s ties to my ovaries, I grew more comfortable with the notion of Spirit Ru being genderless. I have no idea what form this would take, and I get entangled in the logistics when engaging in speculation: Am I an orb? An angel (but wait; angels are gender specific ... aren’t they)? Or am I a single cell that fits with other single cells to create a greater whole? And what does that whole look like?

See what I mean?

But then, if our souls are neutral and our gender biologically determined, how do we explain folks who are transgender? Why would a neutral soul in a male body be convinced it should be female, and vice versa? The Universe doesn’t make mistakes, but if wearing the wrong skin is something you sign up for in Experience 301, then, geez, am I glad I majored in “Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis”. Philosophical course load aside, I suggest that people tasked with gender identity issues as their primary challenge in life are among the bravest of souls. Perhaps these conflicted folks chose the wrong skin to teach the rest of us about tolerance and compassion, an uphill battle that’s approaching the perpendicular despite our “all-inclusive” modern age.

On a less complicated scale, the lesson for everyone is always love. Love is not about biology or chemistry. Love is not passion or romance. In its purest form, love is gender neutral – and if the Universe in all its majestic entirety is composed of a trillion-bazillion-googillion tiny souls like you and me, then perhaps we are, too.

That’s the beauty of Philosophy Quest. We don’t solve anything, but the mysteries make us think.