STALK YOURSELF

WHO AM I?

     Today’s waves in my life have been made in the depths and the heights, both unseen. They both move the waters, and the waters move me. Here are the forces:

     The emancipatory and the imprisoning. The evolutionary and the revolutionary. The participatory and the isolating. The violent and the peaceful. The Platonic love and the erotic. The disruptive, destabilizing and the foundational launch-pads of my future. The cosmic from above and the tectonic from below. The forces of living and dying.

     These make the cultural and personal winds and weather that blow me about today – they shape my future. They blow from behind and ahead. They make my life easy and a struggle.

WHAT DO I WANT?

     I want to kiss my yet unborn grand-babies. So, I want the tools to harness the cosmic and the tectonic, to be able to predict the weather, understand the currents, manage the doldrums, to know when volcanoes will erupt and how to surf the crest of the tidal waves.

     We all want to be worthy of the challenges in our lives. But, who is it that prepares us for the unseen in our lives? Who knows the unfathomable in our hearts? Where do I get forces for myself? What is new for me is old for you. Who plans our lives BEYOND their term? Who leaves MY legacy?

WHY AM I HERE?

     I am here to stretch your time window. To encourage you to see into generations. To see today as only a step in the path trod by yourself as you are today. But, the path is much bigger than you think.  It actually leads back to your long dead great-grandmothers and their long dead great-grandmothers and further. It leads forward to your yet unborn great-grandchildren and their yet unborn great-grandchildren and further.

     If the path is so much longer, you and I will need to be stronger than we are today, much stronger.

     We will need to fish deeply in our depths for the deep running, gigantic parts of ourselves which we fear. We need the power of the unseen leviathans we have thought were only nice literary devices. We have lived our lives hoping never to meet these fierce, wild parts of our ourselves and pretending they is not there. But they are.

     We have been satisfied with the small steps on today’s path, but to kiss our great-grandbabies, we need Time and Strength to withstand the forces from the cosmos and the tectonic. Shall we fish for those parts of ourselves which can feed generations or kill us? Have we that kind of courage?

     To find them we need our Captain – the one who plans our lives beyond their term, and our destiny. The Captain stands ready to take us in hunt for ourselves.

     So, let’s pull up our big girl (or boy) panties, climb into the chair, strap ourselves in. Let’s grab the stout rod the Captain hands us, watch them bait up the hook as big as our hand. The Captain knows where to troll – over the currents which confront us, into the wind which buffets us.

     Stalk yourself.

© Copyright 2014, Jean W. Yeager

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OUR GROUP IS FOR THE BIRDS

WHO ARE WE?

   Our group is for the birds. No kidding, we have a Host of Sparrow-like people in our group. And then we have the brightly dressed ones, the Charm of Finches. I won’t say that we actually have enough Eagles to have a Convocation, but they are so lofty, they think so. We certainly do have enough Hawkish types to have a Cast, that’s no problem. We have a Party of Jay’s and do THEY Party! A Flock of Pigeons, a Murder of Crows (I’d like to murder one or two of them myself, always stealing my ideas!), and a Run of Poultry. We do not have enough wisdom in our group which reflects the fact that our Parliament of Owls is only old Durwood. <Sigh.>  We do have a Gaggle of those types who stick their necks out, but won’t shut up! And, we have one Great Heron. And how!

WHAT DO I WANT?

     I would very much like it if our Dissimulation of Birds was better able to work together. When we get into our meeting, of course the Charm of Finches has to talk about their new sparkly accessories. The Starlings are Chattering, no doubt. And, that makes the Hens broody. They can’t be direct! They just cluck, know what I mean? On some occasions the Grouses, grouse. But the Hummingbirds join the Charm, and well, the Dissimulation gets VERY unproductive! I would have to say that sometimes we get so little work done we have NOTHING for the Larks to even THINK of an Exultation.

     Do you know Herons? Well, a pond of frogs totally falls silent when a Great Heron arrives.  We do too. When the Great Heron steps into the room, most of us fall silent. Tall, dressed in a long blue gown, dark hair she stands so tall and straight with such a long straight nose and piercing eyes that are sometimes more penetrating than our Lady Hawk. She is a giant and she knows it! Then she walks slowly step-by-step to her seat. Even though the Turtledoves try to Coo and calm us down, the sight of the Great Heron makes our blood run cold.

WHY AM I HERE?

     I’m a new team member but I have heard the story about the Great Heron. She apparently was with a Host of a Sparrow-types in a parent meeting, with a few mousy men thrown in, a year or so ago. She of course was bringing a very important message to that group. It was a l-o-n-g message and she paced s-l-o-w-l-y as she delivered it.  One mousy man in the corner simply would not stop chattering. So the Great Heron looked at him and then suddenly she grabbed him in her beak and plunged him beneath the surface of the meeting pond. She held him beneath the water until, well, you know what happened. Meeting adjourned.

     So when she walks into our meeting, the Great Heron gets all the respect that she demands. We had a consultant Peacock come one day to deliver a talk about Teamwork. He mistakenly called her a Stork. No amount of putting his tail up could ease that wicked look in that Heron’s eyes. But a Clamor of Rooks came to his defense and she had to sit quietly and stare angrily at us all. Could I get a Crow to Murder her? No.

     The situation is making some of us nervous types want to fly -  Fight or Flight, you know? Guess which is greater in THIS group.

© Copyright 2014, Jean W. Yeager

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WHERE GPS DOESN’T GO

WHO AM I?
     I am lost. Oh, I know where I am PHYSICALLY, I’m on this mountain track in rural Kentucky – Wolf Creek Road. Ominous name. There was a street sign where I turned off the paved State Highway and this road has been graveled. It leads up, up, up a heavily wooded mountain. But, my GPS doesn’t go into the land of the lost.
    My heart sinks because I haven’t been here before. I don’t know where I’m going, really. The woods seem superstitious and filled with old legends of mountain people, as my wife calls them. She was born in a ‘hollar up Miller’s Creek not too far from here.
    My son has risked this journey with me – he is a modern guy who does not usually put aside the GPS and go by reckoning, instinct, and “blind faith”. He does not ever want to be lost. If his GPS does not show the destination, he is uncertain.

WHY AM I HERE?
   I am from an older generation that was raised on rarely knowing in advance where we would wind up or how we would get there on any of life journey in life large or small. I have a life-pattern I’ve long recognized of starting out on trips, business deals, relationships – most every “journey” regardless of how you would define that; and mid-way, or thereabouts, something happens that causes concern, or delays, or problems.
   This time, I feel lost, AM lost, honestly. Other times the project gets terribly complicated for unknown reasons. Or, the person I want to get to know has a problem and doesn’t show up. It is a pattern of my journey. All our lives are made up of patterns.
   Not going up unknown roads is a pattern. Relying on technology rather than personal resources is a pattern. Being fearful of people who live in certain neighborhoods. I got lost in North Philly once and was the only white guy for miles. Cultural patterns in our brains won’t be solved by some soul GPS. We have to have courage, strength

WHAT DO I WANT?
    I want to see my cousin who lives up this road so we press on. My son flips his GPS.
    We pass Tater Knob Pottery on the way up. They make hand-thrown pottery. I’ll stop for a spoon-bread baking dish on the way back. Thanksgiving would not be the same without preparing my wife’s Aunt Etta Clay’s recipe cornbread casserole and I broke the last Tater Knob dish last year. (A bad moment in my cooking journey.) The casserole is not the same in Pyrex.
The numbers on the mail boxes get out of order and the lesser numbers get ahead of the higher ones, the road splits several times and we have to guess which branch to take, we pass a pasture filled with Llamas (who would have thought?), but finally make it to Barbara’s. Her warm smile welcomes us, we have a nice visit, catch up on the family.


On the way back we stop at Tater Knob to buy the dish. The “Low Tire Pressure” light comes on and we see the passenger side tire is going flat. In very rural areas with poverty, it is not uncommon for roofing nails to loosen and when the shingle is blown in a wind storm the nails may frequently wind up on the roads.


Rural people are resourceful and the folks at Tater Know had a portable air-pump and a tire-patch kit. They wondered why a Vermonter was in Kentucky but wound up being good friends of my cousin (and most of the people along Wolf Creek Road).


Where GPS doesn’t go you may find suffering, fear, friends and joy. Get lost, you will probably find something unforseen.


© Copyright 2014, Jean W. Yeager
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UH-OH

WHO AM I?

     Uh-Oh is the me who is ashamed of how I MIGHT do something wrong. It hasn’t actually happened yet, but it LOOKS LIKE something wrong I’ve done before. Uh-Oh is the one that judges actions before I actually do them, and then says its name. When I Uh-Oh, I am not actually aware of what truly is – I am only aware of my fear. The fear I have is about my lack of self-confidence, poor self-image or, feeling I am a failure. I hate these fears – they fly at me and scare me into shutting down what I am attempting and so, I repeat some mistake, or make a NEW mistake. Figures.

WHY AM I HERE?

     Uh-Oh is here to lead me away from old patterns. It is the me who is an example of how many times I hurt myself, needlessly. I think things matter in life. I care. I want to be perfect and cut myself little slack. Uh-Oh guides me to realizing that it is not helpful to judge myself BEFORE I do something. Regret, sure? Uh-Oh? No. If you fail, you get one regret and an opportunity to look at what happened, learn from it and improve.  If you Uh-oh, you choke and you fail, too. Why have TWO things to grieve over?

WHAT DO I WANT?

     A strong self-image is one which tries new or even risky things; sometimes succeeds sometimes fails; but learns something as a result. A weak self-image can’t even get to the trying something new because it is afraid of choking on the new action. And, then I drop back into my good-old vicious cycle of self-doubt, timidity, or non-action. When I don't let my Uh-Oh out, if I try, fail, and learn something new I might set-myself up for success next time! Next time you hear an Uh-Oh – take it as a signal. Then, shake it off and look - and I mean really LOOK at the situation - then decide what you need to do  and do it!

© Copyright 2014, Jean W. Yeager

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LIFE PENTIMENTO – I CAN’T FORGET YOU (and maybe I shouldn't)

WHO AM I?

     Life sometimes resembles a painting on a stretched canvas. Certain scenes and people are so vivid and have such a strong influence that they may profoundly affect us for years. In an actual painting, if the scene doesn’t go the way the artist intended, they can paint over the scene, people, or gestures with the new layer of white gesso and then paint a new scene over the top of the old one. On some paintings the surface becomes built up with a layer of thick pigments. You can tell the painting was altered even though the original scene is hidden and can’t be seen directly. Artists call the technique of painting over scenes: “pentimento”.

     I have found that experiences in my life have been painted over with a thick, opaque “gesso” of time and space. This has all but obliterated certain memories of people and things which happened – at least the intense memories which lingered for a long time are now not so powerful. They have been covered with thin coat which diminishes their power. The people and incidents beneath still influence my day-to-day life though they are not foreground.

     But the question is, who is the artist which white washed these events long past? My “wiser” self? Or, my “less wise” self?

WHY AM I HERE?

     Would my “wiser” self wish to hide my failures? Lessen my fears so that I seem stronger to myself? Or help me forget how my mother’s fears affected me? Would I really wish to my self-knowledge of my shortcomings be bad for me to acknowledge? Should I only feel good about myself? To always only see painted on my life’s canvas, my successes? Am I so afraid of being ashamed of some action that I avoid anything approaching shame? Do I really need a “draught of forgetfulness” in order to get through my life?

     In truth, it is the “wiser” self who actually brings challenges directly to meet our shortcomings. In this way you can change and grow. It must’ve been my “less wise” self who painted over those scenes and people and gestures.

This is the pathetic me - the self that wishes to be happy all the time. That does not mind sitting alone in my perfect self-delusion. That likes imaginary perfection and thinks that I’m “one heckuva guy”.

WHAT DO I WANT?

     As I get older, these life pentimento layers wear thinner and the events which were once hidden begin to affect the present. I have occasions when I see someone, and just for a moment, I am not sure if it was you. You know, the person from that time long ago, or not. A word prompts the layer of my longing or regret, long past, the covering thins, and the feeling is “boom” suddenly there.

     Rather than pentimento, my “wiser” self is starting to apply new brush strokes of forgiveness. We are even can intensifying the darkness beneath the white gesso and blending indigo with other colors to create some amazing shades that change the incidences into new experiences and opportunities. After all, those intense moments from the past did change us. Hopefully when we revisit to them we are much different - stronger. If not, it just means that we still have some work to do.

© Copyright 2014, Jean W. Yeager

All Rights Reserved

ON SALE NOW
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