The Wisdom of Children

Dear One, 

I open with a post below that I shared on Facebook, inspired by finding my granddaughter’ Sula’s words spoken when she was six, written down by her mother and pinned to my refrigerator almost exactly two years ago.  “What is the real meaning of everything?”   

Following the FB post is a very different sharing that also begins with a question, this time: “Are there dragons on Massachusetts?”  That question comes from five-year-old Cypress, among many others about grizzly bears, crocodiles and… well. I better stop so there are no spoilers.  😉

Being with Sula and her three brothers, I am reminded daily of the losses that are being endured in our human family even as I type.  I am also reminded of the world that so many of us long to create for and with our children.

The Facebook post below is also part of my commitment to pause to notice the love, joy and wonder there is in life (no matter what else is going on).   I stopped on October 7th and for days afterwards, finding  it so hard to continue.   But someone who had been following my posts for over a month, wrote to remind me of But someone who had been following my posts for over a month, wrote to remind me of  VIGIL OF LIGHT,  which I had written and shared on HARVESTING LOVE blog. After I revisited that story of my grandmother’s message, I continued to harvest love, joy and wonder.   

Here then is my Facebook post:

I pause in wonder and gratitude for the wisdom of children.  

I pause with love for their heart-opening vulnerability and strength.

I pause with shock and grief at the harming and taking of their precious, precious lives because we grownups carry wounds within us that we have not learned how to heal individually and collectively.

I pause to link my heart (to the best of my ability) to the hearts of parents losing children and the children losing parents.

I pause to feel compassion for and send love to Israelis, Palestinians, and others in my global family who are in unspeakable pain that is fueling their fear and hatred of “the other.”

I pause to not know, not understand, and not judge how we can still cause each other so much harm and be so divided.

I pause to recognize and hold my own fear that we may not evolve as a human species, that we may just cause more terrible destruction, even of our very planet.

I choose faith in the power of Love, even in the presence of my fear and the raging fear of others.

I make the choice—eyes and heart open—to feed with my light and love the possibility of peace where many (as yet) believe it to be impossible.

I choose yet again to nurture and ground my faith in the power of love to usher in a global transformation.

I pray to the Source of all existence to awaken and strengthen us to live as the Love and Light that we are. 

Amen.   Amin.

“Are there dragons in Massachusetts?”

The above question last night from my five-year-old grandson Cypress Moon, came at the end a conversation that began with me asking Cypress and his brother three-year-old Elouin Crow in their darkened room at bedtime, “If you like, I will take turns lying with you.”

To which Cypress replied, his tone a particular combo of musing and enthusiastic,  “Oh, Amani!  I just realized that you don’t mean that you are going to lie to us!  You are not saying that you are going to tell a lie!”   

I could feel his excitement without seeing his face in the dark room.  He continued, delighted with his discovery.

“There are two kinds of lie: telling a lie and laying in bed.” 

I confirmed, suggesting we find a few other words that sound the same but mean different things.  (I hoped this might not be too stimulating, but rather a somewhat boring endeavor to help bring on sleep.)  

I brought up bear.   “There’s bear like the mama bear and her cubs that came to your house once.”

After a brief pause, I heard from Cypress. “I remember,” in a way that suggested he was seeing the big mama bear coming around the corner of the shed.

I continued.  “And there is bare, like having a bare bum.”  I thought there might be a bit of laughter after that one, but instead, Cypress replied:

“Are there grizzly bears in Massachusetts?  Because Grizzly bears are really dangerous.”

“No, no grizzly bears around here.”  I said, happy to report that.

Cypress moved on to asking if there are crocodiles in Massachusetts, Elouin echoing with “cocodiles.”

“No,” I reassured again.

“Alligators?”

“Not in Massachusetts.”

“I know!”  Cypress said triumphantly, “there aren’t any hippopotamuses in Massachusetts, right?”

“Right.”

It was getting late and my idea about this being a boring, sleepy conversation was clearly not the case, so I suggested that maybe we each take a turn and say just one more thing.  

“Amani, are there dragons in Massachusetts?

I sensed the most concern about this possibility.  When it was my turn, I said that dragons are actually pretend—and that we could for sure talk more about dragons when it was not so late.

Maybe it was relief about dragons not being real, plus Elouin being exhausted by his full-scale revolt a bit earlier that allowed quiet to ensue. In the dark with the soothing white noise of a new Hepa air purifier, there were no more questions.

***

Just a little while earlier before the welcome serenity finally reached, I had been engaged in my first ever genuine power struggle, a real showdown with little Elouin.  I had heard about these from his mom, but I had never been in the fire. 

We had come up to start getting ready for bed.  But when I told Elouin it was time to put on his pajamas, he stomped his foot and yelled, “No.”   Followed by throwing himself on the floor, getting up to emphatically throw the pajamas in the air that mama had laid out so carefully on his bed,  “No!” to swapping his undies for a nighttime diaper. 

In response to my It’s time to go to sleep, Elouin” refrain: more Nos, forcefully proclaimed.  He pulled out the panel on the side of his bed that keeps him from rolling out, dragged his blanket to the floor.  Threw a few matchbox cars for extra emphasis. 

Meanwhile, thankfully, Cypress was changing his clothes and cooperatively heading to the bathroom for toothbrushing—deterred along the way by a sudden urgent search for a flashlight so that he could see a bump in his mouth better.  Agreeing to stop his search and check out the bump in the morning, he finished brushing and actually got into bed.

I knew that, somehow, I needed to win this struggle with Elouin who was clearly not going to just fall asleep on the floor (whihch had crossed my mind as a good option).  I gently pinned him, and despite a whole lot of strong kicks and flailing arms, I got his pull-up diaper on, then his pajama pants. He was furious with me.  Overpowered and MAD.  It was painful for both of us—we had never had a face-off like this. 

“You mean. You dumb. You tupid,”  he repeated, having learned this from his older sibs when they were feeling defeated and at the losing end of a power struggle with each other or their mama or papa.    

Finally, facing each other—we were literally in a standoff, him against the wall on his bed, me on the other side of his mattress—what happened next felt like a sudden touch of grace. 

“Do you want a hug?”  I said, feeling a great yielding and tenderness  take over.

Elouin looked straight at me, his eyes welling with more tears.  He nodded silently, slowly crossed the bed to me, and we held each other.  We swayed together for a few seconds.  Then, not saying anything, he lied down.  I covered him with his blanket.  

“Lay with me. In my bed., Amani.  Pease.” he said softly.  I asked if he wanted me to lie down beside him or sit at the edge of his bed (his usual preference).  He let me know it was to sit at the edge of his bed.  I did, holding his little foot.

That is when I announced quietly to both boys that I would take turns lying with each of them… Which brings us back to the opening scene of this post.

***

Later, sitting in the room with both of them asleep,  I thought of Elouin’s defiance and my initial reactivity. I felt again in my body what it was to surrender the fight, to look across the distance between us and meet “the other” with compassion, entering an embrace that needed no more words. 

We came together—us humans can come together—in a space beyond the struggle and enmity.  No victor.  No victim.

There is something so instructive here in the current crises our human family finds itself.

I am reminded of Rumi’s words about which I think these days so, so often.  “Out beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.”

May it be so.  Shalom.  Salaam.

With love and gratitude for all the teachers and lessons in living our Love.

This includes my gratitude for you,  reading this.

My love,
Ani

G'Mar Chatima Tova

I close with this customary greeting whose literal meaning is: "a good final sealing."  I will add to that:  May you know the love of which you are made.  What better than to know this? 

With gratitude,
Ani