NO MATTER THE AGE

I remember when I was a teenager or younger, how some adults dismissed me as being too young, as though I had no feelings or awareness of anything.   My feelings when fifteen years old were no different than the adults I now meet that are going through relationship difficulties, and feel hurt, alone and despondent.  No matter our age, culture or color, when we hurt or feel sad, we need caring, respect, listening, and love around us.  Most of all, a sense that we matter, and we get "to." 

MAGMA AND OUR BODIES

Guess what?  Transcend your mind and need to make sense, and these words may make sense.  We have hidden fissures within our bodies that are containers for the voices andreactions of others since birth.  Like magma beneath the surface of earth, or our bodies, it flows freely, sometimes erupting or oozing out slowly, shaking up the forests and mountains around it.  That is what it does.

 Our bodies carry this magma in the form of heated exchanges, old beliefs, and emotional and feeling channels seeking free flow, unobstructed, and part of the earth and all the inhabitants. Open channels are us.  We are the open channels ultimately.

 Open for ourselves, and open for all those around us, wanting only to flow freely, unobstructed by past fears, past closures and, once again, beliefs not our own. Love is the magma. 

BEYOND OUR BELIEFS: PART 2

“Don’t worry about doing anything right. 
 Be curious, play......listen."   

             Tess Lerner .....A wise woman seer

                                                                     
Children everywhere of all sizes, genders, ages and colors, need fairness, equal respect, compassion, inclusion and total equality within the family, the community and the world.

I'm a child.  I know what I am doing. I know who I am.  Follow me.  See me.  Find me in you.  Really, find me in you.  I am the voice of the universal child.   My voice is your voice, the one hidden by beliefs not your own.  Beliefs that seem so familiar and natural,  yet, are often not the beliefs you had when a little person. 

Being a child is a universal story.  It is a human story, no matter the color of your skin, or religion, nor part of the world you live in.  Being a child has nothing to do with age, height, weight or where you live.  Children emerge into this world, not only innocent, but a living example of what all of us busy, hurried, smart phoned, Facebooked, big people can access and live out again------freeing ourselves from physical and emotional symptoms requiring medications, diagnoses and believing we are never quite good enough. 
 

Would our minds take a rest?  Would our need to compare, judge, blame and feel alone, or separate exist in the same way?  Schools, books, workshop trainers and psychology people could be transformed into the practice of listening well, caring, transcending the need for punishment, rules, regulations and defined expectations of others, especially children.      

    

TONE OF VOICE IS EVERYTHING

Who are the children?  Really.   Who are these little beings that come through us, into our daily lives and bring an energy filled body, wanting only to play, touch, laugh and be who they are?   Are they simply innocent little humans that need to be taught, raised and channeled into a world of rules, regulations, expectations and programmed systems?

Just wondering.  Actually, I'm not wondering.  Simply by recalling my early years as a child surrounded by an adult world filled with what I was supposed to do, prepare for and live out, I even wondered then what this world was all about.

 My secret life was about wondering.  Then there was my uncle Solly, a professional photographer, lover of music, and someone who I could sit with for hours and listen to his speaking voice, his stories, his sense of equality with me, even when I was still wearing diapers.

His voice remained constant in tone and respect whether he spoke to me or to the adults around me.
I didn't consciously know how he saw me, but I felt his equality with me.  I was not a "less than"
human because of my size or age.  To him, I was ageless, as most children are.  He was the one adult
person that spoke to me with the same tone of voice as he used with my parents or other adults

In later years when he was in his eighties, and about 30 years after I last saw him, I unexpectedly visited with him.  I sat across from him in his big house in Los Angeles, and told him how he was the one human being that taught me about equal respect at a heart and soul level.  I told him that his simple equal tone of voice allowed me to stay connected with being myself the rest of my life.

He cried, held my hand, and I continued.  "By being yourself, respectful and simply kind and loving, I got to keep that part of myself alive.....and to share your gift to me with others. 

He was another angel in disguise.  

A LOVE STORY: AND A COIN

My son and I were sitting in a small local breakfast place in Santa Monica, California.  We were surrounded by families, and people from everywhere......all colors, sizes and genders.  A world setting. 

Two boys about seven and eight, sat a few feet away with their mothers.  The younger boy was wanting something, struggling against his mother, and crying angrily.  His mom was attempting to get his attention and calm him, as she held one of his arms.  
      
Inside me, I felt his frustration.  I took a coin out of my pocket, placed it in my hand, turned my chair towards his table, and with both hands extended in front of me, I reached into his line of vision two feet away, and said, "tell me which hand the coin is in." Immediately, he turned, facing me directly.   smiling, ready to join me.  My intent was not to fix him, but to join him.

With a clear voice, I repeated, "Guess which hand has the coin."  He reached out to touch one hand, then the other.  He was moving up and down with joy.  I pulled my hands behind my back again to shift the coin.  This time, when I brought my hands back in front of us, he quickly reached out to gently hold on to one hand, believing it held the coin.  His whole body was laughing.  

We continued the "game" several times, connecting with our eyes, our hands and with laughter.  I was
warm inside.  We were bonded. 

One mother started to cry.  She looked at me.  "Thank you,"  she said through tears.  "Thank you."  Their food came and they ate together, all smiling. 



 

CARTWHEEL AND THE LITTLE BOY

The boy was about five years old.  He was unable to perform a cartwheel in front of a spontaneous tourist crowd of about 400 people.  He had volunteered along with two other young people, a girl and boy about age eight, to stand before a Venice beach, California crowd of tourists from around the world.  None of the young people knew what they would be asked.  They were offered $20 each for volunteering to do something.... a something they did not know in advance.  .

With the background of beach and ocean, the hundreds of women, children and men stood in awe of the setting and what might happen.  Everyone smiling in anticipation.  Three children volunteered to stand in the middle of all this, without knowing what they would be asked to do.  Two boys and one
girl all between age five and eight.  After some comedic performance by the facilitators, the children were asked to do a Cartwheel. 

The girl did a partial cartwheel.  The next boy did a little less of one.  The third little one, about five, froze in place.  He could not do a cartwheel, or a partial one and was frozen in place. He could not move. 

One of the young gymnastic type men, rather than pressure the boy, or encourage him further, simply walked over to him, gently, with the boy's permission, picked him up and helped him do a cartwheel, standing in place.  He did it with compassion, kindness and respect for the little boy. 

As I stood at the edge of the crowd circle, and seeing how they spoke with and treated the boy, I cried inside and outside.  The crowd applauded and yelled, "yes." That little boy was me, and probably most young children who had been pressured, judged and embarrassed for falling short of expectations, believing themselves wrong.  My body released a tension I did not know existed since childhood.   The boy was OK just as he was, and who he was.  No embarrassment, pressure or shame.

SOCIAL JUSTICE FOR CHILDREN

Children everywhere of all sizes, genders, ages and colors, need fairness, equal respect, compassion, inclusion and total equality within the family, the community and the world. I'm a child.  I know what I am doing. I know who I am.  Follow me.  See me.  Find me in you.  Really, find me in you.  I am the voice of the universal child.   My voice is your voice, the one hidden by beliefs not your own.  Beliefs that seem so familiar and natural,  yet, are often not the beliefs you had when a little person.  Being a child is a universal story.  It is a human story, no matter the color of your skin, or religion, nor part of the world you live in.  Being a child has nothing to do with age, height, weight or where you live.  Children emerge into this world, not only innocent, but a living example of what all of us busy, hurried, smart phoned, Facebooked, big people can access and live out again------freeing ourselves from physical and emotional symptoms requiring medications, diagnoses and believing we are never quite good enough.    Would our minds take a rest?  Would our need to compare, judge, blame and feel alone, or separate exist in the same way?  Schools, books, workshop trainers and psychology people could be transformed into the practice of listening well, caring, transcending the need for punishment, rules, regulations and defined expectations of others, especially children.         today, now, this moment, I and we can speak to children and see them exactly as we would like to be seen.  Exactly.  We do not need to raise children.  We need to Be with them.  To be continued.