40 days

Every year around this time, my teacher sends out an invitation to join her in something she calls '40 Days of Sobriety'.

Inspired by Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, and Hindu traditions, it is a beautiful modern take on the traditional fasting intended to move us from winter slumber into Easter celebration, a kind of modern-day lifestyle detox.

It involves ten guidelines to be followed as faithfully as possible for 40 days (from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday):

1. Do something for another person (in deed or financially)

2. Spend at least fifteen minutes meditating, reciting a mantra, or praying.

3. Listen with full attention to a beautiful piece of music (such as an excerpt from Bach's Mattheus Passion)

4. Refrain from killing any living creature (including flies and mosquitoes), and therefore eat vegetarian

5. Refrain from lying, gossiping, saying unkind things about another person, and cursing

6. Refrain from eating sweets, snacking, mindless eating, alcohol, cigarettes and drugs

7. Do not take anything that is not given to you

8. Refrain from watching TV

9. Limit interactions with internet to that which is strictly necessary for work and other obligations

10. Limit spending to the strictly necessary

...

For the last seven years or so (as long as i've been getting the invitation), i have done my darned best to take part every year.

I say 'my best' not because i failed (how can you fail a series of intentions?), but because taking part has required an unusual dose of will-power and inner bullying. While my degree of compliance has varied with the years, as you would expect, my basic resistance to the entire procedure has remained constant, aka MASSIVE.

The thing is that somewhere along the way, it has dawned on me that huge amounts of will-power and inner bullying are not, despite what it says in the advert, the best way to move through life... And that maybe resistance of such magnitude is to be kindly acknowledged and explored, not squashed under foot...

In the wake of which discoveries, i had kind of made up my mind to not even attempt the lifestyle fast this year.

But then something happened, something a big magical, that made me change my mind.

A few days ago, the usual invitation arrived in my mailbox. Except, it wasn't the usual invitation at all. To be specific, two words had been added to it:

It was now called '40 Days of Sobriety and Sustainability'.

and that, believe it or not, has made all the difference.

What can i say, i am a language person... words mean the wor(l)d to me.

And i find 'sobriety' remarkably unmotivating. at the risk of misusing my lapsed catholic identity here, the very word 'sobriety' has always sounded a bit too sinfully calvinistic to my ears...

Mostly, though, i find sobriety unsustainable. Something i can achieve, with the above-mentioned dose of will-power and inner bullying, for a very short period of time, before relapsing straight into all my former 'bad unconscious habits' with a vengeance (a process referred to as 'backlash').

....

But this, this made me think. What if these 40 days were an invitation to sustainability? Now that had my inner ears pricked...

What if this was an invitation to create something truly sustainable? First and foremost sustainable for 40 days. But above and beyond that, a template for a sustainable life. A life that will sustain me, and a life that i can sustain. A life that will sustain my family and one that my family can sustain. And even further beyond, what if this was an invitation to a template for a sustainable world?

What if by taking the time to precisely define and then implement this sustainable lifestyle, i would be making a real contribution (possibly the only one within my power) to a more sustainable world?

Wow.

...

So i sat with it for a while. Under a tree.

...

And considered the ten guidelines. What they point to. How they meet my life where my life is at. What sustainable means, for me, for us, in each of these. And i have come up with a template for the next 40 days, that feels sustainable to me.

i am so excited...

(very mild levels of resistance being registered on the local Richter scale)

Here it is, for inspiration, for sharing, mostly so that i remember ;-).

40 Days of Sustainability Guidelines

1. Refrain from shouting at people (children, husbands, friends, family, cashiers, etc.)

(this requires extremely high and consistent levels of self-love, for i have discovered that i only (ever) shout at people when i am being shouted at, by the bully inside)

2. Eating sort of vegetarian

(i.e. vegetarian with the exception of fatty fish once a week and bone broths whenever needed for strength and nursing)

3. Dance to, hula hoop to, or attentively listen to a beautiful song every day

4. Meditate or pray for at least 15 minutes a day

(adding a compulsory fifteen minutes of meditation to my to-do day is not sustainable. however, i do spend an inordinate amount of time in bed, from 7 pm to 7 am, and if i let go of the idea that one must 'sit' to meditate, the time in which i could potentially meditate without having to squash time goes from 'noppes/nada/niente' to two hours or so. i think i can fit in fifteen minutes...)

5. Limit media

This requires some detailed explanation: TV and Internet are easy enough (none, and limited to work and this blog, respectively), but then there are books. And books, i have noticed, can be a great thing or not such a great thing, depending on how you use them. here are some of the not very good ways i have been known to use books: to beat myself over the head and try to bully myself into changing (my life, my body, my relationship, my kids, etc...), to escape from reality, to binge, and to generally overwhelm and hurry myself.

Sustainable reading probably means limiting my reading to the following categories of books: world literature, poetry, biographies and auto-biographies of interesting people, educational books (history, anthropology, sociology, etc.) and stuff written by holy people.

Specifically, in the next forty days, i plan to keep the following on my night-table (to be read from at will): The Book of Joy (Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu), One Hundred Years of Solitude (Garcia Marquez), On the move (autobiography of Oliver Sacks) and a wonderful historical book on the peoples of Europe in Roman times, with Asterix and Obelix as guides.

(Can't wait!)

6. Doing something for another person consciously

As a mother of four i spend most of my days doing things for other people. however, i often feel a martyr of this phenomenon, rather than a grateful partaker. for the next 40 days, i want to bring my attention to how i do things for others. how do i feel when i am asked to do something? when doing something for another person spontaneously? when do i say yes to requests, when do i say no? what would it take for me to be truly grateful for the fact that i can do so much for so many (little) people?

7. Turn my tongue in my mouth ten times before speaking (i expect this will greatly reduce any lying, gossiping, and other unpleasantness that makes its way into the world through my mouth)

8. No sugar and mindless snacking, but eating enough at meals instead

(i tend to eat too little at mealtimes because it's so busy, or i'm serving others or i just don't take the time to eat quietly, and then have to binge/snack to compensate for the two litres of milk i produce on a daily basis)

9. Do not take anything that is not given to you

(i think i only steal movies via pirate bay, but this is something i might have to look at in more detail...)

10. Breathe deeply and do a body check-in before any monetary transaction

(this is more interesting and far more sustainable in the long run than simply closing my wallet for 40 days, only to re-open it, unexamined, afterwards)

The 40 days start on Ash Wednesday, 1 March.

Who is joining me?

feetnote

(strange how my posts recently seem to have a tail (or in this case a pair of feet) that slowly raises to the surface after a day or two…)

Speaking of unconscious money patterns, here is another one i discovered (with data to back it up):

The budgetary body-mind rift.

aka: although I unhesitatingly spend thousands a year on my mind/spirit, my body has to make do with ten bucks or so.

Do you think this may be a fossilised remnant from my Catholic upbringing? The glorious mind, endlessly reaching up to its Creator, the lowly body, trying to dig itself into a premature grave through sin and depravation, and therefore better ignored or done away with altogether...

Sounds extreme? Let’s look at some figures.

As you may remember from my last post, last year i spent in excess of €5000 on personal self-development (none of which had much to do with creature comforts), plus another €200 or so on books and literature. So much for my mind.

What about my body? Total clothing and grooming expenses for 2016: €82 (unless you count the dentist).

hmm.

As it happens, for some time now, my feet have been dreaming of shoes. And not just any shoes, but new shoes, and not just any new shoes, but these beauties…

*i know, i know... taste is a matter of... well, taste, i guess... 'But mum....you will look like a gorilla!', said my eldest in an exasperated tone 

i don't care. i want them anyway. because i spend most summers walking around barefoot, and my feet love it, because with every passing year these same said feet are more and more reluctant at the end of summer to re-enter their leather prison, because happy feet make a happy woman, because i tried them on in the store around the corner from my house and never ever ever wanted to take them off again, because… damn it, because i want them.

The price tag: €130 (on sale).

i swear to you, if these were not shoes, but an online course on how to create a fantastic website for my new business while high on a combination of ayahuasca and transcendental meditation, or an illustrated leather hand-bound medieval treatise on the relation between human gut flora and the secret life of gorillas and flowers, I wouldn’t even blink. Not. Even. Blink.

But these are shoes. 

So it’s been four months.

Four months in which i sold former shoes of mine to ‘save’ money for these, ploughed the internet relentlessly for a better deal, explored second-hand alternatives, hesitated, hesitated some more, decided it was much too expensive ‘for our family’, poured over extensive and detailed studies of exactly how long these shoes are supposed to last before they have to be replaced...

(by all accounts, the answer to the latter question is ‘one year or so’) 

(WHAT?!!!?????!!!!!??? ONLY ONE YEAR!!! WHAT A RIP-OFF!!! You mean I’ll have to buy a new pair EVERY YEAR??!!!! Do you realise that means €100-150 A YEAR? For shoes??? What madness is this? I have been managing just fine on my €15 shoe budget!) 

(plus, that online course i recently took on how to create a fantastic website while high on gut flora and gorilla flowers offered LIFE-LONG access to all materials...!).

Four months, people, and still no shoes…

This makes me a bit sad… Because feet are a bit like a dog, aren't they? Unconditionally faithful, loving, forgiving, joyful. And always up for long walks... no matter the weather. 

i always say i love my feet. But if ‘love’ was a verb, where would this loving of mine be showing? 

…

Maybe I’ll be brave, and loving. Maybe i'll redirect some of my as-yet-unspent personal development budget for this year to get my feet a lovely shell for all those long free hours in the forest.

…

uncoiled

a friend invited me to a fun course on Shamanism. it looked great. i said i wasn't going to do it, seeing as it was my new year's resolution to do fewer fun things...

well, that seemed like a pretty awful new year's resolution, so i tried to explain...

'i mean fewer fun things that still end up costing time, energy and money, and for which i don't actually have time, energy or money, but of which i hope they will dispel my persistent feeling that i don't have enough time, energy and money for the fun things in my life.'

it sounded like an interesting flippant thing to say, but the more i thought about it, the bigger it grew. until this morning when i finally understood how HUGE it actually is.

for those of you who don't know me, i work as a freelancer. which means that every single day i receive e-mails from people offering me assignments, and every single day i have to decide how many of these assignments i take on.

now, don't these sound like absolutely bloody fantastic working conditions? that's because they are! (and i won't even brag about the fringe benefits, such as the fact that i do most of my work lounging on my bed in my pyjamas, and get to stop often for naps, snacks and cuddles, not to mention forest walks...) (seriously, don't know of a single company that offers their employees such a good deal)

and yet... over the past seven years (which is how long i've had this business), i managed to give myself one full and three mini burn-outs.

HOW?

you may well ask... it stumped me too... for a long long time... i could sense the iceberg of it, but couldn't see it for the life of me...

until...

until the HUGE insight hidden in my flippancy to my friend revealed itself as a detailed map of the devilish circle i'd been dancing in.

this vicious circle looks like this (yes, you get to see more of my lovely scribbles...)

it begins with a (subconscious) decision to overwork. Now, by overworking i don't mean working a sixty-hour week, or at 3 am, or on Sunday afternoon. luckily i am saved from such lethal practices by motherhood and husbandry. no, overwork in my case is more subtle. it basically consists in taking on more work than i strictly speaking need and/or is good for me.

having pondered this for some time, i reached the conclusion that my overworking is always driven by  a subtle form of greed (as in 'i could use just a little bit more cash today/this week/this month') and a subtle form of fear (as in 'there may be enough for us all today, but what if the source dries up tomorrow? i have to make sure we have enough for tomorrow (and the day after, and the day after, and the day after...)').

this overworking of mine always (always, ALWAYS) leads to stage two of the circle, which is overwhelm. Although the experience varies greatly in intensity, its quality is quite consistent: this is the feeling that there is no room (no time, no energy) in my life for me. if i dig a little deeper, it invariably turns into 'i cannot feel my body' and/or 'i cannot hear my inner voice'. it's a dry, uninspired, grey, busy, tense, time-obsessed, empty place.

to escape from the misery of overwhelm, i use a strategy that seems promising, and happens to be advertised all over my Facebook feed, which is overspending. this brings us back to my conversation with my friend, because my specific overspending habit consists of splurging money on lovely profound, in-depth, high-value and amazing retreats, workshops, and online courses, paying wise, lovely, profound, amazing, in-depth people to help me reconnect with my body and hear my inner voice again.

every time i do this, however, the price tag on my life goes up. After all, this soul work (the therapy sessions, the retreats, the workshops, the yoga classes, the online courses) is so essential to my life, and really when you think about it, you might say it's the most essential thing of all: that which makes it possible for me to feel my body and hear my inner voice.... Wow! Clearly, this has to be included in our family budget. In fact, put like that, it should be right up there with food and water as far as our family priorities are concerned.

but hey, that's not a problem. i'm lucky. i'm a freelancer. i get to decide how much i work. i will just add a few hours to my working week, and i'll be able to afford this therapy, retreat, workshop or course every single year (trimester, month, week...) and bob's your uncle.

phew... saved by the bell...

hmph.....

did i mention that this is HUGE???!!!???

because... i could also... let's see.... well, maybe not immediately take on that one extra work assignment, but instead go spend an hour in the forest, leaning with my back against an old old tree, sitting with my fear, sitting with my greed, sitting with the general discomfort arising from both. there, in the quiet, i might, no, i know i would, i will, feel my body, and hear my inner wisdom (for free and without the help of a wise, amazing workshop facilitator), and my body and inner wisdom will sit with me and my greed and fear until the greed and the fear abate. then i would know, because i would, i will know, and hear, that maybe i don't need the cash from the extra work assignment (because there is enough, because the source has always been plentiful), so i wouldn't take it. as a result of which, i guess, maybe, i would have more time, to spend in the forest...

like this:

how about that...

* far from me any intention of crapping on amazing workshops, therapies, retreats and online courses, but i have been wondering for some time, in a quietly-nagging-at-the-back-of-my-mind kind of way, how it is possible that we all seem to need all of this therapy, yoga, retreating and workshopping so badly, so badly... like water and bread... how did our mothers, grand-mothers, great-grand-mothers and all previous generations survive without all this stuff... how did they do spirituality, well-being, inspiration, body, inner wisdom? How did they dance? because they did, didn't they, they sure did, they left novels, paintings, poems, recipes, and dance steps, and the blood running hot in my veins, and the tilt of my hip, they left evidence in my kisses, in my children's dreamy eyes, that they too, they knew, about inner hearing, about wisdom, about the body...

** you know where they went, don't you, for wisdom, for inspiration, for the body, and the dance... to the forest, to the sea, to church, to synagogue, in the early morning, to public libraries, museums and art galleries, to their garden, to their kitchen, to their women, their men, their children... and all of it unmediated and for free...

*** in the interest of science and credibility, i did some data research. in 2004, the year i first started therapy, our family budget for the first time featured a fixed cost category 'V mental health and well-being' of 420 euro in additional healthcare costs to cover bi-monthly therapy sessions. it has grown every year since. and not a bit either. the projected budget for this category in 2017, a financial year officially labelled by P. and me as 'lean', amounts to 3860 euro. talk about inflation! and this is a projected budget, which means that it does not include any 'impulse purchases'. the actual costs of this category for 2016 were well over 5000 euro. That's almost two months of 'full-time' work .... wow! that got me quiet right there...

****  the fact that i can easily retrieve such data, and look at them without flinching or occupational apneu is all owing to Bari Tessler's wonderful year-long Art of Money program, which P. and i are gratefully following for the second time this year.

***** no, the irony has not escaped me. what can i say? the human condition is a complex thing.

footnote and reference

how do you write a footnote to a blog post?

a few hours after publishing the 'February' post, i received a book in the mail. i want to say this was a magical intervention, because i've ordered this book four times since late October, and four times it failed to arrive, and then it did (arrive), with perfect halleluja timing...

here is an excerpt from page 9:

"This is uncharted territory. It's dark, moist, bloody, and lonely. I see no allies, no comfort, no signs out. I feel scraped open and raw. I look for the dismembered parts of myself - something recognizable -  but there are only fragments, and I don't know how to put them together. This is unlike any struggle I've had before. It's not the conquest of the other, it's coming face to face with myself. I walk naked looking for the Mother. Looking to reclaim the parts of myself that have not seen the light of day. They must be here in the darkness. They wait for me to find them because they no longer trust. I have disowned them before. They are my treasures but I have to dig for them. This journey is not about some fairy god-mother showing me the way out. I dig... for patience, for the courage to endure the dark, for the perseverance not to rise to the light prematurely, cutting short my meeting with the Mother."

That.

Reading it i realised this is not just the best description of February ever . It's where i am, have been, still am, will remain for a while. At least two years now, of moving down, down, down, deeper into the darkness. and although i am tired, and bruised, and lonely, it's too soon, too soon to rise towards air and light.

so i dig... here too, in these virtual pages, in your deeply reassuring presence, i dig. for patience, for courage, for perseverance.

up close and personal

i have a confession to make: try as i may i just can't seem to figure out a way to enjoy February. 

and now we are on the subject, one of the things i really (REALLY) don't enjoy about February is how it sticks in my face my inability to enjoy things i don't enjoy.

hmmm....

seriously, i have done everything i could: i've read all the right chirpy sounding books that tell me exactly what to do to be happy, i've applied all the ancient Eastern techniques (both gloomy and chirpy) to find and securely attach myself to the bliss of the present moment, i've tried to sink my teeth into my kids' necks and draw from their young blood all the joy of life so sadly lacking from my old brittle bones, i've tried gratitude journalling, standing on my head, eating less sugar, eating more sugar, exercise, fresh air, taking on less things, taking on more things, listening to inspiring people, dancing, artistic endeavours, a media fast, and a media feast... oh, and of course sleeping right through the whole thing (see earlier posts).

i stopped short of recreational and other drugs (unless you count a few weeks of daily paracetamol to reduce the effects of dental surgery (old and brittle my teeth are too...)), but only because a) i am too chicken and b) i am too chicken.

but no... i still hate February. Or rather, i hate myself, my children, my husband, my work, my friends, my house, my city, my century, and life in general... and it just happens to be February? 

Nah.... long, long (old and brittle i am...) experience tells me that this too shall pass, right around mid-March.

here is something: i told you that i go to the forest nearly every day, right? and how amazing it is, to see the forest, and hear it, every day anew. what an incredible, time-dissolving experience it is, and the magical encounters i have with the forest creatures, and how just being there, immersing myself in this living flow day after day after day heals me to the core of my being, and makes my soul sing. 

right?

well, this morning i sat on the forest floor, leaning against the usual tree, under a vague drizzle of a rain, ruminating for what could easily have been half a century on some dark train of thought, when i became distracted by a terrible racket. seven or eight tits had flown in out of nowhere and settled in a bush right next to me. believe it or not, those bloody birds just sat there chirping like there was no tomorrow, being so f...ing noisy... Unbelievable! i tried to concentrate on what i was doing (which was?...), but there was no way i could, not with that racket, they were making so much noise, i swear, i could feel white hot rage rising in my throat... in the end i just stood up, and shooed the little bastards away. 

seriously, stupid birds, can't they leave me alone???!!! like ever???!!! can't the world ever ever just leave me alone for a f....ing minute???!!!!!

there. that's February. discontent, rage, despair, hopelessness, lack of meaning and purpose, feeling lost, martyrdom, sadness, more sadness. February.

and it stubbornly (stubbornly) refuses to get fixed.

a wise woman came to visit this morning. i was annoyed with her because of how inconsiderate she was, dropping by like that when the baby has such a cold, and the teenager is still sick, and none of us got any sleep at all all night, and i have so much to do, and....

(i was the one to invite her) (i was so glad she came)

she said there is no need to fix February. or me. 

she said (or rather i heard her say) (so maybe she did...): maybe this is always there, underneath things, and it's only in February that you get to be with it. 

only in February, only after the very last leaf, and even the snow, has come and gone, only then, just then, can you feel and see what you spend the rest of the year trying to cover up.

only in February do i get to sing over these bones. 

hmmmm..... 

let's just say it's not a chirpy song.

a schematic overview

(We've had a bit of a tug-of-war about this post, my creative genius and I. It went more or less like this:

She: 'Here, this is what I want you to write next.'
Me: 'You must be out of your mind!'
She:  'Here, this is what I want you to write next.'
Me: 'No way!'
She: 'Here, this is what I want you to write next.'
Me: 'But it's a blog about mothering!'
She: 'Here, this is what I want you to write next.'
Me: 'But, but... I will make a fool of myself, nobody will ever read a word I write anymore, I will look like an idiot, people will point and laugh at me in the street (the two and a half who know it's me, should they ever pass by my street, at a moment when I am out too, and not be my mum, and happen to see me, and have nothing better to do), people will be irate, or bored, or ...'
She: 'Here, this is what I want you to write next.'
Me: ...

So, having settled that to everyone's satisfaction, and at the risk of sounding like a cross between six-year old Saint-Exupéry and a demented Brigitte Kaandorp, here we go...)

I recently made a discovery, about life and death (you know. the usual), that is kind of rocking my world, and which I would like, schematically as it were, to share with you today. But first, allow me to back-track a little.

When I was a child, and in response to my queries (I was that kind of kid), this is what grown-ups told me about life and death.

First, there was nothing (people were extremely, extremely vague about this bit, despite repeated attempts to obtain information). Then there was birth (here my mother and biology teacher rather helpfully provided the details). Then there was life, which hopefully would be long, prosperous, and full of adventures (can't say about the long yet, but check and check on the latter two). And then there was death, which all agreed was the end of life as we know it, and involved some or lots of pain, followed by rapid bodily decay.

After this point, opinions diverged widely.... from a return to the original vague nothing, to choirs of angels on clouds fiddling arias while deserving souls frolicked about and stuffed themselves with sweets, to a great many in-betweens (the variety expanded as I grew and came into contact with other grown-ups).

Lo and behold, turns out it's not like that at all.

(drum roll)

(I'm going to let you sit with that for a bit)

I guess this is what Galileo must have felt like, as he stared at the horizon of what he had known his entire life to be a flat pancake.

(drum roll)

(all right, enough sitting)

The rest of the information in this post is based entirely on something a fat robin in the forest near my house told me a few weeks ago.

(On a funny note, this was the same week I was doing a long (loooong) translation on psychosis, with extensive descriptions of early warning signs and precursor symptoms...) (nothing to do with discussing the meaning of life with small birds, obviously...)

One day, he (the robin) flew down from his usual perch in a bush on my left, hopped towards my foot, put his head to one side, and told me this

(drum roll. last one, I promise.)

'That in you which is alive has always been alive. 

That in you which was born and will die 

has been dying (and being born) all along.'

There. That's how it actually is.

('how it actually is' turned out to be a lot harder to draw that 'how I used to think it was'. But schematic or not, it is a great relief...)

Have a lovely Sunday.

Talking about the p...

Today I want to talk a little about the predator. I say 'a little' because what I do not know about the predator far far outweighs what I do know. But... I did manage to pick up a few bits of information here and there, which I'd like to put to paper (well, to white surface anyway), for future use, for sharing...

First off, what is the predator? The predator is a part of my psyche, an internal construct if you like, whose mission in life is to destroy me. That's right. The enemy is inside the gates (was it ever anywhere else?)... By destroy I mean eliminate from my life any joy, peace, serenity, satiety, satisfaction, inspiration and connection, and ultimately directly or indirectly cause my death. Over the years and my contacts with the predator I have come to the conclusion that it is not particularly interested in my physical death (it suspects, I suspect, that my physical demise might bring its own). Rather, it is the candle of my soul life that it wishes extinguished, and it is particularly disgusted by and hateful towards the child in me (the gentle, innocent, creative, inquisitive part).

What does the predator look like? I have found the classical European fairy tales I heard as a child to be particularly useful as a guide. You know, the way you take your mushroom book with you on a mushroom picking hike (unless you are like me, and only ever pick the two kinds that you know for sure for sure for sure will not hurt you) (or you are like pretty much everyone in this beautiful country I live in, and you believe mushrooms are both terribly dangerous AND terribly fragile and must be protected at all costs, i.e. you don't pick  mushrooms) (enough about mushrooms already) (wish I had chosen another nature guide category... Berries! You know, the way you take your berry book with you on a berry picking hike...).... Well, on my hikes through the landscapes of my life, I have found fairy tale books to be extremely useful guides for identifying and tracking the predator.

(speaking of fairy tale books, have you seen this fantastic wordless take on Grimm's tales? It's quite quite wonderful, and to be found in the public library)

In my life, the predator takes on the following shapes:

- The Big Bad Wolf: This is when I wake up in the dead of night from a terrible nightmare of running, fleeing, hiding, being hunted down, arrested, tortured, quartered and murdered, etc. When my mouth is dry, when my heart beats wildly in my throat, when my chest feels numb and cold and empty as if the terrible beast/dark creature/evil man of the dream had come straight out of me and torn my heart from my chest, probably to serve it raw to the evil queen. Sometimes, I feel that way during the day, without even closing my eyes. This too is a sign that the predator got me....

- The Snow Queen: 'Stop that crying right now, you big baby! Stop it! Stop all this slobbering feeling nonsense right away! Stop it right now! Or no more kisses for you! Never, ever, do you hear me?!?! No more kisses for you...'

- The Evil Step-Mother (usually with help from her daughters): 'Who told you you have a right to rest, to sleep, to eat?? To enjoy yourself??!!?? My girl, you must be utterly mad. You are here to serve, to serve, to serve. To serve me, and her, and her, and her, and him, and him, and him, and him. Serve. So keep your nose to the stone, keep your hands moving, there is much to do before the ball!!! What?!!? You want to go to the ball??!! My poor child, who would ever look at you? You look like shit. Have you seen your hair, your face, your dress!!!?? You, at a ball??!??? How silly... well, don't just stand there!!! There are sandwiches to make, floors to sweep, I want my nails done, come and read me a story, move, move, move. We haven't got all day!!!'

- Blue Beard: 'Listen kiddo, if you get curious, if you look under the carpet, if you dare to ask the living question, or look where the blood is seeping through, I will take away everything you care for, and tear you apart, limb by limb by limb.'

- The Cunning Devil: 'Oh you poor thing! You are having such a hard time... Let me help you! I have something here (red shoes, gold, a shining mirror, a magic carriage), it will make everything easy for you. You will never again feel (tick as appropriate):
 *hungry/*tired/*thirsty/*frustrated/ *confused/*sad/*angry/*disconnected
You will never again have to work hard, or walk long distances. I will make your life perfect. Right here. Right now. With my magic wand. It's not expensive, it's not difficult, all I need is for you to (tick as appropriate):
*sign right here (without reading the small print)/*give me your soul/*give me your child (oops, that was the small print, sorry, printing error, printing error, printing error!!!!)'

....

How do I know I have my paw stuck in the predator's trap? This is a most important question, and the fairy tale books don't talk about it much. I don't know the whole answer (far from it), but I know some...

I know that whenever I feel empty, hollow, overwhelmed, despairing, hopeless, victimised, terrified, stressed out, numb, anxious, frightened, angry, enraged, disconnected, rushed, in a hurry...

Whenever I think that I am no good, I am too weak, I am too slow, I am too little, life is too much, I have too much on my plate, I have to do the impossible, there is no way out, there is NO WAY OUT, we will all perish, the end will come soon, the end is here, I will lose everything, I am in danger, my children are in danger, I have reached a dead end, there is no hope for me, I will never manage, I might as well be dead...

Whenever I believe that the problem/the issue/the danger is out there: it's the system, the government, my upbringing, my mother, my father, the neighbours, my friends, the city council, my boss, my clients, my children, my enemies, my clients, the tram driver, the jew-haters, the communists, my ex-husband, the voters, the non-voters, the healthcare system, the educational system, some other system, my son's best friend, the kitten (YES, damn it, I knew it, IT IS THE KITTEN!!!!!)....

Whenever I believe that the solution to the problem/the issue/the danger is also out there (in the system, the government, etc..) (won't even mention the kitten...)...

... then my paw is in a trap.... some part of me has been captured, taken hostage, by the predator.

What else? The predator does not want me to experience genuine love, joy, peace, vitality and connection. Instead it wants me to constantly tweak my body, my relationship, my days, my children, my home, my career, my friends, my Facebook page in search of something vaguely shiny and always shifting that looks from a distance (the only place you ever see it from) like it might almost (especially if the light is right) resemble some poor artist's drawing of love, joy, peace, vitality and connection.

The predator does not want me to look at the predator (clearly (as in 'look at it clearly' AND 'clearly, it doesn't want me to look at it'... oh, language!!...), so it keeps my eyes steadily focused on 'out there' stuff.

How to defeat the predator? Clearly (again?!?), this is not a one-time battle. Luckily the book is specific and precise on what you need to succeed:

Gentleness, innocence, kindness (in the stories the child, the main target of the predator, is also the only one who ever manages to get the better of it), in spades and buckets.

Curiosity.

Clear seeing.

Love, much of it.

Faith, and divine or magic protection.

Help from the body. Help from the animals. Help from the trees. Help from the moon, and the sun, and the sea. Help from the witch.

Courage.

Strength.

Suppleness.

A good friend or two.

Enough sleep. Enough food. Enough water.

How do you know you have managed to escape (for now)? Because life will be life again. Some lovely, some yucky, all of it manageable. Because there will be a scar, but you will not be broken (you did not die, you did not die...). Because the body will be joy, or sadness, or peace. Before moving out of that, into whatever it will be next. Because you will feel yourself breathe. And breathing will be delicious. Because nothing will have changed and everything will be different. Because the monster will turn out to have been the shadow of the curtain, the big bad wolf the neighbour's grumpy puppy, the evil queen your mother-in-law with a cold, the devil the insurance company guy, blue beard your tired husband. For now. Because there might be a dance, a tune, a drawing, a painting, a song, a poem, a blog post, an idea, that will bring delight. And that you will not need to hold on to for dear life. Because the babies' heads will smell like wild flowers, and wild flowers will look like babies' smiles.

Because you will feel yourself breathe. And breathing will be delicious.

(to be continued... as soon as I know more)