KS&L 378 Returning Home

by Tina Erwin

         Recently, I returned to my hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina. I was attending a book signing. I found being in Greensboro, after all these years almost a surreal event. I left North Carolina one chilly day in October 1972 to join the Navy and I never looked back.

         I returned to the houses I grew up in, the neighborhoods I walked, and noted with quiet pleasure that the trees I had loved as a child were still standing. Neighborhoods change, become different because people make a neighborhood and people change. Thomas Wolfe, in Look Homeward Angel was right: you really cannot ever go home again, you cannot return to those places of childhood with the same eyes. If you think you can, then you have not evolved as a soul, as a person.

         In this tool of transformation, I have had the opportunity to return to the past, perhaps to give it a healing look and then to decide that there really are no ghosts to move on, maybe they are all gone now, buried in the past of memories held close and the wisdom from experiences hard won.

         It wasn’t just returning to old residences, or seeing old memories in a new way, it was more than that. I think perhaps it was looking back over a lifetime of traveling, meeting people and building on a childhood rich in variety of experiences and emotions. For me, it was amazing to look out a window, see all of these beautiful trees and catch a glimpse of a rain shower washing the day, followed by a light shaft always piercing the grey of a cloudy moment.

Fascinating how we all change and yet in some way, we are the same person. I feel I am different because of what I have lived and yet I am still that same little girl who wanted to visit all of those far away places with strange sounding names. I am still visiting them, still traveling and still sharing with family and friends. Perhaps at the end of the day, that is really what mortal life is all about, traveling down that road of experiences, sharing it with the beloved ones in our lives, aware, poignantly, that who we have with us is a gift of momentary time. Going back in time can move us forward into the future because we have come to appreciate the past in the context of the present. When we can do that, we can feel we have advanced down that long road of soul evolution and the happy acquisition of wisdom.

Father's Day

by Tina Erwin
This is an excerpt from The Lightworker's Guide to Everyday Karma  

        Parenting has often been discussed. What it means to be a mother seems to be more universally understood than what it means to be a father.  There are far more “how to” books for mothering than for fathering, as if somehow, fathering is not quite as important.

         Each of us has our own definition of what a father is or is not supposed to be based on our own unique experience. In today’s world, intact families are the unusual anomaly, no longer the norm. My daughter once remarked that she was the only one among her friends with original parents in a healthy marriage.

         Is this state of affairs of separated families a good or a bad thing? It is not good or bad; that’s just how it is now. Often, because it seems that karma is being speeded up, many things have to be resolved in this lifetime regarding relationships and at a much greater speed than in the past. What that means is that couples lead more complicated lives and it is often not as easy or as time affordable to work things out between couples. This, in turn, means that there are more and more families without fathers. Sometimes it seems that there is more karma being created on the negative side in divorces than can be resolved in one lifetime. It does not have to be that way.

         Some divorce situations are so filled with rage and anger that kids feel disloyal if they try to maintain their love for both parents. Some parents use their kids as pawns to punish their partners. No one ever wins this pissing contest:  everyone just gets really stinky.

         Perhaps the greatest loss to families is the concept of the involved father. The involved father is a man who helps as an equal partner, respects the mother and remains in an active partnership with the mother, providing balanced discipline for the kids. Parents who support one another are often quite rare.

         Many women who grow up without fathers never really understand men and often take on their mother’s hatred of men, which then deprives the daughter of a loving relationship with a good husband. Many boys grow up with fathers who hate and abuse women and the same situation is the result. These things work both ways.

         We need fathers. The reason we have two parents is the balance and wisdom a child receives from both a male and female perspectives.

         We need fathers to be teachers to their kids, to be examples of what moral values stand for and for teaching that kindness backed with strength of character are the foundations for a successful life. We need fathers who keep their word and are fair in all their dealings.

         A really good Dad is a teacher for all his children, offering them the benefit of his wisdom when it comes to people, politics, career guidance, sportsmanship, building things, tools, and life in general.

         Fathers teach balance in a marriage:  doing chores, washing dishes, sharing in the cleaning, yard work and errand running.

         Fathers teach consideration when shopping for birthdays, Mother’s Day and holidays for mothers and siblings.

         Fathers teach politics when they discuss their jobs with their sons and daughters so that the children can understand how the real world functions from a man’s perspective.

         Children learn what marriage is like only from watching their parents. Kids will do what their parents do unless they are very, very savvy and can differentiate from what was great about their parent’s marriage and what required improvement.

         Boys learn how to treat women with respect by watching their father interact with their mother. If the father is kind and considerate, then sons learn this. Girls learn how women are to be treated from their father’s attitude toward their mother. The abusive/disrespectful father creates abusive kids, abusive adults, and ultimately abusive parents. The physically and verbally violent father creates horrific trauma for children literally for generations to come.

         Like everything else in human relationships, the father connection is very complicated. Let us hope that more men decide to be really great fathers because they are incredibly important in everyone’s life.

So, on Father’s Day or any day of the year, let us honor all those who do represent the best of fathering and let us say a prayer for all those fathers who do not, in the hopes that some day, they may come to understand the tremendous importance of the father’s role in a child’s life.

KS&L 377 Changing Toxic Family Dynamics

By Tina Erwin

Dysfunctional families are the norm these days. Parents yell at kids. Kids are disrespectful. Family members engage in endless dramas and scandalous gossip. Relatives feed on the negativity in each other’s lives. Maybe it has always been that way. Maybe people like negative family drama. Do you?

Are you the one who watches the dramas unfold, and longs to live a different life? Are you the one who wants to know how to begin to change that drama? Great, look in the mirror and decide that you can make a difference. Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with you. . . .

If you are the one who watched your parents scream their marriage into shambles by humiliation, derision, accusations and doubt then you can look at your own relationship choices and make a conscious decision to have a different life. The first step is not to enter a relationship like your parents had. However, that is quite a challenge if that toxic pair was your only example and the plastic couples on television are mere illusions.

Decide that you are going to change. Look back at the life changing events in your life. What did each one of them teach you? Begin to make a list of the events, and see how you can live a new, happier life by looking at those events with an eye for making different life choices:

·      People screamed at each other.  Choose to always speak in a civil manner unless your house is burning down.

·      No one ever kept his or her word. Choose to always keep your word to your spouse/partner, your children, family and friends.

·      No one was ever on time. Decide that you are an ‘on-time’ kind of person. On-time people are considerate of other people’s time and feelings.

·      Gossip was vicious. Be ever mindful of what you are saying to another friend, sibling, child or family member. Be conscious of the words you use. Keep someone’s confidence.

·      Unkind words were the norm. Edit what you say. THINK before you speak and seek the wisest words.

·      Everything was a last minute crisis. Plan ahead for everything. Look into the future and anticipate what will probably happen.

·      No one ever said please or thank you. Genuine courtesy is the lubricant for successful human interactions.

·      No one was on time with birthday, or holiday gifts or cards. Remember occasions with modest gifts – on time.

·      Holidays were a nightmare with fights over money, illness and depression. Choose to be healthy; remember that modest gifts given with love are cherished. You don’t have to be sick at Christmas or Hanukah. Depression was someone else’s norm: it doesn’t have to be yours!

·      No one ever gave all of his or her attention to a family member for a meaningful discussion. Be present for each other, your kids, friends and family. Listen with an open, non-judgmental heart.

·      Your family was a lousy example of what a family should be. Ok, so be the example for your kids, spouse and other family members. Do not be the mirror for your parents. Be the example you wish you had had.

·      Parents did not treat children with respect. Be respectful of your children’s things, their time and their needs. If you borrow something of theirs, ask permission first. Return it on time and in good condition. If you borrow money from your children, return it. Teenagers treated with respect are respectful in return.

·      No one had any time for anyone else. They each just careened from one crisis to the next. Be patient, be wise and be willing to sit still and listen ALL THE WAY to what someone is telling you. Show them what it feels like to be heard.

When you do ‘light work’ for your family, you are healing yourself. ‘Light work’ is day in day out courtesy, honesty and integrity. When those sterling qualities become your norm, then you become the example for those around you to want to emulate. You can change your life, and you will begin to affect your entire family.

What if your family rejects your efforts? That is more likely than not to happen because you will have completely upset the family norm, the traditional dysfunctional dynamic. It doesn’t matter. Be the person of admirable integrity. Someone else’s bad habits and despicable behavior are theirs alone. Your life is yours to create and creating a happy life built on patient wisdom, love and care is a powerfully wonderful life to live.

KSL 376: On the Nature of Trees

by Tina Erwin

 It seems that everywhere you look, someone is cutting down a tree, some developer is ‘clearing a property to suit’ some potential business buyer. Imagine how much more beautiful a property would be nestled among trees. You really see this tree slaughter in the Southern United States where lot after lot is utterly leveled.

You also see trees leveled by various homeowner associations that live in terror of being sued by the fall of any tree. In some associations it is a wonder that any trees survive at all.

Some people are fearful of trees, thinking that they may fall on a house or car. This does happen at odd times in the West where the dreaded Eucalyptus trees, shallow rooted devils that they are, have been known to fall. Yet, many hundreds of thousands of them line the freeways in California providing some modest grace to an open, often, barren landscape. These same trees also provide nesting places for raptor birds as well as other very large birds like owls, egrets, herons and ibis.

Pine trees can snap in violent windstorms that happen in almost any part of the country. People hate them for the pine needles that fall on their cars. Yet, pines provide so much shade, so many negative ions that clean the air and so much grace that the world would be a much sadder place without them. They are also nesting places for lots of very large birds.

Many people dislike the ‘mess’ that trees create through the normal process of just living. They shed branches, leaves, seeds, needles, flower petals, and pollen. Imagine that! The normal process of living creates messy debris for we humans. We cannot seem to tolerate a mess in plants, but we expect nature to accommodate us as we pollute the planet.

We are so busy being important that we often forget the importance of those things in our lives that make our lives interesting and dynamic.

One of the things that we may also be unaware of is the very subtle yet critical interrelationship between the sky, the air, trees, the land and all the animals. They speak to each other in their own language. Birdsong helps trees to grow, triggering some mysterious reaction in the trees. Trees owe their existence in part to the spreading of their seeds by birds. Birds and trees need the air, the wind to literally lift up the birds on air currents and allow the birds and often seed pods to literally fly across the lands to grow in a variety of places. When trees are cut down, birds have no place to grow, insects cannot populate and grow and all the lesser plants that must have large trees under which to grow, also die out. Decimating trees started the desertification of many areas of the world.

Finally, consider the arrogance of being able to cut down, in a mere seconds, what has often taken nature sometimes a few years to a thousand years to grow as in the case of a redwood or Sequoia.

Tree huggers seem to get a bad rap, yet, they have served to remind us that trees have a personality presence in our lives, a kind ‘statelyness’ that softens any landscape and makes us respect the power and persistence of nature.

What can one person do? What are many people doing? They are planting trees, lots of them. Where you can, plant a grove of trees, create sanctuaries where trees can be protected. Go to planning committees in cities and make it illegal for developers to level any piece of property because of runoff, loss of habitat and the desertification of all of our lands.

Help other people to respect the power and the majesty of trees. Perhaps pondering the long term commitment to a relationship we have with nature will empower all of us to be more circumspect when we have to cut down a tree. Perhaps, possibly in the future, there will be a better way to do things.