Labor Day Morning

Good morning. It's the Labor Day holiday. Yesterday was really relaxing. The children played in the yard and made a structure of sticks which was amazing. They set up a tent and built imaginary gates and decorated them with leaves. It was a day of contented outdoor play. I caught up on piles of paper work, did some cooking for the week, and succumbed to watching a movie in the evening. The children came in giggling and covered with mud and I started to fuss about it and then thought, ''Good heavens ~ how wonderful.''

The movie was compelling and very complex and extraordinarily ugly and violent. I had no idea that it, a well known film, would be what it was. I fully understood what made it so popular ~ as a novel and as a movie, but it was not something worth sitting up until 1 a.m. to see and definitely not something for even the older children to consume. I ended up feeling very guilty as I always do when television consumed valuable time. As the movie disturbed my sleep, I began to think about the addictive nature of the television and its impact on children. The movie featured an amazing performance by a young woman playing an avenging punk, but the actress made her part so subtle with contrasts of tenderness and sorrow mixed with absolute determination to avenge abused women. She became a dark heroine. The male character was very believable too. But the film itself was convoluted, hard to follow, and really focused on disturbing themes. And it left me feeling very violated ~ in a way that is not unlike the violation I feel that I inflict on myself when I indulge in anything that is truly not good for me. There is a reason for the Alcoholics Anonymous idea of being ''clean and sober.'' Feeling ''clean'' is a part of livingwith a consciousness about what is being taken into the mind and body

With a somewhat expanded consciousness, I sort through my own life experiences with violence and sadism. There is a sharp line of demarcation between mindless mistakes and human foolishness and the acts of those who are excited and empowered by inflicting physical and psychological pain on others ~ in and out of family systems. It occurs in offices, non-profits, and in all human communities small, discreet, and large. My generation has been deeply affected by the acts of humans against each other. We live in a violent world and violence against women and children is continuous in all cultures.

I thought last night about being born into the 2nd World War with its themes of ''atomic bombs'' and ''duck and cover.'' I also remember beginning to understand what happened to the Jews during that war and to the victims of the first atomic bombs dropped on Japan. And despite living the life born of those themes and of having lived in New Mexico where much of it was birthed, I have only realized in recent years, how little I knew about the genocides and the inspeakable atrocities which have made up the body of human experience. The statistics on lives lost in war since recorded history are beyond believing since war, until this century, was entirely an up-close and personal affair. So again I find myself wondering about the meaning of it all and the incredibly banality of life in a market-driven world which promises everything and delivers only distraction. The size, scale and scope of what is going on in a world in which information is delived continuously by the internet and television leaves us all feeling helpless. Finding beauty and joy in the moments lifts us and makes life possible.

A young woman staff member of mine recently had a stroke ~ she is young. The day before that event, she and I were talking about her life and work. I said, ''How do you do all that you do?'' She said, ''I just keep it moving.'' After her stroke, I was told that she was not taking her medications for high blood pressure and that she was completely exhausted from multiple pressures in her life and work. She was not eating. She had physical problems and was ignoring them. What does exhaustion and stress have to do with this blog?

What does that have to do with food? I worked for a board chair for a number of years whose father was enormously obese. A holocaust survivor, his hunger came from death camp starvation and the trauma of that, and she described how he ate food that belonged to her and her sister. As a result, she was obsessed with staying thin and being fit. I also think about the long-held belief that obesity is often the result of sexual abuse in childhood and is believed to bea psychological protective layer of fat. Again, I think that in a world of theories and beliefs, medical knowledge and scientific conjecture, that the multiple causes of obesity are not yet understood entirely and may lie more in consciousness than we might know.

I am sitting here in my quiet kitchen ~ the washing machine is humming along. It's a beautiful morning and the children are outside playing again and there is a good feeling in the air. I've beaten myself up this a.m. for sitting up to watch a fascinating film which horrified me.I've looked up the story of the author's life and can't figure out if he was paranoid or really fighting against problems in his country. I read about him living without giving anyone his address, in fear of being killed for fighting extremism. I'm mad at myself for not going to bed early and getting up early and taking my children out to a park or beach as I originally planned. But everyone seems to be happily playing outside and the house is quiet. My cats are keeping me company. And we can still go to a park.

I tend to start over all the time ~ as a child I would draw lines in my head and say, ''I am starting over from this moment.'' And I am still doing versions of that. My food choices have been impacted by the idea that "Well, I blew it. So I'll just wait until tomorrow and start over." Commitment doesn't work that way. I have a sense that if I don't do what I am supposed to do, that there is no beginning again or doing it later. But then I begin again. Again, the grace of life makes itself known and I renew my faith in being a part of an emerging higher consciousness that has reverence for life. I help my children take a lovely green insect out of the house so that it can live and point out to them how truly beautiful a Daddy Long Legs spider on the wall is and how valuable. And the day begins anew. And I believe that the moment itself is not fully understood and is a very flexible unit of time in which much can happen.

I hear my smallest child coming up the stairs outside to get the camera so that the wonderful structure they have built can be photographed. I ask my son what it is called and he says, ''Hut Shintu.'' This boy born with 3 missing limbs because of radiation in a foreign land has constructed an amazing imaginary hut ~ and it has emanations of the ancient cultures of my son's most unknown lineage. It is again a beautiful morning and it has become that morning without any instructions from me. ''Hut Shintu'' will stand in the back yard until the end of the week when the yard man comes. And it reminds me to be calm and quiet.

The cats sit in the window and watch the children outside. It's cool and lovely in the window. Hut Shintu has been decorated with pieces of bark. The moment is lovely and will be remembered for a long time, as will the vegetable garden which has occupied my son for a summer ~ his small labor of love and concern. Each small vegetable has given him enormous pleasure. He will ask me many questions about the movie. I regret that he has seen it and that I was too lazy and perversely curious about it to turn it off. I wonder what he, who has some much reverence for life, will say about it? He is wise enough to discuss it with me, though still innocent. But having watched it with me, I must disuss it with him. I wonder if I should read the book(s. I realize that I will not.

And I again pray that I may live fully and in reverence. The day is moving along and the sun in shining. I will take the childen out.