I takes me a long time to learn anything. And then, once I do learn it, I forget it. And then relearn it.
When I was a kid, I'd hear people say, "he's the same everytime you see him". And I thought, then he's a liar every time you see him. Which is true -- but is, I've found, a rather acceptable kind of lying. They meant what they said as a compliment for the person, but I'd hear it as a put down of me.
Because I am not the same everytime you see me.
Though I am learning that this is not anyone's fault. Some days are diamonds and some days aren't. Silver Ravenwolf, lovely teacher of pagan-ish ways, says, "you are responsible for the energy you bring into a room with you." But I knew this before she said so.
Knowing and remembering though -- two different things.
Eventually, it got through to me that everyone's life is hard and so it is the job of anyone awake to speak softly and not throw a tantrum when things suck. And not give opinions unless you have a blog where you can write them and people are free to leave if they want to.
In real life, you need to make tea and small talk. Small talk is not easy talk to make. I want to make bigger talk. I want to find out their birthdays and tell them the Goddess story of their lives. Or I want to know the last magical thing that happened to them -- even if they have to go all the way back to age six to find something.
Sometimes I have been guilty of tactlessness. (UNDERSTATEMENT ALERT).
I would say whatever came to mind and if it landed wrong, well, who cared -- it was the truth.
But that is not true. Usually, "truth" has to do with perspective. And each of us thinks our perspective is the right one.
The cards, the runes, I-Ching would go back to "be nice 101" with me. Would say, be temperate (Temperence), meet in the middle (Gebo), Mountains in the middle of earth: humility (Hexagram 15). The letter oracle would say: "listen as though you know nothing".
And I would do that. I would learn that.
But then, other teachers would come.
I have really good friends. And then I also have some folks who are good adversaries. There is one I'll call T. Give T an inch and she'll make a ruler and hit you with it. I admire her because she is not afraid of one single thing in the whole world. Except anyone finding out she has a weakness. I know her weaknesses, so to me she is more warrior than the occasion calls for. T is good for me. Good for pushing past that point of "play nice" to that place where I remember the warrior song.
The warrior song is so low, it is almost silent. As T boasts, the warrior song get quieter still. I pour the tea. I don't raise my voice. If you raise your voice, you lose.
This is the other side of nice. I Ching # 15 has a changing line, line number 5: "Not enriched by neighbors. Gain by smiting. Nothing but fortune." The changing line makes me smile.
I know what balance means. It means being pleasant. And sometimes not. No one stays still in the center. No one finds perfection by being perfect. I don't want to always have the right thing to say. I want to throw a bitch-fit once in a while. And if I forget to do that. My stars! Well, they know how to draw someone in who makes pleasant a teeth-gritting exercise in balanced humility.
2 comments:
I'm glad you are prone to have an occasional hissy fit. I am too. It was born and bred in me. My people take so much and then we just throw a fit. At least that's so of me and my three sisters. One sister is gone, way before her time. I have two left. Ella, in Dayton, Sue, in Florida.
Both are older than I - Ella ten years, Sue - five.
We lost our daddy when I was two. Disease from coal mines in Beaver, WV.
Makes me sad still to think of it.
Later, B
Yeah, see, the reason that line in I-Ching makes me smile is because the I-Ching is so gracious and gentle. And then lines that come along. I wouldn't smite anyone. Nor spite either, really. But it's fun to know that there really is a time when some such is called for.
Post a Comment