The Skeptical Mystic

        Nina commented on an old blog entry about sensitive children (click here to read) and my answer seems too much for just a comment response. The issue of being sensitive can follow us throughout our lives.  Nina’s problem stands out even more because she is a stay at home mom who likes the comfort and emotional safety she experiences at home. The problem becomes the transition into other environments.

        Since Nina asked for advice, I can speak from my own experience and hope other readers offer additional advice.  There are two different situations that I’ve encountered.

       The first, general sensitivity to crowds or unbalanced individuals, is one that still gets to me when I am tired or stressed.  When I am going into a highly charged environment, from meeting friends at a restaurant for lunch to shopping in the mall during holidays or special sale days, I keep my focus on my own internal energy and the task at hand. I barely notice people other than friends and sales clerks directly related to my mission. I would never ‘shop-‘til-I-drop’, no matter how efficient it may be.

        Before stepping into a public situation I pump my self up, connecting with the core of my being and personality, and projecting my own positive energy level.  Some days, I focus on breathing, bringing in love and radiating it back outward with each exhale to the public in general. I may breath in energy and use the exhale to reinforce a white envelop of protection around me in the more difficult (anxious crowd) situations. I downright avoid any large rally where the crowd is likely to get worked up, be it with enthusiasm or anger.

        In small groups or at community meetings, which you may attend with the best intentions only to find other people’s elevated emotions impinging on your space, learn to stay detached. Never allow yourself to ‘slide’ into empathy with emotional stories or responses.  Who owns the problem you are listening to, who owns the anger? It isn’t your responsibility to feel everything they are feeling. Keep your own center of peace and calm.

         Nina, you may have spent your life focused on opening and connecting with loved ones. The hard part is learning to form effective blocks that allow you to relate without a deeper psychic or sensitive connection during all the other moments in your life. When relating one-on-one, say with a friend who is emotional, you may have to learn to become comfortable letting their feelings run through you. If I hear someone telling me of their mother’s struggle with cancer, I can almost guarantee tears will be running down my cheeks while I watch and listen.  However, I still can keep my center of personal calm.  This comes from years of centering internally and from not grabbing onto the emotions that flow through me.  Mediation is great for helping learn this focus.  

       Second, I would mention those on a spiritual path sometimes open to new levels of receptivity.  There came a stage when I had been doing extensive work in higher levels, only to find myself becoming uncharacteristically impatient (even irritated) with a lot of people around me. This even occurred with the yogis who’d been meeting at our home for years and showed no outer signs of being upset or imbalanced.

         V.G., the Indian Brahmin who lead the weekly meditations in our home, thought he knew the reason: with all my recent work, I had started picking up on other people’s disorganized or unsettled auras.  His advice did not help: “This was the point where most yogis retreat to the mountain, to get away from people until the new awareness grows strong enough to stay above the impact of other’s presence.”

        Give me a break.  Moving into seclusion was hardly practical with three small children, a husband’s busy social life and my own part-time job.  My remaining option was to just ‘guts’ my way through the problem, focusing on my own inner strength and on connecting with spiritual energies. I learned to recognize and accept my own irritated feelings without clinging and building minor into major reactions. I spent more time radiating generalized love, accepting myself and my emotions, appreciating the divine in my life, or using whatever thought or emotion seemed capable of overriding outside influences. Eventually I got past the point where this issue bothered me.

        That being said, I admit to still suffering when my blood sugars are low, I am tired or stressed out. I’ve learned to give myself permission to stop pushing, permission to finish my errands or activities later.  If that is not possible, I acknowledge the problem to myself, make the best of the situation, and devote extra recovery time later at home.  I still am uncomfortable around some people.  I find polite ways to move away, or pull my attention back to my own center of being.  Often it helps to simply identify the person whose aura or emotional reaction is affecting me.  This simple awareness provides me some distance and detachment.

         If you are sensitive, you must take care of yourself. Read about  introverts versus extroverts (click here) and try to space out social excursions or time them for high energy days. Learn to call it quits when shopping or visiting if or when you start feeling your energy or emotions sag. Treat yourself better (something most mothers find hard to do). Find ways to create novel solutions in the midst of a busy schedule (necessity is the mother of invention).

        While I also feel more comfortable in my own house, I challenge myself to get out on a regular basis.  It is my sincerest belief that the more one stays relaxed in a familiar environment, the harder it can become to cope when outside the comfort zone.

        While other readers may offer more advice, this is the best I can do.  Stay in touch, Nina and let me know how things are progressing.......Jan

        The past weekend contained an unexpected day of inner cleansing.  Randy cleaned out the bedroom file cabinet and handed me several dated envelopes from my folder.  One envelop of bank records was moved to a downstairs file cabinet, the envelop of older bank records was set to one side, destined to be burned in the fireplace that night. The final envelop contained legal correspondence covering a painful custody battle and years of my ex trying to scam his way past Ohio’s predetermined system of paying child support.

        Ten years have passed since the custody battle—a nightmare far worse than the divorce and its aftermath.  After the divorce I’d struggled to pull three boys through medical, academic, emotional and social problems until their lives were balanced and running smoothly. I’d worked hard to ensure a good relationship between the boys and their father, despite my own family’s objections that I was not being truthful about their father’s behavior.  
    

        I’d struggled through every trick my ex could pull to shave off child support and  run up my legal bills. At the divorce, I’d assumed half the debt my first husband brought into our marriage, debt which remained about the same at our split despite ten years of attempts to reign in his spending and regain a financial foothold. I’d taken on tax liabilities, given up alimony, and taken over covering all medical, dental and schooling costs for the boys. My only concession was that child support be adjusted yearly because of his flexible income.  Based on commission, it had been abnormally (obscenely) low at the time of the divorce, though (surprise!) immediately afterward jumping back up to far more than I would ever make.  We ended up with yearly court battles because the ex always felt he might shave off more than the year before, even as his income continued to climb.  The issue of custody had not come up at the divorce because my ex preferred the freedom of seeing the kids for visitation and not worrying about realities of day-to-day living.
    

        After years of high living, my ex grew tired of paying child support.  The boys seemed easy enough to keep around in summer: other than a larger food bill, the boys took care of themselves, mowed the lawn, cleaned the house and cared for the pets.  Seeing a  new way to get back at me, he began the custody battle. It ended with the recommendation from the guardian ed litem that the oldest go to Cleveland to live with the father, while the youngest two stay with me. It was a rare case in Ohio to split the kids, but the oldest was making everyone’s life miserable in his attempt to pressure the younger siblings into moving.
    

        Things worked out for the boys. They never knew what went on in the background. Since my ex was making three times my salary, it did not relieve him of child support payments even though it raised my portion of the support obligation.  It made a difference in the money I could set aside for the boys’ college fund and put me back on a paycheck to paycheck lifestyle, but did not shift payments enough to put me in dire financial hardship. It didn’t put extra income in my ex’s pocket. For him, that meant the battle continued. No need to go through the details. The point was that I’d saved my copies of the lawyer’s communications over the scams that followed. I’d thought of the papers every time my kids talked about ‘poor Dad going through such hard times financially’ and of the reality to which the boys were never privy.
    

        I’d save the papers in hopes that someday—when the boys were grown—they would understand what had happened. Now, looking at the papers I realize we are past the days of child support. I don’t need these papers. Is it so important to keep evidence against their father?  What do I hope to accomplish?
    

        I know the high road. The high road says to burn the past records.  This was my problem and does not change the relationship that evolves between the boys and their father. Yet I struggled with emotions.  Deep down, I want the boys to know my struggle and what was kept out of their tender lives. I want recognition someday that makes up for getting through this without sinking to the ex’s level.  And I know that is a petty response.
    

        I make the decision to burn the papers and Randy raises his eyebrows.  He thinks I should save them so the boys can discover the truth somewhere down the road. His remark reactivates my gut reaction to preserve documentation. It is my rational side that burns the paperwork that night. Regrets tug at my heart the whole time, but I force myself to throw paper after paper on the fire. Afterward, I tell Randy I may need a completion meditation to fully let go of the past, but as the next days pass the regrets fade on their own.
    

        It remains a surprise each time I face these challenges—how difficult it can be to do the right thing and not look for social acknowledgment or cosmic compensation.  The best I can do is return to the center of my being and take comfort in living by my own standards.
    

        I am reminded of the two monks who come to a stream where a young maiden is unable to cross.  The first monk does not hesitate but picks up the woman and carries her to the other shore, after which the monks and woman go their own way.  As the monks walk on, the second monk talks incessantly about how this act of ‘kindness’ violated the monks’ vow never to touch a woman. At last, the first monk stops walking and turns to his companion. “I put that woman down on the other side of the river.  You are still carrying her.”
    

        I have carried these papers, unsure if I am doing the children a disservice by keeping them ignorant about the reality of their father’s lifestyle, or if I have preserved their emotional connection to their father by letting them come to their own conclusions.  Now the papers are gone.  I am disappointed in myself to discover how difficult it was to let go of the papers. The boys tend to see Mom as the one who is financially secure and poor Dad as the one who always must struggle with hardships.  
  

        Why is it so hard to sit and listen as they expound their father’s woes?  I wonder if someday I will ever become like my ideal of a spiritual being: one who takes the right action with no need for recognition. What part of myself would I have to root out to become a silent monk? If I could ever get to that point, I wonder how it would affect my ability to share and bond with others. Is my spiritual goal in conflict with an equal desire to live life as a fully vested human being?  There are no easy answers.

         It was the ugliest, most disorganized thing I’d ever seen---two overdone radial bridges forming a crude “Y”, with a few scattered silk strands filling the space between. Wasn’t every spider’s tiny neurons hardwired to build an orderly web?

        I’d been disappointed with my walk eastward on the north shore, and had almost decided to give up future walks. Yet, turning back to the west, I discovered a shoreline magically transformed. Three different sizes of tufted grass caught the last bit of daylight, their silhouettes laced with the gold of a setting sun. The tallest, their giant tufts resembling overstuffed hairy caterpillars, dipped and swayed so deeply in unison that they appeared a line of elegant and supple dancers. A section of smaller tufted grass also bobbed, moving to its own rhythmic beat, while a third---the grass tips expanded outward into delicate fireworks---quivered in the wind. Entranced, I’d knelt while trying to figure out a camera angle which might capture the magic.

        Instead, I noticed the first spider web. Looking around, I noticed scores of similar webs, all standing out now that the sun lit them from behind---all ugly and misshapen. Amazing, how these delicate structures survived at all in the rough winds of the north shore. Some were built between two stalks of grass, some built within an individual stalk and its bent-over tip. Either way, the wind whipped the grass blades until they resembled unruly horses reined in too tightly, bucking and rearing in an attempt to break free. How had these wild breasts ever been tamed by such small masters?

        I knew enough to realize the first silk thread (called a bridge strand) drifted on wind while the spider clung to its undulating stalk. Once the sticky filament caught on either the tip or another stalk, the spider would have carefully run across, anchoring a reinforcement line. I imagined in winds this strong, the initial line had been reinforced multiple times. Crawling to the next anchor point, the spider would have secured a second line, walking back up and across the bridge line to secure it midway---a “Y” that normally formed the starting point for a traditional spider web.

        Yet, something went wrong here. There were no other radial strands. These two strands had been reinforced over and over, until they formed not a one-lane bridge but a six-lane highway.

       Spiders spin their silk threads from protein; the process of spinning is a birthing process, the extrusion leaving them exhausted. The spider rests after creating and securing the radial strands. The traditional web building comes fast and easy after the resting phase. Were these spiders condemned to keep reinforcing and reinforcing until too exhausted to build the tacky spiral strands? Would the occasional scraggly adhesive filaments still evident be enough to catch sustenance?

       Once my surprise abated, I discovered a reaction of glee and delight each time my eye fell on another misshapen web. A hope arose that, rather than being driven by tradition, rather than be a slave to hardwired expectations, these spiders took a practical approach, choosing to hold their world together despite the toughest of weather conditions---looks be damned.

        I'd just recently been discussing the regrets of motherhood with a friend. Despite putting my own life on hold, spending more time with my kids than many two-parent families, I had never done all the things I hoped to do with them, never shared all I thought I could share. I'd never lived up the the ideals of motherhood first birthed when I looked into newborn eyes. As a single parent, there had not always been the time, money or energy to do it all.  I'd wanted to spin the perfect web of motherhood and wrap it about them; instead, I'd had to be content to reinforce the few strands that kept our world together. I rejoiced at the spider webs because---for a moment--these beach spiders were kindred spirits.

         Time and reflection made me more practical.

         In June, when blue and aquamarine waves roll in gentle swells, the beach may host isolated swarms of gnats and black flies during lulls in the soft breeze. Time then to build sturdy webs that might have looked more traditional. Spiders repair their webs every few days, often eating unused sections of web to rebuild their protein reserves. Battling occasional blustery days, they would not have destroyed the main “Y” supports, and I even suspect they were driven to reinforce it each day, before settling back to extruding sticky spiral sections.

         In July, beach winds blow cool across the sweating bodies of sunbathers; whitecaps lace the tops of waves. Clouds of Mayflies hatch from the water’s surface, leaving their larval stage to emerge as short-lived winged adults. Despite the naming of these insects, the colder waters of Lake Michigan mean a late hatch for Mayflies---between June 25th and July 10th. Lacy-winged creatures, closer in appearance to a dragon fly than a house fly, appear suddenly from their watery fairyland, to stretch delicate wings and wiggle slender, flexible bodies.

        In their first winged phase (the Dun stage), swarms of Mayflies cover any rough vertical surface on the land. Porch screens and tree trunks are hidden beneath the airy, folded wings of fragile, harmless creatures. Very shortly, the Mayflies will molt into the spinner phase. Ghosts of tissue-paper silhouettes are left behind, while the new adult spinners begin their short-lived mating sessions above the lake waters.

        This, then, explains the tremendous number of spiders’ webs. This year marks a record hatch of Mayflies, more than anyone had seen for fifty years. There would be no competition for food supplies among numerous arachnoids. Spiders would feast until glutted, enough captive Mayflies to more than replenish protein reserves. Fat and content, they could crawl off in search of safer territories to hide and secure their own egg sacs.

        By August, the winds come in great gusts---to whip the vegetation, blowing loose seeds and scattering them across the shoreline. Waves may build to great swells---three to eight feet tall---that come crashing into the land surface, dragging up seaweed and algae to litter the beach. Deserted spider webs, ripped apart by these gusts, would leave behind only these amazing, reinforced I-beams of support.

        These spiders had not fought their innate programming to create some brilliant new adaptation to harsh winds. They had completed their yearly cycle of gathering food and birthing a new family. The webs were only a ghost town, their eight-legged residents having left before bad weather set in, the ashen-white Dun skeletons of their Mayfly food stock blown away by August winds. Only the prancing tuft-heads of grass remained behind, still struggling to break free.

        My time as mother, protector and family builder was also over. I could hope the reinforced strands would continue to hold as my young entered the world of tougher realities, but in the long run, this phase of mothering was but a short cycle in my life, in the history of us all.  

        Forty years ago, you should have seen the pristine beach. Sections of sand and small stones edged the shoreline; bits of beach grass valiantly fought to establish its domain a short distance from the tree line. Summer cottages were nestled far back behind a tree line of dense vegetation, and from the beach one could only see evidence of human habitation when directly in line with whatever small path lead discretely back to a cottage. Otherwise, one could imagine walking an uncharted shoreline. Alone on the beach, one had only gulls, terns and sandpipers for company, the seabirds lingering close enough to seem friendly, moving just enough to keep out of reach.

        I jealously guarded the privacy of these walks, for it was my unwinding time---I listened to the gulls’ piercing cries above waves lapping or crashing against the shore; felt the breeze off the water (there is almost always wind on the north shore) as the air, cool and moisture-laden whipped about me, tugging at my clothes and lifting my hair. I drank in the view of undisturbed shoreline, indulged in the sensation of wet sand or warm rocks on bare feet, relaxed into the leisurely pace, knowing my thoughts were sorting themselves back into harmony. Ah, the anticipation each year as I headed down to the beloved beach, wondering what I might recognize from previous years, what new treasures I might discover.

        Some years as I walked, I noticed large rocks that appeared in the significantly changed coastline, the waves having shifted sands to new locations. Some years, I saw the giant rocks buried up again, so that only the smooth flat tops remained. The distance from the tree line to the shore ebbed and flowed dependant on lake levels. Each change brought out new curves in the shoreline, new sandbars, new areas where familiar beach weeds could reach their tendrils out across the sand.

        I’d walked the shore the summer that thousands of cormorants swept in and claimed the waters off Beaver Island, darkening the skies for fifteen or even thirty minutes every time the huge flocks passed by in early morning. A sight both amazing and terrifying, the sheer number of birds threatened to annihilate fish populations; the DNR (Department of Natural Resources) and the Beaver Island community joined forces to bring the cormorant numbers under control, so that eventually, the few cormorant birds that remained seemed lonely and out of place.

        I’d walked the beach the year the gull virus struck, killing large numbers of my shoreline friends; it was a year of silent grieving each time I stepped over the remnants of bones, wing sections or whole birds washed up on the beach. There was no stopping the virus; it had to just play itself out. There was no knowing if the gulls would ever rebuild their numbers. (They did).

        Despite a long history of watching change, I don’t think I ever had the emotional reaction to changes the way I did this year. Much of my feeling revolves around old cottages being bought up by new owners. God help us, these newcomers seem as out of place and destructive to the north shore as cormorants had, years back.

        Gone are the old cabins, along with much of the trees. Huge half million to one million dollar modern homes take their place, squatting as close to the shoreline as legally permitted, filling the length and breadth of most properties with a style more appropriate to the suburbs. Here now reside the new breed of owners who love central air-conditioning, two-story glass windows, massive decks, and an unobstructed view of the lake. The first few houses could be ignored but the number increases relentlessly.

        Whereas the old residents were careful each night to carry up belongings from the beach, these new owners feel comfortable leaving beach chairs, kids’ toys, kayaks and coolers near the water’s edge. I passed by the remnants of almost a dozen burned-out firecrackers, and could only hope it signaled a belated celebration with visiting grandchildren. I’d hate to think the owners had left the trash of July 4th until this late in August.

        Where were the seabirds this year? That was another change. I saw one lone gull on my walk. The beach was taken over by crows, black and menacing figures that seemed out of place on a shoreline. Crows were everywhere on the island this year and no one can explain why. I’d hear sounds I never associated with any crow (or other bird) and would look to the beach to find the dark creatures squabbling amongst themselves, though I could not say whether it was over territory or food.

        Is this a temporary change? The island has gone through its cycles, over-populated with rabbits (and then coyotes to eat the rabbits), deer, and even wild turkey. A particular population swells, spilling onto roads, beaches, and back yards; then, after a few years of over-running their territory, the species vanish from sight, disappearing perhaps back into remote forestland. Will the same cycle occur with the crows? I am amazed at myself, at my resentment of the way they dominate the island.

 
       The permanent and long-time residents shake their heads, wistfully reminiscing of older days, when miles of undisturbed shoreline and the cry of gulls could so easily melt away stress and lift the heart. Where is the cry of the gull to mourn the passage of time? We shake our heads and turn away, carrying the cries of ivory birds in our hearts.

To be continued........