In Fertile Ground [1]

By the time Yudit and I came together in cyberspace, in 2006, I was in the throes of serious mother issues. Though the congenial psychiatrist I had seen weekly had suggested that, as a last resort, it might be the best option, I was still struggling not to slam the door on my mother who acted as if each and every option I envisaged or pursued was contemptible and a direct rejection of her. l Once enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin after my graduation from the American high school in Guatemala City, I began life away from home and family as my mother, herself, had done when she married at the age of 19. My mother, my stepfather and I would connect episodically over the phone or occasionally face-to-face, during summer breaks. At such times, I would have welcomed a little dose of motherly love but often found her as aloof then, as when was a child. l Whether my desire for motherly attention was because of a hand swollen by a bee sting, a throbbing toothache, a heartbreak – or worse, much worse, as came to pass over the years – her response began and ended quickly with the advice that I should see a doctor and take medicine, as prescribed. Or, if a heartbreak was the cause, I should pick myself up and move on. l When it came to anxiety regarding deadlines, the advice was to study harder. When I broached an emotional upset, I was told to think ‘like an adult’, not a child or to change jobs or to change my sexuality, depending what had triggered the upset. And I was reminded that I should also definitely consult a psychiatrist if I felt so troubled, whatever the cause. Always would come the admonishment to be tough, to never feel sorry for myself and to ‘be a little soldier’. Then, the agenda would return to whatever was most important for my mother at that moment. Failing to rally with enough enthusiasm became a blatant act of lese-majesty which was duly noted and remembered. Why have our mother-daughter lives panned out that way? I used to ask myself. l My mother was the youngest of four children. Till her wedding day at 19, she had lived at home with a gentle and meek father whose favourite she was and, according to my aunts, uncle and cousins, a strict but caring mother. So, it is difficult to imagine my own mother raised in a stoic acceptance of all aches and emotions. “When things don’t make sense and come out-of-the-blue, heed them, CC,” Yudit often reminded me. “Nothing is accidental.” l My feelings of rejection and anxiety crystalised throughout my childhood. Perhaps it was common enough, particularly in the ‘50’s, for a mother, a young divorcee, to think of her child not unlike a much-loved puppy who could be left here and there for varying periods of time, safe but with unfamiliar carers and relatives who only became familiar over time, while she went about her busy-ness. l Once re-married, the dutiful wife of an engineer on-the-go, my mother took me with them from country to country. Sometimes we stayed for a few months, sometimes a year or two. I attended eleven different schools between the ages of 7 and 17. Sometimes that school was in Africa. Sometimes it was in America. Sometimes it was in Tunisia. Sometimes it was in Central America. Sometimes, too, it was in France. Sometimes the syllabus was delivered in French, sometimes in English and sometimes in Spanish, depending on where ‘home’ was at any given time. l I was forever the new kid who sat in a corner at the back of the classroom, the shy one who often spent her lunch breaks out of sight, hiding behind a book or on the outer fringes of a friendship group. By the time I was 19 and home during a university break, my mother suspected that, back in Austin, Texas, I was involved in a same-sex love affair with a woman of my own age. She was right, and I never looked back. I am now in my mid-sixties. My partner, Myahr, and I have been happily living together for the past 21 years in Australia. In Fertile Ground [2] Before this, the most settled and happy years of my life came to pass, and for reasons only a person like Yudit could explain, it was around my 43rd birthday that I decided to leave Paris to settle permanently to Australia – only an hour’s drive from the house where my mother then lived with my stepfather. Soon upon my return though, as always, though my mother was very happy to have me nearby, once things settled, I found her generally combative, hypercritical of my any of my creative endeavours, of my aspirations and of my private life. l Always under the premise that she was trying to save me from relationships and situations unworthy of me, she ridiculed and belittled just about everything I did, said or thought. She was unforgiving of everything and of everyone who failed, in her eyes, to give her the affirmation she needed from others. Beyond a narcissistic personality that was becoming more obvious, I sensed that a part of the problem was that she was taking out on me her disappointment about some aspects of her life. I am not her property! I used to scream inside my head. How dare she treat me like her object! How dare she know me so little? Why does she talk to Myarh that way and how can she possibly think such things about her after so many years? Why so much hatred and distrust? 10 years already! 10 years of accommodating! 10 years of enduring politely and placating! What more?!? l Self-preservation did offer a healthy reason for walking away from this out-of-control toxic situation but then, how could I when I felt that, deep down, my mother loved me and I loved her? By the time I began unpacking some of my mother issues with Yudit, I was more than ever convinced I deserved better than the tidal wave of resentment, anxiety and self-doubt that knotted up my thoughts and gripped my stomach. l “Your mother’s DNA and your mother’s blood are blended with yours, as her child, for a reason. You are not a toddler in a candy store,” Yudit explained in her usual no-nonsense way. “You don’t get to choose anything – except the words that come out of your mouth. Yes, people and society will say that you can walk away from your mother, but they never add ‘at your own risk.’” l I nodded and kept reading. “You already know that energetic ripples once set in motion don’t just fade away. They trigger other reactions and situations. And these so-called new situations are always more unpleasant than the original one you ran away from. Part of the human tragedy is that people never see cause and effect when the effect happens much later in time. They only see it when it’s as obvious as when they cut themselves with a knife or have a car accident because they were talking on their phone, but they also add quickly that it’s bad luck that created the problem.” Maybe it is a clever built-in coping mechanism, I thought briefly. l “Daily you will hope your mother sends you a message that says, ‘I will love you with all my heart. Please, darling daughter, come back. Talk to me.’ Be sure that this wait will bring you more pain than you already feel. And you can’t foresee what will flow on from that pain. And you can’t foresee any of your mother’s actions or the turn of events in her life that will flow from your decision to turn your back on her.” And then, Yudit added, “In any case, CC, at your age, ask yourself how much of your mother’s love do you really need?  Would you like her to smother you with kisses and live in your shadow, hugging you all the time and telling you how cute and gorgeous you are?” No, I wouldn’t but, if my mother and I have been karmically assigned to each other, even before my birth, isn’t it so that we could simply love each other and watch each other’s back? l “CC, your birthright is to amend the karmic blueprint that is yours for this lifetime,” Yudit continued in what was a rather long email. Longer than most long ones. “That’s all. No need to go looking into past lives which so many find so irresistible. All you need to know is that you have a soul and that Soul is like the GPS voice that comes from above when you drive your car through unfamiliar places. She whispers to your heart the emotions and actions you need to take to get yourself to the next safe point, as simply as possible under your specific circumstances. What do you think pushed you to live so close to your mother in a country as vast as Australia? What do you think pushed you to see, really see your Myahr, and to become attached to her in a way that was new to you although we were already more than forty years old and had had several girlfriends? Through thick and thin your Myahr has revealed her true colours by becoming your essential, calming support. What do you think has made her able to cope with your mother and never stop being caring towards her although she had never experienced anything so unpleasant from anyone? Don’t tell me you started believing again in coincidences empty of meaning! Remember: things don’t just happen!” l Here’s the thing: human nature is wired in such a way that there can be no lasting joy and, therefore, no true well-being without a genuine bond with our family and loved ones. Full stop. l A similar bond is essential, too, with those who have been ‘dropped’ into our lives by blood ties, alliance or a contract of one form or another. And, Myahr, through the hurt and incomprehension occasioned by my mother’s relentless actions and reactions towards her – and me – intuited that very fact. She was most often quick to bounce back and help me problem-solve – from the heart – the latest drama in the moment underfoot. Of course, a degree of resentment and anxiety remains, but it only casts a shadow. It has not assisted in the creation of a rift. l “CC, now that you are where you are,” Yudit added. “It’s up to you whether you allow yourself to hear more of Neshama’s voice or not. I promise that when you accept equally what brings you joy and what brings you pain, it’s because you heed Neshama’s whispers. You’re always free to drive off the main road, to stop anywhere, to waste time or get lost again. You can disappear in the wilderness any time and turn off your GPS. Another choice you have is to stop acting either as a child or as a programmed robot. Do what is needed at this moment. Detach from the past. Detach from yesterday. Don’t you know how a tiny change in a big system can potentially affect everything?” The Chaos theory? The present determines the future. How to maintain a double-rod pendulum in a sane sequence of movement? Gulp. l “You see, Neshama sits at the high end of the ego, much lighter than the ego-persona that, like a child on a seesaw, sits heavily near the ground. Practice forgiving your mother just to untie yourself from your heartache and anxiety. She’s asleep and not seeking an inner betterment so, why count on her to pull you up? That’s childish. Just know that there is fear on her side as on yours. Mistrust and misunderstanding squat on both sides. Know that’s what locks you in like two bulls locking horns. So, ask yourself, CC, at the moment, knowing what you know … who is most able to react as the better person? Who is best able to break that heart-lockdown after 50 years?” In Fertile Ground [3] I had been right in intuiting that Yudit, in all her wisdom, was the only person who might stir me into a healthy acceptance of my circumstances – a shift away from trying desperately to accept them under duress, as I had been doing for so long already. l With her usual calm persistence, Yudit went on to explain, again and again, that I needed to have faith in the greater scheme of things that lies way beyond the visible world and that, in a world where absolutely all is interconnected by atoms, neutrons and protons, there was no separation between anything or anyone. Not any more than there was between my mother and me. l Cryptically, I thought at the time, Yudit added, “CC, don’t try to understand this through your mind. It will never make sense. The wisdom of the heart doesn’t come to mind in a culture where ego- driven logic, self-justification, and science created through the microscope rule human lives.” Yes, but then again, I thought, our western culture does understand what it means to ‘follow one’s heart’, to obey one’s sympathetic or compassionate inclinations. l Perhaps, we have inherited that understanding from ancient wisdom. Maybe it is a remnant from a time when enlightened folk knew that an aspect of Neshama was in each heart. Maybe they intuited that the heart had intimate, insider’s knowledge of the one for whom it pumped more than 7000 litres of blood daily. Maybe it is only once we are attuned to our heart that we can make this organ, not the brain or the mind, the dispenser of our genuine free will. l The problem, for most of us is that we do not see the problem. But, eventually, it became clear that the sooner I deleted the idea that I could change my mother because I ‘deserved better’ or that ‘I deserved more’ of my mother’s love or more of anything, the better off I would be – the faster I would jump out of that life-long rut. l “Like a good parent, Neshama gives us the opportunity for growth and independence but no entitlement, CC – never! Not even for the most powerful persons in the world!” Yudit was categorical. “We each get what we deserve not as punishment, not for gratification but to ELEVATE ourselves, and that is the gift of love from Neshama.” Bluntly, she continued, “Don’t think like an ignoramus! What you get is always what you deserve. Get that inside your head! You want your mother to love you unconditionally, but you won’t admit to yourself that you don’t feel any real love for her. Sentimental attachment is not LOVE. It’s a conditioned attachment. Platitudes, occasional visits and gifts a couple of times a year is all you give her. They don’t count. They don’t come from the heart.” l Yudit’s rebuke brought to mind a teaching from Ramana Maharishi. In Guru and His Grace, Sri Ramana gives an answer as to why visitors offer presents to Bhagavan. “Why do they bring presents? Do I want them? Even if I refuse, they thrust the presents on me. What for? Is it not like the bait to catch the fish? Is the angler anxious to feed them? No, he is anxious to feed on the fish.” l OK … no gifts to ingratiate myself in between birthdays, Mothers’ Days and Christmases, I get that. Maybe I could make an effort to see Mom more often or more spontaneously than once a month. “Doing more and more of the same will not create different results from what you already got,” Yudit warned. “Wake up! LOVE your mother!” l Her words sounded like the fifth commandment in the Torah: Honour thy father and thy mother. It is said that granting this ‘honour’ is a mitzvah, an essential good deed, that does not depend on the worthiness of the parent but, doesn’t ‘honour’ suggest love as a sub-layer? Or does ‘honour’ simply means ‘respect’, as in the opposite of disrespecting someone? Could ‘honour’ mean ‘protect’? l Either way, how is it possible, in the absence of love, to truly want to protect or respect a difficult parent? Lightbulb moment: Perhaps it is precisely because filial love has always been so difficult to generate that the ancient ones have embedded the commandment to generate it by hook or by crook in the list of Commandments. l I returned my attention to Yudit’s mail. “Sentimental attachment doesn’t create any changes. Understand this tov-tov, CC! Understand this well! Being nice on the surface, out of duty, that’s not LOVE. It’s a duty which means it’s forced. Only unconditional love, your total acceptance of what is – of the person your mother is – will produce the miracle you’re after. Your duty, if you want to use that word in a better way, is to accept your mother in your heart. Your acceptance will melt her defences. Don’t you know how true is the expression to ‘win someone’s heart’?” l Win my mother’s heart? Hah! A mother’s heart, her love, should never have to be earned, won or won back. It just is. A mother’s heart nurtures and nourishes unconditionally, not only when all the boxes on a long checklist are ticked again and again. l “He puts his cheek against mine,” wrote Mary Oliver in her Poem entitled Little Dog’s Rhapsody In The Night, “and makes small, expressive sounds. And when I’m awake or awake enough, he turns upside down, his four paws in the air and his eyes dark and fervent. ‘Tell me you love me,’ he says. ”Tell me again.” Could there be a sweeter arrangement? Over and over he gets to ask. I get to tell”. So simple, so easy to feel love, real love, unconditional love for a dog. Why is it so hard to feel real love, unconditional love for a mother? l Around the age of twenty-two, I decided that I would never want to become a mother. Way too hard to get it right, I thought. Sigh. l In objective retrospect, it is not my mother’s fault she had me at nineteen years of age – a by-product of her honeymoon – too young to have had a chance to think about motherhood properly. Then, isolated from her brother and sisters, from parents and relatives, always living worlds away, she missed out on the support and guidance that might have shaped her adult mind differently. Instead, separated from her clan, she allowed her own understanding of mothering to strike roots. My mother, too, is a by-product of what we all mistake for adult free will. l “Make big space for your mother in your heart and for yourself, CC. Be joyful with her. Make her laugh. Dance with her. Give up the struggle to control the moment. Give up expecting your mother to show love according to how you think she should show it. Don’t argue your point. Don’t try explaining how you feel. It will only make her defensive. Just be in the moment, sincerely present, as if there were no ghosts of the past between you.   Truth is, there are only the ghosts you choose to resurrect. Your karmic duty is to break that cycle! Do it now!” l Dancing, laughing are for those who feel carefree. I cannot be light and spread light when fight and flight are the two gears rusting out in my gut. In a way, all of this business about stepping up and, time and time again, showing up as the best version of myself only amounts to Hobson’s choice. Either I do it, or I don’t. Breathe consciously, CC, breathe! l “Take it or leave it?” I said out loud, bringing back to the moment underfoot the main points Yudit had done her best to teach me. Basically, we need to develop healthy detachment and empathy for all who cross our path. Together and separately, our response to the multitudes that cross our path paves the road that leads to our personal version of happiness. For me, the time had come to step away from intellectual debate and theory. The time had come to skydive toward the pitted, rugged and gutted, slip-sliding, swampy terrain of activation. In Fertile Ground [4] Neshama – Hebrew for Soul Yudit’s approach to conscious living is not for the faint-hearted. It is not for the one who is in a hurry and wants instant betterment, and it began with Yudit asking me, “Who is CC? The real CC!” l By then, she was not seeking more info about me than she already had. She was prompting me to think more profoundly about myself and to formulate clear answers to the following sorts of questions: Who was ‘in the saddle’ of my life? How much genuine free will did I truly exert? Did I know, really know, who was making the decisions I made moment by moment/day after day and year after year? How connected was I, really, to my authentic self? l What I found most interesting, even in the early years of learning under her wing, was that the mind-shift she was trying to inculcate in me was the best tool with which to face-off every situation one could ever find underfoot. Eventually, I came to understand how so many ‘pearls’ of her teachings were enabling me to control much better the ripples that, at times flooded my days – well beyond the starting point which was the ailing relationship with my mother that I had been enduring. l At the time I connected with Yudit, having worked here, there and everywhere as a high school teacher, I had already accumulated some 30 years of ‘classroom active duty’. As such, I was very familiar with conflict of the sort that arises when one’s responsibilities include micromanaging others through the application of rules, regulations and penalties for infringement, hotspots do flare up. l Potentially difficult moments can happen with colleagues, too, of course. And Yudit taught me that even beyond the workplace, from the heart is the best place to manage each stressful or hurtful moment, no matter how unfair it seems to us at the time. No matter what our loved ones and friends have to say about it. It is also the best place from which to direct our response to some of the most confronting aspects of current cultural shifts and practices. l Our response of resilience and coherence when faced with health and wealth issues, those affecting any of our loved ones and friends, too, in the fullness of time, need to be micromanaged from the heart. We, humanity, form an interconnected group which includes all fauna and flora and Earth’s resources, of course. Plants and animals and we, humans, are made up of the same cosmic energies. l The less personal, the less national and the less international separation and discord there is, here, there and everywhere, the happier and the safer we, together and separately, could be. This belief may well go against the grain of the enduring cultural practice of Me and Mine First which, when push-comes-to-shove, often contracts to simply Me First. l We see this mindset in the rising number of single-parent families which, for the most part, are the by-product of one parent choosing to cut loose from the family. We see it in the rhetoric of Border Protection. We see it as a partial explanation for domestic violence and all manner of bullying, and we see it in the planetary devastation we have wreaked to accommodate our collective ever-growing need for ‘more’ at many levels, for ‘less’ at others and mostly for cheaper, better, larger and faster everything. l Regardless of our motivation, the no-brainer evidence is that the longer any discord and resentment have been allowed – are allowed – to proliferate like weeds in an abandoned patch of land, the longer it takes to get it ready for new planting and healthy growth. That said, regardless of the size of that metaphoric patch of land and regardless of the days, weeks or years that have passed since ‘the roots surfaced’, the persons with a long-term vision of how contentment could look like, feel like, sound like for them will win out. l They are the ones who are resolute about putting the best version of themselves forward – always – no exceptions – to the best of their ability. They understand that contentment will not flow on from flurries of ‘I/Me/Mine and Ours First or by shouting, ‘UNFAIR!’ They are the ones who understand that, beyond a certain point, comfort, practicality and safety, contentment does not come attached to the house of our dreams or to the relationship of our dream or our popularity rating or to greater interest earned by the end of each fiscal year. In their quest for elusive contentment, they are the ones who have the best chance of getting more of what they want most out of life. l Slowly, eventually, I, too have come to terms with the belief that joy and well-being under the umbrella of contentment are the earthly rewards for acing Neshama’s emotion-laden tests and challenges. One at a time. Seemingly insignificant or massive. Amazing or heartbreaking, as each presents itself underfoot over the myriad of moments that align one behind the other to produce our best self in this lifetime. l Neshama gives us only essential instruction which we can call intuition. Up to us to trust and explore freely, taking our chances ‘blind’ in the open world. Up to us to be humble but brave, too. Up to us whether we ever get to do a bit more of our life with our authentic self at the controls. The only exemption from daily replies I felt I could pursue with integrity was when Myahr and I travelled overseas, and so, one day, I received a different text from Yudit. l Here it is in her own words: “Ahoti haketana, as you won’t be in your home for your birthday, I’ll bless you right now. Be awake and aware; Be able to accept unconditionally; Flow without being tempted by outer appearances; Find the code to your heart which would open other hearts as well. Open your arms to accept whoever/whatever is attracted to you. When someone/something annoys you look at it and question yourself. Say, “Hello, ma shlomech, CC? What’s just come up? What is the real message in that?” “Also, when someone/something makes you happy, look at that situation, too. Again ask yourself, “Hello, ma shlomech, CC? How did I make that happen? What is the real message?” You need to know that all aspects of the good scripts and also the bad ones that become your moments, including the main actors, the producer, and the director, they are all aspects of your reflection. “So be a brave warrior, CC,” was Yudit final words of encouragement. “Unveil your true face. If you’re faithful to your soul, she’ll grant you wisdom and love. And she’ll light up your path even in the darkest nights.” It’s now almost two years to the day since Yudit’s passing and a total of twelve years since that lone woman in Jerusalem, one day, in cyberspace, stumbled upon Silent Goodbyes, one of my novels. l Isn’t it weird how she immediately thought that ‘silent goodbyes’ referred to one person’s silent farewell to those of her loved ones who will not accompany her on the Path? Isn’t it weird how she deconstructed my nom de plume as See- See Saint Clair/Clear which made her curious as, to her, it suggested ‘clear-sightedness.’ If only! Isn’t it even weirder how this stranger who clicked Send on the Contact Us box on my site to ask what she should do about the failed download of that ebook ended up being the guiding light in my life? l Yudit taught me coherence and determination. She trained me to develop resilience until it almost became second nature. Without Yudit as my mentor, I would have slammed that proverbial door loudly on my mother, thus risking me, myself and my self- esteem. Also, knowing that I was still globe-trotting and actively unattached at 43 years of age because, when unchecked, my ego-persona sat squarely in the saddle putting herself in charge of my free will, without Yudit’s ancient wisdom, I would not have had the heart-gumption to finally ‘come of age’. I would not have known how to remain in love with my wonderful Myahr for the past 22 years and counting – happily. Furthermore, tonight, I would not have any personal journey worth sharing. So, again, I say, “Toda raba, Yudit yekara-soul. Thank you, ahoti hagedola.”