Of course, this wonderful yin force we are governed by loves to talk, to bond, to love.  It’s damn good at nurturing and picking one kid up from school before dropping the other one off at soccer practice.  But what we used to called "feminism", the active acknowledgment of female power, has become a weird and tangled issue of late.  First of all, the word itself has become sort of icky in our culture.  Like "liberal" it has somehow made the weird slide from sunlight into shadow, as the media machine has churned it up and spit it out. 

It’s too bad.  I guess we need a new word.  Or to take the ‘F’ word back.  Because there is a ton of female power in this country today.  And, paradoxically, that’s part of the problem too.  We’re DOING REALLY WELL, LADIES!  Human history has never seen so much freedom, wealth and power among its high-heeled set.  We can earn enough money to compete with the Big Boys, buy low-carb snacks with the click of a mouse, and have sex without ever getting pregnant!  We are in Congress, on the Supreme Court, in the boardroom and just barely missed the White House.  This time. 

So why even talk about it? 

Well, first of all, we need to avoid complacency.  This freedom was hard won.  Lest we forget that Suffragettes were imprisoned so that you and I could vote.  That thousands and thousands of women were burned as witches because…well… just because.  You see, it seems that the shadow of world’s psyche has been regularly projected onto us, my fellow hip chicks, and since the shadow never goes away entirely, we need to stay on our toes.  This lovely, upward, outward, yin force we channel needs to be honored and protected.  Just because women are "free" doesn’t mean there aren’t countervailing forces doing push-ups, in the dark, to bring us down.  And that’s not paranoia.  Poverty affects women more than men.  Although it’s slowly getting smaller, the wage gap between genders is alive and well.  According to the Riley Center in San Francisco,  a woman is battered in the U.S. every nine seconds, 95% of all domestic abuse is suffered by women, and domestic violence is the single most major cause of injury to women, outnumbering car accidents and muggings. And let’s not forget the malignant monster which is pornography, now just a click away from every modern brain. 

So are we really doing so well?

It was wonderful to spend a weekend in a place honoring our girl-ness.  Our wo-mojo.  The Yin.  Marianne Williamson, who wrote A Woman’s Worth (among other great books–check her out), gathered a bunch of strong ladies as Sister Giant to help us figure out what we can do with this delicious, hard-won freedom and power.  We were reminded that the Great Yin has a moral rudder the world needs very badly right now.  That an awakened female conscience would never knowingly let a child starve to death.  She gave us permission to feel the female power that says "Not in THIS house" in the face of an immoral, crazy, 1-in-4-American-children-goes-to-bed-hungry world.  She hooked us up with a group called RESULTS whose mission is to create the political will to end poverty.  Because that’s what’s missing; not the money.  Not the food.  The political will.  RESULTS regularly lobbies Congress on Foreign and Domestic Aid issues with the goal of getting real and badly needed help to the hungry here and abroad.  She had us role-play talking to our representatives.  She reminded us that we vote.  That we matter.  That people around the world right now need some compassionate, loving, fierce yin. 

Marianne calls it a national security issue.  She says that where there are desperate, hungry, hopeless people, there is a petri dish for pathological behavior, crime, war and possible terrorism.  Happy, educated, well-fed people don’t tend to blow things up.  At least, not as much. 

We didn’t have time to talk about girls’ schools getting terrorized in Afghanistan.  And no one mentioned female circumcision in Africa or the phenomenon of Bride Burning in India.  That’s the stuff that makes me crazy.  But, of course, there are too many problems facing women in the world for just one weekend.  So we focussed on the solution.  We recovered and re-affirmed the great loving, mothering, yin which steers our female souls.  And for us, lucky enough to be free and empowered, it can be our currency in the world.  Let’s awaken the Sister Giant and use her power.  

Anyway, I’ve got this phone, and I’m waiting for my youngest sister to call me, a little breathless, to say "it’s time!" Meanwhile, I’m just hanging out, trying to eat well, sleep well, and stay amused.  

Babies are funny.   Everyone wants to predict which sex they will be, when they are going to arrive… how the labor’s going to go… and those little Dickens’ just WON’T BEHAVE.  Then, when they arrive, they have the gall to just scream their heads off and poop their pants… for like MONTHS!

Personally, I think that babies are putting out a very real vibration long before they come.  They actually arrange a constellation of support on "the outside" before making their big break.  I experienced this once in Portland, Maine when, on a Friday evening at about 6 p.m., I lay down for a little snooze and awoke–a mere three hours later–thinking "I’m such a freakin’ loser, sleeping away a Friday night".  

On the heels of this positive affirmation, the phone rang: "We’re at Mercy hospital…she’s in labor… can you come over?" And I realized, right then, that the baby had put out the signals, got her ducks in a row, had me prepare appropriately (rest) and pulled her team together as needed.  

And I really believe that.  It may sound  "woo woo waa waa" but what’s the difference between that and "knowing" that the ringing phone is your brother on the line?  Or having a feeling something’s going to happen and it does?  We are always functioning on a deep, wordless, vibrational level and that’s where the real story is being written.  Let your intuition be your guide.  Listen carefully and do its bidding.  

So I’ve got the phone on, and my intuition sharpened, waiting for the baby to call. 

It’s a very important question.

Crisis is yangizing.  Which means contracting.  When you hear that the economy is collapsing, you get tense, which is a form of contraction.  Fear causes contraction.

So if that’s what’s happening inside the body, what’s going on outside?  Same thing.  The economy is literally contracting–less money, less confidence, less expansion.  It is shrinking from all the contraction.  Yang force.

Now let’s keep in mind that this is what economies do–they expand and contract–like all things.  But this time, the contraction is mighty because the expansion was mighty.  Predatory lending allowed the economy to reach way beyond its natural limits, and now we’re experiencing the realest form of karma; what comes up must come down.  Or better yet: people who can’t afford $400,000 homes generally stop paying the mortgage.

I know you didn’t come here for a lesson in economics; believe me, I know less about the whole thing than many friends of mine, but I am looking at the whole thing through the yin/yang lens, which is what macrobiotics is all about.  And my study of yin and yang tells me this:  When one force goes to its extreme… it becomes (or creates) its opposite!  “Necessity is the mother of invention” is another way of saying “yang creates yin”.  How cool is that?  In other words, just as all those sub-prime loans turned into foreclosures, all this yang contraction should be turning into yin expansion sometime soon, because it’s pretty extreme right now.  But does that mean money will just fall on your head from the sky?

I doubt it.

The expansion happening now is occurring on subtle, but very powerful levels. So as you get squeezed materially, look for ways in which you are opening vibrationally: Is your mind opening up to new ideas and possibilities as opposed to running along its old, comfy channels?  Is your creativity generating new ways to conserve, or to share?  Is your heart opening up to people in a new way–feeling your interdependence?  Is your spirit expanding as you reach to God, or the Universe, screaming: “HELP ME PAY THE FREAKIN’ BILLS!!”  Although this transition may not be comfortable, as we relax into it, we may see ourselves changing in quite positive ways.  It’s a time for our spirits to expand.

An economy flooded with wealth feeds the illusion that we are separate, that we don’t need each other, or the natural world.  We each hang out behind our computer screens, buy “food” created in factories, move “money” around in cyberspace and generally lounge in our egos.  But massive global economic contraction challenges all that and eats away at the delusion of separateness.  As the material self (stuff) erodes, our vibrational selves (minds, emotions, spirits) are forced to intermingle.  And that’s good.  Because the truth is we’re all one, we’re all in this together, and it’s about time we figured that out.

Today, call a friend or family member you haven’t spoken to in a while and feel the wealth of human relationship.

Although I keep checking in with other people, and it seems that everyone has a particular set of neuroses floating around in their heads these days: I’ll say to a friend: “You know, I’m totally weirded out about the price of oil, people starving, global warming, the economy contracting…” and they nod as I say it, confirming that I am not completely and utterly insane.

I just lost my mother, so it makes sense that I feel an extra vulnerability in the world. My mother was the best of buffers, a human who held the promise of insulation from life’s crueler realities. Whether or not she could have shielded me effectively through a hurricane, let alone a nuclear onslaught, I’ll never know, but I certainly felt like she could. And now that feeling’s gone.

So I’m dealing with loss, and it’s hard for me to figure out if I’m projecting all over the place, or if we’re all going through a weird cultural loss right now. The loss of our dream of endless material expansion and possibility, perhaps? It seems like we are.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross said that, in dealing with death, we experience anger, denial, bargaining, grief and acceptance. Although it’s relatively easy to identify one’s cycling through these stages when a real, squeezable, huggable human evaporates, it’s not so easy to identify these stages when what is lost is a dream–a mental template by which we’re navigating our lives, upon which we are forming our very sense of self.

I was talking to a friend recently, having a little tantrum about climate change; I’m pissed off that we have to deal with it–not that I want the planet go kaput, but that it presents such a huge, surprise party-esque, mid-life skewing of my personal life path… and I know that sounds incredibly selfish, but hey, I’m stuck in this body, having these experiences and there’s not much I can do about how my psyche has formed itself. And when I get any perspective on it, and have a modicum of compassion for myself, it actually makes sense: I was toodling along in my life, accepting the terms of the American dream–work hard, dream big, don’t cheat–and everything will continue to get better. It felt like someone was whispering in my ear: “there are unlimited resources available to you. You were lucky enough to be born in a time of great wealth, technology and personal freedoms–take advantage of them and do your best to help others do the same. Your parents and your parents’ parents worked very hard to create the playground you are playing in, so enjoy it thoroughly!!

Those seemed to be the rules. Of course, they may sound ridiculous now, but we don’t really recognize our mental maps until they are challenged, and North America’s prosperity has kept many of us (especially of my generation) in a sort of extended adolescence of consumption.

So imagine my dismay, when–smack in the middle of my journey, just when I’d learned how to not break the toys and play fair with the other kids–the map gets shredded. Suddenly the earth is being killed–and quickly. Suddenly the two hundred years of “prosperity” racked up since the Industrial Revolution–the pride of our forefathers–is retroactively construed as a prolonged and salacious rape of the innocent planet. Suddenly–and this is where my tantrum comes–I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR FIXING IT!! NOW!!!!! I MEAN, RIGHT FREAKING NOW!!! Not next decade… Not after passing ‘GO’ and receiving my two hundred bucks… Forget building a hotel on Park Place! The message is very clear: CLEAN UP THIS DISGUSTING MESS NOW OR WE ARE ALL GOING TO HELL!!!

And Hell, by the way, is sketched out everywhere these days: huge, solemn chunks of ice–like tired old men–falling into the sea. Skinny polar bears sniffing their tiny ice floes. Lakes evaporating like puddles. And the price of a gallon of gas doesn’t help things, with its promise of endless upward mobility. The double bind of climate change (driven by oil) and the end of oil (it will run out just as the tallest Florida mansion slips underwater) seems such a funny, awful, rub-your-nose-in-it paradox it makes me think that God really is a creepy old white man with a cruel sense of humor.

So my mental map has been trashed. The playground is suddenly dirty, and I sense that many of the other kids are just as confused as I am. The future we carried around inside of us has been burnt to a crisp. Some of the kids are turning off lights religiously (bargaining), hoping their efforts can stem the tide. Some kids are still playing happily (denial) and I am genuinely jealous, like I’m jealous of those with living mothers right now. I think that many of the kids are sad like me, really grokking the loss we’re experiencing, but not knowing how to express it. The loss of a happy, vigorous, expansive future sucks. It literally hurts. And it’s a difficult one to negotiate–on the one hand, the stakes are ridiculously high: we’re talking about the future of our selves, our children and our grandchildren. The issues are global: The Chinese are buying cars, cars, cars! And yet, the ocean isn’t lapping at our gardens… yet. Everyone on this continent is still eating pizza, and watching Grey’s Anatomy and is walking around like everything’s sorta … normal. And yet, on some invisible level, we’re freaking out. The future we carried around inside of us has been burnt to a crisp.

So what’s a human to do? Personally, my first line of defense is to eat sludgy food and drink coffee. This gets me into a full-blown combination of panic and depression that actually, and strangely, reveals the problem to me. It’s like an alarm system I use to give myself permission to see my shadow side–the fears and negativity that naturally accrue as life changes without my permission.

After freaking out, acknowledging “holy crap, I’m really afraid about the future and sad about the dream I’m losing”, I can feel the grief, write about it, share about it, and eventually crawl back to my meditation cushion and a bowl of brown rice. Like I did this morning.

Many people ask for signs from God that they are being heard, or directed. I don’t usually ask for signs, per se, but I have always experienced a freaky synchronicity between my life and the books that I read. And, by the way, I don’t read many books–unless you consider The New Yorker a book (which I do not–I just had to mention it to not feel like a total loser). So, it always amazes me when the book I’m reading has a direct and obvious message to give me. For instance, I was flipping out to my therapist yesterday about all this we’re-all-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket stuff, and last night, right before going to bed, I looked on the floor of my bedroom and there was the book Radical Optimism: Practical Spirituality in an Uncertain World by Beatrice Bruteau. My cousin had given it to me for Christmas, and, like most books I receive, it ended up in a polite little pile, on the floor. I had seen it, peripherally and unconsciously, many times since Christmas, and yet never paid any attention. But last night, it jumped out at me and slapped me lovingly in the face with its first paragraph:

“The more troubled and difficult the world becomes, the more important it becomes to be optimistic. And the more deeply we need to root our optimism. When we cannot reasonably base it on the way things are going, we know that we have to base it in the ultimate reality of God. We know that it has to be radical.”

Whoah. I kept reading…

“Contemplation means withdrawing attention from outward, objective, particular and temporal concerns, and refocusing on inward, subjective, general and even eternal realities. This transcendent standpoint brings us into a deeper place with surer values and more authentic selfhood. From this place we are also better able to deal with the temporal and particular.”

What I’m hearing is: PEOPLE FREAK OUT ABOUT THE WORLD ALL THE TIME. IT’S NOT JUST ME AND IT’S NOT JUST NOW. I’m also hearing that sometimes the world gets so freaky that it’s literally difficult to be optimistic–this has been my problem of late.

And here’s the solution: Go inside, into that place below thought, below the freakout, under the price of gas, to the place I call The Great Nothingness which is The Great Everythingness.

This place is real. We are of it. And it is eternal. It’s the thing that unites us and will pull us through whatever we need to get through these days. It’s the place I can retreat to when my dreams fall apart and my map gets ripped to shreds. It’s where I get clear, and relaxed, and ready to receive and unfurl a new map. It’s the place where we’re all the same, and where real love comes from. It’s a generous, roomy place, and I think we all need that right now.

And, although I have been eating sludgy food of late, I know that natural foods bolster this eternal place as well. With the oomph of whole foods, I experience a real connection to Nature, our collective mother. After a while, I feel like all the problems we face are just gobbledygook on top of the strong, flexible, golden truth of whole grain. I realize that maybe all this insanity is just our strange way of getting ourselves back to nature, to make friends again on the real playground of the earth.

Of course it hurts when a dream shatters, and the pain is very real; delusions are real. But they are not the truth. And the truth is that nature is our actual playground and that we each carry part of the eternal whole inside of us. The truth is that everything changes… and changes again… Those aren’t such bad rules!

I trust that I will be given a new map on this playground, and I will play a new role in this new game. After a little detoxing, it might feel pretty good–exciting even. I just need to stay open and avoid the next Starbucks.

Another example of radical optimism, my friend Arthur:

My mother died on Thursday.

I don’t know how to write that sentence without dropping it on your foot like a brick. Not that you knew my mother, but no matter how you slice it, mothers are a big deal, and death is pretty huge itself. In fact, of all the clubs I’ve ever been a member of, “People-Who-Have-Mothers” is by far the biggest and of all the things we fear, I’m thinking good ole death is tippy top of the list.

I would say that I’m in shock, but I don’t believe I am. I was in shock earlier this week, when I was making trips to a hospital unknown to me, visiting the body I came out of–in a coma. I was in shock when I got the news a couple of months ago that my mother’s melanoma had returned and had traveled to her precious cerebellum. I was in shock four years ago, when she got that first mole biopsied. But between all those slaps in the face, I think my subconscious mind has been preparing for motherlessness… preparing for this moment right now when it somehow feels normal, or okay, that she’s gone. Holy crap.

So I’m thinking that we are actually wired for death, as much as we are wired for birth, or sex, or love. It’s as if my current response to death is embedded in my neurological make-up and has its own organic flow. And I’m not talking about Kubler-Ross’s Anger, Denial, Bargaining, Grief and Acceptance (although I recognize cycling through those stages, as did my mother). I’m talking about my brain tripping out on this experience in ways I couldn’t have expected–patterns shifting, walls falling, complete with wacky revelations–already! So my mother, one of my greatest teachers, continues her work:

Things I’m learning from my mother’s death:

Priorities: We are hearing from so many people who knew her about what she gave them. It wasn’t stuff, or her accomplishments that made her valuable. Again and again, it was her tenderness and lack of judgment that left their mark. People felt seen and heard by her. It doesn’t seem to matter that she never made a zillion dollars. They didn’t care that she watched ‘Deal or No Deal’, which we all thought was embarrasing and beneath her. No one’s mentioned how show dressed, or her table manners. It was her vibe that mattered. Her spirit. What an amazing gift–to eavesdrop at a deathbed…

Macrobiotics: My mother practiced MB in a wide way for the last ten years of her life, with a couple of strict years thrown in there after the first diagnosis. Before that, she pretty much ate your average sludge. I suppose we will never know what her life would have been like had she continued her previous habits. What I do know is that she got happier and happier in the last years of her life; that she opened emotionally and spiritually in a way she never had before, and that her light began to emanate outward in a powerful, palpable way. The combination of good love and good fuel made her a powerhouse, and although it would have been amazing to see it all continue, I’m so grateful that she ended on such a fine note. She taught me that it’s never too late to get better.

Yin and Yang Lessons: #1: As she waned, others have waxed. As my mother’s light faded, friends and family came shining forth with such beauty. It’s been amazing–like a brilliant dance of love I didn’t know I was a part of. Bittersweet balance.

#2: As much as this is a colossal loss, it is also a gain–I am feeling a particular strength I have never felt before–a propulsion forward which excites me. I think mum would be happy and excited for me too.

#3: In the absence of our mother, my sister and I are silently re-negotiating the terms of our sorority… energy is always shifting and finding balance. Yin and yang amaze me.

“Nature takes care of Her own”: That was one of my mother’s favorite sayings, and it’s proving itself right now. Within 72 hours of my mother’s release, I am feeling gratitude and enjoying some perspective. You see, I expected my brain to hang out in the mud a lot longer than a day, but it did not. That’s what I mean by “Nature takes care of Her own”; my brain seems wired–almost callously and without my permission–to move forward. Will I cry some more? Buckets. Will I miss her? Forever. But will life stop? Well, all I know is that, in the last two months, this family did everything we could to honor the life force: We ate good food, walked barefoot on the grass, thought positively, communicated honestly, and even took our turns on the goddamned exercise bike. So now, with one member missing, to turn our backs on the life force and get sucked into depression feels… wrong. Not morally wrong, just energetically weird and off-course. My mother has expanded. She is free. The morning she died I felt a joy so complete I could have exploded from it. And it was so… natural. Life becomes death and death becomes life. Yin and Yang.

It would have been my mother’s 70th birthday tomorrow… but she’s actually just beginning.

Love your life,

Jessica

P.S. Dear Bloguees, I have just read the comments that you’ve posted in the last few weeks.  Thank you so much for your love and support and prayers.  I am overwhelmed.

I’ve hesitated to blog lately because some serious poop has hit the fan of my life; my mother, diagnosed with malignant melanoma four years ago, is experiencing a recurrence.  I’m in London right now, where she lives, cooking my butt off for her.

It is, as my friends in South Africa would say, “hectic”–only they pronounce it “hictic”.  That’s their word for what we North Americans would call “intense”, “insane”, “screwed up”, and everything stressful in between.  You see, I’ve never been this close or attached to someone with a terminal diagnosis–and, to the doctors, this is a “go home and get your affairs in order” affair.  And even within the world of macrobiotics, malignant melanoma is a bitch.  But not impossible.  Nothing’s totally impossible in macrobiotics–in theory–and that’s what I love about it.

However, this is my mother.  So my clear, objective, teacher’s eye is sometimes clouded by the cataract of fear.  Fear of losing her.  Of going through the seismic shift which that loss represents.  Of crying my guts up for the rest of my life.  You see, I am in the lucky, lucky club of people who genuinely and greedily love their mothers.  She has given me the closest thing to unconditional love I think one human can give to another and I have had the good fortune to recognize the good fortune in that.  So I don’t want her to go before she has to.

And all this feels like my career–my path–is being put to the test.  But I need to be really careful as I say that.  First of all, it’s ridiculously self-centered, and reveals a rigid, dualistic, perfectionist streak.  It’s also fueled by my fear of being judged–by you, the readers I’ve promised all sorts of macro miracles to in my book.  And believe me, MB is pretty freakin’ fantastic.  I know, personally, at least two handfuls of people who have recovered from conditions considered terminal–using food alone.  That’s real.  And it totally blew my mind to witness those recoveries.  However, I’ve also been around long enough to know that macrobiotic practice does not guarantee recovery–it simply gives nature a fighting chance to take back Her territory, if it’s not too late, and if that’s what’s meant to happen.

So I need to focus on the rainbow of benefits that macrobiotics brings, no matter what:  It makes the individual eating the food much more peaceful than would often be the case.  It gives perspective, and right now, is reminding us all of the yin and yang of things (my mother took care of me as a vulnerable child and I am tending to her in this time of vulnerability).  It is reminding me and my mother that we are just energy, expressions of a much greater whole–and we can actually talk about that stuff, without laughing.  It is keeping God in this house, not just through our thoughts, but through the food–its wholeness brings the oomph of the universe right into our cells.

MB philosophy tells me that everything has a front and a back.  Until now, I only ever saw death as a horrible black door down a long hallway that everyone tried to avoid.  I felt deeply repelled by it.  But now, as this situation brings me closer to that door than I have ever been, I can see that there are lovely flowers springing up around it.  I see how beautifully it’s carved.  In fact, it’s looks very much like the door I came in through.  I’m even learning that it can open without too much fear and with a helluva lot of love.  Before, death was all back.  Now I’m seeing some of its front.

But enough about death–my mother’s gonna live for a very long time!!  You see, I’m also reading all the recent books about the Law of Attraction, The Secret, etc. and although my critical mind says things like “that stuff is so cheesy” (because it happens to be popular right now, and I’m a snob) and my arrogance says “I’m a hypnotist–I KNOW ALL THAT”, knowing it and living it are two totally different things.  So we’re all applying the principles of vibrational healing, and this situation is ratcheting up my vibration like nothing has in a long time.  Although macrobiotics provides the excellent fuel that can support my mothers innate ability to heal, we must surround her–and support in her–the attitudes and belief systems that drive her forward to a new, healthier, more integrated version of herself.   And macrobiotics also backs that up:  George Ohsawa identified three Categories of Cure:  The first was Symptomatic, the second Educational, and the third he called Creative or Spiritual: “A life without fear or anxiety, a life of freedom, happiness, and justice–the realization of self.  This is the medicine of the body, the mind and the soul”

Every morning my mother and I do a gratitude list together.  We mention one another, our family, the wind, London, good food, kittens, my stepfather, our health, friends, good movies… the list goes on and on.  As I lie with her in bed, holding her hand, I swear our spirits expand beyond ourselves, into the room, out onto the street, going as far as God-only-knows where.  As our bodies relax and we merge into one being,  I realize that I am fully alive.

Please visualize my mother in perfect, joyous health.  Her name is Susan.  And she’s a redhead.

Thank you.

Jessica

And I tried. I really did. But nothing ever stuck. A boyfriend I had in my twenties couldn’t understand that I cared so deeply about what I cooked for myself, and yet left the kitchen a total mess. After having inhabited by body for quite a while at that point, I completely empathized with the perplexity he felt. The only way I could explain it was like this: “I need you to think of me, honey” I said, sweetening the bomb I was about to drop, “as retarded.”

I wasn’t joking. It’s as if I’m simply wired to make a mess–as powerless as someone with any other wiring issue. And there’s no getting around it. It’s like asking a gay person to go straight, or a straight person to go gay. And what I was asking for from Todd was a little compassion, a little cut-me-some-slack-because-your-judgment-is-really-stressing-me-out and-it’s-not-gonna-get-me-to-be-neat-anyway. Know what I mean?

When I lived at the Kushi Institute, a teacher there said–with disgust–that messiness was a sign of mucky instestines. That totally freaked me out. So I did everything I could to clean out my inner tubing, thinking that could make me a Neat. And I got increasingly neurotic about it by the day. Dried daikon drink. Ume-sho-kuzu. Ginger compresses on my gut. You name it. Anything to make me a Neat! Until one day, I walked past the bedroom of a really fine, experienced, Japanese cook. His name was Naoki and he was in charge of all the food production at the K.I. He had not grown up on a sludgy Canadian diet. His energy was very refined, loving and yet, razor-sharp. His hips were as slim as a supermodel’s and he seemed the last person whose intestines would be full of sludge. And guess what? His room was a pigsty. Okay, not a pigsty, but there was a big, familiar, beautiful pile of dirty clothes on his dresser, spilling onto the floor. I almost had an orgasm.

But even with that validation, we Messies feel deep shame and are often judged by others. We spend our lives trying to turn ourselves into Neats, buying books about organization, filing and scheduling systems. We sometimes even hire the Neats to clean us up, providing short-term relief, but driving the shame deeper when we inevitably what we do best–make a mess.

But those days are over. Thanks to a wonderful book called “A Perfect Mess” by Eric Abrahamsom and David. H. Freedman. It has become my bible of the last week and I can’t express the relief it has given me. It actually questions the universally accepted assumption that neatness saves time and money. Or that strict organization and planning always lead to better results in life. Turns out we Messies (or “Scruffies” as we’re called in the book at one point) are better at a lot of things because we’re actually making room for flexibility, randomness and happenstance. And guess what else? We may even be saving time and resources by NOT CLEANING UP ALL THE TIME!!! Apparently, our messes have their own unconscious systems that work pretty well for many of us, and if the Neats would just stop judging us, we’d all get along just fine!

In fact, messiness is the new thing; companies like Microsoft and Google have a certain degree of messiness in their functioning that allows for ridiculous creativity. Process and not perfectionism is considered the road to innovation. Rigidity is so last century. Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn’t keep a schedule and yet he manages to run California. Soldiers have to work with the constant messiness of war. Einstein was a total slob. Hallelujah!!!

In terms of yin and yang, it actually makes perfect sense; Yin is the spiral governed by expansion, like a hurricane (messy). Yang is the opposite, governed by contraction (neat). Nature’s tendency is toward entropy–disorganization, expansion, falling apart–which makes sense because the universe is on expand mode. So wait… I guess it’s actually AN INCREDIBLY SPIRITUALLY EVOLVED THING to be messy. Which really begs the question: why do the Neats end up so neat? I have no idea. Those poor, poor Neats. Let’s get scruffy Al Einstein on that one.

It’s easy to be a snob as a macrobiotic–in fact, MB practice sort of creates it. You start to feel good–really good–and one of the first things the mind say is “I feel so GOOD!” And then it rationalizes (because it must rationalize, and place itself within duality): “Anyone who doesn’t eat like me is an IDIOT!” It’s easy to get arrogant, sanctimonious, and frankly, boring. Thank God the real principles of macrobiotics–the laws of yin and yang–have nothing to do with judging anyone.

It would have been easy to be a macro snob this week, thinking that these two worlds shouldn’t rub together. But had I held onto those attitudes, I might have missed the whole experience. Instead, I looked at it all in the spirit of PLAY–George Ohsawa’s bottom line (read my book if you don’t know who George is). To George, life was play.

Now, play doesn’t mean having fun every single second of every day.  The real meaning of play comes when you study yin and yang, seeing the larger picture of attraction and repulsion, with everything eventually becoming its opposite!  When you begin to perceive that, you can detach from the conventional wisdom and “play”.  Eating macrobiotically also allows you to have a natural flexibility in all situations, which makes life more playful.   “Play” is an apt term too because, when you eat whole grains, abstaining from crappy, processed food, your body cooks up your natural happy chemicals, and you feel a simple, God-given high-on-life euphoria that kids often have.   The MB ride is soft, and deep, and exciting and fun.  It doesn’t mean there isn’t pain, and loss, and that you never have problems–and that they don’t sometimes really suck– but they are all eventually perceived as part of a bigger puzzle of yin and yang.

So, it was great to “play” on the Shopping Channel this week. Great to be part of the health food industry’s great expansion over the last 30 years, as this whole thing becomes more and more mainstream. George also said that yin attracts yang and yang attracts yin; so maybe it’s not so strange when the macrobiotic diet–the ultimate labor-intensive, hardcore health food nutcase diet goes on a date with its whirling, cubic zirconia–strewn, sugar-laced, get-one-now, “only thirty seconds left” energy OPPOSITE.  Yin and yang, baby.  It’s the only game in town.

Truth is, I didn’t sell a huge number of books–but I think I might have planted some interesting seeds. And for the people out there who did order the book off the Shopping Channel, THANK YOU and I would love to hear from you as you begin your macro adventures.

Life is play. Chew well,

Jessica

P.S. Now I can get an “As seen on the Shopping Channel” tattoo on my ass!

First of all, I want to say THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU to everyone who has posted blog-encouragement to me in the last week or so. Every message has been sucked on like a candy and throughly digested by my soul. Thank you. It really helps. If you feel moved to keep it comin’, I will continue to appreciate it.

Second, today is the one-year anniversary of my meeting a man with whom I embarked on a love roller coaster that eventually boomeranged into a House of Haunted Horrors this past year. Which was not entirely a bad thing (Everything that has a front has a back–the bigger the front, the bigger the back). I learned a lot… I grew a lot… I cried a lot… and the whole experience managed to smash a long-held template in my heart that was no longer serving me–probably the true silver lining to the cloud. Plus, the love part is always wonderful, no matter how it ends. Because today is the anniversay or the original meeting… it seems important to mark it. Normally, I might feel self-conscious about mentioning it in public, but because this person happens to be gleefully self-absorbed, there’s very little risk that he’s reading this.

We recently experienced the Winter solstice, which is my favorite day of the year; it is from here that we boomerang into expansion after having reached the ultimate depths of contraction. It is at solstice time that I am forced to face the yuckiest yuck of my shadow–the deepest fears and sludge–and from here on in, nothing is really that scary.

Speaking of scary, blogging has forced me to wrestle with the idea of privacy recently–with the energetic insulation we carry in the world to keep ourselves our “selves”, stopping us from bleeding into cyberspace–psyches spilling into the void. However, I’ve been reading some of my favorite writers–Marianne Williamson, Anne Lamott, David Sedaris– and it’s exactly their vulnerability and honesty I find most compelling. I’ve taken my sweet time with Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat (35th printing) Pray (might as well start printing money!) Love (who do you think will star in the movie?) and I am amazed at the nakedness she shows. And equally amazed at how much I love her for her nakedness. While her book is seemingly all about herself, it is actually a lively, funny, colorful veil on the face of the Goddess. A true paradox. It’s a reminder to me that only by being completely real do we allow intimacy with one another and offer an opening for God (or grace, or whatever-you-want-to-call-it) to shine through. So I’m gonna keep taking the risk of being more honest with myself and with you– dear Bloguee. I’m getting ready to tell my big secrets–the ones the squeeze of Autumn has been forcing me to confront–in the name of creating space for faith, for intimacy, and maybe even a miracle or two. Here goes:

THE THINGS I’M MOST AFRAID OF ADMITTING, 2007:

1. (Drumroll) … I’m single. And I’m not exactly 25 anymore. Or even 35. THIS FREAKS ME OUT. From the side of darkness, I hear: “Loser”, “What’s wrong with you?”, and the worst: “Everyone feels sorry for you”. But, even as I write that, all sorts of healthy voices rise up in my defense; voices that shout: “There are more single women in North America today than there are married ones!!” (True–New York Times, Jan. 07–google it) and “Women are single today because they no longer have to sacrifice their souls to mediocre relationships!” (Probably lots of truth to that–with all respect and kudos to people in healthy relationships) and “The Universe has not abandoned you just because you don’t have a ring on your finger!” (I do still seem to be breathing, walking, writing–even getting some action every once in a while, etc.)

In fact, when I see beyond my personal conflict with singleness, I appreciate that I am of a generation that has never existed before–we are chicks who have the education, the financial power, and the self-esteem to really live our lives–for ourselves, if we choose to. And although that may be swinging us to unprecedented extremes, someone has to discover how far the pendulum goes…someone’s gotta collect some payback for the witch hunts… I mean, someone had to set off for India and end up discovering the freakin’ New World!!. So why not us? Maybe my singleness is actually a sign of the times. In other generations, I would be married with kids right now whether I liked it or not. And there have been a lot of “nots” in our patriarchal history. That’s the pendulum swinging in the opposite direction–gender-based servitide, and many women around the world are still in it. Now I–and clearly many others–are riding to the furthest frontiers of female experience–a place of freedom, self-actualization, and … who know what else? And the women loving, feeding, growing families… they are our sisters, and we can balance each other out. So if you’re on this side of womanhood with me–singleness–I say it only makes sense to enjoy it. And who knows? Maybe Mother Nature really needs us right now. Maybe the lovely, magical yin energy that all women have available–maybe if it’s not being given to a partner, or kids–is meant to be channeled into alternative projects that need it just as urgently–like nature. It’s a serious time on the planet, these day, ladies. Someone’s gotta clean up the vibes around here…

All that being said, I have no problems with anyone sending me their nice, non-narcissistic, willing-to-eat-decent-food brother!

2. I’m afraid of being judged because I don’t practice macrobiotics perfectly. This is a big one, especially as I put out a public image as a macro “expert”. It also dovetails nicely with another fear: I’m afraid of dying of some funky disease and everyone saying: “Well, that proves that macrobiotics is baloney” or “she was such a hypocrite”. Welcome to the rarely-discussed neuroses of many health-careered people. For the record: I don’t do MB perfectly… followed by about everything else. The only thing I’ve done perfectly for the last 18 years is acknowledge that I am not perfect. Long-term consistency in any kind of discipline beyond that eludes me. I eat healthy food… regularly. I only cook macro food in my home. I think macrobiotically, meaning I am always looking for yin and yang of everything, but I do not practice like a saint or a monk. I do yoga… sometimes. I meditate… a lot, but not every single day. I pray… when I remember to. I get sucked into fear, and resentment and Houses of Haunted Horrors more often than I would like to admit. So there! Sue me.

3. I’m afraid of getting closer to God. When I first surrendered to the idea that there was a lovely, benevolent force guiding me along my path, I absolutely fell in love with It. I really did. I quit graduate school for It. I read everything I could get my hands on about It. I prayed to It. I talked about It inessantly. I would have handed out flowers in airports for It, I think, but thankfully never felt moved to. But in the last few years, I’ve grown quite complacent. Life is pretty good. “Move over, God(dess), I can do this thing called life–I wrote a freakin’ book, I’ve got lots of cool friends, I eat okay… come on–HAND ME THAT STEERING WHEEL!!”

You see, if I get closer to God,–really letting myself fall in love with It again–I will feel Its power, and that means NOT BEING IN CONTROL. And not being in control begat surrender. Which begat more ego destruction. More… whatever the hell God decides to give me… flowers in the airport? Embarrassing, decidedly un-Canadian zealotry? The point is: I DON’T KNOW! My way just seems–if not happier–at least more familiar…

But, when I get past this ego fear, I do have a sense that God(dess) has some pretty cool plans for the world: I think that It wants food-conscious people to support each other in our efforts to strengthen the quality of our bodies, and therefore the whole human fabric, by bringing back whole foods and the concept of balance. Not because there’s some crazy edict about it, but because that’s just nature taking nature back, through us. I believe that the Universe/God is pretty much on the side of the planet staying intact. I believe that–no matter who their parents are–that the Universe would like to see all kids given a decent shot at health and freedom. I believe that God wants me, and you, to keep striving in our lives… to realize our true dreams.

Which brings us neatly to NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS*. Yay! It’s so nice to clear out the fear to get to the positive stuff (another boomerang). SO HERE ARE MY DREAMS FOR THIS YEAR:

1. I would like this website to serve as a touchstone for everyone interested in improving their lives by improving what they shove in their pie-holes. I hope to inspire and educate through honesty and humor. And to be educated by you. I want this website to feel like a soft place to land (yes, I just quoted Dr. Phil–I HAVE A WEIRD THING FOR HIM–I can’t help it) in a world that tends to chew people up and spit them out.

2. I would like people (and especially women–I’ll be honest–with all respect to dudes, you’ve been in charge A LONG TIME, gentlemen!) to realize the AWESOME power that exists in our lowly kitchens. COOKING IS SO AMAZING! When I was in Florida recently, I met a woman who had just read my book. She took me to her lovely home and I saw that she had arranged her kitchen in a horseshoe pattern so that she cooked, and talked and healed from the center of the vortex. “You are a witch” I said, “a beautiful, powerful witch.” And we all are–in a good way. So let’s bring back the witchcraft, ladies (and warlocks), as we cook whole grains and vegetables for our loved ones. Let’s spread Mother Earth’s good vibes through our families and communities. Let’s secretly–and selfishly–love this world back into balance from our stoves. There ain’t no stakes to be burnt at, girls. At least not in North America. Thank Goddess.

3. Oh yeah, and I wanna win an Oscar. Almost forgot!

So what are your plans for the New Year? What are the fears or negative belief systems that might be getting in your way? How can we use this site to inspire each other?

Chew well,
Happy New Year.

*I just realized that New Year’s resolutions, which are invisible, vibrational projections (yin) are born of the extreme squeeze we experience at the solstice (yang). Every extreme produces its opposite. Neat! More macro gobbledygook: All “dreams” begin in the yin ether and we experience them as visions, intuitive urges, vibrations or desires. When our physical conditions are strong, and we eat whole foods–rich in minerals (yang)–we naturally begin to manifest our dreams; they literally come through us, going from the yin ether (dream) to yang (material reality) in the world. When you eat well, this process happens quite effortlessly. Try it–you’ll see. It’s one of the coolest things about being macro!

For more Hip Chick blather, check out the podcast I did at the
Hip Tranquil Chick website:

Ugh.

It’s strange to spend my life trying to recognize, sort through, and ultimately discard layers of sludge and useless “self”, then plop myself down in acting class–a room full of 24-year old blondes and their male counterparts–where I immediately take a nosedive into the murky, smelly fishtank of self. IT IS THE MOST INSECURE EXPERIENCE I’VE HAD IN A LONG TIME.

Talk about painful! I’ve been reading a lot about narcissism lately (a fascinating topic for any chick who has beaten her lovely head against a charming, engaging, but utterly immovable mountain of man-self—or vice versa, for male readers). Anyway, for a narcissist, the only real pain comes from what is called “narcissistic injury”, which is a blow to the fixed image they have of themselves as perfect, fabulous, or whatever. This blow creates a hole in their shimmery armor that is usually met with denial but, if acknowledged, comes face-to-face with the dragon of rage.

Welcome to my acting class.

But let me back up a little: I find ego-deflation liberating, albeit painful. And, to give myself a little credit here, I’ve done quite a bit of it; the eating disorder I carried through adolescence began to crumble in the face of spiritual growth and ego-reduction. I’ve meditated a hundred different ways and really dig that moment where thought just melts and my soul exhales. Ahhh, the freedom of selflessness! And although I could do a lot more of it, I really enjoy being of service to other people and the feeling of universal connectedness it brings.

BUT DON’T MESS WITH MY ACTING. Don’t critique it. Don’t punch holes in it. Don’t remind me that I’m not a 24-year old blonde with the world opening up to her like a rose. This part of my “self”, I want locked down in a shiny little box called “confidence” to which only I hold the key, thank you veddy much. And when my stupid, boring, totally unworthy-of-my-time acting teacher picks up that key and starts picking at the lock, my narcissistic dragon spits fire at him: “DON’T YOU SEE, MISTER STUPID ACTING TEACHER, THAT I HAVE NO HUMILITY HERE!!!! WHAT IS YOUR FREAKING PROBLEM?? JUST LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE!!”

I bet Cate Blanchett is just the same.

Ugh.

I guess I just need to trust, as we all do, that when our egos are challenged–whether it’s by spouses, children, bosses or acting teachers–there is a big Self underneath the rigid armor. That the universe is holding me up, while splinters of ego fly everywhere… that maybe there is a box much bigger than my little shiny one marked “confidence”.

Or some kind of bull like that.

I am off to England tomorrow, where I will be with my macro mother. We will cook together, and share our stories, and I will nurse my narcissistic wound. As we watch British TV, and I complain about my stupid acting class–comparing myself favorably to Judi Dench and Helen Mirren–my dragon’s fury will quietly cool down and the hole my stupid, boring, TOTALLY UNWORTHY acting teacher created will become a secret, magical opening to my future. And I’ll go back to class in January.

Ugh.

Do you invite the dissolution of self? How does it feel? During and after? How does the macrobiotic diet help dissolve the little self?

Chew well,

Jessica