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Thursday, January 18, 2007

Energy

Am just at home today, and as one of my sons says, "Taking care of business."
I have the laundry machines running while I have been completing online
applications for substitute teaching positions. I got all of my continuing ed credits completed, and passed my class! So now I am again eligible to teach in this state. Yeah! Seems like the day has simply slipped by me.

The house is quiet for exactly 27 more minutes. And then my 13 year old bouncing "baby boy" will bust through the door with his overload of energy. Mega watts of it! I usually want to send him out to run around the house about a dozen times. (My mother in law said that she used to send one of her boys out to run around the house after school just to burn off some energy....I love that woman!)

I think any middle school teacher should automatically be a candidate for canonization. To be creative enough to get past all those hormonally induced
energy surges and actually teach their students is truly heroic.

Joy has been talking about the inexplicable and mysterious occurances that we live with each day. And I want to latch on to that thought a little bit today.

To me, the energy that flows from one person to another is a mystery. The energy that radiates from my middle school son can reenergize me but it can also tighten my neck muscles in just a few seconds. Sure, some people might attribute it to a learned physiological response or simply to a reflex response to loud noises and sudden movements....but...
I believe that it is much more that and cannot yet fully be explained. We have not the tools to perceive and measure such energy. And I agree with Joy that we do not have the language to describe some of the mysteries of ourselves and others.

Though I cannot prove it, I believe whole heartedly that the energy that flows between me and each of my sons is a unique dynamic force and is an extenstion of our beings. I might go so far as to say it is of the spirit....Well, I don't have a solid enough background in theology to stay with this line of thought despite 12 years of Catholic education, so I will stop right now.

Recently, I came across a book that has really been around for years. It is new to me, though. Julia Cameron's the "Artist's Way."

Over the past few weeks, I have been writing my morning pages. Three pages full.
And something seems to be happening. All this energy; (yes, I think I will call it energy) that builds in my head and maybe even in my body around the irrationality of adoption and what happened to me and my first born son seems to dissipate or be neutralized for at least 12 hours. And I am having really good days! Concidental...perhaps...

Except that I do think that when I write my morning pages I negate what is almost like static electicity or some form of psychic and kinesthetic "white noise" that clogs me mentally and physically. Some days I have simply been venting in my morning pages. Some mornings it is much more like a prayer in that I write directly to God in my 3 pages.

This week I am into Chapter 3 of Cameron's book. In this chapter she defines and discusses anger and how to use it in a manner and depth I have never read before.
And what she says appears, at least at first read for me, highly relavant to adoption loss. She also talks about grief, shame and even synchronicity.

I am wondering if anyone else has had any experiences with "the Artist's Way";
especially a similar experience that might be in relation to writing the morning pages.

I am in no way trying to promote Cameron's book. Just am very excited about how writing the morning pages seems to help diffuse or negate the "crazy making" kind energy that regenerates around my son's adopiton.