Monday, January 11, 2010

Over the Rainbow with Finn


Finn and Juju

Our grandchild, Finn has brought such warmth, hope and happiness into our lives, mine ("Nonna") and my husband’s ("Juju"). This new experience, like most in life, has been filled with various emotions, memories, wishes, intentions, but always felt as a blessing. And like any experience there is what we ourselves bring to it and what is brought to it by others. We need only to observe and to reflect, especially when a new being comes among us. We now are living in between the memory of what it was like to be new parents ourselves and how it is to be new grandparents.
     Waiting for Finn to be born was like a long and beautiful dream come true, our own child and his wife starting a family. With the extra long labor of his mother Sanne, at home with a midwife, there was concern for her and the child. We waited. Although our son told us not to come to town until we heard there was a birth and all was well, like disobedient children, we left immediately so we would be nearby until our first born grandchild arrived and we could see him.
     Finally, we were called a day later and made the short walk to see our first born grandchild. The magic had begun. On the walk that beautiful fall day, we saw a rainbow above the town in the direction we were heading. We arrived and tiptoed upstairs to enter the candle-lit room. In the glow, there was the newborn in the sheltering arms of mother and father. It felt like (and always must be) a holy place into which an infant is welcomed with awe and love.
     Finn has been tresure and constant source of joy and light in all of our lives. He is beautiful, healthy and bright. We all notice and comment on the skills and abilities developing in his body, in his thinking, and marvel at his responses of inner and outer gestures toward others. We marvel at his curiosity and interest in everything around him, at his dexterity with legos and puzzles, in matching colors and shapes. Most notable are his interactions with others, seemingly tuned in to situations with sensitivity and reciprocity.
     We also remark on his incredible memory, as he has begun to articulate where and how something has happened, accompanied with hand gestures and facial expressions, which are most charming and endearing. He is responsive, helpful, wishing and able to participate in all daily activities, like making breakfast, sweeping the floor, washing the dishes and putting his toys back into their proper places. He loves books, pictures, songs, stories and verses. He is fortunate that his mother and his maternal grandmother (Mormor) can, and sometimes do, speak to him in their native Norwegian language and share their love of all outdoor activities, we all have also provided cultural and creative experiences, reading, museums, music and art.
     He looks like his mother, who is beautiful (inside and out), with his light hair, delicate build and blue, blue eyes which look out in a certain way, as if to say, “I know who I am, and/or “I know who you are.” Sometimes he will just look with a very intense, thoughtful gaze and then maybe say a word or thought which reveals a kind of wisdom or insight most remarkable. He wants to do everything and usually learns everything on a first try with a “Finn do it,” or “My to do it.” He can, and he does! He likes to watch videos (when permitted now and then) ones deemed acceptable/appropriate and sometimes necessary in a pinch. It is adorable to see him all comfy and settled with his little snack tray, enthralled, as he lifts a little morsel to his mouth, with an amused smile at the adventures of his animated favorite friends, Kipper, Kaiyu or Hungry "Pillar" (caterpillar).
     Finn has always loved and looks for the moon (moona). This seems so connected to who he is (was or will be). I see this moon love as both what he is attracted to and what he is: everything that is rythmic, bright, mysterious, pure, reflective, but, most of all, circling round the things he loves, as well as attracting those around him into his brilliant sphere of beauty and light. Also, when he talks about the stars and angels, he becomes them, and we all look on with wonder.
     The most wonder-filled thing about Finn is that he thrives on having lots of people around, and when the extended family sit around a table for a meal, or gather in a room, he seems most joyful and content, as we are welcomed into and know we are an important part of Finn’s world and his tender, open heart.
     It seems as though he is like his parents in so many ways. Both his mother, Sanne (aka Mama/Mommy/Mama Mia) and father, Rob, (aka Papa/ Dad/Papa Pia) are creative, energetic, multi-talented, thoughtful, responsible and caring people who love and respect each other. So Finn gets to sew, bake, go for long walks and make things at a craft table with mother, and with his father play drums, build things, draw and wrestle. We all put him first, with patientce, kindness and humor. Ultimately, what Finn is heir to is an exemplery experience of the good, the beautiful and the true. At least, we try to reflect that back to him.
     We do not live so close to Rob, Sanne and Finn, so are unable to be part of their everyday lives, but close enough to visit over a weekend in upstae New York, preferably a long one. Those visits to them and their visits to us, we anticipate beyond imagination. Later, we recall and share something Finn did or said, which may have been ordinary, but seemed amazing because it was our Finn and filled our hearts. Then we again begin looking ahead to the next visit--our lives the deeper and richer for them. They are precious  times in the glow of our dear, growing family, in which Finn has become the center, being the first and only grandchild--for now.
     With Finn’s arrival, a special place has been created within us that is all longing in our hearts, like a nest tucked away among the quiet, fragrant pine boughs or a hidden teasured bowl waiting to be filled with his presence. 

     Then, all is shining and golden, all giving and loving, all receiving. And the bowl is brimful.

A HUNDRED THOUSAND WAYS ~ HEART PICTURES

Published in New View Magazine (January 2010 issue)

Pentecost, El Greco

Joseph Campbell, in his comprehensive exploration of mythopoeia, observed that, for the ground of human existence, humanity has “chosen, not the facts in which the world abounds, but the myths of an immemorial imagination.” Indeed, the mythologies of the world, often thought to be divinely inspired, are many-layered, rich, symbolic road maps of and for humanity which speak in and to the heart.
     The heart realm encompasses imagination--fertile ground for knowing and understanding, but in different ways at different times in an individual's, as well as humanity’s evolution. Two stories, one from the Old Testament, one from the New Testament suggest a shift or transformation of human consciousness.
     The Old Testament story of the Tower of Babel tells of the descendants of Nimrod in the land of Shinar who sought to build a tower to reach heaven. God responds, “Now, nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do.” He confounds their common language into many languages, so they can no longer communicate to complete the tower, and they are to be scattered over the earth. In essence, they were planning a "raid" on the Holy, an invasion of heaven to display their power and to keep and expand their prominence and reputation. Their efforts were thwarted, as their motivations were not out of humility, faith, or spiritual practice toward moral development—all thought of in most religious traditions as acceptable and necessary ways to approach, know and/or experience the divine.
     A counter part to the Tower of Babel story can be found in the New Testament in which, perhaps, the chosen people are those whose hearts open to “other than words.”
    
After Christ's crucifixtion and death, on the third day, it is told that he rose from the dead to walk again on the earth and appeared before his followers on Pentecost, meaning "fiftieth," or approximately seven weeks after harvest/Passover.  The gathering included the twelve apostles, his mother Mary, other female disciples and his brothers (Acts 1:14). He had told his diciples they were to await a baptism, not from water, but from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit descends upon the group, usually portrayed as a white dove hovering above and a flame of enlightenment over each of the heads of those gathered. They begin to speak in tongues, as again language is confounded, but miraculously, they hear and understand each other in their own language.
     "Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs – we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.” ("On Pentecost: What language Was Heard?" Fr. Ted Bobosh).
    Now, for the first time, the diciples understood who Christ was and what their mission would henceforth be. They received understanding and would teach over the earth what they had learned in the three years as diciples. With patience and devotion, they had been unknowingly building an “inner tower” (or temple) to reach the heavens. Simple fisherman, lovingly motivated, they had struggled to learn and understand, but in a moment they were enlightened, not though the letter of the law, but through its Spirit. 
     In the end, they harvested the fruits of Christ's parables and other teachings—seeds cast that had taken root in imagination and were felt in the heart. One could say that in freedom they were blessed with understanding beyond words. They had held themselves open to what Martin Buber describes as, "…the unconditional mystery which we encounter in every sphere of our lives and which cannot be comprised in any formula.”