Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Swearing in Tongues

"I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think."- Rumi

Soma t'meekaiya, (sew-MAH-tah-mee-KAI-ya) is the language of emoting.

When I was a child I learned this language from my little sister. Maybe she did not know any swear words yet. Or perhaps she had never seen anyone swearing and so did not know how to do it properly. In either case she used made up words, sounds, really, to express her intense emotions. She would just blurt something out, usually something vaguely Spanishy since it was the most familiar foreign language to us kids in Texas.

Swearing has been shown to make people feel better. I don't know the mechanism of this, but I do know that using Soma t'meekaiya does make me feel better. I have a room in my brain where all kinds of word fragments, syllables, vowels, and random sounds jangle around in a space, like floating confetti. I think I filled that room when I was learning to talk. This is the reservoir from which I snatch a handful of word bits when I use this technique.

I swear in tongues! I don't know if this is exactly what people experience when they use typical swear words, but I do think this technique has some advantages. It's fun and creative. Most important, no one gets offended at your language! If the purpose is to shock those around you, it will not work, however.


I wonder if anyone else does this.

 

" We're here to know how to communicate to our loved ones who may not agree with our values without getting on the soapbox or forming hard armours of protection and defence. We're here to practice compassion for self and others. We're here to live authentically and dance to the beat of our own hearts."

-Charles Eisenstein

 

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Bell Goes Out on the Ice

 

 

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.”-Rumi

Notes from the pond:

We go for a little walk every morning. Today our kitty, Bell, comes along to see the frozen pond. It is not frozen enough for me to walk on, but Bell confidently strides across as if she had just polished it shiny herself and then dusted it with sparkle crystals after that. Then she walks across the pond sideways too. I think she was showing off.

 

Before we adopted her, she had washed up at the animal shelter not once, but a heartbreaking twice, which is all we know. She was already quite old for a cat by then, and now more than several more years have passed so Bell is definitely old by now. So I am tickled to see her playful ice follies.

 

She is quite good at leading us humans wherever she wants to go. This is a technique she picked up, I believe, from having litters of kittens and effectively, yes, herding them. So if you want to learn to herd cats, the technique is simple: cut in front of your target in such a way as to be either noticed or tripped on, then go forward in the direction you want them to go, pausing ahead a little ways to turn around and glare a message of come on!

(Above: Tasting the crystals)

She loves to go out on walks but the life force here is strong. She may encounter bears, cougars, foxes, turkeys twice her size who think this is their territory, as well as just bigger cats and chasey dogs. I have even witnessed a deer here charging and chasing a different pet cat right into the briars! So Bell the Cat has learned to go on expeditions with the other creatures of the house, such as the dog walking humans.

 

The pond can change in a twinkling. First I notice an almost melted area right above the goldfish underwater castle. There must be a hundred little and tiny fish huddled in there, I think. I wonder if they are doing something to warm the water above their abode. A few hours later, and still shrouded in fog, as the air teeters on the edge of freezing, open water covers half the ponds' surface. Grey, the pond pearl, previously stuck in the ice, sits in a little water ring thawed around himself.

 

“Do you know what you are? You are a manuscript of a divine letter. You are a mirror reflecting a noble face. This universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you are already that.”-Rumi