Cate was yelling at me. Again.

Every day it’s the same story. I pick Cate up from school and she happily shows me the new trick she can do on the peddle car; the stone she dug up in the sand pit; how many times she can hop the jump rope on one foot. We find Eden and start the ten minute walk home. By minute seven Cate is screaming about something. Anything.

We started with sympathy, then moved on to time outs, and I’m sure at some point there’s been some yelling on my part as well. Clearly Cate was struggling with the transition between school and home. Clearly she was angry. And clearly whatever she was yelling about was not what was really bothering her.

Finally, I sat her down at the kitchen table and got down at eye level. I addressed her very calmly and very seriously, “Cate. This isn’t working. You’re having trouble moving between being at school and being at home. I can see that you are angry, right?”

“Yes! I. AM. ANGRY!” (also crying)

“It’s totally okay to be angry. But screaming at Mommy is not okay, right?”

“RIGHT! OKAY? OKAY? RIGHT! RIGHT! RIGHT!”

“Did you know anger is a cover-up emotion? It covers up some other emotion. Something else is hiding under there.”

“It is?” (now backing down to mere sniffles)

“Yes. And I need you to think about it and tell me what it is that’s hiding under there.”

With that, the floodgates broke open. She missed all the friends she left behind when we moved. She didn’t have any friends at school. And she missed BF Day (her old school.) And some of the kids said mean things. And she doesn’t know Danish yet. And her only friends who speak English live far, far away. And did she mention, she didn’t have any friends at school?

Well, I’d already addressed all of those things. We talked about how making friends was her superpower, but that it took time. I had reminded her that we had only been at the new school for 2 weeks. I had explained that it would take a little longer than usual because we don’t know Danish yet. But, I had assured her, friends would come.

Knowing I’d already said all of this, and having a not unsmall amount of parental wisdom, I did not go into this again. Instead I asked her a question of clarification, “Cate. Do you want Mommy to talk about all these problems with you, or do you just need someplace to put them all.”

“Like what place?”

“Like a shrine.”

“I could make a shrine?”

Sure could. I dove under my desk and came up with three or four odd little boxes and tins. Cate chose a tin that used to hold bandages – Jesus bandages to be exact. After asking for stickers, tape and some scratch paper, Cate went to work. Soon she had a bonafide Shrine for Hard Feelings. It consisted of the bandage tin, a sticker of a sacred heart Jesus, some fortune cookie sized strips of paper cello-taped to the side, and one of those tiny golf pencils. Cate wrote her hard feelings down on the pieces of paper and tucked them into the tin.

“If I put these in here, Jesus will make the sad feelings go away.” she said.

“Well,” I fine tuned, “Jesus might not make them go all the way away, but at least he can hold them for a little while.”

Cate has been faithfully using the Shrine for Hard Feelings for a week now. Sometimes she’ll start ramping up into a yell-fest, but then you can see her sort of visibly pull up, and she’ll say “Wait a minute,” and go find her shrine. I’ll see her scribbling away, then tucking the paper into the tin and snapping it shut. A few minutes later she’ll be back with me, or her sister, or her dad, and the steam will have been vented.

Sometimes I wonder what all my ad hoc spirituality is teaching my children. I’m trying my best — but so did my parents, and my church, and my religious school — and I sure ended up with a bunch of crap mixed in there with the goodies. If I make up random sacraments, if my children spend their lives building Shrines for Hard Feelings and hurling plates at Anger Altars, will they regret it? I am not sure. But this I believe; my attempts, though small and flawed and most assuredly open for misinterpretation, these humble attempts at caring for these precious souls will teach them these true things

Your feelings are real.
Someone loves you enough to help in hard times.
God is big enough to handle your anger.
There is a place for you.

That seems like a good place to start.

Cross-posted at BlogHer with links to other great blogs about children’s spirituality.

Buy a Farm Animal: Change a Life
Donate a buck or a billion at ChipIn

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Original art by Jen Lemen
for Let’s Help Ourselves and Others

It’s a rare day that I find a project so solid and so personal that I’m ready to champion it from the rooftop – but this is one of them! My soulsister Jen Lemen has fallen in love with every African immigrant in her D.C. neighborhood. They inspire her ever day, and she in turn extends a loving hand of assistance whenever she can. From springing someone from human trafficking to getting a sick daughter in Rwanda to the hospital, Jen and her network of passionate folks gets the job done.

Now Jen and Odette are on a mission to take Rwandan school girls the supplies and inspiration they need to be the next generation of leaders in their struggling, determined country. The inspiring Grace McLaren passed the opportunity to Jen to go to Rwanda; Jen asked her blogging pals for some financial support; and in 24 hours there were funds for the trip AND enough to print a book. What kind of book? A full color zine in two languages depicting the story of Odette and her brother Innocent’s clever microbusiness…in a Ugandan refugee camp…when they were 7 and 9 years old. (I cry every time I hear it.)

If this doesn’t convince Rwandan schoolgirls (and middle aged American ladies!) that small attempts can bring significant change, I don’t know what will.

Now that the books and supplies are taken care of, Jen is doing one last ask for a little more money. Innocent needs a cow. I know. It doesn’t sound like much, just one cow. But his niece (Odette’s daughter) is sick, and the meager little house flooded this year, and the cow, well, it will keep his family afloat in a highly tenuous situation.

Do you know what a cow costs in Rwanda? $600 – the equivalent of three trips to Costco or one really crappy dresser from IKEA. Now the Cotsco thing might keep you rolling in frozen lasagna, which I will admit, feels like a lifesaving act some nights in Americana. But a cow will produce enough income to keep this large extended family feed for as long as it lives.

Paul and I are down for $100. Let’s see if we can get her the rest of the way there, shall we?

Donate a buck or a billion at ChipIn.

Friends, thanks so much for reading this. Hold on to hope: all is not lost, Africa can thrive, Rwandan schoolkids can change their world, and one cow can make a difference.

In Kindness and Hope,

Rachelle Mee

For the whole Rwandan Project in orderly detail click here.

A big ‘thank you’ to everyone who commented or emailed me about the Budding Feminist reviews.

Writing about those two books got me to thinking about just how much those authors have influenced me. Reading them opened a flood gate, and new ideas and rituals came to me by the fistful. To honor that experience, and to express gratitude, here’s a list of posts from my first blog that are representative of what came out of my spiritual feminine awakening…

__________________

A Guided Meditation on the Feminine Divine.

A Healing Rite with Hot Stones

Opening Blessing for the Powerhouse (communal art studio) at the Summer Solstice

Saying Goodbye to the White Guys

Little Altars Everywhere: Up in Smoke

Little Altars Everywhere: Recovering She

The Womb of Life and the concept of We

There’s probably more filed under rites and rituals. If I can, I’ll hunt down the good ones for you.

Thanks for being with me on the journey!

-Rachelle

Order Here

Mmmmm…Fall is here, time to put on your warm socks, find your favorite blanket and curl up with a good read. Lucky you! My Fall zine is ready for you, just in time!

Volume three of a four-season series, the zine is dedicated to the some of the seasonal celebrations we practice in our home: Ramadan, Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot, a 9/11 remembrance, and our communal meal. You’ll also find recipes, collages, and the next saint in my Saints and Sinners collection. The first ten orders will also receive an extra saint card to give a friend.

May the spirit of gratitude that accompanies this season be instilled deep within you!

Shalom,

Rachelle

The Day of the First Fruits or Shavuot usually falls in May or early June, but in this grey Seattle Summer we’ve only just now begun to reap our harvest. Cate’s been tending a little pot of green beans and nasturtiums on the playhouse porch. A few days ago our housemate Sharon came beaming in from the backyard telling Cate to go peek in on her pot. Cate couldn’t be more delighted as she scampered about the yard holding two perfect green beans, the first of her tiny harvest. To show our gratitude for ‘the fruit of the vine’ we followed the Jewish tradition of marking our first fruits with a red cord, marking them as a sacrifice of thanksgiving. Like many of the ancient sacrifices held in the Temple, after the prayers and the ceremony (in this case the tying of a ribbon bow) we turned our offering into a communal feast, and I carefully cooked these two beans separately from the rest of our farmer’s market stash for dinner.

This past year I’ve been working on the concept of abundance, trying to embed in my psyche the idea that there is always enough — enough power, enough talent, enough opportunity — for everyone, If. IF we practice community. If we stop hording. If we open our eyes to the needs of others. If we live generously there is always enough for a feast.

Dayenu, it is enough.

A Prayer for Shavuot:
Blessed are You, Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe,
who has kept us in life, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this season.

This week’s theme at Mama Says Om is “decision.” We happen to be standing on the edge of a pretty big decision. We are looking at some employment opportunities overseas. This comes up every six months or so, and up until now there’s not been a very good fit. But something new is on the horizon and we’re wondering if it might be for us.

There’s a kind of artwork that I do which I tend to think of as “art as spiritual journey.” These pieces are more craft and meditation than they are actual “art.” (Whatever that means.) I often find that they solidify a concept I’m trying to get my head around, or point me in a direction that I didn’t know I was longing for. Working on this piece for Mama Says Om helped me feel like the possibility of relocating was real, was firm. The collage embodied a concept in a way that my mental imagination alone could not. Now I feel like if we pursue this as an option it’s less ethereal — there’s something solid to stand on, and that is making me feel less afraid of the exploration.

To make this collage I used a piece of stationary with a travel theme as a background and applied a map from a European tour book. The birds are a stamp I carved out of a wine cork. The big red “you are here” arrow was cut out of electrical tape and the letters are stickers that I cut up so they didn’t look quite as scrapbook-y. Small pricing tags from an office supply store detail out the verb “to decide.” More stickers on the bottom spell out what I’d have to do if I moved out of familiar surrounds. The sentence in handwriting says “I have a fork” in Danish — the only thing I remember from the round of language lessons I took a year ago. (Actually, that’s not true. I also remember the word for apron and the word for living room … I’m sure those three things will take me a L-O-N-G way!)

Mama Says Om is a great experiment to help creative mom’s hold on to their art-and-soul. You can play too! Just check the weekly theme, and write, photograph, paint, collage, or whatever your way to a post on the topic. Then link to Mama Says Om to inspire and be inspired. Mama Says Om is brought to you by the wondergals at Elaine and Krystyn.

Ps. Here’s some links to other art-as-meditation projects that I’ve done in the past. A little note for context…I am an ordained minister and work with artists who are trying to find a new way to practice old faiths, as well as with interfaith communities, and with women who are trying to access the feminine divine. I teach workshops on art-based meditative practices. Contact me if your interested in booking me for a conference or retreat. moi at magpie dash girl dot com.

Other Stuff
spring equinox
dia de los meurtos: derrida (by Lindell Alderman), altar for darfur
feminine divine,
ignatian examen high point,
ignatian examen, low point
thank you
perched
tsunami intercession
justice (by Rebecca Dallin),

The Ramadan Collection
one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight

It’s Thursday and one of the last lovely days of camp, wherein my children are gone from my care for a whopping six hours a day. This means that I can skitter off to my studio and try to make heads or tails out of all the ideas, business cards, and dreams that have infiltrated my being since BlogHer ‘07. Sadly, today I am waylaid by yet another day of killer untreatable migraines. (Day 3 of level 7 pain.) I worked through the pain the last two days, but I don’t think I’m going to make it today. I’m typing in bed right now with one of those old fashioned ice bags balanced on my head. Ice on your head by 9am is not a good sign. I really hope I’m not complete laid out flat by the time Paul gets home from work. It’s so sucky for him to have to be single parent man night after night.

What makes this round of migraines particularly disheartening is that it is drop dead gorgeous outside – high 70’s/low 80’s with a lovely little breeze and sun as far as the eye can see. We’ve been waiting all Summer for this kind of weather, and where am I when it hits? Behind the shades in my attic bedroom wrapped in ice and darkness. Ugh.

Well, the least I can do is jot down the absolutes that have come do me as I’ve let the post-BlogHer idea-fest percolate in my brain:

- I want to be the priestess of special events: weddings, births, coming-of-age, deaths, high holy days, etc. I’d like to make a business of this, and although I already have a master’s degree from a good seminary, I think I may do something like this as well. (Although Jen says I need to do doula and hospice training to heal my inner self from all the trauma of Simeon’s stillbirth and my other two shitty birth experiences. Jen’s attitude is “something healing this way comes.” And mine is, “Yeah….whatever.”)

-I want to get paid to write about these things – though books, articles, and as a paid blogger. (Anyone ready to hire?  )

-I want my writing-and-art-making life to be connected to my spirituality.

In order to make these things a bigger priority, I’ve learned that there are a few things I need to change or do:

-I can’t lead a weekly spirituality group any longer because my energy for spiritual practices is focused on special events, not weekly gatherings…. and because it demands too much of my writing time.

- I do not want to take any ol’ paid blogging gig – only something that has to do with spirituality/soulcare.

Okay, I think those are the big epiphanies. I’ve been all over the map lately, goal-wise, and I feel like I’m starting to regain some focus again. ‘Though I’m sure I’ll remain distracted by sparkly things for some time to come. Oh, and one more idea:

-I want to produce a “small is beautiful” art-zine/guide for small bloggers. (Oooooh! Pretty! And also very soulcare-ish!)

Oh goodie, now the Blue Angels are practicing for their weekend extravaganza by doing fly-bys over my rooftop. How can something be simultaneously so amazing (precision formations! technical skill!) and so depressing (fuel consumption! military recruitment!)?

Well dear ones, do pray for me. Let’s all hope that Jen is right, “something healing this way comes.”

Catie in her downy woodpecker mask she made at science camp.

Every Summer — in addition to camping trips and swimming lessons — I send the kids to at least two summer camps. Lest you think I am the kind of mom who doesn’t want to spend time with her kids…. Well, actually, sometimes I am the kind of Mom who doesn’t want to spend time with her kids. In fact yesterday I just about collapsed after the post-vacation foray to the grocery store. It was all I could do not to throw the ice cream in the freezer and leave the rest of the stuff on the counter while I collapsed on the couch with a martini. But I digress…

As I was saying, the kids go to two summer day camps. Last year they went to a couple of very different types of church camps, which I wrote about here. This year we made it to the first gung-ho “Jesus Freakin’ Loves You!” camp (also known as indoctrination camp). Then we opted for a science camp at one of our big urban parks. The girl’s favorite thing about camp — any camp — is the music. After a day at church camp they come back singing songs with lyrics like this:

I’m gonna clap my hands, I’m gonna stomp my feet
I’m gonna raise my hands, I’m gonna bow my knee,
From my head to my toes and all that’s in between
I’m giving you all of me…

But when they go to science camp they come home with songs like this:

It starts with an “S” and ends with a “T”
It comes out of you and it comes out of me
I know what your thinking but don’t call it that…
Lets be scientific and call it scat!

Yes, we have mastered The Scat Song. Our scientific education is now complete!

The luminous Leonie let me know today that my etsy link was broken on my previous post about Tweet. So here you are loves, a fresh path to holding my pretty baby in your own hands!

Tweet @ etsy

My compatriot in all things arty and spirit infused, Christine Paintner, has give my latest venture a peck on the cheek. Oh thank you ever-so-muchly! I need a lot of help passing Tweet along. If any other bloggers out there would like to sing the praises of my ‘zine, I’m totally open to it (and would gladly return the favor!)