"Graceful Parenting" ... An Oxymoron?

Although not everyone is a fan of this blog's overall title: Mystical Mama, I find it suits me so well, and more and more so. I've thought of changing the name, but nothing brilliant, as an alternative, has occurred to me yet.

Mystical means "having a spiritual meaning or reality" (that's one definition) and Mama, well, a Mama is me. I am a Mama! My life is about kids, kids, kids: feeding them, dressing them, dropping them off, picking them up, arranging for childcare, cooking, cleaning, tidying, tidying, tidying, nagging, berating, playing and loving!

My husband and I have your average, garden variety, long-term (20+ years) relationship. We can be madly in love and ready to divorce, all in the same day. My mother lives with us, too, at this time. There is coming and going, laughter and arguing, irritation and gratitude, often futile attempts to "balance" it all.

It's a "normal" life and yet, the deep mysticism of it is also always there--a deepening of understanding ... understanding the true nature of life, dropping more and more of what's unnecessary in Thought, dropping the choking, restrictive garments of "me" and "mine." Finding, instead Silence, Stillness, Love ... and a great unfolding of Life in ways and avenues un-planned, unexpected, delightful.

Life! The greatest, mystical Mystery of all! (How is that we can barely see It sometimes, so preoccupied are we with our own "successes.")

Thought patterns from the past still sometimes intrude on my "parenting" and I am graced with the ability to see that I have been unfair, unkind, have lacked understanding. Oh, children! Your sweet, innocent souls must put up with so much from us, your crazy parents, with our limited understandings, worries, fears and concerns. And look what we have done with your lovely planet!

For the sake of children, let us begin to know Ourselves beyond the limiting thoughts and beliefs that have plagued every generation up until now. It has been for children that I have stayed the course with my non-profit for more than five years--through thick and thin, death and disaster--for children that I have worked so very hard, and for my own children that I have stopped working altogether from time to time.

Please join me, dear Readers, in the now global movement (with many names, really) to bring peace, clarity and loving intelligence to parents, so that parents can recognize all these in their children, Now.

This Friday, August 5, is my first radio show through the CSC on "Graceful Parenting." Tune in through the Internet at 10 am Pacific time, and call in! Go to this site to listen live, or find the archive a few days later: www.cscmediacenter.org.

Can we take responsibility now for everything? Especially within our absurdly priviliged lives in the West, lives in which food, water, shelter and survival are distant concerns ... Can we end the madness of me, more and mine, mine, mine? (And remember, I am talking about grown-ups, here, in whom such attitudes have real and tremendous impacts.)

Yes, my friends, yes we can. Perhaps the better question is: Will we?

Every day, more children are born and this "gentle rain of children*" serves to remind us of some innocence, some clarity and purity that resides within us all still ... Can we "grow up" along with our children, now?

Join me!

With Love,

Your Mystical Mama

*from Spiritual Parenting: A Guide to Understanding and Nurturing the Heart of Your Child, Hugh and Gayle Prather