Thanksgiving Morning in my Ashram - HARVESTING MEANING

Thanksgiving 1999 prepared in my tiny apartment at age 49. At the time of my transition from HOUSEHOLDER STAGE to that 3rd stage of Life that Hindu's term "Vanaprastha" or the Hermit Stage

A snapshot taken from my father's fishing dock, of a place that lives in my memories and is given the name THE LAKE.

However, whenever one wishes to find a thought that has once been shaped, it can immediately be found, for it still exists in the mind.
-Hazrat Inayat Khan, a Sufi


Sitting on my own mother's lap in my childhood home on a Thanksgiving Day now existing in a Daughter's memories. In those time when her Name was Mommy and she called me Her Windy Lindy and my last Thanksgiving before learning how to be an Older Sister and how to protect my toys. In the last years of my mother's life she said I had just not ever stopped asking questions.

People, places and situations is a term that I started to use back when I was in my middle 30's now decades ago in the middle 1980's when I was focusing upon my huge memory task of my Backwards Chronological of my Life. The Memory Task ended up involving an actual ream of typing paper. My 4 now adult children would attest to their mother's chair describable as having piles of books next to it in those days of my library cards and overdue book fines.

My children at that time would be describable as adolescents and pre-adolescents when I had been studying the topic of MEMORY and gave myself the assignment to learn to walk both backwards and forwards through the memories of my day before going to sleep at night. And at that time, I added the additional task to HARVEST MEANING FROM THE DAY I JUST EXPERIENCED.

My little mother had spoken so frequently of the busyness of her own life with my 3 brothers and I when we were living in our parent's home. She had said that she would look back and there were decades that were like a blur. Prior to my HUGE memory task I termed my BACKWARDS CHRONOLOGICAL OF MY LIFE TO AGE 36 the decades of my life could only be describable as jumping from the frying pan into the fire and then repeating that behavior repeatedly.

I have created pathways to individualized seating areas in my backyard of my physical Ashram or my physical spiritual shelter so to speak and those PATHS hold meaning to me. I have a seating area I call my BIRDBATH PATIO with a sculpture of two ducks on the base of the birdbath.

There was almost two years that I lived with my then aging parents in the apartment of the garage my father had built next to their own retirement lake home when my mother's health had been failing very swiftly. In the early Spring, I had purchased two mallard chicks in a farm store in Yankton, SD about 12 miles from the lake where my parent's had retired. By summer they had transformed into my SWIMMING BUDDIES that would go down to the lake with me for my swim. I would float in my inner tube with two mallards following me around.

One of my younger brothers with his SWIMMING BUDDY. SWIMMING BUDDIES was a tradition up at the Lake where my parent's had built their cabin when I was young, and expanded it into their eventual home. This younger brother has a tattoo of a broken heart on his arm.

Those two mallards provided my aging parents such entertainment and it warmed their daughter's heart to watch my mother laugh that last summer of her life when she and my father would sit on their outside swing on Summer evenings. My parents would sit on an old metal swing that was the actual swing they had sat on during their courting stage before their marriage in in 1947 and they would frequently bring up memories of those times in their lives that last summer of my mother's life.

One of the greatest accomplishments of my life is to be able to say that during that time period of living UNDER MY PARENT'S ROOF AS THEIR GUEST prior to my mother's death that I did not speak one word I had to regret when I watched them both be subsequently buried.

The MOUTH has been frequently called by mystics a MYSTERIOUS CAVE or CAVERN with an entrance accommodating food and water that enables our physical presence on this earth and also an entrance for sounds to be emitted out into the physical plane of our existence in the form of the WORDS we speak with the help of our TONGUE. Years of your life can be devoted to focusing upon what I term the energy transformation abilities of the central nervous system wherein your brain is its primary organ.

tongue

O.E. tunge "organ of speech, speech, language," from P.Gmc. *tungon (cf. O.S., O.N. tunga, O.Fris. tunge, M.Du. tonghe, Du. tong, O.H.G. zunga, Ger. Zunge, Goth. tuggo), from PIE *dnghwa- (cf. L. lingua "tongue, speech, language," from Old L. dingua; O.Ir. tenge, Welsh tafod, Lith. liezuvis, O.C.S. jezyku). The substitution of M.E. -o- for O.E. -u- before -m- or -n- was a scribal habit (cf. some, monk, etc.) to avoid misreading the letters in the old style hand, which jammed them together; and the spelling of the ending of the word apparently is a 14c. attempt to indicate proper pronunciation, but the result is "neither etymological nor phonetic, and is only in a very small degree historical" [OED]. Meaning "foreign language" is from 1530s. The verb meaning "to touch with the tongue, lick" is attested from 1680s. Tongue-tied is first recorded 1520s.

lingual

1640s, from M.L. lingualis "of the tongue," from L. lingua "tongue," also "speech, language," from Old L. dingua, from PIE *dnghwa- (cf. O.E. tunge, Goth. tuggo "tongue," see tongue). Altered by assoc. with lingere "to lick."

The expression HOLDING YOUR TONGUE is frequently easier said than done. To become MASTER of your tongue is a job lasting a lifetime and a job we can't delegate to someone else. We hold personal accountability for the THOUGHTS that have existence within us as we hold accountability for those energy objects that can slide over our tongues and transform into sound objects projected outward.

How can man explain the ultimate truth, the idea of God? Whenever it has been attempted, it has failed; it has made some confused, and it has made others give up their belief. It is not that the one who tried to explain did not understand, but that words are inadequate to explain the idea of God. In the East there are great sages and saints who sit quite still, with lips closed, for years. They are called Muni, which means 'he who takes the vow of silence.' The man of today may think, 'What a life, to be silent and do nothing!' However, he does not know that some by their silence can do more than others can accomplish by talking for ten years. A person may argue for months about a problem and not be able to explain it, while another, with inner radiance, may be able to answer the same thing in one moment. The answer that comes without words explains still more. That is initiation. -Hazrat Inayat Khan, a Sufi

Prior to living around my parents when I was in my 50's, I was then perceiving my own 4 children with the name ADULT children being individuals that had entered the PEER GROUP of adults at the time of their own high school graduations. When I was over 50 years old, my own parents perceived their 4 CHILDREN would always be just that ... THEIR CHILDREN with emphasis on THEIR and I chuckle with the memories of hearing them say, "where did we go wrong?".

I once told my little aging mother that she didn't do anything wrong, the stork just delivered the wrong daughter, I was to go a few houses down" (a thought stolen from Clarissa Pinkola Estés, and her book Women Who Run with Wolves). Her response totally surprised me when she looked so serious and said emphatically, "NO you were just the right kind of daughter and the stork didn't make a mistake". As I frequently say about my own 4 children, CHILDREN COME INTO THE WORLD TO TEACH THEIR PARENTS LESSONS OF LOVE. And, then I can chuckle and say, also lessons on patience, tolerance, etc.

teenager

derived noun from teenage (q.v.), 1941. The earlier word for this was teener, attested in Amer.Eng. from 1894, and teen had been used as a noun to mean "teen-aged person" in 1818.

Two of my daughters as TEENAGERS, and a brother taken at my parent's home at the Lake amongst some of my Dad's flower beds. This was a visit that my daughters were shown by their Grandfather his seeming obsession with his concrete mixer. At this time of his life, he was pouring concrete down at the lake around his fishing dock. Down by the lake you will see a big Heart in a concrete wall, with my parents initials carved into it. My parents remained to their last breathes, two people totally in love.

The American culture lacks RITES OF PASSAGE. I chuckle with the memory of my of old WWII Marine father when I was living at the lake and I asked him one of my strange questions. I told him that the word TEENAGER had been invented in 1941 and I was wondering what they were called prior to that date. Without pause he responded, "Damn Kids". As the mallards were my SWIMMING BUDDIES, I was my father's CONCRETE POURING BUDDY, my mother had given him a new cement mixer for his 70's birthday because he wore his old one out.

When I was in my 50's, my father finally taught me the fine skills of mixing a batch of concrete with the amount of water, sand and concrete mix to make the desired texture. It was my job to mix up the batch, put it in the wheel barrow and take it to the forms that he would construct and he would do the finish work. My father was not know for giving compliments and I cherish the memory of him telling me that I was one of the few people that could "make a good batch of concrete". Once when delivering my wheel barrow full of concrete, I told him that making a batch of concrete was like making pancakes and not having to read the directions to get the right consistency - and I laughed attempting to make small talk. Small talk was not my father's specialty when we were on one of his concrete projects. Those concrete projects wherein I was the assistant always involved something that would be for my mother. Such as the attached picture displays the parking that my mother would use when she would get in and out of the car for her doctor's visits and her rides.

That BIRDBATH patio has so much meaning to me. That will frequently be the patio that I chose with my cup of coffee to contemplate memories of my parents that enabled me to experience this Life Adventure in this form that can carry so many Names, such as Daughter.

My old WWII Marine father on what he called "His Chopper" with my oldest brother's son at the Lake.

Thanksgiving Day reminds me of my father. He frequently spoke of his birthday once always being on Thanksgiving Day until FDR changed the day for Thanksgiving. But he never talked about how his mother had died on his birthday when he was 10 years old and he remained in Chicago with his father when his younger sister and new baby brother returned to his maternal grandparents that were living in a rural town in Nebraska (my hometown). His own father died a little over a year later and he had experienced carrying the name ORPHAN in Chicago during the 1930's during those times now called the Great Depression. Today is one of those years that Thanksgiving does not fall on my father's birthday. He never liked his birthday celebrated and I knew that was the day his mother died, however, he gave himself permission to celebrate Thanksgiving Day.

When I was staying with my parents at the lake he did mention the memory of Chicago when he was living in someone's home and it was his job to chop wood, and one Christmas he watched the other kids get presents and he had none. I think he was trying to explain to me why he got so upset when my brothers and I tried to give him gifts. Right after sharing that difficult memory, he then quickly added "I never have liked getting presents" and I knew not to bring up that subject again. My father would be so pleased with the homemade cards my daughters would send their grandparents and he would have them sitting on the table where they would eat and look out of their big window at the lake.

My father and I spent several hours one very cold Nebraska day at that window watching with our binoculars while 4 bald eagles were fighting over what appeared to be a literal dead duck on the frozen ice of the lake. It was a scene worthy of a television special. Special memories my father and I shared.

When my father was in his second year of high school he returned to Nebraska to help his aging grandparents that were raising his sister and brother after 9 children of their own. I carry so many fond memories of his grandfather, the man that is called Gramps in my memories. Gramps' bloodline enable my father's sister to be a card carrying member of the DAR due to being related to two US presidents, both the Adams in American history. My father found a job digging up trees in a nursery owned by the local doctor, while finishing high school and subsequently graduated as Valedictorian and also Senior Class President. He would say, "You can't blame your parents for the way you turn out".

My father served in the Pacific Front during WWII with an amphibious group and was called a FIRST WAVE MARINE. His best buddy was killed next to him in hand to hand combat with the Japanese. The ONLY thing I recall my father saying about his war experiences while growing up was, "You never forget the smell of rotting human bodies".

When he returned from the war he had wanted to become a minister, however, my little mother continued to tell that story even in her last years about how she told him she "didn't want to be a minister's wife". He then went on to receive his degree in Botany and Plant Pathology at Fort Collin, Colorado and built the largest greenhouse under glass in Nebraska being sold in 1970. I chuckle, so many memories and so little time.

It was my memory work that enabled me to retrieve such precious childhood memories of riding with my father in his old pickup truck to church with him on Sunday mornings. My father had always taught Adult Sunday School at the Presbyterian Church of my youth (he had been an altar boy in the Catholic church in his own youth). My mother and 3 brothers would come to church services later and it was my father and I that left for Sunday school. I got to hold his big black Bible on my lap.

I was about 11 years old when my father 'got mad at those in the church' that made my mother start teaching a class on Sunday mornings. I recall him saying that she had enough to do with four children and that is when he bought a boat and the family started to go camping on Saturday nights and Sunday. It was very shortly that he built the family's cabin at the lake. I recall my father talking about how Nature was also God's church and growing up, my father didn't say alot and when he did I always listened.

My father also had a florist shop attached to his greenhouses when I was growing up. I was a teenager helping my mother deliver flowers to a funeral at a local church. We were setting the flowers up around the casket and I asked my mother "where are all the cards" on the arrangements and sprays we were delivering. My mother responded very casually that there weren't any, no flowers had been ordered for this elderly ladies funeral so my father just wanted to make sure she had flowers. Evidently this elderly lady had been one of his customers and had loved flowers. I recall my father saying once that men should give their wives flowers BEFORE they died. On Thanksgivings that I am a guest, I try to bring flowers to the hostess and it is also my silent attempt to HONOR my parents since it is so difficult to travel to always decorate their graves.

Thanksgiving reminds me of my father whose ashes are now co-mingled with my mother's in an Urn that they are jointly buried within. My mother and my father were SOUL MATES.

My parents wedding day in June of 1947. This was the little trailer I was brought home to from the hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado in 1950 at the time of my birth while my father was attending college in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Memories come in an assortment of flavors, shapes, sizes and textures. I could describe the interlinking of memories using a spider's web as an analogy with the intertwining threads.

It would not be an exaggeration if one called the mind a world; it is the world that man makes and in which he will make his life in the hereafter, as a spider weaves his web to live in.
- Hazrat Inayat Khan, a Sufi