"Some times I have a great notion. . .

. . . to hang down my head and cry."  I believe these are words to a song from whom Ken Kesey gleaned the title to his brilliant novel, Sometimes a Great Notion.  I want to write about those vague feelings that come out of nowhere, the cloudy ones, that overcast your day with angst and rob your night of sleep.

Coming out of nowhere, a sudden notion, but you can't quite fathom where or why.  Somehow you must weather these times.  Somehow you must dig into these notions and discover what they have to teach. Sometimes they sting, sometimes they ache: these feelings.

Always they tug at you until you turn around and listen to them with respect.  They are great notions, even though they come to visit wearing somber clothing.

I who love levity am visited frequently by heaviness. Heaviness can sink me or ground me. Grounded is good, sinking down is less helpful.  I want to be planted above ground like the rocks at the shore, buffeted by waves, but steady.

When notions come to hang down my head and cry I know it is because there is suffering and I am put on this earth to relieve it.  Angst comes because the leading to relieve suffering precedes the knowing what to do.  To be grateful for the heaviness, like the heaviness of a very heavy mother waiting to bear a child, is a difficult balance of faith and active listening.  This active listening is prayer, the prayer of expectation.  Prayerful expectation is the best response I can think of to these great, gray notions clouding on the horizon.

Hold On and Let Go: Advanced Motherhood 301A

Motherhood's life lessons are packed with so much emotional baggage and other tumult (biologic and otherwise) that it is easy to miss the universality of the experiences.  The course I am offering is for mothers and other adventurers: those ready to hold on tight for the wild ride, all the while letting go. 

This is how to excel both as Mom and equestrian, riding soft in the saddle, like the dressage method of horseback riding. A good dressage rider appears to be balanced and in control, without tugging the reins, without digging in with her heels or tensing the knees.  It is a type of riding that requires a intuitive understanding of one's horse and much courage.  Just like the wild ride of motherhood.

Mothering is the art of holding on and letting go.  We had a nice visit with our youngest this month for a couple of weeks, a brief but refreshing camping adventure at Cape Lookout, and a gentle reminder of how parents of grown men must receive their sons: with open arms and keeping them open no matter how hard we want to lock them into our embrace, tell them everything we know and wish they wouldn't learn the hard way, when we want to save them from every pitfall.  It is impossible to protect them anymore, but it is also inadvisable.  Life teaches more enduring lessons.

We have but two sons, who to our joy love each other without reservation.  They seem to love us, too.  That is really all that need be, all other ambitions pale in comparison.  Our sons are learning all they need to learn as adults on their own terms, according to their own destinies, and in their own time.  I know what I hope for them.

I hope for them a life full of meaning and love: of good relationships with others and with the earth, of good work and creative fulfillment, of responsibility and gentleness, and spiritual awareness.  I hope that they will know how loved they have been from the very beginning of their lives and with that knowledge trust themselves: to make mistakes as well as to take calculated risks that expand their horizons.  

I pray for them, too.  I pray for love and meaning and health in all aspects of their lives.  I pray they will always call on God for their hope and meaning, while striving to take responsibility for their own choices and actions.  I pray for good love relationships that lead to family and community, however that may manifest.

I pray for myself, too: that while I let go, I hold on enough to be always accessible when truly needed in the least interfering, least invasive way possible.  I pray to make something of my own life to make them proud and to give them hope that one can always rebuild, change and renew.

So now, not long after sending my youngest across multiple time zones, not knowing when the next visit will be, I hold onto to my courage and let go.  And that, my friend, is no easy thing -- no matter how often I practice, a little piece of my heart always breaks off and follows.