Inner Work

the garden in early spring which has since been nearly overtaken by weeds

 

 

It isn't rocket science, or even really statistics: that having and raising children should crowd out other aspects of one's life - and crowd others in.  And yet, the reality as it pulls on one's body day upon day, becomes striking in moments of clarity, as though the rest of the time dreams dance, mists hover about the ground you walk on, the sun comes up slowly but every day.

I started this blog when I was in charge of two children ages 5 and 0 with a steady average monthly posting output of 5.  Then . . . each year the rate steadily drops, as the age and quantity of children steadily increases. 

Children's ages vs. monthly blog output

5, 0                5
6, 1                3.1
7, 2, 0            1.7
8, 3, 1            .8
9, 4, 2            .5
10, 5, 3, 0      0

Again, this is not an innovative analysis of data that I am rushing to the nearest peer reviewed journal.  We know these types of realities intuitively, rationally, but in some ways not at all.  Reality comes to us in waves, particles, vibrations, in visions.  We describe in part what we know in part. 

I have experienced adulthood largely as a crisis of the ideal.  For our early years, we are largely thinking forward, of what will happen, what can happen, what is out there to find?  We are the little pigs who go out to seek their fortune.  At some point in the seeking, the adventuring, the delving and the dumpster diving, we crest some wave and hang in midair.  We are either exhausted or disillusioned, delusional, or bankrupt of clear hope.  The things for which we have grasped remain outside of reach, the things we do hold are much different than we imagined.  Thereupon is reflection, we allow ourselves to question our strategies and calibrations. 

At times it is easy to blame the crisis on the things or people who we have chosen to love and care for.  A part of us longs for autonomy, the freedom to build and create, unshackle the self-will. 

But something organic, something inevitable, something that works slowly but steadily like the weeds and growth that cannot be driven away; something of the necessities that enslave our daily toil waits for our quiet transformation - the hidden, inner work of a man.  As Kazantzakis would say - to turn matter into spirit.