Asheville Sangha

Supporting Non-Duality and Awakening in Asheville and Beyond

PERPETUAL SABBATICAL, RETIREMENT, SURRENDER?

© 2009 Howard McQueen

I recently informed my mother that I had retired. This seemed to have brought her some relief, as the life I live is considerably more unstructured than anything she can imagine.

In actuality, I consider myself on perpetual sabbatical, in a state of opening to learning about myself, from the inside out, as well as from my relationships with all things external.

I decided that it was easier for my mom if I just used the word RETIRED.

She and I were returning from the regular family lunch on Wednesday
and I was speaking of the freedom of being retired and being able to get
home a day earlier than expected to join the family for lunch.

She spoke up and said that I had not retired, that I had “Quit”.
Some very colorful energies sprang to life within me
when she uttered the energetic symbol
QUIT.

From the age of about twelve to …
my mother began relentlessly harping on me

“that I never, ever, finished anything”.

This really used to piss me off.

So when I received QUIT after lunch today,
my heart translated this into SURRENDER.
I had let go of my careers, in surrender.
Here again, was another opportunity to surrender

For, I knew in my heart,
that my mother desires to ensure my safety,
to her last dying breath,
to urge me towards her definition of security.
Her next words after quit, were

"If you’d only have had one of those secure government jobs, imagine the retirement benefits that would be flowing to you."

I surrender, again and again, to another’s definition of love and concern.
Where once the words evoked conflict and anger,
they now land and rest in love and appreciation.

For another’s point-of-view is but a reflection of their own virtual reality
and need not in any way erode or threaten our sense-of-self, or identity,
or contrived personality.

It is a loving thing,
To be at peace with oneself
AND to dearly love and cherish your immediate birth family,
for who they are
and for the persistence in the roles they signed up to play,
to bring a certain amount of resistance your way,
so we each will awaken
to the responsibility
that we must first love ourselves,
irrespective of the words and symbols
and best wishes or intentions of anyone else.

This is my holiday blessing
To all of you,
To rest within yourself
and be at peace,
loving all the members of your birth family.
Facing up to this is a sacred privilege,
and we engage the wisdom to then continue on with our larger,
extended family, spread across this entire earth.

Let us learn to put down all our hurling of words and meanings and focus more clearly on the underlying intents. If others are nervous or anxious and their words reflect this, let us become more aware that their personal virtual reality is tainted with fear, or anger, or grief. This really has nothing to do with our world, other than assisting us to see more clearly what others are projecting.

~~~...~. *(~---

Views: 24

Comment by Howard McQueen on December 25, 2009 at 2:22pm
THREE REPLIES FROM FRIENDS

I am always honored when friends think enough of the poems I send them to reply. I am amazed at the variety and range of responses, from the same poem. Here is one example of responses.

First Reply
ah indeed ... and my mother is coming to visit soon - so I will remind myself to surrender to her intentions and projections of painful childhoods and inabilities to be loved - ouch! I now surrender and let go -

Second Reply
I am so sorry that your Mom has not accepted your "retirement" as you thought she had. Her comment must have stung quite deeply. However, your writing indicates that you have an appreciation for the fact that she is looking through the eyes of her reality and genuinely wants the best for you - the way she perceives it would be. I imagine that it is very difficult to be shot down as you were. It must have hurt a lot. I would only encourage you to hang on to that "peace in your heart", and try (as difficult as it is) to remember that your situation is only important to her because she loves you. As long as you are at peace with that person you see in the mirror each day, you are on the right path.

Third Reply
This is a great piece Howard. The ability to take the words you heard and translate them into a way of taking you to a place of peace. That is amazing. I'm sure it would help a lot of people to realize that a lot of time parents are only worried about the safety and security of a child and they are expressing that in a way that they hope it will jump start them into living their life differently. Not trusting that there might be something they are not taking into consideration.

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