Emma Goldman and The Law of Attraction

I am nearing the end of the 550 page autobiography of Emma Goldman, Living My Life. It ranks up there as a book that has enlightened and intrigued me in many areas; politics, ideology, history, geography, even, the Law of Attraction. A supporter of Emma was Helen Keller, how interesting is that? In 1919, Emma and her longtime friend (ideologic partner) Alexander Berkman were deported to Russia, where her ideals were sorely tried and tested. It begged of her the question, How do ideals measure up to the messiness of life? 

In her beloved Russia, the place she had hoped to be, to be a part of the revolution, the starvation and hypocrisy she found in city after city, made her feel, as though “caught in a trap” (p. 485). I think it is a place where many of us come to eventually, wondering how our ideals actually play out in our lives. Are we living for a cause, or or we living? Can we balance our beliefs with compassion, and also, can we balance our striving with simply living, being present? The older I get, the more I choose being present, leaving ideologies to others, or perhaps growing into the ideology that the present, and those I love, are the most important things to me.  

It is interesting to think about Emma’s life through the lens of the Law of Attraction. The Law of Attraction is that our thoughts have power and energy and bring about the life we desire. We ‘attract’ into our life what we think about. I believe that Emma’s life is a good indicator of the power of the Law of Attraction. Whether of not her ideology held out for her, whether or not she was able to reconcile her idealistic aspirations with the reality she found in revolutionary Russia, she did travel the world with the power of her thoughts, and of her ideas. 

Emma always had money to bring into her life all that she thought about and hoped to do. At one point, even, as she and Beckman were preparing to travel by train throughout Russia to collect important documents to track the history of the revolution, Emma found herself in the basement storage rooms of the Winter Palace, one of the homes of the recently assassinated Czar. She writes, “Room after room was stacked to the ceiling with utensils and plate, thickly covered with dust, mute witnesses to the glory that was no more. And there I was, rummaging in that magnificence for dishes for our expedition” (p. 453). 

How you might wonder, would an immigrant to America, exiled back to Russia end up looting the Czar’s palace? It is incredible, and I am fascinated by the incredible in life. I am also fascinated by the interplay of belief and our thoughts and actions. It is especially interesting in our materialistic culture to think about the accumulation of wealth. Here is a another quote that speaks to the relative value of material things in our lives, and I think of the necessity of letting things come into our lives, and trusting that we will always have what we need, and especially, what we want; “Everything in life is relative, looming in value according to one’s necessity” (p. 461). 

Emma & Me

I have become fascinated by the life of anarchist Emma Goldman. 

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about anarchism: Anarchism is often defined as a political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, or harmful. However, others argue that while anti-statism is central, it is inadequate to define anarchism.Therefore, they argue instead that anarchism entails opposing authority or hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations, including, but not limited to, the state system. Proponents of anarchism, known as "anarchists", advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical free associations. As a subtle and anti-dogmatic philosophy, anarchism draws on many currents of thought and strategy. Anarchism does not offer a fixed body of doctrine from a single particular world view, instead fluxing and flowing as a philosophy.

I include this definition, in that it is still a state of believing or philosophy that I have a hard time wrapping my head around. Perhaps because of it being subtle, and fluxing, it is not a theory you can easily pin down. Interesting, in that in my questioning and curiosity around systems, I have been asked if I am an anarchist. I smile at this, as if I’d want to say I could be defined by one word, as if anyone could, even, Emma Goldman. I’m reading her autobiography, called Living My Life, and her life, if not her politics, is a roller coaster ride through cities on two continents, from stays in posh hotels, staging and speaking at radical conventions, even to prisons and jails. She is a good writer, and a thoughtful and thought provoking woman, if you can get past her being an accomplice in attempted murder. If anyone is still naive enough to believe that America was built only on beautiful Christian ideals, and that our current culture is only a degradation of what once was, this book will set them straight. 

Goldman writes; In the latter part of 1909 New York again experienced a vice crusade. The reformers had discovered the white-slave traffic! They got busy, though they were without the slightest notion regarding the sources of the evil they were trying to eradicate (p. 269).

This book is making me think about my own politics, or lack thereof. I struggle with what we can change, and what we can’t and wondering how hard should we work towards ideals we believe in. Should we risk our lives for ideals? Do we really owe our 8 hour work week to those anarchists and union folks who risked and often gave their lives for better working conditions? How do we stand up now to hierarchical workplaces that often tout ideals about equality and diversity but still believe that one person’s job is worth much more money than another’s? How much money is it worth to earn to jeopardize our health and our earth’s health, as in drilling and fracking? How did our earth become a commodity that some are rich off of, and others die for the obtaining of these ‘products’? 

Besides her talks and meetings, Goldman also started an anarchist journal, titled, Mother Earth . It was considered, "A Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature,"  and was edited by Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, another well-known anarchist. It’s articles included a variety of topics including; the labor movement, education, literature, the arts, state and government control, and women's emancipation, sexual freedom, and was an early supporter of birth control. Its subscribers and supporters formed a virtual "who's who" of the radical left in the United States in the years prior to 1920. (Wikipedia). 

On this, Mother’s Day, I offer a tribute to my mother earth, sustainer of my life, full of water which ebbs and flows, and like philosophy, like life, like thought, is moving, always. I also offer a tribute to Emma Goldman, who mothers me in my intellectual life, who challenges me to think, and who fearlessly chronicled history in a way that no text book ever could have. 

i am a garden

lush dark soil

turned

and turned again

soaking up the sun

soaking up the rain

open to seeds

sprouting within

growing 

producing

energy

that vibrates

with healing

producing abundant

blooms

fragrant and soothing

step inside

rest and be renewed

for the journey

inward

tilling your own

fertile ground 

Just Like Life

life imitates criminal minds

the tv show

sometimes I can watch

sometimes I can’t

my daughter says

mom its just a tv show

but often the images

hang on too long in my brain

playing out in the middle of the day

or when I walk alone

life imitates art

headlines

bombs blood guns

i drive to owatonna

sleepy owatonna

home of bullies at schools

meth

that kind of typical 

american pain and

violence

i drive into town on bridge street

cars pull over obediently to 

the sound of sirens

a cop car

another

then dark suv’s just like the fbi

just like criminal minds

just like this week

all over the news

i get to my daughter’s home

oh yeah, she says, 

they’re after some guy from faribault

neighboring town

15 miles north

he stabbed his girlfriend

and torched a car

sure enough

they find him in a field

a little after one

in owatonna east off of bridge

we passed law enforcement

driving into town 

at one on a sunday

afternoon

sleepy little town wakes up

to more violence

just like tv 

no one says

mom its just a tv show

The Terrible Truth

Can I Be Free & Happy and Still Eat? 

This is the question that is constantly floating at the back of my head. We are told, life is hard, you work and then you die. We are jealous of the rich bastards that get to relax and travel. We try to make up lies about them to console ourselves. We are told that play is the reward of work, not the necessary part of life that it is. We are told that we don’t deserve our happiness if we are white and privileged, we are told that we are going to lose whatever small prosperity we have if we are too generous. We are told that people are so greedy they will only love us for our money, if we are lucky enough to get some. We subtly believe that lazy people don’t deserve to live, let alone have food and health care, right? Why should I work and break my back so someone else can just goof off and still, still, just exist? And we also are told that we are responsible for the lives and happiness of those across the globe, responsible to feed them (the food unfinished from our plates, a guilty reminder), to educate them, to religiousize them, to free them, to give them all ipads and make them just like us. And these are just some of the ideologies that swarm around me on my path. 

I want to only care about me and my family, really, and if I breathe a word of this, I am looked on with disdain. I know, I have said such terrible things before. People seem to assume that if we carry all the guilty burdens of these ideologies, we somehow help move the planet forward. As if I let go of caring for the whole f------ universe, it will fall apart. Well, I’m letting go, I’m going to leave the developed countries with their violence, dominance and privilege, the developing countries with their financial and political crises, and the undeveloped countries, towns, parcels and peoples everywhere to their own devices. I’m going to turn off the news, I’m going to turn on Pandora to Ella Fitzgerald, I’m going to listen closely to those around me, I’m going to enjoy what I can in life, be grateful and believe that the world doesn’t need me to care about everyone else, but to choose to care about those around me, those I pass on the street who need a smile, this I can give, but I just can’t give up my whole life to passing ideologies, anymore. I want to eat and not feel guilty, I want to be free (enough) and be grateful, and I want to make so much money that I can be generous and not worry that those around me are greedy, but just enjoying my abundance. I don't want play to be my reward, but my life. 

Contraband Cake (redux)

Okay, here is the contraband cake entry, with an amusing back story. I struggle with fear and anxiety sometimes, (really? you noticed?). Part of this fear and anxiety is around success, some is around just keeping things from falling apart, which is the pretty common fear we have which makes most of us try to keep things the same. We hear over and over that people fear change, and I don't entirely buy into that, because, well, we change all the time, and often we crave change, we delight in change, but we say we fear change, because we don't know how to say how much we have internalized rules that rule and well, scare us. So, part of my fear in being part of an organization is the unspoken rules, that wonky part of the cultre that we all feel, but don't know how to put our finger on, and so this, this at time scares me, intimidates me. And so when I first posted this post, I got scared, and I took it down. But then, someone I work with came up to me and said, "Hey I loved your contraband cake post." And I was taken aback, wow, within that maybe short hour that I left it up, someone had seen and read it. And when I told her I had taken it down, she seemed surprised at my fear, or perhaps reticence, to leave it up. Yet when I talked with someone else about it, he confirmed the cultural contraints that made me take it down. So, I was stuck, I want to be brave, I want to be vulnerable and I want to live and work in such a way that we can all have the hard conversations, where some things might not be exactly appropriate, but where most things aren't taboo. Where I'm not dictated to by the rules of dominance and hierarchy, but of love and listening and curiosity. So, here, I cast aside my fear and repost, Contraband Cake:

Where I work (my day job), word came down recently that there were to be no more celebratory cakes paid for with organizational funds. I wouldn’t say this was a crack down, in that rampant cake eating parties were happening daily, weekly, or even monthly, but it had become custom to say goodbye to those moving on to either more expansive opportunities, or say the chance to rest (retirement); with a gathering of colleagues around cake and coffee. A far cry from the going away gift I’d gotten at another University job (a leather briefcase), but at least it was a send off, a chance to say thank you and goodbye, and well, eat cake. 

So, recently when a couple of people retired, there was cake, however, it was jokingly referred to as contraband cake. And as I got to thinking about it, I’ve wondered, really, if this is the place for me anymore, where the most wildly creative, and rule-breaking thing we could do is eat cake? This is an organization that sells knowledge and leadership skills, and doesn’t recognize human capital, and the importance of ritual and celebration. An organization that is cutting back on cake. What gives? There are many many little signs in our lives that signal when it is time to move on, strangely, mine is cake. I wonder, is it possible for a cake without anything un-cake like, baked into it, an inexpensive grocery store cake, for Pete’s sake; to be contraband, really? When I leave, I will still most likely be deeply in debt, I will not have taken in millions like this organization, but I will buy my own cake, and it will be sweet. 

Moving Back from Mommy to Me

This morning as I meditated, my adult daughter popped her head in to ask a question, realized I was meditating and popped out. Her response, “oh” to my non-response. In my meditative state, I was still a bit torn, torn between her and me; my mama instinct to drop all for my own child. But she is grown now, all my children are grown, and I have no spouse to “return” to, no plans to make for our retirement years, so where do I go now? Back to me; and once again, I’m on the move, as I’ve noted before, change doesn’t just happen seasonally, or every year, or even in linear, measurable chunks, change is continuous, fluid, and it requires a sort of dance with ourselves, with others, with time itself. 

So how do I remain connected to that mama life source energy, how do I parent adult children? I’ve strayed from the typical developmental timeline for both myself and my children, sharing power instead of yielding it, encouraging curiosity instead of dogmatic compliance in my children and it is paying off in spades. I have read the literature, poked it full of holes and thrown away the manifesto of left brain dominance. How I ask now, do I live whole in a half brain dominated world? How do I move fluidly into a future which is full of possibility that I can only partly imagine? How do I allow my integrated hemispheres to burst forth a fertile and imagined future? Part of this imagining is having to take place also, outside of gender constructs, for if I look to the past of what women could have or are accomplishing, much of it is with denouncing their right hemisphere for the traditionally masculine left, which only leaves them once again with half a brain, half their power, disconnected from their whole, and especially their right, innate mama wisdom. 

I have focused so much of my energies on parenting, on preparing, on providing and even on cleaning up that this shift is happening slowly. Some of the shift that I’ve already created was to educate myself, to fill my head in some ways and to empty my head in others. This in-out, process, sort-through information has had the effect of a physical work out; my brain, I believe is a mean, lean, understanding machine. Now I need to get back to work on my body. The sun is out, the treacherous ice is melting and I need to walk, I need to shake out the fear, I need to connect my feet to solid ground, while I walk, getting out of my own way. Finding my future in myself, still mom, still me, still yet to be.