Making the Most of What We Have

My mother and father met when they were both 14 years old and never wanted to be apart, but Mom's parents insisted she go to college. After three years and three colleges, each closer and closer to Texas A&M where Dad was studying, Mom finally got their permission to marry, though Dad still had a year until graduation, and this was during "the Great Depression" (they had only $50 between them).

Mom had always been able to make something out of nothing, but those early years of their marriage reinforced her natural tendency to preserve. Her whole life, she washed, saved, and marked with a note every single item that might possibly be re-used at some future point.

I was pretty much the opposite; being an Army brat and having to leave so much behind with every move, but when Mom lived with me during her final 16 years, some of her self-preserving nature rubbed off on me. I'm so grateful, because her example has helped me think through how to preserve food, especially, but also how to preserve mental and physical health during these months of isolation.

Mouse totem teaches us to make the most of what we have, no matter how scarce the resources or how tough the environment.

 

Finding Our Way Home

The most difficult decision I've made since early March was telling my son Dylan he couldn't come to visit from Palm Harbor to celebrate both of our March birthdays (we're almost exactly 30 years apart). He had bought a hanging plant for my patio, and would have risked it, but I knew covid-19 was going to be an S.O.B. and not worth the risk for either of us. 

So when I first posted about the Pigeon Totem on April 11, I was really missing my son's super hugs, and wrote this: 

"Pigeon totem represents finding our way home; also caring, understanding, altruism. This totem is carrying a wounded bird home on its back. May we all help each other find 'home,' whatever that means for each of us." 

Then, while ordering magnets to make sure the lettering is well-placed on the finished products, I sent Dylan the one that for me represents the emotional 'home' he and I share: "Pigeon Totem helps us find home."

 

Doodem

I recently learned the Ojibwe word for totem is doodem, and love knowing that because my own totems grew out of doodling.

I looked at creating card sets of key totem images but couldn't find an option that allowed a variety of images in one set. So I printed a few on photo paper and inserted them in 4 x 6" magnetized photo holders. Those were pretty but didn't have the totems' purpose printed on them.

Then I discovered how to create 3 x 4" photo magnets on Zazzle. I've had fun with these. Doesn't matter if anyone buys them; I just like having them in a concrete form, and ordered the ones I find appealing for myself. The colorful ones work especially well.

Bear ("helps us find our path and journey") was my very first doodem:

Inside Our Shells

Eunotosaurus africanus, the earliest known turtle, lived 260 million years ago. Their bony, cartilaginous shell acts as a shield to protect turtles from predators – some can even tuck their heads up inside their shells for extra protection. These cold-blooded creatures typically have a long life span. The oldest ever recorded, Tu'i Malila, of Tonga Island, lived 188 years.

During my long life span, I've always been a bit tucked inside my shell, but these past six months of isolation have made the shell feel very tight, indeed. So I poke my head out daily on a late evening walk (way past the sun's zenith--which could bake my skin here in Gainesville, Florida), sit on the patio with my two cats several times a day to watch the ducks, birds, squirrels, and lizards, and have a rich life of travel and connection through countless novels.

I had trouble with the color of this image, drawn with a bright blue pen that caught the light and showed up spotty in the photo, so I had to darken it considerably, which darkened the background, as well. Perhaps the darkness is appropriate, as the Turtle Totem helps us stay grounded in chaotic times.

 

Make Room for the New

I'm occasionally contacted by Bast "relatives," only to explain that I chose that name with my daughter Katja Amyx's help.

I'd kept the married name Schwab while my son and daughter were growing up, but when starting my own business wanted a name that was meaningful to me, not my father's name (Ritter), or any other family name that seemed too conventional at a time when I was completely shifting my sense of self.

My daughter suggested we review her book of goddess names and we spent a long phone conversation considering the options. I chose the Egyptian cat goddess Bast because . . . well, cats, but also because followers prayed to her for deliverance from evil spirits--and that pretty much encapsulated my consulting work with corporate leadership.

As far left as I might have moved over the years, Katja has always been ahead of me, and I so admire how she and her family stand against all the evil isms. So I've sent her the Duck Totem, which symbolizes what my daughter represents, releasing the old to make room for the new.

 

The Same Old Things

The past 18 months have brought major change to my life; the most necessary and difficult change has been closing my coaching business.

My first paying job at age 16-18 was playing the organ for military post church services/choir. I then helped pay for my college expenses by working 15 hours a week, and--after the ten years of my first marriage--supported myself through graduate school & two internal corporate jobs before starting my own business at age 50.

So even before covid-19 hit, I'd already begun the process of grieving the loss of connection with some very fine, intelligent, caring people and moving from extrinsic to more intrinsic motivations for finding joy in each day.

It has taken a while to release the old voice telling me I should be working hard and working fast, letting myself simply BE, and--especially since isolating in response to the pandemic--appreciating the Tapir Totem, which brings comfort doing the same old things without self-criticism (tapirs lead almost exclusively solitary lives).

 

Celebrate!!!

I've viewed many videos of cockatoos dancing and my favorite continues to be Snowball. Though my Cockatoo Totem isn't white, like Snowball, when I saw its crest and dancing feet, I immediately knew it was a cockatoo.

Most of my life others might have seen me as a "serious" person. I have a poker face and don't smile easily, even though firecrackers and bright lights might be exploding from sheer joy within me.

If you study my paintings, though, you'll see what my fellow art students called a certain "Maryness"--for example, in the one on the right called "Beach Bird."

Nonetheless, I'm glad to be reminded by the Cockatoo Totem how important it is to celebrate spontaneity, to feel joy and bring light into all our relationships.

 

 

Beginner's Mind

In my early training and consulting career I studied and attended a variety of workshops to both understand myself and better help my clients. Of most interest to me were models for creativity and creative thinking.

Consistently, I found my own creativity leans toward making the present better, but I admire, long for, and sometimes enter that space where a new and innovative possibility emerges. This space decries any rules, defies prediction, and shows up only if I'm in beginner's mind.

My process with the recent totems is a good example. I was simply doodling with colored pens and sketch paper while sitting on the patio with the cats, smelling the air, feeling peaceful and in a meditative state of mind, just being present.

Not once did I start out thinking I'd draw a particular shape. Only when a sketch felt complete did I stop, mentally step back, and "see" something. The snake is a good example--not quite like any of the other totems, so no precedent--even among the totems--and never repeated.

The totems achieved whatever purpose there might have been in their appearance, and left. I loved their visits and look forward to another surge of innovation, but I know from experience it will take an entirely unexpected form.

Snake Totem helps us listen and watch the environment carefully to find our direction and know when to act.

 

Fly Like a Bee

 I've been stung twice by a bee, and I remember both vividly. 

The first time, I was a fifth grader visiting a Shinto shrine with my family, in Japan, in or near Tokyo where my father was stationed after World War II. It was during warm weather, I was wearing a cotton blouse, and a bee flew up one of my sleeves and stung hard. 

The second time I was in my twenties, playing nine holes of golf in Cincinnati and because I hadn't played in a long time my golf shoes wore a blister on one foot, so I took off my shoes and planned to finish the round barefoot. Almost immediately, I stepped on a bee and it stung the bottom of my foot! Yikes!!! 

Already loving bees for their honey, in more recent years I've also come to understand and appreciate their crucial role in the ecosystem, which far outweighs any negative memories of bee stings. And when this totem appeared among my isolation doodlings I read more about bees, discovering that--structurally--they shouldn't be able to fly. Of course they fly anyway, and thus my Bee Totem reminds us to believe in miracles.

 

 

Sniff Out Problems, Seek Answers

I've never had a dog as a pet, and in my only childhood memory of a family dog, when I was maybe 4 or 5 years old, I'd been given the task of walking a cow to the river to drink (my dad taught high school agriculture before he joined the Army when I was 6). On my way back from the river, holding the rope that was tied to the cow, the dog stood up in front me and put its paws on my shoulders. I didn't like it, but don't remember being particularly scared, and I've never been afraid of dogs, just not interested in having one for a pet.

Almost my earliest memory was pushing a doll carriage with our cat inside it, dressed in a doll bonnet (probably the cat wished I'd preferred dogs), and all my life I've had a cat or two.

So I was surprised when I kept coming back to one of my sketches during the early months of isolation, each time thinking "It's a dog . . . no, I'm not sure . . . " until I could no longer ignore it. This totem clearly symbolizes a happy dog, kind of chubby, tail wagging, standing on hind legs with front paws about to reach out, maybe from that distant memory of the family dog putting its paws on my shoulders.

Dog Totem reminds us to sniff out problems, seek answers.