Dear Madame,
I am 13. I haven’t seen my mother for a few months. There was this court custody case that my dad initiated, because he says she’s crazy. And all this weird stuff happened, and it’s like I can’t talk to her. I mean, my dad says out loud I can talk to her, but I really can’t. I had to go into court and say things to the judge. I sat around the table with my dad, and his family, and they told us stuff, and now we’re all just in the dark, waiting to know, waiting to find out if this is our new life, or what is going to happen.
If my mom were really crazy, or sick, shouldn’t they all want to help her, instead of trying to keep us from her?
I am really sad, but there is no one I can tell about it.
My mom tries to send me things, to talk to me or get through to me and my sisters.
She talks a lot about kindness and love.
I don’t think I know what either of those things is, anymore.
Help me understand.
Sincerely,
Charles Enemy
Dear Charles,
(How did you get such a weird last name?)
Wow, it sounds like you’re going through a really strange time, and I wish I could hug you, or sit down across from you and look into your eyes.
Do you know that the best way to get a feel for someone, to see who they really are inside, is to look into her or his eyes?
You can see craziness there, if crazy is what you want to call it. You can see “not-right-in-the-head-ness,” when you look in someone’s eyes. You can identify a scared, or guilty person, too, when that person looks away, and by their ability or inability to look at you when you ask an important question.
You can see anger, or you can see evil. You can identify if someone is trying. You can see fear. You can see depression and pain.
You can see a whole host of things, if you are one who knows how to see.
So what I would say to you is this, Charles: Ask if you can see your mom, and if you can look into her eyes. Do it while you breathe, and don’t let fear or what other people say cloud your vision of her. Breathe calmly, and look at her. What do you see?
I would love to take you in my arms, Charles. Another way to feel someone’s energy, and know if that person is kind, if there is love in that person for you—or hate, animosity, weakness, or fear—is through hugs.
So here is a trick.
Brief hugs are only a formality, and they mean not a thing.
The kind of hug you want to try, to really get a feel for a person, is a hug that lasts at least 20 seconds, maybe a little longer.
You can feel the heart energy of a person through a hug. You can feel if there is depth, and substance, and what it’s like to be in intimate connection with that person.
Some people feel light when you hug them, like air, like a leaf that might blow away. Some feel wounded and in pain.
Other people hug like suffocation.
Others? They’re buried inside themselves, and you can’t feel their heart because they’ve built so many walls to protect themselves. The dominant force that lives inside them is fear, and you don’t feel good in their arms.
Someone who loves you is able to breathe with you, and hold you, and hug you, and do it in silence, so you know what’s true.
If any person would prevent you from doing these two simple things—looking in your mother’s eyes for a few moments to get a sense of who she is, and hugging your mother for 20 seconds or more—well I would be pretty skeptical of that person’s motives.
Did your mother kill someone, or something? Did she abuse you or others? Did she do some horrible deed and is locked away in prison?
What a strange and horrible situation to be in.
Another thing I will tell you about kindness, my dear, which is different than just being nice….
The word kindness includes “kin,” and it means that kindness is a bit vaster than just politeness, manners, or a friendly “I’ll-open-the-door-for-you” gesture.
Kindness is treating someone like you’re from the same source, the same tribe, the same essence.
So kindness goes beyond mere manners and politeness, and also involves a showing of The Way. It is sharing. It can come in a raised voice, at times, or actions that seem counter to a worldly philosophy. Spiritual teachers across the world have used the word “radical” in conjunction with kindness, because our hierarchies do not abide kindness so well. They abide their often mixed-up rules.
Sometimes kindness is woven with protectiveness, prevention, and warning, as mothers are prone to do. Other times it allows you to feel truly free.
In kindness is the power of love, someone who knows better, someone who has got your back, and is ready to lift you and others up when you or others need lifting. That doesn’t mean she or he sounds mushy and pleasing all the time. Sometimes a gesture of kindness can be hard to hear, but necessary, too.
I hope this explains it.
Great healers of this world, and great people we look up to, are kind. In an effort to help others see truth, though, and create change within a problematic system, they were also fierce.
May you be both, and choose which card to hold, when the time is right.
Blessings,
Madame Rose