--- In HarshaSatsangh (AT) yahoogroups (DOT) com, "Kheyala" <kheyala@n...> wrote:
> 1/7/03
>
> It's past her bedtime and we'd already said okay to "one mo' game" of cards,
twice. We're about to go wash up for bed when she says, "I'm hungwy."
>
> *PIERCE* right in my heart. I AM ANGRY.
>
> I feel like saying, "Too bad!" but I don't. What I do say is, "If you want
something to eat, you're gonna have to get it yourself." The obvious snap in my
voice tells her and her dad that Mommy's been triggered, but all Mommy knows is
that she's pissed.
>
> Ananda groans and rifles through the fridge, pulling out a tangerine. She
says she needs someone to peel it for her. I get madder. Jim peels it and
she's about to take a bite, but suddenly she puts it down and pushes the plate
away. "There's seeds in it."
>
> I feel like I'm about to Scream! And when I see Jim (who I know is as tired
as I am) goodnaturedly come over and take the plate in order to begin fishing
the seeds out, I cry, "Aren't you worried about her being (spelling it)
s-p-o-i-l-e-d?"
>
> Jim puts down the fruit, looks at me, and says nothing, which infuriates me
even more. I yell, "No one ever picked any frigging seeds out for ME!"
>
> I am surprised at my own words; Jim is not. He calmly says, "Well, if you
call this 'spoiled,' then what do you call what happened to you?"
>
> My mind goes blank and I leave the room. I sit down in the dark.
>
>
> "Who am I?" I ask myself, face in hands.
>
> "I totally don't know," I answer myself.
>
> "Who is this that is so confused right now?" I ask.
>
> "It's me," I answer.
>
> "Am I this 'me'?"
>
> "How can I be this 'me' if I am *aware* of it?"
>
> "Then I must not be this 'me'."
>
> "No...I really am not this 'me'!!"
>
> Feeling light and free, I spring from the darkened bedroom into the brightness
of the kitchen, realizing it would be my sincerest pleasure to pick the seeds
out of my little angel's tangerine, but it's too late as she has already eaten
most of it. Instead, I give her a slow kiss her on the top of the head.
>
> "Sorry, guys," I say, as I approach Jim with another kiss and a hug all ready
for him.
>
> They say, "It's okay, Mommy."
>
> We all go to bed in peace.
>
> [Thanks to the non-reactivity of my husband and child, the entire drama, which
was truly based on generation after generation of conditioning, came and went
within the time it took a six-year-old to finish off a tangerine.
>
> My bet is that it will be even shorter next time.]

Brings to mind that old commercial, "Take it off, take it all off..." Off the
tangerine, off the ego...take it all off. Karmic seeds abound....what can we do
but witness them being "cooked" in the fire of Who Am I?

Love, Vicki