Zen Mothering: The Sound of One Head Pounding

Ever since I was a hippie girl in the 1970's, I was intrigued by the mention of Zen. I had heard that it was cool to be into Zen. I didn't really know what it was, aside from catch phrases. Be here now. Experience the moment. Chew the raisin slowly and taste it. Stand with both arms at your sides and breathe deeply. Extend your arms into the air and breathe deeply. Become aware of your cells, your senses, the cilia waving softly in your nostrils. Imagine the plaque forming on your teeth. Whatever.

Somehow I could never make myself cool enough or deep enough to really investigate the philosophy. Zen is the sound of one hand clapping. Frankly, as neat as that sounded, it lost me. Before I go any further, I have no desire to offend anyone! I just remember meeting a certain personality type by the droves on the West Coast twenty years ago. They would be talking about being vegetarian and scorning red meat while they sucked on their marijuana roaches from a little silver clip. Be here now. Smoke this now. Where am I now? Who am I now?

Is that your navel or my navel?

Still, with all the books about meditation and creative visualization, I know there is a definite value in that type of teaching. I am truly impressed with people who can employ those techniques throughout their day. I was thinking that maybe I could try to implement some of those ideas in my home school curriculum. Maybe we don't have a lot of money, but we can be creative. We could use up all those bread ties I've been saving. Let's have art day. I bought a bunch of supplies; clay, paints, glue, the works.

I imagined how it would be: I saw myself in my kitchen. A cloth (100 percent cotton) spread over the table. I am wearing spun cotton garments from Tahiti and have a large, fragrant, red flower fastened in my hair. All the art materials are beautifully laid out on the table and my children gather round. They smile at me and calmly wait as I pass out the art supplies. They kneel in their given spots and begin to paint and glue. They are expressing their innermost selves. Yellow sunlight pours in the kitchen window. Jungle-green plants hang around us. Patrick Ball Celtic Harp music fills the air. The children ask for the color paint they want and wait until it is handed to them. They say please and thank you. They dip their brushes in the provided water, so that the paint doesn't homogenize into the color of donkey lips.

I serve them homemade whole-grain muffins, and juice I made myself in the juicer. I breathe deeply and am here now.

I break the reverie of my creative visualization and call, "Hey you guys! You wanna paint?" Like a Warner Brothers' cartoon I am steamrolled to the linoleum floor as they clammer into the kitchen.

"I want red!" "No, I want red!" "I said it first!" "No, I said it first!" "I want the clay!" "Mommy, Tymon took all the clay!" "I want the glitter!" "No, I had it first!" "Mommy, the baby put the paint brush in his mouth!"

"Mommy, I spilled some on the rug!" "Mommy what should we do with these 750,000 dripping wet paintings we made?" "Mommy the baby drank the paint." "Mommy, Tymon painted my arm." "Mommy, Ranin painted my hair." "Mommy, the glue is stuck all over the table."

I peel myself off the floor, put all four kids in the bathtub and firehose the kitchen clean.

Then the gang of four climb out of the tub and rub themselves down with towels. "Gee, that was fun. When can we do that again?" they want to know. When Nirvana freezes over.

I sit in the lotus position, eat a Hostess cupcake and wash it down with a pot of black coffee.