Starting

I had to have Maureen, this Ganesha’s previous “friend,” hold my hand to get on here. Perhaps this is the very reason she passed him on to me—as I need a fair amount of hand-holding for entrepreneurial efforts. It is indeed an area loaded with potholes of fear as I travel along via my low-rider-scooter. The idea of push-pedaling alongside speeding successful convertibles, brilliant Beemers, tenacious truckers, and powerful high performance vehicles intimidates me. Historically, rather than step into the traffic at all, I have watched, safely and rather longingly, from the shoulder or the overpass. Afraid. Admiring others or sometimes enjoying the distant taste of success by proxy—having helped somewhere in the process of another’s success by giving an idea here or there, a little help, or just being the pit-crew.

I hope Ganesha’s stay with me will give me a good dose of fearlessness. Here goes…

clearing

Examining this figure I see it possesses 4 arms and hands. Two on the backside of the elephant, grasp some sort of symbol with a sun depicted on one side and a flower on the other. Another hand holds a cup into which it has tucked its delicate trunk. The final hand rests on its right knee. When taken metaphoriccally, I see how all at once it is handling self-care, a tap into itself and a certain grounding, as well as actively working with nature, power, and growth.

In a moment’s reflection over the past few weeks, I see how the offer of fearlessness has helped me to do some clearing. Clearing out of old, to create fresh order and systems, and space for the new. This process of seeing, examining, assessment, decision, and action has historically felt too overwhelming to attempt. Always collapsing at some point. Perhaps this creature’s balance has been inspirational—that all hands are not “on-task” but only some—the rest in either quiet repose or some sort of feeding or gentle care. And progress is made.

The Paper

So I happened to actually read a section of the Valley News today which had an article about a woman in Chicago who has gone missing… last hoping to undo some bad luck. The headline: “Woman Seeking Good Luck Missing” Apparently a 24 year old woman was supposed to be placing a Ganesha (the figure, sent by some family members in India, had arrived damaged) into the Des Plaines River. The ceremony of sorts was to reverse the bad luck—
And they can’t find her…

And here I sit in Etna, New Hampshire with my undamaged Ganesha sitting contemplatively over my computer. Waiting. Waiting for me to write more about my time with it—and pass it along to the next recipient of his good fortune.

But this article makes me just the slightest bit prickly—like those chain emails that threaten bad things to those that don’t obey the command to pass them along to 11 more people. They read that their limbs will fall off or their loved ones will keel over or they will lose their jobs, and then find themselves under a bus in nine days. Could there just be the slightest bit of … well, luckily mine is still safe. Poor woman in Chicago. Perhaps all Ganesha’s can take pity on the hurt one, pool some good energy and get that girl out of trouble.

Okay, it is just a random riff, but it was sort of an odd piece to find in our dinky little newspaper. On the rare day that I read it. And happen to have a Ganesha statue in my possession.

I will take it to mean that I should listen up—and get writing. I have a new recipient in mind. The transfer to happen in the next few days… and Ganesha will be traveling.

But before he goes—I need to remark on what has occurred in the past few months—giving a nod to his effect— as placebo—or “real.” Whatever real may mean.

Ganesha’s stay… in these few months I have managed to wade through enormous amount of my physical past—meaning that I have sifted and sorted years worth of collected items and papers. The remnant of years. Marriage and honeymoon “relics.” Several years worth of my children’s artwork, schoolwork, projects. Boxes of long unexamined/unused items. Documents associated with houses we no longer own, bills for car repairs, eyeglasses kits, old birthday cards, journals. All scraps of an old life of mine. It was a daunting project (not quite done, but nearly)—mostly because to actually sift it and decide it’s fate—applying a more rigorous set of questions and alternatives than Eddie Izzard’s Inquisitioner’s last question posed to jailed people slated for the noose, “Cake or Death?”

I really had to look at this stuff. And to look and clearly see its value, I had to remember who “did” it, when, how it was manifested in whatever was now in my hands, the state of said “doer,” assess the difference or similarities to the current state of the doer, and the relationship of that doer to me—then and now. And boy, there has been a lot of life lived—in the boxes. And from the boxes until now. Waves with significant amplitude. There have been geographic changes, a devastation of what was “myself,” the painful death of a marriage—divorce, recreation of self, painful growth and playful, wonderful growth, a regained capacity and appetite for life, seemingly clunky and awkward feeling steps into some competency and participation…, and best of all… love. Of all kinds.

Ganesha, or whatever strength I decided I could muster on account of having this statue in my possession, has helped clear out the past (those mirrors I described earlier), feed myself with the gift of the now, and be poised for whatever presents itself in the future. Building on a clotted up, bumpy, unexamined past would soon return me to the same unexamined past… So I am thankful for the stamina and commitment. The learning. And the promise of balance and peace of the future.