Category Archives: family

a reading

For your enjoyment: my short creative nonfiction piece, “Pose”, which blends the experiences of Mormonism, yoga, cancer, and disability with my urgent desire to connect to the divine. This story appeared in the March 2004 issue of Sunstone magazine.

Listen to Pose.mp3

seeds


Eating some leftover risotto for lunch–made of my favorite rice blend that has small radish seeds mixed in. Such a perfectly satisfying crunch each time I eat a mouthful!

Thinking about the seeds sprouting in my garden and on my back porch right now. And of my newest nephew who was born this morning at 3:59am, just 18 minutes after his parents arrived at the hospital.

I’m amazed by seeds. By their potential to grow into sunflowers and babies and tomatillos. As Thoreau wrote, “Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.”

this dream I had…

A few mornings ago my alarm woke me just as I was about to have a conversation with my Dad in a dream. This is a rarity–to see him–and I was angry and sad when the buzzing popped the bubble that was my special moment with my Father.

The night before, I had been reading a small pamphlet sent to me by Friend Obasan. It detailed several daily meditations on a variety of Christian principles: Joy, Power, Peace, Light, etc, with appropriate scriptures from the Bible. I was charmed by the gift of the pamphlet: hand-bound with pale peach embroidery thread. Yet, I wasn’t sure of the contents. I’d left my struggles with Jesus behind over a year ago. Needing space from all things Christian for awhile.

But in that dream–that same dream when Dad was appearing to me–another image was very strong. It was a rock wall with a small crack spreading down its face. And from that crack was shining a very bright light. As I meditated on that image during Meeting on Sunday, I came to believe that that rock was my heart. And the crack was God. God’s love and joy and healing power. From pondering that image I felt that there was a change ahead for me. Not a big change like turning Quaker after being Mormon for most of my life. But a change in my understanding. And where God fits in to the puzzle of who I am.

Not trying to be all new-agey on you, but just re-telling this moment because it seems important and lovely. And you have shared so many such moments with me along this journey…So here is another step on the path we walk together. 🙂

A Poem: Seeing Stones

“Every man who lived on the earth,” Joseph said to them, “was entitled to a seer stone, and should have one, but they are kept from them in consequence of their wickedness, and most of those who do find one make evil use of it.” (Brigham Young’s journal, as quoted in Latter-day Millennial Star, 26:118,119)


It was the nights when Dad would have kidney stones that he would call me in
To sit at his bedside to pray.
I was the family healer, set apart in my partriarchal blessing when I was twelve
To have the power to be healed and to heal others on their behalf

I would sit and hold Dad’s hand and ask God
and he would breathe deep and say
Thanks Jan, the pain, it’s better now

But how when it got so bad and the doctors didn’t know why because the stones, they couldn’t see them
I fasted and prayed my healing prayer
And the answer
A time to die
And then the MRI, it showed cancer. Pancreatic. Uncurable.

***

Dad’s college buddy, Dave, he called today.
I’d run in to him at Sunstone, recognized him from the funeral
Asked him for stories about Dad
Dave said Dad was curious about seer stones. That a girl brought her family’s stone to their Institute class.
Dave put it in his black felt hat and they had tried to see.

I asked Dave about Dad’s testimony. Did he always believe?
He told me of Dad’s mission to the Western States. Dad was dark and could pass for native
Went to a kiva ceremony and had a manifestation–a Navajo blanket the veil, drawn back and the heavens opened.
That after that he wondered but never wavered.

I am angry now that I didn’t know this Dad.
He never told me the dream stories that Dave tells now.
Premonitions, knowing, seeing.

***

When I was young Dad stopped at all of the rock shops along the summer route to Utah. I liked the rose crystals, bright pyrite, peacock ores.
Dad looked, too, but I don’t know what caught his eye.

Dave says the seer stones give a psychological closeness to the Spirit, remove earthly barriers
I see myself, a rock-gatherer
They roll on the floor of my car, mark the bagua of my home, circle the herbs in my garden.
I see myself, a healer

Without
the power to be healed
Pondering my Father’s stones
Lacking vision

~Jana, 6/2005

In a revelation from god, Joseph Smith reveals how those who attain glory in the afterlife will receive a seer stone of their own: Then the white stone mentioned in Revelation 2:17, will become a Urim and Thummim to each individual who receives one, whereby things pertaining to a higher order of kingdoms will be made known. And a white stone is given to each of those who come into the celestial kingdom, whereon is a new name written, which no man knoweth save he that receiveth it. The new name is the key word. (Doctrine and Covenants 130:10-11)

On the intellectual stimulation of children

When GameBoy was born, I was just finishing up my bachelor’s degree. It was a hard schedule–trying to study in the very little bit of free time that I had as a I cared for my young son. On top of that, I was sleep deprived. One day I was stretched out reading a novel for my English class on the bed with GB napping at my side. Within a few moments I feel asleep, too. When I awoke, I discovered that he had devoured the corner the corner of my book and had eaten half of the first two pages, too. My book was a gummy mess. At the time I thought it was pretty funny (though I did worry about the healthiness of wood pulp in his diet) and after that incident I was more careful from then on to keep my books out of his way. Now, whenever I run across Pamela I get a thrill of remembering that crazy-busy and joyful time in my life.

So an acquaintance was asking me about my kids, wondering if they ever complained about having been raised in the collegiate environment rather than a traditional middle-class lifestyle. I explained to her that GameBoy has been attending classes with me since he was in utero, as has CatGirl. They know no other way of life, though I think they have moments of imagining the way that “the Jones'” live. I have occasionally queried my kids about this. Would they rather live in a stand-alone house and have a Mom who wasn’t perpetually preoccupied with classes, research, and teaching? They say no, that they love our lifestyle. While I appreciate their affirmation, I do wonder how, later in life, they will react to their unique upbringing. Will they rebel by rejecting academic pursuits? Will they feel that they lost out on some essential childhood experience? Will they feel that they were too quickly thrust into the adult world of intellectuality?

It seems that everyone grows up with some sort of regret about their childhood. For example, have you ever heard anyone say that their formative years were just perfect? I suspect that we are all a bit envious of others’ experiences and we wonder if the grass wasn’t just a bit greener in someone else’s backyard. But, for now, as I see the amazing humans that my kids are becoming, I think I’ve done okay by them. They continue to digest the written word with ease (though through their brains rather than through their intestines nowadays), they have a passion for learning and a genuine curiosity about the world. They are gentle, kind, and nurturing. They have compassion for the needs of others. They share love and resources unselfishly. They can both be a bit shy, but they are rarely intimidated by adults; engaging deep conversations with people more than five times their age. It seems to me that my kids are empirical evidence that a lifestyle like ours “works,” and is laudable.

because they smell that way?


incense
Originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

So John and I have had this box of incense for years. We used some of it in our Buddhist-style butsudan altar. And of late we’ve found a new use for the incense.

Given that there are four people who share this house and just one bathroom (sans window or any good ventilation), well sometimes things get a little, shall we say, odorous in that small space (especially when we have a weekend like this past one where one of us who shall not be named was suffering from what my Dad used to call “the holly-grobbles”)

Okay. So burning incense in the bathroom is one fine way of removing stink. Did you know this? I learned it while I was traveling in China and the very finest restrooms had incense for masking the stench…

So the tagline on this box of incense cracks me up every time I read it: “The Frangrance of Our Ancestors” . Does this mean the way they smelled way back when they were alive? Or they way they are smelling now (blech) all a-moldery in the ground? Or, given that this is Japanese incense and most people are cremated there, do their remains smell like sandalwood incense? Inquiring minds want to know…

I have a dream…


Or rather, I had a dream…
When I was a girl, I imagined myself with 8 children (yes, eight!). In my mind I saw the family seated around a big brown table, eating dinner together each evening. I imagined loud laughter, lots of frivolity, arms reaching across the table, everyone comfortable together. I was seated with my spouse at the head of this table, proud of the wild brood that we’d created.

Okay, that is so not going to happen. For so many reasons. The first of which is that having babies is just much harder work than I ever imagined way back then.

But the other day I was sitting at our big brown table surrounded by nine friends. We were eating together and were all set for a night full of boardgames. As I quietly counted each person I felt this huge wave of deja vu. Like this was something I had lived before. And it was then that I realized that my dream was fulfilled. Not by giving birth to eight children, but by opening our home to our old & new friends.

I love knowing that so many different people have sat around our table and that I can call each them my friend. I am looking forward to many, many more pleasant memories with the folks who gather at our hearth (both literally and metaphorically through our online communities). Like that well-worn phrase that says mi casa et su casa, please know that there’s always a spare chair that we can pull up to our table just for you. 🙂