Tuesday’s Child

Tuesday’s child is full of grace.  Children are ambassadors of transcendent life spirit, of a consciousness closer to the animals, and thus to what we probably mean by “paradise” and the primordial garden. 

Back in the day, before we humans got divorced from the animals, we were all full of grace—and utterly unself-conscious.  And while the unconscious and hot-tempered Father God that Nietzsche declared dead may have at least left the building, and shows little sign of showing up any time soon in our world, our children do show up and they bring a non-intellectual experience of the living God (or at least of “X”… For thoughts on rethinking our spiritual lexicon and relationships see a former post “By the Grace of X” http://tiny.cc/WiCLl).

Consider Wordsworth, and the following excerpt from his poem, “Clouds of Glory,” on this:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Pay attention to this idea, especially if your child is still very young.  Think less about shaping and socializing and instead realize that you still have a chance to see the truest and best in us humans before it clouds over and conforms to our current group norms (which do not believe in magic, telepathy or the sacrosanct and innate value of ALL children).

Our children are both the next generation, and in some strange sense they are also our ancestors; in their primal condition they reflect the people we have all genetically evolved from, and thus carry the spirit of the ancestors.  If we see the grace in them, and “honor our mother and father,” by honoring our child, we move into greater harmony with the great wheel of being and non-being.

So no matter how old your child is at present, soften your gaze to see the faint vestiges of their “trailing clouds of glory” (or perhaps our now invisible “tails” of glory and our bred-in-the-bone animal aspect).

So, let’s dedicate today, Tuesday, to seeing the grace all around us, in birds and beetles, and particularly in our children (and maybe, if you dare, even in the mirror).

Namaste, Bruce