Tuning in Tokyo

Calling on The Mother as I fly higher

[plz forgive typos and bad editing! I created this post on my phone]

The first time I heard the phrase “Tuning in Tokyo,” I was sitting in the beneficent sun of a western MA summer afternoon, across from my oldest friend who was nursing her 3 year old. Said 3 year old, working away at one nipple primarily for comfort not nutrition, made efficient use of the other nipple, rubbing it between her thumb and forefinger as if she were for all the world an exasperated 80s teenager on a long road trip trying to find a radio station she liked. 

“You tuning in Tokyo?” Leslie asked her daughter. 

I’m flying to Tokyo today, as it happens. My husband works for Sony and he is already there on his first pilgrimage to the Mother House. When he invited me to tag along, I jumped at the chance. Wasn’t I a (semi)retired person who could go on adventures at the drop of a hat if she scrabbled together enough airline points? Wasn’t my wanderlust turned up to 11, particularly for places I’d only been to in my imagination for my entire life? Hell yeah!

Except there’s the little problem of my  fear of flying, which also notches up according to the following metrics: 

Flying through turbulence 

over water

very far

to a place I’ve never been

without my children

when your president is threatening nuclear annihilation.

Lucky for me, I have RESOURCES. I have STRATEGIES. And I know how physics works. 

Except the noise from the anxiety has been shouting louder than all my resources, strategies and (serviceable) knowledge of physics. Which means I need something more. 

Here’s my new-to-me more. A couple of months ago, in prayer, God suggested I get a rosary. People, I’m not Catholic and never have been. That hasn’t stopped me from loving Catholic teachers and authors, borrowing Catholic liturgy and theology, appropriating Catholic aesthetics (helloooo Mexican everything!). But the rosary?! Pray a rote prayer instead of a carefully crafted work of creative nonfiction? Oh, right, mumble mumble, Lord’s Prayer, ahem. But the Hail Mary?

I still follow God’s orders most of the time, and found a cheap wooden rosary at Savers. And not a week after that, I stumbled upon this episode of my friend’s podcast, in which he interviewed a couple who founded the nonsectarian, all-are-welcome, Way of the Rose—a society devoted to the mystery of praying the rosary,. 

Which is, after all, a prayer to the Mother —a Great Mother that well predates Christianity’s flavor of her. 

The couple reminded us that beads, one of the oldest human handicrafts, were designed to simulate nipples. To answer our first yearning. To bring us back, not to the womb, but the terrifying transition beyond it to the novel universe. What they call the “physiology of consolation.” (they also told listeners that the “with thee/tecum” is code for, teehee, the union of divine masc/femme at conception and signals an explosive orgasm. Fun!)

Hearing this, it suddenly made sense why God would nudge me toward a new practice. Four weeks ago, I took flight from the long patterning of my professional (and emotional and social and religious and logistical) life. I’ve left the womb of the church. Even though I chose it, there’s still some fetal distress deep in my body about being extruded into this novel environment. 

For a long time, I imagined that retirement from local church ministry would be a contraction. Jung said that our lives expand from the moment we leave the womb and keep expanding for decades—widening our circle of relationships, experience of the world, skills, wisdom (hopefully). But at some point we begin to contract. Our hearing fades and our eyesight dims, we begin to forget names, memories, ourselves; toward the end, if the end comes in a whimper and not a bang, we will become like children again. 

I myself have just literally stepped off of a stage. I fully expected life to feel smaller, my sphere of influence shrinking, my list of responsibilities shorter, certainly. 

But almost immediately God let me know that I could assent to contraction, or keep expanding. I went on a hike with Freddie on my 4th day after retirement. I was a little tired, and it was hot, so I picked a short new-to-me hike without too much elevation. 

Except I took a wrong turn somewhere. And rather than backtracking, which would add to my hike, I saw a shortcut on the map and decided to take it. 

I really need to learn how to interpret topographical lines. Because what I didn’t notice was that the shortcut went straight down. I’m afraid of heights (related to fear of flying, duh), and looked to Heaven, and said “REALLY? You couldn’t give me ONE week off from this high-flying act?” And began the descent. 

I went from crouch to butt, abandoning my dignity and my black leggings to the red dirt, freeing the dog to run encouragingly ahead, using my hiking pole as a brake. After approximately 3 Jeremy Bearamies (sorry Good Place callback), the main trail came into view.

And the last 10 feet were, in fact, a cliff.

I had no water to drink. The sun was beating down on my head. I could jump it and risk breaking my ankle. I could crabwalk sidewise 50 feet and see if the cliff got shorter, but if it didn’t I’d have to crabwalk back.

Or I could turn around and climb back up the 45 (90!) degree hill that now felt like the mountain in your recurring nightmare that gets steeper as you climb before throwing you off entirely.

I scraped my soy white collar hands reaching for every stone, scraggle of manzanita, tiny stand of sedge. My thighs screamed. I periodically hugged the dirt, took a deep breath, and spoke to myself in a very stern but jocular tone, since nobody was coming to help me but me. 

You’ll be relieved to hear I made it to the top (you were so worried!). The bastard squirrels chittered away at each other about how weak and feckless I was. I just stood there for a few minutes, my whole body shaking, discharging the effort and the anxiety. I trudged back the way I came, chuckling that God so immediately asserted Herself as my drill sergeant in this new season.

A contracted life is inevitable for anyone lucky enough to live to be old. But we choose contraction earlier at our peril. Shrinking our world doesn’t shrink our anxiety, which then just takes up more space, proportionally. 

I’ve seen that contraction happen again and again to my mother and many others, but I never thought it would happen to me. I’ve been closing my eyes and hurling myself into new challenges for so many years, I guess I thought it was second nature by now to be brave. This journey is a reminder that I’m ruled by human nature as much as the next jane. And God and brain science (one of God’s languages) tell us that only facing fears (well, that and medication!) will actually subdue them. 

So, here I am. With a secondhand rosary in my lap (pre-filled with prayer!), about to take flight. 

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed are thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hours of our death. 

Bonus: this epic 3-thread arc was on my IG feed this morning: