The Years, the Tears, the Prayers, and the Pain-by Devi Nina Bingham

How many years have I waited for this moment? How many prayers have I whispered in the dark of night? How many tears have I shed, buckets of raging, bitter, and finally, surrendered tears? How many times did I beg and plead as if a dagger had been plunged into my back, asking a merciful hand to remove it? Until the years, the tears, the prayers, and the pain became too much to carry. I laid it down like the dead child I carried in my arms for an eternity. I laid my burden down, and sang the song of goodbye-a song that no mother wants to sing, that no lover alone and barren has words for. There is no courage as costly as this. It cost me all to follow where my saviors were leading. It took everything from me, yet strangely, it gave me everything unseen, what I really needed and longed for. The pain traded with me, taking the sorrow and leaving me with nothing I could call mine. Still, it was a mercy because it left me with wisdom, what I had no idea how to get. Like a burned-out piece of wood, I am, where only a space remains that echoes of a life called mine. There must be space, or divinity has no room to dwell. I made room for divinity, that is all. And "I" didn't even do it, couldn't do it. It was done for me and to me: by the years, the tears, the prayers, and the pain. It softened the ground of my being and now the space inside is alive with some kind of divine magic that is weaving a miracle. This is where I say thank you for all the years, the tears, the prayers, and even the pain.

The Fates-A short story by Devi Nina Bingham

I bolted upright in bed, my heart pounding, but I was still alive. Yes, I was safely back. I'd had a terrifyingly real dream. Or had I died in my sleep and come back to life? Either way, I was back in my small, shabby apartment. What did the Fates have in store for me, I wondered, for I had met them. They were an imposing Group of Eight. That is what they called themselves: "The Group of Eight." My host had explained that they made all the big decisions about our destinies. By "our" I mean all of us; you and I-all of humanity. He explained with a note of amusement in his voice, a low, echoing voice that sounded like rushing water, that humans erroneously believe that they are in control of what happens to them. But they, he called them the Fates, showed me differently. Why had the universe conspired to tell its secrets to me? I was a nobody; less than nobody. An unemployed writer. And if I wrote about it, would anyone believe me? 

I always knew there was a God and that He sent us here on a mission of sorts. We were expected to run an obstacle course of challenges and then by our deeds we would be judged. I learned these things at church, though they were not explained as clearly. They preached that we were children of God-that we had a Father in Heaven, and a savior named Jesus. All we had to do was to pledge our allegiance to said Jesus and we would be going straight to Heaven. It did not matter how evil we had been as long as we had the Jesus card at the end, we would pass the pearly gates. But life's challenges-the pain and injustice were never explained, mainly because Jesus never explained it, so the parish priest certainly could not. Like good soldiers we had a cross to bear and if we shouldered through and didn't lose our faith, Heaven would have a rollcall with our name on it. This is what I understood to be the unspoken agreement between God and me. But this dream showed me I was all wrong. 

But let me back up so you understand the trajectory my life took before I met the Fates. I will skip most of the drama of my childhood to say that my 20s and 30s were filled with alternating fun and angst. In my 20s I married a man, and in my 30s I divorced him because I came out as a lesbian. In a confused effort to do what my Christian parents expected, I tried dating men again only to get bored, and to get pregnant. I parted ways with the father when I refused to marry him. I told him with an exasperated sigh, "I am a lesbian. How can I marry you?" But I kept the baby because I was raised by a religious mother and attended a church who drilled it into our heads that abortion was the worst kind of sin, no better than murder. And this decision, to keep the pregnancy, would be the most monumental decision of my life. 

As a second-generation single mom, I worked a fulltime job only to take over as mom to a baby who was just 4 months old. This meant 4-5 hours of sleep at night, every night. I was dog tired and had no help. My mother was angry at me for coming out as a lesbian, so I was on my own. I was in my early 30s, but I had dark circles under my eyes from sleep deprivation. Yet I never questioned my decision to keep my daughter, or my ability to provide for her. But as she grew, my work schedule required me to travel extensively which meant hiring a nanny to raise my child. The cost of daycare was killing me, but I stayed on this hamster wheel, working so I could pay an exorbitant daycare bill, and later a preschool bill until she was school-aged. Even then I had to afford afterschool care, and when I traveled, weekend care. And all the while I was missing the momentous moments I most longed to see: her first steps, her first words, all the milestones a parent is supposed to be there for. But I consoled myself time and again by saying, "You did the right thing." The right thing. The right thing. This phrase the Fates acknowledged as being another faulty perception, not necessarily the whole truth. 

As I gazed at the map of my life which was stretched the length of the table, I saw how doing "the right thing" had been the right thing for my religious mother, and for my church. But had it been the right thing for me, and for my daughter? We were really the ones who mattered in this situation, not the onlookers, the ones who hadn't cared enough to lend a helping hand. It was my life. And yet I never asked myself, not once, if it was the right thing for us. The map of my life began to move; swirling and rippling topography moving backwards in time. When it stopped, I saw myself newly pregnant and exercising on a stationary bike. I knew this moment exactly-I remembered it clearly. I had been wrestling with making a final decision. I asked myself, what is the right thing for this baby? The right thing certainly could not be abortion, I reasoned. And I could not imagine giving her up for adoption after carrying her for 9 months. No, I did not have the strength for that. The decision was between abortion or single parenting. An abortion would disappoint my mother and my church friends who of course were counting on me to keep the baby. But worse was the thought of an embryo being scraped out of my womb. That thought made me shutter. I watched myself wrestle with this decision as if I were watching TV. One of the Fates with long fingers that looked like tree branches reached out and grabbed a pair of dice laying on the map. With a flick of his wrist he rolled it. It landed on two, a dot on each die. The Fate looked down at my life and saw that I had decided to keep the pregnancy. 

"Why did you roll the dice?" I asked him. 

His words came directly into my mind:"You thought it was your decision," he said without looking up. 

I stared at him straight for the first time. They all wore identical black linen robes and their hoods were pulled over their faces like the Grim Reaper, yet I was not afraid of them. They did not inspire fear; they inspired awe. I couldn't see any of their faces, they were only shadows, a form instead of a solid entity. I knew they were eternally existing, wise rulers, a committee of spirits who had power over my existance and who could alter destiny when they deemed it was necessary. I don't know how I knew these things except I was in a different realm where spoken word is superfluous, and knowledge is abundant. "Wasn't it my decision? I decided, didn't I?"

He pointed a spindly finger at the dice. "Two of you against the world," he replied. His words resounded like thunder clap, and in a lightening flash I was drawn back to a scene playing on the map. My daughter and I were sitting at home on our couch. I had pulled her onto my lap for some snuggles and declared, "It's just the two of us against the world." The two of us-and the dice had rolled the number two. 

"What if you had rolled a different number. Then what?"

He responded by picking up the dice and rolling again. It landed on the number four, two dots on each die. The map swirled and churned again until a different scene, one which had never happened in this life, appeared. In this world I had decided not to have the baby. I went to the abortion clinic all alone because neither my family nor my church would support it. Then the map went dark like someone had turned out the spotlight. "This decision was four you," responded the Fate. 

"Yes," I replied, beginning to comprehend the game. "Four would have been for me. So, this is all a game?"

"Yes," he answered appreciatively, pleased that I understood.

"That means we are not in charge of the major turning points in our lives," I said.

"When it is a matter of life and death, Fate steps in." 

"I see," I responded. "So, we each have a Fate, but not fate as we commonly think of it. We each have an actual Fate..." 

"One fate out of The Group of Eight helps you to make the most important decisions."

I appealed to him. "If it is our life, shouldn't we make the final decisions?"

He shook his head as if I still wasn't getting it. "The roll of the dice determines your outcome." Around the table the Fates nodded in silent agreement.

"I don't mean to be a bother, but why are there eight of you?"

"If what the dice shows us is troubling, we take a vote."

"I see. Wouldn't it be easier to vote if you had an odd number, like seven? Then one could be the tiebreaker."

"Clever of you to think of that. But we do everything by agreement. We discuss until all are in perfect unity. Like a jury," he offered.

"Does God control the dice?" I was still trying to figure out where God came in. 

"God has nothing to do with this game." 

"Are there different outcomes in different dimensions-I mean, in parallel lives?"

"Each dimension has a unique outcome. The outcome of a roll in an alternative universe could be different."

"I see," I replied thoughtfully. "Why does God-or you guys, leave it to chance?"

"It is more exciting that way," the Fate replied. "A game in which the outcome is unknown is always more stimulating."

I began to get upset. "But these are real lives. People are suffering down there. People are doing terrible things to each other, like war and famine. Children are starving. Illness and hunger are ravaging whole countries! And you are up here playing dice with our lives?"

One of the Fates lifted a hand before speaking. It was a softer woman's voice, which surprised me. "I know it sounds unjust to you," she explained. "But according to your deeds your future lives will play out."

"So, there is karma?" I asked her.

"Of course. This is a perfectly just system that happens to be played as a game, that is all. In subsequent lives the die shall be cast again, and you will be given exactly what is due you. Exactly."

"Then God must know what numbers are going to land."

"What numbers will land is an unknown variable, even to God," she explained.

"Ok. So, let me see if I have got this straight. Whenever there is a big choice to be made, especially life or death, our Fate casts the dice. Whatever number we get becomes our reality, unless it seems too harsh and unfair. At which point you discuss it amongst yourselves and decide whether to stick with the roll of the dice or not. But all eight must be in agreement to change what the numbers show."

"Very good," replied my host, as if he were speaking to a child. "Think of it in this way: your country has a President, and a Supreme Court. Most of the President's decisions are made unilaterally. But sometimes it goes to the Supreme justices who have veto power. It is like that."

"Except this is all a cosmic game," I said, incredulous, and the Fates nodded in agreement.

"Where does God fit into this," I asked. "Does He know about this game of dice that decides our fate?"

"The Creator is pure awareness," spoke the female. "The Absolute knows all." 

"And may I ask-who are you? Are you aliens? I can see that you are not human."

"We are concerned with the affairs of mankind and were chosen to manage your cosmic play," she responded. 

"A cosmic play," I repeated. "Is that what life is?"

"It is all a dream in the Creator's mind. God is dreaming," answered the female.

"And is this meeting a dream I am having, or have I..." I stopped short of saying it.

"You will never die," replied the female Fate. "Death is another fallacy. Your essence will go on."

"Yes, but do I still have a body to go back to?" I asked, sounding more desperate than I wanted to.

"Your body is waiting. We summoned you to show you that life is a game. Therefore, you should not worry. There will be many chances to set what went wrong aright. Fate will always help you, no matter the role of the dice." I looked at The Group of Eight and felt a profound gratitude sweep over me that someone smarter than me was running the show. I was going to ask if I could return to my body when before I could ask, I awoke and found myself in bed. 

And that is how it happened, how I met my Fate. Whether it was a dream or I died in my sleep and came back, I will never know for sure. But in times of trouble, I remember what I was told-that life is a game of that we play until we get it right. So, lighten up. 

Are YOU an Intrapersonal Personality Type? by Devi Nina Bingham

                          Are YOU an Intrapersonal Personality Type?

I am an Intrapersonal Personality Type. This personality type is uncommon and thus pitiable, because it is not well understood. The Intrapersonal Communicator quite naturally asks probing questions not because we are nosy or busybodies, but because we keep an inner scorecard and are comparing our inner landscape. In truth, our curiosity may have little to do with others, but they assume we are probing to get under their skin or to make trouble when we are simply trying to make sense of our inner world.

My entire life I have been told that I am a “deep thinker” and that I ask “profound” questions (my religious mother told me that I ask too many questions), which has always puzzled me. Doesn’t everybody grind an unanswered question down until they have pulverized it, answering it from all possible angles? This need to understand life from the inside out has caused frustration for me in relationships because I have wrongly assumed that like me, other people want to discover the truth. What I have concluded through heartbreak is that most people do not, in fact, think very seriously about life’s mysteries, nor do they dwell on why people act in the strange ways they do. And they spend almost no time analyzing their own dysfunction unless they are forced to. The intrapersonal approach is perfectly illustrated by Rodin’s bronze sculpture, “The Thinker” because at the heart of my personality is a serious need to understand myself, which is why I ask so many questions and try so damned hard to understand others, even people who don’t care to understand themselves.

Intrapersonals tend to be introverted intellectuals who are drawn to psychology and the arts. If you know a counselor or an artsy type, there is a good chance they are intrapersonal and are off in some corner quietly analyzing life as if it were a chess game. This drive to tear life apart as a car mechanic takes apart a motor is relentless and insatiable and finds its outlet in the professions of analysis (think: psychoanalysis), and in the expression of art, and philosophy.

And this is the beauty inherent in the intrapersonal communicator: like nobody else, we can convey the essence of another person in words, or through art because we have, like Rodin's Thinker, sat and pondered our subjects at exhaustive length. To every misunderstood intrapersonal communicator, I can only say that I understand your need to understand-and that the world desperately needs you to KEEP THINKING.

My books: www.amazon.com/author/ninabingham

The Wild Things by Devi Nina Bingham

May I have a word with you about an important topic? Whether you agree with this statement or not, here goes: Writers are artists. Creative writing is called creative because it employs one's imagination and unconscious mind, which is what defines an artist. Now that we are on the same page, here is what I would like to say about artisans: WE ARE DIFFERENT. We think differently. Our lifestyles are different. We may even look like artists on the outside because we are representing the oddity that is on the inside. When I say odd it is not a condemnation, but a recognition that the Art Gods will exact from us one thing above all: they do not allow us to conform. Conformity is fine; it's needed in society. The world needs structure, methods, and tools. But I beg you, allow the artists, writers, painters, sculptors, dancers, actors, and any other artistic expressionist who uses any medium, allow them to be their different, strange, odd, nonconforming selves. Because it is part of the gig. We cannot think like the pack. We tried that, and it didn't work for us. It only repressed and depressed us until we burst free of the confines to say something representationally; to bring a message of wildness, or to represent uncontrollable feeling, or to simply contribute beauty or smiles to the world. Please do not make us be like you. For, as much as we appreciate your rules and formulas, the world also needs expression. The world needs the wild things-the artists.

PS-This was one of my favorite books as a child. Now it makes so much sense why.

AN IMPOSSIBLE BEAUTY: REFLECTIONS AT 60 by Devi Nina Bingham

Why do I do this to myself-celebrate my birth. Should I be proud that I am alive? What have I given humanity that will last even 100 years after I am gone? And in 1,000 years nobody will remember a stitch about me, or my "important" books or academic degrees. Then they, and I, will be less consequential than a blade of grass. Why then do I trouble myself to remember my birth?

Each of us are alone on a lonely planet hanging in an endlessly expanding universe. Someday, even the Milky way in which the earth rests will become inconsequential, not marveled at or spoken of in awe. Eventually, even the star systems end. A star who burnt itself out sings the loudest and shines the brightest. I am only trying to shine like that star.

But who am I shining for? Does a star shine so others notice? Do I shine so others will notice or can I simply be unhindered and natural so that I walk by my own light? If the sun shined for my acknowledgement, I would grow lackluster about its glory because even a glorious thing can become tiresome, forgotten, and left behind. It therefore shines to be its own source of warmth and light.

Why is it so difficult to exist free of other's approval and opinions? Why do I hamper my natural glory so others can feel comfortable with me or so I don't appear to be "too much?" Why do I depend upon someone else to make me feel happy, excited, noticed; to feel alive? Nature does not operate this way. Why then, should I?

It is because the human animal feels so deeply and suffers so greatly. The sun doesn't weep when I ignore its shine. Why should I crumble when others have turned away? But more than any animal or tree could, we suffer aloneness, jealousy, abandonment; many troubling emotions. Why were we given this colossal capacity to feel-a tidal wave of emotions? Must I feel every shade of cold and every chill of grey?

But do animals create? I mean, do they express themselves artistically, or don't they simply live a patterned and predictable existence? The living things were given locomotion, thought, feeling, but so elementary by comparison. It is this: without the ability to experience disturbing and strong emotion we could not bring forth beauty. For it is rain that creates the rainbow. It is the artist's melancholy which forces her to sing. She composes music because of torrents of rivers rushing through her and driving her to it. And from the pain and helplessness comes a new song, a representation of life that is wholly original and moving. The painting, the sculpture, the poem: art bursts forth and blooms from the dark void. From the wounds of wreckage is born impossible beauty. All the wrongs, mistakes, longings, and regrets we call a life add up to produce a completely original treasure.

To delight in an opera so expansive-is it worth it? To behold the Mona Lisa's demure smile-is it worth it? To thrill with chills and ecstasy at a touch-is it worth it? Someone seems to think so or we wouldn't be here; we would have offed ourselves long ago. You and I are planted here to shed every teardrop and to laugh with the angels. To make chaos, and to birth meaning from chaos. We are here not to hide from heartbreak, but to fully imbibe it so we can sing what has never been sung.

We can hide for a time; even the sun is eclipsed. Even the moon hides half of its face. But damp your light long enough and see what happens. The devil will creep into your bones and begin to feast on them. Your own body will turn against you until you cry out like the stones cried at Jesus' feet: "Have mercy on me!" And that song is the most powerful of them all. It calls the miracles down until they encircle you, holding you fast and tight. They are the magic words that call the medicine man. And before the sun sets you will, perhaps with trembling hands, respond to that which has been calling your name. This is the swift river of life-not to be denied, not to be controlled but we must be moved by unspoken voices. Go where your soul is leading.