An essential feel better lesson from the simple yet sacred scarab

Do you ever say things to yourself like this? "I should get more exercise." Or "I should get to bed earlier." How about, "I should be more patient with my children." I'm sure you can think of a few; these are just my personal favourites.

I caught myself doing this last week. As I was putting the dishes in the dishwasher I went out the kitchen door (our back door) into the sun porch, to put something in the recycling bin. And when I looked around it started - that cascade of thoughts. "Look at all this shit. This place is full of crap! I really should tidy this sun porch! Why can't I get my shit together?" How does this make me feel, you ask? Answer: it makes me feel like a piece of shit. Are you noticing a theme here?

 

When we say "should" we usually end up feeling guilty that we didn't do the thing we "should" have done. How does that make us feel? I don't know about you, but it makes me feel pretty shitty! So when we are beating ourselves up and want to stop, the first step is to notice it and say, "Stop should-ing all over yourself!" A friend of mine even went so far as telling her son, "You are smearing shit all over yourself!" She says she got the idea from a motivational speaker, but I didn't find the reference when I Googled "Wayne Dwyer smearing shit." But let's think about that, "smearing shit." God, we have an almost visceral response to that! Gross! Stop shitting on yourself!

Which brings us to the sacred scarab. "Scarab" is a family of beetles with many different species, including the June bug that pings off your front door. According to National Geographic, the Egyptian "sacred scarab" is, in fact, a dung beetle.

The body of the scarab is pretty accurate
but not so much the legs or smiling face



The dung beetle works very hard collecting.... you guessed it... dung, feces, caca, poop, crap, or whatever you want to call it. The dung beetle finds a pile of dung - it has a very good sense of smell - and takes some of the... let's say... elephant patty and rolls it into a ball. A female dung beetle judges her potential mate based on the size of his balls. I kid you not. Once the female chooses a mate they roll the ball away, the female often getting a ride on top, and the male often having to defend his wife from other suitors, jealous of both his wife and his big ball. The new couple then hunkers down in a new home. The female lays an egg in the ball of dung and then the ball is buried. When the larva hatches, it lives in that ball of dung. It's a wonderful setup really. The little maggot-like larva is safe from predators. And it has a large supply of fuel. But.... well... it's living in a ball of shit!

 

The dung beetle rolls his dung ball with his hind legs;
he frequently gets off-track but uses the Milky Way to navigate



The larva feeds on the dung until it forms a pupa and emerges as an adult beetle. Not quite as lovely as a butterfly, but it's the same kind of metamorphosis. And then that adult beetle digs its way out of the ground.

 

For the ancient Egyptians, who didn't know all this was happening under ground, the sudden appearance of completely formed beetles, just coming out of the ground, was quite magical. They believed that these were a result of spontaneous creation, and the scarab became a symbol of self-generation and rebirth.



A scarab on an antique brooch in my collection



To the Egyptians, the scarab was as sacred as the cross for Christians. And like the cross, the scarab was used to decorate objects, even made into jewellery. The scarab was worshipped as the embodiment of the great sun god Khepri, known as the god of the rising sun, or the creation god. They believed that Khepri, being reborn each morning as a young sun, emerged out of the earth with the great "sun-disk," which he rolled out onto the horizon and across the sky, like the dung beetle rolls its dung ball. Khepri buried the sun each evening, and it emerged the next morning, born anew.

Pandora's scarab charm can represent the Egyptians' belief that the the scarab was imbued with particular protective powers that warded off evil and provided good things for the owner, for this life, and also for the next. But for me the sacred scarab charm has a little less mythical, and a little more mundane meaning. We may have been raised in a shitty environment. We may have had shitty things happen to us. But, like the scarab, we can use that, to fuel us, to grow, and to be reborn - and to emerge as a newly-formed adult. Just because we were born in shit, doesn't mean we need to stay there, in that ball of shit. And we certainly don't need to be spreading it on ourselves! Our history, our past, can fuel us, and get us rolling. We can't control where we were born, or how we were raised, but we can control where we are, and where we're going. Choose to stay or choose regeneration. In other words, "Shit or get off the pot! And stop should-ing all over yourself!"

My all-silver bracelet with my timebead and a variety of novelty charms,
each with a lesson I need to remind myself of every day

A little girl and an egg remind me to celebrate

It's been two weeks since Easter. Is it safe now to tell you that the Easter bunny isn't real? I want to share with you one of our traditions at Easter, and tell you why I wear this "decorative egg" throughout the year - because it doesn't just represent Easter. And you'll see why I call it the "celebration egg." 



From left: Sheila (me), Mitchell, Mike, Taylor, (Chantal behind) Theo, Thomas

I remember this day so clearly! My brother Thomas and his wife Chantal were visiting us with their son Theo who is 8 months older than our twins. Tom showed us how Theo liked this game where Tom would pretend to drop Theo and then catch him, saying "Tomber!" (French for "fall down") We started doing it with our two and, as you can see, the giggles ensued!

We were actually celebrating Mitchell and Taylor's second birthday, and Taylor was helping her aunt set the table. After the table was set, Chantal said, "Taylor really likes celebrations, doesn't she?"

It was such an interesting observation; something that had never occurred to me. But, over the years, it has proven to be a very astute observation!

Taylor's first Easter was when she was 18 months old (as was her twin brother Mitchell of course). In these photos you can see Mitchell and Taylor doing their first Easter egg hunt - with assistance from my mom, their Nana. 

 

Before Easter that year a friend invited a number of kids (and their moms) to her home to decorate Easter eggs. (Yes she is brave!) You can see in these photos how serious Taylor was, and how excited she was! (She is 18 months in the following photos)

 

Another year her brother was away at Easter and we took Taylor to the National Gallery of Canada where they have art activities for children. She had so much fun making this little finger puppet chick!

 

In fact she loved it so much she made a few more!

 

But it's not just Easter. Taylor enjoys celebrations of all kind. And she seems to enjoy the preparation and anticipation as much as the event itself. 

 

When my mom died it was only two days before her 81st birthday. Taylor must have been looking forward to Mom's birthday because her first reaction was, "Can we still celebrate her birthday?" So we did! And seven years later we still get a cake on Mom's birthday.

When our twins were five, we started a Friday evening pot luck. We called it "Sports Night," but the parents mostly ate and visited, while the kids ran around in the backyard. Taylor was always the one reminding us that "Friday is Sports Night," and she was always the one who invited her friends, even if the rest of us had forgotten. The same thing is happening now that we have a Saturday Games Night - Unplugged. There's usually at least one of Taylor's friends.

She started the tradition of having a sleepover in our backyard on the last weekend before school starts. Here the girls (and a few extra boys) are eating dinner in the back yard. (Taylor is front and centre)
 

Now she has a sleepover during the Christmas holidays too, and makes waffles for her friends (and  her brother).

 

 

Taylor doesn't like cake so she usually requests cupcakes; these were from her 13th birthday at a Karaoke bar - there were songs from Frozen!

Whenever there is an event at school Taylor will bake something - usually brownies. And for other celebrations she still enjoys setting the table, but now she also enjoys wrapping presents, and making bows and decorations. She wrapped a box in moustache-covered duct tape and made this origami star to decorate this gift for her dad at Christmas - and they work as hair decorations too!

 

So I wear the "celebration egg" (as I call it) on my red and pink cherry blossom mother-daughter bracelet - I call it "Flower Power." This bracelet is about the things I want to teach my daughter as well as the things I've learned from my mother AND my daughter. This little egg reminds me of how right Chantal was, that Taylor really does like celebrations. And it reminds me of how important it is to celebrate the little things as well as the big things. Especially if we can celebrate with waffles... or cake... or cupcakes.

Now, as promised, I want to tell you about the Easter tradition in our house. Since our kids were little we've had a scavenger hunt for gifts, usually something small like a book or game - and a few chocolates of course. My husband is brilliant with clues. I even got to participate this year since the kids don't believe in the Easter Bunny (or Santa) anymore. See if you can guess where things were hidden. Answers at the bottom of the post.

 

Sheila

#1 kitchen cabinet where we keep our medications

#2 bathroom medicine cabinet over the sink

#3 we had a pipe burst from our upstairs toilet above our front hall closet - very unpleasant; everything had to be torn out, but then it became my "Pandora closet" - perfect spot for my Pandora Easter gift

Taylor 

#1 the office attached to our bedroom has had a Clean Sweep and now there is a curtain separating it from our bedroom; unfortunately that space is above the vestibule inside the front door and it's quite cold when that curtain is closed

#2 Estavon is our cat; she wouldn't like a spin in the washing machine

#3 we have a dresser in our front hall that is a catch-all; it has drawers with hats and mitts as well as school/office supplies, and I keep my seasonal decorations for the front door in there too; if you leave a drawer open there will usually be a cat in the drawer when you return!

Mitchell

#1 of course the oven is where Mitchell broils nachos and bakes biscuits and cookies

#2 why is it that teenage boys hate taking a shower? especially in our basement shower, which has better water pressure but is a little scary

#3 we had a corner TV unit in our old apartment but it wouldn't fit down our basement stairs in our current house, so it is in our dining room, and if you want to watch these TV shows you have to go downstairs to the basement