have you ever tried to enter the long black branches?

Have you ever tried to enter the long black branches
of other lives –
tried to imagine what the crisp fringes, full of honey,
hanging
from the branches of the young locust trees, in early summer,
feel like?
   
Do you think this world is only an entertainment for you?
   
Never to enter the sea and notice how the water divides
with perfect courtesy, to let you in!
Never to lie down on the grass, as though you were the grass!
Never to leap to the air as you open your wings over
the dark acorn of your heart!
   
No wonder we hear, in your mournful voice, the complaint
that something is missing from your life!
   
   
Who can open the door who does not reach for the latch?

Who can travel the miles who does not put one foot
in front of the other, all attentive to what presents itself
continually?
Who will behold the inner chamber who has not observed
with admiration, even with rapture, the outer stone?
   
   
Well, there is time left –
fields everywhere invite you into them.
   
And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away
from wherever you are, to look for your soul?
   
Quickly, then, get up, put on your coat, leave your desk!
   
   
To put one’s foot into the door of the grass, which is
the mystery, which is death as well as life, and
not be afraid!
   
To set one’s foot in the door of death, and be overcome
with amazement!
   
To sit down in front of the weeds, and imagine
god the ten-fingered, sailing out of his house of straw,

nodding this way and that way, to the flowers of the
present hour,
to the song falling out of the mockingbird’s pink mouth,

to the tiplets of the honeysuckle, that have opened
 in the night.
   
To sit down, like a weed among weeds, and rustle in the wind! 

~~~~~    
    

Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?
   
While the soul, after all, is only a window,
 and the opening of the window no more difficult
than the wakening from a little sleep. 
    
  ~~~~~ 

Only last week I went out among the thorns and said
to the wild roses:
deny me not,
but suffer my devotion.
Then, all afternoon, I sat among them. Maybe
   
I even heard a curl or two of music, damp and rouge-red,
hurrying from their stubby buds, from their delicate watery bodies.

~~~~~

   
For how long will you continue to listen to those dark shouters,
caution and prudence?
 

Fall in! Fall in! 
     

~~~~~
   
A woman standing in the weeds.
A small boat flounders in the deep waves, and what’s coming next
is coming with its own heave and grace.
   
~~~~~ 
   
Meanwhile, once in a while, I have chanced, among the quick things,
upon the immutable.
What more could one ask?
   
And I would touch the faces of the daisies,
and I would bow down
to think about it.
   
That was then, which hasn’t ended yet.
   
Now the sun begins to swing down. Under the peach-light,
I cross the fields and the dunes, I follow the ocean’s edge.
   
I climb, I backtrack.
I float.
I ramble my way home.

 

~ Mary Oliver ~

seen at return to the center

 

Mary Oliver’s work is like a mystic’s rapture with god…her rapture and ecstasy is found in nature and in shouting at us to WAKE UP!  In this, one of my favorites, she invites us to enter into life more fully through a simple noticing.  Just a noticing of all that is around us, an entering into all that is around us.  To experience an immersion into direct experience… to lie down in the grass as though you were the grass!  This comes naturally and easily to a child.  This poem has the ring of a Remembrance to it.  The poet begs us to remember what it is to enter into nature, into life itself, with a whole-heartedness that most of us lack as adults.

 

Do you think this world is only an entertainment for you?  Are we going to numbly sleepwalk our way through our days, wasting our precious lives, not even noticing them pass by?  Can any of us afford to live in this half-hearted way?

 

And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away from wherever you are, to look for your soul?   Who, indeed?  Isn’t it most often we ourselves who chide?  Why do adults fret over “wasting time”  doing simple things like sitting in silence or going for a stroll?  While we truly do “waste time” attending to the never-ending list of duties and plans and strategies…  Why not throw out the list of duties and just take a walk?  Why not lie down in the tall grass as if you were grass?  Why not look up at the blue, blue sky and dream a little?  Why not notice the details of all of life exploding around us?  Why not enter the world completely, step out of our skin and enter the mystery?

 

My favorite wake-up line of all time is in this poem: Listen, are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?  Even reading this line causes me to stop and notice the shallowness of my breath.  I stop and breathe deeply and suddenly a completely different life becomes available to me! 

 

 While the soul, after all, is only a window,
 and the opening of the window no more difficult
than the wakening from a little sleep. 

The poet reminds us that it really isn’t all that difficult to become engaged in life, to awaken.  It only takes an opening of the window, a reaching for the latch.  What stops us is listening instead to the shouting voices of caution and prudence.    She urges us to stop thinking, stop listening to these voices, to just fall in!  Fall in!

And I love the simplicity of the last lines:  I climb.  I backtrack.  I float.  I ramble my way home.  Perfect description of the easy grace and innocence that prevails when we slip the noose of sleepwalking through our lives and join the living, breathing, wonderous world that is our home.

   

  

 

 

ten phases of a woman’s life

 

michelangelo - delphic sibyl

The Ten Phases of a Woman’s Life

.  A little list I found tucked in the back of a little book by Joan Anderson (The Second Journey) that I haven’t actually read yet….but this caught my eye and I loved it.  It’s a list of the phases women go through on their journey to themselves.   It helps to explain the restlessness, aching and tugging going on inside during these last years.  And it helps me feel a bit less alone – maybe I’m not such a loser freak, after all.  Maybe there are other women out there who have had life-altering events slamming into them like the waves of a tsunami.  Maybe I’m not the only one reeling from a reversal of all I thought I knew and a new and sudden “knowing” of a completely different reality.  After so long of feeling that I was pushing through uncharted areas, lately I’ve begun to be reminded that I’m not alone at all.  There are myriads of women, past and present, who have trod this path before.  I just don’t have them with me in the flesh.  But I read their words, in books and blogs.  (like here, here and here, to start)  And, like this list, they give me hope and fresh purpose. 

michelangelo - libyan sibyl

• 0-7        childlike wonder
• 7-14      the beginning of hormonal activity
• 14-21    unfurling sexuality
• 21-28    being affirmed by a man-the desire to procreate
• 28-35    birthing, mothering, caretaking, putting others first
• 35-42    leaving self out but occasionally looking beyond
• 42-49    menopause approaching – is this all?  a desire for self-love
• 49-56    birthing of a mature psyche – a desire to go away, live without rules and become more instinctive
• 56-63    choosing one’s true purpose, work, vocation, finding one’s individual reason for being beyond the roles
• 63-70    reflection – becoming the watchwoman, recasting all that one has learned, being whatever one has become

michelangelo - cumaean sibyl

You think of the Path

You think of the Path
As a long arduous climb
Up the mountain.

You concede there may be
Many paths
But you’re sure
All have the same
Exalted goal.

Ram Tzu knows this…

There ARE many Paths.

Like streams
They flow effortlessly
(though not necessarily painlessly)
Down the mountain.

All disappear
Into the desert sands below.

Ram Tzu  (Wayne Liquorman

the buoyancy of non-harming

“It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living by its purely physical effect on the human temperament would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.”  Albert Einstein

 True attention is rare.  This is an unfortunate truth.  It’s hard to make the sacrifices needed to stand naked before your reality.  This has certainly been my experience in the spiritual  journey.    It has also been my experience in going vegan.  I have been unwilling to grant true attention to the plight of  the  gentle creatures that live among us,  have been in unspoken complicity with the factory farms and with the shortened, tortured and pitiful existence of their prisoners.  I’ve been willing to place my own comfort and ease above seeing things as they really are and possibly becoming  inconvenienced.  Possibly having my world turned upside down. 

Which it has.

What is amazing to me is how wonderful this upside down world is!  How good I feel!  How light – as if a heavy load has been taken off of my shoulders.  I recently read about a spiritual practice called Tikkun Olam (at awake is good).  This is a Jewish tradition of putting back together the broken world.  Looking around at the violence, fear and suffering, it is easy to become overwhelmed.  With Tikkun Olam, one picks up one tiny misplaced piece and tries to find a way to put it back in place.  Maybe not change the world, but change one tiny piece of it.  That is what I feel I am doing.   I am picking up a tiny piece of thread and reworking it into the tapestry of life. 

Stanley Sapon defines veganism as : “an ethic that is committed to reverence and respect for all life and the planet that sustains it… bringing with it the joy of living with peace of spirit, and the comfort of knowing that one’s thoughts, feelings, words, and actions have a strongly benevolent effect on the world.”  That sounds like repairing the world to me.  That sounds like a way to live a more compassionate life, one that resounds with harmony and empathetic living by seeing and respecting the interconnectedness of all life.  I like knowing that my choices are having a benevolent effect on the world, animal and human.

I’ve been thinking of the yamas and niyamas, (which I understand to be less a list of dos and don’t than a declaration of who we are when we are connected to our true nature).  The very first of the 10 is the idea of non-violence, the ethical call to gentleness with both yourself and all of creation.   In my mind it has become the mantra of non-harming or compassion. 

This sense of being tender and withholding violence, judgment and criticism extends to myself and to all I encounter, as we are all part of  one living, breathing creation.  To harm you is to bring pain to myself.  To see myself in others is so freeing.  To just be with them, without having to stand judgement over them, is liberating and refreshing.  We are the same - we have the same obstacles and difficulties, we suffer both necessarily and needlessly, we want to be happy, we long for clarity and meaning in life.  I find myself loving people quickly, finding something interesting in those I see at work, daily or maybe only that one chance meeting ~ two eggs over-light, hold the grits.

I’ll not keep on about this change…it’s  just that this is quite momentous to me.  It reminds me of a moment I felt was life-changing in the past – deciding during a class on world religions when in my early 30s that there may be something out there…after being an agnostic since my early teens – this felt life-changing.  And, truly, it was.  I think I got off track a bit for a few years by letting myself get too drawn into conservative churchianity.  Yet, I think my heart was in the right place.  I constantly hungered for God and ran after Him with all I knew to do.  I prayed, I studied the sacred texts.  I tore apart the words in the original languages, as best as a lay-person can.  I studied the Bible, memorized it, prayed it, sang it.  I fell in love with the early mystics, found the echo to my longings in their words.   They wrote of a similar yearning to be ravished by the One. 

Perhaps one day I will find my way back to a connection with what some call the Divine.  I don’t have it now, although I long for it and pay  homage to it with my Kwan Yin and my Om Mani Padme Hum.  And in my head, I sometimes still converse with what I think of as the Witness.  I don’t know if it’s habit or sentimentality or something more sacred.  I just know that there is still that desire in me to have this conversation and I’ve  recently been relenting on my silent treatment.  I find myself  enriched and restored by this occasional conversation, so I let it be, without understanding it.  I just let it be what it is.  No expectations for more, no need for promises of anything at all to come.  Just the sharing of insight or wonder in some simple moment. 

Hmm.  The tone of this blathering on went from going vegan to going sacred.  I guess that is because I feel somehow more harmonious, more peaceful.  My palate has begun to feel, well, cleansed.  Simple food is becoming delightful to me and I feel excited by the prospect of a more healthy attitude towards food in general.   And, surprising me, this change has also worked within me a renewal of my committment to living a compassionate life.  I’ve been reminded of the need to give true attention to the ethical precepts of non-harming, truthfulness, generosity, sexual maturity, non-possesiveness… the yamas.  And also the niyamas… trying to keep always the observances of simplicity, contentment, spiritual practice (the clearing of daily residue that  can blur my perception), self-reflective awareness and also an awareness of  what I have come to think of as the Witness.  I didn’t expect my soul to expand like it has from this one decision, but I am certainly feeling buoyant beyond anything I have felt for a very long time.

the face on your plate

Isn’t man an amazing animal?  He kills wildlife – birds, kangaroos, deer, and all kinds of cats, coyotes, beavers, groundhogs, mice, foxes and dingoes – by the million in order to protect his domestic animals and their feed.  Then he kills domestic animals by the billion and eats them.  This in turn kills man by the million, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative and fatal health conditions like heart disease, kidney disease, and cancer.  So then man tortures and kills millions more animals to look for cures for these diseases.  Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals.  David Coats

I just finished reading “The Face on Your Plate” and I must admit that my life is changed.  I’ve been leaning toward vegetarianism for such a long time now, but haven’t had the guts to make it happen.  This book is really good…only a few chapters long, it focuses on the damage done to the earth, the suffering of animals on factory farms, denial and living as a vegan.  Who was it that said the a mind stretched by a new idea never regains its former dimensions?  So true.  What you know, you can never “un”know.  Having read the chapter on the lives of chickens, cows and pigs, I can’t bear the thought of eating them ever again.  Knowing the details of their lives, the suffering they endure…I can’t bear to be a part of that anymore. 

I mean, I “kind-of” knew that things weren’t the way they used to be on the family farm.  Chickens don’t run around pecking and sunning, cows don’t roam the fields and suckle their calves, pigs don’t root and roll in the mud for the sheer joy of it.  I “kind-of” knew things must be much different than that now, but I wouldn’t let myself think about it.  Too late for that now.  Now I have the picture in my head of the calf ripped from its mother at birth, both of them bellowing and obviously in distress.  I see the mother in a pen just large enough to stand in her own waste, not even large enough to lay down.   I see the calf fed a sickening gruel that includes ground up cow(!), similar to what his mother eats.  I see him thrown into a crate, shipped off to become a package of veal.

I hear the cackling of chickens as they have their beaks clipped, right through nerve endings similar to our nail bed.  I see them crammed into cages smaller than a piece of notebook paper, where they live their whole lives, never seeing the sun, never running or pecking or sitting in a bush or tree at night. 

And I feel the sorrow of the pig who can’t get to her piglets below her in the wire cage where they can look up and nurse, but not be touched at all by their mother’s loving snout.

I’ll stop now.  I won’t talk anymore,even though there are more things like this in my head.  And the book doesn’t even talk about the slaughter of these animals, just the suffering of their lives.  It’s like my eyes just suddenly opened and I wept at the sight of how cruel we are to these gentle beings.  I don’t want to be a “born-again’ veggie…don’t want to be preachy…don’t want to force my convictions onto any one else.  I only know that I have been changed and I’m glad about it.  I already feel lighter, more spacious and free.  One of the main tenets I try to live by is to do no harm.   Thanks to reading this book, I think I’m doing a better job now of keeping that vow.

embryonic compassion

Some interesting thoughts on pain and suffering from Norman Fischer:

So this is what I learned…about the meaning of loss:  love rushes into the absence that is loss, and that love brings inspired action.  If we are able to give ourselves to the loss, to move toward it – rather than recoil in an effort to escape, deny, distract, or obscure – our wounded hearts become full, and out of that fullness we will do things differently and we will do different things.

He goes on to talk about that sore spot or rawness that is painful and that we try to cover over or protect.  He points out that, although painful and no fun, the sore spot is valuable.  He tells about how Trungpa Rinpoche call the sore spot “embryonic compassion”.   I love that.  Potential compassion coming from our wounds waking us up to love and to loving action.  This is precious and wonderful to me in the way it brings reason and purpose to suffering.

He then goes on to describe the darkness that descends on our thoughts and emotions after the shock of loss has passed and fear and despair arrive:

We are anxious about our uncertain future, over which we have so little control.  It’s easy to fall into the paralysis of despair, coming back to our childish default position of feeling completely vulnerable and unprepared in a harsh and hostile world.  This fearful feeling of self-diminishment may darken our view to such an extent that we find ourselves wondering whether we are worth while people, whether we’re capable of surviving in this tough world, whether we deserve to survive, whether our lives matter, whether there is any point in trying to do anything at all.

This describes perfectly how it feels when the dark veil falls – the thoughts reflect so closely what I’ve experienced.  He goes on to point out that this sense of loss, despair and fear is terrible, that we hate it, but that it is exactly what we need.  It is the embryo of compassion stirring to be born.  Birth is painful.  Like Jung said, “There is no coming to life without pain.”  Oh, how we resist this!  We spend much of our time administering our own personal versions of an epidural…alcohol, dope, food, tv, computer, books, busyness, and on and on…

Norman points out that instead of medicating, this is a perfect time for spiritual practice because now meditation (or your practice of choice) has gone from being a lifestyle choice or method of self-improvement to becoming a matter of survival!

I love the way Norman doesn’t diminish the power of darkness or try to cover it over with snappy spiritual slogans.  Instead:

The goal is not to make the thoughts and feelings go away:  when there is loss or trouble, it is normal to feel sorrow, fear, despair, confusion, discouragement, and so on….but it would be good to have some perspective – and occasional relief – so these thoughts don’t get the best of us and become full-blown demons pushing us around.

Hard times are painful and no rational person would ever think to bring them on intentionally, yet disasters are inevitable in a human lifetime and it is highly impractical not to welcome them when they come.

Welcome them?  That is a novel thought.  Yet, we can welcome them, because these hard times remind us of what’s important, what is basic, beautiful and worth while about being alive.  When all is going well, we have a tendency to become dull to all that we have, to all of our blessings.  When we have less, we appreciate more.  We have more openness to wonder and joy – our hands are open, less grasping and greedy.

Seen this way – loss, pain and hard times have the potential for bringing more happiness, more awareness of the joys in life, bigger hearts and more compassion.  It can bring a slower, more heartfelt and realistic style of loving and being in this world.

Gabriela Mistal:  I give thanks on this day and every day for the ability you gave me to gather the beauty of the land as if it were water that one takes with the lips, and also for the wealth of pain that I can carry in the depths of my soul without dying.

the dance

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.

Mary Oliver

After over a month of feeling very sick, I’ve been remarkably well for the last several days.  It is amazing how much lighter my step is, how much brighter and friendlier all of life seems when I don’t feel ill.

My illness is like my dancing partner.  I’m learning to dance with her and learning to let her lead is the hardest part!  I keep trying to lead and all that gets me is sore feet.  It increases my suffering to resist or deny or get angry or sad about being ill.  Practicing with my illness has been like having a very determined teacher.  In this way, my illness is both my enemy and my friend, a curse and a blessing.

When I’m in the middle of a bad time, lying on the bed with my body curled around the pain, so weary that every movement is hard…all of life loses its spark and joy.  I’ve felt horribly guilty for this, thinking that I should be able to regulate my moods better, that I should have that stiff upper lip and be a man.  But my teacher has been showing me that this guilt and shame only add to the pain and suffering.  Now, I remind myself that it is normal to feel this way, that there is nothing “wrong” with me when I become surrounded by darkness during times of illness and pain.

Another lesson my teacher has been impressing on me is that everything in my life must take second place to the illness.  Where once I was dependable, now I have to back out of plans at the last minute.  I often avoid making any plans at all because of worry over breaking my word yet again.  When the symptoms return, my life becomes very stark and narrow.  I often feel sadness.  It is hard to hurt again, hard to feel ill so often, hard to let my partner and family down.  I worry about Tam during these times, stuck here in the dark with me.

I’m beginning to learn that I must pay careful attention to how I feel.  My body will tell me what I need to know if I will but listen.  When I get tired, I must rest, not soldier on.  When I find that something makes me ill, I must lay it down, even if I love it.  (goodbye coffee, dear friend)  I’ve been learning to treat my body with respect and compassion, letting it lead in the dance.  Remembering that resistance increases the suffering.  Remembering that the illness must lead and my job is to follow.  During times of pain and weakness, this is tough.  I struggle to accept this as my path. 

They say that if you pay attention, all of life is your teacher.  Perhaps this is the greatest gift of the illness, this paying attention.  This learning to follow, to submit to the hard teachings of my Guru Crohnes has also given me eyes to see all sorts of small blessings in my every day life.  It has forced me to be quieter, to sit stiller, to listen, to be engaged.  I’m thankful for that.  So, crank up the music.  The night is young and I feel like dancing.

 

the uncertain nature of reality

 

Pema Chodron, talking about what happens when we stop shielding ourselves from the completely uncertain nature of reality -  “ All the ways that we hold back and shut down, all the ways that we cling and grasp, all our habitual ways of limiting and solidifying our world become very clear to us, and it’s unnerving”.   I’ll say.  It feels like stepping off a cliff, again and again and again…

“At that painful point, we usually want to make the teacher wrong or make ourselves wrong or do anything that is habitual and comforting to get ground back under our feet. (A sudden urge to check my email…the refrigerator beckons…the remote jumps into my hand…)

“But when we make an unconditional commitment to hang in there, we do not run away from the pain of seeing ourselves—and this is a revolutionary thing to do and it transforms us. But how many of us are ready for this?

And here is the kicker — One has to gradually develop the trust that it is ultimately liberating to let go of strongly held assumptions about reality”.

This little excerpt seems to express some of what I’ve been experiencing lately.  Because of my illness and depression, I’ve had the opportunity to attempt spiritual practice in the midst of pain and uncertainty.  There have been interesting experiences and insights, but I don’t  feel much like trying to put them into words just now.  Maybe it’s because I feel a little lighter, my step seems softer and I don’t want to stumble backward because of too much thinking.  But my head is full of interesting new thoughts and I begin to have a bit of enthusiasm for life again.  That is a good thing.

Just Breathing

Ezra Bayda is my new most favorite writer/teacher.  I’ve seen him quoted and had him recommended to me, but only just recently got my first book by him - Zen Heart: Simple Advice for Living with Mindfulness and Compassion.  I can already feel the transformative power of this book!

For instance, my sleep has been off lately.  I lay in bed and shake with tension, gripping the sheet tightly, all of my muscles clenched.  When I got up last night, this is what Ezra had to say about moving toward saying yes to difficulty:  “This mind-set grows with the increasing unwillingness to stay complacent.  Saying yes allows us to move toward unknown territory, even while the voice of fear tells us to stop.  As we understand that without this step we will forever remain stuck, there’s a willingness to enter into life in a new way.”  This describes very well the whole process of becoming uncomfortable with life half lived, with the pretend life.  It also acknowledges that this step is terrifying.

But what I love about Ezra is that he doesn’t skip over what happens next:  “Practicing with our daily life on this level is particularly difficult when the mind is reeling in self-doubt and confusion.  At such times, how do we return to the heart that seeks to awaken?”  He tells me there are bound to be tough times, but doesn’t leave me there.  He gives me something to do, bless his soul:

“When everything seems dark and unworkable, when our aspiration has grown dim, one thing we can always do is take a deep breath into the center of the chest, and on the out-breath extend to ourselves the same warmth and compassion we would extend to a loved one in duress”. 

Things do seem dark and unworkable right about now, so if you need me, I’ll be the one leaning against the wall, breathing deeply.  Thanks, Ezra.

the better way to live

If you think of life as a journey, most of us jump on the interstate.  We rush to our destination (death), hurrying, hurrying.  The road is intentionally built  away from anything that might slow it down, so one misses the 35 mph changes and endless intersections and stop signs…the small towns, the folks waving from their porches, the mountains and streams and forests. 

Buddhism has been a much-needed exit ramp from the mindlessness of interstate travel to the more intimate reality of a the small by-way.  Everything comes into focus.  Yes, there is pain, but it hurts less when you really feel it.  And there is so much happiness!  To experience each day seems a wondrous gift.  To feel protected and safe, to be contented and pleased, to have life unfold like a poem, like a flower in the sun’s embrace…lovely.  Every night I feel a kind of sadness that the day is over and every morning I awaken with a new curiosity about the day to come.  So different from just getting through till my next day off or laying down and realizing I was only slightly present for the whole of the day!

I don’t feel as if I’ve even begun this practice, like I’m in some sort of remedial prep stage…yet the difference is astonishing to me and I have hope of much more as I go…

Buddhism has been a bit like yoga to me, in that it took a bit of study to find the branch of yoga that suits me best and so with the different lineages of Buddhism.  But even as I’ve been studying the different strains, I’ve loved that the Buddha encouraged one to listen to all the teaching and keep only what resonated close to the heart.  And I love that there are so many variations on the practices and even the teachings because of the sculpting each culture did to create their own, very personal practices.  I get the feeling that the west is still in the beginning stages of adapting the dharma to fit culturally and temperamentally.

Sometimes I lay in bed at night with my mind and heart so full of new ideas and perceptions and feelings that it is difficult to give in to sleep!

 Bhaddekaratta Sutra

Do not pursue the past.
Do not lose yourself in the future.
The past no longer is.
The future has not yet come.

Looking deeply at life as it is
In the very here and now,
The practitioner dwells
In stability and freedom.

We must be diligent today.
To wait until tomorrow is too late.
Death comes unexpectedly.
How can we bargain with it?

The sage calls a person who knows
How to dwell in mindfulness
Night and day
“One who knows the better way to live.”