A Sacred Friendship

a matter of months

2012-01-13T22:12:00.000-08:00

...i've been 'occupied'. ;)

and, surprise, surprise.

by september, i could walk a little further. and my little family & i followed a promising lead, and once there found ourselves in a strange and delightful garden among pines. i made such friends with this place-- and my boys did, too-- that we all decided to stay.

i began my walking with precision and care, being faithful with my meds, leaning on friends and especially my husband... (there's a strength, you know, that has nothing to do with muscles, or decisions. you let go, and it just happens.)

there was a shift in me, a profound one, one i could not move to catch; a shift of old, uncooperative bones that for an amazing (to me) 4 months refused whatsoever to move, and a slowed mind, unable to breathe that precious air of certainty. it took its own time, took me along with it, for once not kicking-and-screaming. because, i couldn't.

all the months before? they are foggy, but gorgeous, and rich.

the boys returned from vermont with the harvest that i could not pick, but indeed i could cook, and that's what i did-- slowly, carefully, and with pleasure. nourishment was measured, and appreciation, abundant.

and as it turns out? after all those months of non-movement, unsteady movement, crippled movement, ironically, we did move! a leap into happiness, long-missed.

and now i move as my spirit moves: with the breath of trees, the fire of the moon, and the ever-present sky.

determined

2011-08-13T21:55:00.001-07:00

blooming

2011-07-18T11:12:00.000-07:00

It's my favorite part of the summer season, as mounds of hydrangea blooms soften searing sun with their cool periwinkle frost of color, and their puffball sense of humor. These little clusters of joy are abundant through our neighborhood now, punctuating the more rigid corners and claustrophobic lines of our Victorian-era brickmakers' ward with a welcome reminiscent of ice cream and sprinklers.

They welcome my eye and draw my hand to them to cup them so very gently, in a communion between petals and skin. I can feel both of us smile when I do.

I'm accepting many such invitations these days-- the slow and forgotten kind, of attentions both unusual and subtly exotic-- as I explore ways to entertain my "new" body, my fibromyalgia body. Hot days are spent as quietly as possible, with as little movement as possible, for I've not yet learned the limits of my "new" body, my fibromyalgia body.

Pain speaks to me constantly; a burning flame in my ankles, a sudden jolt in my rib, a "Voodoo-doll jab" (as one facebook friend put it) of a hot spike into my heel, a raking of nerve endings in my elbows, a vice of iron around my knees...

I've had to bow humbly to Big Pharma, accepting the blessings bestowed by Cymbalta, Tramadol, Gabapentin, Hydrocodone. This is a sad irony for one who has been so careful with diet and entertainments (go local! go organic! go natural!); and a bit of a slap in the face for an herbal fanatic and homeopathic enthusiast.

Somehow, though, I do not feel overwhelmed with anger; at least, I am as angry as my antidepressant pain relievers will allow me to be. And though most of my days are spend lying on the couch, mostly I'm just watching my pain, getting used to the idea that it's not going away.

There's an estimated 140 million people in the US suffering from chronic pain with an assumed growth of about 1% a year. Many of these conditions are of unknown origins, and many who suffer them must do so in silence, as chronic pain is not well understood (or accepted) in our pull-up-your-bootstraps society.

Hardest of all for me is not being able to apply myself fully to the work of raising my (very energetic!) son, who also has a central nervous system disorder (Sensory Processing Disorder); and also not being able to enjoy the process of writing and creating. How odd it is, when something as simple as touching a key on a keypad becomes an exercise in forbearance.

And so more often than that, I accept offers from random, puffy flowers and velvety leaves, and touch them, instead. I rest in the quiet of my mind, the gift of my zen practice that I can (at this point!) no longer rest within, and I blossom now as a foreign flower, altogether new again.

BeautyWay

2011-06-15T08:05:00.000-07:00

Because the nature of anguish is so ugly, I have resolved myself to find some measure of beauty in each day, every day.

And I must admit to my shock, as I find even the seemingly smallest thing of beauty carries more largess than the ugliest thing I experience.

Climate change unheeded. Human greed and corruption. The suffering of many, for the comfort of a very few. Injustice: inner, outer, and secret. And the more personal notes of this warbled tune of unhappiness, which include the challenges of caring for a "special needs" child, caring for the grief of the loss of my father much too young, and now caring for the very new, very humbling diagnosis of fibromyalgia within myself...

All of which tips away carelessly, effortlessly with the weight of dew on the edge of a supple leaf.

Reflecting on my Father's Death

2011-05-04T08:28:00.000-07:00

It's been nearly a year with My Tree.

May

June

October

December

January

March

April

When you watch the way the seasons turn, the glorious in-and-out-and in-again of leaves and birds, clouds and sun, you understand even your own life is nothing more than the Earth breathing.

Rest in Peace, Daddy.

Waiting

2011-04-23T08:40:00.001-07:00

How does one write about waiting for news of the death of one's father?

Waiting on the couch for that phone call, knitting all the while waiting for my own new medications to make their mark on this strange new body-predicament... It strikes me that this is a season of waiting in the Christian world, too, as the faithful explore the darkness of a world devoid of their divine Light; and as the Christians, so too the more Earth-worshipping wait for the light and warmth of the Sun and the promise of full-on Springtime Sowing Season. Jews wait out the Pass-Over; Muslims celebrate Al-Hijra, their New Year, awaiting the seasonal arrival of Mohammed home from Mecca to begin the community of Islam.

All the earth is a waiting room these days, it seems...

This glorious wind of balled mossy-green yarn accompanied me on my wait to board the plane, and subsequent longer wait to de-board the plane once in Utah, and the long wait afterward to help my father home from the hospital to hospice. The mountains gave good steady company too, reminding me of first hiking treks (and my first attempt at skiing) with my dear old dad all those years ago. The mountains were their typical staid selves in wearing the a-typical weather of Rocky Mountain April, changing cloud-skirts from gray to snow to warming sun in a matter of hours without complaint. I knitted and admired the mountains and did my best to weather the changing conditions in my dad's body, in my own body, in my family's collective body.

Today I am home again and still waiting, haunted by every ring of the phone, buoyed by the support of dear friends, and my tireless husband. Today a chilly rain falls on the other side of the continent while I can only guess at the weather of the bedroom, body and family lodged by the mountains west. Today I feel echoes of a warm cheek against my lips, the struggle for breath in and out of an ever-open mouth, the string of emotions that inevitably accompany these things on all sides. The quiet drill of rainfall feeds this silent, internal thunder. And I wait.

Gifts

2011-04-18T01:33:00.000-07:00

Mother Nature, she pulled through- as promised.
And miracle of miracles, just like that, we are staying in our home after all... the relative has decided to remain in her own home, and our landlords invited us to keep on. Relief is an understatement; settled is the blessing.

I wish the same could be said for my desk, alas. But as one diagnosis goes, so goes another, as just a few weeks ago I was given my own: fibromyalgia. Once my sweet, yellow girl was given a slot among some incredible artistic company; now she is a catch-all, as medications are titrated and my mind finds a new place in this very new body of mine.

But Mother Nature? Her ways are mysterious; the promise of green pops here and there, in what I consider a springtime equivalent of sweet laughter... Not at the expense of a winter hard won, but of something more tender, like altogether giggling at the gift of this mad, indefinable allofit.

Debris

2011-03-14T06:34:00.000-07:00

Early March pulls a fast one:

And in two weeks' time, we are left with the melt-mud and debris.

But somewhere in that soggy mess, hope springs forward, determined.

Somehow I knew, as I was taking these photos, these would be among the last of my tree. Just as I knew when it was the last of my shrubbery... for we have learned that we must move yet again. Our landlords claim it is so that they can allow a needy family member to occupy the space; but this mama's intuition knows it is because our household is noisier than most.

I had intimated that there was something wrong with my boy, something off and something far-too-on; but at long last, we've received a diagnosis, and a direction. (Even though to this mama, we are traveling with leaden shoes, but even so at least our toes are pointing forward this time.)

This diagnosis give a name to our daily struggles, our constant state of exhaustion and weary wondering-why; but the landlords don't want to hear it (though they have plenty to say about my parenting style-- "you spoil him", "he's just a boy", "he's an only child", "you yell too much", "he yells too much"...), and they certainly don't want their retirement bothered by the noise of it... Though I have sat here in this very spot each day wondering how to put up with the cacophony of their daily battles, the things they don't think I can hear, the things I really don't want to hear...

In the midst of this personal debris, in the course of just a few weeks there have been political uprisings-- some ending in joy, others in horror; there have been several defeats on our own soil, the working wo/man losing rights for the benefit of corporate America, under the guise of budgetary reform; and there have been two devastating earthquakes, one on each side of our planetary axis. It is nearly too much to bear.

Struggle is the essence of this life, yet beauty persists in spite of it... or more likely, because of it. I become consumed by my grief and my overwhelm, and yet there are the crocus, and there are the snow-drop, there are the forsythia, their soft petals pushing back on my gloom with more force than the weight of winter. How do they do it, each year, these gentle creatures? From where do they inherit their strength? In the hummus of destruction, comes the answer.

Growth finds a fissure in the strangle of debris, and at length, we find flowers.

On Waking

2011-02-14T04:29:00.000-08:00

Great White surfacing

I dreamt of a shark with paper teeth,
And wondered at the menace
of what terrifies me.
He'd come to attack my little son-
My most precious,
My insatiable one...
Up he popped, and nearly got me-
And up popped my hand,
In defensive instinct.
How hose impressive edges were so very thin!
His gums were so soft,
--where now to begin?

The things I fear most, are they all this way?
Tenderness beckons where terror held sway.

Waiting for Brigid

2011-01-31T03:43:00.000-08:00

I will NOT lose my sense of humor. I will NOT lose my sense of humor...

The truth of it is, we've had more than a little snow up here in Boston. (See there? That lump to the right? That's the car.)

So while I've enjoyed reading my usual arrangement of inspiring blogs, I have to admit I stare a little in disbelief at those kind women who are sharing photos of young new shoots poking through the chilly ground.

It's an article of faith, a little love-letter in my heart that I've written to Spring, that returns me to the window again and again each morning, loving what is and hoping for what's to come, in the form of a little green of our own.

It's a funny little paradox, and not very 'zen' of me I'm afraid. But the truth is, I adore my 'pagan' hope. It's that bright spark that gets me up in the morning. Hope turns the wheel. (Not to mention, trust.) Don't get me wrong: I do actually love all of this whiteness. It's a glorious morning, the mornings I wake up to white flakes swirling around the air. But after years in warmer climes-- Northern California, Southern Maryland, New Mexico, Alabama-- can I truly bear such a long wait for tender shoots, and the smell of awakening? It is a new sensation, being a new New Englander.

Perhaps it's because Spring and I share a birthday. (And you'll note, my springtime 'sun' keeps getting one candle brighter, ahem.) What is my hope for my own personal spring? Can I bear the final moments of 40, eager as I am to get on with 41, and the rest of my life? Blowing out the candles is one long exhalation, after all.

Which brings me back to wonder, Why am I holding my breath in the first place?

Wonder

2011-01-18T03:58:00.000-08:00

Outside, where little wings fall to the earth and gather into great fluffy piles of white, I have been looking for stories.

Where have our neighbors gone? Excepting one long afternoon of communal shoveling, they've all but disappeared into the warmth of their own homes. The street is full of us, but you wouldn't know it from walking outside. Outside the buildings stand tall and silent, like colorful, watchful trees.

Inside, there are plans and projects strewn about the place, and I joyfully attend to each one, happy to give my hopes time (finally!) for expression.

It is the gift of winter's heart: if there is a chill, there is more tea; if there is hope, there is a quiet corner offered from which one can work out the details of bringing it to fruition.

Long ago, a wise lady taught me that winter's long rest is not just the cold and dark of weathered days. Rather, it's a hermitage for the soul, a fertile darkness that nourishes the seeds of understanding that were planted with those other seeds that escaped pod and tree-top-- the ones that rode autumn's crisp wind to new fields, cracks and alleyways.

I look for clues in that deep silence to know their stories, all of them: the seeds, the snow, the neighbors hidden beyond the endless walls that line our street. And in turn, that golden ember of curiosity warms my hands and propels me on, intrigued and determined, in a steady tromp through the snow.

A loving memory-

2011-01-13T11:40:00.001-08:00

(A dual-post from my "zen" blog, Open Palm Zendo.)

She used to get a bit of a twinkle in her eye, you know. An impish, wondrous twinkle. "They're all going to be jealous," she said, speaking of all the other grandmotherly zen teachers in her circle, "when I tell them my sangha has a baby!"

And she warmly welcomed my baby, just a bit over a year old at the time and very (rambunctiously) mobile, into the very intimate group we had that met on Tuesdays at Healdsburg Yoga Studio. Darlene shared his free spirit; you could tell that she, too, was in love with the world. This open, clear penetration was evident in everything she did, in the way she made you feel. All at once I was warmed by her, mystified by her, and a little intimidated. (You don't come into contact with that kind of clarity without feeling a wee bit so.)

I've always known she would die. She spoke openly about her experience with chronic pain and cancer, as these very points were the cornerstones of her own practice. Yet it was a shock to read that she had died, just yesterday, while here in Boston the snow was flying. The glorious snow was flying, our neighbors were sharing a laugh and a grumble in a shoveling extravaganza, and life was going on. Life and death juxtapose so strangely on some days. Do you laugh? Do you cry?

"You do both," she'd say. For it was from Darlene Cohen that I finally learned to accept all of my emotions, and understand them as vital parts of myself, and vital to my own practice. "Nothing is pushed away," she'd say. "Not one thing needs changing. Except maybe your orientation to it."

On her birthday, which was a day shared with the Halloween holiday, she'd come to sit zazen with us in full costume. On other days, she'd sport the most amazing earrings... oh, her collection of earrings, you would not believe some of these bits of artful extravagance! Nothing is pushed away. Darlene sat with her whole self, warts and pain and all, and in this her gift to us was an attitude of complete acceptance-- of who we were, of how we were, joyfully.

I left California, and our little sangha, in September of 2008. I daydreamed of returning to share the women's retreat with Darlene and my teacher, Angie, at Grace Schireson's Empty Nest Zendo. I daydreamed of the letter I'd send Darlene and the sangha in the meantime-- or at least, the birthday card that I meant to send this year. Always life flares up and always, these precious intentions are left on the back-burner.

Turns out, that's precisely where our zen practice cooks the most: the back-burner of intentions, wishes, hopes and best-laid plans. Things we'd like to ignore, things we pray will change... we can push any number of things, sure; but the truth of it is, they do not go very far away.

Thank you, Darlene, for reminding me to stir that pot.

A Year in Sentences

2011-01-01T19:58:00.000-08:00

While I allow the whirlwind of the holidays (and my boy's fourth birthday) settle some, I thought I'd pass along this sweet exercise from my blog-friend solsticedreamer...

This time of day always begets the best kind of light for daydreaming.

I've seen some wonderful blogs that highlight photos of one spot (such as "out my back door"), anywhere from 365 days of the year to once-a-month captures.

No, no, no, it's not the birth of a new planet. That's my birthday cake, bright with 40 candles!

As it turns out, this will be my last entry for my little seasonal project of one-picture-a-month of-the-same-spot... of this house.

Just a quick note today... as we just returned from a visit to the home of a good number of healthy whales off Cape Cod, my mind is reeling from the reality of those whose lives are severely compromised in the Gulf of Mexico.

I had an essay brewing in my mind for a long time after my retreat.

Zen practice is not about getting away from our life as it is; it is about getting into our life as it is, with all of its vividness, beauty, hardship, joy and sorrow.

Not long ago, I determined to make a pilgrimage. I stood at my back door, and took a deep breath...

The Day of Climate Action was created as a grassroots reaction to politicians' inaction on the issue of Global Warming.

The morning after my ordination (Tokudo), I had an interesting vision: a wide field opened before me.

They say that celebrations of the Solstice gave salve to the fear of our ancestors who, after the warmth of the growing season faded, became afraid in the long dark that is winter.

...and you, what have you been thinking about over the last year? Bright wishes of a bountiful, beautiful 2011 to you!

Solstice

2010-12-22T06:55:00.001-08:00

They say that celebrations of the Solstice gave salve to the fear of our ancestors who, after the warmth of the growing season faded, became afraid in the long dark that is winter.

Now that quaint need has diminished, they say; and with our modern-man mastery of the elements (save for Nature's Finest Efforts), the fear factor has all but disappeared (save for that interminable, nervous wait during power outages during Nature's Finest Efforts). We have matured, right? With technology and our knowledge of Things, why celebrate the season's turning? Is Solstice relevant, or simply a quaint effort by some to capture an absent glory?

I ask myself these questions in the bustle of my everyday. But the answer that comes consistently is clear: No, not quaint, but very necessary-- necessary most especially now, when we are most disconnected from the very things that feed us, that make us whole. The precious things that make us fully human.

How precious it is to connect with something so "simple" as light.

Yesterday, my little family met the winter full-on: we walked all morning in the cold of it, the glorious snow of it; we fired up the oven, and baked warmth and wonderful smells. We greeted our city neighbors and played among all the wild things that normally we think hidden. We exchanged presents by the twinkle of our Yule tree. And then, this morning? This morning I understood the real gift was our ending the technology-imposed, hubris-filled "separation", of consciously deciding to embrace-- and celebrate-- exactly what was.

It takes a lot for me to remember to turn off the convenience of distraction, meet flame to candle and sit with loved ones to laugh through, and contemplate, the dark and cold of winter. And when I finally do remember? The "convenience" fades to make room for something far greater: Joy. I wish the very same for you!

Home is Where the Light Is

2010-12-13T19:03:00.000-08:00

The cold, wintry weather has settled in on New England once again. And again I find comfort in the space of my kitchen, lingering in its warmth and in the joy that comes with artfully nourishing my little family.

I had an idea to make a post about all the kitchens I have loved in my life: the dusty one in New Mexico, where I first learned to cut open a container of tofu in a mild attempt at vegetarianism; the tiny one in Colorado, where I bustled about with my very-pregnant belly, trying hard not to knock anything off the low shelves with that ample protrusion. My favorite may have been the bright, cool one in California where I fed my son his first bites of 'real food'... Or perhaps it was the ugly one in Mobile, that nevertheless seemed always full of friends and comfort food.

Technology didn't cooperate, and so as it is that photo-memoir will have to wait for another day. But it struck me that as I approach this, my first anniversary of living --for the first time-- in New England, what I was really getting at in my kitchen-post leanings was that most comforting ideal of the kitchen I know: the comfort of normalcy. For it occurs to me lately that I've spent quite a lot of energy missing all the things I thought I knew: of flavors, faces, sounds, even movements; keys to my life that once made me feel whole, alive, "myself".

Now I see that I must acknowledge what is my new familiar-- because what is comforting, and the people delivering that comfort, changes so very swiftly as this life moves on and on. Relationships shift, memories fade or worse, wear a sheen of gilt in our minds as the tarnish of discomfort wears off. To this I hold all the things that follow, in some imaginary high standard of who I am. But as I look around, I might ask more than I answer: who am I?

Movement, comes the swift answer. Light in time.

I know where this longing has come from; for it is often in leaving that we notice best what we've left behind. ('Tis the season of feasting-travel, after all.) Tonight, I turn the car gently through the tight labyrinth of cramped street-parked cars and tightly-packed Victorians that line the avenues leading to home-- to this home, this time. The route has become so much more familiar in the last few months. The foreign sense that stung like the disquieting taste of iron on the tongue has shifted now to a vague ease of familiarity: my neighborhood, my street, my house. Christmas lights flicker a flattering mimicry of the city shops further around the bend, and each adorned home lends a feeling rootedness and company for my short journey. My neighborhood, my street, my house. I open the door, and with my family light the second candle of our Solstice advent wreath.

Tomorrow night, we will light the third candle in further anticipation of the light that is to return after the longest night of all. Yet for all that eager waiting, I drift softly back into the flame of that second candle, aglow in the room that lends me the best comfort wherever I am, wishing only that I could remain committed to that flame which glows brightest, right now.

In Relation to Place: December's Shadow Play

2010-12-03T20:32:00.000-08:00

...and suddenly, it hits me: how very short the days are, and how very dark and cold. And that there is no stopping them, these darkening days! On and on into winter now we roll, each day shorter than the last. The flurry of autumn confetti is gone; the bright crispness of an October sky has given away to December's chilly, gray ache. And I finally notice, it's been well over a month since I really noticed just where I am.

There is not much worth being joyfully poetic about, in early December. Sure, there are pictures of bells and the ringing of cars down a cold-concrete street. Encouragements abound; we all know how we should be feeling. And yet, what is this strange season, where darkness swallows us up without apology, and cold rushes in so very rudely?

Now, just this: imagine there is no Christmas; no Yule, not even a single Hanukkah candle to burn. What does December tell you? Is there any whisper of the light that is to come?

In the morning, I like the way the cold greets me as I sneak out from under the warmth of bedcovers, and the way the shock of it fills my lungs when I step outside. And in the evening, I like how surprised I am each and every time that "it's darker so much earlier today...". An old familiar twinge of fear, then faith, creeps in.

I used to think of this season as a season of anticipation: It will get warmer, it will get lighter, it will get better. Now I find I actually seek to hold the cold a bit longer in my fingers before the mug warms them. Or I let the bite of frosty air embrace me in its odd way, lingering as long as I can in the beguiling sensations of merciless nature.

The leaves are gone; and for all my wanting of it, I did not see the last of them fall. I dropped that desire like an old doll. Now shadows play in the new light beaming about the tree more often than my thoughts once did. And once in a while, I remember to look.

Motherhood as Spiritual Practice

2010-11-15T07:36:00.000-08:00

The morning after my ordination (Tokudo), I had an interesting vision: a wide field opened before me. Anything felt possible. I could not see into the future; it was as if my friend foresight just breathed out all chance, and the grass-grains bent in unison as an invitation to come. experience. In those days, I took it as some sort of sign that my mind had opened somehow. Not that my mind was enlightened, but more receptive.

Or, something like receptive.

A year and a month and six days after my Tokudo, I found myself at the edge of a well-worn waterway. The ancient redwoods and grandfather oaks bore witness to the child I bore in my belly, and the ring I took- and gave- to another human being. More vows, more joy; more open possibility, more open to chance. My heart felt more open, more receptive.

Or something like receptive.

Because the truth of motherhood revealed to me that I was still very much closed; still very much embroiled in all my old patterns of desire, of anger, of complete and utter cluelessness. Anything I thought I understood quickly washed away (...like a baby with the bathwater?), and everything I reached for dissolved (...like taking candy from a baby).

Slowly, so slowly, I am finding now. That now includes what I think, however misguided. That now includes all I could ever hope for, as well as what I already have. The meanness, the gorgeousness: nothing is lacking.

I am grateful for this constant shifting, this ebb and flow they call "motherhood", this Universe folding and unfolding upon itself like a shining, terrifying Mandelbrot, this constant moonlight. It is a spotlight, the most honest critique that I can't possibly evade, and ever I am brought to my knees and humbled, again and again. I said I was leaving home, and home indeed was taken away; but that wasn't the point. The home was the coziness of my own opinion. I took one step out that door, and ironically enough I found a child in my arms, a husband in my heart and a new hearth to warm my bones by.

So for this zen mother, a koan of irony: the practice of learning to embrace totality, the grace of living in its reciprocal embrace... and the gift of it, sensing that renunciation might actually look something more like reception.

In Relation to Place: Samhain, the New Year

2010-11-03T07:34:00.000-07:00

I've become a bit addicted to capturing the change of foliage in my dear window-tree.

Readying for Halloween with my boy, 10/21

Perhaps, because of our circumstances these past few years, I'm a bit on edge with change, hoping to keep one step ahead of its mayhem, all the while extra-aware of its odd beauty.

Striking gold at last, 10/27

Or maybe this is an old obsession of mine flaring up again as I determine to not miss one single moment of fleeting gorgeousness; for such beauty is like air in the lungs, and how could I pass on such an opportunity for constant inspiration?

From gold to umber overnight, 10/28

Or maybe it is just a hope to capture joy itself, as I experience my first New England autumn.

After Samhain, the cold of the new winter takes the tree, 11/2

The light changes as quickly as the flame in the tree, or so it seems. Night comes much earlier in our little valley of houses, and chill.

Letting go at long last, 11/3

So it was this morning that the tree gave her first golden carpet of leaves upon the ground. Not long now before barren branches trace the sky... I caught my breath, and whispered both delight and trepidation in echo of my beloved tree.

Fire & Water: A Creation Tale

2010-10-18T06:54:00.000-07:00

Fire

Climate Action Day, 10/10/10

The Day of Climate Action was created as a grassroots reaction to politicians' inaction on the issue of Global Warming. The idea was to gather together citizens in the same place in order to create a concerted effort-- and momentum-- moving toward real change. There were hundreds of events in hundreds of countries and... we stayed home. Yes, yes we did.

Our little boy suffers still, and so we have to take care about what we do and how we do it; thus our Action was a mellow one, albeit impressionable on him all the same, as he asked to do it again the next night.

For our Simple Action, we decided to turn off all our lights at sunset. We marked dinner with a small ceremony of lighting our candles, and explaining our intention. My boy's eyes got wide and throughout dinner we talked about how our actions impact the Earth and all the life upon her. And after dinner, we gathered as a family and read stories, and looked out the window at the busy city all around us, still shining in bright electric light.

Once our child was in bed, I took time to reflect on that feeling: the time-outside-of-time our little fire-lit home created, the sense of camaraderie with the larger Action, the sense of connection with ancestors living similar, simpler ways. I loved how the quiet, muffled dark buffered the sounds of the house. I heard things I had never noticed before. And as all the distractions settled, the sense of home settled me, our quiet pocket in the bigger, busier city.

Water

Blog Action Day, 10/15/10

Not long after Climate Action Day, a friend posted about something called Blog Action Day. Quoting from the website, "First and last, the purpose of Blog Action Day is to create a discussion. We ask bloggers to take a single day out of their schedule and focus it on an important issue. By doing so on the same day, the blogging community effectively changes the conversation on the web and focuses audiences around the globe on that issue." And it was an interesting success: over 5,000 blogs with over 40 million readers in 143 countries participated in the conversation. The topic? Water.

I remember that many years ago, the issue of accessibility to (and ownership of) clean water began to percolate in earnest; and I remember feeling a bit incredulous about it, wondering how on Earth something as ample and necessary as water could be turned into a regulated commodity. Well. It turns out that water is not a given, and not even a right; and while polar ice-caps melt, and oil poisons American oceans, African streams and Rainforest wells, each time I turn on the tap I find myself reciting a small poem of gratitude, for who knows how long, really, I'll enjoy this convenience?

Yet this was not the water I found myself contemplating last Friday, for ironically and conversely, water was nearly too abundant in my day. A nor'easter storm hit, soaking my husband and I as we walked to a nearby restaurant to celebrate our anniversary; and all the while we tore through a storm of our sticky emotions, yet another watery mess. We returned to watch the romantic film Titanic, only to be caught up in another sort of deluge altogether...

By the end of it I was nearly drowning in all possible watery aspects-- in rain, in passion, in fantasy-- and not at all in the mood to contemplate more of it, nor dare to hope for its lack.

I sat on my bed late in the evening, reviewing the week and its first the notes of quiet satisfaction, followed by the maelstrom of rain and high emotion. I marvel that the ups and downs of our human experience can occur in such rapid succession, somehow without explanation. That in all my seeking of balance of these elements, of the fire and the water that create my own life, surprises abound and paradoxes retaliate against all my best hopes of knowing anything.

What is left? I bow to my kitchen Brighid, offering still wine and malicious sorrow. And I tenderly offer flame and water both on Buddha's altar, my mirror. And I vow to hold both, somehow, in all their aspects, in this full, blessed life. Somehow.

In Relation to Place: October Sunrise

2010-10-15T08:57:00.000-07:00

My monthly single-photo of a singular place in nature nearby. The woods just slightly to the north have all blossomed in their best autumn dress, but the city trees are on a more leisurely timetable. As I wait for my favorite tree to erupt- will it be sunbright, amber, or ember-hued?- sunrise the other morning provided another kind of colorful flame.

Happy Autumn everyone...

Uji

2010-09-29T07:01:00.000-07:00

Not long ago, I determined to make a pilgrimage. I stood at my back door, and took a deep breath...

San Francisco emerges from the fog

I'd had a lot of visions-- ideals, really-- that I decided needed proper testing, through direct experience. Imagine how shocking it was to discover that those visions, my experiences, and my place within the experiences wouldn't always match up.

View of Taos from Tres Orejas, NM

So for a time, I sequestered myself away from the disappointment of humanity, and allowed myself to be swallowed up by the utter, magnificent beauty of our larger reality. This was a pilgrimage to vastness itself, and at long last, I found the limitless quality of my own bones.

Aicpaec, the Decapitator. Moche culture, Temple of the Moon, Trujillo, Peru.
Not my own picture, but you can find it here, along with relevant history and travel info.

Then along came Manjushri. "I will cut off your head," she said. I bowed down, from desert to rainforest, in a pilgrimage of allowances.

But it was a sojourn to disappointment, because (of course) having our head cut off is never what we think having our head cut off is.

Kiva group, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, NM

Away I wandered once more into the ocean of sand and stone, armed with more questions, more frustrations. I entered a hole in the ground, climbed down a long ladder, and I waited. Soon thereafter a teacher appeared, as they are wont to do at the moment you need them most. He was kind and old, and his feathers, reassuring.

"You must pay tribute to your ancestors," he said. "You must find them." And so I did. And I was glad to know I came from somewhere.

Redwood forest, Northern California

From somewhere then, I meandered somewhere else, craning my neck as far as it would allow, finally finding the ancestry of time itself.

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, MA

But time runs out, as even poets know; and back 'round to center was I, in a turbulent re-entry to everyday pain. How did it ever get like this? "It is as it ever was," said the poets.

At my back door once more then, and a quiet exhalation of determination. I grasp the jamb, steady my feet, and gaze forward. The clearing winds, the turning year; all in alignment: This is a pilgrimage to now.

Autumn Wind & Wuthering

2010-09-22T06:50:00.000-07:00

I awoke today and noticed that the light was so very different... shadows sat long on the ground; leaves and berries seemed illuminated by some bright, swiftly-passing star. Without thinking I began rearranging my closet, pulling items of thin, bright fabrics and folding them neatly, and putting heavier items within easier reach. Somewhat instinctively I also lit a candle and offered incense, for today must be the equinox, a day of light and dark in balance.

It seems to me I've been through this ritual before: the inner knowing that escapes words, and the outer fussing as warmth passes to chill. It was just last year that I was doing the very same, when the unimaginable struck and I discovered my clothes, shoes, and ultimately my home were coated in a thin veneer of fuzzy green.

My husband came now to comfort me, seeing me as I was this morning, in a slump on our (new) bed, unable to move or think. I thought I was caught in a sadness over our son, who still is struggling; but no, my husband knew differently. "Remember where we were, just one year ago," he said. The warmth of his hand comforted me. "We were out of our home. We lost our home... And those first nights at the commune? Remember those?" Oh, that chaos. I laid down and easily, finally, how easily those tears came.

Once upon a time I was a "grief professional", and so I know these things are not linear, are not rational, but rather are quite dependable to show up again and again, influencing our lives in so many small ways. Grief is not a series of events; rather it's a pebble tossed in a shallow pool, and it's the rings of waves that emanate from that initial kersplunk, moving the pool to shore and back to center again. Finally the waves will rest and the equanimity will restore itself, but the pebble remains, always.

So I recognized the signs and brought myself to make my offerings, which I did with complete sensitivity and care. This is buddha; this, all of it, an inseparable part of such a great, expansive whole. My heart within it I cradled gently in zazen. And then I offered that heart to the wider world, set in balance by the even-ing light of the sun.

This blog I began as many new mothers do, reaching out both to the world and finding my own voice, which I'd feared lost in the fog that all new parents discover as the new norm of their lives. I began it as an offering to the relationships that I found creating the very life I was living as mother, wife, sister, daughter, neighbor and friend. In my search for myself I soon discovered I was not any single identity but all of them, together, unable to exist on my "own".

I celebrated this for a long time, but as the mold that consumed my house irrevocably changed my relationship to "home", other relationships were consumed as well, and changed. The family business failed-- at least, our part in it. My marriage cracked. My sister balked at the idea of us living with her in our recovery, newly divorced as she was, and that relationship unexpectedly severed. The family sided with her, and they are gone, too. Finally my sweet boy collapsed under the weight of all that was falling around him, by no fault of his own. And I sit aghast as I recollect all we experienced in the year that followed our trauma, stunned at how the sacred friendships I'd hoped to nurture so quickly disintegrated into this.

And if there is no separation between myself and this, what in turn does that make me?

The wind blows, the long light sweeps on through the morning. Berries find their fullness, and the birds find the berries; life goes on, and on, and on. I find the crisp apple my husband has left for me, and take a bite, hoping for wisdom; what I find is flavor, and bite.

Runaway Home

2010-09-08T18:14:00.000-07:00

Fire...

Fire everywhere, it seems. Detroit, Northern California, Boulder...
I remember reading somewhere that the Celts believed that fire and water created the earth, and fire and water shall destroy it. I must say, I'm prone to believe it.

We are inching upon the first anniversary of losing our home to water-fed mold; and even now I watch forest-fed fire consume the home I knew in Colorado.

The timing of these traumas interests me now, especially as I have a year's worth of perspective and distance from it all; for mid-September has proven to be the harbinger of many major shifts in my life. We all know of September 11, 2001. Just about that time I was mourning the death of my grandparents, which had happened in quick succession. I was also beginning my graduate school internship as a counselor for Hospice. From that point on, it seemed my worldview-- which I had so carefully pieced together in my 20's and lovingly coddled within myself as the truth-- collapsed as the Towers did, into unforgiving ash and flame.

I do not know if it is just a gift of the 30's, this rude disintegration of "what we think we know". But these "interruptions" to my psyche would continue, all the way to the worst of it, which was leaving my training temple not 2 months after my ordination, my Zen Tokudo.
That place has since burned down, too.

I thought about it a bit: one home consumed by green and black "fuzz"; my spiritual home by fire, and still another-- the home where I first nursed my baby boy-- on the edge of the worst fire in the state's history.

I recall my quick visit to Knoxville, to see if I could find the home I lived in shortly after I was born. What I found was that it is no longer standing.

So at the risk of developing a "complex", I decided to Google another childhood home, the first address I ever learned and somehow, still remember: Falcon Courts North at McGuire Air Force Base. The first photo recalls how I pretty much remember it:

The second, as it is now.

Really, all this home-destruction is enough to give a girl a complex. So many places I have lived-- and I have lived in so very many places-- gone, gone, gone. I look back to the fire in Boulder with different eyes: is this destruction chasing me? Do I need to fret for the place I live in now? After all, So much could go wrong...

But for wont of feeling fire nipping at my heels, I wonder: what is home? Is it a physical place, where we are surrounded by our loved ones, and by things that we love? Or is it that longing for loved ones, and things that we love? Is that the home-leaving vow I took? Or does all this loss speak to something else?

When I was young, there was a rash of young people running away from home; at the time, I marveled at their bravery, because I wished I could do the same. But now as an adult, it seems the homes are running away from me.

What is this new koan?

In Relation to Place: Seasonal Change

2010-09-05T03:59:00.000-07:00

Today afforded me the chance to do something I've not done in a long while: write during sunrise. With my boys still asleep, I cuddled up on the couch to watch the first bright rays illuminate my favorite tree.

Surprisingly, she's bounced back very nicely from her rather butcherous trim earlier in the season, as my summer solstice photo will tell you. Funnier still, as I sat watching her, a small squirrel emerged from her lush green onto the phone wire headed straight for me. Because of the odd angle, it seemed as though it were floating on air.

I've been really sad lately, for we've just returned from a camping trip in Maine. The distinctions between the sights, sounds and smells of living among the trees of Acadia versus the Victorian boxes of my neighborhood are quite sharp, of course. Whenever someone strolls by with a cigarette or lets their car sit on idle for too long I find I'm yearning for the more scrumtuously healthy smells of pine and ocean...

But still, here is "my" tree, my little connection to that natural world, abundant with creatures and bright greetings for the sun. And with mornings so cool as they've been, my thoughts now have turned to the season's turn. Most certainly my little family is reaping of what we'd sown in the spring; the question becomes, as for any good farmer, what to do with it now that winter's coming on? What gets stored away for later, what gets baked into celebratory cakes now? What gets shared with others? What gets hoarded into my own cupboard, for my eyes only, to be transformed into some great mixture?

Taking stock will come as the harvest slowly makes its way in, every bit and parcel. For now, though, I'm content to watch and collect. The real effort is in watching without judgment or worry, rather with the careful strategy of a seasoned grower.

Summer Memoir

2010-08-15T05:16:00.000-07:00

Not Two

2010-08-04T10:37:00.000-07:00

I had a brilliant essay in mind when I took this picture. Towards a More Pagan Zen: Not One, Not Two was the title of it. And I've been meaning and meaning and meaning to get to my desk to hammer it all out, but of course in its usual way, life has intervened.

To be more specific, I've noticed that no sooner do I make the sincere offering of putting my beliefs in written form and "out there", all the things that I find in my mind to support those beliefs come crashing down and around. And I am left scrambling to reconfigure myself one more time, forgetting old ideals and ideas, just to focus on living one moment to the next. (And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one out there this happens to, eh?)

What I'd had in mind was something along the lines of how instrumental my "pagan" life experience was in teaching me, for live and for real, that we are not separate, and yet we are not "together" either. It's a teaching that zen sums up well in the saying, "not one, not two". It's a teaching on the nature of reality that helps to expand a bit on Buddha's lesson of sunyata, or emptiness; the notion that while nothing really exists, it doesn't not exist either.

And then along comes life, the real Buddha, bringing the lesson on home.

It doesn't matter what you think; or how you've figured it out, or even what you believe. All that matters is how you deal with things in the moment-- for the sake of your relationships-- and even then, there are no guarantees, because we are not perfect, nor do we need to be.

All that is to say, when your child is not well, the world has a tendency to turn upside-down, and at long last you understand fully how it's true: you are neither separate, nor connected. That what you think is perfection is actually impossible in each moment; but when you listen, really listen, you notice your part in the perfection that exists as it is.

This really isn't a call for sympathy and at the end of the day, I'm not sure why I'm writing it, but to get the words out there.

Aha, no I know why... because it's time to get over that "teaching voice", that one that sneaks its way in to so many posts, putting up little walls, funny little walls between us. Maybe you know what I'm talking about? In that spirit, I'm setting aside that teacher, and reconfiguring yet again:

My child is not well, and the world as I've understood it has, again, turned upside-down. At long last I understand fully how it can be true that we are neither separate, nor connected. That what I think is perfection is actually not possible; yet when I listen, really listen, I notice my part in the perfection that exists as it is.

First Harvests

2010-08-01T04:19:00.000-07:00

Happy Lughnasadh, everyone; enjoy your fruits!

What She Said...

2010-07-28T12:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.tricycle.com/-practice/an-introduction-zen-roshi-pat-enkyo-ohara?offer=dharma

Zen practice is not about getting away from our life as it is; it is about getting into our life as it is, with all of its vividness, beauty, hardship, joy and sorrow. Zen is a path of awakening: awakening to who we really are, and awakening the aspiration to serve others and take responsibility for all of life.
This sounds good, but how is it to be accomplished? How is it possible to enter such a new way of experiencing one’s life?

There is a term in the Celtic tradition that I find resonates with something fundamental about Zen practice. The Celts spoke of “thin places,” places like caves or wells or other special sites where the boundary between the mundane and magical was permeable. To me, Zen practice offers a kind of thin place, a “place” where we can discover that there is fundamentally no separation between ourselves and others, that what we seek is always so close, always right here. In the Lotus Sutra’s parable of the burning house, the only escape from our greed, anger, and ignorance is said to be through a “narrow door.” The narrow door, the thin place, and any of a number of metaphors point us in the direction of our own realization. A door or a gate or a threshold also implies that there is effort, movement, investment in transformation.
-An Introduction to Zen By Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara

Sometimes when you reach the end of your rope, and you just let go-- out of anger, or frustration, or sheer exhaustion-- a net appears. This is today's net, for me.

I'm not "saved" by a long shot, but it sure is nice to have a respite point where I can just sort of hang in the breeze and reconsider my options, and entertain what I already know-- what we all already know-- those little gems of truth tucked in to each of us, awaiting a light of reminder to glint off of it, to offer us hope within the impossible.

Gassho, sensei, for pointing to that thin place. I'll pass it along.

Relating to Hard Times (Reprise)

2010-07-27T15:01:00.000-07:00

5 years ago and some 17 days, I took my vows as a priest. What did this mean?

Nothing, I discovered, until I gave birth to my son. And every moment since that one particular moment (11:17-ish), everything I thought I knew about life, existence, happiness and our human lot vanished into the ether of WTF.

As it turns out, it's a complete shock to get over yourself, and expand into a universe of real need. All the theories fly out the window, and there you are, committed to each and every moment, without any idea. Hope vanishes... but replacing it? Moments of terrifying realness, deeper than joy, wider than sorrow.

"You're in the soup," was a favorite oft-saying at the Buddhist University I attended.
Soup?

Soup's got nothing to do with it. Just a whole lot of scrubbing.

PriestZilla

2010-07-24T22:06:00.000-07:00

By now, I thought surely I would have posted my latest brilliant essay on... aich. What was I thinking about, exactly?

Life has a funny way of happening, doesn't it. And no matter how good a spiritual person you think you might be, or how carefully you follow all the rituals and prescriptions, this week I've come at long last to the brilliant realization: it doesn't matter. You're not going to get anything for it. No bonus, no get-out-of-jail-free card, no executive pardon. Because life, in all its bizarre poetic justice, is going to keep happening, and happening, and happening.

But I think I'm actually really aching for that pardon...

So, ok. Here I am, back at Square One. I shall return to the Beginner's Mind Checklist.
one. Breathing? check.
two. Not-knowing? hmmm. does WTF count? sigh. no. it doesn't really, does it. ok. back to one.
Breathing? yes.
sort of.
Not-knowing? well...yes, yes I did, I indeed felt a small opening happening there, this time I'm going to count it.
three. How's the posture? well... equanimity and dignity really flew out the window there for a while. but I think I can manage a mudra...
(resumes typing) four. What appears to be the koan? Nothing, absolutely nothing, is working out as I planned.
(maniacal zen master/earth mama goddess laughter from Beyond...) And?
Well, ok, so this spontaneous koan emerged a while back, "What is real Zen?" But I think I need to change it. I think the better phrasing of it might be, "What is the best expression of Zen?" But everytime I think that, you know? Something awful happens. And of course I do not present myself in the Best Most Zen Manner.
You fly off the handle.
...You pretty much got that.
What are your mirrors telling you?
Oh! Nice one.
Thanks.
Hmn. Well... The mirrors have been pretty snippety. Destructive, in fact.
Is that so.
Yes. The glass ones show my funny faces, or, heh, me picking my zits.
Honesty is a good thing...
Yeah. And the person mirrors? Oh, my. So many people in a tizzy. Lots of tension; lots of pain. And god, the uncertainty, the stories of uncertainty I've been hearing lately...
I can't tell you anything.

I was afraid you were going to say that.

Polish your mirrors, not your bricks.

gassho :)

Now get to bed!

Postcard

2010-07-14T19:05:00.000-07:00

I'm on vacation...

...care to join me for a cup on the front porch?

It's such a lovely, quirky, artsy house we're in, here on the Cape.

So many signs of great love and care by the owner.

And the garden...

Sweet wonders, jubilant surprises.

Back 'round to front again, shall we step in?

The quality of light here is my favorite part.

Secret rooms and nooks, and quiet spaces.

and my boy, ever a blur of curls and brightness.

(Let's get that boy outside.)

...what could be better than blueberries?

Well, I'll tell you.

aaaahhhhh!

Happy Summer, everyone!

Liberation Day

2010-07-04T07:13:00.000-07:00

Patriot music,
breezy morning street flags wave
spent web catching sun.

I'm usually inspired to think of the 4th of July not as Independence Day, but Liberation Day. (Would it be that it was interdependence day, I think.) Nevertheless, I celebrate the gift of personal freedom each Fourth by tending my spiritual freedoms-- the freedom to practice what I consider most precious and sacred in this life.

My most favorite memory of all of these celebrations? The year that I took refuge, quite by happy accident, with a 4-year-old Kalu Rinpoche; and not two days later I helped a dear friend realize her dream of dancing a Sun (/Moon) Dance in the New Mexico desert.

This year is not quite so dramatic, but nonetheless it will remain in my mind for its melancholy sweetness: the simple freedom of sitting on my front porch, cup in hand, listening to this old working class neighborhood wake up to a slow Sunday, favored holiday.

Blessings of freedom to everyone, whatever that is for you...

In Relation to Place: June's Solstice Window

2010-06-21T19:01:00.000-07:00

I've seen some wonderful blogs that highlight photos of one spot (such as "out my back door"), anywhere from 365 days of the year to once-a-month captures. I'm going to give it a try myself now too, with a monthly shot of a favorite spot nearby as I work out my relationship to this new place ~Boston~. In that spirit, here's a snapshot of my street-view, right from my couch.

You'll remember last month I posted on this lovely, lusty tree that lives across the street... it is so inspiring to me, and was one of the first things I fell in love with in this new home of ours. Well? Today, on the solstice ironically, a man with a bright orange ladder began to saw limb after limb. My friend and I feared the worst, but happily-- a complete chop-down was not in this tree's cards today. The result is a funky haircut (though I won't say that aloud nearby. Don't want to hurt her feelings...), but we are very relieved that the tree remains, and that the birds returned much later in the day.

Season Turning

2010-06-20T12:26:00.000-07:00

I had an essay brewing in my mind for a long time after my retreat. I spent many evenings biting my pencil, but not writing anything. In the end I decided I was being too defensive.

Mama's got a brand new bag... sewn with love, and lots of buttons

Somehow I kept running into-- quite by kismet-- articles by boys telling me, indirectly, my Home Retreat was not the real thing. So I got defensive. But in the end, what is to defend?

A spontaneous koan popped up for me: What is real zen?

When I was a girl of 19, I spent one anguished night wrestling with the demon of my childhood religion. I won. And as a reward, I received my first koan. What is the nature of the world? Magic, came the answer.

A much-anticipated, yet still surprising "hello", whale watching off Cape Cod

A few years later, I yearned to understand more deeply. If magic is the true nature of the world, then what is the nature of magic? Zen, came the answer.

My bike, which is seeing action again after 3 years in hiding, and a lovely rock wall beside the house

Now, after 17 years of practice on my own, and in training temples, and in neighborhood zen centers, I wonder, is zen just all this sitting still? Can it only be found in a monastery? Can it only be delivered by serious men? Is it governed by any rule of man? Can it be governed even by Buddha?

New growth of concord grapes in our back yard

What about this existence that is beyond any name we can give it? Its singing is so loud, it keeps me up at night.

Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other' doesn't make any sense.
--Rumi

Reflecting on my Home Retreat

2010-06-10T07:15:00.000-07:00

Well, just as I figured, it's over.

My retreat presented itself in the beginning and dictated itself--its form-- all the way to the end, which was very precisely timed at our vacation (...retreat?) to the seashore for the holiday weekend.

When I began this experience, I was desperate for a change-- desperate for a getaway, a retreat. But then I remembered: a "retreat" very rarely is a getting-away-from, and more of a getting-more-deeply-into. For example, one does not retreat-from work at a retreat; work itself becomes the retreat, because of one's orientation to practice. We must work to live, and finding joy and equilibrium in work is part of the Buddhist path.

And there too, while on retreat you'll find a practice-orientation to all the basics of life, of eating and sleeping and sitting and even relating to people. So while there are many hours spent in concentrated meditation, retreats are equally full of hours spent tending to our most basic functions with an eye toward practice. For me, this centers on one simple concept: How am I relating to my basic living?

And so, my basic living became my Retreat. No going-away-from, but landing-directly-into. I aspired to turn my every moment toward practice, to orient my very daily living to a direct expression of my faith and belief. I relied heavily on intuition-- that remembrance of what it's like at a real retreat, that feeling you get in your gut and mind when you first arrive and set your intention as you set down your bags. I knew that so long as I could maintain that sensibility, I was on target, I was respecting the original energy of what I had set out to do. "Right focus," you may call it.

While on retreat in a monastic setting, this orientation is supported by the structure of a strict schedule, and a focus on sitting meditation throughout the course of a day. Given that my Retreat was at home with a family still to tend to, I didn't have the luxury of sitting for 8 hours, or even 12; but I did increase the time that I spent on my cushion, and these moments I placed at strategic points of the day, just as one might find at sesshin. For the rest of the day, my little son became my "awareness bell" and my sensei, and his needs became the heart of my practice. In many ways, the structure of my retreat was composed not by my formal teacher, but by the Teacher that my family is; and really, isn't that what retreat trains us to do-- to respond directly to what is needed in the moment?

It's not so different from the dictums of sesshin, I found, when it's your child crying in the middle of the night, frightened by a nightmare. You simply get up at the sound of that "bell". You walk with intention in that cold early-morning air, console him with your whole heart, and find yourself sitting for an extended period, simply loving him back to sleep. Then, his gentle snore is the bell that grants your reprieve and up you go to the next period, whatever that effort may bring.

Living in retreat mode reoriented me to abiding in the faith of the Bodhisattva vow: 1,000 eyes, 1,000 arms (as Dogen described Kannon/Avalokitesvara) all responding to exactly what's needed in the moment; no more, no less. In this practice environment, you find the vows breathe through you, and your intention brings the clarity that is the gift of sustained practice.

My retreat is over for now, made evident by other demands and new issues. I can tell it's "over" because my intention has been redirected; other things are requiring focus. My son still wakes me before the sun comes up; the dinner still needs making, the toilet still needs scrubbing. But my orientation has shifted. And, interestingly enough, I found I struggled as much with this "re-entry" to everyday life just as much as I have in the past when returning from a Temple retreat. It's an interesting, subtle shift, and it's got me to thinking about the energies that are required, the work that is required when living our practice. It brings me 'round again to see that it's not anything I can just think or decide; that my Zen is not a philosophy, but a verb that requires maintenance and careful attention. And oh, am I eager for that next bit of maintenance and attention!

Until then, there are some things that I will let settle and some things that I must carefully integrate... How do we create this Temple, in our very lives? How do we attend to this sacred, wonderful mystery of life? How do we breathe this intention into every cell, into every moment?

Meanwhile, back on this planet...

2010-05-31T16:50:00.000-07:00

A photo of a breeching humpback whale, snapped by my husband Marin while whale-watching off the shores of Massachusetts.

Just a quick note today... as we just returned from a visit to the home of a good number of healthy whales off Cape Cod, my mind is reeling from the reality of those whose lives are severely compromised in the Gulf of Mexico.

I came across a very great list compiled by my friend Barry (and his friend, Maia) concerning the many ways we can help:
http://www.oxherding.com/my_weblog/2010/05/responding-to-the-oil-spill.html

I had been thinking that there was no way I could possibly make a dent in this overwhelming catastrophe, until I read that it costs anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 to fully rehabilitate one dolphin. (I'll send along the money a younger, singler me would've spent on gas to buzz on down to Gulf Shores to help out.)

the Home Retreat, day 8

2010-05-27T18:20:00.001-07:00

Ahhhh yes. Day 8. Feeling a little frazzled around the edges...

Someone asked me along the way just 'bout how long I intended to keep this thing going. Well? When you're writing your own retreat, rather than relying on the guidance of a teacher, your options appear endless at first. Really, one could model such a thing after anything. For example, there are the weekend mini-sesshins that I first encountered, and the subsequent (and especially accommodating) holiday weekend retreats; the more "traditional" week-long sesshins, or even 9-day sesshins for that matter, that really strengthened my practice; the vajrayana-inspired month-long dathun that I completed (as a grad school requirement, no less), which is related to the ango of my own tradition; practice periods which, I hear, can go upwards of 3 months (!wow!); and most impressive of all, at least in my mind, the 3-year retreat undertaken by many a brave Shambhalian soul.

I actually considered that-- well, it's do-able; I mean, my son would be 5 or 6 by the time I finished that kind of Home Retreat; seems like an auspicious transitional time anyway--

But in the end, I've decided to let nature take its course and allow for a more "mystical" zen. Early on I'd realized that my teachers, aside from sensei of course, would be This Moment Now And Whatever Might Arise From Them; and as teachers generally dictate the form of a retreat, so be it. In other words, I will simply know when it's over.

My old teacher used to run weekend retreats like that when I lived at the temple, in-between sesshin. He and my (retiree) dharma brother would sit for hours, unaided by a clock, unguarded by a bell. Me? I had to work, so my attendance was a smattering compared to the hours, and hours, and hours they sat in formless form, and spaceless space. But I enjoyed immensely the times I was able to join them, and much appreciated thereafter the mischievous smiles they'd get after a while, like they alone knew the punchline to some oblique joke.

For really, it was rather like riding a bike down an endless, open hill, arms outstretched wide, sailing into space. The sensation of it was incredible. Sometimes I'll still get a feeling of it... the sheer possibility alive in not having to get up. It arises, still now, the way "smell" memories sometimes do. In many ways, it guides me on days that particularly kick my ass, like today.

the Home Retreat, day 6

2010-05-25T12:31:00.000-07:00

You might imagine a row of us, if you will, sitting in a neat row, settled on zafus, minding our breathing, eyes soft and ever-resting on that ubiquitous "spot" three feet in front of us. It was my first real zen retreat-- a long holiday weekend retreat it was, if memory serves, hosted by the Atlanta Soto Zen Center. I'd sat sesshin before; or more specifically, the short-form version of it, as very often our sesshins were limited to the weekends in order to accommodate working folk of our sangha (who comprised the majority of the sangha back in the day). Drop in, drop out, attend all or part-- very fluid and, well, accommodating.

But this was a retreat for a few days, and overnights too; the first of its kind for us. Space had been secured at what I recall was some kind of boy-scout camp north of Atlanta. It was rustic but comfortably appointed, with a large kitchen that made our tenzo giddy and a large meeting area that made our zendo look like a closet. But the most magnificent thing about the place was its grounds: there was a gorgeous lake, with enormous boulders abutting the shore. An island beckoned from its center. And all around us, forest ripe with the scent of pine. It was indeed the most inviting place one could imagine for a fledgling zen student to learn to take her flight.

We fell into a choppy sort of rhythm in this new space, as I recall. Some kitchen equipment was lacking and maybe a zabuton or two got left back in the city. I think the schedule required retooling now and again, too. Nonetheless, we made the most of our first try at a real country retreat, and I know for myself, it was a rich experience. Memories creep up to me at the oddest times, and I'll recall our group laughter during a breaktime canoe trip to the lake's island, or the lumpy lakeside boulder I chose to make as my bed one night, intent on sleeping zazen under a full palette of stars.

But my most joyfully haunting memory concerns a little sparrow.

Now, as the theme of this retreat was stretching our notion of what zazen was (e.g., we were introduced to "dreamtime" zen, or zazen in our sleep, among other practices), we'd taken to sitting zazen out-of-doors. The retreat center was perfect for this, as just outside of the main building was a long, rectangular cement walkway. We lined our zabutons up one long side of the rectangle, and faced a wall of forest greenery during meditation. Then we would walk around the entirety of the walkway during kinhin. Usually this was our practice in the early morning, when the world was cool and quiet. This in itself was a real treat, but what was to come really shaped my life forever after.

We'd been sitting for a long while, and had had our kinhin too, and the group was well-settled. There weren't many of us-- nine in total, plus sensei, maybe?-- so it wasn't hard to fall into a deep group silence.

And then they came.

This little guy and his friend... this wee sparrow pair, twittering about the tree boughs, arguing some mysterious point (I imagined). This went on for a while, and it was amusingly sweet. Until, swoop! Suddenly there was this great, tiny flash of brown, and a mad fluttering upon my right shoulder.

I was amazed, shaken, ablaze with curiosity-- but I kept my posture, and I kept very, very still. The little bird hopped little hops on my shoulder, tentative but determined to be brave (or so I imagined). His friend in the trees was losing his mind to the sense of doom, however. "What the-- what? What are you doing?? These are humans!! Get back over here this instant!!" He twittered and flew like a madman, trying without much luck to get his little friend to come back to his senses and return to the safety of the trees.

But lucky for me, this little guy's courage and curiosity was too great. He chirped back to his friend once, and over his shoulder; "Gimme a minute..." (or so I imagined). And then, he fell quite still, standing on my shoulder as he was. I felt his heart beat, so fast, through his feet; I felt my own heartbeat, steady and slow, meeting his through my skin. We stayed like that for a full minute, and it was the most precious minute of my life, for it was a moment of real communion with another species.

Finally his better senses returned, and he started playing with my long hair, even hopping up over my head to inspect the "goods" on the other side. This went on for a while longer, and of course the friend-in-the-trees was about to lose his mind with worry, chirping wildly as he was the entire time. Then just as suddenly, my little heart-partner flew down the line of neat zafus to the next long-haired lady. Then (to his friend's ultimate relief), he flew back into the forest, toward that wonderful lake.

I often wonder how my little friend fared; but for myself, I know I was lifted for a long while after that. That little bird taught me so much about the gifts of joy, openness and curiosity-- gifts delivered by trust, and most especially by stillness.

This is a fine memory for me to relish today, as it often goes in retreats, this would be the day where I invade the retreat center kitchen for extra chocolate... I used to have a photo of the lot of us, sitting in a tidy line facing the forest. I searched for it today, but I fear it may have been a casualty of our mold trauma... I shall post it if it turns up. But for now? Back to right concentration; back to trust. And maybe stillness.

the Home Retreat, day 5

2010-05-22T18:01:00.000-07:00

Day 5: and like in any retreat environment, the romance has faded a bit and now it's down to the real work of day-in, day-out complete-and-total orientation to practice, practice, practice.

It's been a fascinating journey, so far. The structures of my life have come alive with potentialities that I never considered before-- and mainly because I never realized I had time before. So I find I am able to get more work done, including the work of child-rearing, which very often means learning how to play again. And, as in any retreat environment, there's been an increase in the time I devote to meditation, and to consciously living zen, to "not getting off the cushion". And, there's even been Dharma talks! Each day, some delivered in ways more mysterious (and by unlikely teachers, I might add) than I could ever expect.

But today I draw my inspiration from a more likely source. Grace Schierson has long been a friend of my own teacher, who has forever encouraged me to attend the women's retreat held annually at Empty Nest Zendo. I delighted to find this interview with Grace about her new book, Zen Women: Beyond Tea-Ladies, Iron Maidens and Macho Masters. You can listen to the entire interview in the link below. The portion that was most inspirational to me-- and indeed, the basis of my Home Retreat-- is this:

Whatever comes my way, whether it’s people bumping into me or someone being rude to me – I will retain my equanimity and return some kind of kindness. I do not have to be a doormat, but I don’t have to conquer everything.

The balance is finding out how to “accept” without “becoming a victim”. I think this is particularly difficult for women … It’s all about taking-care-of… but how is it we include ourselves in that circle? This is a big practice—this takes a lot of concentration and stability. We watch our reactivity and victim-hood from a very stable observation place. And that’s what meditation teaches.

Women practice at home. That's one gist of this book: a woman's practice, throughout the ages, has been centered in the heart of hearth and family. Whether we (historically) have been prevented from joining the men of the monastery, or whether we have chosen to (presently) manage the growth of our families (--which could mean staying home, or working and caring; neither leaves much room for monastic time!), women's practice is often under the radar of the more visible masculine lineage.

So my recipe for retreat is this: a real concentration on home-as-practice, family-as-sangha, living itself as Buddha. And I realized very quickly that the only way that concentration could be fostered was by really taking the attitude that I am on retreat. Once that attitude was set? An important foundation, or structure, was laid.

My friend Barry brought up an excellent point: the structure of retreat really is the backbone of retreat. Structure fosters a certain "attitude"-- a degree of curiosity or experimentation with what's possible in this life. In that focused place, you can dedicate your entire being to your practice, and live it within each moment. Even mundane tasks like cleaning or going to the bathroom suddenly offer rich possibilities-- simply because the retreat environment, with its mingling of scents, iconography and indeed the pure effort of each person there gathered, creates a safe ground where practice can be the focus of each moment.

Well.
"Cleaning"? I sure got that in spades around here! Not to mention "going to the bathroom". It's potty-training time, if you catch my drift. I am always in the bathroom these days (if not in the kitchen, that is). Plenty of opportunity for enlightenment!

Jokes aside, any mother of a young child can tell you that the structure of a day definitely contributes to the success of parenting itself. And as I considered this retreat, I considered how the structure that our days normally follow might serve as the backbone of my practice. And as is true with anything, the closer you look, the more likely you are to find exactly what you need, sitting right in front of you, as it always has been.

In Relation to Place: May's New Window

2010-05-22T15:22:00.000-07:00

I've seen some wonderful blogs that highlight photos of one spot (such as "out my back door"), anywhere from 365 days of the year to once-a-month captures. I'm going to give it a try myself now too, with a monthly shot of a favorite spot nearby as I work out my relationship to this new place ~Boston~. In that spirit, here's a snapshot of my street-view, right from my couch. This lovely, lusty tree is so inspiring to me, and was one of the first things I fell in love with in this new home of ours. Squeezing through two close buildings as she is in all her ripe fullness, and full of songbirds throughout the day, the tree serves as a reminder to me the way Mother Nature always has a will, no matter how limiting might be the "way".

the Home Retreat, day 2

2010-05-21T10:39:00.000-07:00

a day of light...

Because I was lying in bed, heavy as mud, and quite unwilling to move. My eyes refused to open. And that's when the fear struck deepest: You should be doing something. You're on retreat. Quick! Get up and meditate! What kind of spiritual person are you?

No, no, no, a wise voice swiftly (thankfully) rejoined. Listen.

And with that came the sing-song adorableness of my toddler's voice in full conversation with his daddy, out in the kitchen. They were making breakfast. I laughed quietly to myself, and listened to their cheery banter for a long time. And slowly, naturally, my blood found its way through my veins again, and my eyelid muscles decided they might work after all. Pluck... one eye open. I wondered what I might see this morning, as yesterday morning I had found myself so inspired by the green wonder that sparkled in the morning sun. Such an auspicious start to my Retreat! Pluck... another open. And? Light. Glorious light.

Hug practice, pee practice, turning-on-the-kettle practice. Tea and listening practice with my son, observing all the sounds that filled our neighborhood this morning.

Followed by! (...I imagined what my Retreat Center luring brochure might advertise:) A dynamic yoga session with Mr. Rodney Yee.

Followed by! Bookstore perusal practice. (oh, yes. what retreat is complete without a visit to the Retreat Center Gift Shop? hmmm?)

Followed by! A delightful late morning of relaxation on our luxurious grounds.

By the time afternoon zazen came around, I was feeling much better about things. For already by noon, a multitude of teachers appeared. Like the Jamaican au pair. (You just can't buy wisdom like the stuff she was able to spill, so long as I sat still.) Or the young college-age couple who borrowed my son to complete their afternoon reverie of flower-chains and young lusty green-grass fun, her in a sunny dress and him ready to impress with my boy's oversize bouncy ball. La.

Yet the best teacher, it seems, came right from my own head. That's right, the Critic (we'll call him Angry Young Zen Master). It was late afternoon, and sensei was taking a surprisingly long nap. Aha! A Free Period before Kitchen Practice. I like it. Gingerly I pull out an old sewing project-- time to sew! Can you imagine??-- So of course Ayzm shows up, just as I'm starting to enjoy myself. The end of Day Two of your "retreat", and still no schedule, he scoffed. What kind of retreat is this, where you don't have to be on time for anything? Pah. You call this a serious retreat?

It is as long as I show up right now, I finally say. As long as I show up right now.

the Home Retreat, day 1

2010-05-20T19:44:00.000-07:00

The very next day I realized I was still on the couch, and really worst of all, actually expecting answers to arise for those pesky questions. And, I realized I was near drooling, and truth be told, quite depressed. Which made me more depressed. At which point I realized I'd eaten through half a package of dried cranberries. (A big, big package.) Enough, I decided. And lo, I got up from the couch and began putting things in order-- scattered paperwork, half-finished letters, lists of projects to get to one day... all the things that end up in little piles around a new house when there's really no place yet to put them. Everything found a home.

The night before I did a little tarot oracle reading and understood something a lot more clearly: that my relationship to myself was suffering; that I was actually being pretty unkind. You're grieving at long last, I pointed out. This is what grief can look like. Rejoice! It means you're healing. Whereupon I received a most gentle reminder that I'd been through a lot-- my well was empty, so to speak. Refill the well (um, not with cranberries), and walk forward stronger, energized, wholly committed.

Like any good spiritual person, the first thing that pops to mind when I think of "refilling the well" is Retreat. Retreat? All but impossible these days, I'm afraid. I can't tell you the last time I attended a sesshin, never mind a practice period. A good friend of mine joked that my new mamahood was my "practice period". Well, it's been 3 years. Shouldn't somebody ring that final bell by now?

At which point it struck me: I can make this moment my retreat. This one now. Call each day for the next so-many-days my Retreat, and see what happens. I spent the day tying up loose ends like one does before one leaves on retreat anyway, no? And it somehow felt like the day before a major retreat. So, yes. I am on retreat: Rather than dokusan, I will pay close attention to my son's chatter. Rather than samu, I will cook and clean in the same spirit I carry at sesshin. Rather than drink coffee during the morning, I'll offer libations, write poems, sing chants. The playground will be my grove, the kitchen my zendo. So be it. Because honestly-- when I've been away on retreat, I've never had the sense that I was leaving anything behind. Rather life seemed always to flare up in the most obvious, gorgeous way while working through a retreat.

And so, I am on Home Retreat.

I struggled a bit with the format, but realized soon after my feet touched the ground this morning that already my days are well-formatted. I don't need to superimpose some stricter regimen that I'll likely break anyway. Rather, can I visit directly with what is presented in each days' appointment? Can I allow for intimacy beyond auto-pilot in the scheme of each activity we normally do, my son and I, just as I would experience "on retreat"?

And so Day One began. My sensei called me to attention with the bell of his voice in the morning; my body came awake with a thought. What aspect deep inside is needing expression right now? ...a fostered sense of connection between my life and the life going on madly in nature, I answer. And so I drink in the birdsong, the glorious richness of leafy greens out my window, the scent of a softer, warmer morning. I kinhin all the way to drop my child off at preschool; I sit zazen after. Awareness and care manifest in each task (or non-task), and I am grateful in each moment. Until I forget. And then I'm reminded again, I'm on retreat.

Oh, and the really funny thing? It's amazing, but-- all those neurotic tendencies and overblown fantasies that really come to shine during "real" retreats? Eh, they shine brightly in the everyday too, it turns out! All those awkward group dynamics... unmet expectations... ridiculous disappointments? Not for sesshin only. Aha. And so the real wisdom of this exercise comes to call, after all.

A light at the end...?

2010-05-18T07:24:00.001-07:00

in recent days i have found i am fighting the urge to "reinvent" myself. many a friend has used that term to explain their bardo these days, and i must admit, i am wont to do that for myself. and why not? in my mommy-bardo (as i lovingly call the mystery that is the reality of stay-at-home mommydom) i have found that i no longer know quite who i am, or who i am meant to be. this is an odd notion in zen, as we must point only directly to this minute; there is no reinvention. there is only who we are in the right-square now.

but still, that longing persists. who am i? who am i? can i change myself? can i become something better?

no, no, no, answers my inner zen-master. oneself is not a matter of debate or decision. let who you are unfold. you are a verb, my dear. not a noun to be tossed about by pretty adjectives.

and so i give up. and i look about me from my perch on the couch, my dear new couch in my dear new home, and i look for clues to better tell me who i am right now.

i am exhausted, is the first verb that makes itself evident. utterly spent, having navigated not one but two major physical upheavals. ok, so, i grant myself a break. rather than beating myself up again for not being very buddhist about it all, why not see this nagging as an opportunity? Love the questions themselves, is what Rilke said. and so, i ask:

where am i drawn?
who is leading?
what do i expect on the other side?
and maybe more importantly,
what aspect deep inside is begging for expression right now?

One Last Look

2010-04-28T12:32:00.000-07:00

As it turns out, this will be my last entry for my little seasonal project of one-picture-a-month of-the-same-spot... of this house. Yes, we are moving again folks, and for exactly the same reason as the last time: mold.

Luckily, and very happily, the problem is no where near the extreme we experienced in southern Maryland. So we will not lose 80% of our stuff, as was the case last time. And I'm
not spending hours bent over bleach-washes of the remaining 20% of our stuff, as was the case last time. No, no, very happily we caught the problem early, are breaking our lease and moving on.

But just like last time, the whole chaotic and disappointing affair has got me wondering a lot about my Zen vows of tokudo, of home-leaving. Surely, it was not meant to be quite this literal! is one thought that pops to mind. And, my family did not take the vow alongside me, did they? is another. But of them all, one thought is fairly constant:

Why do we keep losing our home?

And then I look more closely at my rumination over my vows, and what is revealed is this: guilt over lost chances and laziness; a sense of split-self between parenting and family life and the "priestly" life I once knew; and perhaps most potently, a full-on storyline ravaging my mind of not deserving the okesa, the Buddha's Robe.

On that final point I finally found my tears, for a deeper mystery had been solved at last. You haven't got to deserve, as the saying goes. "How can you 'become' what you already are?" as my old teacher once put it. Sewing the okesa was, for me, a practice of experiencing my life weaving into a much larger picture, a much older tradition than my little mind could conjure alone. Wearing the okesa was, for me, a practice of experiencing a putting-on of Buddha's own skin. (It is powerful and transformative to wear the clothes of those you admire, as any 6-year-old girl dressing up in mommy's finery will tell you.) And entering the Soto priesthood was, for me, the practice of allowing, at long last, a sweet exhalation into the larger being that I knew I already was.

And so I return: we are not losing our home because we have been bad (as my old Catholic-self would think). We are not losing our home because we have offended the mold gods (as my old pagan-self would suggest). We are not losing our home because of all our ancient, twisted karma (as my old inner-Buddhisht --yes I meant that spelling-- would reprimand). Losing our home is happening. And still the green leaves explode in the chilly spring rain; and still the drops will spill down the concrete, into the street, ever following that ancient trail to the ocean.

Towards a More Pagan Zen: Interconnection

2010-04-05T11:56:00.000-07:00

A typical Northwest Coast Raven Rattle, Tlingit, 19th century. You can find this rattle here, and check this great site for more information and other fine examples.

The trouble with nature is, somebody always gets eaten.

That's what entered my head, anyway, as I enjoyed a fine walk down my sunny lane this Easter weekend. The weather was glorious, though admittedly it worried me some (...Global Warming, and all that.). Crocus and forsythia created a riot of Easter-egg color everywhere I looked. And directly above me, two yellow-tail hawks circled effortlessly, with wings outstretched.

We talk a lot about "Original Nature" in Zen, which in quick shorthand you might find defined as "oneness with all things", or our point of origination. One thing I've written about in the past is how there's a tendency to think that a mind's reunion with this Original Nature-- Enlightenment, if you like-- is a blissful one. As my teacher once put it, "you're not necessarily going to like it."

Original Nature. Buddha-Nature. Human nature. nature. I thought a bit about the choice of the English word "nature" as it relates to our sloppy correspondence of the (more elegant) Sanskrit Buddha-dhatu or tathagata-garbha. "Nature" in this respect is pointing to an inherent quality that lives within us; but what interests me is the assignment, in general, of the word nature to describe potentiality itself.

For nature is happening all the time, just as Zen teaches Enlightenment is happening all the time. One instant carries into the next, and as such, each instant lives within the current "instant", making past, present and future utterly inseparable. And so goes my own interpretation of the Zen teaching, we are already enlightened, there is nothing to strive for, or become. Potentiality realized. Just like those circling hawks carry the potentiality of a mouse-lunch in one fell swoop. Which brings me back to my original idea.

... somebody always gets eaten. This could be metaphorical as well as literal; at that moment, aside from the hawks, I was thinking about my last post, and more to the point the heartbreak that friendship can be, especially when we disagree with our friends.

The Eastertime story of the Crucifixion and Resurrection really provides a fine illustration of this point-- and probably it's the root reason for the way my thinking meandered along my walk that day. Just think of it: Judas' betrayal of Jesus, and out of that friendship's flaw? Look what happened next! The very miracle that sparked the hopeful redemption of the Christian religion.

Somebody always gets eaten. Fluffy bunnies and pastel flowers aside, nature is not so sugary as we hope; a fox is always around the corner, or a strong wind to knock off new blossoms. Buddhism has often been called the pessimist's religion because of our faith in the constancy of suffering... but here is where I call upon my Pagan elders for a little clarification.

The Raven rattle I've chosen offers a great visual aid to a concept that can feel a little out of reach. In it, you'll notice a man seems to be riding on the back of a raven, and his tongue is protruding to meet the tongue of a frog which happens to be, presumably, the intended lunch of the kingfisher riding the rear of the rattle.

This is how I have been taught that interconnection is not a weaving of unrelated separates. More than "the big fish eat the little one" Circle-of-Life generalized narrative we follow, this portrayal points to something a bit less linear and a lot more powerful: for the truth behind this ingestion is the huge energy of creation itself. Beyond judgment or explanation, nature is potentiality constantly delivering. The shaman who has shape-shifted to land himself in a situation that will lend him the "power" of the frog, he understands this; he will transfer this "creative spark" as lent by the frog into a means of healing a patient, or winning a war, or granting a wish.

There is suffering; some consider this hell. There is no self; some consider this hell. So what then is the bright aspect of this Original Nature?
The shaman consuming his power animal, he knows.

It is the spark before a single word is uttered.

Towards a More Pagan Zen: Friendship

2010-04-01T08:08:00.000-07:00

Today was a big day for this Mama: today was my son's first day of prepreschool. And here is a photo to commemorate our first moments in this momentous day... For my boy jumped eagerly into the thick of this new experience, while mama's nervous hands snapped a picture with her phone.

It's a perfect capture of that First Moment, because it speaks less about composition and clarity, and more about the color, noise and emotional chaos in that exact moment, and how we each related to these things that were happening, and to each other.

I've been thinking a lot lately that I might do well to write a bit of a treatise on my orientation to things... it never hurts to jot such things down, does it? Good for clarity, and especially for stepping forward when one is in a threshold as powerful as this. So to begin I thought I'd use the energy of this day-- and of that moment, in particular-- to share a little more of the inner life that I call A Sacred Friendship.

In contemporary Zen circles there's that infamous joke about the monk who asks the New York vendor for a hot dog. "Make me one with everything," he quips. And yet it's true that while we're munching away on the onion-and-mustard-smothered mystery-meat of life, it's often hard to see the hot dog for the condiments. So for myself, I keep a keen check on my overconsumption of all things "Buddhist", and opt instead to find a means to embrace direct experience for what it is, in my own language.

Much of this is informed by my pagan practice. For if anything about Buddhism here in the West annoys me, it's how darn cerebral it gets. Nothing is more ironic to me than the amount of thought we tend to pour into our exercises, and it seems to me we have a tendency to embrace the exotic nature of this Eastern-originating religion to excess. I did not take my vows to become Japanese; rather, I accepted them so that I might know something more of the truth of myself. In the contemporary pagan worldview, this truth is underscored by our interconnection-- a teaching known to folks who adapt indigenous traditions of American Indians north and south, to those who seek the traditions of their own European pre-Christian ancestry. I've had the privilege of learning such things from many teachers, and what a glory it is to find that under all the ketchup-and-mayo of varying spiritualities, oneness is the gift we find again and again, nestled in the bun of practice.

We are in relationship, always; even if alone, our bodies are relating to the room we're in, the objects around us, the thoughts that tumble around and around within us, and the things that have already happened-- or have yet to happen. There is no separating us from our emotions, our hormones, our electromagnetic impulses. We are in constant, continuous relationship.

But I don't like the word "relationship". Although it's descriptive enough for a cold concept, it's not deep enough. There's too much wiggle room; too much room even still for "I" dominance. "I'm in a relationship" is a vague phrase you might see from time to time, and in my mind I tend to subconsciously add, "...but I'm not sharing details!"

Therefore I chose the word "Friendship" to reflect a particular spirit of balance, of co-creating and togetherness. It's a softer word, a wider word, a kinder word. And it reflects much more accurately my orientation to things-- for as thick as thieves some friends may be, friends still argue; friends disagree, disrespect, disavow. For all the love and honey-gushy closeness the term implies, we all know that real friendship is challenging work.

And at its best, friendship does not exclude. There is much we will accept about a beloved friend, even if it means stretching a bit ourselves; especially if they have a differing political view or spiritual ideal, we bend where we must, for rare indeed is the occasion that we meet someone who is in total agreement with all of our own quirky ways of seeing the world.

How is my friendship with the environment around me? How is my friendship with my enemy? How is my friendship with my inner critic? These are the kinds of questions I ask myself as a way of reminding myself that indeed I am not solid, nor permanent, but I exist only as the quality of relationships that pass through me, each and every single one, large and miniscule.

What was that quality today? -- a high, happy vibration, a quaking instant of nervous fumbling by an anxious mom in a bright classroom with a happy, curious boy. The very best of friends.

In Relation to Place: Spring Equinox

2010-03-20T12:26:00.000-07:00

I've seen some wonderful blogs that highlight photos of one spot (such as "out my back door"), anywhere from 365 days of the year to once-a-month captures. I'm going to give it a try myself now too, as I work out my relationship to this new place ~Boston~. In that spirit, here's a snapshot of the little alley beside our house, which leads to a small park. It's one of the only "wild" places I have found near us.

You can see February's picture here.

cakewalk

2010-03-19T12:42:00.000-07:00

No, no, no, it's not the birth of a new planet. That's my birthday cake, bright with 40 candles!

in Relation to Navel-Gazing

2010-03-02T11:16:00.001-08:00

To study the self is to forget the self: I'm Not There, the very best in navel-gazing!

And so Spring begins: a gorgeous, sunny break from chilly rain; a sneaky yellowjacket climbing the computer!

I was also inspired today by a comment made on my last post by a new friend:

I think this practice of photographing the familiar is a good way to mirror meditation...we think we know what is happening in our mind...but then we sit and really observe and it is not always what we expected.

I like what she says so much. I also find this same "unexpected" quality is true for how we perceive people. Or ourselves even; we're changing all the time. But for me, the unexpected is easiest to note while watching my child grow.

Just today I had one of those moments. Back home from the playground, I watched my 3-year-old crack open a book and get lost in the illustration on one particular page. "He always studies his books" is what his father and I say of him quite often. "He gets lost in them. He could sit and stare at a page for 20 minutes uninterrupted, no kidding." Always. That is how our son is-- part of what defines him as him, and it's how we know him. But even as I was thinking it, today for the first time I realized he hadn't done so much as crack open a book in I-don't-know-how long.

So, there is my son, and there is my idea of my son. And there is my new neighborhood, and my idea of my neighborhood. And there is me...

I watched a wave once, and had it captured on film. Or rather, something like a wave. In Chaos Theory, it's known as a "standing wave". And when you take the time to watch a wave? You realize you can't find a wave anywhere.

Likely I am thinking about standing waves even more than usual because I'm on the doorstep of 40, and more than ready to ring that bell. In just 17 more days, in fact. Who am I now? What have I done with my life? With tools like Blogger and Facebook I've gotta admit, it's easy to see the rich tapestry I've woven throughout my life so far... Am I the same? Different? Every loving minute, I am...

This is one of Buddhism's brightest topics: that everything changes; that form is emptiness, emptiness is form. But in this study of what is and what isn't, I think it's easy to get tripped up by the notion then that "nothing really exists". Rather, I find it helpful think of reality in terms of Everything is a conversation, in constant relationship.

Carrying the self forward to confirm the myriad dharmas is delusion. The myriad dharmas advancing and confirming the self is realization. --Dogen

Our lives are led through our senses, and our mind makes depictions based on these, and creates understandings. In this way, life as we know it to be is a part of the depth of that conversation, of that relationship. It's not that it doesn't exist or not-- I mean, even I lean pretty heavily on the reality of my morning coffee, and my afternoon saving-grace cup-of-tea. Rather it's that our perception is not the final word, nor is it the only perspective.

And so to remind us to challenge our perspective as often as we can, we have the poetry of this kind of exercise, of listening in intently to this conversation of change-- be it out the back door, or in the living room with our baby...toddler...child..., or maybe even while listening to Bob Dylan talk about himself:

You always have to realize that you're constantly in a state of becoming. As long as you can stay in that realm, you'll sort of be all right.

In Relation to Place: Winter's End

2010-02-20T13:12:00.001-08:00

I've seen some wonderful blogs that highlight photos of one spot (such as "out my back door"), anywhere from 365 days of the year to once-a-month captures. I'm going to give it a try myself now too, as I work out my relationship to this new place ~Boston~. In that spirit, here's a snapshot of the little alley beside our house, which leads to a small park. It's one of the only "wild" spaces I have found nearby in this city-- quite a change from the old space!

Have Zafu, Will Travel: Floating Zen

2010-02-17T20:10:00.000-08:00

I've got a fun bit of a "project" going on at my other blog (my "Buddhist" blog) that I thought I'd cross-post (er, shamelessly plug) here. I call it Floating Zen, and it's my chronicle of discovering the many Dharma centers here at my new home in the Boston area. Enjoy!

Photo © 2006 Laine Walters/The Pluralism Project; you can visit the beautiful Andover Chapel virtually here at the Pluralism Project's resources page.

This one I'm going to call Dharma treat.

Especially after the day I had-- oy! Pilar Teishin and the very bad no awful terrible horrible day. (A mama's nod, obviously, to this gem.) To wit: my kitchen flooded-- Twice; and thus I learned my landlord is terminally ill. Some mean 20-year-olds began dismantling the igloo I'd just made for my 3-year-old in front of him, apparently for snowballs. And to make matters worse, turns out I'd put my underwear on inside-out while dressing this morning. Gah. This day!

I'd planned to visit the Harvard Buddhist Community meditation session in the evening, but while stirring my rice for dinner I decided I oughtn't count on it... and so began the utter blessing of remembering to give up completely.

I even gave up on counting on knowing where I was going, once I made it there --and so I did, at 6 o'clock sharply. And so imagine my delight when I arrived at the chapel's front door just in time to meet a very nice law student who was on his way there also. A guide. Wonders!

We ascended a noble-looking stair and entered an old chapel that took my breath away. I'd read a bit of its history on the Pluralism Project website (the link is above), but really, web sites do no justice to delivering the real feel of a place. Old wood, wide walls, grand ornamentation and lofty, pointy ceilings-- I entered the room and felt elevated.

And so should one feel at Harvard, one supposes...

At the center of that ruckus of a wooden-chair-gathering you see pictured above was a nice, cushy oval rug, and upon that rug were a handful of zabutons, upon whose zafus sat a handful of students. Honestly, it was a novelty for me-- nearing 40 as I am-- to at long last be the eldest person in the room; most dharma communities I visit are home to folks far older than I, and I've long been one of the youngest in attendance, even now. Yet at the opposite end of the oval stood a simple wooden table, and thereupon sat the oldest One in attendance, with a bright offering of a single candle beside the icon. I bowed to all the ages, and sat.

Tsultrim, the student leading the group, gave a brief introduction to the practice, which was grounded in awareness, effort and relaxation. There is no particular style HBC follows; rather they are open to any meditation tradition and so echo that diversity in the format they offer. We sat "in our own way" for 20 minutes, facing the center of our oval, and after had a brief Council-style sharing session where we could say aloud whatever was on our minds at the moment, passing the talking-stick afterward to our neighbor. Tsultrim began our Council practice with a short reading on past, future & present from his Tibetan resource of Mind Trainings. At the end, by my request, we said our names again and what meditation tradition we followed.

The real gift of the evening-- I mean besides giving up completely-- was in the joy offered by sitting with others who are from such different backgrounds, inspirations, techniques and traditions. It struck me that this doesn't really happen that often-- usually, one goes to a Zen Center or a Tibetan Center or a Theravadin Center, and that's that. So throughout the meditation period, before even knowing anyone's training or experience, and without those labels or the "common cause" that can rally (...and distract) those within a given tradition, I returned again and again to this sense that all of us were just sharing a truly human experience. By whatever means, we were simply meditating. And struggling with the same repetitive thoughts, soreness of muscles, antsyness, stillness... Just sitting.

The Harvard Buddhist Community is open to anyone who has an interest in sitting with such a lovely diversity of folk, and tonight students old and very new in the Vipassana, Zen, Tibetan, Thich-Nhat-Hahn, Catholic and "otherwise nameless" traditions met together with great sincerity.

And, once again (lucky me), with great zafus...

In Relation to Zazen

2010-02-09T12:00:00.000-08:00

"The great pleasure, the great accomplishment of your way-seeking is in the realization of sitting. This form of sitting, this place to sit on this earth, this time to sit, the twenty-first century, all have lots of problems. The shikantaza way is giving birth to the Buddha seed. It is not a person becoming a better person- it is the actualization of what we are."
Kobun Chino Otogawa Roshi
February 1, 1938 – July 29, 2002

Well, would you look at that. This is the first day I realized that Kobunsama shares a birthday with Brigid. Smiles to herself. My relationship with my lineage-teacher has always been filled with such joyous little idiosyncrasies: rich, truer-than-life dreams; funny synchronicities; amazing accidental discoveries. I never knew the man personally-- or rather, in-the-flesh; for something about the way I know him is very deep, sweet and personal. But I wish I'd had a moment to stand next to him, to learn and just experience a friendship in that immediate, physical way. So many of my senior teachers ache for a return to an experience I never actually got, but ache for nonetheless.

Still, as they carry him on, so do I-- and the lessons constantly arise, and constantly enrich, through our experience with each other. This is what I call Sacred Friendship.

I could call it "Zen". But that name gets batted around so frequently that, ugh. It carries a weight which I'd like to loosen a bit from the shoulders of all who know it. It goes beyond be, but even that word indicates a be-er, an individual, a center-of-gravity-- again, a weight. I like Friendship because it reminds me that this whole thing of "existing" is a together thing. All things, all together, all relating, all the time. No parts-and-parcels bumping into each other willy-nilly; no, this is a conscious bump-and-grind. A constant together-dance with no partners and no pairs, no wall-flowers. Sacred.

And I like this dance best when I'm sitting.

Lá Fhéile Bríde

2010-02-02T11:18:00.000-08:00

Light
The Blessed Lady's Mantle,
Like a healing balm,
Like the magic of a silver forge,
the caress of a mother to calm.
Laughter of women
Playing of children
And the spark of what lovers have made...
Chasing across my room now,
This languid race across my floor
Lilting up over my gloom now
Winter's bane, nevermore.
Light,
Freer than a cherished thought
Smarter than a fowl;
More generous than the gods had ought
And holier than the cowl.
Chasing across my room now,
This languid race across my floor
Lilting up over my gloom now
Winter's bane, nevermore.
Laughter of women
Playing of children
And the spark of what lovers have made...

Me hugging the wishing-stone at the cathedral that sits by Brigid's Temple (pre-Christian), Kildare.

It's the 5th Annual Cyberspace Poetry Slam for Brigid ~ leave a link to your offering here!

In Relation to Myself

2010-01-29T11:36:00.000-08:00

This time of day always begets the best kind of light for daydreaming. I love the winter sun. And it always hits my desk just so, calling me to come attend to the quiet part of my self, to mother the creative spark that lives patiently below the family murmur. The one who is so easily forgotten!
I have begun a bit of planning, to that end, here at my cozy desk-space. First step is to keep track of all the things that I love in my life, and see how often I'm really doing them. It's a simple list, beginning with zen and ending with art, with much friendship, exploration and inspiration in-between. At the end of the day, I make a little mark under the items I saw to during the course of the day. And now at the end of the month, I see what I've actually been spending time paying attention to. All-in-all, it's been a very nice experiment with mapping my inner life-- and important as an at-home mama, as I trace the ways I lend care to my self.

For that, homelessness was such a fine teacher. For so long I beleaguered myself for being a zen failure...Imperfect with precepts, faulty with scholarship, inattentive of the feelings of others as I stumbled through my own. This sense was heightened a thousand-fold during this most recent trauma, for invariably each day, my focus was shifted incredibly to myself and my (& my family's) survival. Very basic, very primal, very deeply selfish. And very paradoxically? It was that selfishness that lent me the better sense of seeing the complete inter-connection of things.

As any mama will tell you, the struggle to honor the self so as not to lose the self is part of the heart of the art of raising a child. The koan of it lies in recognizing that honoring the self is actually a very self-less occupation... And now as I see it? It is so that your relationship to all things begins at the very point where you breathe. Cradle this breath, as you would your infant; cradle this infant as you would the soul of the world.

Some Perspective

2010-01-21T13:18:00.001-08:00

It was that sort of point in the day when things felt just a little...dreary. Tired from not enough sleep and whatever frustrations had unfolded in the day, I looked doubtfully out my window, aching for a snowstorm--some miracle beauty of nature-- to cheer me up.

Then I heard a little voice speaking up to me, from down by my hips: "Mama! Look at those clouds!!" Hmn? So I ducked down to my boys height, and wonder of wonders...

Moments like this? Ah, so: Children and family are the master teachers. Make no doubt about that! Gassho, Little Bear.

What unsuspected new perspective have you found this week?

What I've Been Up To...

2010-01-19T13:01:00.000-08:00

I've been a flutter of activity these long winter days.

flowering
(now, this is a fun idea)

photographing

repurposing
(...an old sweater & my grandmother's button collection)

painting

knitting

...and sitting, most happily, which you may read about here.
Wishing you cozy & bright winter days!

Breaking Bread

2010-01-12T06:24:00.001-08:00

This past weekend, inspired by the coziness of my new home and several homey-craftsy blogs that I regularly visit, I decided to bake my first loaf of home-made sandwich bread.
Bread-baking is an excellent exercise in trust, care and tradition. First, you've got to be willing to "let go & let God", as they say, as the ingredients do have a way of mingling as they like, and not as you'd necessarily like them to. (Especially when it's your first time with it, lol.) And so care becomes the second ingredient to success. Careful reading, careful measuring... I did mine guided by a recipe in this excellent book, which has been my kitchen companion since my last birthday. Lastly, when the thing is in the oven and you realize why it took all day for it to rise (as opposed to the 2 hours said book promised)-- I used the wrong kind of yeast-- tradition comes in to play. For truly something lives in our bones, some ancestral whisper that arrives in the mind at just the right moment to say, "Why don't you knead that just a wee bit longer?"
Oh, it all turned out just fine... a beautiful first loaf, as inviting in scent and feel as it is delicious. To see it exist, and to eat it? Very, very satisfying indeed: For there is nothing like creating good food, joining that sacred dance between Earth, seed, sun, farmer, truck-driver, shop-keeper, kitchen-bowl ceramist, oven-manufacturer and natural-gas-provider in a very direct and mindful way.

This is where I'm finding my practice these days. It's something like Dogen's Instructions for the Cook, though I've never read it.

During our homeless travels, I was lucky to crack open the hand-made book some students of my teacher's teacher put together. Kobun's Book, it's called, and it's basically a rough transcript of his Dharma talks loosely bound and crying out for an editor. It was gifted to me by a dear friend as I finished my Okesa sewing practice, and every now and again I turn to it to hear another sort of ancestral whisper.

On this particular day, I read Kobunsama's interpretation of humility: "It's from the same root as hummus, I think," is what I picture him saying with a wink, "of knowing where you come from." And on this particular day I also happened to come across the site where I lived my first two years of life.

Appropriately enough, I suppose, the building is gone now. Hummus, ere I return to hummus... And homeless, returning to no home! It was pretty funny at the time. And that was the morning we got word that we were moving to Boston.

I'm glad to have home once again; I didn't mean for my home-leaving vow to be quite so literal, or guttural. But like baking bread, or losing a necessity, the practice of living deeply turns us back 'round to the connection that has fostered us forever.

True Names

2010-01-06T18:53:00.000-08:00

(Thanks, HIT Entertainment, light-of-my-life...)

Well, it's official: we are now fully identifiable as Massachusetts residents, my husband and I.

And as I have in each and every state I've lived in since leaving my childhood behind-- Alabama, New Mexico, Georgia, Colorado, California (...again), Maryland-- I sallied up to the DMV counter when my number was (finally) called and produced a small stack of old passports and legal documents. "I've had my name changed a few times since my birth certificate," I explain apologetically to the clerk. This one looks at me from behind dark, thick-rimmed glasses, perched on the end of her nose. She's not in the mood. But eventually she figures out that I'm OK as these things go, and so we go on with the process of me reading tiny letters and watching for blinking lights, jumping all the usual hoops for a new card in yet another state.

What's in a name? One was a new married name; then came the divorced name with a twist, and an addition of a maternal last name --why should I carry only my father's family name, for pete's sake? Then came another married name, and then a spelling correction from the other...oh, never mind. There's been a few, you see.

I'd always been fascinated with the American Indian tradition of some tribes to name a child at birth, but then assign a new name as that child grew into different aspects of him or herself, throughout his or her life. As well I was intrigued by the Hippy tradition of naming oneself as one saw fit. I was never comfy with my own name, you see, as rumor had it that I was (alternately) named for an ex-girlfriend (thanks, dad) or a baby who lived next door at the time of my conception (thanks, mom). It never really felt like my name. Imagine my consternation, then, when a hippy friend finally did bequeath to me a hippy name: "How 'bout Kris-still, ha ha?" Yeah, Ha Ha, Jaya. You're the one with the cool name, go on wit' yourself...

But that's not all; somehow in my quest to find My Real Name, I've managed to collect a few from the spiritual traditions I studied-- and some quite by accident. Like the Tibetan one I got when I stumbled in to a refuge-taking ceremony in Taos. Or the Indian one during a ceremonial dance...Or the Peruvian name I eventually kept, legally. Or the Dharma name I asked for during my Bodhisattva vow ceremony, or the one that was given to me like a gift at my Tokudo.

I'm known by many names, but before today I must say I had not really heard my True Name.

It came just before naptime, as all good things tend to. My 3-year-old is obsessed with Bob the Builder, you see; Bob, Wendy his assistant, and all the motley crew of his various construction equipment (Lofty, Rolly, &ect) team. Now, sometimes I am (excited voice) Mama, and sometimes (sad voice) mommy; lately I've been a lot of (whiny voice) Mo-om. But today? Today was a Tokudo, of sorts. For today my boy looked at me, smiled earnestly, and paid me such a high compliment:
"Put on your hard hat, Wendy."

'twas Very

2009-12-30T20:24:00.000-08:00

very merry: for no sooner did we hit the road (so adorned with our donated dashboard Yule tree as we were), our little family found some real direction. Sometimes it takes movement to gain movement; and certainly 'tis better to live your life, than wait for it to happen. And then? We woke up after our first day's travel in Knoxville, TN the city where I was born and had never really thought I'd have an opportunity to visit again. And wouldn't you know, just as my husband was checking out of our hotel, the call came that he'd gotten The Job...in Boston?!

A quick u-turn with our U-Haul was in order, so heading us North to a new phase (rather than West, to old friends).

And now that we're settling in to so much newness? There's been a lot of thought on my part about just how "thought" plays its part in life... How raw and hopeless life seemed only not-so-long ago, and how invigorated and hopeful it is now, and how much time and perspective have played their part in the experience of each.

There's been a lot on my mind about my relationship to thought and experience, especially as influenced as I am by the Buddhist view--though oft times it is difficult to reconcile what is perceived to be the "correct" way to approach things and the "actual" way I find myself doing the approaching! But for now, with a tentative, limited purview, I recognize a need for a gentle hand: for if anything, this whole experience has taught me most of all that what we have in this life has nothing to do with what we decide. Once upon a time I decided that I understood things very well; now I know that I don't know a damn thing. And once I decided that I didn't know a damn thing? I found something I knew...

What my experience taught me is that mind is not something to bypass in order to achieve some higher state or purpose. Rather that mind is a symptom, a red flag to notice or a signpost to read and know one's direction by, when relating to this state now, or to one's current purpose.

After all, it's all about relationship, isn't it?

The last few months I've spent not being a "very good Buddhist". And I wanted so desperately to be so-- so that something could be good, methinks. Now I'm settling back in to the idea that I'm not Buddhist at all. And the newness within those moments are very very good, indeed.

Dispatches from Lego-land

2009-12-17T06:53:00.000-08:00

I have been so very inspired by the journeys of this artist and her partner in their 'orsebox gypsy-home that I determined I should have my own. Here is what my young son and I came up with the other evening during a lovely lego-a-thon. Seems fitting, no?

Our little family has finally left the fair shores of southern Maryland-- too much time sitting on our hands was making us feel quite bankrupt in spirit! So although we don't have a definite direction homeward, *motion* itself is home enough. It feels good to have the reigns firm in our hands again.

More to come!

Thanksgiving Turtles

2009-12-04T14:11:00.000-08:00

Just when you think it’s safe to make a decision….

About two weeks before Thanksgiving, my husband looked at me with tired eyes and, at the end of a very exhausted rope, proclaimed: “Let’s go. Let’s just go.” A good friend invited us to stay the winter at his home in California (“California here we come, right back where we started from”…). Clearly Maryland was the oil to our water; no effort we were giving it was working, at all. Enough was enough!

Then just as suddenly, the call came: an invitation to an interview, just outside of Boston. So Thanksgiving Day, we moved the 20% of our belongings that we were able to salvage from the mold into storage, and our car turned to the northeast.

What a difference. We were made welcome by family in the area, and enjoyed such a feast of friends and food; the famine of spirit we’d known further south melted into memory and a new foot seemed clearly forward. We spent days by the beach on the Cape, and then days in lovely, historic Concord at an old inn. My husband enjoyed two great interviews. Then on our last day, we wandered around the bridge from which was fired “the shot heard ‘round the world” (Emerson), the spot where the first skirmishes of the Revolutionary War took place, the endpoint of Revere’s long ride.

The Minuteman memorial is cold and quiet now, and the hills around it enjoy peace and a high level of prosperity. How things change, don’t they, in the course of time? I made a note to myself of this—it’s certainly hard to be homeless, and to try to raise a young child in the midst of this kind of chaos is beyond challenging. Yet despite how troubled we are now, we are enjoying an amazing tapestry of places and faces. And when the dust of our own revolution settles, I can only wonder at what things will have taken root for us.

Patience for now, though; the interviewer has gone on holiday, and so we’ll need to wait another week before knowing what our next step will be. For the time being, we’re making a home of a beach-house very kindly donated to us in Delaware. Respite on pins-and-needles...

Still, one memory lingers from Concord. A large cemetery there holds the remains of three of my favorite authors: Emerson, Thoreau and Alcott. We made a pilgrimage there, and found them high upon “Authors’ Ridge”, their graves within their family plots, and decorated with small cairns and roses. Yet it was my moment seeing the gravestone at Louisa May’s head that gave me such an unexpected rush of tenderness… For certainly, the point of pilgrimage erases time, and puts you face-to-face with something boundless that we all share, every last one of us.

Oh, and the turtles. Everywhere there were turtles, for some reason. Turtles abandoning the cold water of the Cape…turtles in my sand-art there. A teeny, tiny baby turtle I saw by some chance on the shores of Walden Pond. A sea-turtle photo on the catalog they gave my husband, after his interview. One of those large, cement turtle play-sculptures in the playground at Concord. And finally last night, a prominent turtle print in our Aunt’s home…
And now as we amble steadfastly down the NJ Turnpike, our belongings stuffed to the gills in a little round-backed Prius, how very much like a turtle we too seem to be…

on Relating to Desperate Uncertainty

2009-11-12T08:35:00.000-08:00

Another day, another morning of play and errand-running with my small son, and then a long drive to induce a nap so I can write. It might sound fine, but he's in his car seat, afraid to nap alone in our room at the commune; and I'm in the front seat, tapping in to the free wi-fi that thankfully reaches all the way into the library parking lot.

Our long drives give me space for thinking in. Usually I find myself drifting along the rural roadways drinking in the autumn splendor, walking that very fine inner line between hope and despair. The endless trash by the roadside or the impolite truck driver spin me out into the very hopeless how's and why's of being here; the glory of nature herself beg me back again to squeeze one more moment of sweet mindfulness out of this life.

So today I am emptied, as my husband returns to our home to empty it out of what is still salvageable, leaving the furniture for the remediation the mold experts swear will only take "a couple of months."

It has been hard to not think too much on finding meaning in our mayhem; for a long while I was convinced of some karmic debt that needed payment, trying to wrap my mind around a positive outlook that just wouldn't appear despite my best intentions.

So the other day, finally at my wit’s end, I called my zen teacher, my Anam Cara, and spilled out to her my misery.

"I'm a Zen failure," I say; "I don't know how to be a priest in this."

She offers the kindest, warmest laugh.

"Our vows are not something we choose to do; it does to us," she reminds me. Immediately I feel immense, all-containing. Aren't words the best magic? "Don’t feel you have to be priestly! It works through us; it finds its own way.

"Karma is so complex… it is not useful thinking to try to untangle it, make sense of it, create guilt about it or try to solve it.

"Just do what’s necessary: don’t beat yourself up about it. Of course you are going to dislike it." It really is just that direct: chop wood, carry water.

I still don’t know, but the ache to know is gone.

The core belief—my faith—remains: that this is all ok, that this too is part and parcel of the Awakened quality of all things. It’s as big as all of us…

So I look again to the mold to teach me something, and I see that mold makes the world go 'round. It turns our waste into hummus, and the richness of that transaction feeds all of life. It was just my time, I see.

Many of the things I lost-- my handmade drums, my artwork, my zafu-- represented the spiritual chase of the first half of my life. I'm am at the doorstep of 40; and clearly, as the mold works hard to create the hummus that will sustain me in my years as a woman, in the words of Monty Python "it's time for something completely different." Can I let go of the nostalgia of what I once thought long enough to feel some gratitude for what really is?

He Was a Friend of Mine

2009-10-29T07:33:00.000-07:00

Taos as I remember her. As all my photos are still in the moldy hold of our old house, I borrowed this one here. I encourage a visit to that site, as it offers an interesting peek into the life of a Taos painter who reminds me of many of the friends I made when living there in the mid 90's.

All I remember is a mischievous smile at my door and the gravel-voiced question: You wanna get out of town for a while? His bike was out front—a little slap-happy silver Yamaha—which I gladly obliged to straddle, and away we rode into the low pinon hills off Albuquerque, north through the desert and ‘round every bend by and by to Taos.

It took a long while. New Mexico is long, low and slow, with miles of squat little drifts decorated with dark green wonderful-smelling pom-poms of pinon and lighter fluffs of sage, punctuated from time to time with fat, pointy yucca. You notice it all on a bike, and the scent and sight of it is so overwhelmingly beautiful, it eats you alive.

Also beautiful was this little sliver of a silver bracelet that lay in a gentle arc about his wrist, his skin so brown from the sun; and the way his dirty-blonde hair was gathered, second-thought, at the nape of his neck. This was my view for our three-and-a-half hour ride. This was where I fell completely in love with the desert.

James gave me my first peek into the Eastern philosophy I’d eventually call my own, (irksomely) providing me with my first copy of the Tao te Ching. POP! –Vast understanding, at last. James also provided me with my first ever view of Taos, skirting the highway alongside a rushing Rio Grande ‘til POP, Paradise. The view of it exploded my mind altogether, that sweet Mother of a mountain, that powerful Mother of a mountain, wearing a wide skirt of land and dipping into the wide cut of a deep gorge. Welcome to Ether, Earthly Heaven.

We enjoyed a communion there, with mushrooms and Argentinain red wine (“Concha y Toro”, to honor the mixing of our signs), deep in a rift set next to the Rio, gentle river, raging river, and the not-so-hot springs the Easy Riders once frequented. We howled at the moon, we cried to ourselves, we argued, we stomped the earth; we laughed, we frustrated the hell out of each other…

We frustrated the hell out of each other. That was the sum of it, and so we never were meant to be true; but my god, this man, he gave me two of the greatest loves of my life. He put the Tao in Taos, ha ha ha. (Really, that just hit me.) I haven’t talked to him since 1995 and I sure as hell wished him well. And I have relished the memory of our ride together every day since. And I am angry that he died in such a stupid, senseless way.

But somehow, too, it fits…

My other recurrent memory of him? Me cold in the mountain night, cluttering about the darkness, trying to set up his stupid tent, never having set it up before, him yelling instructions and growing more frustrated by the minute that I wasn’t getting it right. Me feeling like an idiot; him calling me so. Me listening to our loving friends in their cozy microbus, wishing for the same. Wishing he’d go away. Wondering why I got the insensitive Taurus. Swearing them off for good. (Marrying another one, eventually. Ha!)

Months later, we had no tent. We slept under the stars, on a little wooded hill somewhere in Marin County. The fog kissed us awake—a million, zillion little cool water-droplets, fairies alighting in the morning air. Forgiveness.

Those days gave me my heart back, gave me a light to hope by –it had been a rather violent and confusing upbringing for this girl. And those memories continue as a little soul-compass for me even now. James, James, James. Tif, Dean, Kev, Lori, Japh… This girl says goodnight; this woman wishes you all so well, and thanks you very heartily.

Refuge

2009-10-23T09:20:00.000-07:00

I’ve been spending the last few days saving our library: thoroughly dusting each volume with a bleach-and-water solution, and then leaving them out in various positions to dry in the sun. “UV rays are most helpful, really,” says our Mold Expert.

There is something intimately shamanic about washing down each and every book you own. Many of them we’ve owned since our 20’s, as we first tried to make sense of the world; some date from our childhoods—books passed on to our own child. Some gave cause for exultation: Wow! I forgot about this one! Others? I wondered what they were doing in our collection. Overall though it was like rediscovering love-letters from old friends, collected throughout our lives.

Nor was the irony lost that gathered together on the lawn drying, the books looked very much like a tent-city. A funny refugee camp, I thought, playfully mimicking our own refuge at the Commune.

We’re in luck—the kind people here have invited us to stay another month. This buys us more time of course to broadcast our skills and abilities (and need) for a great, new job.

And in the meantime, autumn just happens, as it always does, all around us. I find myself breaking my Vows each and every day—snapping in impatience, raving like a lunatic, crying like a fiend. The chill in the air snaps back, the birds screech and beseech in the trees through the day and the dogs (and foxes) howl in echo at night. We break our vows together…

Light Shining Through

2009-10-20T09:52:00.001-07:00

Today marks our third wedding anniversary. It is my favorite kind of day: rainy, cold, silent. The farmers’ fields that surround us rest; the soil drinks deeply from this cool draught of rain while the hard-working Amish find other chores that need attention. And I for once sit quietly in our new little room at the Commune, enjoying the sight and sound of rain upon tree and garden flower.

This past week was another heavy one for our little family: we nearly left our temporary haven here at the Commune because of an issue with mice and mold in our old farmhouse room. But in the end, the community agreed we should move into a room in the newer building, much to our relief. Unfortunately it meant washing every stitch of our belongings for a ~third~ time, as the farmhouse room had rather contaminated the items with a musty, moldy stench that set my allergies going again. But now it is a week later, and the last load tumbles ‘round the dryer while I find my rest, and everything else settles into its place.

We’ll have respite here for another couple of weeks, and likely need to move again on the 30th…

But I can’t think on that now. And I’m shooing away any of the thoughts that creep in regarding the cleaning and care for the 90% of our belongings that remain in our old moldy house, 15 minutes and a world away.

I’ve been looking for some Zen lesson in all of this, but my teacher reminds me it’s good just to simply take care of myself right now. I look too for some Pagan address and all I find in my heart is gratitude for the chance at living even closer to the Earth, and to Time and Her seasons…

Perhaps the answers will come later; maybe none at all. But in the meantime I am finding comfort in a Celtic orientation to things that wreck havoc in our lives. Old Irish stories abound about mortals’ dealings with imposing and disruptive gods, spirits and faerie-folk. Oftentimes they’ll disappear completely to a strange land (so-called the Otherworld) and return to find they’ve never left, haven’t left for long or have left and a hundred years have passed on in “normal” time. I love this disregard for sense, for the embrace of life’s topsy-turvy nature. You can’t count on anything, can you? But you can sure revere it.
…
It is some days later I find the sun has returned, and the steady rain has rewarded our eyes with a feast of color scattered on the ground. I’m making a habit now of picking up the gnarliest, un-liveliest of that fresh autumn carpet, to find a jewel where the light peeks through. It’s been a good harvest so far.

Changes

2009-10-03T15:17:00.000-07:00

Autumn settles in as it always has, with a grace that infects even me, in the middle as I am of this awful predicament. But right now is not so awful. I rest on a rocking chair at the end of a long porch, dozing as the last of the summer bugs serenade an ever-cooling afternoon. In the old red barn across the yard someone is stacking wood. Each log landing on another makes a tidy, satisfying “clunk” sound. A gently warming sun peeks in and out of clouds as I step in and out of dozing. There are much worse ways to be homeless.

On the table beside me a herd of small plastic dinosaurs sit drying from the previous day’s bathtime-- a silly and childish reminder of the much bigger clean-up we face. But for now, rest. An environmentalist is due at our house on Wednesday, says the landlord. We’ll have a better sense of the mess then.

As my son is napping I grabbed my well-loved copy of Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and set it on the table (well away from those dinosaurs—you never know). Today I saw the forests *really* begin to don their seasonal coat of colors, and the anticipation of fall became rather a deep knowing. What is it about the end of a cycle that carries such palpable, celebratory excitement?

This is the Big one in my hemisphere, of course. The cold is coming, the garden is folding, and life continues its course to the void. Here on the farm, people are going about as they always have at summer’s end, keeping fastidiously and quietly to those same chores as they always have for 34 years. Today is the anniversary of their settlement here on an old Amish farm, and they established a commune that has seen many families and many lives.

Of course I am just in wonder at anyone living in the same place for 34 years! This is a gift I’ve never had the chance to experience. We grew up military, at least ‘til I was 7. Then my parents divorced and my mom remarried, and that ‘gentleman’ had an instability all his own which led us to several households over the years, albeit all in the same town. I kept moving at age 18, so glad to be free, and ultimately so vainly seeking that place I’ve never known called home.

It’s a deep yearning and somehow I am beginning to realize that yearning for “perfect home” *is*perfect home. “That longing is the connection”, as Rumi says in Love Dogs.

Home has also meant, for me, a deeper sense of connection to earth, and that’s really what I wanted to write about today. As I reach past Mr. Brontosaurus for Ms. Kingsolver, I remembered a long-ago wish from this previous March that I might better study the growing season, eat better-mindedly a local-foods diet and live more closely to my garden and the seasons that govern it. Well, I got that in spades, I see—it’s harvest time here in Amish country, and nowhere else I’ve lived has the farm season felt so solid, so almighty. Perhaps it’s the whirring of the old-timey (and well-rusted) farm equipment, the immediate sureness of a driver’s instructions to the team of horses pulling said equipment, or the way the earth looks so clunky, clumsy and real after they’ve passed and the plants are pulled and gone… I just love the feel of it, the raw honesty of it. “I get Autumn”.

This also marks the time of our arrival to southern Maryland last year, and I welcome the anniversary with a bit of grief, and hopefulness.

Time to return to my nap…

A Bit on Home-Leaving

2009-09-26T15:20:00.000-07:00

And so it was that for the night I could not sleep, the headache was too intense, even above the allergy medicine; and in the morning the "mold expert" came and delivered the news: This is bad. Your family should leave.

Quite in shock, I left the front door open and wandered, lost-like, down the dirt road. I stared out at the fields, overgrown with weeds and grasses. I couldn't compose a single thought. This happened before, right after our son was born-- our Colorado cabin was flooded with snow melt, and we had very little time to pack it all up and get out of mold's way. And now? Now again, as then again...

This little fuzzy fellow caught my eye, just then. (Rather, one quite like him-- "him" I borrowed from Google.) Inching along the dirt road, the brightest thing against the dust, heading toward a change all his own. I knelt down, taken by his earnest hurry; and in stooping, noticed more animals preparing for fall. The air was changing, cooling at long last. And so many were busy- busy, gathering and hunting, finding new homes-- and some, new bodies--knowing of this change just by some internal compass, and simply going along.

He's been something of a mentor for me in these last two days, as I struggle with the effects of a nasty allergic reaction to the mold that has taken over our furniture, our clothes, our home. Inching along, task by task, allowing for wee breakdowns here and there, but focusing steadily and even laughing where possible.

We left later that afternoon for the refuge of an old hippie commune (yes, in Southern Maryland) of all things, and immediately upon the road in front of us darted out a gorgeous young fox... I followed him for the second or two that I was allowed a glimpse, and into the brush he vanished; and I smiled, at long last feeling a strange peace with what is happening.

Home is happening everywhere, isn't it?

Blurry Vision

2009-09-24T07:06:00.000-07:00

By all accounts September seems scripted to be a most difficult month. And here at the end of it, I too am eager for the last page to turn into the welcome cool of October. The mold problem we've been experiencing has exploded into something I never expected... a real problem, unaffected by the simple means I've been employing to address it, turning things furry and green all over the house, menacing me with the worst allergies I've experienced in my life. The intolerability of living in this place has stepped up so many notches, I'm aghast at the comedy of it. And so I walk outside, and while collecting rocks for my two-year-old (to "boom" into the river), I come upon this little reminder. "Keep the faith," says the Universe. "I heart you."

When we first moved to Maryland-- just this time, last year-- I was struck by an awful case of poison ivy. Next came the wasps, incensed that some silly humans had moved into their home. And then the spiders, which again have returned again in this seasonal turn, their babies draping numerous (and quite funny) attempts at grand webs all about the house. As winter came, so did the mice. And always the hunters, the sound of gunshot a constant echo... And in the earliest suggestion of spring came the wood roaches. Spring brought the wasps back with new fervor, and more poison ivy by the height of summer. (The snakes I didn't mind so much, though, somehow; they are the black kind, which eat the copper kind, which...well. Yes. I liked the black ones.) I understand fully how this place does not belong to me.

A couple of days ago we celebrated the Autumnal Equinox in a wonderful way, my child and I clamoring through tall, crispy corn to pull exquisite cobs with neat rows of dried yellow kernels. The papery husks we turned into a real Gent and Lady, remembering corn as a nourisher of life, and the many generations of humanity supported by its cultivation.

It's been a harsh living, here in this wilderness. Life here has certainly balanced my notions of a wondrous natural world-- the world I woke up to when I first landed in New Mexico, my eyes wide at the utter, breathless beauty and possibility of it. Now there is an added bite, sting and itch; an unkindness to guard against, to build stone shelters against and survive in the best way one can. I don't like this feeling. It too feels too extreme.
On the evening of the Equinox, we climbed into our canoe and drifted upon a darkening river. I took this image without a flash, so it's a little shaky-- but apt. How do we live in an unbearable situation? We breathe, you could say; but even that's become a trick with all the mold around. The balance point between yearning and acceptance offers so little room for error. Shall I see this as repayment of some karmic debt? ...can I accept the responsibility of it completely? How can we sail in this darkening place, consumed as we are by such harsh beauty?

Second Wind

2009-09-18T20:08:00.001-07:00

I've been wondering for a while now about how I might write about what's happening. Life has offered an opportunity to practice something of a tricky, beautiful balance, much like this double-cairn my husband created in the hills outside of Stowe, VT. Happily, this practice is continuous.

We'd longed to leave the oppressive late-summer heat behind, and with it all the strange revelations that presented themselves in recent weeks. It was time to put the job search on hold, leave behind the tensions at work and go north, to cooler weather and friendlier faces.

Just before our departure, though, we were hit with a double-whammy: my husband was offered a second interview for a position in Amsterdam, of all places; and I accidentally discovered something of a major mold problem in our house that needed attention immediately. So while my husband shuffled the details of our trip to fit in the details of yet another, I set about to laundering and bleaching and scrubbing, saving packing for last, and all within the last minute.

By some miracle, one suitcase alone was unaffected by the mold, so my husband would be "presentable" overseas. The rest we shoved into duffels, and those we shoved into the car, along with ourselves, for the long drive to New England.

We saw some lovely things, met some lovely new friends (who had been internet-only friends up 'til then!), and very slowly I healed from all the mold I'd inhaled during my frantic clean-up. At some point during our meander in the woods of Vermont, I felt myself exhale fully, for the first time in a long time.
No question, the intrigue and excitement posed by this exotic second-interview in Amsterdam rode something like a fourth member of the family, crammed in the back with the rest of our things. Could we really do that-- could we move overseas? Yes. What would life be like? What adjustments would be needed? How would we manage? Questions were many, and could be entertained only so far. We couldn't really plan until an offer was official, and so a delicate balance was struck: investigate a little; draw back. Imagine a little; draw back. Fantasize a bit; draw back.

Details were too numerous and overwhelming, for either option ("job" or "no job"). Thinking on it one day as the interstate exits whizzed by, I blurted out: I can't breathe! Aha, I thought then. There's the message of all that mold, all that stagnancy-- living in expectation, we hold our breath; we suffer. There was nothing to do but drop the expectations, and accept everything. And so? For two weeks, we lived diligently on that precipice between fear and joy, overwhelm and openness, insecurity and love. And by the by, with such delicate practice, I felt myself enter into a place of determined not-knowing... and life became joyous.
In the end, my husband left Amsterdam with 3 others to ponder a next-move that did not include an international address, and a fifth went on to celebrate a new career. And our family left behind our beloved roly-hilly, chilly, leaves-beginning-to-turn New England only to return to a moldy old cottage in the too-hot South that seems to long for a return to the nature that surrounds it. And I felt again the acute despair that is the cost of living in a place where one does not "belong". Yet, this time? This time, I rest easy. This time, my mind is expansive and I am comfortable with all my intolerable emotions (...and allergies). How? It seems that the exquisite, true practice of really not-knowing, of holding all possibilities equally, brought me to a light at the end of my turmoil. And how glorious it is to finally realize this place of balance is not a "decision" I should have made earlier, nor an admonishment for better moral behavior. Rather it seems peace is the reward for letting go, watching carefully... and being. Just fully, truly being. Luckily, this practice is continuous...

Knitting & pumpkins & long, hot Lugh

2009-08-20T11:56:00.000-07:00

These are the days of waiting... and creatively so, as it is too hot to think and otherwise to move. So I knit and read and plot, and my son makes little roads of play-doh.

This time, now? Well, I hadn't quite expected this. Things have turned considerably topsy-turvy here on the farm, and where once I was harvesting fat, juicy red tomatoes, the it's the very weather that is fat, juicy and red. Not that I'm not still plucking those crimson wonders from the vine. But all around me, summer has exploded into this uber-personality, indeed a being all its own: air heavy with the rich sound of too many crickets and cicadas singing to a sunrise that is too bright and so very, very hot. Air heavy with humid liquidity, the clouds bellowing a threat that never comes due-- that indeed you wish would come, for the cooling rain would lighten things up. And the leaves, which yellow more each day, still stretch to the point that it seems the forest itself has reached full capacity; any more growth, and surely it will burst...

Which is to say, at long last I think I understand the Season of Lugh: the incredible brightness, richness, over-powering-ness that ascends to its apex and then exits in a grand swan-song of being.

It's a fine metaphor for where I find myself these days. Life has become overwhelming in this summer's end: the business venture we moved 3,000 miles to nurture for a family member has gone bust. Branches have tangled and the heat has risen and yes, it seems impossible to bear any more of this unexpected, unbearable summer.

But on we do, "not doing": wrapping up responsibilities, looking for new work, learning to rest in a very uncomfortable bardo. What will come? We are excited to know! For the pumpkins have harvested early, and each day the breeze carries more and more leaves upon it. To where will we follow? ...we are excited to know!

Not-doing. Nope.

2009-08-06T13:35:00.000-07:00

"Not-to-do something is doing something. Good and bad are only in our minds.... Whatever we are doing, even if it is not-doing something, we should do it!"

So here are some leaves, just a couple of them in the whole tree, not-being green.

Two weeks ago, I held a memorial day of zazen meditation in honor of my teacher. Suzuki Roshi's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind kept me good company that day-- especially wondering as I was, still, about my last post. What is home?

What is this struggle? Here are some Cosmos, not-being flowers and yet not-being seeds. (And they are not-doing it so nicely, creating a sense of endearment in my garden it seems to me.) Do the seeds struggle to let loose to the wind that will come? Is that how we may find flowers in the spring, after all?

Just recently I celebrated Lughnasadh, the First Harvest. Clearly our corn struggled this year...but to me, it's a bumper crop. Those little colorful kernels are the 3rd generation born of a seed we saved and planted a couple seasons back, very reverently and ceremonially, from an Indian Corn cob I'd bought the season before then. The sense of continuity and nature's grace-- doing and not-doing-- rest easy in that blue bowl in our kitchen. Not-doing.

So my days are full of doings and not-doings, going about the fullness of taking care of my family, honoring the season about me, the changes that are slow yet sure, each and every year. I joke that I am not-doing Maryland, but on I go, doing waking-up, talking, feeding, walking, playing, shopping, making...

It strikes me that struggling is also doing, and again I look to that little not-yet Cosmos-- just a little differently, this time.

First & Third Noble Truths, in a nutshell.

2009-07-23T15:12:00.000-07:00

The awesome rumble of a thunderstorm sneaking up behind the house, clouds swiftly shifting from docile and puffy-white to ominous, and gray

I sit in my room in wonder at the strange beauty of this place--
and yet so poignantly how I feel it is not my place

Another rumble, and I realize
in how many countless minds must that thought have crossed
this is not my place
-- 'tis a slaves cabin, after all;
and before my family moved in, home to a depressed man who liked to shoot at the trees from the back porch.

How many places are there, like this
whose fate it seems to be to shelter, protect, even nurture
an array of suffering foreigners?

And within these lovely walls, the walls that I love as my home,
I wonder,
how much of that suffering is mine, and how much of it simply the state that this place has known, indeed what it may offer?

The storm passes, the night is cool.
Respite.

Hedging My Bets

2009-07-16T08:40:00.000-07:00

Been feeling a wee bit crowded in by the forest these days. All around me, life is exploding, reaching, stretching, overwhelming... creeping right up to my back door, with no apologies.

We finally made the decision to look for work elsewhere, and to move. Northward, methinks; perhaps Vermont, where the hills are so green, and the Granola-types, crunchy.

In the meantime, I'm doing what I can with my mind to get used to the idea of being in an in-between: not moving, but not not moving. Not enjoying, yet not not enjoying. Being directly indirect. Hedging my bets, playing the clamshell game with the present...and presently waiting.

Finally opening up the tightly-wound bag of emotions that I'd kept so close led to a cacophony of expression these last few weeks. It never ceases to amaze me how we can think we've got handle on something, but our body has other ideas.

Oftentimes, it's got nothing to do with our thinking at all; there is brain tissue and heart tissue all over our bodies, storing memories, feelings and responses where the intellect don't shine. How do we relate to life, then, when it's so rich, so beyond rationale?

Me? I'm learning to ride with it, and not let it ride me too much.

And eating as many gorgeous summer fruits as the earth can offer...

And feeling grateful for those cooling breezes that waft in from time to time.

Images from the Plantation

2009-07-08T12:43:00.000-07:00

July time, and in the sweltering heat, just-in-time refreshing breezes and impromptu summer rains, I'm thinking of growth and the nearing abundance of Lughnasadh...

...we're going through more twists and turns than I can mention here, but it is certainly rich and ripe times, just like our garden, which has-- in its sustaining of us and its blossoming-- become something like a family member.

So many shifts, so many roads. I am excited and worried at the same time. My changing inner weather seems a good fit for what is echoed all around me...

A Heart Sutra

2009-06-25T23:00:00.000-07:00

It's a little funny, but after two weeks of utter Nirvana in northern California, I think I've finally come to the realization that Enlightenment is nothing more than Maryland.

Sometimes, it seems that Enlightenment (big E, and lots of italics) is portrayed as something better than, something beyond, something to keep hoping for and so, keep up your good practice. Keep on with your offerings, your meditations, your supplications. Pray just a wee bit harder, and you'll reach it. And you will _so_ deserve it!

California was like that-- like reaching that. Maybe the weather had a lot to do with it (it was perfect, with delicious breezes every now and again); or the fact that The Big One didn't hit (...I was worried). But spending time in such a geographically rich and organically lush place and finally having quality time with the friends I love-- that may have had something to do with it.

Two weeks later, though, I crash-landed in Dixie and every moment felt sopped in despair; from the humidity that greeted us at the airport to the guy who disposed of his Arby's out of his monster truck window on the highway, I knew I wasn't in Nirvana anymore. And in the days that came of those moments I gave in to my grief fully. What else could I do?

It soon dawned on me that form is emptiness, and emptiness is Maryland. My Maryland. In the pit of my suffering, I understood that this is it. There is no better State to attain (ha ha, pun intended after all); no Shangri-la to chase. This is it.

What came of it was an immense sense of dissatisfaction. I want better; I want happiness... But all of these things are just judgments, based on my own limited perceptions. Heck, I am sure there is some guy down the lane who is just convinced he's in Heaven right now. Lawn ornamentation and other Southern flair certainly attest to it. But all of that, all of it, is bound by my limited senses, my humanity.
That there is something that exists beyond those limitations-- that's what saved me from my despair. And that I can practice setting aside those limitations-- that's my faith, I suppose. Zazen in a nutshell.

And what came of that was a settling feeling: disappointment, grief and despair softened. I took a breath. "You're not necessarily going to like Enlightenment," I said to myself. Try that on for size, for a while.

We hit the road again, just 3 days later, to visit family further north of the Mason-Dixon line. And that was very healing, to be reminded of the close proximity to love that I am blessed with.

It's not to say that one should just accept everything as it is and get over it; there is healthy living to consider, after all. Just as some plants excel in certain climates where others fail, I believe it's important to honor the way a place nourishes you. But while we're working on ways of finding that nourishment, settling into the perfection of what is certainly takes the edge off.

View from the Rental Car

2009-06-18T13:55:00.000-07:00

Vacation!!

So sorely needed.

We started here:

And then drove north, way up to here.

And we explored a little, and then returned here,

where we used to live. (It rather feels as though we never left.)

And now we are here,

where my husband is taking part in an aikido camp. Amazing teachers, wonderful people, all old friends whom we have missed dearly.

Vacationing is rediscovering a little part of ourselves that got lost in the shuffle of daily stress. While there really is no need to leave anywhere, because wherever you go, there you are... still, it is a good thing to shift your perspective and gain insight from old places made new again, and new places made into an old friend. Shake off the old dust and realize that what was too creaky, or cranky, can be softened. It helps to keep the faith.

Soon we will find ourselves here again,

saying goodbye to a place that has clearly become a heart-home for our little family.

Where I'm From, Where I'm At

2009-06-09T03:27:00.000-07:00

This image by Ken Williams can be found at this most excellent site on prehistoric European life.

Somehow I've managed to wake up super-early, and I've found myself surrounded by a wee bit of rainforest. There are birds everywhere, of every type, singing with every call in the thick green that is slowly swallowing our home. And never mind the birds-- can this green be possible?

It is such a rich world, it breaks my heart to know I cannot know it. The eye cannot see itself, as the Buddhist saying goes. Then let all the myriad dharmas experience themselves through you, says Dogen. Mind your relationship with everything, says I; and so I do, not always neatly or nicely, but ever-there, if not ever-present.

We're about to take a break from our rainforest here, and visit with friends in California for a while. And something about leaving has made me a tad nostalgic already for my home: the way the forest sneaks forward and outward, green spires of leaf-filled branches spiraling out slowly from each mama tree, 'til the forest is dense and utterly lively. It's been choked with a cast of characters, lately, the most current on my radar being the black snake, so cool and quiet, stretching to meet the shade under my back deck, or to wind itself around the branch of a neighboring tree. And the rabbits who have developed a curious taste for edamame leaves and only edamame leaves in our garden...

I've been thinking about home a lot lately, and mostly the history of it; or rather, the pre-history (pre-literate history, as my friend refines it), the one where a few of our grandmothers and grandfathers wandered up and up, all the way to receding ice to find themselves in the British Isles & Ireland. (You can find my musing here, at my other blog... which offers a bit more of my pagan-y oriented point of view.)

I've been slowly making my way through Scotland Before History as a way of finally getting to meet my ancestors. For so long, they really have just been an idea, a spark in my mind, of me coming from something; I was really just so touched by my visit to Ireland a few years ago, and finally struck by being from some place. Having a root. It's a thing I think we miss in our American culture-- there is Plymouth Rock, but really, a couple-hundred-years is not a full ancestry. (Or Jamestown's slave stage, or Ellis Island, or &etc.)

Why is it important? It might be seen to be embracing a "self", a concreteness that Zen rather cautions against. But in fact, for me, this exercise of tracing the beginnings my ancestry has had the opposite effect. You rather lose that sense of self-importance when you discover just how many humans it took to make you. How many lives rendered from the abundance of soil, forest and sea; and of insecurities and awe fed by the mysteries that even our current science cannot touch. A multitude, beyond our imagination, of trying and suffering and trying on and on.

No, no. I feel quite light in my skin when I think of them, all of them. And as they become more real to me, another texture of my own "reality" emerges. My offerings are less superficial; my gassho, my gratitude, has a depth of experience, rather than meaning.

Maybe this is what home-leaving is about?

Gratitude

2009-06-03T14:12:00.000-07:00

I am loving:

Crossing the bridge to and from Solomon's Island...

Old barns and fields of flowers

Seeing my child enjoy the world

Living so close to water

Dragonflies on the porch

My front door

The rumble of distant summer thunderstorms

Something like hope

2009-05-30T04:48:00.000-07:00

The fields beyond our house, with the Patuxent River in the background.

A chilly morning, a cup of tea: it sort of begs for writing, especially as my child seems to be sleeping in. So here I'll do it.

We had a terrific summer storm last night-- heavy rains, thunder, lightning-- the works. My boy stood on the front porch with me and kicked up his heels in it, running about and screaming with delight. Later on we drove down by the horses and he had a go at jumping in some of the most brilliant puddles we've seen here yet. Up in the sky, clouds of all shapes and colors filled the many strata of the atmosphere, some seeming high and lumbering, others low and quick, flitting by in an after-rain race.

The whole while, I felt softer to this place. It is hard to be angry at a partner who looks so beautiful, who becomes so welcoming... And this morning, I recognize that it is difficult to see a place's truth through resentful eyes. I really think that's what it is: I resent having to be here, having this as our only option, having to love a place I never really cared to care about. Now...can I live with this and enjoy the puddles anyway?

Meanwhile, back at my place...

2009-05-23T10:33:00.000-07:00

I awoke today refreshed and happy, for something happened yesterday-- something subtle and free, like a cooling breeze-- and all at once, I was able just accept where I am. (The where I am being southern Maryland, and certain resultant depressed mind-states.) Perhaps something in the weather buoyed me; after all, it was in the low 80's much of the day, and cool and not-too-bright. I spent most of my time out of doors (like my forebears). I was... happy.

And so today I was going to write something sweet and prolific and excited about accepting where I am, and then? Well, later in the morning I was sorely disappointed by someone I'd been counting on (...again). And then after, when I took my child to a nearby playground, a "sexy" young woman showed up with a young boy carrying around a toy gun, which he shook at the other children playing chase with him. The woman herself had a nervous twitch, and with a closer look I saw she was covered with several scratches and bruises. She was friendly, though, and we chatted a very little bit before she took off again. But the whole experience left a deep hole inside of me-- where the hell am I??

So it's back to square one again. Happily today was a zazen day for me, which set the right tone and structure to carry the rest of the morning's distress. That practice reminds me that I'm not separate from any of this, not this battered woman, not this child exposed to violence, not this sense of deep disappointment. In fact, it was my own history-- or at least, an echo of it. So while I've set a vow in my life to assist everyone who is suffering in this world, I know to begin with myself, and the compulsion I have to push it all away given my revulsion borne of what I've known in my own life.

The trick, though, in balancing that is the fulcrum of my son, and my relationship to him as a mother, and a protective one at that. I long to keep him safe from all of this mess. To bring him up in a place that is free from addictions and pain, pesticides and toy guns. The first two issues are hard enough to balance inside of oneself, in spiritual practice; but adding my child into the equation? How does one balance accepting what is and where one is, and protecting one's child from true danger?

My favorite quote from Suzuki roshi is "Enlightenment is not a state of mind." To me, this says that experiencing our perfection is not about "deciding" to "become better"; rather, it's knowing and experiencing completely where one is, and all that that is. It is nothing less than relationship itself, between all of me, my history, my senses, my memories, my interpretations, and that of all of existence. This is the sacred friendship which requires careful cultivation each day, each moment. There aren't easy answers; there's no magic potion I've seen.

So that is what I tell myself as I rock in my chair, sip my tea and listen to the birds in the gorgeous forest that surrounds me. Good or bad, can I accept that I am in relationship all the time? I kiss my son to sleep, and rest in the cool air. This is a good enough place to start.

Pioneering Relationship

2009-05-20T19:56:00.000-07:00

Venus of the Fels Cave-- click here for the full story in Speigel.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the earliest humans, and where spiritual endeavor began... And happily these thoughts were rewarded by word earlier last week that the oldest artistic representation of the human form had been found in Germany (just click by the picture). While the Venus of Willendorf, which is ever my favorite piece of art, has been dated to about 24,000 bce, this pretty lady has been dated to a few thousand years prior. (Which really says something about art's original purpose, and a bit about our early orientation about what was meaningful, don't you think?)

Prehistoric art was a favorite of mine to study in art school, and I'll always kick myself for not designing my bachelor's around the subject (I ended up focusing more on American Indian art-- I was in New Mexico, after all). Yet I've remained touched by the people who created this beauty "just a thousand grandmothers ago", as one professor put it.

Another interest I have is in discovering an American Zen tradition that is less a copycat version of Japanese culture, and more an appropriate blend of spiritual need, religious heritage and zazen. For me, this has meant a heartfelt journey into the religions of my ancestors-- if anything, to gain a greater sense of connection to our Earth (many of them were, after all, earth-oriented traditions) and a better understanding of where I'm from.

Where the two meet is about creating an authentic religious practice-- and it has led me to some fascinating places. One such place is Scotland; particularly Before Scotland: The Story of Scotland Before History. This book has been so utterly helpful in gliding me through a history that has always been more than a little difficult for me to grasp simply because it's always been done so icily.. Alistair Moffat begins it with a bit of an essay about why-bother, as "prehistory" often suggests in its air a sense of "not being quite the real thing".

I recall first learning about those long-ago ancestors during my first art history course, those who painted caves somewhere in France and being stunned by their creativity and heart. And yet somehow, I never felt a true part of them, as we didn't dive very deeply into knowing them, for quickly it was off to the "real" cultures of Egypt and Greece and finally to Rome, the realest of all the real cultures.

How sad it makes me, and Alistair too it seems, that the harsh judgments of our invaders from so long ago could remain to haunt so thoroughly that we pass right over the history of our forbears in favor of the ones who could conquer and divide us. Think of how we still refer to the earliest of them, these cave people, rough and uncivilized... And yet, as Alistair points out, even as we still "despise our forbears", "these people were not aliens. They were our first parents."

7 million years ago: the first humanoid appeared. 100,000 years ago, the first homo sapiens; and by 29,000 bce, the first of these were in what we know as Britain. 16,000 bce was the height of the ice age, and by 11,000, the ice had retreated so that Scotland was ice-free. They've found an arrowhead dating to 10,800-- really, this number is so far beyond what I can really grasp, but there it is-- and the earliest hunter-fisher settlement in Britain, Howick Haven, dating 7,800 bce.

These numbers are fine, but what I find most intriguing about this book is Alistair's exploration into who they were. Pioneers, he reminds us; hunters and fishers seeking what can be found in the rich, green lands to the north, likely from the Dordogne valley of "France". He cites Bryan Skeys' research of mitochondrial DNA, the sequences that can be traced through women only. In his sampling of populations in Britain, he found 7 "origin women", clan mothers he calls them, 6 whom 40% of today's Europeans can call "mama". The seventh clan mother was from what we know now as Iraq, and she signals the introduction of a farming cultural revolution...

But for now, I am most interested in digging deeper into the mind of this "prehistoric" mama, mostly intrigued by the utter tenderness of her tribes' treatment of those who had died. One mother was found with head and feet atop deer antlers; around her neck, a fine necklace created by the teeth of 43 different stags. But by her side? Her infant, laid in the nest of a swan's wing, with a small flint knife by its waist.

There was another child found, this one buried with a small local stone, the shape of a tongue, placed in its mouth. "You are of this place, and you are this place," it seems to tell us; you are its language, and your story it will tell for generations to come.

The tenderness of these burials-- I was so taken to read of them. I wanted desperately to be the one who found them there-- could you imagine?

That is where I rest now; this intrigue, this love that has blossomed in me for our "first parents". This is the beginning point I was seeking, before jumping into an herbal study, before digging more deeply into the lore of my Celtic ancestors... There is something so common about these people. We are all from this, no? "We are who we were," writes Alistair, again and again. And I beg the small favor of a local stone in my mouth, even before death, saying "I belong."

After the Storm

2009-05-07T12:44:00.000-07:00

from the Hearth...

2009-05-01T11:06:00.000-07:00

It's Beltaine, the Celtic festival of welcoming the summer season and lighting a new light. There is a wonderful bit of background (& poetry) at this lovely blog I rambled upon this morning... And another lovely amble to inspire my own ramble, pulled out into nature on this day when the fairies themselves are said to move into a summer home of their own. (And if you're curious about more traditional ways of celebrating this holiday, this really wonderful website by a Scottish friend of mine covers all the details.)

Otherwise, it has been a day of finding my own way, working to fulfill this dream I have of settling in truly & surely with the rhythms of life that surround me. In the morning, my son & I ventured out into the "soft weather", kissed by a bit of rain were we as we picked the fresh buttercups for our hearth offering. This evening we blessed the family and the house with a bit of spring-water and made an offering of beer, firelight and water. Fire and water marked the start of creation, according to the Celts. I like the mix.

It is also a good day to set intentions, much like planting a garden as we've been busy with these last days. For myself, I have such a habit of sinking into slothfulness, and despair; a good discipline for me will be softening my approach, increasing my curiosity and fostering openness. One way to do this will be through simple ceremonies, such as I indulged in tonight... Acknowledging my forebears and the "invisible" realm of spirits and gods-- honoring that which lies beyond reason, and making friends with what I cannot know through blessings and music. I am always so glad when I do, and feel so much more alive, simple as the method may be.

Sláinte!

Wild Inside

2009-04-27T18:22:00.000-07:00

Photo still from the BBC series Planet Earth

Not even a week later, and it seems I'm living in a completely different State.

Suddenly a forest has sprung up where just hours ago bare branches met the sky. Pollen coats everything. And just about every type of bug you could imagine sings, buzzes, creeps and flies about in an endless search for...something. (Like my skin, perhaps?)

I've been awed by this transformation today, perhaps more than any other day because of the sheer dramatic nature of this seasonal shift. The fact that it's inched up well over 90 degrees fahrenheit has punctuated that drama, and I suppose because of it I am in wonder at nature's-- our-- ability to adapt and thrive as conditions change.

It has got me to thinking again about the wilderness inside, physical/mental/spiritual/emotional/physiological/psychical and cyclical... the way we constantly shift and move and sway to and with the myriad of other things, both seen and unseen. Just as "the wave is not 'the wave'", in our constant dance with what is we are not who we think we are; so what is it that makes us so? This is one of the keys I'm discovering-- and keeping in "question" form for now-- toward learning better the relationship between "illness" and "health".

It was an interesting chapter this week in The Secret Language of Plants. In a nutshell, Buhner illustrates an "electrical/magnetic" sense as possessed by sharks, birds and fish that aligns them to find food and habitat. He then ties this science to our own heart, an organ which he maintains is far more than "a pump" (as we've all been taught). Rather he points to the heart's relationship to the hippocampus, and begins the journey to his suggestion that the heart is actually the largest sense organ that we're likely never to acknowledge. The reason for his book, it seems, is to awaken us to the possibility that we all possess to experience something more than what we think.

By way of embellishing this tidbit, I've been immersing myself in the excellent BBC documentary Planet Earth and The Blue Planet-- Earth, life, as you've never imagined it could be; Wild Kingdom with a gorgeous edge. Images of beauty and survival dance around my head tonight while I survey our wild yard, the forest creeping closer to the little homestead we occupy, giving me a private viewing of a nature film all my own. Everything reaching for growth, balance, abundance...

I haven't felt well this week, but this time I've decided to rest rather than worry and learn from this wild kingdom around me. And what I have been amazed to find is how well my own body seems to know what it needs for growth into balance again. Just the simple action of trusting those inner processes for once rather than worrying about a doctor's visit has been so very liberating. That's not to say good medical care is not a necessity; it's just a nice thing to relax a bit before jumping to that conclusion, and listening to what the body is actually capable of on its own. There are a myriad of causes and conditions, as Buddha said, and trying to pinpoint "the cause" is often a waste of effort. Instead, what can the process of healing itself teach? I am greatly curious about this body's ability, about this wild inside.

A random moment...

2009-04-19T16:41:00.000-07:00

It has been quite rainy and gray here these past few days, making a good environment for tea and books to chase the chill away. It is also an excellent opportunity for daydreaming; and there has been much on my mind of late, my thoughts echoing the early buds of spring into a now full-blown epoch of many greens.

The first I'll write about is a sketch of a concern I have about online sangha. Here in the Buddhist Blogsphere, I have noticed a tendency for folks to use the comments section of a blog to "teach to" each other. "Here is how to be a better Buddhist," we write. "Here is the correct way." It so often misses the point of the post, at best, and at worst, sounds more like we're trying to outwit each other, or show off our genius ("see what I've figured out.") Why do you think we are so compelled to "teach" to each other, rather than write directly about our own experience in a way that maintains a sense of fear, curiosity and humility?

Sometimes I think this must be because that is how many of us encounter Buddhism: it is taught to us, by a Teacher, and we receive it as a class might, and we regurgitate it thus until the time comes that we gain the insight of experience itself. And we receive many teachings by way of magazine articles and books whose authors all maintain a teacherly tone.... and here we are, writing away, just like them.

The philosophy is one thing, but give me the living!

I'm really not interested in the mental acrobatics of being a better "Buddhist". In fact, I am completely uninterested in "being a Buddhist". Rather, I am most intrigued by this inner propulsion to be more fully human. Can we talk about that, without once mentioning the word Dharma?

As I roll along in my herbal studies, I discovered a true gem of a thought, a Heart Sutra outside the confines of an ism:

Behind every cause lies countless other causes. Any attempt to trace these back to their sources only leads one further away from an understanding of the true cause...Nature has neither beginning nor end, before nor after, cause nor effect. Causality does not exist. When there is no front or back, no beginning or end, but only what resembles a circle or sphere, one could say that there is a unity of cause and effect, but one could just as well claim that cause and effect do not exist. --Masanobu Fukuoka, quoted in The Secret Teachings of Plants

Second concerns my mild depression over being stuck inside of Maryland, with the Memphis blues again... I ran across some lovely ideas during my morning surf, the most enticing of which concerns "remaking the pilgrimage". Aha! That's it; I've decided to take advantage of Chaucer's adage to take the journey in April's "showers sweet with fruit" and visit the sites that make southern Maryland holy. I have this in mind: the underground railroad; the plentiful plantations that dot the rivers' routes; St. Mary's City, the first such in our nation; the Old Line drawn up by Mason & Dixon; the source of the Chesapeake.

Closer to home, I'm giddy with an idea offered up on my latest favorite blog, Soule Mama. In a recent post, this very creative mama talks about making felted birds for her childrens' nature table. Nature table. The words rolled around like pleasant fruit, and it hit me: yes, a little altar for my son, at his height, for us to collect souvenirs of our walks and revere the great mama earth's abundance, in all her seasons. What a sweet idea!

Time for tea is over; back to mama-hood and work, cooking and tending, drawing and designing.

Knee-deep in something...

2009-04-14T19:59:00.000-07:00

I have been reading a lot lately of people's disillusionment with their chosen practice tradition, mainly regarding Soto Zen (...since that's what my daily Google Alert is set to). I must say, it's actually been very comforting-- to know my experience is not unique, and that my initial hit that tradition is truly not the be-all, end-all of practice. I remain strong in my faith, in spite of the whirlwinds of drama that surround.

But, faith in what? Exactly!

Faith gets me to the cushion: faith that my mind is not "who I am"; that thoughts are not all that there are; that experience of life beyond/through/with thoughts is entirely, completely and absolutely possible. Not just possible, but necessary!

Faith calls me to look, closely, and to look with my entire being-- not just with my eyes. As I mentioned, I've chosen The Secret Teachings of Plants as one of my texts for my preliminary herbal studies. In the beginning of the book, Buhner describes the incredible array of ways in which our entire bodies pick up sensory data, and communicate in kind, without us ever thinking a thought of it, through electric and magnetic processes. The world is not the simplified mechanical beast we've been trained to think of it as.

Take, for instance, the standing wave. The photos above were taken by a friend of mine as a part of a project I did in divinity school, for a class that covered relationships as they relate to chaos (as in, "the new physics"). I chose a wave and sat watching it closely as my friend took pictures of it, about 2 per minute, for a period of about 10 minutes.

The results amazed me. In my mind, I chose the wave I did because I thought it was "pretty". It was gorgeous in its wave-ness: a simple, elegant line, with a little sloop that pouted forth every now and again. In my mind, that wave had a particular, defining shape that separated it from the rest of the waves forming in Boulder Creek that day. I would be able to draw it, were I called to do so. Or so I thought!

Returning to the computer later that day, I was amazed to learn that the wave I thought I saw truly did not exist. Rather, what unfolded on the screen before me was a wave dancing by a multitude of causes and conditions: sand below, sky above, rocks and grass beside, and me watching it, to name just 5.

What I remember of watching it, even to this day, was the sense of "losing" it (the wave) over and over again, and trying to regain the wave based upon my initial "oh it's pretty" notion of it.

Of course the assignment was intended to illustrate this-- that the world (and faulty traditions not being the least part of it!) is not what we think it is, and that our senses are limited and therefore not to be fully "trusted" to give us the entire view. So then, what is missing? And can we find out? My faith says, yes. And no.

Brokedown Palace

2009-04-07T18:24:00.000-07:00

In the late 1700's, there was something of a land-grab here in southern Maryland. Catholics from England floated upstream from the new colony of Jamestown in Virginia, hoping to make a go of prosperity in the new land named for Mary, the Catholic queen. Where they had found threats in the motherland and prejudice in "Virginia", Maryland offered the comfort of practicing one's religion in the open, as well as chasing one's fortune from what could be had of this fertile new land.

Hope fell to hope, and soon forests were razed and tobacco barns, like this one, stood in their stead, watching over lonely fields soon populated by indentured servants and slaves. And not long after that, the political climate in England changed a few more times, so that "the Catholic colony" was, then was not, and then was again, and not again, open to openness of faith and freedom from social or political oppressions.

Sometime after the war of 1812, the land here upon which I live was passed from one owner to another, and what had been left fallow was soon replaced by a more stately affair, likely better-organized by a new manor house built upon the edge of the property on the Patuxent River. What I learned was the original owner was something of an alcoholic, and this passage of title was not undeserved. I also learned that the "slaves' quarters" in which I now live-- a sweet cottage of a home, after so many renovations over the centuries-- predates that lovely manor house.

It's never seemed like much of a slaves' cabin, based on my appraisal of similar cabins at similar plantations in the area. The ceiling in my living room was built at an incredibly elegant height, and there is an equally elegant "spiral" staircase leading through a colonial-period small door to the upper attic loft. Could this be where the first dreams were hatched, and then lost to bottle?

I muse on all of this as I amble up the road to the old tobacco barn, which in my own time is surrounded by fields of different lively greens and full of cobwebs and old horse manure. Every century and every settlement brought its own faith, trials and dreams; my own are no different, and they will sit quietly etched in the shadows of this place once I've moved on, as my predecessors.

Some echoes are proving more raucous than others, however. Part of my hardship of living in this place has been learning to deal with the amazing amount of trash that litters the entire forest, it seems. There is an old car, perhaps from the 1950's, "parked" not far from the barn. In several other places there are ancient kitchen appliances (and not-so-ancient), more cars from various eras, and glass bottles everywhere.

We start out so many life-projects with such hope and faith for good returns. And on it goes... Until one man's dream becomes another's garbage, I suppose.

It has been a struggle, alright, to learn to find my peace in this place.

Mu.

Mind & healing

2009-03-23T18:00:00.001-07:00

(you can find this image here)

Here follows a bit of drabble for my Zen friends...

I've been thinking a bit about the last exchange in the comments of my last post, and I realize I need to make a bit of an amendment to the assertion that I made that "Zen has no healing art". In fact, Buddha is often referred to as "The Great Physician", whose prescription cuts straight to the core of every person's suffering. A large part of this prescription involves practices designed to get one out of one's head into real, direct experience. To me, this is the heart of Zen: It doesn't really matter what you think. Instead, what do you do?

"Mind"-- what we think and worry about from moment to moment-- really can be the source of a lot of misery, especially from the perspective of trying to heal an illness. Sometimes there's a funny notion that one's symptoms must indicate something horrible...and we groove for a long while on that thought, which builds into more terrifying overtures, each one worse than the next... As a professional worrier, I've perfected this practice best of all!

But I think it's also important to realize that just as often, healing an illness in oneself is not always as simple as "mind over matter". In my studies of psychology and spirituality, quite often I've seen that these "worries" are flags sent out by the mind, much in the same way that pain sensations are flags sent out by nerve endings. These flags alert us to something being amiss, or bad, or dangerous to our healthy existence. So while it's true that to go down a path of over-blown worry will lead us to worse suffering, I believe it's just as true that ignoring the "flags" altogether keep us in dukkha, the state of suffering Buddha addresses in his teaching.

An idea from Suzuki Roshi (I think I remember him as the source, anyway! It's been a long while) illustrates my point. Absolutely nothing needs to be changed, nothing needs to be taken away. To me this says, mind does not need to "go away". That is not the "object" of Zen; in fact, there really is no object of Zen but an openness to direct experience. (Maybe Joko Beck would agree?)

So then, what does the direct experience of your pain offer you? What are your worries trying to alert you to? What behaviors need modifying? What old stories that you tell yourself need new editing? Just what is it that you are really trying to ignore? Herein lies the key to dukkha! And so that old mind seems to serve a purpose, after all. And that is at the core of my own Spring's Intent: using the mind as a resource for healing, for living fully-- for living completely.

I'm sounding preachy, I know; I hate it, and it's my own biggest pet peeve. But I read so much "Buddhist" thought that the physical world must be ignored or transcended in order to achieve enlightenment...and it saddens me. Samsara is Nirvana, as they say; so what if we embraced it fully, rather than so many times just pushing and pushing away? Roshi took his Demerol, after all...

Setting Spring's Intent

2009-03-11T19:28:00.000-07:00

Today was marvelously warm and docile, and a new carpet of green-- grass of every variety and stripe-- began poking its way through the brown haze of last year's growth. So too was it a day on the tail of the full moon, and on the wing-tip of a new cold snap sweeping in from the northwest. By day's end I realized it was the perfect opportunity, this space-between-times, not-quite-warm and not-quite-cold and not-quite-spring-but-not-really-winter, to set my intention for the coming year.

Rather, the intention seems to have set me for once, for I am all excitement about it, and the fact that this year I can broadcast it from a virtual rooftop? Well. A lot of people seem drawn to this inner exercise of intention-setting for the new year at the turn of the new year; using the quiet introspective nature of winter's chilly hoarding of light, folks like me hibernate a bit psychically, drawing in energy rather than putting too much out, meditating on what is in stock and what needs replenishing. The result buds out as spring's first leaves do, oftentimes with a quiet, "Ah-ha".

So here is my "Ah-ha". I have long wanted to make a serious study of herbalism, but I knew the time needed to be right; I knew I needed to have a few ducks in a row, to be clear about why I was doing so, and what methods I would undertake. I didn't want to learn about it just for another such notch under my belt.

Truth is, I read a lovely story in a Reader's Digest Condensed Novel once, of all places, and one image from that narrative has rested quietly as an inspiration in my mind ever since. I don't remember the tale, nor the author. But the image remains of a large room with old wooden cabinets, thick wooden countertops, and hundreds of gathered, dried herbs of all kinds hanging from the ceiling beams. I must have been all of 20 when I read that passage, and new to a more pagan orientation...and I knew that was the life I wanted-- or at least, the workshop of the life I wanted.

And now, I am excited, for I know a little more of just how I'd like to begin my study, and perhaps even a little more about how I'd like to use its benefit.

First, for inspiration, I treated myself to a copy of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. It is a lucky thing to have a birthday at this time of year, when birthing the ideas of winter's end can well use the energy generated by a birth-anniversary, and not to mention the little bit of cash flow that comes in as gifts. This is a political book, and an almost spiritual treatise to boot, of one family's decision to live off of only that which was produced in the vicinity of their home. I've decided to read this bit-by-bit, drinking in the inspiration and hardship of a life lived locally, and well. Their story begins in that springtime switch, when surprise snowstorms remind one that life is not posey and sing-song; I am determined to meter my goals this time with a pinch of realism, so the raw honesty of this book is called for and appreciated.

And while I was in that bookstore, I grabbed a hold of something completely promising: How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, by Mark Bittman. He lists 15 different tricks for cooking seitan. I am in love with this book. Our daily alchemy with the plant world isn't so exotic and removed; it lives in our kitchens, several times a day at our tables, and I am ready to be moved. It's those basic interactions with the beauty of the living world that deserve the most attention. I am curious to see what new relationships to food might transpire.

Of course none of this would be any fun without a more esoteric exploration, would it? Here my texts of choice are two that I have begun, but not had the time to dig too deeply into: The Secret Teachings of Plants by Buhner, and Healing Threads by Mary Beith. In the former, I'm hoping to recapture something of the magic that I lost long ago, when I chanced to have an amazing conversation with a sunflower, and I passed on it, because I was afraid, and ...well, it was a sunflower, so it felt a little like losing my mind.

Maybe that would have been a good thing.

So, I am eager to rediscover this world-- and this trust for what is in it, which surely lies beyond any thing I could imagine for it. "The world is too much with us," wrote Wordsworth-- too much getting-and-spending, and not enough being-with, and noticing. It is time to stop and not only smell the roses, but learn to converse with them.

I pray it is not too late. Already the sun today felt prickly and searing; the most direct spot on my porch thermometer read near-90*. What wisdom and beauty are we to lose in an era of Global Warming? Really, it makes me cry-- and it makes me afraid. Which brings me to the latter, Beith's book, which outlines the herbal tradition of the Celts of the British Isles, mainly what is now Scotland. I've no claim to be a Scots-Gaelic reconstructionist, nor a recon of any stripe, but what is essential is learning a wisdom that has been passed from generation to generation in my Celtic ancestry.

There was a cr person who once asked me why, if I was ordained in another tradition, weren't the gods of that tradition enough? Well, yes; and no. For there is no "Zen" healing art, and my fundamental belief is that one does not heal as a "healer" per se-- Rather, one heals in concert with the energy of the situation, the salve and spirit the herbs provide, and the co-action of the spirits in attendance. I've had some amazing interactions with one deithe and I feel an invitation by another who is willing to help me learn the tricks of my heritage-- should I be so bold as to just ask.

Along the way, I shall chronicle my efforts in learning relationship to plants here, and of my learning relationship to the deithe here. I welcome any wisdom or encouragement that my visitors might pass along...and I hope to impart something of benefit to those who also may use it when I'm done.

On the verge of my 39th year, as the wind howls and roots grow deeper,
Pilar

A relationship to time-in-place

2009-03-07T19:52:00.000-08:00

Lately my thoughts have traveled to issues of relating to time, as well as to place. It's no secret that the move back east has been a bit of a struggle for me; yet as the seasons are shifting once again, I find myself easing up a bit on my snarkiness, for the playgrounds are full, people are (almost) milling about in the warmer weather, and overall life seems to be bubbling about the place.

It is a good shift from that cold winter introspection...

Out! Up! Over!

I made three interesting discoveries today, and it made me think of this time of life, and this change in season. The first is pictured above: it is the subtle change-of-light that happens this time every year, just before the equinox. It is a light and a scent (not the "springtime" scent, but something related to it) that lets me know a "shift" has happened. And rounding the corner towards the kitchen, sure enough, I found it: a little bend in the light, and the light that particular quality of glow and golden-white that lets me feel to my bones that winter has indeed passed. The planet has endeavored to tilt towards spring once again! Hurrah, to the warm sun, and to the new life that wakes under the soil.

The second discovery was a teeeny bunch of crocuses that burst from out-of-nowhere in the oddest space next to my (dirt) driveway. (Kind of felt something like driving in to the Wal-Mart parking lot only to find the circus had come to town there :)

Third was a double-header. I walked a little ways into the forest this afternoon to deposit some chicken soup that went bad when our power went out last weekend. Down I stooped to dump the soup from it cauldron; and somehow I twisted upwards just the right way to see the brightest, greenest grass growing hidden in a dark thicket of bare trees and brambled branches. Sweet surprise! But then... in the ditch just before that thicket, I discovered a pile of old trash, mostly glass bottles of every size and color (but mostly of the "beer" variety"), that must have been collecting for over 20 years. My heart sank, so quickly I turned again to that electric green growing above it...

Despite all of our disrespect, Dear Mother, you continue to turn and grow and amaze with full, vibrant life. Ahhh, mile go raibt maith aghat! mile mile mile.....

So here then, to spring, and beginingless time; to the winter we all trudged through yet again, and the stirring of existence popping up into its brightest self once again.

On Mind & Place

2009-02-21T04:55:00.000-08:00

I had a nightmare about my mother last night... Not one of those gripping, tear-your-hair-out kind of nightmares, no. No, this one was a "subtle psychological thriller" wherein I finally expressed something I'd been holding back, and as a result, my entire family disappeared!

I've been writing a lot lately about my relationship to place, which has been in the forefront of my thoughts since our move to this strange new land called Maryland. But I could just as easily write of my sense of losing my place within my own family of origin, for that is precisely where my wanderlust began-- that fundamental need to know who I am, and from where I belong.

In Buddhism, the answer is easy. There's no need to go searching for the shooter of the poison arrows that pierce your existence, as Buddha's parable goes; one need simply "be here now", in life and in death. Attend to what requires attention now: and what awakens in that moment contains more beauty, more significance, than the entire story of your life put together.

In Zen, I have seen that attention misconstrued as a necessity to ignore the wounds instead, and decide to be "awakened". I've been told, you are not spiritually evolved enough. You are forever trapped by your thoughts, a fellow Zen student said once. He was all of 21 and smug in his self-assurance that he'd figured it all out. And I hated him in that moment: the smug self-assurance, the certitude of his answer, the way his posture brightened as he said it.

Ah, you just wait, I thought. You just wait until someone comes and pulls the rug out from you so completely that you lose sense of all direction, of purpose. Then maybe you will see that "enlightenment" is not something you decide!

Murder, rape, incest, physical harm... there are human sufferings that transcend thought, for they live in the body so very deeply even when the acts of them have long disappeared. One cannot think rationally beyond them, to "attain" some better state. It certainly has been my struggle on the zafu to understand why.

And always that "Soto Kid" pops up in my mind, that smug self-assurance, that severe judgment and simplicity. Yet for all my judgments against him, I recognize now it's actually my own judgments against myself that I detest...wondering, why can't I just get over this? Is there something wrong with me? And worse: why can't I be more Zen about this?

Yet in the end, it is precisely because of my very deep wounds that I am given a great gift indeed. When a trauma lives in your body, you become keenly aware that the world is not black-and-white; such as, memory reveals itself as a cellular thing, not just a simple "pattern of thought" that ought to be annihilated. It is in this discovery that one realizes the beauty of being, the utter complexity of living-- and for myself, one begins to sense that such things serve a purpose. The mind is not an enemy that lives in the head, in other words. It is a protective blanket to those who have been deeply disappointed by life...It is the tenderness that lives between friends who have never met (such as in the blogsphere!)...It is the breath of existence itself, the color of the world that surrounds us, as we define it through our experience of it. The trick for me, then, is learning to define less, and learning to come to know--by attentive, direct experience--more.

Floating

2009-02-03T20:52:00.001-08:00

Ahh, giving in to joy, at long last!
Bright spot in an open river.
No sides to speak of.
I forgot them all,
the minute I laughed...

Féile Bhríde sonas ort!

Quietness

2009-01-28T17:56:00.000-08:00

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You're covered with a thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign
that you've died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full moon
comes out now.

(trans. Coleman Barks with John Moyne, The Essential Rumi, 1995)