Well, it has been a long time, friends, that I've been away, and it has been a difficult and dark journey. In February I had my seventy-first birthday, less dramatic and disturbing than the 70th, and I am feeling rather hopeful, not so helpless and frail. It is just a number after all! And we are all moving toward death, no matter how old or who we are. I am sleeping, after a fashion, and feeling ambition to work on something that really matters, which happens to be my book. So, this year will see a new burst of energy as I revise its backstory and peel away more layers of my lonely past...
Since I last wrote, two miraculous and lovely things have happened in my life: I have become a great grandmother, and I have adopted a small gentle terrier who is called Peaches, who comforts me with her gentle spirit and her endless affection. Being a great grandmother is a feat, to be sure, or should I call it a landmark? The arrival of little Eadweard in Oregon has brought warmth and love and community into my family; we smile proudly at the miracle of a new human being in our midst. I am grateful. I am so grateful for the new life, for the love that lurks under the layers in my family, in all families. I am in Oregon now amidst great blustering rain and gray skies, and have been gazing in wonder at this little boy, and feeling bathed in the unspoken love felt by my daughter, granddaughter, and others. I am here with my sweet dog Peaches who looks like a dappled little white greyhound with giant black eyes. She is my best friend these days, for she has shown me how to sleep, to be in the moment, and feel gratitude. She embodies love, as does my little great grandson. As I consider these two, I am reassured again that what really matters in life, the only thing really, is love.
I am going to take this love as I go forward and feel it and create from it. I will persevere. I will complete my creative vision. My gratefulness is limitless, and even in gray and damp Oregon I see the sun shining brightly.
My Elephant Friends
Amboseli elephants
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Thursday, December 31, 2015
The Past, Present, and ... Welcome to 2016!
I am inclined to look back, always have been.... An astrologer once warned me that I had perhaps a troublesome tendency to dwell in the nostalgia of the past, and when I heard this, I agreed immediately. That was many years ago, and I'm still doing it. In fact, I recently spent two years writing a memoir, trying to dig through layers of memory in order to make sense out of my life's trajectory -- to answer the question: just what has this life been about really? What kind of story does my life look like?
But what has been interesting about this year 2015 that is now passing is that certain life events have forced me to plant myself squarely in present time and pay attention. It has been a difficult year as years go, but I believe insight has occurred and with that some sense of ease. On February 22, I passed the 70 year mark, sometime in the late spring my right leg and ankle showed signs of inflammation, and fatigue, in the fall I quit a job I had dearly loved after a ten year stint, and at some point a little later I fell into an insidious pattern of sleeplessness.
Instead of celebrating seventy years of life, I had chosen a darker view, one where I looked behind me at the very long succession of happenings, many of which I couldn't remember clearly, and at the same time saw the path ahead becoming shorter and shorter. I went about my normal daily life with this somber weather inside my head. And then, the body spoke to me, its injury forcing me to pay attention. It would appear that it was time finally for me to attend to this body that has been carrying me around all these years with some respect and compassion. And so I embarked on a journey of doctors and tests and physical therapy, struggling to summon lovingkindness for myself. Leaving my ten year job of tending the dying was a big and painful step, and a necessary one. The gifts of those ten years of witnessing were huge -- the equanimity, patience, love, and spaciousness of mind -- but I knewI had to move away from death and put my attentions elsewhere. It was in the end like leaving home... And then came all those nights in the dark when I couldn't sleep, as time slowed down to a painful crawl while I tossed and turned, wavering between meditative acceptance and outright anger. My Buddhist practice couldn't stop me from feeling really angry at both body and brain that were denying me the rest I needed. And rather than be irritated that I was a bad Buddhist, I returned again to lovingkindness, and patience, as I tried to find medicinal help.
The circuits in my brain seemed to be permanently set to fire, with the "on" switch refusing to be turned off. And so, problem solver that I have always been, I pondered and reflected about just why my brain was locked into perpetual vigilance. What was it trying to protect me against? I am not sure I've found an answer, but I am pretty sure a clue lies in the past - yes, the past, my old stomping grounds. As a neglected solitary child I was always watching the comings and goings in the world around me in order to feel safe. They now call this hyper vigilance. And all the recent excavating of my young story just might have opened the door to some very old fear. Fear of what? Running out of time? A failure to create one last meaningful thing? Inability to attain real love? The unspeakable mystery (challenge) of dying alone? Whatever face this vigilance takes, it is all about fear. And fear is about what's ahead of us. The future. Which of course doesn't really exist ... it is forever just ahead of us.
As I look ahead to 2016, I'm happy to report that my body has found rest, my mind is clearer, while the melancholy still walks with me. And as I look more closely at melancholy, I realize it is rooted in a deep love of my life ... a love so big and beautiful I can't bear that it all will end. My authentic self is fairly young, really; she didn't show up until I could carve out work and practice for myself that would allow me to express my deepest (truest) feelings and thoughts. I was probably in my fifties when the real Mag emerged, having endured growing up with a difficult mother, trying out motherhood and marriage herself, finally landing in academia, a place which gave her great comfort and knowledge. How many more years she has to express herself in the world is of course unknown. But the good news is that right NOW she is here, paying attention to messages from her body and brain, breathing in and out, and looking for beauty wherever she can find it: in friendships and family, cats, music, traveling, or watching the stunning little hummingbirds that whiz by for a little nectar in the late afternoons...
I wish all who read this ease and peace and love in the "new year," as we navigate a complicated, painful, and beautiful world.
But what has been interesting about this year 2015 that is now passing is that certain life events have forced me to plant myself squarely in present time and pay attention. It has been a difficult year as years go, but I believe insight has occurred and with that some sense of ease. On February 22, I passed the 70 year mark, sometime in the late spring my right leg and ankle showed signs of inflammation, and fatigue, in the fall I quit a job I had dearly loved after a ten year stint, and at some point a little later I fell into an insidious pattern of sleeplessness.
Instead of celebrating seventy years of life, I had chosen a darker view, one where I looked behind me at the very long succession of happenings, many of which I couldn't remember clearly, and at the same time saw the path ahead becoming shorter and shorter. I went about my normal daily life with this somber weather inside my head. And then, the body spoke to me, its injury forcing me to pay attention. It would appear that it was time finally for me to attend to this body that has been carrying me around all these years with some respect and compassion. And so I embarked on a journey of doctors and tests and physical therapy, struggling to summon lovingkindness for myself. Leaving my ten year job of tending the dying was a big and painful step, and a necessary one. The gifts of those ten years of witnessing were huge -- the equanimity, patience, love, and spaciousness of mind -- but I knewI had to move away from death and put my attentions elsewhere. It was in the end like leaving home... And then came all those nights in the dark when I couldn't sleep, as time slowed down to a painful crawl while I tossed and turned, wavering between meditative acceptance and outright anger. My Buddhist practice couldn't stop me from feeling really angry at both body and brain that were denying me the rest I needed. And rather than be irritated that I was a bad Buddhist, I returned again to lovingkindness, and patience, as I tried to find medicinal help.
The circuits in my brain seemed to be permanently set to fire, with the "on" switch refusing to be turned off. And so, problem solver that I have always been, I pondered and reflected about just why my brain was locked into perpetual vigilance. What was it trying to protect me against? I am not sure I've found an answer, but I am pretty sure a clue lies in the past - yes, the past, my old stomping grounds. As a neglected solitary child I was always watching the comings and goings in the world around me in order to feel safe. They now call this hyper vigilance. And all the recent excavating of my young story just might have opened the door to some very old fear. Fear of what? Running out of time? A failure to create one last meaningful thing? Inability to attain real love? The unspeakable mystery (challenge) of dying alone? Whatever face this vigilance takes, it is all about fear. And fear is about what's ahead of us. The future. Which of course doesn't really exist ... it is forever just ahead of us.
As I look ahead to 2016, I'm happy to report that my body has found rest, my mind is clearer, while the melancholy still walks with me. And as I look more closely at melancholy, I realize it is rooted in a deep love of my life ... a love so big and beautiful I can't bear that it all will end. My authentic self is fairly young, really; she didn't show up until I could carve out work and practice for myself that would allow me to express my deepest (truest) feelings and thoughts. I was probably in my fifties when the real Mag emerged, having endured growing up with a difficult mother, trying out motherhood and marriage herself, finally landing in academia, a place which gave her great comfort and knowledge. How many more years she has to express herself in the world is of course unknown. But the good news is that right NOW she is here, paying attention to messages from her body and brain, breathing in and out, and looking for beauty wherever she can find it: in friendships and family, cats, music, traveling, or watching the stunning little hummingbirds that whiz by for a little nectar in the late afternoons...
I wish all who read this ease and peace and love in the "new year," as we navigate a complicated, painful, and beautiful world.
Sunday, December 20, 2015
Generations
I have a box of crinkly black and white photographs in my closet that tell bits and pieces of my mother's and my far distant past, going back to a time before I was born. I've had grandiose plans to turn them into a chronicle of a long lost past, introducing all the characters, and making insightful and clever quips about their characters.
The photo that comes to mind now is of a very portly couple: my great grandparents, the McCarters of New Jersey. They are both dressed in black, and he holds a cane resolutely even though he is sitting, and both their mouths are set in a grimace-like expression. They were certainly not the relatives whose laps you would leap up into and smile disarmingly. There was a time I went to their house, I must have been about 4 or 5, and I remember lots of dark wood, a musty smell and heavy paintings on the walls. They were formidable each sitting in their respective arm chairs, and I was daunted. I don't recall why we were there, my mother, grandmother and me, but I do remember feeling as though we had no connection and I playacted at being a good little girl as we sipped our afternoon tea. That was the only time I saw them in person. Later as I grew up I remember bragging to my classmates that I actually had great grandparents -- this wasn't all that common then. Also later in my life I realized that my grandmother, who liked to call herself Gigi, was a grand wealthy woman who grew up in a household cold as ice, and who very likely was not cuddled, caressed, or read to. It helped me to forgive her for how she raised my mother, who along with her younger sister grew up under the watchful eye of a series of stern governesses, and had very little maternal tenderness in her life.
So this is what my lineage looked like on my mother's side of the family... the dazzlingly rich yet barren emotional landscape these women in particular traveled through. Though my mother made an attempt to rearrange her identity from rich heiress to bohemian artist, she failed to hone a warm, motherly heart. So lineage matters, you see. It is the baggage we carry as we move through our lives. Somewhere inside my lonely young heart I knew I wanted a different experience when I had children, and I stumbled though the 60's and 70's trying on alternative this and that, baking cookies and bread, and involving myself with my two girls. It often seemed to be an experiment, at times quite imperfect and helter skelter ... And we all survived it, and became close in the end.
A remarkable event occurred in my life this last Friday. A baby was born to my eldest granddaughter in Oregon which magically turns me into ... yes, a great grandmother! I think it's something I will have to practice saying, sort of the way I had to admit to becoming 70 years old earlier this year. In a Portland hospital, there is a cherubic little boy with wisps of reddish brown hair who has a most peaceful demeanor from the images I have seen, and he is now part of my lineage. He gets to take his place in this quirky family drama that is filled with everything from joy to chaos and sadness. His emergence into the world fills me with a sense of possibilities, despite what I feel about the cruelty and violence we are surrounded by these days. Yes, return to the positive ... how can you not, when you look at the innocent countenance of a newborn? Each of us was once a tiny helpless infant with no clue of what the world was or how to survive in it, and because we were shown to use our own best instincts and emotions we found our path. As serious and contemplative as I've become, I know for certain that for a few precious years in my life I had that sense of the possibilities and the wonder.
I have been learning to listen to the 70 year old voice inside me which tells me what I really want to do, as opposed to what other people wish. It certainly seems like it's time to do that in my life! If not now, when? I have been practicing, or certainly trying to, lovingkindness in the face of my own nagging physical limitations (the sleeplessness, the angry tendon), and the failings of others whom I care for. I am going to return to my work as a writer because that is truly something I want for myself. There is a book that is so close to being finished... I am blessed to have given myself the chances for self-expression and creativity that my great grandmother McCarter would never have had available to her. It's no wonder she looked like such a sour puss in many of the old photo! And speaking of those photos, I think I'm going to get cracking on that book of ancient family images, so I can finally honor my complex family lineage. And if I do this, then my new great grandson when he is much older will be able to gaze curiously at all those characters who preceded him, including Great Grandma Mag!
This little guy whom I have not yet touched, has brought a warm ray of light into what has felt like a very unsettling year, and I'm grateful...
The photo that comes to mind now is of a very portly couple: my great grandparents, the McCarters of New Jersey. They are both dressed in black, and he holds a cane resolutely even though he is sitting, and both their mouths are set in a grimace-like expression. They were certainly not the relatives whose laps you would leap up into and smile disarmingly. There was a time I went to their house, I must have been about 4 or 5, and I remember lots of dark wood, a musty smell and heavy paintings on the walls. They were formidable each sitting in their respective arm chairs, and I was daunted. I don't recall why we were there, my mother, grandmother and me, but I do remember feeling as though we had no connection and I playacted at being a good little girl as we sipped our afternoon tea. That was the only time I saw them in person. Later as I grew up I remember bragging to my classmates that I actually had great grandparents -- this wasn't all that common then. Also later in my life I realized that my grandmother, who liked to call herself Gigi, was a grand wealthy woman who grew up in a household cold as ice, and who very likely was not cuddled, caressed, or read to. It helped me to forgive her for how she raised my mother, who along with her younger sister grew up under the watchful eye of a series of stern governesses, and had very little maternal tenderness in her life.
So this is what my lineage looked like on my mother's side of the family... the dazzlingly rich yet barren emotional landscape these women in particular traveled through. Though my mother made an attempt to rearrange her identity from rich heiress to bohemian artist, she failed to hone a warm, motherly heart. So lineage matters, you see. It is the baggage we carry as we move through our lives. Somewhere inside my lonely young heart I knew I wanted a different experience when I had children, and I stumbled though the 60's and 70's trying on alternative this and that, baking cookies and bread, and involving myself with my two girls. It often seemed to be an experiment, at times quite imperfect and helter skelter ... And we all survived it, and became close in the end.
A remarkable event occurred in my life this last Friday. A baby was born to my eldest granddaughter in Oregon which magically turns me into ... yes, a great grandmother! I think it's something I will have to practice saying, sort of the way I had to admit to becoming 70 years old earlier this year. In a Portland hospital, there is a cherubic little boy with wisps of reddish brown hair who has a most peaceful demeanor from the images I have seen, and he is now part of my lineage. He gets to take his place in this quirky family drama that is filled with everything from joy to chaos and sadness. His emergence into the world fills me with a sense of possibilities, despite what I feel about the cruelty and violence we are surrounded by these days. Yes, return to the positive ... how can you not, when you look at the innocent countenance of a newborn? Each of us was once a tiny helpless infant with no clue of what the world was or how to survive in it, and because we were shown to use our own best instincts and emotions we found our path. As serious and contemplative as I've become, I know for certain that for a few precious years in my life I had that sense of the possibilities and the wonder.
I have been learning to listen to the 70 year old voice inside me which tells me what I really want to do, as opposed to what other people wish. It certainly seems like it's time to do that in my life! If not now, when? I have been practicing, or certainly trying to, lovingkindness in the face of my own nagging physical limitations (the sleeplessness, the angry tendon), and the failings of others whom I care for. I am going to return to my work as a writer because that is truly something I want for myself. There is a book that is so close to being finished... I am blessed to have given myself the chances for self-expression and creativity that my great grandmother McCarter would never have had available to her. It's no wonder she looked like such a sour puss in many of the old photo! And speaking of those photos, I think I'm going to get cracking on that book of ancient family images, so I can finally honor my complex family lineage. And if I do this, then my new great grandson when he is much older will be able to gaze curiously at all those characters who preceded him, including Great Grandma Mag!
This little guy whom I have not yet touched, has brought a warm ray of light into what has felt like a very unsettling year, and I'm grateful...
Monday, November 9, 2015
The Way Out is the Way In
I have a card on my desk that says "The Way Out is the Way In," a beautiful little printed woodcut showing a soulful face with a bird swooping over it. The eyes of this face are somewhat hollowed and heavy lidded, a little weary looking, which is the way I've been feeling lately. Chogyam Trumpa Rinpoche wrote this, and it's these words I want to explore.
In all the years I have been meditating on retreat I have heard different iterations of this saying, and it wasn't until the last week in October when I sat the Fall retreat at Spirit Rock that I allowed myself to accept this necessary and painful inward journey. I understood that no matter how many remedies I tried to cook up for my loneliness, restlessness, confusion, and fear, I still had to look inside myself to make myself better, to care for myself. What I discovered inside amidst the confusion and fog from lack of sleep was a deep sadness, an aching of loss for my grandmother and mother whom I've loved and lost, and a relentless cruel self critic that I'll call Hortense. Alongside this unlikely mix I could feel a heart beating that made my body feel warm when I touched my chest, and helped me to say words like, "May I be Happy and Peaceful" to myself like a prayer in the dark of night.
When I couldn't sleep at night, I pulled the blankets up around me and breathed deeply through my whole body in the darkness, when I felt the pinching in my leg and ankle from my injury while walking to the dining hall, I tried to send kindness and compassion to my body, instead of spite and resentment, and when my body twitched in restlessness on the cushion, I simply saw it as restlessness in the body, not anything inherently wrong with me. One of our teachers said one night, "You are not your own fault," and the more I replay that in my mind, the more wisdom I find. We inhabit bodies we didn't choose, and these bodies do a wide variety of things that we have no control over, and then they age, and then they die. The bodies are NOT who we care. They are our temporary home... We need to tend them, care for them the way we the resting place we call home. And we need to locate within this bodily home the compassionate heart that says, "I forgive you for harm caused, for your inherent imperfection..." This is part of that inward journey, along with the part where we allow the pieces of ourselves that have caused us shame and sadness. It turns out that it is all of a piece, like they say. One complex mosaic of the dark and the light, the throbbing of love and the aching of despair.
This last month has been a time more of darkness than light for me, but now I am trying to reach inside and find the warmth. The numbers of hours I haven't slept, the confusion and anger and fear that has come as I begin to feel cognitively impaired, the different remedies I have tried that have not done their magic, and the sense of floating through a surreal dream that has resulted from all of it -- these have colored my time and dampened my spirits. But there have been a couple of little gifts along the way which have given me hope and energy: my visit to the dignified old temple-like Columbarium here in San Francisco where I will have a niche for my ashes behind a lovely little glass door in a room where sunlight pours through stained glass windows, and then a visit to Oregon to celebrate the impending arrival of a great grandson, a gathering where I was surrounded by daughters, granddaughters, other relations and friendly souls hugging one another and laughing, while a gentle cool rain fell outside. It had been so long since I had seen rain, and I remember putting my face up to it and smiling, feeling the cobwebs being washed away. Within the space of just a couple of days I witnessed my own final resting place and the prospect of a brand new child in my family whom I will get to know only briefly. Death and life all felt, and deeply.
I am softened by all of this and there seems to be more space in my heart. I can go here when sleep refuses to come. It is my real home.
In all the years I have been meditating on retreat I have heard different iterations of this saying, and it wasn't until the last week in October when I sat the Fall retreat at Spirit Rock that I allowed myself to accept this necessary and painful inward journey. I understood that no matter how many remedies I tried to cook up for my loneliness, restlessness, confusion, and fear, I still had to look inside myself to make myself better, to care for myself. What I discovered inside amidst the confusion and fog from lack of sleep was a deep sadness, an aching of loss for my grandmother and mother whom I've loved and lost, and a relentless cruel self critic that I'll call Hortense. Alongside this unlikely mix I could feel a heart beating that made my body feel warm when I touched my chest, and helped me to say words like, "May I be Happy and Peaceful" to myself like a prayer in the dark of night.
When I couldn't sleep at night, I pulled the blankets up around me and breathed deeply through my whole body in the darkness, when I felt the pinching in my leg and ankle from my injury while walking to the dining hall, I tried to send kindness and compassion to my body, instead of spite and resentment, and when my body twitched in restlessness on the cushion, I simply saw it as restlessness in the body, not anything inherently wrong with me. One of our teachers said one night, "You are not your own fault," and the more I replay that in my mind, the more wisdom I find. We inhabit bodies we didn't choose, and these bodies do a wide variety of things that we have no control over, and then they age, and then they die. The bodies are NOT who we care. They are our temporary home... We need to tend them, care for them the way we the resting place we call home. And we need to locate within this bodily home the compassionate heart that says, "I forgive you for harm caused, for your inherent imperfection..." This is part of that inward journey, along with the part where we allow the pieces of ourselves that have caused us shame and sadness. It turns out that it is all of a piece, like they say. One complex mosaic of the dark and the light, the throbbing of love and the aching of despair.
This last month has been a time more of darkness than light for me, but now I am trying to reach inside and find the warmth. The numbers of hours I haven't slept, the confusion and anger and fear that has come as I begin to feel cognitively impaired, the different remedies I have tried that have not done their magic, and the sense of floating through a surreal dream that has resulted from all of it -- these have colored my time and dampened my spirits. But there have been a couple of little gifts along the way which have given me hope and energy: my visit to the dignified old temple-like Columbarium here in San Francisco where I will have a niche for my ashes behind a lovely little glass door in a room where sunlight pours through stained glass windows, and then a visit to Oregon to celebrate the impending arrival of a great grandson, a gathering where I was surrounded by daughters, granddaughters, other relations and friendly souls hugging one another and laughing, while a gentle cool rain fell outside. It had been so long since I had seen rain, and I remember putting my face up to it and smiling, feeling the cobwebs being washed away. Within the space of just a couple of days I witnessed my own final resting place and the prospect of a brand new child in my family whom I will get to know only briefly. Death and life all felt, and deeply.
I am softened by all of this and there seems to be more space in my heart. I can go here when sleep refuses to come. It is my real home.
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
In the Midst of Confusion and Suffering ...
Well, it hasn't been a very "examined life" lately, I must say ... These last two weeks I have been wandering in a surreal landscape of sleeplessness and confusion, and have been performing only the most rudimentary of tasks in order to get through the days. Sitting down and writing often felt like it was beyond the scope of my abilities, and I knew this, and it was o.k. For the time being. Because everything is just "for the time being."
In a darkened room late at night I lie on my couch - now turned into a bed - and I breathe deeply, wishing to spread calm through my nervous system. And I think about so-called pleasant thoughts so as not to agitate my brain: thoughts like the beautiful video I saw of the orphaned elephants in Kenya being lovingly tended by their keepers, or the pleasures of the novel I'm reading, or imagining getting together soon with my family ... Benign and comfortable thoughts. Following what I've learned about sleep disorder, I have turned off the television and engaged in less stimulating activities like reading before I turn out the light. Medications sit at the bedside as well as a cup of what I call "sleepy tea"... I am not doing well on the couple of meds I've taken for reasons unknown, and I keep searching for another way to help myself sleep ... Perhaps a pot-laced piece of chocolate will help... Yes, as a matter of fact it did help last night.
But there are more nights to come, and life is uncertain... What does this insomnia suggest? Am I anxious or worried? Am I stressed or angry? Is my body's chemistry changing in some mysterious way that causes this hyper vigilance ? Does knowing the answer to any of these questions really help? What does help?
I do know there is too much bad news inside my head, and I am considering going on a news fast. This will be hard, because I'm addicted to the Evening News Hour on PBS, and the NY Times online. The school murders, the hospital bombings, drowning cities like Charleston, the mean spirited energy on the political front ... these and much more. The vibrations from these horrors are swirling in my brain every day, with only the occasional respite of good news, like the real and compassionate Pope Francis in Washington DC and New York, or our Governor Brown signing the Assisted Dying law in California, or the beautiful soulful face of President Obama as he declares he will make gun control political, because that's the only place where we can negotiate a change. Yes, there's a lot to think about and hold.
There's also the young bright eyed high school students who come to 826 Valencia to be tutored in writing on a Monday evening -- energetic, and shy, precocious, and sometimes awkward, these kids are committed to working on their writing. They have stories to tell and a willingness to learn how to go down that writer's road, a hard one for sure. There's also the tender loving respect in a room of hospice volunteers past and present whose hearts are breaking because their community seems to be seriously eroded and the zen in the Project is clearly fading away. And of course there are the random acts of kindness that come to us as we go through our days, small and sweet, sometimes just a random smile, or something so small we barely see it.. We don't have to think of the world as a terrifying place really because on the other side of the terror sits the beauty of people's feelings and actions. The old "10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows" that the Buddha talked about...
BUT, when you haven't had enough rest and sleep, a lot about the world does feel scary: the speed of every moving vehicle in the city, the noises both sudden and ongoing, surrounding you as you navigate your way through the day. I feel like an old lady these days, mincing along slowly, watching my every step. You could say I'm becoming increasingly mindful, I guess, and that's a good thing, but there is also a lurking feeling of overwhelm from everything around me. So, I must stop and simply see this as "overwhelm," and not let it define me or my experience. That's what a "good Buddhist" would do. I do know this, but will I practice it, will I be able to dis-own this difficulty? I want this very much ... not so I can call myself a good Buddhist, but so I can open my heart again to my life, and work and think more spaciously.
Maybe tomorrow, after I spend an hour really waking up (for that is what it is like on medications), I will sit on my cushion for a while and breathe. Yes. I think that's a good plan. And see what shows up. And if my granddaughter's face comes to me I will smile, or if I see a slaughtered elephant or drowning person, I will just breathe deeply and send out love to the world ... and to myself. It appears that this is what I must do.
In a darkened room late at night I lie on my couch - now turned into a bed - and I breathe deeply, wishing to spread calm through my nervous system. And I think about so-called pleasant thoughts so as not to agitate my brain: thoughts like the beautiful video I saw of the orphaned elephants in Kenya being lovingly tended by their keepers, or the pleasures of the novel I'm reading, or imagining getting together soon with my family ... Benign and comfortable thoughts. Following what I've learned about sleep disorder, I have turned off the television and engaged in less stimulating activities like reading before I turn out the light. Medications sit at the bedside as well as a cup of what I call "sleepy tea"... I am not doing well on the couple of meds I've taken for reasons unknown, and I keep searching for another way to help myself sleep ... Perhaps a pot-laced piece of chocolate will help... Yes, as a matter of fact it did help last night.
But there are more nights to come, and life is uncertain... What does this insomnia suggest? Am I anxious or worried? Am I stressed or angry? Is my body's chemistry changing in some mysterious way that causes this hyper vigilance ? Does knowing the answer to any of these questions really help? What does help?
I do know there is too much bad news inside my head, and I am considering going on a news fast. This will be hard, because I'm addicted to the Evening News Hour on PBS, and the NY Times online. The school murders, the hospital bombings, drowning cities like Charleston, the mean spirited energy on the political front ... these and much more. The vibrations from these horrors are swirling in my brain every day, with only the occasional respite of good news, like the real and compassionate Pope Francis in Washington DC and New York, or our Governor Brown signing the Assisted Dying law in California, or the beautiful soulful face of President Obama as he declares he will make gun control political, because that's the only place where we can negotiate a change. Yes, there's a lot to think about and hold.
There's also the young bright eyed high school students who come to 826 Valencia to be tutored in writing on a Monday evening -- energetic, and shy, precocious, and sometimes awkward, these kids are committed to working on their writing. They have stories to tell and a willingness to learn how to go down that writer's road, a hard one for sure. There's also the tender loving respect in a room of hospice volunteers past and present whose hearts are breaking because their community seems to be seriously eroded and the zen in the Project is clearly fading away. And of course there are the random acts of kindness that come to us as we go through our days, small and sweet, sometimes just a random smile, or something so small we barely see it.. We don't have to think of the world as a terrifying place really because on the other side of the terror sits the beauty of people's feelings and actions. The old "10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows" that the Buddha talked about...
BUT, when you haven't had enough rest and sleep, a lot about the world does feel scary: the speed of every moving vehicle in the city, the noises both sudden and ongoing, surrounding you as you navigate your way through the day. I feel like an old lady these days, mincing along slowly, watching my every step. You could say I'm becoming increasingly mindful, I guess, and that's a good thing, but there is also a lurking feeling of overwhelm from everything around me. So, I must stop and simply see this as "overwhelm," and not let it define me or my experience. That's what a "good Buddhist" would do. I do know this, but will I practice it, will I be able to dis-own this difficulty? I want this very much ... not so I can call myself a good Buddhist, but so I can open my heart again to my life, and work and think more spaciously.
Maybe tomorrow, after I spend an hour really waking up (for that is what it is like on medications), I will sit on my cushion for a while and breathe. Yes. I think that's a good plan. And see what shows up. And if my granddaughter's face comes to me I will smile, or if I see a slaughtered elephant or drowning person, I will just breathe deeply and send out love to the world ... and to myself. It appears that this is what I must do.
Saturday, September 19, 2015
A Siesta for the Ego
My body has been delivering a few truths to me lately, and since I do NOT want to contemplate the circus of the political right wing, the desecration of Planned Parenthood, the tragic journey of migrants across Europe, or my deep seated ambivalence about Hilary Clinton, I thought I'd take a look at what I've been seeing lately and how it has made me feel.
I wrote last time about letting go, definitely a recurring theme in my blogs posts, but I have a feeling now that I haven't quite mastered it. I seem to be doing this only intermittently, when my ankle hurts and asks for compassion, or my granddaughter writes me a letter that opens a previously closed door so we both can begin again, or when I let go of a work relationship that has ceased to nurture me. New challenges now lurk.... I have been exhausted lately, way more than normal, and have had a couple of health practitioners tell me that my 70 year old adrenal system is depleted and needs for me to find new and different ways to rest. I have in fact been fleeing disaster and seeking safety since I was a lonely little girl in an adult world... At the same time, I have been having a terrible time not being able to sleep. So, fatigue and wakefulness present themselves side by side. An odd, irrational couple, I must say. Insomnia is new to me, and I am experiencing serious resistance to this unwelcome sleeplessness in the quiet and the dark of night. It all feels too abnormal ... after all, night is the time your body is naturally inclined to sleep, right? What happens when you get only four hours a night, as any insomniac will tell you, is that your brain starts to feel impaired, and you move in slow, repetitive motion as though carrying your exhausted body through dense fog. You often feel unsafe, and even just a bit demented. And as soon as I think of dementia, the brain takes me to death and dying. And the unpleasant dark cycle is perpetuated...
None of the above is in the end cause for worry, really. There is no mortal illness in the picture. There are plenty of people out there suffering much worse physical and emotional conditions -- you have only to read the newspaper or click into Facebook to find this out. There is simply a dysfunction in my body's efforts to carry on that is crying out for attention. And this doesn't mean to planning my next distraction, like a trip to Mexico or New York city, or a lovely dinner out at some special restaurant. No, the answer would seem to be much simpler, really. But it is as well a new challenge. It involves stopping. Resting. Giving up on the obsessive striving. This last becomes such a familiar pattern for us humans, I think, this nagging message that we are here on earth to accomplish great things, perform well, get ahead, be recognized. It is part of today's climate where so much is valued in terms of how quickly it will get you the desired results... As we get older, we begin to sense significant limitations to our energy and the shortening of our journey, and so an urgency creeps in, reminding us that we never know how much time there is, and we'd better get cracking if we want our lives to mean something. But, but ... this is mind chatter, really. This is the hard working super ego that insists it tells the truth.
I doubt very much whether human beings like the Dalai Lama or Pope Francis swim ceaselessly in their thoughts about doing and not doing, or the unkind admonitions about performing perfectly ... they are too busy leading their purposeful lives, speaking their truths and opening their hearts to those they encounter. These gentlemen - and it is true they are infinitely gentle beings - are driven by love and compassion to remind their fellow humans of the possibility of freedom. They are thoughtful teachers much like Jesus who saw no divisions amongst humans but rather their goodness, potential, and ability to find the way out of suffering. I believe it is a fact that teachers must teach, just the way we all must breathe, and eat, and sleep, in order to live. This work is always needed in the world, this opening of doors and minds, and it requires a surrendering of oneself and an absence of doubt and self-judgment.
I have spent about 15 years teaching young people to write creative works and good expository papers, and as I look back on that now I don't recall a lot of time spent spinning in my mind about the how of it all. I just showed up and did the work and felt more alive and present for myself than ever before. And the more I showed up, the closer I became to my students, and the better I got. It was never about following a game plan, really, but more about just being present for the work. I have an opportunity now to return to the teaching world as a volunteer tutor, and the prospect of this new relationship makes me happy inside. I must trust this. And I must take my rest deliberately and creatively when I can so I have the energy to make a difference in the days ahead. That is what is true: just these days ahead, day by day.
I wrote last time about letting go, definitely a recurring theme in my blogs posts, but I have a feeling now that I haven't quite mastered it. I seem to be doing this only intermittently, when my ankle hurts and asks for compassion, or my granddaughter writes me a letter that opens a previously closed door so we both can begin again, or when I let go of a work relationship that has ceased to nurture me. New challenges now lurk.... I have been exhausted lately, way more than normal, and have had a couple of health practitioners tell me that my 70 year old adrenal system is depleted and needs for me to find new and different ways to rest. I have in fact been fleeing disaster and seeking safety since I was a lonely little girl in an adult world... At the same time, I have been having a terrible time not being able to sleep. So, fatigue and wakefulness present themselves side by side. An odd, irrational couple, I must say. Insomnia is new to me, and I am experiencing serious resistance to this unwelcome sleeplessness in the quiet and the dark of night. It all feels too abnormal ... after all, night is the time your body is naturally inclined to sleep, right? What happens when you get only four hours a night, as any insomniac will tell you, is that your brain starts to feel impaired, and you move in slow, repetitive motion as though carrying your exhausted body through dense fog. You often feel unsafe, and even just a bit demented. And as soon as I think of dementia, the brain takes me to death and dying. And the unpleasant dark cycle is perpetuated...
None of the above is in the end cause for worry, really. There is no mortal illness in the picture. There are plenty of people out there suffering much worse physical and emotional conditions -- you have only to read the newspaper or click into Facebook to find this out. There is simply a dysfunction in my body's efforts to carry on that is crying out for attention. And this doesn't mean to planning my next distraction, like a trip to Mexico or New York city, or a lovely dinner out at some special restaurant. No, the answer would seem to be much simpler, really. But it is as well a new challenge. It involves stopping. Resting. Giving up on the obsessive striving. This last becomes such a familiar pattern for us humans, I think, this nagging message that we are here on earth to accomplish great things, perform well, get ahead, be recognized. It is part of today's climate where so much is valued in terms of how quickly it will get you the desired results... As we get older, we begin to sense significant limitations to our energy and the shortening of our journey, and so an urgency creeps in, reminding us that we never know how much time there is, and we'd better get cracking if we want our lives to mean something. But, but ... this is mind chatter, really. This is the hard working super ego that insists it tells the truth.
I doubt very much whether human beings like the Dalai Lama or Pope Francis swim ceaselessly in their thoughts about doing and not doing, or the unkind admonitions about performing perfectly ... they are too busy leading their purposeful lives, speaking their truths and opening their hearts to those they encounter. These gentlemen - and it is true they are infinitely gentle beings - are driven by love and compassion to remind their fellow humans of the possibility of freedom. They are thoughtful teachers much like Jesus who saw no divisions amongst humans but rather their goodness, potential, and ability to find the way out of suffering. I believe it is a fact that teachers must teach, just the way we all must breathe, and eat, and sleep, in order to live. This work is always needed in the world, this opening of doors and minds, and it requires a surrendering of oneself and an absence of doubt and self-judgment.
I have spent about 15 years teaching young people to write creative works and good expository papers, and as I look back on that now I don't recall a lot of time spent spinning in my mind about the how of it all. I just showed up and did the work and felt more alive and present for myself than ever before. And the more I showed up, the closer I became to my students, and the better I got. It was never about following a game plan, really, but more about just being present for the work. I have an opportunity now to return to the teaching world as a volunteer tutor, and the prospect of this new relationship makes me happy inside. I must trust this. And I must take my rest deliberately and creatively when I can so I have the energy to make a difference in the days ahead. That is what is true: just these days ahead, day by day.
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Letting Go and Moving On ...
I have taken to being out in the world more these days, feeling the almost soporific effects of hanging out in my beautiful cave-like little house on White Street, and wanting to find a change. This journey into being seventy this year feels fraught with self-reflection, hunkering down alone with my cats and my books and my addiction to NPR, and pondering, always pondering, the slowing down of my routine. A weird and claustrophobic life, I've been thinking. And so I sit now in one of my favorite lunch joints, at the bar looking out the open windows onto bustling Chestnut street where San Franciscans march through the 85 degree heat with apparent ease. I don't enjoy the heat, especially in this city known for the cool sea air, the fog, the eternally unchanging temperate climate. Yesterday I felt the city gasping under this heat, and the baking warmth coming off all the stone buildings and the sidewalk, and it seemed I was walking in a surreal universe. I prefer this sitting iindoors at the pretty wooden bar with my IPad and recording my reflections, and finding amazing focus in all the hubbub.
About a week ago I quit a job I had been doing for over ten years, and my system - that is my mind AND my heart - is still getting used to it. I have been a volunteer caregiver for the dying here in San Francisco at a remarkable organization called Zen Hospice Project, and it has been a journey of learning, expansion of heart, tears and laughter, more learning, and the giving and receiving of love. Working amongst about 60 other volunteers, I have become witness to the greatest mystery of our human lives, watching people traverse the border between the living and the dead, and breathing with them as they go. It was hard at first as I got used to the strange sounds of death rattles and sights of strange fluids and the chilling reality of the shutting down of a person's body. And pretty soon the world of the dying became a natural and normal one, and there was no more pulling back, and I saw I was being given an incalculable gift: intimacy with other human beings at the most momentous, and most undefinable moment of their life. And so I showed up every Thursday to spend 5 hours in mindfulness and service. It colored the rest of my life, for sure, and I believe helped me become a better listener, a better witness to life's strangeness, and it gave me a community that felt like home, a place where clear speaking and authentic listening prevailed, and where we were (are) guided by our understanding that we are not in control in this life.
Relationships emerged and then faded as fellow volunteers came and went, as we continued to watch the dance of impermanence. I worked at Laguna Honda hospital, a somewhat bedraggled skilled nursing facility that a local writer has called "God's Hotel," and then moved on to serving at our small facility in an elegant old Victorian house on Page Street where we welcome only six patients at a time, and are able to help them create new homes in their rooms, and prepared homemade organic meals for them. A rarified world this was/is. Our days were always punctuated by 10 minute meditations followed by thoughtful sharing of personal and hospice experiences. Needless to say, we all got to know each other very well over time, which you can't always say for our relationships to the residents who came and went with an ephemral rhythm, some staying for a few months, some for only a few days...
Somewhere along the journey of this work of mine, I began to feel overwhelmed, or just worn out, by this living with the finiteness of mortality and impermanence at every turn, and as I saw the organization begin to define itself in a new way, I thought that my part as a player was coming to an end. Change was coming, and I saw that I couldn't allow myself to feel a part of that. AND, my personal life was shrinking and narrowing, which made me feel less sanguine in some ways. Everything seemed to be pointing to the importance of a change of routine. A little voice was murmuring at me: get out in the world more, move away from the cave of contemplatioin and reflection... which translates to leave the introspective world of hospice care and get out of the meditative nest of your home, and see what it's like to be a seventy year old lady in the city, complete with bum ankle and creaky joints.
So here I am on a very hot San Francisco afternoon sitting on a barstool and beginning to look outward just a bit ... consider the intoxicating world of men and women and cats and dogs and streets and rolling hills and goldfinches and hummingbirds, and ...........There is a lot to this being alive thing, I've found, and as I exit the womblike enclosure of house and hospice service, I am inspired and hopeful. The gifts of contemplative pratice and mindful service will always be with me no matter where I land, and I will forever treasure the voices and spirits of those I helped get to the end of their lives.... We (I am) are a part of all that we have experienced, and there something beautiful in the aging process ... sort of like the deep, velvety bouquet of an old wine.
With deep gratitude to Zen Hospice Project ...
About a week ago I quit a job I had been doing for over ten years, and my system - that is my mind AND my heart - is still getting used to it. I have been a volunteer caregiver for the dying here in San Francisco at a remarkable organization called Zen Hospice Project, and it has been a journey of learning, expansion of heart, tears and laughter, more learning, and the giving and receiving of love. Working amongst about 60 other volunteers, I have become witness to the greatest mystery of our human lives, watching people traverse the border between the living and the dead, and breathing with them as they go. It was hard at first as I got used to the strange sounds of death rattles and sights of strange fluids and the chilling reality of the shutting down of a person's body. And pretty soon the world of the dying became a natural and normal one, and there was no more pulling back, and I saw I was being given an incalculable gift: intimacy with other human beings at the most momentous, and most undefinable moment of their life. And so I showed up every Thursday to spend 5 hours in mindfulness and service. It colored the rest of my life, for sure, and I believe helped me become a better listener, a better witness to life's strangeness, and it gave me a community that felt like home, a place where clear speaking and authentic listening prevailed, and where we were (are) guided by our understanding that we are not in control in this life.
Relationships emerged and then faded as fellow volunteers came and went, as we continued to watch the dance of impermanence. I worked at Laguna Honda hospital, a somewhat bedraggled skilled nursing facility that a local writer has called "God's Hotel," and then moved on to serving at our small facility in an elegant old Victorian house on Page Street where we welcome only six patients at a time, and are able to help them create new homes in their rooms, and prepared homemade organic meals for them. A rarified world this was/is. Our days were always punctuated by 10 minute meditations followed by thoughtful sharing of personal and hospice experiences. Needless to say, we all got to know each other very well over time, which you can't always say for our relationships to the residents who came and went with an ephemral rhythm, some staying for a few months, some for only a few days...
Somewhere along the journey of this work of mine, I began to feel overwhelmed, or just worn out, by this living with the finiteness of mortality and impermanence at every turn, and as I saw the organization begin to define itself in a new way, I thought that my part as a player was coming to an end. Change was coming, and I saw that I couldn't allow myself to feel a part of that. AND, my personal life was shrinking and narrowing, which made me feel less sanguine in some ways. Everything seemed to be pointing to the importance of a change of routine. A little voice was murmuring at me: get out in the world more, move away from the cave of contemplatioin and reflection... which translates to leave the introspective world of hospice care and get out of the meditative nest of your home, and see what it's like to be a seventy year old lady in the city, complete with bum ankle and creaky joints.
So here I am on a very hot San Francisco afternoon sitting on a barstool and beginning to look outward just a bit ... consider the intoxicating world of men and women and cats and dogs and streets and rolling hills and goldfinches and hummingbirds, and ...........There is a lot to this being alive thing, I've found, and as I exit the womblike enclosure of house and hospice service, I am inspired and hopeful. The gifts of contemplative pratice and mindful service will always be with me no matter where I land, and I will forever treasure the voices and spirits of those I helped get to the end of their lives.... We (I am) are a part of all that we have experienced, and there something beautiful in the aging process ... sort of like the deep, velvety bouquet of an old wine.
With deep gratitude to Zen Hospice Project ...
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