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Antidote for Worry? Soup!

in Confusion to Clarity, Fall, Family Stress, Noticing, Remembering

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My worries have worries. So I built little matchstick houses

with large ceilings, a garden for them to grow tomatoes, cilantro, & carrots

their worry babies will eat.

—Laura Villareal, Poetry Unbound

Last week my friend Jenni sent me this snippet of a poem. And there it was, in one perfect image. Everything I’ve been hearing from friends and strangers alike for the last five years. “Worry babies” seem to be invading the planet: growing in gardens, dropping from trees. Once they get established, worries, like crabgrass, tend to take over, setting up residency in our brains and getting busy raising their own worry families. Sometimes they take cover in dreams, full of spikes and hooks that keep drawing us in when we’re just minding our own business. This is the work of the Nightime Worry Family, whose patchwork ticky-tacky housing development parties get wild about 3:00 am.

One of my favorite thoughts about worry comes from Bridge of Spies. Tom Hanks’ character, who is trying to save a spy who might well be executed at any moment, repeats his one question three times: “Aren’t you worried?” The reply is always the same:  “Would it help?” If you’d like to check it out this link.

Lately I’ve been asking Wilma, my inner Worry Wart, if she’s trying to help,  because it sure seems the opposite. She made the case that ignoring her completely might mean turning off flashing yellow lights that keep me safe. But often, especially in the middle of the night, her honest answer is “no.”

Although an actual worry may contain the seed of a solvable problem (or at least an action item) by the light of day, the ones that set up housekeeping and wake you up at night do NOT offer solutions. Their job is to feed on any anxieties the body may have stored. In unprotected moments, when you forget to ask if it helps to worry, they can have their way with you, repeating past regrets or imagining fearful futures in an endless loop.

The best hope for evading the Nighttime Worries is to notice the quick moment when we start to feel ourselves getting hooked at other times in our daily lives. This can be especially challenging during the holidays because that’s when worry families thrive.

Try it out for yourself. sometime, in one of those elusive moments a when a worry first arises. Ask yourself whether it’s helpful. Breathe deeply once or twice. Just this much might be enough. Sometimes simply remembering to pay attention at that moment can calm the system. Next, find a quick way to tend to your actual body in some way, even if that means washing your hands or stretching for a couple minutes. Embrace whatever acts of self-care you can, even if it means a quick bathroom Time Out in a moment of overwhelm.

When the time is right, you might ask your version of Wilma the Worrier to help develop a long-term plan. Allow some time to listen to what calms her, especially if you tend toward worry loops. Ask her to prioritize your to-do list, quietly eliminating her crazier ideas. If you listen closely, she might suggest you cut out unnecessary duties or dance or take a walk move excess energy. Or perhaps she’d like a little Time Out for herself. Send her to the spa and then give your body and spirit a few minutes (or hours) for a nervous system reset. Cozy up. Take a quick nap if you can. Simply stare out the window while savoring a comforting hot drink.

Even better, nurture yourself by getting soupy.

Warmly,

PS. Below is a great soup created from a couple of other recipes by way of my friend Martha. The first is from relishmag.com for African Peanut Stew. The second  is from  http://wpr.org/zorba/recipes/z07-0203r.htm (African Peanut Soup). Enjoy!

 

Getting Soupy

I get all soupy in the fall

Squash and pumpkin soupy

Mulligatawney soupy 

Chicken noodle soupy

Muertos with salty tears soupy

Sacred soupy

with your face 

in every spoonful,

each memory of you, 

all that and more

reduced now to a rich melange

congealed on the serving spoon

at the end of this meal.

But I’m still the same greedy monkey

who sops it up, every bit,

with a soft sourdough roll.

—SgB

November, 2022

Martha’s Peanut Soup w/Veggies 

1 tbsp. olive oil

1 onion finely chopped (about 1 ½ cups)

1 medium bell pepper (chopped)

1 large yam (peeled and diced)

1/2 chopped carrot (2 small)

1/2 cup chopped celery

1 cup zucchini, diced

3 cloves garlic (more to taste)

2 tablespoons minced, fresh peeled ginger, more to taste

Jalapeno pepper to taste

*1 tablespoon curry powder 

(or this combination of spices: 1 tsp. ea. mustard seed,

ground cumin,. turmeric, coriander, cinnamon plus ¼ tsp. cayenne

1 (14 ½ oz.) can diced tomatoes, drained (or may use combo. of diced toms. and salsa)

4 – 8 cups veggie or chicken broth to desired thickness

1 bay leaf

1 ½ cups edamame

1 cup garbanzo beans 

¼ cup creamy or crunchy natural peanut butter or almond butter (mix in bowl with some of the broth)

¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro

5 oz. baby spinach or kale, torn into bite-size pieces

Salt and pepper to taste

Brown rice

1) Heat olive oil in a large saucepan, add fresh veggies (zucchini last), sauté until soft and translucent.

2) Add garlic, ginger and curry spices and sauté until fragrant.  Add tomatoes and bay leaf, cook uncovered until tomatoes are slightly reduced.

3) Add broth, diluted peanut butter, edamame and garbanzo beans and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low and simmer.  Cook until thoroughly heated.  Stir in cilantro and spinach until spinach wilts.  Season with salt and pepper.  May  top with fresh cilantro, diced green onion and/or plain yoghurt.  Serve over rice.  Serves  8.

Balancing in the Land of Autumn

in Fall, Power of Connection, Radical Kindness, Remembering

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Fall Equinox found me in in Augusta, Missouri. a town of two or three hundred in my home state. I was there for a biking adventure covering a chunk of the Katy Trail, an official state park that winds through farm and river country along the Missouri River for 253 miles. Now the longest Rails to Trails route in the country, the land was first cleared by the MKT railway (This stands for the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas, or the Katy line, for short). 

The Katy Trail is the longest uninterrupted biking and hiking path in the country represents the collaboration of industry (railroads retiring old lines) and donations, with a whole lot of negotiations along the way. 

In the 1990’s, when the trail was being developed, the folks from the tiny farm towns along the Missouri river were not happy. They feared invasion by outsiders from other parts who would no doubt bring drugs and other undesirables into their insular communities. In other words, Trouble in River City.

The path turned twenty last year. And the struggling farm towns along the way are  now dotted with profitable B & B’s, antique stores, and restaurants.

The first wine country in the US has been reclaimed. The path winds through an area that once produced more wine than anyone else in the country, but during prohibition all the established old-world vines were ripped out of the ground.

So it’s possible that the path has brought danger to the river cities, but whatever danger that is, it probably wouldn’t start with pool halls. These changes have defied expectations and provided triage for the shrinking small-farm economy. 

So what does all this have to do with Fall Equinox?

When I woke up on September 22 in a beautifully restored Victorian B&B in tiny Augusta, it made sense. For me this time of year is all about balance, especially the balance of opposites, just as light and dark are equal on this one day of the year. So it seemed a fine way to spend the day, balancing on my bike, speeding along the flanks of the Missouri River, thinking about the unity of opposites. While breathing in the serenity and idyllic beauty of limestone cliffs and spacious river and autumn colors.

But my mind kept returning to opposites in politics. In the middle of vacation. I know.

For me the political and regional divisiveness of the last few years has been exhausting. I glean the news to find a sense of hope, trying to create equilibrium in my own mind.

But on that first day of fall, in a town once abandoned as river commerce died, it occurred to me that I was in the right place for the season. In the exact middle of America, in the middle of a “red state,” riding on the shoulders of the widest river in the country (and third widest in the world), all felt in balance.

This, I thought, is truly the middle path. Not conservative or liberal, not afraid or angry. Just people meeting people, people helping people, people connecting with people, acting from kindness and generosity, with a little free market enterprise thrown in. From that middle way has come a gradual trust, a balanced change. An inspiration for my own life, certainly. And a blueprint for our country and our world. A hope for a future of small, local action. A path of equilibrium.

Katy the Trail

You pierce the heart of this continent

like a dogwood arrow slowly landing 

under green canopy, in a bending and twirling pas de deux with the third widest river in the world. 

Who needs the Amazon or Congo

when there’s the Missouri River, queen to her core, 

lined with wrecked steamboats,

bare muddy shoulders cloaked with horsetail reeds

scattered bouquets of purple asters 

fields of radiant yellow blooms with black eyes?

Katy, without the clickety clack

of iron horses 

Your job is to be, 

still and quiet, 

offering your charms to human pedalers, 

sharing your warm embrace equally 

with copperheads and bicycles 

and sworn enemies of red and blue, 

giving a hand up to farming hamlets

no longer ghosts of the past 

but offerings to a future of beauty and simple pleasures, 

seated in the power of place.

 

—SgB

October, 2022
 

The Magic of the Crack Between Worlds

in Identity, Noticing, Remembering, Summer

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Here in the Northwest, reliable sunny summer weather typically lasts for only a few weeks. Summer can feel like a crack in time between seasons. So many of us try to wring out every little drop of out-of-door essence, condense it, and bring it home as a hedge against winter (or other unforeseen quarantines). 

After our family’s mountain cabin burned down in the conflagration of 2020, after hanging out for a couple of years in pandemic isolation, my long-time husband and I decided earlier this summer that it was a good time to drive down memory lane. So we headed out, bikes in tow, to visit outposts from our early lives, when we were in our early twenties and worked for the forest service on recreation and fire crews, usually in remote locations. It felt like peeking back through a crack in time. Fifty years of time.

Our trip began with the lookout tower where we resided and kept fire watch in our early twenties, George was designated main lookout, but he was also a fire fighter. When there was a lightning bust, he’d put on his hardhat and drive a fire tanker down the hill to try to find spot fires. Then it was my turn in the tower to track the lightning hits, using binoculars to detect an orange glow, trusting an amazing device called an azimuth finder to align it with his headlights. This all had to happen while standing on a glass stool, careful not to touch metal so as not to get fried by lightning.In other words, boredom bookended with occasional hits of adrenaline. 

We lived in our workspace, so we spent 24 hours a day in the same room for six months. Edward Abbey, an acclaimed environmental writer who lived and wrote in a lookout tower for three years, said that the best test of a marriage was to assign a husband and wife a job on a lookout. According to him, “Couples who survived this were destined for a long marriage, and they deserve it.” In my humble experience, it also helps if you’re young or in that “merge” stage of love that makes small spaces cozy and desirable. Lots of things have changed in our marriage during that gap of time, including our relationship with personal space, but we seem to still be living examples of Abbey’s contention.

One lookout where we lived was at the top of a steep road that wound its way up a cinder cone. The entire range of the central Oregon Cascades was our wallpaper. At night the stars and flirtatious visits by the Northern Lights were our entertainment. The tower stood out as a sentinel on the caldera, and it was also the first structure of an area that is now a national monument. So our little cabin on stilts served as an interface between the wild world and humans. We were only one flight up some stairs, so during the day the same refrain drifted through our windows: the sound of winded tourists would gasp for breath while they read the altitude sign. At high volume. And the altitude never once changed in all that time.

Most of the time we laughed at life there on the crack between humans and the wildness of nature. We hung out, staring out over the land for a blue haze, binoculars at the ready. While one or the other of us did that responsible thing, the other read or played an instrument. I planned to learn to play the banjo and never progressed past “poorly.” But we worked up a fake-bluegrass version of Smokey the Bear to torture the visitors at the end of the season. We got back at those altitude readers. I marvel now at our ingenuity and ability to entertain ourselves.

We were the last people to live in this particular tower, which is now staffed only during the day. It was a bit of a shock during our first stop on this summer’s nostalgia tour, then, when were boarded on a shuttle bus stuffed with other tourists that disgorged passengers about every half hour at the top of the caldera. I gasped my way to the top of the crater, stopping to read the altitude sign. Out loud. Once there, it almost seemed as if we were able to enter a crack in changeless time because it was all so familiar. Except the number of people swarming the caldera. I was taken aback by how rugged the living was, with a far steeper hike than I remembered, especially round trip down the little switchbacks to the only bathroom, a pit toilet.

We continued our trip to a couple of once-isolated resorts, now full of people, even though the pristine areas remain protected and once again seemed much the same, and there was an odd sense of comfort consistency in nature. We biked through stunning meadows and looped a whole lake, grateful for new bike baths. Another day we pedaled through the remains of whole towns that burned down and are now being replaced with manufactured villages, stripped of gardens and trees. Blackened ghost trees hovered dark and tall over new growth of grasses and ferns along the creeks, witnesses to the cracks in the world created by wildfire.

Ever since that trip, I notice that little cracks of wonder are everywhere, in so many places: old times and now times, honeymooners and silver anniversary celebraters, wild spaces and civilized ones, children and grandparents, night and day, destruction, damage, and renewal, summer and fall, There’s a magic in this simple but profound peek between worlds. A sense of being held by all of it, despite occasional evidence to the contrary. 

May you find yourself held when the cracks in your world don’t seem kind.

 

Long View

Over fifty years ago 

we went to sleep every night 

in a glass house tied on top of poles 

perched on a lava cone.

Our enemy was a flash of lightning, 

a pewter puff in the distance 

a glimmer in the dark 

a smudge in a valley.

Our tools were a radio, 

a behemoth metal fire finder

and a platoon ready to pounce.

 

We woke up embraced by mountains, 

watched the snow dissolve until it was gone,

went to bed to among stars and sometimes

the green petticoat of northern lights flounced our way.

 

Our fears then were lightning busts,

renegade campfires

and the thought that

we might end up living ordinary lives.

First one and then the other of us 

was the on-duty watcher 

while the other one was left 

to dream and scheme.

And right there on the caldera we began

to gradually glimpse our future 

circled by an entire range of mountains,

and all the time in the world. 

 

And when autumn came and socked us in

we surrendered, unready as we were, and 

began to grope our way 

into what was next.

 

—SgB

August, 2022

Subversive Power of the Smile

in Getting Unstuck, Power of Connection, Radical Kindness

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Happy Summer!
 
Gathering in community is challenging right now, for oh so many reasons. We’re already reeling from culture wars fed by deeply-held beliefs and trumped-up divisions and differences. Then there’s the confusion and chaos of rapid change. To make it worse, recovering from the isolation or trauma of the pandemic sometimes makes it awkward to simply be around other people. At long last our mouths are mostly disrobed. But I notice even this can be awkward, even for me, a naturally friendly person in a small, relatively safe town. For those who are just beginning to emerge from grief, anger, or fear from the troubles of the last couple of years, it can feel frighteningly vulnerable.
 
As human beings, it is our nature to thrive when we gather with others. So how do we go about life now, in our first “normal” summer in three years? Some of us start with church or go to farmer’s markets. Others brave the unpredictability of airline travel flights to reunite with family and friends. Or we find ways to naturally embrace real live community, in public spaces with children playing and babies toddling, perhaps accompanied by actual live music.
 
Lately I’ve been thinking often of a long-ago trip to Thailand, “Land of Smiles.” Even though the airline lost our bags, even through jet lag in a country radically different than my own, I experienced a curious feeling of well-being after a couple of days. I had already noticed that all the locals smiled as we passed. All of them. It was infectious and also faintly familiar, like going to the Oregon Country Fair or another festive gathering. But it took me a while to figure out that so much smiling had some powerful juju.
 
What I now know is that in Thailand there are 13 or more distinct smiles. The most common, reserved for strangers, is a smile to say hello, a polite courtesy. But even this smile, which I might usually find insincere, had worked on me. Since that trip I’ve discovered research on the increase in dopamine and endorphins and all manner of good chemicals humans experience when smiling. And yes, studies show it’s infectious to give and receive smiles.
 
I recently thought about the Thai tradition of smiling when I read these words by Richard Rohrer: “We don’t think ourselves into a new way of being. We live ourselves into a new way of thinking.” I suddenly knew just how to go about recovering from my awkwardness. I could live myself into a new way of thinking by the simple, conscious practice of smiling at folks whenever or wherever I could, regardless of what team they seemed to be playing on.
 
My radically subversive act began. Almost immediately what might have seemed false before felt like my true nature. I was living myself into a new way of thinking by simply smiling.
 
It’s been a remarkable experiment. Infectious. Fun. And real.
Join me? 😄
 
True Nature
 
Yesterday down the oak outside my window
A masked raccoon slowly crept, face first, 
Striped tail straight up, prehensile claws holding fast. 
Tiny nuthatches do this too
And somehow the earth doesn’t rise up 
To claim their bodies, break their necks,
Or punish them for their arrogance.
Must be their true nature, I think.
 
Meanwhile, this body of mine, 
held upright by bumpy ankles of many breaks,
Plops and slides down the slippery clay riverbank 
butt first rather than risking a crooked footfall. 
Sometimes, I think, true nature 
also requires getting low on the earth,
having a seat, and then trusting gravity with the rest.
 
 
—SgB 6/2022

Respect Existence. Expect Resistance.

in Getting Unstuck, Noticing, Surrendering, Wordlessness

Calm lake

My eyes seem to be trained to focus on text in all forms. So I can’t seem to keep myself from reading any big print I come across, like bumper stickers. I realize this might not be true for everyone, but some of us can’t help ourselves. One of my friends referred to the habit of reading whatever comes into view as “life according to text.” A whole lot of text pollution comes through my brain without my noticing, even when I shut off my phone with the express intention of slowing down my brain.

A couple of weeks ago I flew to a silent retreat in the high Sierra mountains to clear some clutter out of my brain. On the road and in the airport, my eyes just kept on reading, as they do, collecting aphorisms and occasional cleverness along the way. I arrived at the destination still in compulsive reading mode. Retreat Center. Check. Pristine mountain lake. Check. Bumper sticker. Must read. Respect Existence. Expect Resistance. Double take. Whoa! Deep, I thought for a second.

Then my brain skidded to a sudden stop. These four words seemed to just sum it all up. Life. The Universe. Everything. Inside out. Outside in. The word “Resistance” has come to mean something very specific of late. From the outside, it would seem that respecting existence (healthy planet, bodies, animals, lakes, oceans…on and on) does in fact bring up resistance from those who see their interests threatened. But this is the kind of over-thinking I was trying to forget for the week, away from the daily bombardment of polemics.

The focus on this week was internal. So I brought myself back, asking myself a question: where do I experience resistance when I respect my own existence?

Only almost always, came the answer. And I’ve noticed it’s not just me. For just about everyone I know, respecting “existence,” the life we’re calling our own, involves making one change or another. Cutting down on carbs. Going vegan. Taking up hiking, yoga, writing, or anything that calls us. And especially the Big One: becoming more mindful in how we live our lives. Any little thing can bring up some other opposing force. Something we casually refer to as “resistance.”

The odd thing is that the closer the change is to our essential self or our life calling, the greater the resistance. This is the good news and the bad news. I’ve been examining this for a while now, but during this retreat I sat with the puzzle of it. Day in and Day out. Living in inquiry, I watched myself move in and out of the life force. Feeling the flow, joining it. Noticing the ways my critical mind or old habits show up. Then, understanding that resistance isn’t futile, I returned to the flow of existence once again. Which is where I find myself today, in my “regular life.” Expecting (and understanding and respecting) the way of it. All of it.

In the meantime, when I get lost in the trance-like feeling of resistance, my favorite William Stafford poem brings me right back to the sweet summer, to this time of life, to what is truly important. To existence.

Why I Am Happy

Now has come an easy time. I let it roll.
There is a lake somewhere 
so blue and far nobody owns it. 
A wind comes by and a willow listens 
gracefully. 
I hear all this, every summer.
I laugh 
and cry for every turn of the world,
its terribly cold, innocent spin.
That lake stays blue and free; it goes 
on and on.
And I know where it is.

– William Stafford

What my Kewpie Sisters Taught Me About The Mojo of Jomo

in Approval, Body or Aging, Identity, Noticing, Power of Connection, Remembering, Surrendering

220px German Kewpie With Heart Sticker

I just spent the weekend in the Kansas City celebrating a landmark birthday (one with a zero in it), along with a dozen other women who are exactly my age. Hint: we’re all from the first wave of Baby Boomers. Okay. Seventy. We call ourselves the Kewpie Sisters. Because that is what we are, alumnae of Hickman High School, home of the Fighting Kewpies. For real. Would I make this up?

We gathered smack dab in the middle of the flyover zone. The group of women who came together was as diverse as this country, held by a common bond of caring that is far stronger than “the great divide” we keep hearing about. But we didn’t have time to talk about that. We had better things to talk about.

Mostly we laughed and shared our common memory banks to reconstitute teenage versions of ourselves. Then we reflected back, mining the experience and offering up the perspective that we have collected in the last 50-plus years. What showed up was something I believe is called Wisdom in some people’s minds, including my own. At this time of life, it’s indescribably satisfying to be able to share the take-aways from life’s apparent setbacks and challenges. And I always love honoring my curiosity about what I don’t know (which, when it includes the mystery of life, is a whole lot).

Gone were the social roles, the need for acceptance that seems to come with the teen years. My own strategy way back when was to join every activity and choir and group available except women’s sports, and I’m not even sure we had those teams in the Stone Age.  But my major motivation was this: I just didn’t want to miss out on anything.

This habit hasn’t changed all that much since my adolescence. Twenty years ago a friend diagnosed me with FOMS, the “fear of missing something.” In recent years the acronym has morphed into the pop psych meme FOMO, or Fear of Missing Out. So my ears perked up when my friend Vicki talked about being in a state of contentment, being satisfied with her “ordinary” life. This is a woman who has raised four children who are global citizens, who has traveled extensively to keep in touch with them for many years. So when she mused that she was done with travel it got my attention.

I still have a few airline miles to cash in and a few travel goals that will keep me busy as long as I’m fit enough to pursue them. BUT, I completely resonated with her description of a satisfied life. More and more, I’m opting out of things. It’s been a gradual process, hardly noticeable except inside myself. I started to see that often when I choose to not slip into the loop of doing or the belief that I should do more, have more, be more…my mind settles down. I breathe. I watch the birds. Or the trees. I move slowly, like the “old person” I never wanted to become. And it’s blissful. How could I have ever known, with all my joining and searching and moving around, about the surprising quiet joy of this time of life? Ironically, in my determination to not miss out, I’ve been missing something far more subtle and sweet.

Mojo of JOMO. The Joy of Missing Out. The name came to me at the reunion. And then, returning home, Vicki sent me a link to a blogpost referring to another forty-something’s post on this same topic from a couple of years ago. So I guess Baby Boomers don’t always get to be first. As a matter of fact, perhaps this is the great learning of what I’m claiming as the True JOMO Years. Finally, at long last, we get to miss out on being first, the leaders, the trendsetters and rule breakers. It’s about time. JOMO to me includes the relief of giving up all old identities, including that one.

Several questions and wonderings arise. What did I actually miss when I was so busy strategizing how to not miss out?

A life lived with openings for whatever shows up, comes the answer.

There’s so much to be gained when I’m not busy chasing what I might be missing. What new openings are created when I don’t do, when I don’t fill my time with all the tantalizing offerings before me? I get curious.

Today a friend posted these words by the 87 year-old sage Ram Dass, one of the respected mentors of my generation: “Aging has its own beauty. It is a beautiful stage for doing inner work. You have a chance to not be so dependent on social approval. You can be a little more eccentric. You can be more alone. And you can examine loneliness and boredom instead of being afraid of them. There is such an art and a possibility in aging…”

Once again, he nailed it.

 

Image by Scottdoesntknow [CC BY-SA 3.0], from Wikimedia Commons

Singing For Life

in Noticing, Power of Connection

Music tree

This spring I returned to sing in a choir of my Homies called Jubilate!

It’s a different experience than chanting as a yogic practice. But it’s a practice still, singing harmonies with these women of all ages and stripes, songs about heart, about spring, and about what it means to stand up for what matters. This practice reminds me of what’s important, especially right now, when times can be pretty dark.

Last month we serenaded the local Marchers for Life, where about a tenth of the population of my town showed up. When we started I barely managed to squeak, flooded as I was by the tears and the beauty of all the layers of past and future that came together in the faces I saw. When I got home, it turned into a poem of impressions, a poem that could remind and inspire me. For Life. For Love. For these times.

 

One Foot In Front of the Other, and Lead with Love!

A choir of 30 women, named for jubilation,

We sing, sway, clap, and dance to the river of determined

Marchers for our Lives.

 

Arms linked, signs as varied

As their new bodies, their life-worn bodies, and in-between.

Pink flowers with the names of the fallen.

A skinny tween-aged girl carrying her advice:

Use Ur Indoor Voice. Don’t Yell at Us.

 

The songs, the river, the people keep flowing,

Never Turning Back.

We are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting for, we sing.

Won’t Let Nobody Turn us Around,

 

Mind holds a prayer:

May I remember this.

The constant constant constant beat

The never-ending flow of

The pulse that holds it all. The refrain:

It is time now, and what a time to be alive

In this Great Turning we shall learn to lead in love

Following the Glimmer, Not the Glitter

in Confusion to Clarity, Noticing

glowing embers

Midwinter at my home means a fire in the wood stove, a stew or soup bubbling on top, and a hover of crows cawing and landing in the meadow behind my house. Fitting subjects for contemplation. Like a crow, I’ve spent a fair amount of my life grabbing the next shiny object. I’ve collected experiences, workshops, credentials, books, and teachings like any good spiritual materialist. No regrets. Sometimes there’s been a huge pay-off for my curiosity, and sometimes I’ve gotten myself in some pretty tight situations. All of the resulting course corrections have taken the form of a learning curve. But at this stage of life, something a bit more subtle is operating.

Instead of grabbing onto the glitter, I’ve been leaning with curiosity into the glimmer and also suggesting my clients learn the difference.

When I get a little quiet with myself, my mind begins to imagine all the exciting and glittering futures it could create. This is when catchy YouTubes and online classes take me right into the sink hole. Next I wonder where the time has gone and how I’ll ever find the time to read the next self-help or spiritual book. And whatever time I’ve scheduled for writing or self-reflection is over. Carpool time, dinner time. Once again the taste for glitter has taken over.

But…when I remember that I’m not a crow, that I have a choice of where to put my attention, I’m more likely to spot a time-sink wormhole and bring myself back to what truly soothes and uplifts me. I’m more able to listen for something else, for a slight uplift in my body. If I slow down and look, there’s sometimes a cinder left from the past, some longing or inner curiosity. I can ask my heart to find it. Remembering the fire I built to keep away the chill, I can blow on the glimmering coal.

Staying curious, I watch for the glimmer to grow. Sometimes a slow, steady flame is ignited, and sometimes it’s an ember that dims and becomes an ash. I notice where it sparks, find some appropriate kindling by taking the next step. Only that one. After that I watch with curiosity, see what happens next, what resonates in the heart and the gut as true. After that, I keep it simple. I take the next small step that occurs to me.

I continue to watch, find a little piece of kindling, gently blow. On and on. Keeping it simple, I watch for life to show me the way. Then perhaps I sign up to sponsor that child in Nepal; perhaps I make some calls to a policy-maker, perhaps I take up tango or salsa.

It’s a subtle art, much less dramatic and stimulating than the shiny object approach, but instead of being stuck in tight places of my own creation, instead of being over-committed to everyone else or to the wormholes competing for my attention, over time I have a glowing life that sends new sparks and glimmers and offers new possibilities. But, best of all, I have a place to warm my hands.

The Lingering Gift of the Flu

in Body or Aging, Noticing, Surrendering, Wordlessness

Virus

I’m just emerging from the profound depths of this 2018 flu. I’ve developed a battalion of illness-fighting forces over the years, and it’s been decades since I actually experienced the full ride. But this month the little virus buggers wanted to set up shop, and they had their way with me.

While I was fighting them back there was struggle and stress. But then I remembered to ask one of my favorite questions of myself: How might this be a good thing? “It’s over. Give up the fight,” came an answer. After that, such a deep surrender. An opening. Peace. The mind stopped its incessant solving and strategizing. I simply couldn’t think that anything needed (or even could) be done. There were no appointments to be keep. No calls that needed to be made. No battles to be fought (or thought).

And what was left was breath, silence and spaciousness. The body had aches, fevers, coughs. Yes. And I can’t say that it was pleasant, but some other part of me could see that this existed inside something else, something vastly deep and powerful. Something that I could trust to either kill me or heal me. Suddenly nothing about it was personal.

I was already aware that sometimes these viruses take no prisoners and make no sense. So the breakthrough surrender wasn’t like a magical New Age carpet ride of positive thinking. I’m old enough to find evidence of my own ultimate fate all around me. A woman I know died of the flu three or four years ago. She was in her late fifties, fit and full of life force, on her way to Hawaii with her first grandchild and her children. There was no sense to it.

During the worst part of the flu, I remembered her. And instead of fear I experienced a deep understanding of my own powerlessness in the face of the most mysterious of forces. Without the words to frame it, there I was (or wasn’t) again. Simply a deep and powerful state of surrender and vast space.

It’s been a couple of weeks since this realization, and now I feel a lot like I did during my pregnancies. Once the morning zest (aka coffee) wears off, the tiredness comes…and goes…and moves around. I’m focused on catching the old habit of “pushing to overcome,” because I have somehow believed that this is the same as thriving. I don’t want to lose this new perspective.

There’s a different sense of things now, just at the edge of the fatigue. Something big, ineffable, irrefutable. A softness. A deep willingness to trust in the way of things.

It’s not altogether unfamiliar; it’s a way of being and living that I have sensed around the edges before. I’ve used words in an attempt to describe it. And I’m using words now. But ultimately words are no match for the peace. It’s an experience. And that has no words.

What’s left of the flu is a felt sense that I used to call fatigue. But now it feels more like gratitude.

Epiphany for Us All

in Noticing, Remembering, Winter, Wordlessness

Girls In The Flowers

It’s Epiphany today. For thirty years I’ve taken this holy day from the liturgical calendar as my own private day for solitude and reflection.

Will you join me?

This year I’m reflecting on this poem written by Pulitzer-prize winning Buddhist poet Gary Snyder during another dark time in history. I had two calligraphy versions scribed many years ago, and I framed and posted them near the door of my home and (later) in my mountain cabin. It continues to give me direction, comfort and support during these challenging times. May it inspire your days now.

 

For the Children

The rising hills, the slopes

of statistics

lie before us,

the steep climb

of everything, going up,

up, as we all

go down.

In the next century

or the one beyond that,

they say,

are valleys, pastures,

we can meet there in peace

if we make it.

To climb these coming crests

one word to you, to

you and your children:

Stay together

Learn the flowers

Go light.

-Gary Snyder, 1974

Barely Grateful

in Fall, Family Stress, Remembering

Leaves 970188 1920

The branches of the oak trees surrounding this Oasis are nearly bare now.

And so am I. Stripped of assumptions and suppositions about how the world works. The gratitude notebook I launched with such fervor last year has become largely forgotten. It’s been that kind of year. For for many of us.

But there’s good news on the horizon (At last!)
We actually have a holiday dedicated to celebrating gratitude! (Hooray!)
At a table loaded with rich foods! (Oh boy!)
With people who sometimes have different ideas than ours! (Groan!)
For all these things I’m barely grateful.

There’s a probability that Thanksgiving didn’t go so well for you last year, at least in the Family Peace and Politics Department. In addition, this year many of us have been closely touched by things that seem to be happening way too fast: Hurricanes. Earthquakes. Wildfire. Shootings. So unless we’re very careful or prayerful (or both), we’ll be bringing some stress to the table.

The magic of any yearly ritual, like Thanksgiving, is in the way it just keeps regularly rotating in, year after year. When we stop and gather, often with people unlike ourselves, there is a comfort and a perspective to this yearly rhythm. Despite everything, the seasons keep turning.

A year ago I committed myself to “grateful seeing,” as a spiritual practice. This means that, as I remember, I shift my lens and find gratitude in the current moment. This re-focusing accompanied me through the decline and death of my mother, the shootings in Las Vegas, and a wildfire evacuation. The practice of writing has anchored it all.

My blogposts of the last months are reflections on miracles and disasters and the life that holds it all. They are a gift of gratitude.

I gratefully raise a glass to Life…and to each of you.

To Life As It is!

Me Too, and Us Together

in Getting Unstuck, Identity, Power of Connection

Uniting for action

The courage to tell the truth and then to live it is at the beating heart of my understanding of feminism. I can still clearly recall the precise moment that this knowledge was born.

I was a newly married 21-year-old who had moved from the Midwest of the early sixties, through a time warp and straight to the hive of the counter culture that was Eugene, Oregon in 1969. The university town was becoming a growing refuge for a motley collection of hippies and yippies and draft-dodgers. Many of them had fled north to get away from the dark aftermath of Haight-Ashbury’s famous Summer of Love.

I, on the other hand, was just fleeing my sorority in the Midwest.

On our first day in Oregon my brand-new husband George and I were unpacking our wedding gifts and settling into our first apartment when a scruffy-looking guy came up the stairs to introduce himself. …and to check me out. Somehow I was surprised because I had thought that marriage was going to change all that, to keep me in a safe bubble. A couple of days later he showed up at my door when I was alone. But George happened to show up about that time, and my “admirer” did a quick about-face.

About a month later, Vanessa, one of my new friends, was raped as she was walking alone on campus at night by someone who jumped out of the bushes at her. Within the next week the same thing happened to two more female students. Vanessa was already a timid and shy person, but now she was even more quiet and withdrawn. Our small group of graduate students made sure she never walked alone. One evening while I was walking her home from dinner, I stopped to say hello to my downstairs neighbor and “admirer.” My friend kind of shrunk, becoming almost invisible. When we got home, she said that “that guy” seemed eerily familiar, that he might even be the perpetrator. She agreed to go to the police. We were there for several hours. They took polite notes but said they couldn’t go further “because the other two victims had already left for Christmas and couldn’t be interviewed.” We never heard anything back.  As far as I know, the case went unsolved.

This is one of my many “me too” stories, but it’s also a kind of “her too” story. Or an “us too” story, as I soon discovered.

Women’s Rally for NOW, the poster said.  Something about it caught my attention, some unresolved feeling left over from my friend’s rape.  This was that new group I had vaguely heard about.  I was no “women’s libber,” a label the people around me had always used with an eye-roll. But something about the poster, on the heels of my friend’s rape, beckoned me to move straight out of my comfort zone.

I went to the rally by myself because I was pretty sure that men weren’t invited. Never before had I been in such a large group composed entirely of women, and these women were so loud. I wasn’t so sure how I felt about the word “oppression,” but when these women gave true-to-life examples of women’s victimization, I just knew these things. Then some of them started talking about men as “chauvinist pigs.” But there was a funny feeling in my body, like something was popping. It was a bodily sensation that started in the bones and seemed like truth. Each time a new example of the social injustice of being a women was described, I felt the same feeling.

A flush of realization took over. What I saw in bold relief, was the oppression in my own mind.  I could see so clearly how I had shrunk to fit the people around me my whole life. And there were other ways I tripped over myself, too. And I couldn’t put it all on “them.”

It was “me,” too. Somehow I knew that THIS was also a part of what needed to change.  I knew clearly that I could do something about this, starting right then. All I knew was that the voice inside my head was strong.

I’m not a mic-grabbing kind of gal, but something was different that night. My voice shook, a reverberation that started with my knees and moved up. I was sure what I had to say wouldn’t be popular. But when someone handed me the mic, I said whatever needed to come out. I talked about my own internal obstacles, and made the commitment to starting with my life and cleaning up the ways I sabotaged me, before I started blaming the men in my life. The crowd cheered. Right on, Sister! I was stunned at their response. I had expected an argument. All I knew then was that something was happening, and I was a part of it.

I’m pretty sure I had never heard of the “personal is political” idea, which came to define the “second wave of feminism” which began that year. I’ve since learned that this move toward awareness was happening all around the country at the same time, like seed pods popping. The consciousness-raising groups that followed were “me too” groups, but we were all in the same room. Geographically limited compared to a Facebook movement, but it had its advantages.  We told our stories. We held each other’s hands. We also held each other’s feet to the fire, naming and questioning the internal obstacles to being a Strong Woman. Assertiveness groups were born.

Since that day I’ve been in more consciousness-raising groups than anyone I know. And those groups were followed by other women’s circles, book groups, spiritual growth groups, and artists’ and writers’ groups: probably twenty in the last fifty years. I created classes on women’s history and literature studies at high schools. During my 25-year career as a teacher I listened to hundreds of young women. So by now I have heard thousands of stories from women of all ages, describing the ways they have been discounted or humiliated by men.

But what I noticed is that sometimes in the telling and re-telling, people didn’t seem to move on. As they repeated their story, they seemed to rehearse a plot with themselves as victims. All the energy that could be used for real change, to create powerful lives, got lost. They were shrinking to fit.

This is a price that we can’t afford to pay at this time in history. The time is right for abuses to be named and for abusers to be exposed. As we tell our stories and stand together we stand taller. But the vital question is this. Where to go from here? Will the Force within us and among us give us the personal strength to step out, to keep going, to question and change a culture that shapes us in so many ways to lose our inner knowing and strength? Will we make this work so important that we will have the strength that we never admitted to before, starting inside ourselves and manifesting in how we show up in the world? Will we then continue to be moved to act as one, a force of survivors?

Yes. We do need to tell our “me too” stories. This is how we are becoming an “us too,” a collection of women and men who will demand respect for all. We will run for office, we will support our sisters. We will stand tall… taller… together.

And, most important, we will not shrink to fit.

Holy Drifting

in Confusion to Clarity, Fall, Surrendering

Watercolour Autumn Trees

For me autumn is the holiest of seasons. In the Northern Hemisphere, the days are shorter and the slanted light captures the vibrant riot of colors as the leaves drift downward. I like to drift, too, during this time-out-of-time, as the dark gradually takes over and allows more room for silence, for the coziness and candles and comfort from the growing chill. I celebrate these holy days quietly, allowing time to expand, to create enough space to observe the subtle and slower inner movements that draw me into the coming mystery of the dark time of year.

I store it all up as an antidote for the coming racket and good cheer of conventional holidays. Once the calendar moves through the passage we call Halloween, all that inner focus becomes more difficult. It can take considerable focus to keep the “holy” in the busy-ness of the Holiday Season as it expands to fullness and finally spends itself on New Year’s Eve, two months later.

I spent the last couple days in the old growth forest of the Oregon Cascades. Thankful for the opportunity to hang out with the “elders”, I drifted here and there, taking in the brilliant gold of maple leaves that slanted sun rays had lit up on the forest floor. The creek tumbled, and the cedars broadcast their perfume. I let myself be astounded by the vermillion vine maple in front of me, the cedar and pine giants around me, wondering about their long view of the short-living species of humans. Now that the fire danger of the last season had passed, my usual problem-centered brain was taken over by the rhythm of the hike, the gentle musing mode of the unfettered mind.

For a couple of days, I gave up the problem solving mindset, making room for a satisfying substitute, long rambling walks. I immersed myself in The Hidden Life of Trees, a book with enough scientific information to open me wide to the magical ways of the forest and to the perspective of time that two- and three-hundred-year-old trees might offer, as I slowed down and listened. The forest became a wonderland of subterranean mycelium with their slowed-down synapses and immense towering giants, holding court as they absorb the sun’s rays.

When I returned to the cabin from one of my rambles, I sat down to tea by the fire and opened a new book called Devotions, a sweet collection of Mary Oliver’s poems, selected by the author. Immediately, the poem “Drifting” jumped off the page. It’s wonderful to walk along like that, not the usual intention to reach an answer but merely drifting. Once again, one of my favorite poets has captured a moment, a day, a life in just a few words.

Drifting, by Mary Oliver

I was enjoying everything: the rain, the path
wherever it was taking me, the earth roots
beginning to stir.
I didn’t intend to start thinking about God,
it just happened.
How God, or the gods, are invisible,
quite understandable
But holiness is visible, entirely.
It’s wonderful to walk along like that,
thought not the usual intention to reach an
answer
but merely drifting.
Like clouds that only seem weightless.
but of course are not.
Are really important.
I mean, terribly important.
Not decoration by any means.
By next week the violets will be blooming.

Anyway, this was my delicious walk in the rain.
What was it actually about?

Think about what it is that music is trying to say.
It was something like that.

Today I share this with you, as I return to a world which screams of “problems to be solved,” both personal and political. I can no more block these out than the cries of my children as babies. But whatever actions I take will be informed not just from the problem-solving mind, but from the answers that have come from the holy state of drifting and listening to the elders.

People-Watching at the Mandalay Bay (& Beyond)

in Confusion to Clarity, Power of Connection, Remembering, Surrendering, Wordlessness

Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas

A week ago yesterday I sat at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, immersed in my hobby of people-watching. It was the perfect, calm finale to a colorful week of nature and hiking with lifetime girlfriends in Utah’s brilliant landscape.  A couple of us had decided to soak up a few more hours of sun while waiting for our evening flights, and my friend suggested we have lunch and loiter at the resort across the way.

While we hung out, I got curious. I had no idea what brought all the fresh-faced young people there. They didn’t fit the image I’d always had of Las Vegas, which I’d only visited once before in my life.  I felt blessed by their happiness as they lined up with big inner tubes to float in the pool. I like to think I blessed them back with my eyes as I appreciated their humanity. To me this is the essence of people-watching. It’s like a blessing, a basking in the joy of sharing the planet together in a particular moment, because that’s all we have. Later Sunday I got proof of that.

As we returned to the airport after a couple hours, our Lyft driver Javier pointed to something that looked to me like a construction site.

“There’s a big country-music festival here this weekend, with big stars,” he said.

“My wife is so excited about this guy tonight with a deep voice . . . Jason somebody. She’s going to be in the front row, she says.”

I glanced back over my shoulder at a chain link fence with warning signs. It looked like your basic construction site. Apparently the venue was in a deep pit, I thought.

The next morning, in my bed in Oregon, I began to get texts checking on my safety. One of the first reports described a shooting “like fish in a barrel.” I thought back on the “construction site.” As tuned in as I like to believe I am, I’d had no warning that it could also be a “destruction site.” I wonder still about Javier’s wife.

Disbelief. Shock. And then a parade of the faces from the day before. More disbelief. Tears. A deepening grief. When I told someone about it, my refrain was, This is not about me.  My “thoughts and prayers” went into overdrive as I imagined each person I had seen there, now possibly dead or struggling for life.

Next day I saw a drawing of the shooter’s window. That was when I realized the courtyard where I had lunched was a direct shot. Twice as close as the amphitheater. Suddenly my world began to seem less predictable, less like something I would want to take for granted. There have been waves of grief, anger, and shock since then, mixed with tiny flashes of understanding. I’m guessing that insights and perspectives will continue to pop.

It’s too big, too close still for a landing place or a Tidy Take-away. I sit still in “thoughts and prayers” for the victims. I’m not done looking for the best way I can make a small difference when it comes to violence within our country and outside it. But I am committing not to forget or get so fogged in by all the stories and distractions swirling around me in the culture at large.

I truly have no idea why bad things happen. I’m just not in charge of that. But one of my life practices is to find some wiggle room in even the worst of circumstances.  It’s sometimes enormously challenging to find a slight break in layers of dark clouds. But I have lived long enough to understand that sometimes something good, some healing comes from tragedy. I put my faith in that. Because from that margin of wiggle room I am more likely to embrace my own life, to embody a loving presence in the dark face of ignorance and insanity. I’m by far more likely to take an action on behalf of wisdom and sanity. And, most important, I’m far more likely to have unclouded judgment about what that action will be.

 

Photo “Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas,” (c) Erin Khoo, used under CC by 2.0 license