If I could take time to sit...

Yesterday I had to fill out one of those online questionnaires for my coaching class, which meets for the last time this coming weekend.

The questionnaire, which can be found at http://www.philrosinski.com/cof/ (the website for the author of Coaching Across Cultures, an amazing book) invites you to consider what cultural biases you might have with regard to time use, communications style, personal boundaries, organizational preferences, etc.  And taking it -- just looking at your way of being in the world -- can be a real eye-opener.

I talked about this a bit in an earlier post, about how some of the reading I was doing for school was helping me to understand that I tend to move at a fast pace, and do a lot of parallel processing.  I mean, here we are in this lovely environment which offers a constant invitation to sit and watch the birds or smell the beach or listen to the waves, and I spend most of my time being "busy."  And what's that all about?

And the information about direct vs indirect communication styles, and about high context and low context communications all helped me understand some of the early misunderstandings in my current marriage as well as some of the things I see going on with my daughters' relationships.

But what really struck me yesterday was this: we had to print off our results, so I had done so and stapled them together, leaving them at the top of a pile of papers I printed off yesterday for class.  My daughter found them and was greatly amused to read my self assessment.  But she was particularly intrigued by the low rating I gave myself for functioning in a competitive environment.

I had to think about that for a minute.  Because the fact is I can be very competitive; I remember it was one of the problems in my first marriage, because we were BOTH competitive.  So you'd think I would thrive in a more competitive environment.  Where I think the problem comes is that I don't approve of that side of myself, so I don't like being in situations where it wants to take over.  And though some part of me wants to be a winner, I also don't want to be a loser, and I feel enormous sympathy for other losers, with a little guilt thrown in.  Maybe it's just too much drama for me?

At any rate, it's something to explore.  It's always fun to poke around in those tight places and see what emerges; new insights so often bring leaps of understanding.  Now if I could just sit still long enough to examine this.  I think that's one of the challenges of doing Centering Prayer, as opposed to Buddhist meditation practices: Centering Prayer encourages you to let go of whatever thoughts come into your head as you sit, while the Buddhist style seems to be to lean into them a bit, see where they take you.  So maybe that's what I should do on my walks, and CP is for my sits?  Hmm.  Something else to explore...

Saints and demons

My daughter and her friend returned from Canada last night, and to celebrate his last night in the states we went as a family to see the movie, "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World."  The movie was actually great fun, sort of a cross between a 20-something romantic comedy, a video game, a moral tale and a cartoon with a lot of rock music thrown in; I'm embarrassed to admit I liked it more than Eat Pray Love (which didn't, and maybe even couldn't, live up to the wonderful book on which it was based.)

But on the way home there was a certain amount of arguing that went on in the car, sort of playful, sort of not, and I realized an old familiar demon was appearing on the scene: our daughter's annual post-camp malaise.  It's a time when we can do nothing right, primarily because this is not where she wants to be, and we can't be the friends she's so desperately missing. It always takes a while for her to adjust to the end of this favorite part of her life, and though I know she tries not to take it out on us it's not always a successful effort.

When she's going through this period, we've all learned there's not much we can do except hold her in our hearts, be as gracious and firm as we can, name what's going on, and release whatever responses emerge in us when she goes off on a tear.  You kind of need the patience of a saint -- or a madonna -- to get through.  So I'm reading Jack Kornfield's chapter (in A Path With Heart) on dealing with the demons that rise up in meditation with interest; coping with demons in meditation can't be that different from coping with them outside of meditation, right?

Kornfield mentions eight demons -- desire, anger, fear, boredom, judgment, restlessness, sleepiness and doubt  -- but this morning, while I was walking, I decided I really wanted to add two more demons (though I'm sure they are probably just sub-classifications of fear -- or maybe restlessness?) which seem to be the ones I struggle with the most.

The first is planning, or anticipation; also known as "the shoulds."  I'll be in that lovely quiet place and then UP pops something I need to do today, or should have done yesterday, or something some other family member should really be taking care of; I should be sure to make a note to nag them about it.  Sometimes this one gets so intrusive it's just easier to keep a pencil and a pad of paper next to my meditation chair so I can write down whatever it is and release it.

The second is worrying, and it's the same basic deal: I'll be in that lovely quiet place and then UP pops something I'm concerned about, usually something to deal with one of my daughters.  Sometimes it's a long-term concern and other times it's a short-term concern, but it's often followed by a feeling of helplessness -- which then, fortunately, leads to a short and pretty heartfelt prayer, and then circles back around to the whole process of letting go.  It's not really fear, exactly; it's more this sort of probing thing, like poking at a sore tooth: How serious is this?  Do I need to do something?

Kornfield has some lovely meditations for dealing with the demons; they're mostly about noticing -- where they come from, what images arise, what feeling states arise in the body -- and accepting/welcoming instead of resisting.

But then, at the end of the demon chapter he offers a wonderful meditation on impulse control -- and that's the piece I want to share with you today.  It starts with an exercise you can do as your meditation draws to a close:

"Do not set a fixed time for the end of your meditation.  Instead, sit until a strong impulse tells you to get up.  Notice its quality... name the energy that has arisen and with it sense the impulse to move.  Feel it carefully in your body, naming, "wanting to get up, wanting to get up," staying with it for as long as it lasts.  (This is rarely more than a minute.)  Then after this impulse has passed, notice what it feels like now and if your meditation has deepened from sitting through the whole impulse process.  Continue to sit until a second impulse to arise pulls you strongly.  Notice the whole process in the same way as before.  Finally, after a third time of carefully being with the whole impulse process, allow yourself to get up.  The depth of your attention and centeredness will gradually grow through this practice.


"If you wish," he says, "you can extend your observation to other strong impulses, noting the whole process of wanting to scratch an itch, to move while sitting, to eat, or to do other things.  Being aware in this way will gradually teach you to stay centered, to have a capacity to take a few breaths and feel the changing responses to situations in your life rather than reacting to them automatically.  You will begin to discover a center of balance and understanding in the face of the forces of your life."

I like this one; it feels like a way to bring meditation practice into daily life -- something I'm always hoping/struggling to do.  But also I'm thinking this would be a fabulous way to control that snacking urge that arises in the late afternoon and again in the late evening.  And is that tacky?  To take a serious meditation practice and immediately start thinking about it as a diet mechanism?  Oops, I think that's the judgment demon rearing its ugly head.  Guess I'll just have to go sit with her till she goes away...

Uh-oh, here comes Hunger:  Must be time for breakfast!

Put this Design in your Carpet

Any movement or sound is a profession of faith,
as the millstone grinding is explaining
how it believes in the river.
No metaphor can explain this,
but I cannot stop pointing to the beauty.

Every moment and place says,
Put this design in your carpet.

I want to be in such a passionate adoration
that my tent gets pitched against the sky.

Let the beloved come
and sit like a guard dog
in front of the tent.

When the ocean surges,
don't let me just hear it.
Let it splash inside my chest.



Rumi, A Year With Rumi (September 3)

A world of opposites

I remember, after my divorce, how difficult it was to see other people in love.  And I remember, after my father died, how difficult it was to hear of other people's wonderful relationships with their fathers -- and how difficult it still is, some eight years later, to utter the first two words of the Lord's Prayer.

I see, also, how challenging it can be, for those who live on the edge of bankruptcy, to see the flamboyant wealth in the world; for those who cannot afford a car to learn of another's huge garage, littered with Packards, Mercedes, and Rolls Royces.

And from those things, I can begin to imagine how hard it must be for those who lose a child to hear others speak of their children; for those who live with impending death to go about the business of life.

And this morning it feels incredibly shallow to even speak of how difficult it can be to reconcile this world of opposites; to suggest there can be beauty in death when you're not facing it; to ramble on about the nobility of poverty when you live in relative comfort -- or, like a priest I once heard, to preach on the joys of servitude when you're used to being waited on hand and foot.

The world is full of painful contrasts and contradictions, and today is one of those days when I can't imagine any promise I might offer of hope in the face of trouble would be met with anything other than a sneer.  It's not to say I don't believe there's hope -- I do.  But there are days when that seems foolishly naive.

And so I sit, poised on the brink of reflection.  There's no going forward, there's no going back, and staying on this edge is incredibly difficult and humbling.  In the face of all the pain and all the losses and impending losses these last two weeks have held, I can only be present.  I have nothing else to offer.

Ah, but thanks to Kim at One Year Here, I have the perfect offering from Rumi:

On the day I die,
when I am being carried toward the grave,
don’t weep. Don’t say, "He’s gone. He’s gone."
 
Death has nothing to do with going away.
The sun sets and the moon sets,
but they’re not gone.

Death is a coming together.
The tomb looks like a prison,
but it’s really release into union.

The human seed goes down into the ground
like a bucket into the well where Joseph is.

It grows and comes up
full of some unimagined beauty.

Your mouth closes here
and immediately opens
with a shout of joy there.

A good reminder that we don't have to do it alone; that there are always people standing by who can give us a different perspective.


Thanks Kim.  It helps.

Before the gray and cold set in

The days are definitely growing shorter now -- by the time I got to the ferry after my Wednesday evening meeting, the sun had set and the big lights that illuminate the ferry waiting lot were already gleaming -- only a week ago I spent almost my whole waiting time photographing the sunset.

And though the weather is spectacularly gorgeous today, and warmer than it's been in what seems like weeks, you can feel it: change is in the wind.

Today was my daughter's boyfriend's last day at his summer job, so now the two of them have begun looking in earnest for whatever might come along next to pay their bills.  My husband's friend is home from the hospital -- though they had a bit of a scare this morning -- so he hopes to be heading home to us this evening.

The school buses are roaming the streets again, the town is filling up with tourists eager to celebrate the long weekend, and boats are starting to pepper the Sound, ready for a last weekend of play before the gray and cold set in.

For me, though I've spent the entire day running errands, there is a sense of expectancy and anticipation; a little like that feeling we used to get the week before Christmas.  I suppose it could just be years of conditioning for the onset of fall, but it feels like something exciting and wonderful is just around the bend. 

My schoolwork has been forcing me to take a pretty hard look at some of my ways of being in the world, and it's been feeling a bit at times like I'm in the spotlight, or in an interrogation room.  But the discoveries aren't really all that scary; it's more that they give me hope for change, both for myself and for the world.  If we can find a way -- or even if I can find a way -- to strike a better balance between love and power, between compassion and action, I do think we have a chance of making a significant difference.

But of course, the more I am beginning to believe in that possibility, the more negative predictions I hear from my friends.  And somehow I just have to juggle that, too; find a way to balance the negative and positive outlooks that can keep me/us moving forward into the light.

No one said it would be easy, or simple.

But no one said it couldn't be fun, either!  So I'm going to try to keep that sense of anticipation building, and see where it leads.

Getting hooked, and letting go

I knew meditation would be challenging this morning: my daughter and her friend decided to visit friends in Canada yesterday, and got held up at the border.  The last I heard from her was 9:00 last night, and they were still stuck at the border (after leaving around 9:30 yesterday morning!) so I have no idea where they are, or where they spent the night.

They're old enough to cope, of course -- and Canada is not exactly a third world country.  But some part of me keeps getting hooked into worrying, so I'm just trying to be conscious about letting it go.

Which is the blessing of Centering Prayer, of course: it's ALL about letting go, releasing the things that hook us.  But that's not always easy -- and I'm thinking there's a blessing in that.  When I notice things are particularly difficult to release, it's an opportunity to take a look at what's in play.  Why am I not releasing?  What does that say about me, about my faith, about my relationship with the universe?

Those are all good questions to look at.  But in the end, for now, those questions feel like hooks as well.  So perhaps I just accept that for now, this is how it is: I'm a mom, I worry, and she's probably fine.  And even if she isn't, there's nothing I can do about it from here; for one thing, I don't have a clue where they were planning to cross the border.

All I can do is breathe.  And practice Tonglen: breathe in, for worried mothers everywhere; breathe out any comfort I can share.

We're all moms together.

(Late breaking news: she finally made it into Canada after a 24 hour delay; hurray!)

Music to my eyes

A couple of months back my husband and I signed up for a series called "The Art of Collecting Art."  This was our second year doing this -- I signed up on a whim last year and it was so much fun we decided to do it again.

Folks who sign up are invited into three homes of island residents who collect art.  The type of art can vary considerably, but it's always fun to hear where their pieces came from, how they got started, what excites them...

My husband, though he is officially a computer geek, has the soul of an artist, and his mother was a gifted artist, so -- though he doesn't always appreciate or understand MY work -- he does enjoy museums and galleries and being surrounded by art.  So it's also fun because it's something we can do together.

This year's patrons included a local collector of luxury automobiles, and after spending time in his garage with his Packards I asked if it would be okay for me to come back with my camera and photograph a bit: I still have that Patterns exhibit coming up, and I could see some shots that would be perfect. 

So yesterday I got to go back with my camera and spend an hour indulging my appetite for beauty. I was sorry not to be able to bring my husband along as we'd originally hoped; he's still cooking and running errands for that family down in Portland.  But -- oh, my.  It was just pure heaven to be in that room with those beautiful creatures; like the glories of Rome or Greece, they are a delicious testament to the artistic sensibilities of another era, when music wasn't a sound bite and literature wasn't a tweet: such loving attention to detail.

I only opened up the images this morning, so I haven't gone through yet to see what else might be there,  But I love this one, and thought I'd share it with you: I call it "Self Portrait with Rolls."  Isn't it just delicious?  It's like a painting; it feels like it belongs on the cover of a book.  And the grid of that radiator makes me think of organ pipes -- music to my eyes!