Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

The gift of desire

Many of us are working on developing presence, attention; trying to be more in the moment.  What we may not realize is that the things we struggle with, the things we want but shouldn't have, provide a golden opportunity to achieve presence. As Salzmann writes in The Reality of Being: The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff, "We need to remember that the struggle is FOR and not AGAINST something, particularly in relation to what we call "desire" -- the wish for pleasure or some other satisfaction. 

The illusion of desire arises from images recorded in the memory with pleasure or pain.  Although the desire leads to fragmentation, it is not getting satisfaction that is bad, but the fact that I am absent, unable really to satisfy or not to satisfy it.

At one moment, for example, I may experience a wish to indulge a pleasure like smoking or eating.  Either I immediately give in to the idea and have no contact with the desire, or I refuse and create conflict, again without contact because I have dismissed the desire.  And everything that arises in me proceeds like this.  The desire is life itself in me, extraordinarily beautiful, but because I do not know it and do not understand it, I experience frustration, a certain pain, in giving in or in repressing it.  So the struggle to be attentive, to be present, to be in the moment, is to live with the desire, not refusing it or losing myself in it, until the mechanism of the thinking no longer has an action on me and the attention is free."

Heavy Artillery

The wind speaks,
does it not?
And what about the refrain of the geese?

What of the moo, and the baa;
the heron's squawk,
the rooster at dawn,
the chorus from the sea,
and the rain, and the thunder?

Is not all a part of God,
and thus sacred?

I think He has surrounded us:
we had better give up...

  -- Hafiz

The Sunrise Ruby

There is nothing left of me.
I’m like a ruby held up to the sunrise.
Is it still a stone, 
or a world made of redness? 
It has no resistance to sunlight.

This is how Hallaj said, "I am God,"
and told the truth!

The ruby and the sunrise are one.
Be courageous and discipline yourself.

Completely become hearing and ear,
and wear this sun-ruby as an earring.

Work. Keep digging your well.
Don’t think about getting off from work. 
Water is there somewhere.

Submit to a daily practice.
Your loyalty to that
is a ring on the door.

Keep knocking, and the joy inside
will eventually open a window
and look out to see who’s there.

--Rumi

Painting over, painting out

This is what painted itself over the ugly disappointment painting from two days ago.  Though it's clearly related to the two previous paintings in this (accidental) series, I don't actually like it all that much.  But it seems to have a lot to say to me.

I'm calling it "When Worlds Collide," and it appears to be about those times when you think you're on a path and you understand who you are and where you're meant to go and then you hit an obstacle.  Not the sort of obstacle you have to work around, but the kind that stops you in your tracks and makes you question all your assumptions.

It's not the first time I've encountered one of those.  But it's clear that I'm not done processing this particular shift.  And it's kind of amazing that the canvas can expose so much.  No wonder there is a whole field of study called Art Therapy!

(Note to self: I need to stick to canvases that are more squarish; something in me starts dividing the canvas into two parts when one side is this much longer than the other.)

Coyotes, Part II

Two days ago I opened the back door to let the dog and cat out, and there were, not one, but TWO coyotes standing just a few feet away, staring at me.  By this time I had read about hazing (what to do to get them to leave), so I flapped my arms, ran at them, and shouted, even got out my grandfather's old moose horn and blew it -- and then I sent out a warning email to the neighborhood.

One enterprising neighbor had already called the wildlife rescue crew, so a bunch of us trouped down to her home for wine, grapes, chocolate chip cookies, and a surprisingly educational presentation from the amazingly well-informed (and entertaining) Director of Wildlife Services, Michael Pratt and Rehabilitation Specialist Lynne Weber.

So here are some of the more interesting facts I learned about coyotes. First important thing to know: if you kill them, the numbers will multiply.  So it's best to scare them away instead -- and not offer attractions like open garbage cans, compost piles, feeding your pets outside, etc.  Only about 1% of their diet -- at least in Washington -- is domestic animals; they're more interested in rodents, goose eggs and vegetation, though they will cull a deer herd of its sickly members and fawns.  You're MUCH more likely to lose your cat (or small dog) to an eagle.  And even MORE likely to lose it to a great horned owl.  The eagle can only lift a quarter of its body weight; a horned owl can lift 3 to four TIMES its body weight.

It turns out the reason we're seeing these two this year (we've never had coyotes here before) is because this territory has been owned for years by an older coyote who had already figured out the population on our little street was too dense to be worth the hassle.  But even after hearing the wildlife presentation last year, somebody decided to shoot that coyote.  So these two have taken over his territory, and haven't figured out yet that the sandspit is more trouble than it's worth.  We're planning to help them discover that pretty quickly: when we see them, we'll look them in the eye, walk menacingly toward them, waving arms, shouting, and throwing cans full of pennies or stones in their general direction.  They don't like loud noises, so saxophone or trombone practice and honking horns can also be an option...

Happy Honking!

Chasing away the scent of failure

After learning yesterday that I didn't get the job I wanted, I attempted to paint out my disappointment with really ugly colors (it's okay; I'll paint over it later). When that and a long meditation still hadn't taken the edge off,  I went outside to breathe in some healing salt air and ended up burying my nose in the lilac bush by the front door.  Yum.  It's amazing how generous nature is with her healing powers.  This didn't make it all better, really, but it made the disappointment easier to bear.  And it helped that the camera seemed to love the lilacs; this is a totally unretouched photo and I think the scent of the flowers almost leaps off the page.  Something else to feel good about; a pleasing photograph.

The day ended on a better note: I met our new next-door neighbor, who seems delightful.  Sophie-the-cat seems to have completely recovered from her respiratory distress.  And we had a delightful neighborhood meeting with the local wildlife rescue folks, who taught us how to scare away the coyotes that have been bugging us lately; great fun and much laughter.

Bad news can be hard to process; the world can look pretty dark.  So I'm grateful -- for flowers, and salt air; for scent, color and sunny days; for progress, and neighbors, and laughter... It's all good.  Blessings everywhere.