Tied up in knots

Though today, again, is cool and gray with intermittent drizzle, yesterday was a spectacular day in Portland -- almost tropical, as you can see from this image, shot around the corner from a darling gallery recommended to me by a friend and fellow art-lover...

The galleries I visited were truly inspiring, and I came home (after stopping to pick up some foodstuffs for the kids) to discover that their cleaning lady had locked the house after finishing for the day, and I had no way to get in (and no access to the lunch I had impetuously postponed in order to get more gallery time.)

It's amazing how such small glitches in plans can incite a sudden shift in mood, so it was with a somewhat guilty conscience that I read in Kornfield's Wise Heart this morning about the monk who would deliberately make his students walk miles, barefoot, in the heat, or keep them all night telling them stories, and then poke at them when they whined.

We're supposed to be above all this -- or at least apart from it, somehow; to accept what life throws us with a grin, understanding that what lies beneath the reaction is constant; that suffering is all a result of the attitude we hold toward the disturbance.

So.  Duly noted, Mr. Kornfield.  Duly noted, also, the immediate tensing of the shoulders and degradation of language as I wandered around the outside of this mansion of a house, trying each door with no success...

I've been editing the poems from my poetry blog, attempting to turn them into some semblance of an ordered, cohesive collection by sorting their subjects.  Not surprisingly, there's a significant number of poems that I can file under the subject heading, "Not yet enlightened."

(PS: I drove to the kids' school and got the older one out of class, explained the problem, and borrowed the key -- so not only did I get that belated lunch (which did a lot for my mood) but I also got dinner done on time.  So it all turned out great.  And it often does.  Why, then, do we get so tied up in knots?

Overpowering the grayness

Luminous reflections

"This is the mirror-like nature of consciousness: reflective, luminous, untarnished, and peaceful."  -- Jack Kornfield, The Wise Heart

After waking to this view this morning and reading this lovely passage, I decided to set aside the pieces I've been working on and give us both something calmer and more peaceful to contemplate.

I love those words -- reflective, luminous, untarnished, peaceful -- and I confess it's been a while since I was in touch with that part of myself.  Perhaps today I should spend some time looking out this window and letting the cool pinks and bright greens of spring wash over me...

But this afternoon I'll be going to a track meet -- my first -- so mostly I'm just hoping it doesn't rain, as it looks like we may be there a while...

In the meantime, I invite you to find a minute in your day to breathe into that reflective luminous self and let its peace fill your soul...

Windows on the World

My young friend Marie was interviewing me last night about the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan (her 7th grade history class is doing a unit on decades) and I realized -- though I could clearly picture that on the news -- I actually remember far more details about Kennedy's assassination.

Most specifically, I remember hearing about it in geometry class, and leaving school early, and walking in our front door, which looked like this, and telling my mother about it (she hadn't yet heard the news)... and then, later, the three of us, my father, my mother and I, standing at those windows, looking out with this shared sense of devastation: the world had changed.

And then, of course, just as we were finishing this conversation, the news came on about Osama bin Laden.  Marie seemed relatively untouched about it, but my own daughter texted me immediately, and I realized -- she was Marie's age when 9/11 happened, which was roughly my age when Kennedy was assassinated.

So for my daughter, 9/11 is probably as seminal a moment as the assassination was for me: we both remember -- because she was dressing for school, her first week in a new school (we had just moved to Bainbridge Island),  and she had the radio on, some station run by college students, who basically put their own radio in front of the mike so NPR was broadcasting over their station.  "Mama, something bad is happening," she said, and we stood listening in horror, knowing the world would never be quite the same.

And yet both of us, listening to the news last night, were saddened -- despite the devastation of 9/11-- for Osama and his family: she was sad to hear he might be buried at sea, and expressed a hope he might find what he was looking for in heaven.  Reading her texts, I felt an enormous welling up of love for her: these are such significant events in her life, and I am pleased by her compassionate response -- both to the victims and to Obama's speech.

Somehow, this morning, time is compressed, and I am standing again at the windows of that little house in Cincinnati, staring out at the devastation with my parents, only now it's the World Trade Center, and the rubble we have made in the middle east in our attempts to avenge that act of terrorism.  Like my daughter, I am worried: attacks of reprisal feel inevitable.  Does it matter that some of us are saddened by the killing?  In the end, will our compassion make a difference? 

I don't know.  I can only feel what I feel, and hope...

Why and how and logistics

Response to Your Question


Why ask about behavior
when you are soul-essence
and a way of seeing into presence?
Plus you are with us.  
How could you worry?


You may as well free a few words
from your vocabulary:
why and how and impossible.
Open the mouth-cage 
and let those fly away.


We were all born by accident,
but still this wandering caravan
will make camp in perfection.
                                        -- Rumi

A sudden change in plans; I need to pack up and go on the road for a bit, taking care of stuff for a friend.  The posts here may get a bit irregular.  But I'll keep exploring these images, assessing what they have to say.  It's not exactly a vacation, and I won't quite be a wandering caravan.  There might be unexpected challenges.  But I expect there might also be moments of perfection along the way; we'll see.  At any rate, I'm a bit distracted this morning by why and how and logistics; so I'll stop here and just trust that "you are with us.  How could you worry?"

It's all good...

The wheel of love

I'm sitting in a classroom, waiting for a meeting to start, and thinking about that old Blood Sweat and Tears song, Spinning Wheel -- which begins, "What goes up, must come down.  Spinning wheel, got to go round..."

I thought of that one often when my girls were growing up -- especially when they hit puberty.  Any time one of them was feeling extremely positive and bouncy, it was inevitable she was heading for a fall and there would be tears before 24 hours were up.

So -- having been so cheery yesterday, it shouldn't have surprised me that my mood shifted back today.
It's just a gentle reminder that all those waves of moodiness happen up on the surface of things; that down below it all there's a strong and steady current of love...

... which needs to be shared -- especially with the folks we find hardest to love.  And with that thought in mind, I want to share this wonderful Ted Talk from Elizabeth Lesser, author of The Seekers Guide and founder of the Omega Institute:

Of colors and sunshine

What's bubbling up for you today?

I am feeling a delicious lightness of being: the sun is out, I have the house to myself (except for the animals; 2 cats and a dog) for the first time in months, and I am still loving playing with this new image process.

I decided to put off my meditation until my husband left on the ferry this morning, and so spent my first hour or so creating this image -- which means, not surprisingly, that it pervaded my thoughts when I sat down to meditate -- a process that (sadly) only lasted ten minutes, as the cat decided he DESPERATELY needed to come in for his morning snack.

But I love the colors in this -- they're absolutely delicious for me -- and I spent what little meditation time I had luxuriating in them, imagining them printed on a soft knit fabric which I could then make into a dress...

So I came back to the computer (once the cat was put out again; he still prefers to sleep on my wrists as I'm typing) and created this alternative version of the image -- thinking, ooh, wouldn't I like to wear this -- and now, stepping back from it a bit, I am reminded of those goddesses that I was doing last winter...

What is it about color that is so extraordinarily satisfying for me?  I can't really answer that question; I only know that it's been true since I was really really young, and seems all the richer now because I am exploring it more consciously instead of just reacting to it.

Perhaps that's the learning here: now that I am immersing myself in a mix of therapy (Internal Family Systems), Buddhism, and Christianity, it feels like I am exploring LOTS of things more consciously; that I'm awake at lots of levels that have been hibernating and dark for a very long time.  I am learning that all the parts of me no longer need to be either/or -- I am either Buddhist or Christian, an artist or a writer, an individualist or at one with all creation -- but rather both/and.  And I have to say -- accepting all those parts of me, consciously respecting and appreciating each for what it has to bring to my awareness and understanding, is both freeing and exhilarating.  Yum!

... which makes me think of the poem I wrote for Logion 69 of the Gospel of Thomas:

Deep in your heart --
below the taste of despair,
the brutal lash of circumstances,
and the ache of defeat --
there lies a fount of blessings.

Let your hunger
draw you inward,
and know this: abundance
beyond your wildest imagination
is waiting for you there.

And how, you ask, will I be spending the REST of my day?  What will I do with all that exhilarating freedom, and the energy it brings? 

The answer is this: I'm going to put on my Putumayo CD of  Cuban music (so energizing!), do some laundry, and clean my daughter's room, then take a break and edit a book of poetry I'm working on, and hopefully spend some time walking on the beach, enjoying the sunlight.  Doesn't that sound like fun?  I wish you sunshine and a wonderful day --