The following article, titled “Athleticism,” was written, proof-read (by my amazing beta reader, Linda Comerford) and submitted many (MANY) weeks ago. It was scheduled to be published in our local newspaper today, December 7, 2024. The email containing the article either was not received, or it was received and misplaced or deleted because it was received so early. Given that the message was/is tied into Pearl Harbor Day, I decided to deliver it via the Yellow Brick Road.
Sri Chinmoy said, “World-peace can be achieved when the power of love replaces the love of power.” A bit of information about the person who wrote this inspiring opening quotation might be helpful. Sri Chinmoy was born in 1931 in East Bengal, British India, (now Bangledesh). He lost his father to an illness in 1943 and his mother a few months later. Chinmoy began the practice of meditation when he was 11, and at age 12 he joined his brothers and sisters at Sri Aurobindo Ashram, where he spent the next 20 years in spiritual practice and study. After moving to New York City in 1964, Chinmoy taught in the United States — advocating a spiritual path to God through prayer and meditation and athleticism — including distance running, swimming, and weightlifting. You might be curious what running or swimming or weightlifting (athleticism) have to do with your spiritual wellbeing.
I looked up the meaning of athleticism, and in “What is Athleticism: The 10 Components You Must Know,” an article by James Breese, I read: Athleticism is formed by ten key components that make up balanced physical fitness, or what we refer to as complete athleticism. They are strength, speed, power, agility, anaerobic capacity, aerobic capacity, mobility, balance and coordination, mental resilience, and stability.
It is fascinating that a “spiritual” teacher would be encouraging students to become physically fit.
The answer is to be found in thinking about these ten key components. Strength. Speed. Power. Agility. Anaerobic and aerobic capacities — anaerobic activities are of short duration and high intensity; aerobic exercise is a rhythmic and repetitive physical activity that uses your body’s large muscle groups. (Examples of aerobic exercises include walking, cycling, and swimming. Aerobic exercise reduces your risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.)
Mobility. Balance and coordination. Mental resilience. Stability.
The Christian New Testament says we are to think on whatever is true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report, or whatever has virtue or praise (Philippians 4:8). Look how these ideas overlap.
In the article “How Training the Mind is Like Riding a Horse,” Ed Halliwell tells us that good equestrians know the best way to ride a horse is by not trying to control it with fear, force, or frustration, but by listening and responding to the horse’s needs for reassurance, guidance, and gentleness. We adjust our journey based on the horse’s needs without losing sight of our intended destination. “In this way, rider and horse can travel in harmony, each taking charge according to its strengths.”
The modern world we live in is not the world of our ancestors. Most of us do not ride horses as a primary mode of transportation. However, we know human behavior, even in this current environment, is still similar in this way to animals. We have been seduced by social media, manipulated by Madison Avenue, held hostage by hordes of happenings, and tricked by the telling of tales darkly distorted so that they have very little to do with what is true, honest, just, pure, lovely, or of good report, virtue, or praise.
Strength. Speed. Power. Agility. Mobility. Balance. Coordination. Mental resilience. Stability. Perhaps these qualities from Philippians really are key. The scheduled publish date for this Insights article was December 7. When I saw that date, I remembered Pearl Harbor. On that day in 1941, Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base, killing more than 2,300 Americans.
An online inspiration, The Daily Tejaniya, articulates the truth so elegantly: “We need to learn our lessons. There is no shortcut. If we don’t learn our lessons when they present themselves, they will come up again and again until we give them our attention, and learn from them.”
World-peace can only be achieved when the power of love replaces the love of power, but world-peace can and will be achieved BECAUSE the power of love replaces the love of power.
John and I arrived safely at our winter home about 7:00 pm on Wednesday after a totally wonderful visit with John’s music mentor (and guitar benefactor!!!), Ed Bennett, his wife, Dee, and other great friends.
Yesterday my back was hurting and I could not find my Nikken mag roller. It usually travels in the outside zipper of my carry-on bag, and it usually lives in my sock drawer when I have landed. I distinctly remembered having unzipped and removed it, and the mini-sewing kit that travels with it was already in the sock drawer. I went to the guestroom closet to look again in my carry-on bag, and as I moved John’s guitar case it bumped the metal shelving and out scampered a gecko! I went in search of something to catch the gecko in and called for John to come help me. It was quite comical to watch the gecko stay ahead of me but I was finally successful in getting him (or her) safely outside.
I had a flashback to our first encounter with a gecko in the wild while we were in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. John and I were scared silly and called a friend to come rescue us. When Jim arrived John and I were both standing up in the middle of the bed screaming!
Yes, our lessons will come up again and again until we learn from them.
It has been a bit overwhelming settling in because, much to the embarrassment and regret of the homeowners, the house is still being treated for a roach infestation left by the previous renter. Howard, the technician came Thursday morning. (My dad’s name was Howard.) He walked me through what we need to do for the treatment to be successful. Essentially we need to be fastidiously clean. We have secured all of our food stuffs in clear totes.
We love this house and it’s owners so much…. When they came by late in the day on Thursday, we told them about a previous rental where we learned what we need to know and we assured them we will all work together and do what needs to be done. I also shared with them that cockroaches can have a variety of spiritual meanings. They are known for their ability to survive in harsh conditions, symbolism of the ability to thrive in the face of adversity. In some belief systems, cockroaches represent the cycle of life and death, encouraging personal transformation. They can also signify the need to shed old habits or beliefs to make way for new growth. And a skill that is very timely: cockroach symbolizes reality as contrasted to thoughts, allowing one to acknowledge a larger reality.
This morning when I killed an adult cockroach capable of creating many offspring, I felt such appreciation for its having made itself seen. I was taken back to a first encounter during our initial stay on Pine Island. John and I were both so grossed and freaked out he shot about a ten-foot stream of Raid spray onto the guy.
Reflecting on the unfortunate necessity of killing the cockroaches, I recalled the story of a master who was walking with a student when a dog charged at him. The master whipped off his belt and hit the dog soundly on the snout. The student was shocked, and criticized the master’s unskillfulness. Confidently and patiently, the master replied, “It was skillfulness. In an instant awareness knew the dog would rather be hit in the snout with the belt than the master bit in the leg by the dog.”
As Tejaniya writes, if we don’t learn our lessons when they present themselves, they will come up again and again until we give them our attention, and learn from them. Thank you, gecko; thank you, cockroach.
A beautiful affirmation from Betty Lue Lieber for today:
I care about everyone and everything, including myself.
I easily give my very best to all around me.
I care enough to do the work with ease and grace.
I create Good with all my caring.
Oh, life in the tropics! Everything in life showing us the power of love replacing the love of power!
“Some things I cannot change,
but ’til I try I’ll never know.”
~ Elphaba, in Wicked
Becky O’Brien’s review on Cinelix gave high praise for the film version: “Having seen the film, I can’t imagine any of the songs not being there, everything feels integral to the story, and that can be attributed to the film’s phenomenal cast. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in particular knocked it out of the park as Elphaba and Glinda respectively.”
Yesterday (November 27) John and I joined all of our “grand” daughters (Courtney, Christina and Rachel) to see the film before Stacey and Doug and Jackson and Brad and Adam joined us for dinner out celebrating John’s 76th birthday. At the movies we ate our weight in popcorn sitting back in theater seats that reclined, still leaving sufficient room for someone to walk by. It was amazing….
Rachel sent a text mid-morning:
Happy wicked day! And Gampie’s bday!!!
A few fun facts from your fellow Ozain before the show.
Wicked is originally a novel published in 1995, followed by the Broadway adaptation debuted in 2004. Two decades later we have a film adaptation.
The Broadway play has two acts and this movie is act one. Intermission is one year long.
The movie set was built in the UK with minimal CGI. Almost everything you see on screen is real. They planted over 9 million tulips for munchkin land and built a 16 ton train for the emerald city and all the rest of the set is physical!! So cool!!
Elphba and Glinda do all of their own stunts and sing live for EVERY musical number. Talent!!!
It took makeup 4-6 hours to paint Cynthia green everyday on set.
MGM still owns the rights to the ruby red slippers, which is why we will see nessa rose with silver slippers. (Just like the book.)
The last musical number defying gravity is arguably one of the hardest songs to sing in the theater. And Cynthia kills it while physically being suspended 40 ft in the air.
Stephan Schwartz is the composer and lyricist of Wicked. He read the book and 4 years later he had the whole musical scored and composed and all the lyrics written. Holy cow!!!
Although Dorothy is not relevant in act one, we do meet the scarecrow, the tin man and the lion in their original form. There are Easter eggs throughout the film to point you in the right direction to identify them.
I have 100 more. But I will bore you later. So excited today!!!!
I am already looking forward to part 2.
As it turned out, Stacey (who had not really wanted to go) would not have been able to join us because she watched Jackson so Courtney could go. It was pretty unanimous we thought Stacey would not have been wild about it. This morning Stacey asked me why I thought she would not have liked it.
That opened up a conversation about the power of myth, handed down from generation to generation via oral traditions and rituals. Myths were the way humans taught universal and eternal truths about life before the invention of writing. While themes reappear time and again in different culture, it is important to realize a myth is bound to the society and time in which it occurs. Thus, the details of a specific myth cannot be divorced from this culture and environment. (For example, a dying-and-rising god as first proposed in comparative mythology by James Frazer’s seminal The Golden Bough (1890). Frazer associated the motif with fertility rites surrounding the yearly cycle of vegetation and cited the examples of Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis and Attis, Zagreus, Dionysus, and Jesus.)
Seeing Wicked: Part One was soothing to my soul.
Myth speaks so much more clearly when not shrunk into a literal view.
As we were leaving the theater, I said to Rachel, “You may not know that my blog is titled Yellow Brick Road. I named it that because I saw in the Wizard of Oz the metaphor of the colors of the chakras: ruby red slippers (root chakra); yellow brick road (solar plexus); Emerald City (heart chakra).”
This is a myth I relate to.
I love that it is not set in any actual time or in any actual location.
Fortunately, you do not have to believe it is real to understand the power of friendship as it actually transforms the way our birth and upbringing and culture informs both our pain and power.
Just like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, it is true that we are not in Kansas any more. We are in a world where it is possible (and perhaps vital) for us to imagine a world without wars fueled by opinion.
O’Brien writes, “In conclusion, I thought it was really smart of the filmmakers to end the film right at the end of Act One of the musical, with plenty of hooks left dangling for what’s to come in the second half of the story. As big as Wicked: Part One is turning out to be, I confidently predict that Wicked: Part Two will be that much bigger. We only have to wait a year to find out!”
I woke up this morning with Don Williams’ title line of his song reverberating in my head, “I Wouldn’t Want to Live if You Didn’t Love Me”.
The mind worm of the refrain was a likely result of yesterday’s conversation that turned stressful with my daughter, Stacey. We are in Tennessee with her spending time with our immediate family for a couple weeks on our way from Michigan to Florida. Our older grandson’s band had a music gig on Friday evening and we were proud to be Brad’s Gampie and Brad’s Gammie at Hop Springs as Apache Jericho rocked the house.
Brad is the lead vocalist. He has been writing music and performing for years. If you have a premium account with Amazon or Spotify you can shuffle songs by Apache Jericho.
With my fingers on the keyboard now, I am listening to “Essential Grief Education” with Meghan Riordan Jarvis, author of Can Anyone Tell Me? As I hear her speak about the synapses that are ministered to when you use pen or pencil and paper or work with words, I know the value of The Yellow Brick Road to save my sanity.
Thoughts of time spent riding bikes for miles and miles with Fred following the death of my friend, Linda, this summer allows the three key actions suggested by Jarvis to leap onto my page:
1. You need to take a walk. You need to move. EVERYDAY.
2. If you can tolerate connection, do this with with another person. They can walk beside you or behind you or in front of you, but breaking the sense of isolation that occurs with loss ad grief is essential.
3. We can work on the story of what we are telling ourselves about what happened.
Meghan continues to remind us while we might never be grateful our loved one died, we do gain gratitude for gifts and growth that come.
Grievers say there is meaning that comes….
The point of loss of rapport came in conversation around the issue of abortion. This issue has trailed behind me, having begun in the 70’s and 80’s when I was a delegate to Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church — a church that is no longer united.
In my earbuds, Meghan is sharing about the importance of asking grievers, “What’s the secret terror that you have since this loss?”
I witness now a secret terror in my central nervous system: John and I are standing in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., watching white letters scroll across a black screen giving the dates and actions being taken that led from banning a single book to 11 million victims of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany….
Stacey and I had been working on a jigsaw puzzle when yesterday’s rip in rapport took place and she turned and walked out of the room. Perhaps the puzzle itself holds a clue for us. It is a Advent Calendar puzzle, with the pieces of each section in 24 small, numbered, separated, boxes. I am realizing this puzzle does not feel like fun.
Working this puzzle, it doesn’t feel like we are looking at or for the same thing.
Working this puzzle, it doesn’t feel like we are working together.
Working this puzzle, I don’t like the feeling that things have been artificially segregated.
After Stacey showered and got ready for their evening out, she approached me. I am unable to remember that conversation. That happens with grief. We don’t recall when something happened or how it happened, because what happened is distorted.
I do recall answering a question she had earlier asked me about my beliefs about abortion. I told her the issue of abortion isn’t separate for me from other experiences about life and death. If an adult dies and somehow continues to exist — like her own experiences of loved ones speaking to her (her Grandma Smith and the dutch apple pie recipe or her Uncle Jim about not being a dumb ass) how could that be different for an aborted baby?
I was able to express a wondering about how she had become so black and white in her morality and the concern I felt that the divide in the mind might be too wide to bridge; that being the nature of the mind.
I can feel a tightness in my chest as those words appear on the page.
It’s love that makes the world go ’round
And my love for you
Just grows with leaps and bounds
‘Cause, you know just what to do
When the world has turned all blue
And I wouldn’t want to live
If you didn’t love me
I am going to ask her if she is OKAY if we switch to a different puzzle….
“In every age no matter how cruel the oppression carried on by those in power, there have been those who struggled for a different world. I believe this is the genius of humankind, the thing that makes us half Divine — the fact that some human beings can envision a world that has never existed.” – Anne Braden
Anne Braden was a name I did not know, but something about her words resonated deeply in my soul. I share some of that…. envisioning a world that has never existed. I put a lovely THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING sign on the door to our home over 40 years ago. Members of my husband’s family refused to come to our home. Admittedly, it was a stressful happening at 4230 Lincoln Avenue.
The prohibition of smoking in public places, in places of employment, and in food service establishments (such as restaurants, cafeterias, food courts in shopping malls, and bars) took effect here in Michigan on May 1, 2010, when the Public Health Code was finally amended.
There are many born in this country after 2010 who have no memory of teachers smoking in schools, doctors (and patients and visitors) smoking in hospitals, and patrons, along with cooks and wait staff, smoking in restaurants.
I am profoundly grateful not smoking in public places is seen now as normal.
According to her bibliography on Americans Who Tell The Truth, all of Braden’s activism flowed from a single conviction: she wanted to live in a world “where people were people,” not members of a particular race or class who were treated better or worse because of it.
Recently I have begun to envision radically new ways of choosing governmental leadership. One suggestion was to have a mutually-agreed-upon criteria for civil servants, and any individual who met that vetting and was willing to serve, would toss his or her hat into the ring. There would be no campaigning, no voting, no parties. At a certain date some random process (maybe similar to the way lottery numbers pop into a vacuum tube) would make the selection. Think of the time and money and energy that would become available for important things.
Our leadership would come from a pool of many who are willing and able to live and serve the world in/from servant leadership.
Anne Braden, a Civil Rights Activist and Writer, was born in 1924 and died in 2006. Anne Braden is best known for a single act: In 1954 she helped a Black couple buy a house in an all-white neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky. One hundred years from the day Anne Braden was born, and 70 years from the day Anne Braden helped that Black couple buy a home in an all-white neighborhood of Louisville, it is now normal for people all over this country (not just in Louisville) to buy any home anywhere they want to and can afford to live. Regardless of the color of skin.
When I told a friend about envisioning a new civil leadership selection process, he shared an idea a friend of his came up with years ago: A six-year presidential term, with no reelection option. That person saw this as a potential end to a first term serving primarily as grounds for re-election.
Watching “Love, Power and Liberation” I also learned that when much of the world entered pandemic lockdown in spring 2020, Robyn Maynard, influential author of Policing Black Lives, and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, award-winning author, began writing each other letters — a gesture sparked by friendship and solidarity, and by a desire for kinship and connection in a world shattering under the intersecting crises of pandemic, police killings, and climate catastrophe.
Their letters soon grew into a powerful exchange on the subject of where we go from here.heard about a book that was written during the pandemic Rehearsals for Living…. articulating to each other Black and Indigenous perspectives on our unprecedented here and now…. Maynard and Simpson create something new: a vital demand for a different way forward, and a poetic call to dream up new ways of ordering earthly life.
In Love, Power, and Liberation Lama Rod Owens spoke such wisdom and grace. He says we have to mourn what is happening and there has to be a place for joy. That joy has to become a discipline and a practice. He spoke historical truth about many people who have faced real struggle, even genocide, and how there’s been joy in these moments. He says we have to continue to choose the laughter and the joy and we have to choose community. He says we have to reemphasize our dreaming. He says we have to stay true to the dreams that we have about what we want the world to look like.
He shared Emma Goldman’s saying, “If I can’t dance, it’s not my revolution.”
All of Braden’s activism flowed from a single conviction: she wanted to live in a world “where people were people,” not members of a particular race or class who were treated better or worse because of it.
Perhaps you and I want to live in a different world.
Perhaps many of us want to live in a different world, a world where people are people, a world where joy and laughter and community are a practice, a world where people are people, not members of a particular race, religion, or political party….
Note* If you are a regular Yellow Brick Road reader you already know I write raw. This post comes with a warning.
The past few days have been busy as preparations for going south have progressed past pre-packing and accelerated to fever pitch. The pre-packing is essential because you never know what is going to come into your life on any given day.
Yesterday morning as I was text checking on one of my niece-god-daughters who had back surgery on Monday in Grand Rapids, I learned that another niece-god-daughter is navigating a nasty respiratory thing in Eau Claire. I sent her some information that might be useful, including a link about acupressure points and the recipe for a red raspberry tea respiratory remedy. In ours local honey and red raspberry tea is a staple, but not so in all households. Just home from getting my teeth cleaned, I saw her response accepting my offer to bring her the necessary ingredients.
I prepared the refrigerator for departure weeks ago. I wiped out the drawers, washed off the shelves, and lined everything with clean paper toweling. Next Thursday morning I will quickly put stuff into coolers and gather the paper towels and the fridge will be pristine when we return in April. Some things you can do early, while others can only be done at the last minute.
I am a multi-tasker and have been needing/wanting to practice using a hands-free headset when I am driving. So, I hooked the headset up and headed toward Eau Claire. You see, I had heard from friends I have been wanting/needing to catch up with that they would be in the car driving back to Indianapolis from Florida and would welcome a phone chat. I am so appreciative of their patience and willingness to coach me a few things. Thank you, Tim! One thing led to another but following their stop for lunch and several interruptions here, I finally settled into my mother’s glider rocker and with their loving presence and kindness dared to speak the deep truths of hurting hearts which inhabit a household with diverse views in the aftermath of Tuesday’s election.
John and I have a long history…. You know from my previous post that I stopped voting 1n 1992. In 2008, John was painting protest signs in our basement that read: Obama is an Idiot. He would hold those words high with other angry people in the parking lot of our court house.
My discomfort was not about political positions, or issues I knew very little about.
My discomfort (then and now) was (and is) about values that spring from deep within my soul.
As I told my friends yesterday, it seems ludicrous to wish elected officials who you did not vote for to fail — a lot like being in a boat with someone you don’t agree with and shooting a hole in the bottom of the boat. Even if the elected individual was not your personal choice, isn’t it clear to you that your best interest is for him or her to do well during the term?
With the voting coming in pretty close to a 50 percent split, could’t that mean almost half of our country’s citizens might blindly spend the next four years hoping our Presidential leadership is abysmal?
Friends, no matter who shoots the hole in the bottom, isn’t it clear that we are all needed to bale water and paddle to shore…. We are all in that same boat!
Today’s quote from Aaron:
One does feel hemmed in by the earthsuit at times. It feels unworkable. Nothing is as easy as it should be. And somewhere beyond the conscious mind are our real memories of the ease of moving in the light body, of the joy of being fully present with that light. Of course it feels claustrophobic. Can it become a deeper reminder of who you are? And instead of into deeper fear, can it lead you into an appreciation of the perfectness of the journey and that even the depression, the fear, the anger, are gifts to help you learn love and compassion and acceptance?
As I told my niece yesterday, I swear by that remedy of red raspberry tea with local honey and fresh lemon. I have used lemon juice when I didn’t have fresh lemon. I’m thinking that is not a deal breaker. There is something in local honey that stimulates the immune system and the combination really addresses the respiratory system.
Red raspberry leaf tea is known to be a good source of various vitamins, including vitamin C, vitamin E and vitamin A. These vitamins are essential for maintaining overall health and supporting the immune system.
This remedy is not a good choice for women in third trimester because it also starts labor! That’s what we used with Stacey when we were trying to get her to deliver Adam while I was with them there in Tennessee back in 1995. Because of the way it interacts with estrogen, also not advisable with women who have endometriosis.
Even the best remedies come with a caution.
In the 1970’s, the underwear company, Fruit of the Loom, had lost market share and was on the verge of bankruptcy when an independent entrepreneur, Larry Weiss, came up with the idea of kids underwear covered with cartoon characters. Fruit of the Loom bought Underoos™.
It was an idea from outside the inside that launched lasting success.
From the Metta Sutta, the Buddha’s Words on Kindness:
Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings:
Radiating kindness over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
I am making a public confession: I stopped voting 32 years ago. I thought I was doing that to be able to be a neutral witness to the differences and preferences in the world. A few days ago I had a profound sense I actually stopped voting because I had stopped trusting in my ability to choose wisely. You see, I had voted for Bill Clinton.
Even if the reason for my stopping voting may have not been what I thought it was, there has been a lot gleaned in these decades of living as an apolitical person. The definition of apolitical means politically neutral; without political attitudes, content, or bias. I might add, “in as much as is humanly possible.”
I stopped watching or reading news.
I stopped engaging in arguments about view.
I stopped thinking there was a better or worse way, a right or wrong candidate and I watched the great divide that happens in the world of thought as it occurs without benefit of the depth of heart that understands wholesome and unwholesome as situational, not as concrete absolutes.
We want things to be absolute.
We want to know if we make the “right” choice only good will come.
We want freedom from pain.
As I first woke during the wee hours of the morning the map showing the election results included Wisconsin and Michigan among the few states that had not yet been completely tabulated. The next time I looked, Michigan was still undeclared but Wisconsin was red and Donald Trump had been declared the winner of the election.
That map…. seeing so much red and so little blue. It has only been in the past few months that I knew which political party was red and which was blue. I had to use a mnemonic device to recall that the Republican party is represented by red (R-R).
The color of the states does not tell the entire truth. The numbers of voters listed (at 9:23 am EST) was 71 million people voting red and 66 million people voting blue. Thinking about that brought to mind the color purple. Purple paint consists of red to blue paint at a ratio 3:4.
I looked up the symbolic meanings of the color purple on a website called Very Well Mind:
People often describe the color purple as mysterious, spiritual, and imaginative.
Purple is also thought to represent wisdom and spirituality, as though a rare and mysterious nature perhaps causes it to seem connected to the unknown, supernatural, and divine.
Different shades of purple have different spiritual meanings. For instance, light purples are associated with light-hearted, romantic energies, while darker shades can represent sadness and frustration. In some parts of Europe, purple is associated with death and mourning.
In the U.S., the Purple Heart is among the highest honors for bravery in military service. The award, originally called the Badge of Military Merit, was created in 1782 by George Washington to give to soldiers for commendable action. The color represents courage and bravery.
My prayer is for the 71 million people who feel like they won today to realize that they have relatives and friends and neighbors who voted blue — people they love and respect — who desperately need their compassion and kindness and wisdom.
And for the 66 million people who feel like they lost today to realize that they have relatives and friends and neighbors who voted red — people they love and respect — who need their compassion and kindness and wisdom.
As I was lying there pondering purple, the first stanza in the song Storms Never Last, by Waylon Jennings came to mind:
Storms never last, do they, babe?
Bad times all pass with the winds
Your hand in mine stills the thunder
And you make the sun want to shine
I know there is mounting concern that we are all being manipulated by bots and trolls so that we do not see things the same way because we do not see (and hear) the same things. If that is really happening, and it likely is, it is dangerous.
Regardless, we are each capable of realizing that no perspective is capable of seeing everything clearly and the more sure I am that I know how it really is the more dangerous I am to myself and the world.
Think about the history of our nation related to slavery.
Think about the history of our planet related to the Holocaust.
Think about the history of your connections with your relatives, friends, and neighbors who voted a different color than you. What might he or she see or hear or think or feel that adds to your own wisdom and kindness and compassion?
Please, brothers and sisters of the red and blue, remember that our flag is red, white, and blue. Perhaps another post on the spiritual meaning of the color white will be forthcoming, but for now, I am dreaming of the color purple….
Dare to live with me in an apolitical world. A world in which we care about one another and navigate challenges without political attitudes, content, or bias — in as much as is humanly possible — a world that is already filled with purple hearts.
On October 17, 2024, a dharma sister sent an email sharing about a free on Youtube documentary titled “Living in the Time of Dying” a film by Michael Shaw that is 53 minutes and 31 seconds on the ‘how then shall we live’ about the climate crisis, but also about so much more.
The email came while I was on retreat, and then Stacey was here for a fast-paced week, and then preparations to go south for the winter began in earnest. This morning I have watched this beautiful documentary that breaks my heart. Now fingers to the keyboard, I am feeling perfect timing of watching on this evening before the polarized U.S. Presidential election. I think if you will watch it you would agree that the parallels are obvious.
Stan Rushworth is a teacher of Native American Literature, and the author of Sam Woods: American Healing (Station Hill Press, New York 1992), Going to Water: The Journal of Beginning Rain (Talking Leaves Press, Freedom, CA 2014), and Diaspora’s Children (Hand To Hand Publishing, Topanga, CA 2020). Stan says, “This is the end of life as we know it…. This is something that native people have been dealing with since the colonists came…. We have a sacred obligation of how to be in these times.”
“You’ve got to be okay in the uncertainty and the emotional difficulty. We’ve got to be okay ourselves and with each other. That’s okay. That’s normal to be confused and to feel pain in this context. And learn how to hold each other in that and in that calmer way.” ~ Professor Jem Bendell
Lyrics in “Boogie Street” by Leonard Cohen:
So come, my friends, be not afraid
We are so lightly here
It is in love that we are made
In love we disappear
This theme of perspective continues to escalate. Not just in personal ways, but within the collective.
This morning about 6 o’clock I was awakened by a “poke” on my left shoulder. It was a somatic poke. A physical sensation. The kind of experience where you would swear an actual person was there doing the poking.
John and I had a very awkward time yesterday. I was talking to him about disinformation and what makes people vulnerable to disinformation. His initial position was to say how the other side does that too. I’ve heard him say that many, many times and I just respond, “Two wrongs don’t make a right. It doesn’t matter if everyone’s doing it, if it’s not something that’s wholesome, we have the freewill choice to abandon the unwholesome and cultivate the wholesome.”
I was able to gain a beautiful insight after I finally asked him if anything I shared with him had invited him at all to a greater openness to question his own view. He told me no and I felt really deflated, somewhat hopeless with sadness. Then I realized his attachment to view and everyone’s attachment to view might be okay.
Earlier in the day, Sheilana’s words had spoken so clearly about how it is that people have view saying, “And the thing is that if you’re in that same position that I’m in, noticing the very same thing I’m noticing, we’re going to notice two different things. We won’t notice the same, not necessarily notice the same part of it.”
And here is the key, “It is a chore to remind myself that everything is perfect just like it is, that because I want it to be some way, doesn’t mean that it’s ever going to be that. Because everybody else wants it to be their way too, and that just doesn’t work. So how is it that we come into a space where we’re comfortable with what is? And we’ve talked about it many times in the past, about how we can help make a change by being in that space of comfort with what is, instead of wanting it to be different.”
Comfort with what is….
The truth of this came to be evident to me during the decades I worked with a lot of people who were navigating health challenges. Resisting the pain, fighting the necessity of giving recovering some time, not wanting it to be the way it is right now actually can prolong the process. For sure, it heightens the suffering.
This morning I was able to see yesterday’s process as progress.
Twelve years ago, in 2012, the gap in understanding between John and me was cavernous. That was just three presidential elections ago.
One of the guys on the Tuesday morning meditation was speaking about Attack from Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America, a book by Barbara McQuade, an American lawyer who served as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan from 2010 to 2017. Disinformation is not just misinformation. Disinformation is designed to evoke a strong emotional response nurturing perspectives with more extreme views, making it difficult and sometimes impossible to find common ground with others.
Perhaps Sheilana is saying that the only common ground is comfort with what is.
Some years ago, Barbara Brodsky shared this image of two ladders. The ladders are the same height, but the distance between the steps was ginormous. The person had not yet gotten off the ground on the other ladder, but the person was already near the top of the ladder with the smaller steps.
Perhaps we have ease and success and comfort with with what is: smaller steps!
John Lennon said, “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”
Gratitude is not a mere word;
it is not a mere concept.
It is the living breath
of your real existence on earth.
~ Sri Chinmoy
Claudia and I drove to Holly the day before the retreat started so we did not have the several hours of travel and unpacking and settling in all before noon on opening day. Awake early the next morning, I wrote in my journal:
D: What is the meaning of my being here?
V: You, My Dear, give whatever meaning that is given. Think about this in relationship to what is called “divisiveness” in your country today.
D: It is staggering and humbling.
V: It does appear clearly that.
When folks arrived at the Maryville Retreat Center on Monday, October 14 2024, I had not expected to shed so many joyful tears. I wrote on the white board: The joy of reunion brought to mind the way it is spoken of the joy when we are reunited with loved ones “in heaven.”
Very unusual opening words by Aaron, “We are not here for meditation — we are here for sangha.”
At the Tuesday morning sitting I realized when I had to re-string my mala last winter one bead was put out of place. As I held that bead in my hand, my heart was so open! I thought about the tradition of making a deliberate mistake. Quiltmakers, Navajo Indians, even carpenters are aware of and use this idea. One source even says that the errors included are the same for a particular artist – sort of like a maker’s mark.
When our small group met with the teachers I shared how complete I felt in our coming together, as if I had died at that moment I would have known I had done absolutely everything I came into this incarnation to do.
Maryville has a wonderful chapel, with a peaked roof above the altar, skylights, and huge windows looking out onto the serene setting. Stained glass words line the seam between the walls and the ceiling. Each word seemed to invite complete states of being like peace, joy, hope, and love….
I spent quite a bit of time in that space, once using it as a walking meditation. Afterwards I wrote in my journal:
V: To whom do you pray, Dear One?
D: To the center of Life.
V: And what is this center of Life? It is much like the center of an onion. There is “no” thing there that is other than. This is a profound truth.
The theme of reunion kept coming forth as a sweet fragrance. I meditated on the cellular memory of the on-going joy my sister, Janis, and I celebrate every moment of our lives now. This closeness and preciousness is the result of our having a profound loss of rapport and connection that lasted a significant amount of time.
So grateful for the gifts of sitting in group meditation, chanting with other’s voices and feeling the harmonies, and having time dedicated to Noble Silence.
The first six words from Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” Act two, Scene 1, the Forest of Arden, spoke volumes: Sweet are the uses of adversity…. And as John Lennon said, “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”
Home from the retreat now, the simple gift of our being together remains most salient for me.
I leave for Holly, Michigan, where I will attend a silent meditation retreat titled “Remembering our Awakened Essence” with Barbara Brodsky and John Orr from Deep Spring Center for Meditation, and sangha sisters and brothers from all over the world. The retreat will be held at The Maryville Retreat Center. This week Barbara’s husband, Hal, had a heart attack and has been hospitalized, receiving a pacemaker. Many know Hal previously had a gravely serious stroke and has been being cared for in their home since Covid. John Orr lives in Alexander, North Carolina, very near Asheville, where hurricane Helene has left his area with roads out, power down, and horrific destruction.
There is a lot going on.
This is not my first rodeo. I have been to MANY week-long silent retreats with this group, but due to the pandemic it has been five years (October 2019 being the last) since I attended a residential retreat. I definitely feel like a newbie. And a lot of rain and cool is forecast. Likely not going to be easy distraction by walking the beautiful campus.
Plus, there is a lot going on this week.
1. John will be staying alone for the first time since he had open heart surgery and the TIA from noon Sunday until Stacey arrives Thursday late afternoon.
2. Our neighbor (Joe) is having heart valve surgery on Wednesday.
3. Friends are navigating the losses and messes following Hurricane Milton.
4. Our friend (Molly) is having a pacemaker.
5. Our friend (Nancy) is turning 80.
6. My long-time client and friend (Jane) is experiencing colon bleeding that cannot be surgically repaired. It is a complication from radiation therapy.
7. Our country is approaching a Presidential Election that has amplified differences of opinions without highlighting the truth that we are interconnected.
In the busyness of preparations for going on retreat, I took time yesterday to watch a video of Tara Brach with Dan Harris. Here are a few nuggets I am taking with me, and since you will be going with me in my heart, from “Timeless Heart Wisdom for our Times.”
The most compelling and sacred work of these times is bridging divides.
Unless we are seeking the well-being of all we are going to end up in some way perpetuating the suffering of our times.
The Zen Masters say the most important thing is remembering the most important thing.
Ours is a relational universe of aliveness that we’re inextricably a part of that’s influencing us that we are influencing that we are to pay attention to that in a way that is not abstract.
The felt sense of that changes everything.
It is probably obvious some of the reasons why I am nervous about turning off my phone and not checking for calls or texts or emails.
It is also probably obvious why this is the perfect week for a silent meditation retreat….
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