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….
Last evening we had dinner with two long-time friends. One friend lost her winter home on Pine Island two years ago to Hurricane Ian. As Hurricane Milton is crossing the Gulf of Mexico right now barrelling toward Florida we have friends who are year-round on the island. It felt good for us to gather here in our tiny house and enjoy hearty soup and savory salads. And fresh-baked bread.
The other friend and I will be attending a residential retreat all of next week. She said the retreat comes at an ideal time for her as she is so wrapped up in the political stuff and global conditions.
This morning I sent both of them the opening words of our Florida meditation group who meets online each Tuesday afternoon at 1:00 pm EST. The leader hosted this gathering in her home on Pine Island for several decades until she moved into a senior living center on the mainland. At the time of yesterday’s Zoom gathering, she was there in her apartment.
Her opening words were salve…. “It is a different feeling when I feel that if I don’t like what’s going on right now, I can change it. But the reality is that all I can do about that is change my attitude about it. I can’t necessarily change what’s actually happening. So it’s sort of humbling to sit here in this same space, but it looks much differently because, you know, all the windows are covered up, the doors are covered up. You can’t see out. There isn’t anybody out there to see anyway. So it’s quite a different reality.”
Three of us online with her sat in our homes here in Michigan.
One other friend online with us told us she was staying on Pine Island in the home of friends. The same home and the same friends with whom this friend survived Hurricane Ian two years ago. This friend’s home had been destroyed in Matlacha.
This morning I wake to a text message from another friend who had spent a day with us on Pine Island before Hurricane Ian. He was sending a photo and this message, “With all that is going on in Florida sending you one of my guardian orbs.”
Perfectly round orbs appearing in photos are often interpreted as signs of harmony and purity, believed to represent balanced energy and the presence of a peaceful spirit. Some see them as guardians or guides. They are thought to be evidence of the presence of our departed loved ones who are watching over us.
A while later this morning as I opened email the loving messages continued.
The world is a creation of our mind. Everything we experience happens in the mind. So there is no need to look outside. Everything is happening right here in our own minds. ~ The Daily Tejaniya
Gain and loss, pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, light and dark—these are seeming opposites. But nothing is truly an opposite but always part of everything else. What would joy be without sorrow? How would you recognize joy? How would you recognize the light if there were no sense of darkness? How would you know spaciousness if there were never contraction? But we must recognize the distinction between ultimate reality and those mundane objects that arise from conditions and pass away. Reflect on the beauty of light and love as ultimate realities, and how darkness and contraction arise out of conditions and pass away. ~ Aaron
The opening words for our meditation time continued: “And although I know that this particular building, as you know, I’m on the sixth floor, which is the top floor, it’s poured concrete. So all the floors are concrete that’s twelve inches thick, and the walls are not quite that thick, but the outside walls are. Maybe it’s eight inches on the walls. And so it would have to be a really tremendous storm to take any of it out. And I just know that that’s not forthcoming. I don’t think we’ll really even know that it happened. And it will happen between tomorrow, between bedtime and midnight. So they say. I was talking to a friend yesterday, and I said, you know, you and I have had a nice long association in this lifetime, and if you never hear from me again, just know that I love you. And it threw her a bit for me to say that. And I was very conscious of what I was saying, because that’s always true. It’s not just because there’s a storm. It’s true for all of us today, right now. However, our lives usually are focused in a different direction. Thank goodness.”
And as we settled into the stillness, these assurances were spoken: “Yes, this is comforting, and all of you are comforting. And I know that there are many others that are also. And hopefully they have found a place where they can express their own comfort. So if everyone is ready, shall we go into our meditation? So taking a couple of deep breaths, and just feel the breath as it fills our lungs. And exhale. And then with the next breath, fill the lungs as much as they were, and then add a little bit more. And I ask Spirit to be with us, the higher selves of each of us, to guide and protect us, acknowledging that that’s what they are doing all the time. And then as we take that deep breath, and a little more, know that every time we do this, we are a little more of who we are. I don’t know that it’s possible, well, let me put it some other way. I accept the possibility that when we take all we can that we are, and then we add a little more, that there will always be a little more. In the evolution of humanity, of life on this planet, I can imagine there’s always a little more. And it’s not necessarily definable, not something that we can describe. And yet there’s a sense within each of us that knows there’s a little more. So as we go into the silence today, into the uncertainty of how nature will conclude this day, we set an intention to be a little more.”
May all beings find an end to stress and suffering. May all beings know peace.
As I slide the drape back from the window this morning the sky to the west is very dark.
I have been initiating conversation about the upcoming Presidential Election with John. For decades we have not spoken of such things, but it seems vital to be able to speak openly with others about things we see differently without fear and anger and denial.
I was coming in off the porch when John was heading down the hall on his way to coffee with the guys at Roger’s. He asked what I was doing and I told him I had gone out and tried to get a photo of the western sky that was so black.
My phone rang. It was John and I had a sense before I answered why he was calling, “If you look out the front window you will see the rainbow.”
The sky has always been observed by humans. The earliest recorded meaning given to the rainbow is as a symbol of hope. For Christians and Hebrews, it appeared as proof of a covenant between God and all living creatures in the book of Genesis. The significance of a rainbow was also found in Chinese, Egyptian and Native American history.
Sharing with a dear friend a bit later, I could see the rainbow as it related to this being a time of truly releasing disappointment around unmet expectations. For my friend, it was a dinner she wanted to prepare as a special gift for us. She considered it awful. It was very easy for me to see that her criticism was part of the pattern of judging the manifestation without looking at the loving intention.
Our conversation led me to disappointment related to Holistic Alliance which we closed in 2005. She was able to say, “I think you are not looking at it clearly. I remember the joy I felt when I would walk through that door. And all of the people we helped. We were so ahead of our times….”
We were both able bear witness to the amazing gifts that were given and the incredible love behind them. Richard (of NLP fame) Bandler would say that disappointment requires adequate pre-planning.
I begin hearing the lyrics to the song Good Intentions, as it was sung by Randy Travis: “And I hear tell the road to hell is paved with good intentions. But mama my intentions were the best.”
It depends where you look for information on issues like “open boarders” or “secure borders.” Or the “criminalization” or “decriminalization” of abortion. Even things like ethics or the lack-thereof in industry related to insurance or pharmaceuticals or financial management. It is a lot easier to talk about the problem/s than it is to sit with the insecurity of the overwhelming complexity of it all.
Last evening as we played cards with Fred and his friend, Kay, I tried to express to John my view on a play he was choosing to make. He could not (or would not) see it the way I wanted him to, and he made the play as he wanted to make it. As it turned out, it likely cost us that hand.
Often life is referred to as a game. The quote “Life is too important to be taken seriously” is attributed to Oscar Wilde. The quote is a paradox, as it seems contradictory at first. Wilde’s suggestion is that the more important something is, the more important it is not to take it seriously.
Elbert Hubbard also said, “Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.”
After Tuesday, November 5, 2024, someone’s favored candidate will have lost and someone else’s favorite candidate will have won.
Will you see disappointment or good intentions? Is it true that we can only see clearly when we see both? That it depends where you look?
Praying we not miss the rainbows that come with the dark clouds.
“Mama my intentions were the best”…. Praying we learn to be able to say this with honesty and confidence.
The Secret Garden was written by English-American author and playwright Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924). It was originally serialized in The American Magazine in 1909 and 1910 and was then published as a book in 1911.
Originally published in 1924, The Boxcar Children is a children’s book series originally created and written by the American first-grade school teacher, Gertrude Chandler Warner.
As a youngster, these were my two all-time favorite books, and I finished rereading The Secret Garden today. I marvel at how we are shaped without noticing it. Or perhaps, it is more accurate to see our soul’s destiny has been pulling us along all along.
“In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have been discovered. In the last century more amazing things were found out than in any other century before. In this new century hundreds of things still more astounding will be brought to light. At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they see it can be done- then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. One of these things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts- just mere thoughts- are as powerful as electric batteries- as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in you may never get over it as long as you live.” ― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
When I was Founding Director of Holistic Alliance I would often be asked to lecture about holistic health and the weaving together of body, mind, and spirit. Many times I said, “All new ideas are met with three distinct phases: First, they are ridiculed. Then, they are resisted. Eventually, they are accepted as the norm.”
It turns out that there’s a predictable process for the evolution of great and breakthrough ideas. Ideas that are revolutionary.
I learned about this process from Sir Arthur C. Clarke, inventor of the geostationary communication satellite and author of dozens of best-selling science-fiction books, including 2001: A Space Odyssey.
In the 1980’s and 1990’s I had the great honor to know Arthur C. Clarke, he was “Uncle Arthur” to me, Bob Richards, and Todd Hawley: the three co-Founders of International Space University.
Clarke described three phases of a great idea:
1. In the beginning, people will tell you that the idea is “crazy”—that it will never work.
2. Next, people will say: “Well, it might work but it’s not worth doing.”
3. Finally, they’ll say: “I told you that it was a great idea all along!”
Terri McClernon is a “Dharma Sister” and we have spent many years in classes and at meditation retreats together. A few years ago, Terri gifted me a Notched Fairy Cooking Wand, hand crafted by Harry Clarke of Kitchen Carver. I am OFTEN baking cookies for friends, and I ALWAYS use my Fairy Wand.
Imagine my surprise and delight yesterday morning when I fired up the oven to heat the house a bit after overnight temperatures dropped down below sixty degrees Fahrenheit and I noticed a heart on my Fairy Wand!
A winding path led me to listen to an episode of the ‘Gina Gardiner & Friends Show’ – this episode featured Mitzi Perdue and the theme was ‘A New Perspective On The War In Ukraine’. Mitzi had just returned from her third trip to the Ukraine as a war correspondent. I heard her speak of how the Russians are using weaponry to launch bombs containing hundreds of land mines each into prime agricultural lands. This prevents the growing of food to feed the people and it paralyzes the future economy of the country.
Would I have listened with the same presence if I had not just learned that Mitzi was a colleague and friend of Linda, my beloved friend who died July 5? This from her online bio: Mitzi Perdue has had a lifelong fascination with what it takes to lead the best life.
And:
She got to watch up close and personal how her father co-founded and was President of the Sheraton Hotel chain, and she also got to watch how her late husband, Frank Perdue, built his father-and-son chicken company into a company that today employees 21,000 people.
And:
In December of 2022, she auctioned her Atocha emerald engagement ring for $1.2 million, with all the proceeds going to benefit Ukraine.
I confess to feeling like I know Mitzi, although I had never even heard of her — let alone knowing about her friendship with Linda or her work in Ukraine — until a few days ago.
Imagine what we might see accomplished through Mitzi and Terri and people like us if we all use the Fairy Wand of our hearts and live by Colin’s motto in The Secret Garden): “I shall never stop making Magic.”
The work of wisdom is to differentiate between what is skillful, and what is unskillful. ~ The Daily Tejaniya
My days continue to include bike rides and sharing with Fred. It has been two months and two days since Linda died.
We ride and talk. Most days we have a water break sitting somewhere or another.
We talk about Linda, about the loss we feel, about our lives that loom much smaller than they did decades ago.
Following this morning’s ride — taken in cloudy, breezy, chilly conditions — I read again from Ram Dass Here and Now #176 – Loving and Dying:
So, a lot of the work that you are doing in a lifetime is the preparation for the moment of death, and keeping death present enriches the moment of life. That the optimum way to be healed is the optimum way to die, which is your full consciousness. But your full consciousness listens, does what it can to preserve the precious human body, but also allows what is to be, and a lot of people lose it because they are so attached to which way it all goes all the time.
Like, I work with people that are having a slow illness, terminal illness, and they are losing their motor abilities and their control (sphincter controls and things) and each stage they lose, I watch some people who are able to open to the new stage and say, “Ah, so….” and those people don’t suffer. And then I watch somebody who looks at the shoes in the closet that they’ll never wear again and sits around feeling sorry because they can’t wear the shoes anymore. They’re holding onto the model of who they were a moment ago. A moment ago, they were somebody wearing those shoes, and now they are not wearing those shoes.
The minute you let go into what is, “Ah….”
The minute you hold onto the model of what might be, or what ought to be, or what should be, or what was: suffering. It’s that disparity that creates the suffering. So that any time there is suffering, it’s a clue to where your mind is holding, and that is why you keep using suffering.
We also talked about the story of the Two Wolves. From Wikipedia: It is a legend of unknown origin, commonly attributed to Cherokee or other indigenous American peoples in popular retelling. The legend is usually framed as a grandfather or elder passing wisdom to a young listener; the elder describes a battle between two wolves within one’s self, using the battle as a metaphor for inner conflict. When the listener asks which wolf wins, the grandfather answers, “Whichever one you feed”.
Fred spoke of the loss of Linda like a backpack that is weighing him down making it difficult for him to move forward. I suggested he might choose to set the backpack down.
Another quote from the Loving and Dying podcast by Ram Dass:
Maharishi, the saint, was dying of cancer and those around him were saying, “Don’t leave us. Don’t leave us.”
He looked confused and said, “Don’t be silly. Where could I go? I am just dropping the body. I am not going anywhere.”
And, so you realize that the grieving is part of the dramatic story line of your separateness, because you can’t grieve for something that didn’t go anywhere.
Perhaps the skillful action is for us to not try to get rid of the emotions and not try to carry the weight of the loss.
Last evening John and I were downtown St. Joe at sunset. The clouds were ablaze. Today on Facebook I saw a video of the same sky taken by our niece with her comment: “The sky last night was one of the most incredible ones I’ve ever seen. Some things just stir up the desire to worship the one who makes all of the beautiful things.”
I added: “And makes all things beautiful.”
Here are just two of the unedited photos of an extraordinary sunset.
Evidence.
Let those who have eyes see. Seeing beauty in what is IS skillful.
It has been a week of mild medical stuff. I had a crown prep on Thursday with a new dentist. I always let folks know I experience anxiety about medical procedures. When I told Dr. Lisa, she said she totally understands, that she is afraid too. I said I sometimes cry. She responded, “So do I.”
While she stepped out, the dental assistant confided she is the patient with the highest anxiety they see in their practice. They can barely get her to have her teeth cleaned. I wondered if that might have been what led her to become a dentist.
Suddenly, the tears forming in my eyes were not for me. Deep compassion rose up in my chest and formed a lump in my throat. It must be challenging to have your work be uncomfortable for the recipient as you are feeling the anxiety yourself. In a marvelously mystical manner, my experience in the chair was transformed. There was no “I” in the experience. It was not “my” anxiety or/and “her” anxiety, there was just anxiety.
As a child, one might be frightened of clowns. A pair was just hung in our great room after having been packed away for the past seven years. We love these clowns because they look like us!
May all beings come to the end of suffering.
I had a realization! The trauma I experienced from extensive dental work as a child occurred following the trauma of having been diagnosed and treated for polio – being restrained during a spinal tap then hospitalized in isolation where I was told if I stopped crying my mom would come and get me only to have her standing behind the glass, never allowed to hold me.
Dr. Lisa’s trauma was a plastic surgeon having done something on her face along her eye. I don’t know why the procedure was being done but I do know her experience was as a young child, too.
Her hands were too abrupt for my taste, but I had the strong sense of her wanting to get in and out of my mouth as quickly as possible so both of us could feel relief from anxiety.
On Friday I had a complete eye exam. I love the doctor I see at Great Lakes Eye Care. He is one of the most present people I have ever met, a being-with so welcome in the medical profession. The conclusion of the exam was a mixed result. A new prescription will not significantly improve my vision as I had hoped. Cataracts have formed on both eyes. “They are ready for removal when you are ready,” he said.
The good news is my vision in general should be much improved after the surgery, although I will still need glasses for reading. When John and I talked about it we decided I will wait until spring, We have a busy fall planned and the schedule feels too tight to get it all done. We plan to go South earlier in November than normal because Brad’s band (Apache Jericho) has a gig we want to be in Tennessee for.
Crow is cawing outside my window and I can see three of them as I pull back the drapes. Native peoples recognize messages, meanings, and magic in every encounter so I look up Crow and read, “Spiritually, crows represent transformation, positive change, and intelligence. Seeing a crow is generally considered to be a good omen. Temporary and unexpected changes are coming, but the outcome will be positive.”
Given the meaningful medical musings about experiences we have as a child, you might also appreciate this recent “Insights” article published in The Herald Palladium:
As a Child
by Reverend Debra Basham
When I was a child, I spoke as a child. The opening of verse 11 from 1 Corinthians Chapter 13 speaks so clearly to a dangerous universal truth: each of us was a child. I understood as a child, I thought as a child…. You and I — and every other human being — have had experiences and perceptions that caused us to develop beliefs as a child. Some of those beliefs are not serving us as adults.
We were sitting on my porch sharing. She is navigating emotions a parent feels when an adult child is gravely ill. This woman’s son is on a double lung transplant list.
“How can I pray for God to take another parent’s child so my child can live?” she tearfully asked.
“God would not take another parent’s child so that your child can live,” I assured her. Painful things happen. God does not “cause” bad things to happen any more than branches waving cause wind. A child, not knowing the truth about how wind results from the warm and cold currents far from where we are, believes something that is just not true.
God’s love could motivate parents who lose a child to choose organ donation. Not donating the child’s organs would do nothing to spare the pain of loss, but donating them can allow beneficial results to come from such a devastating event.
Developmental biologist Jean Piaget studied and recorded the intellectual development and abilities of infants, children, and teens. As he was doing so, he noticed nuances he called stages. In 1936, he documented that the brains of children work very differently than those of adults. While not all experts agree with his idea of stages, it is undeniable that children’s brains work differently. The way children think about a situation, rather than the situation itself, results in a particular emotion and behavior. Think about a monster under the bed, for example. The natural process of this thinking as a child can have serious complications in our adult life, such as the woman who could not pray for an organ donation for her son.
A child experiences me/mine/you/yours and having or not having. One truck or one doll will be the experience. Either I have it, or you have it. The child’s experience develops into distorted beliefs. If you have something, I cannot have it. Either or thinking is born.
Visiting with a friend who had lost her husband, we saw this dynamic in her feeling that she could not move from the house they shared because he was “present” in her memories there in a way he could not be if she lived elsewhere. A child feels “with” only when the physical locality is shared. Adult awareness sees the truth that no matter how far or how long we are in separate spaces from our loved ones, we remain together in our hearts.
The good news is that every faith tradition has language to help us move beyond those distorted beliefs derived from experiences we had as a child. The child’s perspective is not bad or wrong, 1 Corinthians Chapter 13 expresses a universal truth: When I was a child, I spoke as a child. The result was that I understood as a child….
Sacred scriptures also say we shall know the truth and the truth shall set us free. Quoting Paramahansa Yogananda: “All the world’s great religions are based on common universal truths, which reinforce rather than conflict with one another.”
Perhaps spiritual growth is simply wisdom revealing that beliefs we developed as a child can bind and blind. Fortunately, we are adults now and can see clearly now how perfect peace results when we realize (see with real eyes) that.
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