This is an extract from an Adyashanti satsang. I saw the entire DVD some time ago and something about it has stuck with me... the part about how pleasure seeking egos do so much rearranging of their lives... always with the renovations!
I think this is a teaching easy to mis-interpret. i.e. I think of it by way of an excuse, everytime I don't want to clean my house. But, I don't think that's what he's saying.
So why did it so stick with me?
Listening yet again just now, I noticed.
He asks, "What is actually here right now?"
That's the true essence of the teaching.
And I think of the text message I sent a friend this morning at 7:30 from my back deck. Sky was so gray. Trees were black webs of branch and twigs against a silence filled with birds chirping. The temperature was warm enough to leave the back door open and carry my breakfast outside.
What a morning!... I had to text my friend...
U awake? Note trees clouds sky sweet
It wasn't a gray, sad day at all. It was beautiful, just as it was right now...
U awake?
Enjoy the video:
Friday, February 27, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Addiction, Ego, Pain
This cartoon fascinated me.
I believe we are each knitters of one kind or another.
But, I noticed the people commenting on YouTube seem oblivious to this fact.
I believe we are each knitters of one kind or another.
But, I noticed the people commenting on YouTube seem oblivious to this fact.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Pennies from Grandma
I received a 1914 penny in change a couple days ago.
I was amazed.
Had someone broken out their old collection? But, this was no collector’s specimen.
It was well worn and a bit corroded. I began to think about a penny’s life span.
How many were in circulation? How many were pulled out regularly and melted down?
I wonder if pennies aren’t like seeds blowing in the wind- out of a million, surely one will survive and take hold.
Anyway, I began to think of pennies. And when I see a penny, a discarded and old penny for that matter, I always think of Grandma.
My point here? I really don’t know. But, it has to do with what we hold onto and how we let go. It has to do with love, and love gone wrong, and love curving round to heal.
It brings to mind an essay I wrote, long ago now, entitled, Pennies from Grandma.
The clip the magazine highlighted declares:
They told me that her blood was too thick for her heart to pump, and I wondered how it was that someone stayed alive so long after nothing’s left. I’d seen bugs crushed and gone so quickly. I couldn’t decide if life was fragile or tenacious beyond belief.
I’m still wrestling with these concepts. So I thought I’d share a bit more of the essay here.
I’ve been passing pennies on the sidewalk. There seem to be a lot, as if I’m not the only one who doesn’t bother anymore to lean down and pick them up. After all, what good’s a penny anymore? It’s enough to buy a memory. Every time I see one I think of Grandma Bralley. I see the two of us in 1954. She has me by the hand, for I am only four, and we are walking down the street in Bristol, a town all brick and iron-stained industrial cement.
We were on our way to the Delaware, to watch that oily river flow by, when Grandma saw the penny. It seemed to take her forever, and I held my breath, as she leaned over all arthritic to retrieve that penny off the street. When she finally had it, she held it out proudly for me to see, “Now, that’s a lucky penny!” The idea truly impressed me.
It’s a young girl’s first memory, those visits to Grandma’s. I think she liked me then. It was later that I grew too loud and impulsive, so that when I entered a room Grandma would jump and snap at me, “Be still.” I made her nervous. I don’t recall ever doing much of anything right for her except one time when I was about ten. Realizing she was very old, I spent the afternoon sitting on the sofa with her, holding her hand in mine, pushing her thick blue veins back and forth under the skin like spaghetti on a plate. I wanted her to tell me all about what it had been like when she was a girl. I looked into her eyes and saw they were so blue. I told her they were beautiful and suddenly, eighty-three years old, she sat up like a ramrod and burst into a smile. “The boys used to tell me that.” I’d never thought of Grandma and boys. I had never seen, nor would I ever see again, such a spark in her.
Later, that night, my father came to my room. Grandma had told him I had been nice. I was about to say how happy I was. Grandma’s stories had been wonderful. She’d told me things no one else knew. But Pop saw something else. “Here, you earned this dollar.” I liked the money, but it made me feel strange, being paid like that. Everything, like love, got turned askew…
I could hardly wait to tell my sister that Grandma had died. It seemed like such a news flash. She replied with a big grin, “She did?” and at the funeral we started laughing. It was terrible – my father next to me, head bowed, his hands trembling. And I was laughing out of control. I would just about burst with trying not to, but every time I got myself quieted I’d feel the pew shake, and knew my sister was down the line doing the same thing… I remember Grandma’s funeral as the torture of this laughter, and the curious inability to comprehend that she was really up there in that coffin…
Soon the dreams started. I saw Grandma old and we both cried. But in a while she was happier and we would talk. After a few months I didn’t really consider them dreams anymore. They were more like visits while I was asleep. She was getting younger, strong and happy. We enjoyed each other and I’d wake up feeling good. Then the dreams stopped. I figured she had gone off on her own.
Extracted from The Sun, issue 130, September, 1986.
I was amazed.
Had someone broken out their old collection? But, this was no collector’s specimen.
It was well worn and a bit corroded. I began to think about a penny’s life span.
How many were in circulation? How many were pulled out regularly and melted down?
I wonder if pennies aren’t like seeds blowing in the wind- out of a million, surely one will survive and take hold.
Anyway, I began to think of pennies. And when I see a penny, a discarded and old penny for that matter, I always think of Grandma.
My point here? I really don’t know. But, it has to do with what we hold onto and how we let go. It has to do with love, and love gone wrong, and love curving round to heal.
It brings to mind an essay I wrote, long ago now, entitled, Pennies from Grandma.
The clip the magazine highlighted declares:
They told me that her blood was too thick for her heart to pump, and I wondered how it was that someone stayed alive so long after nothing’s left. I’d seen bugs crushed and gone so quickly. I couldn’t decide if life was fragile or tenacious beyond belief.
I’m still wrestling with these concepts. So I thought I’d share a bit more of the essay here.
I’ve been passing pennies on the sidewalk. There seem to be a lot, as if I’m not the only one who doesn’t bother anymore to lean down and pick them up. After all, what good’s a penny anymore? It’s enough to buy a memory. Every time I see one I think of Grandma Bralley. I see the two of us in 1954. She has me by the hand, for I am only four, and we are walking down the street in Bristol, a town all brick and iron-stained industrial cement.
We were on our way to the Delaware, to watch that oily river flow by, when Grandma saw the penny. It seemed to take her forever, and I held my breath, as she leaned over all arthritic to retrieve that penny off the street. When she finally had it, she held it out proudly for me to see, “Now, that’s a lucky penny!” The idea truly impressed me.
It’s a young girl’s first memory, those visits to Grandma’s. I think she liked me then. It was later that I grew too loud and impulsive, so that when I entered a room Grandma would jump and snap at me, “Be still.” I made her nervous. I don’t recall ever doing much of anything right for her except one time when I was about ten. Realizing she was very old, I spent the afternoon sitting on the sofa with her, holding her hand in mine, pushing her thick blue veins back and forth under the skin like spaghetti on a plate. I wanted her to tell me all about what it had been like when she was a girl. I looked into her eyes and saw they were so blue. I told her they were beautiful and suddenly, eighty-three years old, she sat up like a ramrod and burst into a smile. “The boys used to tell me that.” I’d never thought of Grandma and boys. I had never seen, nor would I ever see again, such a spark in her.
Later, that night, my father came to my room. Grandma had told him I had been nice. I was about to say how happy I was. Grandma’s stories had been wonderful. She’d told me things no one else knew. But Pop saw something else. “Here, you earned this dollar.” I liked the money, but it made me feel strange, being paid like that. Everything, like love, got turned askew…
I could hardly wait to tell my sister that Grandma had died. It seemed like such a news flash. She replied with a big grin, “She did?” and at the funeral we started laughing. It was terrible – my father next to me, head bowed, his hands trembling. And I was laughing out of control. I would just about burst with trying not to, but every time I got myself quieted I’d feel the pew shake, and knew my sister was down the line doing the same thing… I remember Grandma’s funeral as the torture of this laughter, and the curious inability to comprehend that she was really up there in that coffin…
Soon the dreams started. I saw Grandma old and we both cried. But in a while she was happier and we would talk. After a few months I didn’t really consider them dreams anymore. They were more like visits while I was asleep. She was getting younger, strong and happy. We enjoyed each other and I’d wake up feeling good. Then the dreams stopped. I figured she had gone off on her own.
Extracted from The Sun, issue 130, September, 1986.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Wings
Last night, at my Taoist meditation group, I was given an object with which to meditate.
My eyes were already closed, so I never knew it was a skull – until after the fact.
It was a very powerful meditation that challenged and moved me deeply.
I wouldn’t recommend meditating with skulls for the weak of heart.
Still, I’m glad I had the opportunity for seeing and for learning.
And though I am a collector or skulls and antlers, tooth and bone, at the end of the meditation I wanted to smash that skull with my foot – the way a glass is crushed in celebration under the chuppah.
There! Be done! A new beginning has begun…
Or better still, I found these words of Mary Oliver today:
Wings
My dog came through the pinewoods dragging a dead fox – ribs and a spine, and a tail with the fur still on it. Where did you find this? I said to her, and she showed me. And there was the skull, there were the leg bones and the shoulder blades.
I took them home. I scrubbed them and put them on a shelf to look at – the pelvis, and the snowy helmet. Sometimes, in the pines, in the starlight, an owl hunches in the dense needles, and coughs up his pellet – the vole or the mouse recently eaten. The pellets fall through the branches, though the hair of the grass. Dark flowers of fur, with a salt of bones and teeth, melting away.
In Washington, inside the building of glass and stone, and down the long aisles, and deep inside the drawers, are the bones of women and children, the bones of old warriors. Whole skeletons and parts of skeletons. They can’t move. They can’t even shiver. Mute, catalogued – they lie in the wide drawers.
So it didn’t take long. I could see how it was, and where I was headed. I took what was left of the fox back to the pinewoods and buried it. I don’t even remember where. I do remember, though, how it felt. If I had wings I would have opened them. I would have risen from the ground.
from New and Selected Poems, volume II
My eyes were already closed, so I never knew it was a skull – until after the fact.
It was a very powerful meditation that challenged and moved me deeply.
I wouldn’t recommend meditating with skulls for the weak of heart.
Still, I’m glad I had the opportunity for seeing and for learning.
And though I am a collector or skulls and antlers, tooth and bone, at the end of the meditation I wanted to smash that skull with my foot – the way a glass is crushed in celebration under the chuppah.
There! Be done! A new beginning has begun…
Or better still, I found these words of Mary Oliver today:
Wings
My dog came through the pinewoods dragging a dead fox – ribs and a spine, and a tail with the fur still on it. Where did you find this? I said to her, and she showed me. And there was the skull, there were the leg bones and the shoulder blades.
I took them home. I scrubbed them and put them on a shelf to look at – the pelvis, and the snowy helmet. Sometimes, in the pines, in the starlight, an owl hunches in the dense needles, and coughs up his pellet – the vole or the mouse recently eaten. The pellets fall through the branches, though the hair of the grass. Dark flowers of fur, with a salt of bones and teeth, melting away.
In Washington, inside the building of glass and stone, and down the long aisles, and deep inside the drawers, are the bones of women and children, the bones of old warriors. Whole skeletons and parts of skeletons. They can’t move. They can’t even shiver. Mute, catalogued – they lie in the wide drawers.
So it didn’t take long. I could see how it was, and where I was headed. I took what was left of the fox back to the pinewoods and buried it. I don’t even remember where. I do remember, though, how it felt. If I had wings I would have opened them. I would have risen from the ground.
from New and Selected Poems, volume II
Monday, February 16, 2009
Off and On, In and Out
Last Monday, I "signed off" blogging.
Last Monday, I stayed home from work simply because I didn't feel like going. I wanted to just be quiet.
Today, I found this file. Appparently, I wrote it last Monday. I have absolutely no memory of doing so. I read it today a bit jarred at first - to have done so much and "never known." But then, that's happening alot lately.
At first I thought it was bad memory. Now I see I am transcending in activity. I find traces about the house of doing things I have no recollection of - refilling the kibble dish, putting oil in the frying pan and then skipping then meal. It's more startling at work. Without ever feeling spacey, I'll lay down an experiment and wander off. Or worse - continue working while "gone." I find myself at step 14, tube in hand, when last thing I recal I was at step 9. That particular experiment had to be redone.
I try to put events back together when I "wake up" (or actually - go back into this dream). There is utterly Nothingness on either side.
Time is something I get off of the clock. I've lost the feel to some extent. How can we make being in the Now a practice? That's actually all that there is. (This struck me as very funny.)
And every word is distortion. And confusing. SO, I am going to clip and paste. I can't edit. Too hard. Too confusing.
But, recording might be of some help. So here is what I found today:
Note January 9, 2009:
Sent this to Mary. (Did I really? - I don't think so)
Want to make additional comments. Been enjoying the song “Suddenly I see”
I was writing Becky just now and she'd asked some things... anyway here's part of my response and I realized I wanted to tell you too - though it is really carpool material - somehow it doesn't seem "right" to bring up (or actually it didn't cross my mind as germane to anything) but, having written it, I'd like you to know. It's been such a curious spot to be in - curious and at the same time not worth mentioning - which is curious too to me... so here's what i wrote:
Had my first actual breakfast today which is good sign for the stomach.
LOTS of energy pouring in? Virus? Both? Certainly energy...
A bit confusing as to whether I am totally ungrounded (doesn't quite seem like that) or no longer existing (obviously, I exist - existing here and/but everywhere too). I think it may be just the light shredding the knots in the fabric of ego.
Am watching very closely what is just a habit and can be let go. And if I insist upon maintaining the habit - what happens? Universe does not support. So next time, just let it go.
Was sitting the other day at the kitchen table puzzling over the strange feeling permeating my body. Was surprised to see it was Love. But not any love I had ever felt before or even recognized as Love, so why use that word? So, I looked again. This time it was Joy... but it was not joyous. Then I started laughing. Maharishi used to say "Bliss is not blissful." Now I understood. And the Love that was so strange to be calling love was strange because it was not loving. Words can't really get it. ... another habit to just let go... trying to explain anything.
Better to just pass on happy songs. Then the Joy is joyous and the Love is loving and it all kind of rolls along.
Re: doesn’t seem right. Ego is a habit (a collection of habits) – so if you’re dropping habits by feeling right/wrong you’ll notice it doesn’t feel right to focus on the “me, me, me” of experience. It hurts. “Division hurts” been thinking on that too. The I wants to disappear and “me, me, me” hurts – almost physically.
Addendum 2/16/09: And who is this “I” – First answer is “I don’t know.” Look closer- Emptiness, a false construct wants to do a header into Nothingness and disappear. Anything else is a Lie. It "division hurts" as the effort goes counter the entire flow of the Universe.
And I think this next part is just notes I made to myself.
Universe doesn’t support: the other day I sent email to Mary & Lily about sadness in finding picture of Becky & Annie in the snow. I Knew I shouldn’t bother writing out the complaint. But I did anyway. No reply. Writing just prolonged the wallow.
Complaining is a habit. Which is not to say, ego doesn’t have to first learn to speak up about what hurts. When it learns to speak, then it can move on to learning it doesn’t matter.
Why the habit is a habit? A body/nervous system filled with stress/impurities/ lacking contact with Being registers an experience as if a line has been etched deeply into rock. So: Grief makes an impression – on a physical level (“The Body Remembers”) Grief can be released, healed forgotten, moved on from… but it requires a lot of time and energy, as if the rock must be ground away.
But, as the stresses go, purity rises, Being becomes infused into the system – literally a new body is created and the physical body changes. Now, when an impression in made, “Grief” is experienced… it’s as if the impression, the experience is registered as a stick drawn through the water. Yes. I experience grief… and then it’s gone. Think this is impossible? Watch a baby move through the day. Catastrophe, tears, and two minutes later… delight. No problem.
As you change, have to be alert to the habit of being upset for long periods. Yes, you can still experience deeply – a stick can reach into the water to a far greater extent that it can etched into a stone – and then the experience is cleared and ready for the next moment…. To be whatever it may be.
What feels right and innocent and moving – rather than put into words, which holds onto a transient experience – better just to play. Send the songs you find, share, listen to what others are saying. Listen, don’t talk, let others express what you would say. Music, cartoons, serving hot soup. Love and Joy then become loving and joyous.
Who am I – I have a physical body – that’s not the real me, though I hang around the place – my true body is infinite Love, infinite Joy. There is a body of this – it permeates and transmutes the physical.
The words to label this transcendent body will fool you. I bet you’d find another word every time you look. Someone said “I am Surrender.” Surrender is not something we do. It is what we are. Love, Joy, Surrender – none of them are verbs. They are the un-nameable infinite Nothingness.
This body, the true you coincides with physical body that will always have personal preferences.
Best not to look or speak – at this point looking too closely into all this makes the energy too intense. So, in a way, I’ve been avoiding. But, I know it’s going on – like a freight train. The Universe is rolling through … I was going to say "me." But, actually, I saw – I am rolling through me. "Self unfolds itself, by itself, to itself."
Added ~2 hrs later... Ohh. I just noticed this note is dated Janurary 9th - not February 9th.
I give up. I'm leaving it here. I give up. This is just how life is boys and girls. Mostly a swirl. Better if I stay quiet.
Monday, February 09, 2009
Signing Off
Midnight. No waves,
no wind, the empty boat
is flooded with moonlight.
Dogen
I sat down with Suzanne Segal’s Collision with the Infinite specifically to find the passage she has about playing the part of an actor on stage.
I was searching for those words because I knew that the ones in my own head,
“And finally he sat down upon a rock
and there he died…”
while expressing exactly the exhaustion of my soul, had no elegance and were not a poem.
(Does Chaucer have some rooster dying somewhere? I know those words are out there.)
Anyway…
I searched and searched Suzanne’s book and never found the passage that I sought.
But, I did find Dogen.
And he brought tears to my eyes.
Close enough. Go with that.
I need to take a break from writing because I need to stop creating for a while.
I have found it impossible to complete anything and yet I keep making these attempts.
It might be nice to stop this struggle – it’s as hopeless as a fish hauled upon the bank continuing to flop.
There’s no way back into the creek.
There’s no point to struggle against the game that will play out.
So, let it go.
Let it go.
And here I'm not thinking so much about a paragraph as I am a sense of self.
Suzanne’s book also has these words of Rumi.
For years I pulled my own existence
out of emptiness…
That one line captures another element of what’s unfolding for me now.
I’m dog tired of hauling a false self up and out of Emptiness.
Mostly all that gets created is a lot of suffering, as well as clever chatty personae. I find it all exhausting.
And while I think this blog and blogging has been useful and enjoyable,
the effort seems counter-productive to me now.
Right now the next step for me is to play like a balloon and finally loose all that hot air.
Writing requires me to purse my lips and exhaling re-inflate that which needs to just
“blow off into emptiness.”
Don't worry. Everything continues just fine without me. I get to drive to work and do all the things I ususally do - playing out the greatest, silliest joke of total Impossibility, until once more I manage to haul my sorry ass back out into duality and create yet another drama.
Not so long ago, I was given an opportunity to receive a spiritual blessing.
While waiting for my turn, mind started chattering. "What do I want?" "What do I need?" "What am I missing here?"
Suddenly, I realized I have been blessed beyond all expectations.
I have received Everything, all that anyone is ever given.
And I got this long ago. I gave my life that night in gratitude and in all the intervening years, a spinning lifetime of drama, trauma, laughter and tears, the blessings of the Universe were always there. Though often I forgot,
I have been in need of Nothing.
So, I took the opportunity to bow my head.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.
Three by three it went.
And I think that is just enough for now. ...Thank you!
Also know – I could change my mind tomorrow. And I probably will post again. Not just this right now.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Dancing with the Boogie Man
Am trying something new here.
Can I blog an animated cartoon I've made?
Can I make a cartoon - crudely...
But, I've a friend wrestling with her own Boogie Man and this was the result.
Without once reading any instructions... hummm...
Ok - give it a shot and leave open the possibility of "spiritual cartoons" for the future.
Fanfare (tried to add it in the cartoon - no good)!!!!
Well, that kind of worked.
Perhaps the teaching is a bit obscure at this point, but
hey, there's always Hope.
Specially, for those who can't seem to stay present in the moment.
Cha, cha!
Can I blog an animated cartoon I've made?
Can I make a cartoon - crudely...
But, I've a friend wrestling with her own Boogie Man and this was the result.
Without once reading any instructions... hummm...
Ok - give it a shot and leave open the possibility of "spiritual cartoons" for the future.
Fanfare (tried to add it in the cartoon - no good)!!!!
Well, that kind of worked.
Perhaps the teaching is a bit obscure at this point, but
hey, there's always Hope.
Specially, for those who can't seem to stay present in the moment.
Cha, cha!
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Axolotl
I went by the woman in the mercado who sells medicinal herbs and asked her what was good for sore throats. She sold me a bottle of something called Jarabe de Ajolote.
It turns out that Jarabe just means syrup, but Ajolote (which at first I thought was a version of ajo or garlic) is actually this reptile!
I received this email from Mexico, and while Ajolote is actually a salamander, my friend’s sore throat had led her right into the mythic.
And that face! Hadn’t I seen it before?
Ajolote translates as axolotl. Ah, yes!
Axolotl are famous in biology for incredible powers of regeneration. Chop off a limb and it will grow right back.
But my friend was adamant. The animal is pre-Columbian and mythic in Mexico. And I'm beginning to believe her.
Enjoy this short story by Julio Cortazar which I excerpt here (or better still, read the unedited original):
There was a time when I thought a great deal about the axolotls. I went to see them in the aquarium at the Jardin des Plantes and stayed for hours watching them, observing their immobility, their faint movements. Now I am an axolotl.
I got to them by chance one spring morning when Paris was spreading its peacock tail after a wintry Lent… I decided on the aquarium, looked obliquely at banal fish until, unexpectedly, I hit it off with the axolotls. I stayed watching them for an hour and left, unable to think of anything else…
That they were Mexican I knew already by looking at them and their little pink Aztec faces and the placard at the top of the tank… I found their Spanish name, ajolote, and the mention that they were edible, and that their oil was used (no longer used, it said) like cod?liver oil…
I began to go every morning, morning and afternoon some days. The aquarium guard smiled perplexedly taking my ticket. I would lean up against the iron bar in front of the tanks and set to watching them. There's nothing strange in this, because after the first minute I knew that we were linked, that something infinitely lost and distant kept pulling us together…
I saw a rosy little body, translucent (I thought of those Chinese figurines of milky glass), looking like a small lizard about six inches long, ending in a fish's tail of extraordinary delicacy, the most sensitive part of our body. Along the back ran a transparent fin which joined with the tail, but what obsessed me was the feet, of the slenderest nicety, ending in tiny fingers with minutely human nails. And then I discovered its eyes, its face. Inexpressive features, with no other trait save the eyes, two orifices, like brooches, wholly of transparent gold, lacking any life but looking, letting themselves be penetrated by my look, which seemed to travel past the golden level and lose itself in a diaphanous interior mystery…
Once in a while a foot would barely move, I saw the diminutive toes poise mildly on the moss. It's that we don't enjoy moving a lot, and the tank is so cramped we barely move in any direction and we're hitting one of the others with our tail or our head - difficulties arise, fights, tiredness. The time feels like it's less if we stay quietly.
It was their quietness that made me lean toward them fascinated the first time I saw the axolotls. Obscurely I seemed to understand their secret will, to abolish space and time with an indifferent immobility…
Above all else, their eyes obsessed me…The golden eyes continued burning with their soft, terrible light; they continued looking at me from an unfathomable depth which made me dizzy…
It would seem easy, almost obvious, to fall into mythology. I began seeing in the axolotls a metamorphosis which did not succeed in revoking a mysterious humanity. I imagined them aware, slaves of their bodies, condemned infinitely to the silence of the abyss, to a hopeless meditation. Their blind gaze, the diminutive gold disc without expression and nonetheless terribly shining…
They were not human beings, but I had found in no animal such a profound relation with myself. The axolotls were like witnesses of something, and at times like horrible judges. I felt ignoble in front of them; there was such a terrifying purity in those transparent eyes. They were larvas, but larva means disguise and also phantom. Behind those Aztec faces, without expression but of an implacable cruelty, what semblance was awaiting its hour?
…there was nothing strange in what happened. My face was pressed against the glass of the aquarium, my eyes were attempting once more to penetrate the mystery of those eyes of gold without iris, without pupil. I saw from very close up the face of an axolotl immobile next to the glass. No transition and no surprise, I saw my face against the glass, I saw it on the outside of the tank, I saw it on the other side of the glass. Then my face drew back and I understood.
Only one thing was strange: to go on thinking as usual, to know. To realize that was, for the first moment, like the horror of a man buried alive awaking to his fate. Outside, my face came close to the glass again, I saw my mouth, the lips compressed with the effort of understanding the axolotls. I was an axolotl and now I knew instantly that no understanding was possible. He was outside the aquarium, his thinking was a thinking outside the tank. Recognizing him, being him himself, I was an axolotl and in my world…
Or I was also in him, or all of us were thinking humanlike, incapable of expression, limited to the golden splendor of our eyes looking at the face of the man pressed against the aquarium.
He returned many times, but he comes less often now. Weeks pass without his showing up. I saw him yesterday, he looked at me for a long time and left briskly. It seemed to me that he was not so much interested in us any more, that he was coming out of habit…
I am an axolotl for good now, and if I think like a man it's only because every axolotl thinks like a man inside his rosy stone semblance. I believe that all this succeeded in communicating something to him in those first days, when I was still he. And in this final solitude to which he no longer comes, I console myself by thinking that perhaps he is going to write a story about us, that, believing he's making up a story, he's going to write all this about axolotls.
from The End of the Game by Julio Cortazar.
For a while the other night during our coven meditation, I turned into a minotaur. Such a strange beast he was! Not at all like the monkey or lion or mythic bird that have transformed me in the past and that the Taoists call “the lower higher self.”
So who are you? Are we? And where?
Happy New Year.
It turns out that Jarabe just means syrup, but Ajolote (which at first I thought was a version of ajo or garlic) is actually this reptile!
I received this email from Mexico, and while Ajolote is actually a salamander, my friend’s sore throat had led her right into the mythic.
And that face! Hadn’t I seen it before?
Ajolote translates as axolotl. Ah, yes!
Axolotl are famous in biology for incredible powers of regeneration. Chop off a limb and it will grow right back.
But my friend was adamant. The animal is pre-Columbian and mythic in Mexico. And I'm beginning to believe her.
Enjoy this short story by Julio Cortazar which I excerpt here (or better still, read the unedited original):
There was a time when I thought a great deal about the axolotls. I went to see them in the aquarium at the Jardin des Plantes and stayed for hours watching them, observing their immobility, their faint movements. Now I am an axolotl.
I got to them by chance one spring morning when Paris was spreading its peacock tail after a wintry Lent… I decided on the aquarium, looked obliquely at banal fish until, unexpectedly, I hit it off with the axolotls. I stayed watching them for an hour and left, unable to think of anything else…
That they were Mexican I knew already by looking at them and their little pink Aztec faces and the placard at the top of the tank… I found their Spanish name, ajolote, and the mention that they were edible, and that their oil was used (no longer used, it said) like cod?liver oil…
I began to go every morning, morning and afternoon some days. The aquarium guard smiled perplexedly taking my ticket. I would lean up against the iron bar in front of the tanks and set to watching them. There's nothing strange in this, because after the first minute I knew that we were linked, that something infinitely lost and distant kept pulling us together…
I saw a rosy little body, translucent (I thought of those Chinese figurines of milky glass), looking like a small lizard about six inches long, ending in a fish's tail of extraordinary delicacy, the most sensitive part of our body. Along the back ran a transparent fin which joined with the tail, but what obsessed me was the feet, of the slenderest nicety, ending in tiny fingers with minutely human nails. And then I discovered its eyes, its face. Inexpressive features, with no other trait save the eyes, two orifices, like brooches, wholly of transparent gold, lacking any life but looking, letting themselves be penetrated by my look, which seemed to travel past the golden level and lose itself in a diaphanous interior mystery…
Once in a while a foot would barely move, I saw the diminutive toes poise mildly on the moss. It's that we don't enjoy moving a lot, and the tank is so cramped we barely move in any direction and we're hitting one of the others with our tail or our head - difficulties arise, fights, tiredness. The time feels like it's less if we stay quietly.
It was their quietness that made me lean toward them fascinated the first time I saw the axolotls. Obscurely I seemed to understand their secret will, to abolish space and time with an indifferent immobility…
Above all else, their eyes obsessed me…The golden eyes continued burning with their soft, terrible light; they continued looking at me from an unfathomable depth which made me dizzy…
It would seem easy, almost obvious, to fall into mythology. I began seeing in the axolotls a metamorphosis which did not succeed in revoking a mysterious humanity. I imagined them aware, slaves of their bodies, condemned infinitely to the silence of the abyss, to a hopeless meditation. Their blind gaze, the diminutive gold disc without expression and nonetheless terribly shining…
They were not human beings, but I had found in no animal such a profound relation with myself. The axolotls were like witnesses of something, and at times like horrible judges. I felt ignoble in front of them; there was such a terrifying purity in those transparent eyes. They were larvas, but larva means disguise and also phantom. Behind those Aztec faces, without expression but of an implacable cruelty, what semblance was awaiting its hour?
…there was nothing strange in what happened. My face was pressed against the glass of the aquarium, my eyes were attempting once more to penetrate the mystery of those eyes of gold without iris, without pupil. I saw from very close up the face of an axolotl immobile next to the glass. No transition and no surprise, I saw my face against the glass, I saw it on the outside of the tank, I saw it on the other side of the glass. Then my face drew back and I understood.
Only one thing was strange: to go on thinking as usual, to know. To realize that was, for the first moment, like the horror of a man buried alive awaking to his fate. Outside, my face came close to the glass again, I saw my mouth, the lips compressed with the effort of understanding the axolotls. I was an axolotl and now I knew instantly that no understanding was possible. He was outside the aquarium, his thinking was a thinking outside the tank. Recognizing him, being him himself, I was an axolotl and in my world…
Or I was also in him, or all of us were thinking humanlike, incapable of expression, limited to the golden splendor of our eyes looking at the face of the man pressed against the aquarium.
He returned many times, but he comes less often now. Weeks pass without his showing up. I saw him yesterday, he looked at me for a long time and left briskly. It seemed to me that he was not so much interested in us any more, that he was coming out of habit…
I am an axolotl for good now, and if I think like a man it's only because every axolotl thinks like a man inside his rosy stone semblance. I believe that all this succeeded in communicating something to him in those first days, when I was still he. And in this final solitude to which he no longer comes, I console myself by thinking that perhaps he is going to write a story about us, that, believing he's making up a story, he's going to write all this about axolotls.
from The End of the Game by Julio Cortazar.
For a while the other night during our coven meditation, I turned into a minotaur. Such a strange beast he was! Not at all like the monkey or lion or mythic bird that have transformed me in the past and that the Taoists call “the lower higher self.”
So who are you? Are we? And where?
Happy New Year.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Looking for Mushrooms at Sunrise
Certain words now in our knowledge we will not use again, and we will never forget them. We need them. Like the back of the picture. Like our marrow, and the color in our veins. We shine the lantern of our sleep on them, to make sure, and there they are, trembling already for the day of witness. They will be buried with us, and rise with the rest.
Language, W.S. Merwin
On the News Hour last night I chanced upon an interview with the poet W.S. Merwin, of whom I had never heard.
Of course he was speaking about words and so have you and I of late.
So my ears perked up.
Merwin, now in his eighties with such a clear and kindly face, was reading from his poem, In the Start.
I thought, “Oh, I have to share that!”
But, I can’t seem to find the words online.
Instead I came across these excerpts (and I do not even know the order in which they belong). But, they too must be passed along.
In the dark while the rain fell
The gold chanterelles pushed through a sleep that was not mine
Waking me
So that I came up the mountain to find them…
I am not ashamed of the wren's murders
Nor the badger's dinners
On which all worldly good depends
If I were not human I would not be ashamed of anything…
Where they appear it seems I have been before
I recognize their haunts as though remembering
Another life
Where else am I walking even now
Looking for me
Monday, December 29, 2008
A Bit of History
Well-being I won
And wisdom too.
I grew and took joy in my growth:
From a word to a word
I was led to a word,
From a deed to another deed
From the Old Norse, Poetic Edda, (ca. A.D. 1200)
as quoted on Margo’s Magical Letter Page.
After what was then a lifetime of abstinence, I started drinking coffee in my early forties.
My morning routine became: get up, have a cup, climb into the big, old, claw-foot bathtub and soak.
Thus, the fifteen minutes of caffeine-induced luminescent awareness (in which everything that crossed my mind was totally fascinating) occurred in the tub.
These revelations so amused, I felt compelled to share them out the bathroom door.
From the kitchen I would hear polite or bemused responses until I became just too outrageous.
Then, my partner’s head would appear in the doorway,
“You really ought to have your own early morning radio show.”
And that is how it began: oracular bathtub broadcasts.
And not long after that “Word of the Day” became part of the show.
Some word would burst into my consciousness bringing with it tribal rhythms, promised implications, and delight.
Perhaps my fascination with the power of a word began with Donna de Varona, the great Olympic swimmer of 1964.
Her name drove me crazy as I watched her race on TV.
Was it just such alliteration? Donna de Varona! Or was it the snare drum rat-a-tat or the announcer screaming o’er the crowd?
Donna de Varona!
The name pulled me to my feet, set me pacing until my circuits overloaded.
Chalk squeaking on a blackboard never bothered me a bit. But, this name drove me nuts.
I’d turn to my father hoping he might understand or perhaps explain.
“Donna de Varona, Donna de Varona, Donna de Varona!”
Pop just grinned back at me. He did not get it, but seemed fascinated.
He’d just repeat the chant right back to me.
Neither of us understood.
We were discovering the power of a word, specifically a mantra.
“Donna de Varon, Donna de Varona, Donna de Varona.”
I’d say it quietly during the day.
I’d repeat it mentally as I swam my own practice laps with just a bit more power.
Some languages are sacred.
Some languages insist that name and form can become one.
When this happens the gap between word (the name that we speak out) and form (that which word denotes) begins to close.
This is not a horizontal phenomenon, but rather vertical.
Union is gained by going deep within our own consciousness.
It is transcendence that makes language sacred.
I became interested in sacred language when I learned that mantras work via “name and form.”
I became interested in etymology when I realized that Gertrude Stein used it to make poetry, to dive deep within the word and into herself, and that even English retains a hint of sacredness:
a noun is the name of a thing,
and therefore slowly if you feel inside that thing
you do not call it by the name which it is known.
Everybody knows that by the way they do when they are in love
and a writer should always have that intensity of emotion
about whatever is the object about which he writes.
And therefore I say it again more and more one does not use nouns…
I called them by their names with passion and that made poetry.
Gertrude Stein
Well, so much for history.
I haven’t broadcast from the tub in years and
I'm trying now to cut back on caffiene.
But, as I mentioned, we recently formed a “Taoist Coven” filled with women’s weedie-weedie as much as meditation.
I have unwittingly stepped into new energy
and with that step the revelatory Word has reappeared.
We are simply playing with a word. But play can have an impact.
How many myths begin with a gentle slipping, as our heroine’s attention is diverted she wanders deep into the woods and into mystery.
Sometimes, I think the whole story of spiritual cultivation, the Tao, the whole of Life and by that I do include biology can be approached via sacred language and linguistics.
Which I guess is just my own way of coming to the Biblical:
In the beginning was the Word.
So, it seems I’m returned to oracular bathtub broadcasts, except that now I blog – and since the ole blog has fallen into a somewhat quiescent state of late – I thought I’d share the Word of the Day with you all.
But for today, in honor of roots and origins, let’s just go with:
“Donna de Varona, Donna de Varona, Donna de Varona.”
Not at all our usual Word,
but rather a name, one that carries history and my father’s smile.
Oh and hey, guess what.
After Donna de Varona retired from her pool ... she herself went into broadcasting. I hear her now on NPR.
See! It all begins to come together, our connections become more obvious, when you turn inside.
All praise for the Word of the Day!
****
(Postscript: a friend recntly sent Mom this clipping from our hometown paper. I was somewhat rattled that my own life was slipping into camp - I share it here by way of apology to Donna and for your curiosity. "The History Corner," indeed. I quess that's why my body feels like it does each morning.)
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Word of the Day: Specious
Some of my Taoist Coven members and I have slipped into the celebration, revelation, and just plain silliness of proclaiming the spontaneously arising, “Word of the Day”
I thought it might be nice to share.
Today’s word is “specious”
Now, a dictionary will tell you that it means:
plausible but false;
"a specious claim";
"spurious inferences"
But, the dictionary doesn’t know that as Word of The Day, “specious” has arisen from the subconscious of a rather wacky Taoist Coveness thus insisting upon a bit more depth.
Perhaps the dictionary definition is somewhat rather specious in and of it’s own self.
Google on:
There seems to be something called the “Specious Present”
An idea to deal with the problem that we can apparently only be aware of what is present,
and what is present must be momentary
(otherwise it would include the future or past and not be all present),
yet anything real must exist for at least some time:
so how can we be aware of anything real…
Introduced by E.R. Clay and quoted William James (1842-1910) in The Principles of Psychology (1901).
The specious present is a short period… allegedly presented to consciousness as all present at once,
though in reality never more than one moment is present at once
(hence the 'specious').
Well, I never knew.
1901 and William James.
All I know is that many of us are trying to stay present in the moment.
We have made it into a spiritual exercise that we can wrestle with and fail.
Maybe we need to realize there is long standing argument that that is all there is.
Will that make it any easier?
And how interesting that when we accept this point of view of being in the present, we really have to question what is Real.
Will that make it any easier to smile? To cease the struggle? To laugh? To love?
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Checking In for Christmas
It’s been a while since I checked in with Byron Katie to see what she is up to. And since today I have the time, I Googled.
I found this. It is worth sharing. She’s addressing thoughts very much like those I’ve had, very much like thoughts my friends have.
I wonder if similar thoughts haven’t crossed you own mind in the last month.
Katie is responding to someone who has written to her from Texas. I have shortened their exchange a bit. But, you'll get the point:
Dear Katie,
Now that Obama has won, I'm noticing friends of mine are going to the gun store and buying more guns and ammunition. This seems ridiculous to me, but when I ask them why, they reply, "because Obama will take away our guns."
What is wrong with these people?
I tried to talk to them about racism and their feelings before the elections, but nothing would change their minds. I'm sad and upset that these "friends" of mine are so narrow-minded and racist.
What can I do to change them? They are normal, decent people in most ways, except when it comes to politics.
love, J
Dear J,
…I invite you to personally work with “Obama is going to take away our guns” and see what it might be like to walk in your friends’ minds, world, and internal life and fears.
I invite you to look at taking away the gun that you are aiming at your friends, the judgments that you are shooting at them inside you.
Also, try working with “There is something wrong with these people,” “They need to wake up,” “I need to do something to change them,” and “They are not decent people when it comes to politics.”
For now, let’s look at “These friends of mine are narrow-minded and racist.”
Is this true?
Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
Can you absolutely know that it’s true that your friends are narrow-minded and racist? Notice that your mind wants to defend your position, to justify, to show proof of why it is true.
Notice this and return to a simple yes or a no.
Commit to one answer or the other. The Work stops working the moment your mind moves away from the questions and into its old pattern of justification and defense, winning and losing.
Just notice these tendencies and continue to answer the questions.
Give them a respectful amount of time…
There is wisdom beneath the surface answers, there are answers that are pure gold to you, and they offer freedom that you cannot imagine.
When you have given the first two questions plenty of time and answered them, please gently move to the third question.
How do you react when you believe the thought “My friends are narrow-minded and racist”?
Do you feel sick to your stomach, disgusted, sad, even frightened for them? For you?
Do you see images of them using the guns?
Notice how you react when you believe that thought.
Do you see yourself as superior to them?
How do you treat yourself when you believe this thought, how do you treat them?
Give this question some time, be still with it for a while.
Who would you be without the thought “My friends are narrow-minded and racist”? Would you be less frightened, less separated from them, lighter, easier of mind, less judgmental?
Would you be happier thinking of and being with your friends, a closer listener, really hearing their minds, hearts, and fears without separating yourself from them?
Now turn it around. Are you being narrow-minded, sweetheart?
Have you ever experienced yourself as racist, even a tiny bit?
Have you been prejudiced against prejudiced people?
Are you seeing these friends of yours as less enlightened than you, less rational, less wise, less open?
…Find at least three examples of each turnaround, and continue with the next turnaround, or begin to work with another judgment that you are holding on to.
Because until you do,
you are the cause of the separation that is happening in the human race
and that separation in the world is what you are putting out there.
It is what you teach those in contact with you…
I want to deal with anything within me that would separate me from anyone or anything. This is intimacy, oneness, love.
Ahhhh. Turns out Katie wrote a pretty good Christmas Letter for me.
Happy Holidays.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Winter Silence
I have become very quiet on these pages, I know.
Maybe it's the winter days now, grey, silent.... marvelous.
I have managed to make some visual art - this little leaf and acorn caught my eye the other morning and brought everything to an immediate halt. I bent over and looked closely, then ran and got the camera.
If you want to read more, go here and visit with Jeanette Winterson.
Or, I found these words of watching and silence yesterday as I inspected a Christmas book:
To have watched from one of your patios
the ancient stars
from the bench of shadow to have watched
those scattered lights
that my ignorance has learned no names for
nor their places in constellations
to have heard the note of water
in the cistern
known the scent of jasmine and honeysuckle,
the silence of the sleeping bird,
the arch of the entrance, the damp
these things perhaps are the poem.
Jorge Luis Borges
Maybe it's the winter days now, grey, silent.... marvelous.
I have managed to make some visual art - this little leaf and acorn caught my eye the other morning and brought everything to an immediate halt. I bent over and looked closely, then ran and got the camera.
If you want to read more, go here and visit with Jeanette Winterson.
Or, I found these words of watching and silence yesterday as I inspected a Christmas book:
To have watched from one of your patios
the ancient stars
from the bench of shadow to have watched
those scattered lights
that my ignorance has learned no names for
nor their places in constellations
to have heard the note of water
in the cistern
known the scent of jasmine and honeysuckle,
the silence of the sleeping bird,
the arch of the entrance, the damp
these things perhaps are the poem.
Jorge Luis Borges
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Irrational Exuberance aka Life
I actually wrote the entry, Roots, two weeks ago. But, I never posted.
It seemed too goodie-two-shoes to me.
Too exuberant.
However, today is “hostess’s” birthday and this morning I was once again noticing the straw as I came to work. So, I thought I’d post belatedly as something of a birthday salutation.
In this interim two weeks, I also celebrated my mother’s birthday.
I took her out to Sunday brunch and because the restaurant surprises birthday celebrants with a slice of cake and candle, we knew that the family at another table was also celebrating.
I was already making my way out when Mom said, “I’m going to wish this young girl happy birthday.” So I turned back and waited. By then, Mom was in conversation and had discovered that actually both birthdays were the next day.
“I am going to be eighty-three. How old will you be?”
“Fifteen.”
A universal, “Ahhhh,” went up from the group.
The girl’s mother and my eyes met right then in the midst of that Ahhh. And we smiled.
It was just a moment, then we looked away.
But, in that moment we had got it.
The unspeakable miracle of a single life, of family, of love was right there, an understanding shared amongst complete strangers.
It goes beyond the rational and it is such fullness it must be exuberant...
So, Happy Birthday: Mom, Lily, ... and to all of us!
...Roots
We’ve started a women’s meditation group. We do meditate, but our talking sometimes leads us rather far afield, though no one is complaining.
Last night, we found ourselves speculating on the meaning of the root “dox.”
Thinking of “Doxology” I’d suggested “god.”
Our hostess immediately replied, “No…” and bowed her head in thought.
She began with “paradox” and “orthodox” and so suggested “idea.”
(If memory serves, I think that was the word.)
But, anyway, she didn’t go with “god.”
The next morning I awoke to find an email: “We were both right!!”
Greek doxa, opinion from dokein, to think; see dek- in Indo-European roots.
Greek doxologi, praise: doxa, glory, honor from dokein, to seem; see dek…
Well, this only makes it clearer, I think.
Dek reminds me of the Sanskrit deva:
Deva (meaning "radiant" or "shining") refers to a "god" or "deity"…
I left last night's meditation singing the Doxology to Mary, with whom I car pool.
Had she sung it in her church? When I was a kid we sang it every Sunday after they’d completed the collection.
In many ways, the Doxology brought the service to its peak for me:
The ushers marching up the aisle to lay our money upon the altar
(no fatted calf I grant you but the next best thing, we were Presbyterians, for God’s sake)…
the congregation rising to its feet to sing in unison:
Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Praise Him all Creatures here below.
Praise Him above Ye heavenly hosts.
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
The organ pipes rang out as we all swelled heavenly,
and then we'd return to earth with this natural bowing of our heads.
This was high ceremony to me. It made me want to drop to my knees and cross myself (but we were Presbyterians...).
I found myself singing again this morning, as I negotiated the path between the parking garage and the construction site that's expanding the School of Public Health.
They’ve scattered straw and grass seed over major excavations, torn up roads, and made a huge mess.
But this morning, right next to the newly poured cement a flock of sparrows was busy gobbling up seeds from beneath the straw.
The sight stunned me, stopped me in my tracks.
It is 35 degrees outside. Winter has arrived in Georgia.
The impatience are frozen solid on my deck.
And here are these little birds, the softest puffs of feather, burrowing along like fuzzy hamsters while in my head I am hearing:
Praise God from whom all blessings flow
Praise Him all Creatures here below…
What praise right here at my feet! In the softness, in the Life, with these little birds.
Doxology and doxa, dokein, dek and deva. Right here!
Deva most likely from the Proto-Indo-European deiwos, originally an adjective meaning "celestial" or "shining." But, I prefer the verb: diiv meaning "to play."
As in little birds rummaging through scattered seeds or a good tune running through your head.
As in irrational exuberance.
Happy Birthday, Lily, Mom, and one and all.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Stories
This morning as I did my asanas I listened to Rachel Naomi Remen being interviewed on Speaking of Faith. The program closed with this story.
The most important questions don't seem to have ready answers, but the questions themselves have healing power when they are shared. An answer is an invitation to stop thinking about something, to stop wondering. Life has no such stopping places, life is a process whose every event is connected to the moment that just went by. An unanswered question is a fine traveling companion. It sharpens your eye for the road.
In some fairytales, there is a magic word which has the power to undo the spell that has imprisoned someone and free them. When I was small, I would wait anxiously until the prince or the princess stumbled on the formula and said the healing words that would release them into life. Usually the words were some sort of nonsense like "Shazam." My magic words have turned out to be "I don't know."
Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal
I’ve posted here some teachings regarding stories. Byron Katie is huge on how they hide us from the Truth about ourselves. We tell ourselves stories and make the situation worse. She encourages us to look closely at what we say and ask, “Is that true?” Usually, we must reply, “I don’t know.”
Well, Rachel Naomi Remen takes just about the exact opposite approach. But, it doesn’t mean she comes out in so very different a place.
Here is a story regarding tikkun olam, “restoration of the world.” I have also posted about tikkun before.
In the beginning there was only the holy darkness, the Ein Sof, the source of life. And then, in the course of history, at a moment in time, this world, the world of a thousand thousand things, emerged from the heart of the holy darkness as a great ray of light. And then, perhaps because this is a Jewish story, there was an accident, and the vessels containing the light of the world, the wholeness of the world, broke. And the wholeness of the world, the light of the world was scattered into a thousand thousand fragments of light, and they fell into all events and all people, where they remain deeply hidden until this very day.
Now, according to my grandfather, the whole human race is a response to this accident. We are here because we are born with the capacity to find the hidden light in all events and all people, to lift it up and make it visible once again and thereby to restore the innate wholeness of the world. It's a very important story for our times. And this task is called tikkun olam in Hebrew. It's the restoration of the world.
It's a very old story, comes from the 14th century, and it's a different way of looking at our power. And I suspect it has a key for us in our present situation, a very important key. I'm not a person who is a political person in the usual sense of that word, but I think that we all feel that we're not enough to make a difference, that we need to be more somehow, either wealthier or more educated or somehow or other different than the people we are. And according to this story, we are exactly what's needed. And to just wonder about that a little, what if we were exactly what's needed? What then? How would I live if I was exactly what's needed to heal the world?
You can find the complete transcript of the interview with Dr. Remen here. It’s good.
The most important questions don't seem to have ready answers, but the questions themselves have healing power when they are shared. An answer is an invitation to stop thinking about something, to stop wondering. Life has no such stopping places, life is a process whose every event is connected to the moment that just went by. An unanswered question is a fine traveling companion. It sharpens your eye for the road.
In some fairytales, there is a magic word which has the power to undo the spell that has imprisoned someone and free them. When I was small, I would wait anxiously until the prince or the princess stumbled on the formula and said the healing words that would release them into life. Usually the words were some sort of nonsense like "Shazam." My magic words have turned out to be "I don't know."
Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal
I’ve posted here some teachings regarding stories. Byron Katie is huge on how they hide us from the Truth about ourselves. We tell ourselves stories and make the situation worse. She encourages us to look closely at what we say and ask, “Is that true?” Usually, we must reply, “I don’t know.”
Well, Rachel Naomi Remen takes just about the exact opposite approach. But, it doesn’t mean she comes out in so very different a place.
Here is a story regarding tikkun olam, “restoration of the world.” I have also posted about tikkun before.
In the beginning there was only the holy darkness, the Ein Sof, the source of life. And then, in the course of history, at a moment in time, this world, the world of a thousand thousand things, emerged from the heart of the holy darkness as a great ray of light. And then, perhaps because this is a Jewish story, there was an accident, and the vessels containing the light of the world, the wholeness of the world, broke. And the wholeness of the world, the light of the world was scattered into a thousand thousand fragments of light, and they fell into all events and all people, where they remain deeply hidden until this very day.
Now, according to my grandfather, the whole human race is a response to this accident. We are here because we are born with the capacity to find the hidden light in all events and all people, to lift it up and make it visible once again and thereby to restore the innate wholeness of the world. It's a very important story for our times. And this task is called tikkun olam in Hebrew. It's the restoration of the world.
It's a very old story, comes from the 14th century, and it's a different way of looking at our power. And I suspect it has a key for us in our present situation, a very important key. I'm not a person who is a political person in the usual sense of that word, but I think that we all feel that we're not enough to make a difference, that we need to be more somehow, either wealthier or more educated or somehow or other different than the people we are. And according to this story, we are exactly what's needed. And to just wonder about that a little, what if we were exactly what's needed? What then? How would I live if I was exactly what's needed to heal the world?
You can find the complete transcript of the interview with Dr. Remen here. It’s good.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
The Ghosts Inside Your Genes
For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness.
Then one swoop, one swing of the arm, that work is over…
Do you think I know what I am doing?
That for one breath or half-breath I belong to myself?
As much as a pen knows what it is writing,
or a ball can guess where it’s going next.
Rumi, as quoted by Suzanne Segal, in Collision with the Infinite.
Today’s title comes from the subtitle of a lecture I went to yesterday on epigenetics.
The speaker, Dr. Michael Skinner (here he is on the BBC) opened by saying,
“My grandmother’s environment will cause me disease as an adult.”
This is not biology as usual and I have written about epigenetics before.
What Dr. Skinner pointed out was that the current paradigm for the genetic basis of disease does not explain well established observations:
1) There are regional differences in diseases. In Japan, for instance, there’s a lot of stomach trouble, but cardiovascular systems are strong. The reverse is true for the U.S.
2) There is a relatively low frequency of genetic diseases. E.g., only about 5% of breast cancers have the BRAC 1 and 2 genes. 95% of breast cancers are caused by something else.
3) Identical twins have different frequencies of disease.
4) Many environmental toxins don’t mutate the DNA, but they do cause disease.
Skinner’s list went on, but you get the point I hope.
We do inherit diseases tendencies, but that is not the entire story.
Diseases don’t always arise because a healthy gene mutates.
And yet, the environment is clearly doing something to our genes.
If a mother is exposed to an environmental toxin, her offspring can be affected in an “non-Mendelian” manner.
Usually, an inherited trait diminishes in frequency with each new generation.
But, Skinner spoke of finding 90% of off-springs affected even in the fourth generation- so we’re talking here about a great-great grandmother as if she was just yesterday.
My daughter was birthed in a darkened room, so she wouldn’t be shocked by bright lights, into a large basin filled with warm water to ease the transition…
How can one describe a baby being born to no one?
She had no mother, yet the birth occurred just fine, and in the years to come the mothering function would take care of her…
she was an extraordinary child who showed no signs of being traumatized in any way… I was able to “fool” everyone into thinking I was just as I used to be…. How extraordinary the mind thought. There is no one here, and it’s apparently unnecessary to be someone for mothering to take place.
Mothering mothers, just as talking talks and thinking thinks.
The mind has a hard time getting used to this.
Suzanne Segal, Collision with the Infinite, on the birth of her daughter, Arielle.
We are all conditioned to have expectations, both in life and in science.
Buddhists call it conditioning. Scientists speak of paradigms.
Something’s got to give in our preconceptions for progress to occur.
Dr. Skinner is working with “endocrine disruptors,” molecules that bind to hormone receptors, molecules like phthalates. They are in shampoo, that new car smell, plastic bottles, the fungicides for fruits including those for wine.
What he’s found is that exposing a mother to these poisons, or rather, exposing her embryos (for we’re talking rats here) led to a huge array of adult onset diseases.
The genes themselves are not changed in the sense of being mutated.
Rather, the DNA in the embryos is being methylated in new patterns.
The new pattern of methylation turns some genes on that usually would be off, while other genes, usually on, are forever silenced.
In the past when I’ve heard of this it was called imprinting.
We have such potential within our cells. We begin life truly “totipotent.”
Development and growth requires turning off most of that potential.
We need to differentiate into tooth and claw and hair to become our human selves.
We get a double dose of most chromosomes, one paternal one maternal.
Often that’s too much. Imprinting can silence genes and whole swaths of chromosomes.
But, that full potential still resides inside us.
And while some environmental inputs to our mother’s womb cause hyper- and hypo- methylation that drive us to disease, there’s no reason a priori that these shifts must all be detrimental.
Some changes may be beneficial. And they definitely impinge on evolution.
Dr. Skinner is licking his chops on that angle and I am intrigued myself.
To Arielle, who was born into the infinite…
She was a delightful, happy child who was constantly impressing people with her precociousness. She was able to laugh in the face of any challenge…
I was relieved to see her so happy, since I had repeatedly wondered whether …the radical shift of consciousness that had accompanied the last five months of my pregnancy had left any problematic impressions on her.
Whatever impressions may have been left did not appear to have traumatized her. As she has matured into a teenager, she has continued to exude the wise happiness that has always radiated from her… In fact, she has frequently expressed a clear knowing that she is both different from and the same as other people.
At times she finds this confusing, and generally she would rather not speak about it. But on at least one occasion she has said, “You know, Mom, when people look at you and they think you’re someone, but you know you’re not that person?”
“Yes, sweetheart,” I’ve answered, “I do know that experience.”
Suzanne Segal
Then one swoop, one swing of the arm, that work is over…
Do you think I know what I am doing?
That for one breath or half-breath I belong to myself?
As much as a pen knows what it is writing,
or a ball can guess where it’s going next.
Rumi, as quoted by Suzanne Segal, in Collision with the Infinite.
Today’s title comes from the subtitle of a lecture I went to yesterday on epigenetics.
The speaker, Dr. Michael Skinner (here he is on the BBC) opened by saying,
“My grandmother’s environment will cause me disease as an adult.”
This is not biology as usual and I have written about epigenetics before.
What Dr. Skinner pointed out was that the current paradigm for the genetic basis of disease does not explain well established observations:
1) There are regional differences in diseases. In Japan, for instance, there’s a lot of stomach trouble, but cardiovascular systems are strong. The reverse is true for the U.S.
2) There is a relatively low frequency of genetic diseases. E.g., only about 5% of breast cancers have the BRAC 1 and 2 genes. 95% of breast cancers are caused by something else.
3) Identical twins have different frequencies of disease.
4) Many environmental toxins don’t mutate the DNA, but they do cause disease.
Skinner’s list went on, but you get the point I hope.
We do inherit diseases tendencies, but that is not the entire story.
Diseases don’t always arise because a healthy gene mutates.
And yet, the environment is clearly doing something to our genes.
If a mother is exposed to an environmental toxin, her offspring can be affected in an “non-Mendelian” manner.
Usually, an inherited trait diminishes in frequency with each new generation.
But, Skinner spoke of finding 90% of off-springs affected even in the fourth generation- so we’re talking here about a great-great grandmother as if she was just yesterday.
My daughter was birthed in a darkened room, so she wouldn’t be shocked by bright lights, into a large basin filled with warm water to ease the transition…
How can one describe a baby being born to no one?
She had no mother, yet the birth occurred just fine, and in the years to come the mothering function would take care of her…
she was an extraordinary child who showed no signs of being traumatized in any way… I was able to “fool” everyone into thinking I was just as I used to be…. How extraordinary the mind thought. There is no one here, and it’s apparently unnecessary to be someone for mothering to take place.
Mothering mothers, just as talking talks and thinking thinks.
The mind has a hard time getting used to this.
Suzanne Segal, Collision with the Infinite, on the birth of her daughter, Arielle.
We are all conditioned to have expectations, both in life and in science.
Buddhists call it conditioning. Scientists speak of paradigms.
Something’s got to give in our preconceptions for progress to occur.
Dr. Skinner is working with “endocrine disruptors,” molecules that bind to hormone receptors, molecules like phthalates. They are in shampoo, that new car smell, plastic bottles, the fungicides for fruits including those for wine.
What he’s found is that exposing a mother to these poisons, or rather, exposing her embryos (for we’re talking rats here) led to a huge array of adult onset diseases.
The genes themselves are not changed in the sense of being mutated.
Rather, the DNA in the embryos is being methylated in new patterns.
The new pattern of methylation turns some genes on that usually would be off, while other genes, usually on, are forever silenced.
In the past when I’ve heard of this it was called imprinting.
We have such potential within our cells. We begin life truly “totipotent.”
Development and growth requires turning off most of that potential.
We need to differentiate into tooth and claw and hair to become our human selves.
We get a double dose of most chromosomes, one paternal one maternal.
Often that’s too much. Imprinting can silence genes and whole swaths of chromosomes.
But, that full potential still resides inside us.
And while some environmental inputs to our mother’s womb cause hyper- and hypo- methylation that drive us to disease, there’s no reason a priori that these shifts must all be detrimental.
Some changes may be beneficial. And they definitely impinge on evolution.
Dr. Skinner is licking his chops on that angle and I am intrigued myself.
To Arielle, who was born into the infinite…
She was a delightful, happy child who was constantly impressing people with her precociousness. She was able to laugh in the face of any challenge…
I was relieved to see her so happy, since I had repeatedly wondered whether …the radical shift of consciousness that had accompanied the last five months of my pregnancy had left any problematic impressions on her.
Whatever impressions may have been left did not appear to have traumatized her. As she has matured into a teenager, she has continued to exude the wise happiness that has always radiated from her… In fact, she has frequently expressed a clear knowing that she is both different from and the same as other people.
At times she finds this confusing, and generally she would rather not speak about it. But on at least one occasion she has said, “You know, Mom, when people look at you and they think you’re someone, but you know you’re not that person?”
“Yes, sweetheart,” I’ve answered, “I do know that experience.”
Suzanne Segal
Friday, November 07, 2008
Why This Goes So Deep
We are birthed into sangha, into sacred community. It is called the world.
Adyashanti
Yesterday, a friend in Mexico sent me this quote regarding the election:
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the Hawaii Legislature in 1959, two years before Mr. Obama was born in Honolulu, and declared that the civil rights movement aimed not just to free blacks but "to free the soul of America."
My friend also sent this picture from her neighborhood in Mexico.
It reminds me of other words of Dr King regarding visions of the Promised Land,
and, much to my chagrin, it reminds me of Ronald Reagan’s “Shining City on the hill.”
Actually, this is a Catholic edifice built by the Spanish on top of an Aztec structure, the world’s largest pyramid.
I deliberately divert my attention from the subjugation of the Spanish act.
I choose instead to focus on these words of Isaac Newton:
If I have seen farther than most men, it’s because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.
Words. Visions. Souls and politics. We are in this all together.
For days now, I have been trying to articulate what has touched me so deeply about Barack Obama’s election. For me, it’s hasn’t really felt about race and civil rights.
"I’m white. I can’t really get what this means to African Americans. All I know is that deep inside my heart and belly, something has grabbed a hold of them. Something huge has been stirred. There’s joy and tears and I cannot find the words. But, is has to do with Goodness."
This is what I told a black friend, a Dutch citizen, on the morning after.
My friend’s eyes blazed. “Pat, that’s exactly how I feel!”
She too couldn’t really attribute the depth of her feelings to issues about race.
Only later, after she heard from overseas relatives would she come to me and say,
“Pat, in Holland, they call you nigger right to your face.”
Yes, huge issues regarding race are being addressed. There is that level. But, even my black friends feel there's something deeper going on. Something else eludes my understanding.
A day later, I still hadn’t found the words.
But, I had recognized that the stirrings deep inside is exactly what I feel when I truly hunger for the Divine.
There is joy because I can intuit what is possible.
There is heartbreak because I know I am not there.
And all the hope and joy and heartbreak exist beyond all words,
exist beyond all superficiality.
How very strange.
Why should an election feel the same as hunger for the Divine?
Then, I recalled the first time Obama made me cry.
It was his 2004 speech to the Democratic Convention.
I cried as he made me recall the Goodness of our nation’s ideals.
I cried as he recalled in me my sense of separation from our Goodness.
I cried as he stirred up the vision, the hope, that as a country we might one day live up to our potential.
Then, on the drive in to work this morning there was an old Jim Croce song on the radio:
Like the pine trees lining the winding road
I’ve got a name …
Like the singing bird and the croaking toad
I’ve got a name…
And I carry it with me like my daddy did
But I’m living the dream that he kept hid
I hadn’t heard the song in years.
It conjures images of idealistic college days and little kids marched on stage to sing for parents swelled with pride.
It seems a song about potential.
But, today I noticed that it also sings “living the dream that he kept hid.”
That’s it.
There is a dream, a hope, a profound hunger, at the core of each and every human being.
And, we keep it hidden.
Our deepest dream is far too precious, too heartbreakingly beloved, to risk revealing consciously even to ourselves, let alone admitting it aloud to the World.
It is our hope of one day reuniting with our own Divinity.
We not only keep it hidden, usually, we down right deny it.
We aim for something much more superficial, something more obvious and of the World.
We become under-achievers and over-achievers, drug addicts and CEOs.
We become smart and suave and cynical.
We revel as our children sing in innocence,
yet we hide our hearts in unconsciousness.
We become Adults: conservatives, liberals and libertarians, black and white and multi-racial.
We tie ourselves into knots.
We divide against ourselves as we live separate from our true Self.
Then this skinny, young, black guy comes out of nowhere
and has the audacity to offer us Hope!
And guess what…The American people stood up and shouted, “Yes, we can!”
Last night as I mulled this over more words came to mind.
They are the words with which Thomas Jefferson concludes the Declaration of Independence:
… with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
Yes, Dr. King was right.
This is a matter regarding our souls.
And that is why my heart is breaking and my tears are those of joy,
And why the election was indeed about Hope.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Sunday, November 02, 2008
I am awaiting Tuesday night eagerly. I early-voted last Friday. Two and a half hours in line, in the cold, and doubled-packed in tight long hallways.
I wouldn't have missed that for the world.
Like serving on jury duty, meeting my fellow voters restores my faith in the basic goodness of the American people. (Which is not to say... there are not some real idiots.)
But, we all seem to sincerely want what we think is best.
We vote our hearts and pain bodies.
Here's hoping!
Friday, October 17, 2008
Hopes and Dreams
On Friday, four friends and I head to the South Carolina beach for a long weekend.
Ostensibly, we’re celebrating the 50th birthday of the youngest of our crew.
Here’s a snap from an earlier 60th celebration. (You get the idea.)
One of us reads the New Yorker regularly and so could describe this cartoon:
There’s a fellow sitting in his doctor’s office.
The doctor says, “Well, I can fix your back so it won’t hurt anymore. But, I can’t guarantee that you’ll have anything left to talk about.”
Ah, point well taken.
Luckily, we have a tradition that for years has helped shaped our discussions.
Once comfortably fed and settled in, one by one each is asked to describe her hopes and dreams for the coming year. And each must field all the questions. Not a corner is left to hide. Your turn can last a long time. Kleenex can be involved.
I used to love this exercise. To be heard, to be understood. To be loved.
But, I find it’s getting harder and harder to participate.
I have no idea of what to say. And even worse, the next day I can only hold my head and moan, “My god, why did I say that!”
As far as inner transformation is concerned, there is nothing you can do about it.
You cannot transform yourself, and you certainly cannot transform your partner or anybody else.
All you can do is create a space for transformation to happen, for grace and love to enter.
Eckhart Tolle
For a life-long, self-identified “seeker” – doing seeking – working on transforming and evolving… this is devastating news. And I’m really beginning to realize that it’s true.
Still, I keep on trying.
I’m like some guy crawling cross the dessert on his belly. I keep trying the next spiritual transformation.
I know I can’t make that final shift in consciousness for which my heart so deeply longs. But dang, I keep on trying.
Futility. Stupidity. Ego.
What is this, if not Hope?
Hope is what keeps you going, but hope keeps you focused on the future,
and this continued focus perpetuates your denial of the NOW
and therefore your unhappiness.
Forget about your life situation for awhile and pay attention to your life.
Your life situation exists in time. Your life is NOW.
Your life situation is Mind-Stuff. Your life is REAL.
Eckhart Tolle
More and more, I realize I am compelled by a primitive, irresistible force within me.
Maybe, that is actually Grace. But, I struggle too much to use that word voluntarily.
And so I get so grouchy, thinking about us sitting round the table or before the fire.
I get all irritated and frustrated, and cannot think it through with any clarity.
Hopes and dreams! Oh, pah!
Fruitless, pointless, mocking. I do not want to do this! And I’m going to tell them!…
All inner resistance is experienced as negativity in one form or another.
All negativity is resistance…
Negativity ranges from irritation or impatience to fierce anger, from a depressed mood or sullen resentment to suicidal despair…
Ah, gotcha once again. And Tolle proceeds to say:
Once you have identified with some form of negativity, you do not want to let it go, and on a deeply unconscious level, you do not want positive change.
It would threaten your identity…
You will then ignore, deny or sabotage the positive in your life.
This is a common phenomenon.
It is also insane.
Yes. I know it’s true.
Have you noticed? It’s very interesting.
I can feel how getting all stirred up, even down right suffering, has this hidden edge of pleasure.
Anger allows me feel my power.
Drama helps me get my point across.
Suffering brings me sympathy.
But, if I don’t call a spade a spade at least within my own head – where can I start being truly honest.
And I do value honesty. And truth.
So, so much for Hope.
Let’s move on to Dreams.
Years ago, this weekend’s Birthday Girl told me that I had the densest pain body of anyone she knew.
Speaking of such people Eckhardt Tolle says:
…your desire to awaken, to finally get out of this misery is much greater than a normal person's desire to awaken. …[for] when your dream turns into a nightmare, then you really want to awaken from that…
My desire to awaken is certainly more than normal.
But, I’d not say life is anywhere near nightmare status these days. There is just that primitive force at work deep inside me. And, I’d like to think that that is Grace.
But the fact remains that I am definitely in resistance to this whole “Hopes and Dreams” format. I do not want to look.
So, three dear friends get to spend six hours in the car with me come Friday. I hope I’ll be on better behavior.
And I’m going down there “unrehearsed.”
Luckily, we have promised not to discuss anything real juicy on the drive down.
We’re pledged to wait until we’re all together.
And I figured we will need a good two days simply to be debriefed on Marv, the man of Linda’s dreams – or not. We will have to see.
And maybe, I’ll print this out and read it as a manifesto. (It will not stop their probing, nor get me off the hook. But, it may divert attention.)
Meanwhile, I plan to take my camera and tripod. That should keep me focused on something like the Now.
That’s my plan… not my hope… not my dream.
It’s a plan.
Ostensibly, we’re celebrating the 50th birthday of the youngest of our crew.
Here’s a snap from an earlier 60th celebration. (You get the idea.)
One of us reads the New Yorker regularly and so could describe this cartoon:
There’s a fellow sitting in his doctor’s office.
The doctor says, “Well, I can fix your back so it won’t hurt anymore. But, I can’t guarantee that you’ll have anything left to talk about.”
Ah, point well taken.
Luckily, we have a tradition that for years has helped shaped our discussions.
Once comfortably fed and settled in, one by one each is asked to describe her hopes and dreams for the coming year. And each must field all the questions. Not a corner is left to hide. Your turn can last a long time. Kleenex can be involved.
I used to love this exercise. To be heard, to be understood. To be loved.
But, I find it’s getting harder and harder to participate.
I have no idea of what to say. And even worse, the next day I can only hold my head and moan, “My god, why did I say that!”
As far as inner transformation is concerned, there is nothing you can do about it.
You cannot transform yourself, and you certainly cannot transform your partner or anybody else.
All you can do is create a space for transformation to happen, for grace and love to enter.
Eckhart Tolle
For a life-long, self-identified “seeker” – doing seeking – working on transforming and evolving… this is devastating news. And I’m really beginning to realize that it’s true.
Still, I keep on trying.
I’m like some guy crawling cross the dessert on his belly. I keep trying the next spiritual transformation.
I know I can’t make that final shift in consciousness for which my heart so deeply longs. But dang, I keep on trying.
Futility. Stupidity. Ego.
What is this, if not Hope?
Hope is what keeps you going, but hope keeps you focused on the future,
and this continued focus perpetuates your denial of the NOW
and therefore your unhappiness.
Forget about your life situation for awhile and pay attention to your life.
Your life situation exists in time. Your life is NOW.
Your life situation is Mind-Stuff. Your life is REAL.
Eckhart Tolle
More and more, I realize I am compelled by a primitive, irresistible force within me.
Maybe, that is actually Grace. But, I struggle too much to use that word voluntarily.
And so I get so grouchy, thinking about us sitting round the table or before the fire.
I get all irritated and frustrated, and cannot think it through with any clarity.
Hopes and dreams! Oh, pah!
Fruitless, pointless, mocking. I do not want to do this! And I’m going to tell them!…
All inner resistance is experienced as negativity in one form or another.
All negativity is resistance…
Negativity ranges from irritation or impatience to fierce anger, from a depressed mood or sullen resentment to suicidal despair…
Ah, gotcha once again. And Tolle proceeds to say:
Once you have identified with some form of negativity, you do not want to let it go, and on a deeply unconscious level, you do not want positive change.
It would threaten your identity…
You will then ignore, deny or sabotage the positive in your life.
This is a common phenomenon.
It is also insane.
Yes. I know it’s true.
Have you noticed? It’s very interesting.
I can feel how getting all stirred up, even down right suffering, has this hidden edge of pleasure.
Anger allows me feel my power.
Drama helps me get my point across.
Suffering brings me sympathy.
But, if I don’t call a spade a spade at least within my own head – where can I start being truly honest.
And I do value honesty. And truth.
So, so much for Hope.
Let’s move on to Dreams.
Years ago, this weekend’s Birthday Girl told me that I had the densest pain body of anyone she knew.
Speaking of such people Eckhardt Tolle says:
…your desire to awaken, to finally get out of this misery is much greater than a normal person's desire to awaken. …[for] when your dream turns into a nightmare, then you really want to awaken from that…
My desire to awaken is certainly more than normal.
But, I’d not say life is anywhere near nightmare status these days. There is just that primitive force at work deep inside me. And, I’d like to think that that is Grace.
But the fact remains that I am definitely in resistance to this whole “Hopes and Dreams” format. I do not want to look.
So, three dear friends get to spend six hours in the car with me come Friday. I hope I’ll be on better behavior.
And I’m going down there “unrehearsed.”
Luckily, we have promised not to discuss anything real juicy on the drive down.
We’re pledged to wait until we’re all together.
And I figured we will need a good two days simply to be debriefed on Marv, the man of Linda’s dreams – or not. We will have to see.
And maybe, I’ll print this out and read it as a manifesto. (It will not stop their probing, nor get me off the hook. But, it may divert attention.)
Meanwhile, I plan to take my camera and tripod. That should keep me focused on something like the Now.
That’s my plan… not my hope… not my dream.
It’s a plan.
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