“As the World Turns” is the name of a soap opera my mother watched when I was young.  The words keep running through my head as each moment seems to bring new, and sometimes conflicting, information on the coronavirus.

I’m also with these words which seem to be controversial as to origin, but certainly fit what is needed right now as we recognize boundaries are fluid. 

Between stimulus and response there is a space.

In that space is our power to choose our response.

In our response lies our growth and our freedom.  

Yesterday I saw my neighbor – no hug – no hugging meditation as Thich Nhat Hanh describes it.  We kept our distance as we spoke. Then, I met a friend for lunch, against my son’s advice, and we walked toward each other, arms spread, but then, stopped at a distance.

Another friend tells me she received an email notice that employees won’t be allowed in the office from now until May 31st.  Last week, near her office in San Francisco, two people got in a fist fight because one person sneezed and didn’t cover his nose.  Well, that was really smart but people are afraid. The times are unprecedented. We have global news and interaction, and yet, right now, it feels like we live isolated in a village of fear.  

I sit with the changes we’re seeing.  Office buildings have been cramming more and more people into smaller and smaller spaces, concluding that people with laptops don’t need their own desk.  File cabinets no longer take up space, so people can come in and sit down at a row of counters and work.  

It sounds plausible until now.  What will happen when those who’ve been working from home are told they can come back into work?   Will that happen?

I read that social distancing is the answer to stopping the spread of the virus, and that this is an Introvert’s dream, but I’m an introvert, and suddenly I want to be out and about.  I want to see other people, touch them, physically touch them, not meet on Facetime or Zoom.  

And that brings me to laughter.  Laughter is a gift, and if we step back and view ourselves on this planet that is spinning and turning, well, perhaps there, we meet this moment with a little space, and choose our response with grace.

When my sons were young they asked me if I’d choose liberty or death.  Answering them, I found myself analyzing the nature of liberty. Yes, freedom matters, autonomy, and yet, with the coronavirus, I find myself in the study of cells and how they came together to form the organisms we are.

What is it to surrender to the group, and of course in that surrender, especially in war, we may die.  The two are tied.

I’ve been concerned about my husband’s health, and this morning realized I have to let go, and acknowledge once again that  I don’t have control.  

There’s freedom in that, in surrendering to that recognition, and tears come, tears, sweet, not salt, as though dipped in honey made by bees organized in a hive.  

This morning when I felt my lack of control, my jaw let go, like the jaw of a snake.  I could take the world in whole, no judgment as to parts, simply whole. My pelvis released in response.  I swayed, sinuous as a snake, no need to hold or brace.  

I watch my grandson breathe and he breathes everywhere.  His little tummy goes up and down, in and out. He is whole.  I want to be like him, entranced with all that is here.

What is autonomy?  I don’t know but I know I’m part of a whole, and connection is breath.

My husband and I were looking at shades of gray to paint the closet doors in his downstairs office.  I leaned toward Harmony, Meditation, Serenity, and Solitude. He liked Stainless Steel. It’s his room, so he “won”, but I don’t see much difference in any of the grays.  The color he chose is beautiful, soft, and light, and goes well with the white walls.  

When my father died in an accident when I was 19, I realized there’s no need to search out excitement.  It comes without notice, so savor and enjoy when life is calm. That’s my philosophy.  

Yesterday, my son and four month old grandson came to visit.  He, like any baby, is clear in his needs. What this little guy  loves is the outdoors. If he cries, take him outside, and he is even more than usual, pure wonder.  The birds were literally tweeting at him, and a male and female Meadowlark came to say Hello. He especially loves to smell and touch Pink Jasmine. He reaches with his tiny nose and sniffs, and gently fondles flowers and leaves with intricately sweet and tiny fingers and hands.

Later, after they left I was at the computer when I heard the clunk of my husband’s fall.  He couldn’t get up and said to call 911 which I did. Suddenly our bedroom was filled with men and equipment.  They got him into a chair and took him in an ambulance to the hospital. All tests show he is fine but clearly there is something wrong. 

I sit here now thinking of the three little pigs and the houses they built.  We like to think we built a brick house. It stands, and stands well, and for all of us, the wind may blow through.  We don’t know.  We can only open as it does.

One son came immediately, and the other we held off because of the little guy.

While we were in the emergency room, a call came in that a woman from Washington state was being brought in.  She’d been vomiting and had a dry cough. The same man who accompanied Steve in the ambulance brought her in and stopped into our open enclosure to say Hi and see how we were doing.  

All was peaceful and calm. None of the medical team wore masks, and the atmosphere was one of normalcy, peace, quiet, efficiency, and the essential nature of care and connection.

I sat there thinking how worried we’d been about getting the coronavirus, how so many things I enjoy have been cancelled, and here we were sitting in the emergency area of the hospital and all seemed relaxed with no worries at all.  The woman from Washington state was wheeled past our somewhat curtained area, and though she was wearing a mask, we could hear her dry and incessant cough. Her family was with her, and I felt how we were all gathered together on a Saturday night.

As we left the hospital it was after midnight. A dirty and bedraggled man who appeared to be homeless was ushered into the emergency area by a young and sparkling clean fellow, one of the medical staff.

The ushered man was cheerful. He said, “I knew you knew I’d be back.”

And that’s how it is to spend an evening with saints on a Saturday night two nights before a full moon.

Between the coronavirus and politics, it’s been quite a week.  I settle now into the mesmerizing dance of jellyfish. It’s what I need.  

It must seem as though I’m obsessed with death, and perhaps I am.  My brother passed away April 14, 2019, and I’m feeling him close as that day is on approach.

I’m still going through books.  Today I re-enter Ken Wilber’s book, The Simple Feeling of Being: Embracing Your True Nature.  Where I am in the book his beloved wife is dying of cancer.  The following comes from the book Grace and Grit which I’ve also read.   My father died in an accident when I was 19.  Thinking about death is not new for me, and maybe it never was.

At one point, near the end of Ken Wilber’s wife’s life, they are in Germany, and he says though “Germany is closed on Sunday,” he enters a pub, where there are “perhaps a dozen men, somewhat elderly, maybe in their late sixties, rosy cheeks from years of starting the day with Kolsch”. 

About half of the men – there are no women – are dancing together in a semicircle to what he calls authentic German bluegrass.  He sits down at the bar, puts his head in his arms, and a drink appears which he drinks in one pull, and then another, and another. He continues drinking and crying.

The men invite him to dance with them.  He refuses saying he speaks no German, but they keep tugging and gesturing looking like they want to help. Finally they entice him in, and he joins the men, “arms around those on both sides of me, moving back and forth, kicking our legs up every now and then.  I start laughing, then I start crying, then laughing, then crying. I would like to turn away, to hide what is happening to me, but I am arm-and-shoulder into the semicircle. For about fifteen minutes I seem to lose all control over my emotions. Fear, panic, self-pity, laughter, joy, terror, feeling sorry for myself, feeling happy about myself – they all come rushing through me and show on my face, which embarrasses me, but the men keep nodding their heads, and smiling as if to tell me it’s all OK, young man, it’s all OK.  Just keep dancing, young man, just keep dancing. You see? Like this ….”

He stayed in the pub for two hours, dancing and drinking Kolsch.  He came to peace, enough to carry on. He waved goodbye to the men who waved and kept dancing.  He was never charged for the beer.  

I’m reminded of Gabrielle Roth’s words:

“In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited or depressed, they would ask one of four questions:

When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop being comforted by the sweet territory of silence?

I’m not saying Ken Wilber didn’t have a fierce and tragic reason to be sad and depressed, but I love how dancing with these men brought him some relief.  Maybe despite the warnings on touch right now, we need to join together and do the same.

When Ken’s wife knows it is time for her to go, he comforts her with phrases she carried on flash cards to carry her through.

“Relax with the presence of what is.”

“Allow the self to uncoil in the vast expanse of all space.”

“Your own primordial mind is unborn and undying; it was not born with this body and it will not die with this body.  Recognize your own mind as eternally one with Spirit.”

And so it is.  We find each other and connect, carrying love through our beautifully moving forms.  

Dance the blossoms in Spring!

It’s Super Tuesday, my day to vote.  I treat this day with reverence, give space to a process that brings forth differing viewpoints, as compromise requires us to come together to choose a leader who holds the center for whirling points of view.  

I’m still going through books to give away.  Today I give a last look to A Joseph Campbell Companion, consider my own midlife call to journey, my call to “air out the fairy tale” with which I was raised.

I embrace these words.

A bit of advice

given to a young Native American

at the time of his initiation:

“As you go the way of life,

you will see a great chasm.

Jump.

It is not as wide as you think.”

Today I walked with a friend to Tennessee Valley beach.  The waves were huge and we kept our eyes on their passage, moving back and forth on the sand in response.

I hadn’t seen her in years, and just happened to catch a glance of her at our local market.  We agreed to meet. She is here from New Mexico for a few days.

She, her husband, and others, have worked hard to turn New Mexico “blue”.

She reminded me of when a rogue wave at Tennessee Valley grabbed her and carried her out to sea, then, bringing her back, dumped her against the cliff.  What guided her was a hole in the rock above. I pointed out that a huge piece had dropped and now the hole was gone. It was open.

We spoke of the wound of my brother passing on April 14th, 2019.  Now as I continue to re-visit Alison Wright in Learning to Breathe, I read this.  

 “I believe when you lose someone who’s loved you, that person’s energy and spirit become a part of your being, and you become more powerful than you’ve ever been.”  

I sit here tonight embracing my power and strength, though I feel tender, gentle, raw, and soft.  

I continue to learn from Learning to Breathe by Alison Wright. 

She asks, “What’s the difference between detachment and unattachment?”

The answer is this: 

Unattachment is holding a pen downward in a clenched hand and when we let it go, it falls to the floor with a crash.

Letting go is when we allow the pen to rest in the open palm of our hand.

Open, not grasping, open to receive.

That brings me to John Muir.

The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us. Thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing. The trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as our souls, and every bird song, wind song, and tremendous storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our song, our very own, and sings our love.

Today I’m with how we balance between earth and sky.  Gravity hugs us to the earth even as the stars invite us to rise.

Years ago, and repeatedly, I re-read Clifford D. Simak’s 1952 science fiction novel City.  The stories are about isolation, human isolation, and the one that intrigues me most is of a self-contained home, where a robot/robots take care of everything so there’s no reason to leave, and eventually one is unable to do so. Even if the desire might come, the robots ensure all is taken care of.  Why risk the influence of germs when one can interact through screens?

My neighbors are stocking up on supplies in fear we may be quarantined because of this virus.  Yes, there is a possibility, and yet those of us connected by computer will still share our news.

I sit outside with my plant friends, wondering how all of this will evolve, knowing there’s no way to know.  We are fighting like ants to survive.  

Meanwhile birds are singing and building nests.  I see my grandson through Facetime. His cheeks are rosy and round.  His eyes are big with wonder, curiosity, exploration, and discovery.

My book group recently read a book on the plague of 1666 and then another on the flu of 1918/19.  Who knows what today brings but both my kitties are sleeping comfortably and securely. Bella is here on the chair next to me, and Tiger is on the bed, and I trust that as we balance on response, all is well, as it is of course. To quote another science fiction source, “Trust the force,” and balance on the up and down teeter-totter of connection we interactively, creatively, and responsibly share.

After I finished cancer treatment, I heard Alison Wright speak at Book Passage.  I bought her book, Learning to Breathe, One Woman’s Journey of Spirit and Survival.

After a horrific accident in Laos, where struggling to breathe, she knew she was going to die, she scrawled a message to her brother that she wasn’t afraid.

This is what happened next.  She writes:

“As I closed my eyes and surrendered, an amazing thing happened: I let go of all fear. My body took on a lightness as it was released from its profound suffering. I felt my heart expand, free of attachment and longing. A perfect calm came over me, a bone-deep peace I could never have previously imagined. There was nothing left to do, nowhere left to go.  There was also the realization that there was no need to be afraid; everything felt as though it was exactly as it was meant to be.”

“In that moment, I felt my spiritual beliefs transform into undeniable truths. As I lay there, I felt how interwoven every human spirit is with every other in the seamless mesh of the universe.  It occurred to me that the opposite of death is not life but love. I felt myself rise and emerge from the shell of pain laying below and, as I did so, realized that leaving the body only ends life, not our interconnectedness with those we care about.”

Fear seems to be wrapping a noose around the world.  Perhaps, we can surrender and trust what comes, loosening knots with Love.