I've written three books, each a part of my journey to elderhood. Now with this blog my intention is to give a moment to moment accounting of my life as it is now, and now, and now. I'm a leader and student of Sensory Awareness, and a practitioner of Rosen Method. I believe in the connective and collective power of Love.
These days, with age, there is so much change.Where before, I pursued travel as necessary for pilgrimage, now I feel each breath journey in and out.
From Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen, Lama Govinda, The Way of the White Clouds:
Just as a white summer cloud, in harmony with heaven and earth freely floats in the blue sky from horizon to horizon following the breath of the atmosphere – in the same way the pilgrim abandons himself to the breath of the greater life that … leads him beyond the farthest horizons to an aim which is already present within him though yet hidden from his sight.
I only saw the flower when I took the picture and not the bee
In an article in the summer issue of Parabola Magazine, Benson Bobrick writes about his relationship with P.L. Travers who wrote Mary Poppins and studied with G.I. Gurdjieff. These quotes come from letters she wrote to him and his former wife.
“Let ideas just go into you.”
“By “standing under” I mean to let it come down upon you as you would if you were willingly and restfully standing under the rain. Or sunshine, if you like. Be defenseless. Do not ‘try’ so hard …. The trying can become merely muscular; the mind has muscular gestures as well as the body. Let the ladder, as it were, draw you up rather than forcefully putting your foot on each rung.”
What an image. Let the ladder, as it were, draw you up rather than forcefully putting your foot on each rung.”
I lift like Mary Poppins floating up into the sky.
What resides inside the trunk of a tree, inside the trunk of me –
I’m in reflective mode these days, noticing, receiving, contemplating. I’m with this:
What is the weight of thought on my tissues? Is it heavy or light? Can I change it? Do I want to? Do I need to? I’ve been noticing the weight of thought on my bodily tissues. If it interests you, notice, and see what comes.
In noticing, I feel and applaud the weight and lightness of my ancestry move through me.I evolve complexity and simplicity, compassion and understanding.
As Thich Nhat Hanh wrote in The Art of Living:
Breathing in, I see all my ancestors in me: my mineral ancestors, plant ancestors, mammal ancestors, and human ancestors. My ancestors are always present, alive in every cell of my body, and I play a part in their immortality.
I’m going through my journals from my trip to Nepal.
As we were preparing to leave the Everest area, and fly out on a plane from Lukla, Celeste shared with me this quote on Emerson’s definition of success. Certainly she lives it, and I consider it too, this day, a weekend sacred and celebrated with gathering, connection, and a pause to reflect.
Ralph WaldoEmerson’s definition of Success:
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends. To appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
Each season brings its own meaning and teaching. This weekend we celebrate in different ways, each of us with our own beliefs.
I love how the word spring, springs. This morning it brings me to honor the sacrum, the bone at the base of the spine that hosts the four dignities: sitting, standing, walking, and lying down. The word sacrum means “sacred” in Latin. The Romans called this bone “os sacrum” which means “holy bone”. The Greeks called it “hieron osteon” which also means “holy bone”.
I sit here now, my holy bone moving back and forth, side to side, floating waves and springing joy in the nature that is my life. Tissues wake.
I’m with these words of Eckhart Tolle from Stillness Speaks.
Wisdom is not a product of thought. The deep knowing that is wisdom arises
through the simple act of giving someone or something your full attention.
Attention is primordial intelligence, consciousness itself. It dissolves the
barriers created by conceptual thought, and with this comes the recognition
that nothing exists in and by itself. It joins the perceiver and the perceived in a
unifying field of awareness. It is the healer of separation.
Life is both fragile and strong allowing us to balance, ground, rise, and connect, trusting the spring to life.
It rained all day yesterday, and the creek in Mill Valley went from dry to rushing and gushing. This morning, sun.
Gollum’s riddle from The Hobbit seems appropriate:
“A box without hinges, key, or lid,
Yet golden treasure inside is hid.”
Eggs are a lovely place to focus as April 15th, Tax Day, is on approach though this year we stretch to the 18th. April is poetry month and this weekend brings Passover and Easter.
These spring days we’re challenged and invited to expand our beliefs. Like an egg dropped into boiling water, we immerse to cohere so when the shell is cracked, we’re still in one piece.
As D.H. Lawrence wrote: You can do whatever you want with a belief. But an experience does something with you.
A turkey on our roof expanding the boundaries of what’s possible at breeding time.
Yesterday I savored a video of my two-year old grandson coloring eggs, bright blue, red, yellow, orange, green. His fingers were colored like tiny rainbows, blended,blurred.
Yesterday I saw a rainbow, not really a bow, more a prismed blend, which perhaps reflects all that’s happening these days. There’s no clear arch.
Where does one come to rest?
I rest my sit bones on the chair, move back and forth, side to side, feel my jaw respond, my eyes.
I wiggle my nose like a bunny and nibble a carrot. It’s Spring and eggs and color are everywhere.
Even among the tragedies unfolding on the earth, may we pause for a moment, and sit in colored curves.
Today I have a dermatologist appointment, which I’m already nervous about, as I’ll have freezings on my face, which I anticipate to be painful as it has been in the past, and yet, what if I could be with these words of Sharon Salzberg:
Beginning again and again is the actual practice, not a problem to be overcome so that one day we can come to the “real” meditation.
At this moment, I’m in a warm house and it’s raining outside. My tummy is full and a new cup of coffee is here with me. This moment – enough.
I was in a discussion today that focused on “Conversing and Interrupting”. How do we enter an ongoing conversation, discussion, or interactive group? How do we find our part, claim our space, or do we sit back in childhood programming of being seen, not heard, and told not to interrupt?And in that, are we actually seen? Are we seeing ourselves?
Instead of the word “interrupting”, I wrap in the words converging and engaging. These words give me a gentle entry, a cushion for reflection on the subject of conversation with others and with myself.
How do I bring myself into a group, or into the diverse voices I am? How do these inner voices converge, engage, and interact? Do they shout or whisper, speak with invitation or confrontation, flow or contract?
As His Holiness the Dalai Lama says, “My religion is kindness.”
How am I kind to myself, and in that, others?
In the conversation today, we, who were of the age of wisdom, agreed that aging is humbling. Where we once felt formidable, strong, and able to do anything and everything, now there is vulnerability. We have to ask for help.
On Wednesday, I was at the beach with a friend. We brought food and settled ourselves on the sand to watch the sun set. She went to open her water bottle. It wouldn’t budge. I tried. Nothing! And then a lovely young couple walked by, and my friend said to him, “You look strong. Do you think you could open this for me?” And he did, and he opened it so easily, the four of us laughed. It was so funny, and perhaps, as I type this a little sad, but isn’t that where we find humor, in the truth of what it is to be alive, and in the connectivity that vulnerability brings?
I’m with these words from The Power of an Open Question by Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel.
The way we know things depends upon the mind, nothing more. Most of us have moments of deep contentment when we don’t feel a need to alter, express, run from, or invest some special meaning in our experience in any way. Deep contentment shows us that, at least momentarily, our habit of cherishing and protecting ourselves from what we call “other” has subsided. In moments like these, we have stopped objectifying things. We can let things be. And when the mind rests at ease in this way, it accommodates everything, like space.
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