It’s been a bit tumultuous but today I expanded on a Zoom call. We shared, and one woman led us in sensing, in coming to quiet. She had listened to Jack Kornfield the night before, and he ended the call with these words.
Allow ourselves to live in the great heart of Love.
Breathing that in, I unfold out of a chrysalis to become a butterfly, fluttering in the heart of love.
I ventured out today and wore my mask into the grocery store. It’s been two weeks and it was time, but the whole experience felt strange and overwhelming.
Yesterday, Lee Klinger Lesser ended the Sensory Awareness workshop by reading a children’s book to the 125 of us who were on Zoom and spread across the globe. She read Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes, and we all joined in to sing along and clap our hands.
I hate to destroy the ending for you but I will say that when Pete steps in blueberries, he sings, “I love my blue shoes,” and when he steps in strawberries, “I love my red shoes,” and when in mud, “I love my wet shoes.” We sang together around the world a rather silly song but not really because no matter what was happening with his shoes, Pete loved them, and here we all are, caught in a situation we wouldn’t choose, and yet, we can clap and sing, “I love my shelter-in-place”, and in my case, “I love that those I love are currently safe in their respective shelters-in-place”. I have hands to clap, a voice to sing, and feet I can move and tap and swing.
I know it’s about how I meet what comes, so I put my hands together now, and feel that meeting, and hope as I meet myself, I meet you too, in the movement in the moment, this moment, now. Peace!
This morning I’m thinking about superheroes. I watched Superman as a child but have never really related to the idea of a superhero, and this morning I realized why. We are all superheroes, and babies and small children show us the way if we forget.
My almost six month old grandson can now use both hands to put things into his mouth. Somehow that new ability seems like the most superhero thing I can imagine.
I watch this little guy learn something new every day as he reaches out to explore his environment.
I’ve been studying and practicing Sensory Awareness for 27 years, and yet yesterday being led on the Sensory Awareness Zoom call I felt and learned something new. I felt a new awareness of what it is to be centered, to be off-balance and centered. I played with the two learning that the center is always there for me, and in that dance of play, I can branch out like a tree.
I felt what it is to be still enough to feel the movement of breath in and out, not just through heart, throat, and lungs but everywhere. I receive, and without doing anything, my inner moves in and out. I’m involved even when still, perhaps even more so when still.
We are all Superheroes, and letting ourselves feel and honor that, well, that is a gift.
A Sensory Awareness workshop retreat was planned for this Saturday and Sunday in Berkeley, CA. Shelter-in-place has changed that. Now, it will be a free online retreat. If you are curious, you can check it out here:
There’s a beautiful video on the website that gives a sense of what the practice of Sensory Awareness is about.
I stumbled into Sensory Awareness in a poetry workshop with Norman Fischer at Green Gulch Zen Center in 1993. The group wasn’t coming together so Norman led us in some sensing. We stood in a circle and touched the shoulders and back of the person in front of us. We then distributed ourselves around the landscape of Green Gulch and wrote. When we came back together, we sat in a circle and read what we’d written. As we read around the circle, it was as though we’d written one poem.
Intrigued, I signed up to study with Charlotte Selver, the founder of Sensory Awareness. I studied with her in Mexico, and on Monhegan Island off the coast of Maine. Charlotte lived nearby so I also studied here. In 2005 and 2006 when I went through chemotherapy and radiation for cancer treatment, Sensory Awareness was my lifeline. It’s a gift you can give yourself, especially now in such challenging times.
This weekend offers an opportunity to check Sensory Awareness out in the privacy of your home. It’s an invitation for support. I’ll be there, well, here, but in a square on the Zoom screen.
Periodically I return to the image of the grandmother in the movie Parenthood where she talks of life as a roller coaster, the ups and downs, with the point being to enjoy the ride.
The news on Steve was a relief, and again, I jumped into gear, re-merging our living situation, but then I realized we’re still sheltered-in-place, and I’d somehow forgotten the rules on it all.
For a moment or two or three, I felt like a rag doll shaken in the mouth of a puppy.
While pondering my next step, I had the sense that there are no steps, and for a moment, I was in free fall and then I was caught. I’m here.
A friend says she’s lighting a candle each day for those who’ve died, so they aren’t just statistics in her body-mind. I light a candle now for those who’ve passed and those who are left. I light a candle for us all.
Steve just tested negative for the virus. Celebration Time. Doors open and Alleluia’s winging through the air.
There’s an important and inspiring article in the New Yorker this week written by Michael Specter on Anthony Fauci. What an amazing human being and what an essential asset he has been, and continues to be.
Here’s a taste of who he is.
“In 1954, he began attending Regis, a private Jesuit high school on the Upper East Side. Rigourous, small, competitive, and tuition-free, Regis is considered one of the finest all-male schools in the country. Fauci thrived there though the commute between Dyker Heights and Eighty-fourth and Madison was long. He once estimated that he spent the equivalent of seventy days of his teen-age life on the various subways and busses he took to get to and from school.”
“Fauci revelled in the demanding coursework. “We took four years of Greek, four years of Latin, three years of French, ancient history, theology,” he recalled.”
“Last year, at a dinner that Regis held in his honor, he said that the school had taught him “to communicate scientific principles, or principles of basic and clinical research, without getting very profuse and off on tangents.”
It’s fascinating to read about his research and work with AIDS and infectious diseases. Other presidents listened to him and valued his advice. You can read the whole article here.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/20/how-anthony-fauci-became-americas-doctor
The only constant is change. That’s abundantly clear as we shelter-in-place, and the moments stretch like taffy between in and out, past and future, here and there.
This morning, I woke refreshed, feeling calm, trusting, safe. Before I rose, I reveled in the darkness and stillness outside. I’m a morning person, a lark, and I’m happy to be awake.
I sat, and still sit, with my morning coffee with cream. I’ve placed Steve’s coffee mug and a thermos of coffee in a safe exchange place. We continue to honor separation until we get the results of the Covid-19 test. A kitty is here with me, a soft purring curl of beauty and light.
I’ve been cooking comfort foods. I knead bread and roll out pie crusts. Yesterday I made meatloaf, something I haven’t made in years. Meatloaf was the first dish I learned to make as a child. I’d forgotten the only way to mix the ingredients is with your hands, which results in a lovely squishy sound as meat, egg, milk, onion, ketchup etc. come together to bind in new ways.
When shelter-in-place was ordained, I ordered meat from a family ranch, Alderspring, in Idaho. I know the history of the family and the lush environment of the cows so I envision their lives as I knead and squish. Normally we don’t eat much meat but these are not ordinary times. I return to my Midwest background, and meat and potatoes are essential ingredients to bind then with now.
Each morning I read Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac. Today I’m struck by these words of Carol Bly: “Literature has low enough standards. But we can avoid writing the worst literature if we make ourselves ask ourselves, every two or three sentences we write, ‘Is that what I really think?'”
Why would we do that with just writing? Each moment we can ask ourselves, “Is that what I really think”, and perhaps add, “Is this what I really feel?”
We can allow thought and feeling to percolate through like petals dropping softly to the ground. Sometimes I’m startled when I hear the thud of a petal fall and hit the kitchen table. I think of petals as fragile and light, but they are strong and purposeful. They’re not here just for our heart’s delight.
When my friend’s mother died, we dealt with what needed to be done, but that night I felt her mother scattering rose petals on my friend and me. Was it imagination or “real”? Does it matter?
Friends say they’re having trouble sleeping. That’s never been a problem for me, but in these times of stress, I have an evening ritual. I tuck into bed, which is now the couch since Steve has our bedroom, and I imagine those I love who have passed away, and I picture them scattering petals like feathers over me as I go to sleep. Usually it’s roses, but these days, it may be the flowers I see during the day, so pink jasmine, lavender, and rosemary.
I feel bees full of pollen return to their hive to share and sleep.
One more thing.
I’ve been putting off washing my kitchen floor. I’ve kept everything up but that, but now as I plan my open, spacious day, I’m reminded of Anne Rudlow’s book, Butterflies on a Sea Wind: Beginning Zen.
A busy woman, she gave herself the gift of time in a retreat center. Her assigned task was to clean the stairs. They looked perfectly clean to her, and she was a bit peeved at performing what she felt was a menial and made up task, but then sweeping revealed the stairs weren’t as clean as she previously thought.
In addition she learned it wasn’t about the stairs. In cleaning our surroundings, seeing more clearly, we cleanse the lens with which we perceive.
So maybe today I’ll clean the kitchen floor which is clearly in need of a sweep and a wash. Another friend finds comfort in ironing but I think that’s way too much for me right now as I need folds and creases as I origami my way to be.
Am I a swan, hawk, duck, or crow? I’m changing all the time, so all four and more.
Blessings for each of us on this new day.
I walk down to the marsh and sit by the bay. The tide is going out and at first all is still except for the water, but then, a Great White Egret swings by, and then a Snowy Egret, followed by two ducks and butterflies. I watch the banks of the marsh expose and wonder how many creatures are feeling their abodes open in new ways. I look for river otters but none are out today.
Walking back, I see our fruit and vegetable stand is just opening so I buy some local honey and strawberries.
Eudora Welty wrote, “I am a writer who came of a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within.”
And today Garrison Keillor writes that he checks the obituaries each day. He notes that Vince Lionti, 60, violist in the Met Opera orchestra for thirty years and conductor of the Westchester Youth Symphony, is listed. Keillor shares that “Lionti once said his greatest musical experience was conducting the symphony, 101 players, at a school for the deaf and the deaf kids sat on the stage amid the orchestra and laughed out loud as they felt Beethovenly vibrations”.
We may feel confined right now; we may be confined, but our senses can stimulate and expand in a multitude of ways.
Open like the banks of the marsh at low tide.
The days are lively with the singing of birds, and the nights with the song and dance of crickets.
I’m with these words of Toni Morrison.
You are worthy to be seen. You are worthy to be heard. You are worthy to be sat with, to be walked beside. Even in your quietest moments, you are worthy of witness.
Sometimes it’s completely silent here, and other times the wind is a wild howl, but this time of year all springs awake, and I’m brought to quiet inside.
Cathy's Blog! 