as the day winds down I learned:
Pirates have definitely taken over in the last 24 hours. Maybe they’ll get bored soon and leave. Sometimes I am entranced by my pain. Today, not so much.
I had intended to write about my vacation last week in the Sonoran Desert – Tucson. See my lovely picture of a crested Saguaro cactus!
Instead this post will likely be rambling and disjointed. Jumping to the point– I think is the point is I don’t know how to ask for help. Or I just refuse to ask for help. Or I just can’t ask for help. This realization has been coming toward me for some time, but two days ago a coach, while talking about shamanism, had reminded me that to change and create a new identity, I would have to let go of an identity. Maybe more than one would have to go. I was ok with that. I felt really good after my call with her and eager to explore the shamanic ideas and do the homework she gave me. I thought I was just going to write a list on a piece of paper. Wham! Thanks, Universe!!
Yesterday afternoon I broke my months-long abstinence. Driving to work I had a flash of thought, “I’ll have to give up my eating to be a shaman.” Then I thought no more about that. After a lunch meeting, we had several cookies left over. When I took them to the break room, I saw that another meeting had leftover cookies, too. Cookiepalooza! I went to my desk without a cookie, but then the thought grabbed me. I want a cookie. [Insert lots of if-onlys here, but especially, if I had waited only a few more minutes, others would have taken them all.] I went to the break room and wrapped a paper towel around two cookies. Back at my desk I ate them. They did not taste good. Like sand with weak chocolate. Once they hit my stomach, nausea rose and then dizziness. I went back for two more, wrapped in another paper towel (hiding, yes). Then once more, for the last one. This must be what a zombie feels like. Mindless destruction.
Now the shame was in charge. I didn’t call anyone, but just listened to my voices harass me. I kept thinking no one would know. I don’t have to tell anyone. I wanted to inflict pain on myself for distraction (this is why people cut). I went home and paced around the house wanting to hit something, including my head against the wall. Energy roiled chaotically. A day later, I ask myself, “Why didn’t you call anyone? Why didn’t you even think of it?” I don’t know.
Last night, I dreamed I was climbing on a sandy, rocky path and I had to go up then down, and then switchback. I rusted iron railing was hanging upside down from the rocks and couldn’t be used. Somehow I jumped down and now I’m on a corner looking at a fenced in, overgrown compound. I ask the guard how to get in and he says I can’t get in this way, I have to go back around and I don’t which way to go and I see young people running up and down the path like it’s easy. I know I left a shopping basket somewhere back on a hill and now there’s no way to get back to it.
When I wake up, my arm hurts. I see some blood on the sheets and deep scratches from my cat high up on my arm. I have no idea how she did that to me in my sleep. I go into the kitchen and see the snow on the ground from last night. Now I’m angry about the weather. Wham! Thanks, Universe!
I was aware enough now to prod myself to call someone even though I was ashamed I had broken my abstinence. However, no one I called was available. I do know that if I had kept calling, someone would have been available. In just a few calls I had confirmed my beliefs that a) I am a helper, not a helpee, and b) Who am I going to call? No one can help me. Oh, yeah, and c) I can’t be a shaman because I am not perfect and can’t even use the tools I know I have for myself to deal with a chocolate chip cookie.
This amount of crying and self-flagellation has been exhausting.
Some growth: damn rigorous honesty got me to admit this.
Since I read Thich Nhat Hanh‘s poem (below), I have used it near the end of my morning walk and at times (frequently…) of pirate attack.
I’ve heard the Plum Village monks sing it, too, so it could be called a song. I just realized, maybe I should sing these, not just say them. I know singing changes the brain in ways speaking doesn’t.
“I have arrived; I am home
in the here, in the now.
I am solid; I am free,
in the ultimate I dwell.”
I’ve been struggling with Step 3, so I wrote a similarly metered poem to remind me of my higher power and that key word, “decision.”
“I decide, again today
I turn over my will; I turn over my self
to love, to love.
What shall I do then, as love?”
These both work best for me done slowly in a walking meditation. But sometimes I just have to find an empty conference room, take a few deep breaths, say it, and blow my nose.
The grass isn’t green yet, but last year’s lawn mower left its mark.
I had another lesson this week to remind me that you just don’t know how what you say and do affects others, nor how far-reaching your impact can be. Someone repeated back to me an insight I had shared, as she received it third-hand, with nearly exact phrasing and gestures. I was awed that it had come back to me and the impact it had had — in that others had repeated it, that it had affected them.
While this ripple felt good, I wonder what “negative” impact I have had with some previous behaviors. Have I denied what has rippled back to me?
The poem, Aubade, by W.H. Auden reflects this better than I could ever say.
“I know that I am and will,
I am willing and knowing,
I will to be and to know,
facing in four directions,
outwards and inwards in Space,
observing and reflecting,
backwards and forwards through Time,
recalling and forecasting.”
– W.H. Auden, Aubade
Snowdrops pushing up beneath the bird feeder.
If you live in the temperate zones, you are probably feeling the same way I am. Happy the giant snow piles are nearly all melted and the temps are dancing around the high 50’s and low 60’s. I’m itching to open windows and clean up the yard. I enjoy weeding and find it meditative — that will be here soon.
Spring is my best reminder of the cyclical nature of life, whether at the macro-planet level or micro-me level. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been reminded that moods cycle for whatever reason throughout the day and the week. I will frequently have no idea why at any particular moment the feelings in my body and the spastic voice in my head are screaming, “Run away, run away!!” There’s no logical reason, and I’m learning that it just doesn’t matter.
In practice, to notice the feeling, label it, appreciate it (thanks, Avatar tools) and stay in observer view is the most powerful way to get through them. Say, “This is weird,” right at first shifts me to an observer quickly.
Sounds simple. It is. I just have to get over myself.
Check out my Poetiosity post today, too, and get in the mood for April – Poetry Month.
What is it with signs? It must be a low-level, human mind feature, since it’s been well documented since — well, since we’ve been documenting ourselves.
A favorite internet meme!
Saturday, driving to Chicago and whelmed by my pirates, this sun halo rode along with me. along I90. Sure, it’s light refracted through the ice crystals of the cirrus clouds that morning. Is
it also a sign of a benevolent universe? Is it a message from a higher power?
How about something I noticed on my body just recently? A couple weeks ago I was reading Ruby (by Cynthia Bond – superb book BTW). A wise-woman character grabs Ruby’s hand, points to her palm, and says she has the Star of the Mystic mark, that she can’t avoid her fate. I glanced over at my own right hand holding the book. I see a star shape in the lines on my own palm.
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” – Henry David Thoreau
Of course, I’ve looked at my hands all of my life and not seen that. Does it matter? Does it mean anything? Or is it only valuable because I see it and I think it does?
I had a thought during practice the other day. I imagined the fat Buddha saying, “I like my body.” Then the image of the thinner, standing Buddha came to mind. He said, “I’m OK with mine, too.”
I imagine some of our “body image” thoughts would be more incomprehensible to him than walking on the moon.
See it’s now a thought bubble because he can’t talk what with being in heaven.
Do you believe you can be kind and be clever and witty, too?
My mind just looooves synchronicity!
Today’s calendar by my bathroom sink:
February 10th post.
Do you believe in your own innate goodness?
Quote in my in-box this morning:
“The problem with certainty is that it is static; it can do little but endlessly reassert itself. Uncertainty, by contrast, is full of unknowns, possibilities, and risks.” – Stephen Batchelor
PEACE Quotes are offered by:
Living Compassion
transforming lives, ending suffering
http://www.LivingCompassion.org
Which is where I am. Uncertain. Flopping around, dancing, toying with, exploring….
I know what I don’t believe: Original Sin. My struggle is coming from a gut response to the question. My lightning-quick answer is “no,” based on the squeeze in my stomach. After a moment, my mind’s answer is “well of course people are innately good.” The sneaking in behind that is “just not me.”
Friend Janet says she is working with staying neutral. That sounds the most promising as it removes the attachment to either bad or good. However, it still implies a movement from – something. I think. See — still struggling!
The dictionary definition says inborn; natural. That implies a body and a mind. Pretty sure I need to get away from the influence of both of those.
Here is a quote from H.M. Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche which as part of the initial trigger to think about this:
Goodness has to be genuinely embodied. We first need to look at how we feel about ourselves. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche translated our natural state from Tibetan as “Basic Goodness” – this is our natural state. Basic does not mean lower or simple or minimal, it means foundational, total, complete, whole. We are wholly, completely, totally good. This is not coming from a state of ego, but from a deep sense of well-being-ness. How do we touch this Basic Goodness? One means is through meditation. It can also happen when we are bored or sad, and there is a moment of tenderness when we can touch the beauty and fragility of life. Like a fragile flower – within this simple flower lies the totality of life in all of its basic goodness. In this culture this is something that we feel like we cannot share, and it is not valued. This conference – Wisdom in Action – shows that we DO value the well-being of humanity. We are opening to our full illumination when we come together.
Can we create a culture where the soft elements such as kindness and compassion are valued? Often people say “This is all well and good, but how are we supposed to survive in reality?” Well, by cultivating these soft elements we learn true strength. It is not easy loving someone. Soft strength is what society as a whole needs to develop to survive this next phase of life. Once we feel soft strength on an internal level, then we can exchange it with another person – and society really begins with just 2 people. Once we touch our own basic goodness, we need to see that in another. If we think that “almost” everyone is basically good – that’s not enough, because we are someone else’s “almost” too! The world will not change with this attitude. People do stupid things – that is not going to change. We have to see basic goodness in everyone without exception.
Lacuna: an unfilled space or interval; a gap.
The doughnut hole.
I bought two dozen doughnuts to get this picture. Cost me $17.98.
I heard the phrase “focusing on the hole and not the doughnut” a few days ago. I’ve probably heard it before, but it struck me solidly this time. This phrase has been around a long time and I found an interesting reference, too.
From http://coolculinaria.com/blogs/news/7671973-the-optimists-creed-2013
Days Without Pirate Attack: 