tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20732043732188319532024-02-20T23:50:19.935-08:00What IfThoughts on beginning a meditation practicemarthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-50163072948748677902012-05-09T19:06:00.000-07:002012-05-30T22:23:40.906-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Trying to take this series a little further. What will emerge?<br />
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Made this for Theo's school auction:<br />
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Visible and invisible help. Friend I admire bought it.<br />
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Made this book for Dora's school auction:<br />
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It's all about what they learned when they became Native American tribe members and had to deal with the first white trader, increasing white settlement, and then forced relocation to reservation land. Here's Dora's page.<br />
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<br />marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-16116587910315696752011-09-13T11:37:00.000-07:002011-09-23T09:48:09.837-07:00Accounting for this life, again<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIYaKSZ2GIvmlAfnqOtCQUJv0mjwqNjuLE9QbNklblCA6PgW0M-YQy7-qrTGsGctYyCdpLTxgGV09LEIy7baZXMjxSdDDwGIju5FZ8is58AVdCy7AZ5HPMvHN4meQCJ3LcKgV4Pcmstcgq/s1600/IMGP4876.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 306px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIYaKSZ2GIvmlAfnqOtCQUJv0mjwqNjuLE9QbNklblCA6PgW0M-YQy7-qrTGsGctYyCdpLTxgGV09LEIy7baZXMjxSdDDwGIju5FZ8is58AVdCy7AZ5HPMvHN4meQCJ3LcKgV4Pcmstcgq/s400/IMGP4876.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5651937351656508930" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1LaisNSP6PM26mK1BPl_-nQ3VC0eU1CJfK7ioYDAT_lr2ki-kZPhkvvX6H3IzrPdF5dhonceJB0N_udVu-aAQ1mmZbECIrfSHLfrUSgQ1yi9lX3IEfav-u-7HSXzQeMgsukHimXgy17qM/s1600/IMGP4876.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><br /></a><blockquote></blockquote><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0); ">Glacier lilies, late summer.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0); ">Enamel plate print, 8/11</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#ff0000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#ff0000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;color:#990000;">Today, like every other day, we wake up empty</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;color:#990000;">and frightened. Don't open the door to the study</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;color:#990000;">and begin reading. Take down the dulcimer.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;color:#990000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;color:#990000;">Let the beauty we love be what we do.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;color:#990000;">There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;color:#990000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:85%;color:#990000;">-Rumi</span><blockquote></blockquote></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;">Sitting in circle this September morning I located myself <span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ">again</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ">. The first things my teachers have said upon coming back together for yoga and meditation have been reminders to open, to be aware, to remember that going inside is a connection and not a withdrawal.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;">But then, they speak of fall and the time for going in with fondness, and an implication of being ready to rest, where I, allowed to whisper "wait" to summer, would continue to go out. I'd <span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ">feel the spring of my feet off the diving board and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ">slide into the light liquid lake water, surfacing to breathe in rhythm with the turning of my head; I'd go onto the windy mountain trail and walk, then sit, with the 20 kinds of wildflowers I have to look up in a book when I get home; I'd grip the racquet and tie my shoelaces firmly before tracing swooping patterns in the air at the tennis court, which radiates the mid-afternoon heat. So I am listening hard to make sense of what they say. They all say it is time.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;">The speckled deer grazing with two fawns in our yard, which is now fenced (how do they come to be here <i>again?)</i> says so. She looks at me from 10 feet away, and says so, frightened and yet fearless in the truth. She says so <i>again</i>.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;">As does the crowded school hallway, although the children are in their classrooms, it's the parents who don't want to leave who mill about, trying to capture with shaking fingers the wispy tips of hair their babes have cut for the start of school, these aging youngsters who have carelessly turned 8 and 9 over the summer or will soon, this weekend perhaps, or this Christmas, which will be here tomorrow.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;">The kitchen at 6:45 am and the brilliant harvest moon in a purple sky at 8:45 pm say so. I haven't seen the kitchen this early of the clock all summer, although if I had it wouldn't have required the ceiling lamp turned on.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;">The brown grass, waiting for rain. The pumpkins turning a bright, raucous orange in the garden. The raccoons in the plum tree at midnight (chased away by steve) and again at 2 am (chased away by me). A truly fruitless chase. For us, anyway. Ha! All of them say the same thing, once I listen.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;">Dora says so, telling me, the first day of school, that when I heard her room door open and close at 5:30 am she was getting those little battery-lit tea candles set up to meditate. Indeed!!</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;">So I found myself, incredibly, resoundingly, fortuitously, in circle. I listened to my teacher say "feel the vibrations on your skin, feel gratitude for this, your body." I heard it, the opening, the sense of the goodness of the work irrespective of pleasure, pain, the ease of it or the difficulty...there it is stretched out like a cat with every life accounted for, how does she do it? Each life fully lived leads effortlessly to the next, says she. Purrr.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-76187752043386395262011-08-02T13:20:00.000-07:002011-09-14T20:41:43.833-07:00My Book. Or, a book. By Me.<div style="text-align: center;">Because I hope it won't be the last.</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3d-D0o0ynOvSE60M5uClasyaQLbeespvalc5eKA87XFUvTcLO7NmC-QWy-jektpaDYhzboF3S6SjGnVeo6E36tStHMkolUDzt_vJftS2HjahIMxpltiyKi-P-MfbZhHKxtI43hcTy4Ijr/s1600/IMGP4907.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsuTSTQJKI2bGEgCUpVNBS-dVkL_kXLZAFFN5vJJNr8F_Hw2vhBfGYD6EoOnmtmENHO5EVMEyW6hfmbWOZ-yYy3eeee9hiDB6Qd_s-T3kkItUfH3KkmBA8VQr1eg3SNgRMdxBzh1R44Jo-/s1600/IMGP4887.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu1SvH2V6lNbFG1E3TEniqMiVkojzFly-bqpvkSncwIIFDMJoOEb2k_cqptYfDZDFb_75SjSM5A0rnHJ_8gIjjYn4AgKgo08WjgX9iQ1aktfyCQoSSDBXSwKdHBLWUYPrZI4Ey2yMDghfR/s1600/IMGP4885.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu1SvH2V6lNbFG1E3TEniqMiVkojzFly-bqpvkSncwIIFDMJoOEb2k_cqptYfDZDFb_75SjSM5A0rnHJ_8gIjjYn4AgKgo08WjgX9iQ1aktfyCQoSSDBXSwKdHBLWUYPrZI4Ey2yMDghfR/s400/IMGP4885.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5651946304317159378" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij25FbhJDnwJzWBIR2zYrtQQk16qxoTNsBa8q2coUUsmTLLW8vZXBcBUsLT3KtFSln77u7rbROvYTHH0AHpycP82Bc1NBrGiO9Q0eVCVIL732SgQ6ezke4hZBSjdL_bZ0hP-qHgRej1_Jc/s1600/IMGP4889.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij25FbhJDnwJzWBIR2zYrtQQk16qxoTNsBa8q2coUUsmTLLW8vZXBcBUsLT3KtFSln77u7rbROvYTHH0AHpycP82Bc1NBrGiO9Q0eVCVIL732SgQ6ezke4hZBSjdL_bZ0hP-qHgRej1_Jc/s400/IMGP4889.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5651946297594582754" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaDjBHC0HXiLtuueKWYl9Et82hX7zoRMPfMdZq-i7LfM_mlJPy6nmPPp_SGuKMts0TZOQhjopXB8bjEbjskZGZqpvfd9gJ7MTfolFL5JFk4W00ZXI0GkVRvSlkaMM173GC_ycjwTn2zjzs/s1600/IMGP4888.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; 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margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5CeaCHkHp535A9hicFDwqkk7qFYyNgLVqbhmMhsDf5z3Fh5frAdhYvLlpLgxUozUgJMDt-x6Nzoe7WH_yWE5HuNcbC6OFkcmHaT9cP7W2TOZVX148IEZadDnAQ1mV4H51-gAzH0kRFqWJ/s400/IMGP4904.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5651944809722354802" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3d-D0o0ynOvSE60M5uClasyaQLbeespvalc5eKA87XFUvTcLO7NmC-QWy-jektpaDYhzboF3S6SjGnVeo6E36tStHMkolUDzt_vJftS2HjahIMxpltiyKi-P-MfbZhHKxtI43hcTy4Ijr/s400/IMGP4907.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5651949276544736754" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span><br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsuTSTQJKI2bGEgCUpVNBS-dVkL_kXLZAFFN5vJJNr8F_Hw2vhBfGYD6EoOnmtmENHO5EVMEyW6hfmbWOZ-yYy3eeee9hiDB6Qd_s-T3kkItUfH3KkmBA8VQr1eg3SNgRMdxBzh1R44Jo-/s400/IMGP4887.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5651946311880406386" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></div><div></div><div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000ee;"><br /></span></div><div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000ee;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000ee;"><u><br /></u></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div></div>marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-15492009257133453632011-05-19T16:24:00.000-07:002011-09-14T20:39:31.224-07:00Todos Santos<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBc48hN8YxQseKg-Xj5KjikbBBImM0mr3A4k0J5txVLgBFUTx65iS4J-aBaPLofUsryzUc77oP2wVHNWxG8QxAmbb32oYxANhOdgI92cO9o-P91JurdRBY2PC-W5gjXI0NR1DfXyBxzPQF/s1600/IMG_7651.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMc3lXlqrJYKTUq6CFxg_txWMLwoacqqyt6krHEJEiJ-ptUp9ghHL4yU8LMYT9-xIvo_ft_YTEP-aXQewrK2OYaTR_Q2bmfuY_3AaIGqiIntKammjNAg7KVf9EDfcdeF_YTmevnrlkn7CH/s400/IMG_0438.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5652361049022916530" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px; " /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEismg2MV4N64rduW_riW5tGEyF1qrVoVWpw6JJjCbr59l3BNUrDRsabJ0cOxKo9bOIYPd6IELQC_fs0r1DuVa0rDPg7tdDqxJs3oAFYpaZeIoguBndDXvtX8D6F68LiPiRDTOtj4neNmRON/s1600/-138.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEismg2MV4N64rduW_riW5tGEyF1qrVoVWpw6JJjCbr59l3BNUrDRsabJ0cOxKo9bOIYPd6IELQC_fs0r1DuVa0rDPg7tdDqxJs3oAFYpaZeIoguBndDXvtX8D6F68LiPiRDTOtj4neNmRON/s400/-138.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5652367757293498482" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiPuz9uUlkZbaTKMq-lFxrpFFFIzBYWRCArCXhDfu0INIOtz6CfD2KD2ZFUUiyUxg7cijpIDr9XBHgznUigCledwCasKlGDjXWB6nb6rX5d42v5QT5fv2_0FGNMyKgxKg4k939FJTmNvYh/s1600/-104.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiPuz9uUlkZbaTKMq-lFxrpFFFIzBYWRCArCXhDfu0INIOtz6CfD2KD2ZFUUiyUxg7cijpIDr9XBHgznUigCledwCasKlGDjXWB6nb6rX5d42v5QT5fv2_0FGNMyKgxKg4k939FJTmNvYh/s400/-104.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5652367760560498882" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMc3lXlqrJYKTUq6CFxg_txWMLwoacqqyt6krHEJEiJ-ptUp9ghHL4yU8LMYT9-xIvo_ft_YTEP-aXQewrK2OYaTR_Q2bmfuY_3AaIGqiIntKammjNAg7KVf9EDfcdeF_YTmevnrlkn7CH/s1600/IMG_0438.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBc48hN8YxQseKg-Xj5KjikbBBImM0mr3A4k0J5txVLgBFUTx65iS4J-aBaPLofUsryzUc77oP2wVHNWxG8QxAmbb32oYxANhOdgI92cO9o-P91JurdRBY2PC-W5gjXI0NR1DfXyBxzPQF/s400/IMG_7651.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5652425772984904322" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px; " /></a></div><div><br /></div><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPcXa677dJ4HTjleVUbBKrLCpyPtH_Zdw_iI5Uv2yWUu9D003FX6P8gCySg0BCGIDHcUq_DBq6gNQIIkHL0yk_2TlvuHCBMIK9-rR4stD-_v_MGSp-Xb3M3x93YP3g6CeXl1qVq8THQ4ae/s400/DSCF0495.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5652361044891694274" /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;">The clean fire of spaciousness. Only myself, only here, only now. Putting my face to my shins, sitting in circle, in yoga, at dinner, at the fire pit. <span class="Apple-style-span">I am feeling my way through not belonging, belonging, being a wave, being part of the ocean.</span></span>marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-9227833252290127382011-05-04T04:03:00.000-07:002011-09-14T20:40:21.857-07:00Naming<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:drawinggridhorizontalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:drawinggridverticalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:dontautofitconstrainedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:100%;">This early morning I wake with that same feeling of unnamed dread I've had before, this time with words:<span> </span>there is a very great grief coming.<span> </span>At first it seems it could be attached to keenly experiencing the sequence of "last times of doing" in this house as it is, as we discuss our plans for rebuilding. I have not lost my very great attachment to things. A house is a big thing.<span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:100%;">Quick leap to darker, wider reasons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In fact, a very great grief is here, can be here, every day, every moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That disappointment, harm, even death may come to my children or others whom I love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The conflict I feel between anything I could possibly do and the great workings of the world--like the death of Bin Laden, the clash of belief and world view that caused the war machine to necessitate his death, the incredible focus and energy that was poured into readying men and materials for such an end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The death, indeed perhaps the life, of any girl and boy in Pakistan, the country in which I was born.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In all countries and wrinkles that don't even belong to countries over the face of the earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>All the ways we misunderstand, misconstrue, misapprehend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>All the mistakes I have made and will make.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>All the change that has already come and gone, always.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Many of the poems I've learned by heart stream through my mind, watching woods fill up with snow, margaret's goldengrove unleaving, and especially the thrush's ecstatic song shared on the bleakest winter evening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span><o:p> </o:p></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;">These are sorrows constantly in and of the world, from which I cannot protect myself or any child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There is no sufficient preparation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And yet. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Sometimes I do feel joy instead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And neither the joy nor sorrow are my personal domain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They flow through all like an underground river.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If I grieve more in winter did not Demeter before me?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When I can't remember what it felt or smelled like to lift a sleeping baby...when I feel a widening distance from my 12 year old child, when I can't remember how to create or to whom I belong, it is winter inside.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span><o:p> </o:p></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;">In an opening, I can change my position: it is an exchange, not a cartoon flat on the page in which I am pinned without escape by a gravity-bound weight.<span> </span>This is information, this is a window, an update on the world's grief, mirrored by me in microcosm, and I am alive to feel it.<span> </span>It's nebulous doom is true but not the end, sharpening as it does the countering love.<span> </span>Light.</span></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-50708338447682007442011-04-29T14:19:00.000-07:002011-09-14T16:22:42.140-07:00Receiving...<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:drawinggridhorizontalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:drawinggridverticalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:dontautofitconstrainedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;">Is the world speaking through us? Can it speak through the muffling distraction of material possessions, all of our talk, the news, the anguish of war, the cacophony of "entertainment?" A moment of remembering and discovery at the same time. Dissolve the edge between ourselves and that which we think is other. There is no room for trust or lack of trust.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:100%;">Water skeeters feel the thought of the water, the life of the air, the wood, the water, water, water; they are not close and yet they know when another moves, when the trees move and shake their water to the ground and the whole still water quivers, like the flower petals, still, yet quivering with purity, with color, with white circling messages of love, release, opening, closing, opening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Inside the surface of the water, sky.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:100%;">The mind is just another sensory organ.<span> </span>Without concentrating on an object, without any form of motive, influence, or compulsion, can my mind give full attention without any exclusion?<span> </span>Meaning is only in the mind.<span> </span>Openness is in everything else.<span> </span></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-69601325057637269402011-01-25T20:16:00.000-08:002011-09-14T20:40:45.314-07:00The Sacred Pause<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnepGkbROWZSO7fSeTviFk19sBUBF8iTZG1W5YEdISp-7Wg7LS43Y1egILLtWoHPhzzzn6eccc_oAq2EZNaznJ5XnbvdhKHV-DDUM7PhyphenhyphenIiguDUX7y1WA8cfMgnrATd7MIlfo7D8jEFy-4/s1600/Scan.jpeg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 393px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnepGkbROWZSO7fSeTviFk19sBUBF8iTZG1W5YEdISp-7Wg7LS43Y1egILLtWoHPhzzzn6eccc_oAq2EZNaznJ5XnbvdhKHV-DDUM7PhyphenhyphenIiguDUX7y1WA8cfMgnrATd7MIlfo7D8jEFy-4/s400/Scan.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566362451245530306" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge1vCtnDlCOvVItwTtJt2RGn2wMT-NGDWcKiuS75FJ117_6PTQrKZNnGGQFp2Zd7_6NtK584SFUoBxbAOyH3PLv6CthZrrRndLugNp_HxdKedeG1b8TGcikzesPop0bCvLr8JtiPF_DuFc/s1600/Scan+1.jpeg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge1vCtnDlCOvVItwTtJt2RGn2wMT-NGDWcKiuS75FJ117_6PTQrKZNnGGQFp2Zd7_6NtK584SFUoBxbAOyH3PLv6CthZrrRndLugNp_HxdKedeG1b8TGcikzesPop0bCvLr8JtiPF_DuFc/s400/Scan+1.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566362308175458626" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">Theo and Dora at preschool ages, 2005</span></div></span><div style="font-family:Skia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">I had a moment of insight and clarity after meditation class this morning. What a surprise, right? But I've been feeling so low I almost didn't go to class.</span></div><div style="font-family:Skia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family:Skia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">We are reading </span><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Radical Acceptance</span></u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> by Tara Brach. She talks about our collective tendency in this culture to believe that we are deficient beings in need of fixing, which sets us up for a lifetime of trying too hard to be "perfect," and, inevitably, failing. </span></div><div style="font-family:Skia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family:Skia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">I know a place that gave respite from this delusional perspective. Montessori Country School, and the directors and teachers Patty, Karla, Sue, Meghan, Kasia, Liisa, Cindy, Lydia, Julie, Melissa and Emily. They created this completely rational and incredibly beautiful world within our crazy external reality that was based on a countercultural trust and belief in the true Buddha nature of our children. They did not need perfecting! They were not required to measure up to some external standard of learning or, more importantly, being. </span></div><div style="font-family:Skia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family:Skia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">They were treasured for their existence just as it was. They were welcomed without an assumption that they must change in order to belong. They were welcomed with the belief that wholeness and goodness and intelligence was their innate essence, and upon being shown a loving way to express that essence they would naturally fill an important place in the community. No one keeping score. No competition encouraged because every one is on his or her own path. No one had to "get ahead." There was time for it all. What a heartrending relief.</span></div><div style="font-family:Skia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family:Skia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">There is a tangible difference that any creature feels in being allowed to be. It's this allowance of the "sacred pause," which might happen anytime during an activity or between them, during which time one can sense the life streaming through, notice what one is experiencing, decide what one might do next. How many educational institutions allow this magic to happen? Certainly not very many traditional schools have built-in room for this kind of self-awareness. </span></div><div style="font-family:Skia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family:Skia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">We used to get it just being kids and having big chunks of time with nothing to do. Kids these days have precious little of that. And that is to all of us a far deeper loss than I want to consider. Nothing less than the building of a whole soul, navigating difficult moments, opening to the suffering and joy, learning to relate to the world outside, is happening during these moments. One could argue that this is the true education, because all future success depends on there being "fertile ground for wise action." </span></div><div style="font-family:Skia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family:Skia;"><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Ajahn Buddhadasa calls these interludes of natural or purposeful pausing "temporary nirvana." We touch the freedom that is possible in any moment when we are not grasping after our experience or resisting it. He writes that without such moments of pausing, " . . . living things would either die or become insane. Instead, we survive because there are natural periods of coolness, of wholeness and ease. In fact, they last longer than the fires of our grasping and fear. It is this that sustains us.</span></blockquote><div style="text-align: right;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> ~</span><u><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Radical Acceptance</span></i></u></div></div><div style="font-family:Skia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family:Skia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">My children's preschool experience to me in looking back was full of so much of the spiritual feeling of safety and love and being held that I am beginning to understand from a more intellectual aspect now. How blessed we all were to receive it, even though we couldn't understand it fully.</span></div>marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-33992338371942302882011-01-07T19:42:00.000-08:002011-01-25T20:09:42.650-08:00Lotusland<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhonIlnAszVKeALAT0tLgeFiO9BMsS5bigx_aSwnOnb3jkzFdDiZNM20KQNpGy_40m6qLb0E_bafIFJZsTWHvcQg93dC-Chr2b3OrfnAx4eA_pgZJpx7zzVQ5QgQh4zs6G-h8-MyF_lg3LX/s1600/DSC05404.jpg"></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Enough. These few words are enough.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">If not these words, this breath.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">If not this breath, this sitting here.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This opening to the life</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">we have refused</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">again and again</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">until now.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Until now.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">~David Whyte</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFE4RQSDn9IEEh4VPlZ73sv42gAOLe2Nl2NJXSPLFrfrkZR_7SyyzcDn7fYQaRJNH01kK4cqL0gM4wLT7mA6nPHX9oCvkhu4tBDkqaqIQyDHHTtrf79CvAQRsTp0cEdh6HtOqwQ7GV-ZJ5/s1600/DSC05441.JPG"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFE4RQSDn9IEEh4VPlZ73sv42gAOLe2Nl2NJXSPLFrfrkZR_7SyyzcDn7fYQaRJNH01kK4cqL0gM4wLT7mA6nPHX9oCvkhu4tBDkqaqIQyDHHTtrf79CvAQRsTp0cEdh6HtOqwQ7GV-ZJ5/s400/DSC05441.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566336472585857362" style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px; " /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">After fits and starts of planning, buckets of bad weather (another way of saying November and December), nearly total loss of my perspective and sense of humor, we went to Thailand.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD5HgIuMeawIiJL3L2HfbPUfWJrFw_0aOPUQA9xyxrUcTzYvMRh25cV6uKqO5_Q2ZKN2HRX-SGPe5FgemJljmzM50X51dw666ZsKz4MH3o7E3-hrfnY-Z3Z8jbHz5M95WeOwLRG0wo8M78/s1600/DSC05089.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD5HgIuMeawIiJL3L2HfbPUfWJrFw_0aOPUQA9xyxrUcTzYvMRh25cV6uKqO5_Q2ZKN2HRX-SGPe5FgemJljmzM50X51dw666ZsKz4MH3o7E3-hrfnY-Z3Z8jbHz5M95WeOwLRG0wo8M78/s400/DSC05089.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566336477948201842" style="cursor: pointer; width: 225px; height: 400px; " /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">There was sunshine.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiERqj6zU8TV8tltyd4GnmzNqklthF_Ix2_tKWZeijdgUAjnKHjzZsLYYpap28xuVy4xW6hGqbQvk7w_veIwQPn4T6D56AU3EGEqLcyazezd0ilEsTE3ZYNUtJSI5bLVbi_GjvLGLBxs72S/s1600/DSC05075.JPG"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiERqj6zU8TV8tltyd4GnmzNqklthF_Ix2_tKWZeijdgUAjnKHjzZsLYYpap28xuVy4xW6hGqbQvk7w_veIwQPn4T6D56AU3EGEqLcyazezd0ilEsTE3ZYNUtJSI5bLVbi_GjvLGLBxs72S/s400/DSC05075.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566336487273503362" style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px; " /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">There was time.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhonIlnAszVKeALAT0tLgeFiO9BMsS5bigx_aSwnOnb3jkzFdDiZNM20KQNpGy_40m6qLb0E_bafIFJZsTWHvcQg93dC-Chr2b3OrfnAx4eA_pgZJpx7zzVQ5QgQh4zs6G-h8-MyF_lg3LX/s1600/DSC05404.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhonIlnAszVKeALAT0tLgeFiO9BMsS5bigx_aSwnOnb3jkzFdDiZNM20KQNpGy_40m6qLb0E_bafIFJZsTWHvcQg93dC-Chr2b3OrfnAx4eA_pgZJpx7zzVQ5QgQh4zs6G-h8-MyF_lg3LX/s400/DSC05404.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566340066953750786" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 225px; height: 400px; " /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">There were peaceful, quiet, smiling people.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5iopcFV8RCehLQa8BWXbk6_djC6SoHtyC_nIsL6f6PMY8cDNI2RR1txGaYYCO3H8rHClPwhq9UtKwYxmd97jV5y7y6kG2HANB8otO3YYj7mRT4zYkowYPO0V2DkJOsfUG37-0bp6hl-E7/s1600/DSC05154.JPG"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5iopcFV8RCehLQa8BWXbk6_djC6SoHtyC_nIsL6f6PMY8cDNI2RR1txGaYYCO3H8rHClPwhq9UtKwYxmd97jV5y7y6kG2HANB8otO3YYj7mRT4zYkowYPO0V2DkJOsfUG37-0bp6hl-E7/s400/DSC05154.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566336494304623794" style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px; " /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">There we were, together, far from home.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdBrPtKK_t7p19NOjMozjT-3_4g7Trv5QEoKizsKx8iw6r5PQ5U3JWQrrBACjAYIb0hBj_Xe81QdZLLWbVMayQGIic_fhiBrfRHDCDhoGUSI8_pJNEhHh2DyFXV0XMQAvg5Hz_GsXI6fm5/s1600/DSC05119.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 225px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdBrPtKK_t7p19NOjMozjT-3_4g7Trv5QEoKizsKx8iw6r5PQ5U3JWQrrBACjAYIb0hBj_Xe81QdZLLWbVMayQGIic_fhiBrfRHDCDhoGUSI8_pJNEhHh2DyFXV0XMQAvg5Hz_GsXI6fm5/s400/DSC05119.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5566336500323588322" /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We made our wishes, and sent them off into the unknown.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What a gift to arrive in our own wholehearted presence.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD5HgIuMeawIiJL3L2HfbPUfWJrFw_0aOPUQA9xyxrUcTzYvMRh25cV6uKqO5_Q2ZKN2HRX-SGPe5FgemJljmzM50X51dw666ZsKz4MH3o7E3-hrfnY-Z3Z8jbHz5M95WeOwLRG0wo8M78/s1600/DSC05089.jpg"></a><br /></span><br /></div>marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-76390923589220435042010-11-11T13:34:00.000-08:002010-11-11T13:46:28.305-08:00Cry for the good, the bad, and both together.<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Your cold mornings are filled with the heartache about the fact that although we are not at ease in this world, it is all we have, that it is ours but that it is full of strife, so that all we can call our own is strife; but even that is better than nothing at all, isn't it? And as you split frost-laced wood with numb hands, rejoice that your uncertainty is God's will and His grace toward you and that </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">that</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> is beautiful, and part of a greater certainty, as your own father always said in his sermons and to you at home. And as the ax bites into the wood, be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it. And when you resent the ache in your heart, remember: You will be dead and buried soon enough.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Howard resented the ache in his heart. He resented equally the ache and the resentment itself. He resented his resentment because it was a sign of his own limitations of spirit and humility, no matter that he understood that such was each man's burden. He resented the ache because it was uninvited, seemed imposed, a sentence, and, despite the encouragement he gave himself each morning, it baffled him because it was there whether the day was good or bad, whether he witnessed major kindness or minor transgression, suffered sourceless grief or spontaneous joy.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">-Paul Harding, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Tinkers</span></i></div>marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-69315802959847281682010-10-26T18:24:00.000-07:002010-11-13T11:46:50.826-08:00Accurate Observation and Meticulous Grace<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Today i had to ask myself, "What do I really need to do right now that would bring me greater well-being?" I answered myself by drawing.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6BfCYztkqDZmsrbB9iW4Z-QqqGRf2n80tc_WJYP6DzPal4IxdN5Mule0lU1ByuuLOmVtNUqZtBLlGXT1j1PzP7s01jTynfLk9RkcpOz_ODABr1SzYeMQTqSfhNYVXuGYgV8kCo7KoUvCI/s1600/DSC02769.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6BfCYztkqDZmsrbB9iW4Z-QqqGRf2n80tc_WJYP6DzPal4IxdN5Mule0lU1ByuuLOmVtNUqZtBLlGXT1j1PzP7s01jTynfLk9RkcpOz_ODABr1SzYeMQTqSfhNYVXuGYgV8kCo7KoUvCI/s400/DSC02769.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5532530941043236722" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">What I've learned in Botanical Drawing class:</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">--Botanical Drawing is a demanding form of illustration</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">--I'm not sure I'm up to it</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">--I loved drawing this artichoke. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">--I cannot trust my brain! At all! </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The double spiral structure of parts of many plants (like the seeds of a sunflower) results in a complex set of intersections that is extremely difficult to freehand. Every time I used my stick to measure and rough in where the artichoke leaves would be, even the outer shape of the globe of it, I was surprised. It was in fact better to turn off my brain and let the eyes and hands work unimpeded.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">What I learned today while waiting to hear the results of my dad's open-heart surgery:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">--cultivating well-being while anxious is a demanding way to pass a day</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">--I was not sure I was up to it</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">--Drawing is a kind of meditation for me</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">--I cannot trust my brain! At all!</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">In meditation class we talked about a variation on the 5 basic precepts of Buddhism as guidelines to rely on when you are at a moment of choice. Intoxicants were a big part of this discussion (ahem, as a topic). Is meditation an intoxicant? Have I been distancing myself from the panic I ought to be feeling about this MAJOR surgery my dad is having? I gave in to the wild feelings I'd been holding at bay for several days and told myself many stories about possible outcomes and consequences. Did I learn anything from this. I think not.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">What stays with me from our discussion is that you can't always think your way to a right choice, but you can almost always feel your way there.</span></div><div><blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Integrity is not just about following guidelines for morality. On a deeper level, it's about being true to yourself. If you are in touch with your heart and your deepest impulses, you will make choices that do not harm yourself or others.</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">--James Baraz, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Awakening Joy</span></i></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">I don't really have a conclusion, except thank goodness for botanical drawing.</span><blockquote><i><blockquote></blockquote><br /></i></blockquote><blockquote><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><blockquote></blockquote></span><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><br /></i><br /></blockquote></div>marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-58359576290523243692010-10-21T21:04:00.000-07:002010-10-23T18:05:46.214-07:00Life is Suffering...<div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">In meditation class this week w</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:small;">e talked about suffering. What a relief it is to let go of denial, start at the beginning with your arm around your suffering. It's kind of a bad news/good news thing, so you have to stay with it through the process. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:small;">So why are you suffering right now? (Don't forget to ask with compassion.) </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:small;">We listened to a recording of a poem:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"></span></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Rest in natural great peace this exhausted mind,</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Beaten helpless by karma and neurotic thoughts</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:small;">Like the relentless fury of the pounding waves</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:small;">in the infinite ocean of samsara.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:small;">Rest in natural great peace. </span></div></blockquote><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The poem is recited by one Sogyal Rinpoche, written by Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche. The Tibetan-accented english, the gathering force of the background music, the weight of the words sinking into the open sky of mind, the poem repeatedly repeated...rest, of course we want to rest! Why can't we rest? Yes, beaten, yes neurotic, yes relentless, yes pounding. And yes, peace. We can rest. You can rest! Wanted it to keep going, wanted it to stop. It stopped.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">When I looked at the cardboard cover of this little 3" cd, there are the two rinpoche (what's plural for rinpoche?? is it like fish?) laughing faces, smiling eyes, inclined toward one another. Good marketing. (I've been schooled in the devil's deals of western-style advertising). I better listen to that again, so I can have what they have, right? I say that with all sincerity. I am totally open to a revelation in whatever wrapping.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">So what is my suffering right now? Summer passed. I thought often about posting but made the choice to be with the moment instead of sitting writing about it. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7HGW0xvBpLD18oA7jkvFrDw0XYXhQpmrJtsNQI8Iu7hYMgAKgiksJr15N-yGkMyThj6OwV3wgc5-89neS7YwneOrSiPiSDa56kpX0SNgTKjO8TYRwWqPjCSPlPIWnsCejDkjRqDN2aQWt/s400/IMGP4533.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5530754957434410354" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZI8fj9YOgEAzKSrWiU1Fq0yWkSR_ha77ysqiEeDvLJGjDJH_bKmC1Fo4wuvzhgvsfDpFGNchYiVZrdyzVUH4QCQhBXAvlsvlSQ_okizWsXvkgbrbsb6jfZdFYdZo7lfWlXr35j3wFXy5F/s400/IMGP4515.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5530754948962916370" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></span></div><div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHHnJzfgYEjofBQdVjLqYVDW3UVY9fygy_lu-11FK4U8d-fEfSpgi7VtRatYFR52Z1bzaDyiGLZdfPZOkqNqC0LwShzsh5r7vF09bG5mg1x-N7Q_fhy8UGaW3TIi_wX9WkFEwMsNiWzG7e/s1600/DSC00024.jpg"></a></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2a_b1L8YhHakFlO08t7FYc5PTzts7Flphv6fAjyRpEKXarPh033LmO77WzJjeGuUHdmCMiFXj_9F08XTrKjjsdemA36stTY33eqiuIr7xRl5sLSU36MsxNAH1GVIOjlq9C889kI2sXfWn/s1600/DSC00055.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2a_b1L8YhHakFlO08t7FYc5PTzts7Flphv6fAjyRpEKXarPh033LmO77WzJjeGuUHdmCMiFXj_9F08XTrKjjsdemA36stTY33eqiuIr7xRl5sLSU36MsxNAH1GVIOjlq9C889kI2sXfWn/s400/DSC00055.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5531009226401035794" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px; " /></a></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHHnJzfgYEjofBQdVjLqYVDW3UVY9fygy_lu-11FK4U8d-fEfSpgi7VtRatYFR52Z1bzaDyiGLZdfPZOkqNqC0LwShzsh5r7vF09bG5mg1x-N7Q_fhy8UGaW3TIi_wX9WkFEwMsNiWzG7e/s400/DSC00024.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5531009237767026818" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px; " /></span></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Now everything is still passing, again. We are here, in the school routine, my kids like the superhero you only see when he stops running, the angled light meaning the end of the gardening season--I want to be creating...what am I creating? All I'm doing is watching things pass away, and feeling sadness, feeling lost.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:small;">Diagnosis: Clearly I'm feeling a foolish attachment to the time that is forever swiftly fleeting. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:small;"> </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:small;">Remedy: A moment in the evening to savor.</span></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJqbcmZQwMnDNYWWoNcuvVO311tFEBnhxgzZD76V5sPzN0Q71BcRxk_o-8Yx71AO7DL60cDoi3Rq5Umq3FvgAGjpAH0Uw6jDohdN2-lRxxKlDFkyUrMGY_r7_bvXg7iQFeQm_okdR5bEwI/s1600/DSC02550.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJqbcmZQwMnDNYWWoNcuvVO311tFEBnhxgzZD76V5sPzN0Q71BcRxk_o-8Yx71AO7DL60cDoi3Rq5Umq3FvgAGjpAH0Uw6jDohdN2-lRxxKlDFkyUrMGY_r7_bvXg7iQFeQm_okdR5bEwI/s400/DSC02550.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5529979182346496114" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px; " /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipYYITVDTM02nr3nN_rN8UEHYeKhn4ePbwfKYnkhTOcUG3ifwMhFTkrpSHlW3vVCp2q4Vh1SijcUyCtqJcQ3B8ayMCY3yQEEDxEb1AE-9MCO2CDJMMeFtlHvIeAD8aRqev9ZhnN2LTqLSi/s1600/DSC02548.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipYYITVDTM02nr3nN_rN8UEHYeKhn4ePbwfKYnkhTOcUG3ifwMhFTkrpSHlW3vVCp2q4Vh1SijcUyCtqJcQ3B8ayMCY3yQEEDxEb1AE-9MCO2CDJMMeFtlHvIeAD8aRqev9ZhnN2LTqLSi/s400/DSC02548.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5529979177345662962" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px; " /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOOQS_lZ_dGjxK880lEiLziYUN6Z2xuOIaA0IqQ9v_I9vxRNLN027Djdrpd6RMcD5gIHSWcBcqurHfl33s_YcQEPl40XaWizwBCIOLUOwzIfm5QYC__dOArvRJS-aFSxloouyhraayG7Dv/s1600/DSC02562.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOOQS_lZ_dGjxK880lEiLziYUN6Z2xuOIaA0IqQ9v_I9vxRNLN027Djdrpd6RMcD5gIHSWcBcqurHfl33s_YcQEPl40XaWizwBCIOLUOwzIfm5QYC__dOArvRJS-aFSxloouyhraayG7Dv/s400/DSC02562.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5529979167894333506" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px; " /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPJugDWTSr6WJ2CFFJpmgHPEm6Sjfw-ueXwj62cPtn-d0A_Ai9Dv-ZijFbAmIPbAWNweBi3pSCih9yJy4NkZzFVc-kQVWa7wbZIpIPqPJiQ94n2HThJtSYTgK2f5cE2mswwfzXzYNTcx2U/s1600/DSC02564.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPJugDWTSr6WJ2CFFJpmgHPEm6Sjfw-ueXwj62cPtn-d0A_Ai9Dv-ZijFbAmIPbAWNweBi3pSCih9yJy4NkZzFVc-kQVWa7wbZIpIPqPJiQ94n2HThJtSYTgK2f5cE2mswwfzXzYNTcx2U/s400/DSC02564.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5529979161532074882" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px; " /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">A musician (favorite song: We three kings) and a scientist (Doppler effect demonstrated in your living room), just for an hour or less on a fall evening, exploring possibilities of tone, of frequency, of being. </span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">We ended meditation class by following our teacher in yoga nidra. I felt aware of very specific parts of me. How nice to take notice of my throat when it is healthy, and not just when it starts to hurt. How fascinating to feel a vibrating energy all up and down my shoulders, arms, fingers--almost like I could regulate involuntary bodily systems. Boy if I could the first thing I'd do would be to make my hair behave. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">What if I could always remember that feeling after yoga nidra--of space when I'm compressed, of time when I'm rushed? Can I be conscious, forgiving, a witness to self, expanding? Simply and only animated earth, without expectations, only awareness. So life is suffering... and awareness can be, unexpectedly, joy. That's the good news! Hope you stayed long enough to get the good news.</span></div>marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-37241553149722759092010-10-19T21:18:00.000-07:002010-10-23T12:26:50.994-07:00Sound Living Sense<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4YkSIQKnl_batDXDmWNI0TV1q2iijvbtcJlKo7vGCScv5CEiPaPUNFe74yYAXPC-S2pNplD03sMhDPBRcMFlM1EVl97RFHcRPBteyqKfMTHLXlWgc3TIHuS71olFWKbmSthmIED_WEgE1/s1600/IMGP4545.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4YkSIQKnl_batDXDmWNI0TV1q2iijvbtcJlKo7vGCScv5CEiPaPUNFe74yYAXPC-S2pNplD03sMhDPBRcMFlM1EVl97RFHcRPBteyqKfMTHLXlWgc3TIHuS71olFWKbmSthmIED_WEgE1/s400/IMGP4545.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5530719966587419042" /></a></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">In a book I read over the summer I learned how to describe what it feels like I 've been missing for so much of my life. The book is "Cutting for Stone." In it a singular character is described: someone, though exceptionally dedicated, exotically beautiful, and especially lucky, who cannot progress in her field of nursing.</span></div><div><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">"She discovered that memorization ("by-hearting," as Matron called it) was of no help to her at the bedside, where she struggled to distinguish the trivial from the life-threatening. Oh yes, she could and did recite the names of the cranial nerves as a mantra to calm her own nerves. She could rattle off the composition of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">mistura carminativa...</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">But what she couldn't do, and it annoyed her to see how effortlessly her fellow probationers could, was develop the one skill Matron said she lacked: </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Sound Nursing Sense.</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">"</span></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Anyone might expect to be embarrassed by ways they acted as an adolescent, unsure of their social responses and unclear about who they were. Sporadically surfacing into and through my twenties and thirties I felt a vague and then increasingly sharp disappointment with choices I'd made. Who could be comfortable when a hollowness occupies your personal space, but how do you examine what is not there to see? And if it doesn't change as you get older, then you really feel stuck.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">I had the perpetual feeling of coming up with a possible answer three days after the question was asked...so often simply having to cover a blank stare with some bluster or awkward silence, almost always only having a narrow literal interpretation. Why didn't I get it all the way other people did? Aha! Maybe because I lacked </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Sound Living Sense</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">!</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">It might not seem like so much, what I was missing--but as Stephen Cope says, "a new freedom for well-considered and appropriate action is a very wonderful thing...we become free to claim actions that express who we really are." Who am I, really? When you don't have freedom to choose, the world really is a bewildering, blurry place.</span></div><div><div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Sound Nursing Sense is more important that knowledge, though knowledge only enhances it. Sound Nursing Sense is a quality that cannot be defined, yet is invaluable when present and noticeable when absent. To paraphrase Osler, a nurse with book knowledge but without Sound Nursing Sense is like a sailor at sea in a seaworthy vessel but without map, sextant, or compass.</span></blockquote></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">EXACTLY SO. Parenting, of course, opened a whole new chapter of misguided responses, a whole new understanding of the words "hot button," a whole new ocean in which to be lost without navigation tools of any kind. Amazingly, now I'm finding a whole set of possible solutions. They knock me over! With their simplicity, purity, curiosity. Like the proverbial feather, they are weightless and quiet. Hear the bickering in the back seat and remember how lucky I am to have two healthy children. See three day's worth of dirty clothing on the floor and choose to feel grateful for the creativity in the incredible drawings they've made of a float plane, a vase of flowers, a bowl of fruit, a portrait of our family. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> Why was that so hard before? Why couldn't I distinguish the trivial from the life-threatening? Not to mention life-affirming? Don't think I don't still pick a fight over a sock. Maybe the day I don't even care about that I'll know I'm truly enlightened.</span></div><div><blockquote></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWQuSwej4tBGUAyjC3_S94aRRdTGyX1MyzjKXB1Zi1V_B3K8ncJreCFTKAEU6-603VW4svqfSDbsKEKW_CnL-K5CggQMVRrU8gqGLjYkLIjAH1VIYfTD0NabxG-gcHbs62xeWY0t8eqv-r/s400/IMGP4538.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5530720141592180082" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 299px; " /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><br /></span></div>marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-6192497550282464572010-10-18T22:03:00.000-07:002011-09-14T20:46:42.668-07:00Happily Ever...Now<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBn6C2DM9ANSdbZAw5YHp1yuF6rAZ3EpewC-3f-p97pFKudi02Zc9fWCEJ65m0TIqsgsf7kqIObHTgKEqobaQVu1GK3UrBmEgZrAMNf3j9QpwKgsNPVrrWd548yC9zdHaDjbLGH_UEToNQ/s1600/DSC01400.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBn6C2DM9ANSdbZAw5YHp1yuF6rAZ3EpewC-3f-p97pFKudi02Zc9fWCEJ65m0TIqsgsf7kqIObHTgKEqobaQVu1GK3UrBmEgZrAMNf3j9QpwKgsNPVrrWd548yC9zdHaDjbLGH_UEToNQ/s400/DSC01400.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5529619344522388066" /></a><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">All stories that end "happily ever after" should be amended to read "...and they lived happily IN THAT MOMENT." Leave them alone after that! Who knows what comes next? Write your own story, because NOW is the only moment in which you can be happy.</span></div>marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-85133412315290946212010-03-23T06:22:00.000-07:002010-10-21T21:55:36.271-07:00Channels<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl-_kDgHYIUA13unzkCCmbiP9hsJ1s71yNYgi93qFHjIgifEBXMoFpqyVKGwj5chydl92SyggG-nXqB-Xw-2WNlamFQhRs0j3fjs74m0LztyUCTcI_svoy_pQOp0-dTjxbbh50fkLtOIia/s1600-h/IMGP4300.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl-_kDgHYIUA13unzkCCmbiP9hsJ1s71yNYgi93qFHjIgifEBXMoFpqyVKGwj5chydl92SyggG-nXqB-Xw-2WNlamFQhRs0j3fjs74m0LztyUCTcI_svoy_pQOp0-dTjxbbh50fkLtOIia/s400/IMGP4300.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5451831635791485362" /></a></div>Yesterday my teacher pointed out the difference between having a list of things to do and inhabiting a place where your tasks are part of a meaningful living process. For a short time I left the home I've made to spend time in the home made by my parents, left my mom/spouse list behind for the daughter one, but I almost didn't recognize it. Then I came back and once again felt myself struggling to locate myself in my life.<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ-yRtvmAPdxjkU4UZkYAuDd9SZXehJewor49w6QU0N1eZZqbAApyUj7Q3nyM8yOHVAnFn5adNlAl-XFtkQPbPoS-_36MoJogatL_JGZqXP6DcxrCilIB_zr4XboCozFW_bBCPXQQbbOhC/s400/IMGP4394.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5451831676753479042" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><br /></span></div><div>After 10 days in the hospital and recovering from an infection and emergency surgery my 79 year old father was hard to recognize too. He is skirting the edges, not taking life for granted. He talked about different things, and in a different way. He talked more about people and relationships, and with more emotion than I've ever seen him show. He thanked me for coming to be with him and my mom. Missing home made me want to leave, but seeing this dramatic change demanded for me to stay and witness. I felt that one other intense time, when I had to hold on to a tiny being and then choose when to let go because it would be forever. Being a parent has forever changed the way I am a daughter.<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTD_H6MOOZ12FeLyiocq41I2E0vJLbD0WX8qhyrs58519OiIol1Y8VlPCFkL049eanb0EemClyM27FSyQphpFKqey4XULw5Z28jiRO34W4uNO4GCRWg-5VDnVt2EI72gHZQ8n1ZAa2qxCD/s400/IMGP4360.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5451831662812737538" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><br /></span></div><div>Life does not feel solid and yet it feels so heavy at times. Words are light. There is so much in them, and in a body and mind. Books full of words are available to me. Stores full of clothing, furniture, ugly and beautiful things. Take take take then throw away. Pull in muscles with or without breathing. Travel with or without enjoying. Stay at home with or without hiding. Hide with or without caring. Care with or without voting. Leave with or without knowing you can return.</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia_n4FC849-0MdT8433TMxWraFZ3yIPBC7tOZ-eSJtOP58kxosZxOGlK7ZboZi2oA_ADAZHe27XxAE_6X8-IfzksfMEcNa0BDhh9RWckoRXQvgggGXf_K-yjmDKrT0C_SjUZhU7oodj4-W/s400/IMGP4373.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5451831645617257842" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><br /></span></div><div>The difference appeared in the threads created in the grain of the wood between the knots in the yoga studio ceiling. Where I once saw smiles and then patience (<a href="http://what-if-girl.blogspot.com/2009/11/planetary-dust-bunny-graduate-speaks.html">described here</a>), now I see channels. Some ways narrow, widen, narrow, go through. Some are closed off and become islands, gathering places where the density of growth allowed for a branch to shoot off in a new direction. We can make our patterns in the world: breathing with love, moving with acceptance, seeing with appreciation, locating with gratitude. It feels good to find this again, even though I am not beyond questioning it yet. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-86288857539393810912010-02-23T11:48:00.000-08:002010-10-21T22:24:33.797-07:00Just BEING makes it better<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRlIXpoX-mKHd5oHsSexlR4zo0D1KKUB986f7nNKpHwGrhJRqfROqpqLQRtW_iwU9Gf4LHrguWzOLQ-Bl8gBbjyrSXOy6exXqiuEbL_Ltwkf4-U869gEzF1z4lrzqXuALn9SuwhI2ggUr4/s1600-h/IMGP4249.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRlIXpoX-mKHd5oHsSexlR4zo0D1KKUB986f7nNKpHwGrhJRqfROqpqLQRtW_iwU9Gf4LHrguWzOLQ-Bl8gBbjyrSXOy6exXqiuEbL_Ltwkf4-U869gEzF1z4lrzqXuALn9SuwhI2ggUr4/s400/IMGP4249.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441553959452514594" /></a><br />The last three days have set me right up on top of my precarious mountain of things to do. Sunshine! Bulbs coming up! Back into yoga, yummy! We are back to rain today, but that is OK. The mountain is still there, but it doesn't seem like I'll get buried in an avalanche, or that I have to drag myself up it, either. Celebrating return, for sure.<div><br /></div><div>I haven't been meditating, but I have been trying to stay mindful. Observing has sounded a bit like this: where did that day go? did I get the pictures to Alex? why does that hurt so much? wow, I am really tired. sweetie, you make a terrific oviraptor. i can't believe i don't square dance all the time, it is so much fun! last evening swimming class, remember goggles and shampoo. what <i>is</i> the right school for theo next year? be the telemark turn, Martha. <div><br /></div><div>Then returning to meditation this morning we did a different kind of bodyscan. Instead of starting with our feet and working up the body we started with the skin and the energy at the edges of the body and went IN. Fascia, voluntary muscles, INvoluntary muscles (can you tell I was fascinated by that one?), viscerae, blood, cells, spaces----between----cells. It gave me that additional expansion that sitting with concepts (and the breath, always the breath) can. </div><div><br /></div><div>There is so much room for states and beings and yes, tasks, to exist! Curiosity. Creativity. Relationship. Letting go. A little window into the source of suffering: a distorted relationship with time.</div><div><br /></div><div>Recent question from T: Mom, what is a sixth sense? and does doing yoga give you it?</div><div><br /></div><div>Okay, back to daily BEING.<br /><div><br /></div><div><div><br /></div></div></div></div>marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-16338287997602791952010-02-01T10:34:00.001-08:002010-10-21T23:07:03.763-07:00Welcome to Villa Arbole<div>Experiences of the last couple of weeks are percolating. Devastation in Haiti made thoughts heavy, the good health and safety of my family and myself more precious. When not busy with something completely consuming, would try to imagine everything around me being turned upside down so violently and would hold much sadness for those afflicted. What to do? Read about it. Couldn't watch any video. Send money. How much could ever be enough. Send some each day. Clicking the button along with thousands of others must make a difference. </div><div><br /></div><div>Thanks reverberated in my head for those who make it their business to be there or go there, and I wondered at all the different paths our lives take when you consider the tangible outcome of a person who builds a dense skillset like doctoring or organizing in disasters like that. Is what I do really as valuable? Am I falling as short of some universal expectation as I am of a personal one to make life better. Inevitable questions.</div><div><br /></div><div>And then our long-planned trip was upon us. Leaving Theo and Dora seemed impossible logistically and emotionally and so even as I crossed out each logistic and emotional task in preparation to leave I thought of myself in a weird alternative world in which I wouldn't actually leave. Then we went. </div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaPNDDEecbnY6hvye1-AhreQluTT-X4ybcLOdBSqQnJpabqzlcFOpuL8NDR2rZoNOFvzvJ4iNyksHdy0hlO9eqH9uWSiqhJct-_I4u_4-UikLLdyS986F5Ha12CMycGuFbHuGTq00HDwus/s1600-h/IMG_0258.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaPNDDEecbnY6hvye1-AhreQluTT-X4ybcLOdBSqQnJpabqzlcFOpuL8NDR2rZoNOFvzvJ4iNyksHdy0hlO9eqH9uWSiqhJct-_I4u_4-UikLLdyS986F5Ha12CMycGuFbHuGTq00HDwus/s400/IMG_0258.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433349417840634098" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSg9scVQ_keMsFcDoHqB8FeoJG5tl8imbhdTZjNTAFI1lTU3Gw-k1QG2DmA_bUIG1hhHB1xK9LVVFKp6iBPP_Sp4ISoGgRRyZHvRIxiR2UZbZYkaavOQWR6HWTMRwCre8qtyqLszmXyj3n/s1600-h/IMG_0252.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSg9scVQ_keMsFcDoHqB8FeoJG5tl8imbhdTZjNTAFI1lTU3Gw-k1QG2DmA_bUIG1hhHB1xK9LVVFKp6iBPP_Sp4ISoGgRRyZHvRIxiR2UZbZYkaavOQWR6HWTMRwCre8qtyqLszmXyj3n/s400/IMG_0252.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433349411612659330" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjskkeG745Hvs5UmM_I2RxIGhR4cxalDpeHshT4LXH0haBGgUR8dOnQ_kL1XA64Nftu8HfcfeKtFsJ3oGOyR2IVNN1TIqmRtEAevqB32OvQ4CJTHqFRkHzo8V5fNcr-smFINJsH9dI-bm1X/s1600-h/IMG_0254.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjskkeG745Hvs5UmM_I2RxIGhR4cxalDpeHshT4LXH0haBGgUR8dOnQ_kL1XA64Nftu8HfcfeKtFsJ3oGOyR2IVNN1TIqmRtEAevqB32OvQ4CJTHqFRkHzo8V5fNcr-smFINJsH9dI-bm1X/s400/IMG_0254.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433348990337422802" /></a><br /><div>Yoga twice a day. Surfing if you dared. Early morning meditation, ears filled with the constant roar of the ocean. A group of 20 or so, every different kind of person, joining together for 6 days in Sayulita, Mexico. Patterns everywhere. At first we seized and appreciated the cultural, culinary, physical, environmental differences. Some had interesting bacteriological experiences. I think we all realized some pacing was required. When I was still home it was easy to imagine doing everything I wanted to do there in a day, it was a vacation from regular home duties and therefore I had boundless energy for it. </div><div><br /></div><div>In practice my body got tired. Confused. Scared, even. I had a heady first day of surfing during which I caught many waves and vaulted like a tiger to stand solidly on my board as it swished effortlessly to shore. On a following day after ditching on the face of a wave I could barely keep from unraveling as the rest of the set seemed to try to pummel me endlessly into the rockiest place under the water on this otherwise unthreatening beach. </div><div><br /></div><div>Yoga was good but required reassessing: being outside, being with new people, being with a body that doesn't seem to progress evenly or steadily in one direction--too much else going on. Yoga became something I was able to consider skipping, which here at home simply doesn't occur, if I am going, it's because I want to be there--being already there, I had to say at times: rest. I needed to rest and to guard my moments of appreciation. I needed to ask myself if I'm brave. If I'm strong.</div><div><br /></div><div>Meditation was hit or miss, dominated by that floating feeling that eludes the simultaneous need for grounding and opening of space--if I'm not connected to anything; your words, my thoughts, this body--what is all of this about?</div><div><br /></div><div>So lots of topsy turveying, and of course that is what travel is all about, that is as it should be. I didn't really get enough time to make sense of it while away, so I'm still doing that now. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div>marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-36531356872073778272010-01-12T11:36:00.000-08:002010-10-22T17:31:31.376-07:00Posting from the digMy meditation teacher said these words to close our sitting session today:<div><br /><div>May all be happy</div><div>May all be free from pain</div><div>May all live with love and compassion</div><div>May all awaken, and be free</div><div><br /></div><div>All those who are being born and those who are dying</div><div>Those who are peaceful and those who are violent</div><div>Those who are poor, and those who have great wealth.</div><div><br /></div><div>And sitting there I felt the compression of those intentions into the very small space of my heart, which in the wrong conditions would be unspeakably depressing: they cannot all occur, and we are immobilized right here with our human misery. Luckily all the conditions were right: I was sitting with like-minded people in a quiet room, the clocks echoing each other in a perfectly syncopated drumbeat like musician's hearts, having delivered my children to their safe, welcoming, sweet teachers and friends, with the memory of a good day yesterday and the prospect of a good day ahead. I could take it in, and make space. Perhaps it is more accurate to say make time? </div><div><br /></div><div>How to do this when feeling pressed? When conditions aren't ideal? </div><div><br /></div><div>It seems to be all about time, and timing. It is not always the right time to claim my needs, my wants, my view of the way things should be. There will be time for it, though. Meanwhile there is an opportunity for there to be other ways, other's needs, other's gifts. Open, open, says my heart (and you have to do it right when you are asking your son for the three-thousandth time to hang up his clothes instead of dumping them on the floor, it adds) and allow the time for the process. The trick is knowing when the right time for the right point of connection is in relationship, isn't it? Like knowing when is the right time to swing the bat to connect with the ball. Too early or too late and I get nothin'. </div><div><br /></div><div>That moment in meditation class was full of both sadness and joy <i>at the same time</i>, evenly matched. <i>Everyone</i> is being born, everyone is dying, everyone is peaceful and everyone is violent, everyone is poor and everyone has great wealth. </div><div><br /></div><div>In my mind I saw the sound of the bell aerobatically leaving the metal cylinder like a stunt plane doing a sixteen point roll, and leveling out as it flew by, crossing my face at lip-level and lifting the corners of my mouth into an involuntary smile. As the bell sounded again to end the session I saw all those intentions dissolve into a fine mist that expanded in all directions, swelling my boundaries and saturating my cells.</div><div><br /></div><div>Last night my daughter said "when I have a tooth under my pillow and I lay back on it, I feel like my pillow is magic." It seems that losing teeth is a good time for memorable life lessons from Dora, as I wrote about another one <a href="http://what-if-girl.blogspot.com/2009/11/what-if-i-can-learn-what-lion-has-to.html">here</a>! What's this one?-- about waiting for the right time, and not knowing when that will be, and relating in the moment as well as you can, letting rigidity go.</div><div><br /></div><div> Good grief! It's the same, it's the same lessons over and over, yet always I feel like an archeologist unearthing something buried by hundreds of feet of lava.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>And so much for facebook. That lasted about one week. I gotta connect with faces, with voices, with energy. Excuse me for being an old fart, but Facebook is indifferently crazy and crazy-making.</div>marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-23707738669491043032010-01-06T18:15:00.000-08:002010-01-15T14:24:55.305-08:00The way I see it today<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6NbsYpyDhnr8VSJw6lf_HlnjV96BCVZlXjGpC-6c11ATY4O9lPvk_A8fcFIfGOLB1xzW0MjB4IZbFlq-S5Q3tst9LC4dShPOkV79M1Vm8DVCvkI1JBt7vpZpgy_A1PLBm1wOt9FPSmfbf/s1600-h/IMGP2805.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6NbsYpyDhnr8VSJw6lf_HlnjV96BCVZlXjGpC-6c11ATY4O9lPvk_A8fcFIfGOLB1xzW0MjB4IZbFlq-S5Q3tst9LC4dShPOkV79M1Vm8DVCvkI1JBt7vpZpgy_A1PLBm1wOt9FPSmfbf/s400/IMGP2805.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5424203394870347074" /></a><br /><div>The removal of routine caused by the holidays means I haven't been meditating much. When there's no plan and the movement of the family is determined by the moment, I guess the idea of sitting felt sort of outside of the flow. I did some yoga, and some staring into the fire, and some knitting though--activities that tolerate interruption--all very enjoyable. Still, it was not surprising to find a modicum of melancholy in myself. I wonder if that's just the way it is.</div><div><br /></div><div>And here we are in a new year. Regardless of the exact moment of greeting (I am not attached to the clock's demarcation of the actual minute, and usually prefer to greet the new year with daylight), gradually the new year brings with it a sense of a clearing of the decks, doesn't it? </div><div><br /></div>Part of my experience of being an introvert is a feeling that if I spend this time or this energy there won't be any more available, which results in an unfortunate behavioral by-product: hoarding. Too much guarding of self and space can be isolating, and maybe warping. It's one of the things I hope meditation is slowly changing in me. When I feel the full calm of it, somehow I generate an expansion of interior space and a solid feeling of time for my needs to be met. <div><br /></div><div>In response to a suggestion by a friend, I have chosen a word to guide me through the year. The word is CONNECTION. I don't think the idea is to live by it, necessarily, but to come back to it occasionally, like we do with an intention at the beginning and during a single yoga class, and contemplate your reality through that filter, and see what you get. Could be a little bit of insight, a little bit of magic. A bit of surprise probably.</div><div><div><br /></div><div>At a New Year's meditation gathering a few days ago I sat with maybe 25 or 30 other folks for an hour. We meditated on loving-kindness, and on forgiveness. I thought, as I sat there with all the built up and expended frenetic energy of the holidays over, that in the aftermath of Christmas spirit wreckage I might actually have a context for forgiveness. It started with forgiving myself for some of my many shortcomings. Now that was an expansive feeling--the edges of my personal envelope, for a moment, reached out to pioneer new territory. I wanted to laugh, cry, sew myself onto a star and hide myself underground all at the same time.</div><div><br /></div><div>There is definitely something different and well, bigger, I guess, about meditating in a group. I'll have to think more before I can put words to it. Something about all of us tragically separate people sitting, breathing, forgiving together gave me permission to acknowledge my individual quirks. There is often an image in my mental perambulations--I often see images in my mind, and not timid or dainty ones, but ones that are strong and color saturated and <i>exactly how they ought to be</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div>Due to the action-packed nature of our days, I don't see them clearly most of the time, or they are couched in the moment and forgotten because I move on to what I ought to be doing. But they come right out and sparkle, like Edward the vampire in a sunlit clearing (shriek! shriek!), when I meditate, and I have time to look at them. Which is not to say I'll be able to make them to suit my mind's picture, but it is a good place to start (note to self: remember to let beginner's mind take over!) </div><div><br /></div><div>While sitting in that group with the fluidity and focus of forgiveness running throughout, the image I got was of a pair, perhaps more, of hands loosely holding a package. It was something like a christmas gift the size of a small pillow, with a wide ribbon, which instead of being solid was the incarnation, magnification, figuration of JOY, COMPASSION, FORGIVENESS. It wasn't glowing, but it was so rich in its presence that it made everything else seem dim. How to render this . . . how to give it . . . how to receive it?</div><div><br /></div><div>Well here I go: this year I'm looking for connection with all the joy, compassion and forgiveness I can find. You with me? My first step, totally on impulse (hold on to your hats . . .) I joined Facebook! I don't get it at all and not sure how it figures in with my daily life if at all; I'm in the adding friends-frenzy and it seems a bit, um, artificial. But maybe later if I have something really important to say and I want to do it quickly, there it will be, the network of digitally-linked friends. See you here or there or somewhere, I'm sure.</div></div>marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-12738930036976253922009-12-17T11:26:00.000-08:002009-12-17T12:17:05.583-08:00Please, make me look good<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW93C67ucNhIoRKVqoDk0DX7BFUU5AxDdApAIB-_VyH9y6mL-g3C1kexUs1H8xjgeT-ZLXzlliOTCirIxuTQWjEps_tVKuTrZTWncvLrx5VmFn24qC9Q7tx5HV7Tr5LVYfXCOlfDl7PcXT/s1600-h/IMGP4028.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 383px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW93C67ucNhIoRKVqoDk0DX7BFUU5AxDdApAIB-_VyH9y6mL-g3C1kexUs1H8xjgeT-ZLXzlliOTCirIxuTQWjEps_tVKuTrZTWncvLrx5VmFn24qC9Q7tx5HV7Tr5LVYfXCOlfDl7PcXT/s400/IMGP4028.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5416293006827570946" /></a>This is Theo's artwork from a school assignment. Isn't it cool? This is some British actor I don't know. I love the closeness with which he observed the details, as with the circle of the iris cut off at the top, and the lines in the forehead (and some hairs, which he repeated as in a mirror image--a little funny in this "complete the face" project.) As my husband said, that is what an 11-year old boy will do if someone asks him to do it . . .<div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRc4AWuMj4KJxBJdUAc2XLcBmQFwvf8Z0Pk4b5WOHQri2YOAiGgO-HrTPHeE_lV4lUBPbJ8u93anS1K_BpgqWDYe9okFxBsX1cmiOcYT28Dt373Wp6hYP8lnWVsdFwOzCAw9uU2LLyWrnA/s1600-h/IMGP4027.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 301px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRc4AWuMj4KJxBJdUAc2XLcBmQFwvf8Z0Pk4b5WOHQri2YOAiGgO-HrTPHeE_lV4lUBPbJ8u93anS1K_BpgqWDYe9okFxBsX1cmiOcYT28Dt373Wp6hYP8lnWVsdFwOzCAw9uU2LLyWrnA/s400/IMGP4027.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5416292996466440066" /></a>this, however, is what he will do if left to his 'druthers. A little levity in an otherwise rocky morning--I needed that! <div><br /></div><div>I had given him the recent New Yorker issue with all the portraits of world leaders taken when they were gathered in New York for a UN meeting in September. I found these pictures fascinating. Have a look if you missed them (Dec. 7 issue). I thought Theo was going to do the half-face completion thing again; I was humorously mistaken! But Netanyahu looks much improved here, no? (no offense intended . . .) Apparently before his picture was taken, and then stopping by several times later on, he asked the photographer "Please, make me look good." Was it just coincidence that his face was one of two that Theo chose to doodle upon? Hmmm.</div><div><br /></div><div>I felt the panic that filled me upon waking and all during meditation recede with contemplating the chuckles he must have gotten out of this. I added one too many things to my plate yesterday afternoon. Luckily, my friend Sarah understood, relieving me of the task, and even flipped what I saw as disappointing inability to help as an important communication from my heart that I must respect. Took a Deep Breath. Went to Yoga. Found my way into that crink again, felt it give just a little bit more.</div><div><div><br /></div></div></div>marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-44615319728310085332009-12-13T20:23:00.000-08:002010-10-21T21:57:53.739-07:00What if your joy is tied up in knots?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOcslvuWC72B4rrEOVsK9Wnqtw5sybpvaWq1zqSSJMRLt58QL7Jq4zppbb4jDG8dN1PPHRux-MnSmVXeCtWo8caI1EQLRPC4N6SDZCa4zTBeLfOtmMAAxCjuFwrV48dDnbWL711pYr5vMr/s1600-h/IMGP4005.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOcslvuWC72B4rrEOVsK9Wnqtw5sybpvaWq1zqSSJMRLt58QL7Jq4zppbb4jDG8dN1PPHRux-MnSmVXeCtWo8caI1EQLRPC4N6SDZCa4zTBeLfOtmMAAxCjuFwrV48dDnbWL711pYr5vMr/s400/IMGP4005.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5415590872583151426" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitMZqVw77ggKfuCHjDviADCXFhEsl-d5eyPwnQpH-BYnxCOW6ig9bN9aIbiTHxo-c_5Lk6f-_tJVagR-qtq00An6theQKkYdiByTIaROecFjb9fXd2PzBXcaNbJH0i7KoFoTkMVGcKndtU/s1600-h/IMGP4021.JPG"></a>Last week in the evenings Theo and Dora and I were sitting around the kitchen table in the warmth of the woodstove making things with wire, beads, and hemp. I was looking for a way to slow down the sense of busyness that builds up with the season. It's reliably pervasive--even though we don't watch t.v. or live in a big city somehow the intensity (I think of it as the commerciality) of the holidays seeps into our days and eats any extra minutes up for a quick snack. <div><br /></div><div>I remember when Steve and I went to New Zealand years ago, um, 11 1/2 years ago, to be exact, since that is the trip on which we conceived Theo. We sold our house in Seattle and set off, first to New Zealand and then Southeast Asia, to have adventures, see some of the places I had lived growing up, and perhaps find a new place to live. For at least the first two months of the trip it felt like I had a wire pulled tight up my back and neck and through my jaw. I thought something had happened to my teeth because my bite had changed and my teeth weren't meeting in the nice point-in-the-indent way that they normally do. I believe I was internalizing so much stress from uprooting ourselves, even though it was planned, that my body couldn't relax. Almost 6 months after we left, we returned to the States and went to my parents place to pick up our car. Some providence of the universe put a book on prenatal yoga in my path on a trip to town and after Steve helped me do maybe 20 minutes of it I started to cry and cry. Pregnant! In this huge, uncontrollable world! That was the beginning of this wild ride of parenthood we've been on together.</div><div><br /></div><div>I've had a similar knot in my shoulder and neck for the last two weeks. As before, I wouldn't have said that I was particularly stressed. But as before, I suspect my body knows better. So I've been making a special effort to say no to extra things, to focus in yoga, and to pick up hand work and slow time down. Having my children do this with me is more lovely than I can say.</div><div><br /></div><div>This morning I did a guided meditation for pain, focusing on the crink in my shoulder. Molecules of dissolving breath were racing in the manner of ants to a picnic. 20 minutes later, instead of crying, I'm glad to say my knot of joy to the world was a smidge smaller and the day of social festivities could begin. The tightness was still there, but I could actually feel it loosening as I envisioned the edges softening. Truly, mind over matter! I've always been a sci fi fan, especially when it's a mirror for real life.</div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitMZqVw77ggKfuCHjDviADCXFhEsl-d5eyPwnQpH-BYnxCOW6ig9bN9aIbiTHxo-c_5Lk6f-_tJVagR-qtq00An6theQKkYdiByTIaROecFjb9fXd2PzBXcaNbJH0i7KoFoTkMVGcKndtU/s1600-h/IMGP4021.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitMZqVw77ggKfuCHjDviADCXFhEsl-d5eyPwnQpH-BYnxCOW6ig9bN9aIbiTHxo-c_5Lk6f-_tJVagR-qtq00An6theQKkYdiByTIaROecFjb9fXd2PzBXcaNbJH0i7KoFoTkMVGcKndtU/s400/IMGP4021.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414943077779839826" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></a></div><div><br /></div>marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-80233087093076408302009-12-09T21:44:00.000-08:002009-12-10T12:13:49.923-08:00Remarkably clear to the horizon<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZPf33rEKIp55BOYQ-T9Vtub8zAbZtpMW6w7pNlYSDLsiIiPJBnXc_zrel2Y2sUQp_5nasSnmYGXnfQogUtcd8DJcUYmcCRnxm_DYkV6NC5_mGWesBtRfFAqXjbGQaqaqDR8I7VRoio38U/s1600-h/IMGP3726.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZPf33rEKIp55BOYQ-T9Vtub8zAbZtpMW6w7pNlYSDLsiIiPJBnXc_zrel2Y2sUQp_5nasSnmYGXnfQogUtcd8DJcUYmcCRnxm_DYkV6NC5_mGWesBtRfFAqXjbGQaqaqDR8I7VRoio38U/s400/IMGP3726.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5413480112065253842" /></a>No, I'm not in Hawaii any more. I'm trying to hang on to the feeling though. Sorting the mail, settling back into school and volunteering routines, yoga (thank goodness for yoga), the simple act of getting food into the house and onto the table has filled each day up completely, and for the past two weeks I wonder at ever having had any time to sit, think, and write about thoughts. <div><br /></div><div>I do think it was easier to come back from such a supremely relaxing time away because of the routine of yoga. The way I love being in my yoga community is at least equal to one wild and dangerous memory of a slowly untwisting deliciously yellow hibiscus flower. Waking up, moving through the preparations of school lunch-making and breakfast and getting the kids to school, and then miraculously, compellingly, finding myself on my mat in Jen's studio is a recipe for a day riding with the hum of contentment. </div><div><br /></div><div>Really, I am amazed I get to say that when I think of the disputes I had with myself over the worth of moving from bed a year ago. This is a vivid time for me, all the more intensely fertile after a fallow, barren period. As Jen says, "recover, uncover, discover something new about yourself. Be in your own good company." </div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1GvmJB7IYSXoZ-2uJtodvWljL9s4GtN9JbgMKs52VxCPh9iuCd454eJANMDxI2jCpAsnACAXj0MKp8etDcxU_Li_awVm7wmMWUt-xEoY_6swxDd4SSbTN3PL8yBmmv5OYj0O2O328VtVi/s1600-h/IMGP3797.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1GvmJB7IYSXoZ-2uJtodvWljL9s4GtN9JbgMKs52VxCPh9iuCd454eJANMDxI2jCpAsnACAXj0MKp8etDcxU_Li_awVm7wmMWUt-xEoY_6swxDd4SSbTN3PL8yBmmv5OYj0O2O328VtVi/s400/IMGP3797.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5413480100912955026" /></a>So I take time for myself in spite of the struggles of the world, I attend to self care in the ways that I can, along with all the lucky and not so lucky women of the world, remembering when I felt ragged and worn, and then I allow myself to remember walking through a warm green palm tunnel as material for the glue with which I hold my family together.</div><div><br /></div><div>I don't know what will come of it all. Sometimes it seems I could make a difference, that I'm gathering myself for something momentous. Sometimes just a glimpse of building a safe, peaceful corner of existence seems important, and sometimes the world is too big to bring into focus and there is simply the enjoyment of the textures of my life, my daughter's terrycloth hoodie moving away through the lushness, my son's voice saying "mom, I think I'm finally relaxed enough to go back to school." </div><div><br /></div><div>Here we are once again dispersing to the four corners every morning and it's only going to ramp up from right here through the holidays. I am so glad we had a chance to be together and rest.</div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE6PPC1xVSVQ7nB4OmVEGWJxOoIHeJjk9k284B5mJzW_b75ANQDJT1wlJ3JCmOUpBrhQk8ZJTnHhPEKacbhMJRPubxhqG4-5ry0XmTS2KDeIsXX22a5PI6uwvcz9gZ3-XR1_SD8BthXAxw/s1600-h/IMGP3822.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE6PPC1xVSVQ7nB4OmVEGWJxOoIHeJjk9k284B5mJzW_b75ANQDJT1wlJ3JCmOUpBrhQk8ZJTnHhPEKacbhMJRPubxhqG4-5ry0XmTS2KDeIsXX22a5PI6uwvcz9gZ3-XR1_SD8BthXAxw/s400/IMGP3822.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5413480087250762306" /></a><br /></div>marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-52464224963931898232009-12-02T12:35:00.000-08:002009-12-07T06:43:24.405-08:00An offering<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#6666CC;"><i>I see friends shaking hands</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#6666CC;"><i>saying "How do you do?</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#6666CC;"><i>They're really saying "I love you..."</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#6666CC;">--Louis Armstrong, What a Wonderful World</span></div><div style="text-align: left; "><br /></div><div style="text-align: left; ">I woke up this morning thinking about my dad. I have been thinking about him a lot lately. For a week before Thanksgiving, he was with one of his best friends, who had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. John Paul had been through surgery and was going to start chemotherapy, his wife Barbara, also dealing with medical issues, was in the hospital, and his son Greg is not well either. My father went to see his friend, provide support for the family, and give another family member a break from caregiving. </div><div style="text-align: left; "><br /></div><div style="text-align: left; ">This family was well known to us when I was younger, although as the youngest by a few years I have perhaps fewer memories than the others. We would visit them when we came back to the U.S. from overseas for summer vacations, staying with them in their fascinating house on a hilltop in beautiful West Virginia. Shaggy, wall-to-wall carpeting, the stepped up and down style of rooms, a kitchen with a spiral curving bank of cabinets, and built-in intercoms in the bedrooms all struck me as quite exotic.</div><div style="text-align: left; "><br /></div><div style="text-align: left; ">My memories of the family members have been coming back, too. Greg and Lynette were like cousins to my brother and sister and I. Greg coached me on how to throw a frisbee, and made me laugh so hard I wet my pants once when we were playing a card game that involved saying "good morning, ma'am" whenever a queen turned up and "good evening, sir" whenever a king did, inevitably as the game sped up twisting the phrases into an hilarious muddle. I loved Lynette's long hair, her glamorousness, and her snappy way of talking. </div><div style="text-align: left; "><br /></div><div style="text-align: left; ">John Paul and Barb's friendship with my parents cast a new dimension onto them, I suppose our life overseas meant I didn't see my parents with their friends that much, and the idea that they had a full history complete with steadfast friends and events that happened long before I was even a figment was a new idea. John Paul was a bottomless source of pun-, slapstick-, and double-entendre-ridden jokes, riddles, and stories, with an electronic marvel of a machine that, as you spoke into a microphone, repeated your sounds back to you in delayed echo, making it impossible to keep track of what you were saying. Barb seemed quietly wise, a fragile beauty with an absolutely earthbound, practical take on life.</div><div style="text-align: left; "><br /></div><div style="text-align: left; ">So I was receiving updates by email about how these folks are all doing, and they were full of the logistics of when people got up and how they slept, medical appointments and medications, and the ups and downs of prognoses. They had to be detailed in this way as there will be a need for accuracy and consistency through the other caregivers that come to help. And I thought to myself, this is from the left-brain of my very left-brained father, and he does it very well. Also present in the reports, though, as I read them again, were bits and pieces stolen from the feeling world, an echoing of normality--making a cup of coffee, having a meal together, and who cleans up afterward--the effort of all concerned to take in gracefully a radical new version of daily life.</div><div style="text-align: left; "><br /></div><div style="text-align: left; ">Unrelated but simultaneously I had a conversation with my father's stock broker and friend, whom I have only spoken to a double handful of times, and he responded to my question of what he was looking forward to in retirement with a statement of admiration for my father and the quality of the life after retirement that he has had. He said to me, and I can't remember the exact words--your father, both your mom and dad, love you so much. And the care that your father has taken with your financial future is rare and wonderful.</div><div style="text-align: left; "><br /></div><div style="text-align: left; ">So many people we meet through life have an influence that can only be measured in looking back, and then there are those who are present throughout our lives, like our parents, whose love is offered sometimes in ways that are not fully appreciated until experiences of life open a window of understanding. I think of my father taking this time to be with his friend and his friend's family, bringing a measure of order in chaotic and challenging circumstances, as an offering of love. I think of Al the stock broker, fluent in the language of long-term investment and planning for the future, parsing the many visits and deliberations my father must have made about stocks as an offering of love. </div><div style="text-align: left; "><br /></div><div style="text-align: left; "> </div><div style="text-align: left; ">I think of these examples and many others--the packages that I received from him that came protected by seven layers of bubble wrap (perhaps I exaggerate--but only a bit), or the times we visited museums or historical sites and he elaborated at length (it seemed to me) his detailed, arcane knowledge of art, architecture, or history, which fell on my young and unappreciative ears. I see now that his language of love was one I couldn't always interpret. So often the love people have isn't offered in the way we think we want it, or can understand it. It isn't always offered as a dialogue, or with instructions on how to assemble. So here is my insight of the moment: you just have to be interested, really curious, about what people's language of love is. It's probably different for everyone you meet. I'm going to look harder for it from now on, and try not to be distracted by the package it comes in, no matter how many layers.</div><div style="text-align: left; "><br /></div><div style="text-align: left; ">And here is an offering, in my language, for my father, for John Paul, Barbara, Greg and Lynette Jones, and for anyone else who wants to receive it. This offering is for peace, beauty, comfort, and of course, love.</div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhstQtJk5LYU57OQ-h2LAkbmvkspGep0NmEOobHuukcgbPO6eo0E_biJOfJHIsiQAC8DKyvyiQSMLvv0zjm_VJv_inppQ1s75KShyphenhyphenJD52jmLNCxQYl8BbKwMp6Ud-Zg2-_6_LLmLf0Z-2sf/s1600-h/IMGP3753.JPG" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhstQtJk5LYU57OQ-h2LAkbmvkspGep0NmEOobHuukcgbPO6eo0E_biJOfJHIsiQAC8DKyvyiQSMLvv0zjm_VJv_inppQ1s75KShyphenhyphenJD52jmLNCxQYl8BbKwMp6Ud-Zg2-_6_LLmLf0Z-2sf/s400/IMGP3753.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5410744583191864786" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBXcJwcKouNd-cIz3b6tYQLL_-yaFL3dQWsB9_t6NSJoW3IZHYzttb2mqOOk8w8bJCewkXFarGOjRKN1tgYjywET3u1j8jhbaQ6j0YwvHe7PZroqubYEk3OZ9vCIwAMMwIdT6BBgBNtO0Z/s1600-h/IMGP3766.JPG" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBXcJwcKouNd-cIz3b6tYQLL_-yaFL3dQWsB9_t6NSJoW3IZHYzttb2mqOOk8w8bJCewkXFarGOjRKN1tgYjywET3u1j8jhbaQ6j0YwvHe7PZroqubYEk3OZ9vCIwAMMwIdT6BBgBNtO0Z/s400/IMGP3766.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5410743493907773090" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHt9CrV8vjjNG7f0dijgEs3jBbtIX_CzXb4-kEBEYm2hHQS9Bmm7rpRoc6e6KJJdvia5C7VS6AZbKpyZLdxU8X6pYHDIhOoKgslHThf6NUk0KCs-2Ym1j7Z-NpfK9Klg2GoAr02D1IFgDm/s1600-h/IMGP3791.JPG" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHt9CrV8vjjNG7f0dijgEs3jBbtIX_CzXb4-kEBEYm2hHQS9Bmm7rpRoc6e6KJJdvia5C7VS6AZbKpyZLdxU8X6pYHDIhOoKgslHThf6NUk0KCs-2Ym1j7Z-NpfK9Klg2GoAr02D1IFgDm/s400/IMGP3791.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5410743484408351090" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX41EKgqfZDedLcVOVPoKKTOHTzQJNjvZQCsezyIfuDl9KR_6n4s1E23MyIh3g-uKxLreAN8JlabgmqI2akRUW6uFB9bUD99vUSp22ONIDXOkm8auQVTbLCoNcnNgv87UoaheXE2U2rCdr/s1600-h/IMGP3740.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX41EKgqfZDedLcVOVPoKKTOHTzQJNjvZQCsezyIfuDl9KR_6n4s1E23MyIh3g-uKxLreAN8JlabgmqI2akRUW6uFB9bUD99vUSp22ONIDXOkm8auQVTbLCoNcnNgv87UoaheXE2U2rCdr/s400/IMGP3740.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5410743471764921426" /></a>marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-61801612921927527972009-11-25T18:21:00.000-08:002009-12-02T20:30:57.681-08:00Lomi Lomi kind of dayLomi Lomi means loving hands, and is a massage technique whereby the muscles are "flaked" or smoothed away from the bones, and the joints are gently pulled to allow space inside of them, and generally the body is treated so as to allow it to enter a meditative state from which, said Sue Ann the therapist, it can heal itself. "It's not that I am doing something magical to you," she said, "I am simply making room for your body to align itself, and when all is aligned that is when you can make good decisions. My hands touch you without judgment, and your body senses this and therefore can relax its defenses." So true! It did feel as though she was doing something magical, though, perhaps that is what making space for healing feels like. Apparently new chieftans in old Hawaii were Lomi'd for <em>days</em> after taking the job so that they could approach their duties with the proper perspective. Don't you think that is a custom worth adopting? I do.<br /><br />Some kind of universal Lomi was in action yesterday, making space for us to align. This graceful boat, the Trilogy,<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwBGMqTNydPiMQXJd8awGbaLMzm9I_-a5X1Ok7jhUxUuSQvuXCZF6H03P98maoiERooTrI_lwoSNT_y3OHl4v8dB4nMVOMY-PfR6uFUie_d1vVodeQpLsXkc_OnRX7nENefNDfCbkt6Kc9/s1600/hawaii+2009+041.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408264494350180226" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwBGMqTNydPiMQXJd8awGbaLMzm9I_-a5X1Ok7jhUxUuSQvuXCZF6H03P98maoiERooTrI_lwoSNT_y3OHl4v8dB4nMVOMY-PfR6uFUie_d1vVodeQpLsXkc_OnRX7nENefNDfCbkt6Kc9/s400/hawaii+2009+041.JPG" /></a> came right up on the beach and took us out to snorkel in the clear blue-green sea, and the crew served us breakfast, lunch, and dessert (with seconds and thirds if desired, and Theo desired)<br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-oF_w8OqnNs780G3Sow2ljSQWO3f7X7qKy0lXeMcg2Qm4e1SYGOi_HN2Pd74EeEpj5LRu65KEVYZkSPIyYAi1sqURCfy_DEiDQWBytkAcdvM_YWERQFvhZIMA35LAYxGX2X1DL8mufYPS/s1600/hawaii+2009+073.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408263515733907922" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-oF_w8OqnNs780G3Sow2ljSQWO3f7X7qKy0lXeMcg2Qm4e1SYGOi_HN2Pd74EeEpj5LRu65KEVYZkSPIyYAi1sqURCfy_DEiDQWBytkAcdvM_YWERQFvhZIMA35LAYxGX2X1DL8mufYPS/s400/hawaii+2009+073.JPG" /></a> and the day was calm enough for all to enjoy the sail in a completely relaxed manner as you can see, on the boat<br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM7hnN5JaI7pOJOqL0Xme62q1EElmM1q8Zn9NhmqMYQL2qqH23YAsT7VgmCXbPyGeOXP2V55VSL2lAAaEOKZZrKD0rogVtVG9q_jenekw8BEyDByLQ2dqvLSPsFGiu-vUY27gyN-YEu6q3/s1600/hawaii+2009+071.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408263513342489090" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM7hnN5JaI7pOJOqL0Xme62q1EElmM1q8Zn9NhmqMYQL2qqH23YAsT7VgmCXbPyGeOXP2V55VSL2lAAaEOKZZrKD0rogVtVG9q_jenekw8BEyDByLQ2dqvLSPsFGiu-vUY27gyN-YEu6q3/s400/hawaii+2009+071.JPG" /></a> and in the water, and under the water (Theo and I did SNUBA--so fun, and easy enough for kids).</div><div><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC6YwSbePXD4R11FZJrF9wnF5TyVAWpONm5gi8bz6ebwW-9N02NOs4eoaNC489jmVXGW5kb4ZF-RmxwGnU8gKuopFbWeByxBIA-Wcz7abDHjJhICjNKswjVFfHxZiAOCfdLX4YapsyKwIq/s1600/hawaii+2009+063.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408263501550921586" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC6YwSbePXD4R11FZJrF9wnF5TyVAWpONm5gi8bz6ebwW-9N02NOs4eoaNC489jmVXGW5kb4ZF-RmxwGnU8gKuopFbWeByxBIA-Wcz7abDHjJhICjNKswjVFfHxZiAOCfdLX4YapsyKwIq/s400/hawaii+2009+063.JPG" /></a><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8VTIuLyTwmS5lnBdAD3wCAZKjtwn64oOA6x63SRRsfga-Uy1PMf8UsXygGoiGYH5JIJDXKzYoSbpNA_pmJeEIyyJHdWmoXYxw-owilYiCSIQJsihB9Yb99mlFPbKFTtBqeu6eOSicsEuT/s1600/hawaii+2009+059.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408263497860337922" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8VTIuLyTwmS5lnBdAD3wCAZKjtwn64oOA6x63SRRsfga-Uy1PMf8UsXygGoiGYH5JIJDXKzYoSbpNA_pmJeEIyyJHdWmoXYxw-owilYiCSIQJsihB9Yb99mlFPbKFTtBqeu6eOSicsEuT/s400/hawaii+2009+059.JPG" /></a> This, believe it or not, is at least 30 feet of water. Doesn't it look more like 5? so CLEAR! Nice!<br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo-D7CLIOpDH1SmS_cRw62Pzgo5f7Q2o8fxGuhWR3Q7hyphenhyphenhI8vlfqajuU6ImMP-GYVnOgKNwhbUQEzq2afJ9dEnv9oDMump-bhU7hHmW_0Yh2dSyzsIWzrSOYAHSEFQpCNGwW_EzEo5xFTw/s1600/hawaii+2009+053.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408263488185638002" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo-D7CLIOpDH1SmS_cRw62Pzgo5f7Q2o8fxGuhWR3Q7hyphenhyphenhI8vlfqajuU6ImMP-GYVnOgKNwhbUQEzq2afJ9dEnv9oDMump-bhU7hHmW_0Yh2dSyzsIWzrSOYAHSEFQpCNGwW_EzEo5xFTw/s400/hawaii+2009+053.JPG" /></a>This is a heart-stopping experience, I imagine like meeting a serene being such as the Dalai Lama. The goodwill exuded by the bottlenose dolphins that played off our bow for a short way transformed the day from your average excellent day in Hawaii to the Lomi Lomi version--open to wild, almost supernatural beings coming close enough to see the story of their lives on their gray hides. I would like to know the feeling of being so sensitive and attuned that I could read and interpret all our human equivalents of the scratches, scrapes, bites, and other marks that I could see on the skin of these dolphins.<br /><div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxJoTC1elpmcxpC3JUeAFCilwO3z137Sr2wiHpWxSHOeVRLQLWXPTwJkU3amqRWreDckLeUY6gYY0vi2a93P3dFA-h-U5bVFoTUVj_UAmbrmria7zpqrxbqT0kgl-LKqVG8wnMKYIyAHZ5/s1600/hawaii+2009+050.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408234499903202402" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxJoTC1elpmcxpC3JUeAFCilwO3z137Sr2wiHpWxSHOeVRLQLWXPTwJkU3amqRWreDckLeUY6gYY0vi2a93P3dFA-h-U5bVFoTUVj_UAmbrmria7zpqrxbqT0kgl-LKqVG8wnMKYIyAHZ5/s400/hawaii+2009+050.JPG" /></a> And then if I could do that, of course, the trick still would be to respond appropriately, which is to say, do something other than run for your camera and hope from the depths of your favorite organ that you will be able to watch for just a little bit longer. Maybe in another millenium or two, gazing at enlightenment, I could learn how it's done?<br /><br /><br /><br /><div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-22785123896736908202009-11-22T14:55:00.000-08:002009-11-25T23:51:34.351-08:00Inversions everywhere<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUo-HTYpTPLPk776EzJi1bMggTVzlMAZlmEeD8Kytl8S56K1Yr8eSM4YKZKKsIysEOUnA7MuivhrfUkWDEJoKeHsD8Ze_NudGXaxrpk4JY1HqNsWpCQD2xIi9EMu0kD8RYfrxsyol7UrZq/s1600/hawaii+2009+025.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408181765685229970" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUo-HTYpTPLPk776EzJi1bMggTVzlMAZlmEeD8Kytl8S56K1Yr8eSM4YKZKKsIysEOUnA7MuivhrfUkWDEJoKeHsD8Ze_NudGXaxrpk4JY1HqNsWpCQD2xIi9EMu0kD8RYfrxsyol7UrZq/s400/hawaii+2009+025.JPG" /></a> It's no surprise that we bring our baggage with us to paradise. It does seem dissonant to wake up with a terrible feeling to a beautiful day on Maui, though. Luckily we can bring our tools too, and the work goes on. In the evening we had a swim and the pool showed me a trick. The experience of swimming in the daylight is always to go down into blue shadows and to come up into the light. In the night, with the pool lit up from below, you go down into brightness and come up into black. It is a flip that plays with expectations and point of view. My impulse is to go to the light, but I can't stay down under the water--I have to come up and when I breathe I have to welcome the wide, velvety darkness.<br /><br />In the morning during meditation I had a flip moment in my mind. I was sitting there with the chatter in the foreground as usual, wanting to get past it into calm. Like being in a tub of bubbles with all of them forming and bursting in cacophony. In an instant it became <em>more</em> of an effort to follow the chatter and its crazy, circuslike noise than it was to just be in peace. Of course! I didn't have to manage the bubble melee, I had passed through into a personal bubble, sealed in by a thin curving sheet of soap skin. Once on the other side, stillness, quiet, breathing, so easy, so smooth. Then it left me again. Pop. Flip.<br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHnsWvPlxZ4oxRpSZehzxclgMwAg_-2mCV88Wu932_WLEB7TzNNrltPzC9I0gIuf8NsKbT3uBxr4en0KwDTnCHnPV7BSboTrI1eE27-7HguwlGT0LwJNhSCjCs-idvKGzJjbLdAv5fzXOG/s1600/hawaii+night+pictures+004.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408181027541703106" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHnsWvPlxZ4oxRpSZehzxclgMwAg_-2mCV88Wu932_WLEB7TzNNrltPzC9I0gIuf8NsKbT3uBxr4en0KwDTnCHnPV7BSboTrI1eE27-7HguwlGT0LwJNhSCjCs-idvKGzJjbLdAv5fzXOG/s400/hawaii+night+pictures+004.JPG" /></a><br /><br /><div></div></div>marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2073204373218831953.post-733289818344960052009-11-20T09:23:00.000-08:002009-12-02T11:58:55.405-08:00My FirstTheo. I haven't talked much about him here yet. What an amazing bundle of being he is. Waldorf schoolers have a saying that you are your child's first teacher. I wonder if they say you can reverse that--quite sincerely I say that this child was my first teacher. Regarding the kind of lessons that require extreme self-inspection and bare-naked honesty, he was the one, he was first and he made me a mother, which as some of you know, is a completely different kind of creature from any other.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQgZz6vAgDqwiLk-RF-YtruJG81EKJUWxl58evWK0aru-C611e7VKjV1HiGel8j_8s5QwmQOMVZYS65qn_RqHmZc34fOIPECroperBqHlqFZveFlA0vqEg0dUiOKhrSIxZigJxOAKNdqFN/s1600/hawaii2009+009.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 266px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406242106170023842" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQgZz6vAgDqwiLk-RF-YtruJG81EKJUWxl58evWK0aru-C611e7VKjV1HiGel8j_8s5QwmQOMVZYS65qn_RqHmZc34fOIPECroperBqHlqFZveFlA0vqEg0dUiOKhrSIxZigJxOAKNdqFN/s400/hawaii2009+009.JPG" /></a> In pouring myself so completely into him, I caught a glimpse of what I might be capable of, and simultaneously what the cost of failure might be. In seeing and hoping what he could become, I started to understand the potential I would not have so easily extended to myself. Perhaps others mature into these realizations at an earlier age (or stage) of life, but it took becoming a mother to Theo and then to Dora and then some for me to start thinking this way.<br /><br />This is the boy who was so alarmed by the sensory input of being in water that we struggled to find a way to wash his hair until, at the age of 6, we found a truly superlative swimming teacher. For the first three months of swimming lessons she broke the experience down into manageable pieces: look, you are doing so well to put your shoulder in the water, and then see what happens if you bend your knees and let the water come around your neck, then don't you want to see this funny wiggly fish toy?--put your goggles on and put just your face in, and then well, this magical bell can only be heard if your ear is under the water. Thank you, thank you Marilyn. Now look!<br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrpFGS2PgLFn8j9dVTh-UqBBjXsE5mhAb8f24c-GCXHOkPBJu2qgNMKtciKoCxtsEiF7McnDRqoR0WV-s_24hyMLmau8d14uhJenALw1-1uzjwfDt9vJ57eYoZols_5zoXdSJWeqf_eCl6/s1600/hawaii2009+002.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406241779053710226" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrpFGS2PgLFn8j9dVTh-UqBBjXsE5mhAb8f24c-GCXHOkPBJu2qgNMKtciKoCxtsEiF7McnDRqoR0WV-s_24hyMLmau8d14uhJenALw1-1uzjwfDt9vJ57eYoZols_5zoXdSJWeqf_eCl6/s400/hawaii2009+002.JPG" /></a> This morning was a microcosm of his life when, after refusing to compromise on the one tortilla left (half of it? with half a piece of toast?) he said "Nope. It's all or nothing with me." Well. At least he said it with a smile on his face! He can be reasonable (he is a libra) , and heartbreakingly empathetic (because he knows what it is to feel things deeply) but his first reaction to things is often "Nope. That's not what I had in mind." For a new mother who wants to give everything to her son, this is a very demanding, exhausting, stance for a child to present. On top of my own standards, it nearly flattened me.</div><div><br /></div><div></div><div></div><div>At the same time, I understood it! I am quite particular too, and at various times run the spectrum between being overly flexible (read: trying to please) and completely self-centered (read: trying to sort out what I need to do from what the world out there is saying). Finding ways to learn to mediate between a vulnerable yet visionary child and the supersized, sense-exploding bustle of life was (is) a hauntingly steep learning curve.</div><div></div><div><br /></div><div>And then, the JOY! when we navigate it . . . when I see him ride the boogie board with pure happiness on his face . . . when I take my newly learned meditation and awareness skills and take him through a bodyscan, as I did twice in the past two weeks when he came to me for help, and see him take deeper breaths, relax into the night, and release himself from the grip of his nightmarish thoughts to the peace of the moment. </div><div></div><div><br /></div><div>Doing the bodyscan with myself has been to lift a massive weight off, but to do it with him was to see the unnecessary, arbitrary nature of the negative thought loop, to appreciate more fully how breaking it down into manageable pieces of inhalation, exhalation is the equivalent of turning the light on and opening the dreaded closet of monsters in a child's bedroom. Look in front of this thought, look behind it--there is nothing there! There are no shadows, no monsters, no THING except the moment, here, breathing, and look how peaceful it is.</div><div><br /></div><div></div><div>Compared to what I used to do, which was to make all sorts of assurances about how safe he is, how comfortable, platitudes, in essence telling him what his experience ought to be, telling him to try to overlay forcefully happy thoughts over the scary ones, this opening of the closet door is like jumping on a quiet, clean, high speed train after dragging ourselves on foot through the mud. More than that, it feels true, and important, and real, because it is inside of him, it will always be there, and he can access it now. It is hard to express how powerful this is. How good. </div><div></div><div></div>marthahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12181145294565579572noreply@blogger.com0