One of my teachers.....
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Loving What Is........
What we attach to...assuming it is forever, reaching, striving for the form we want it to take, all the while, living the illusion that this 'now' is forever.
Judging ourselves and others by 'the plan' we have constructed on our minds. Closing our hearts and minds to those people and things we don't understand. Forgetting to nourish the unchanging while feeding the fleeting.
As another teacher of mine says sarcastically, "Who needs God when you have your opinion?"
To learn more about unconditional love......from Byron Katie at TheWork.org
Judging ourselves and others by 'the plan' we have constructed on our minds. Closing our hearts and minds to those people and things we don't understand. Forgetting to nourish the unchanging while feeding the fleeting.
As another teacher of mine says sarcastically, "Who needs God when you have your opinion?"
To learn more about unconditional love......from Byron Katie at TheWork.org
Friday, June 27, 2008
Happy 15th Birthday........to me
It's been so long now that often times I forget...that I got a second chance to live (and love). At first I wasn't sure which date to count as my 'birthday', the day of my diagnosis or the day they said I was in remission, or the day I was done with treatment. I think I find the day of my diagnosis most appropriate because it was the day everything changed. I did remember on June 13th of this year, but this year it came at the very tail end of several hectic weeks, so I was just too tired to celebrate officially.
I was listening to my favorite radio show recently (KOPB's Speaking of Faith on Sunday nights at 7pm, although I usually just listen to the Podcast) and Kristen was interviewing a woman who was a Universalist Chaplain, so she is very acquainted with death and as a UU has a unique perspective. She said that "Even when the miracle is of a life restored, it is really only a temporary restoration. But most of the time the miracle can only be the resurrection of love beside the unchanged fact of death." Of all the things I lost and found during that time in my life, I count my greatest gift as the beginning of my discovery of how to find peace with my inevitable mortality. The chaplain points out that if you decide that the most important thing is life, defined as breath in a body, walking around wearing clothes "then you've lost, because we are all going to die. But if you decide that the most important thing is love, then you have something to do."
The Tibetan Buddhists speak of "practicing dying". I have had the opportunity, through my Shamanic studies to do just that and it was the final nail in the coffin of my fear around the actual physical process. I managed in 1993 to get to a place of accepting that I ultimately had no say in the matter and learning to allow it all to be ok on a religious understanding level, although inside I could still panic at the thought of being told the end was in sight. The panic wasn't so much about me leaving, but about how I'd manage the task as a young mother and the effect on my children. I had a scary plane ride during my first pregnancy that left me an anxious flyer thereafter, for years. Not to the point that I wouldn't get on a plane, but I also never really relaxed and was hypervigilant listening for sounds, etc. It wasn't until last year that I finally completely overcame it and can now just relax and enjoy. I was able to do so through practicing the Buddhist philosophy of saying, "Today would be a very good day to die". Without boring you with the actual practice, I can now say it and mean it.
I had a teaching on Wednesday around security. I was leaving for work and as I approached my car I saw that a spider had spun it's web between a nearby bush and my side view mirror. Quite an intricate web at that. I'm one of these weird people who don't kill bugs (unless they are hurting me), so I felt a pang of regret that I'd have to move my car. The teaching was about what we attach to, and a remeinder that I not attach my security to 'things that can/will move'. Certainly, I've struggled with the loss of my townhome due to it's movement, and was way more attached to what it offered and represented than I ever knew, but I appreciated the gentle reminder. My Shamanic mind reasoned that it was possible that the spider observed my car there for quite some time without moving, and deducted it as a safe and stable anchor. My car had been parked for almost a week when I used it that morning, so it wasn't an altogether crazy assumption on his part that it was a good choice.
I was listening to my favorite radio show recently (KOPB's Speaking of Faith on Sunday nights at 7pm, although I usually just listen to the Podcast) and Kristen was interviewing a woman who was a Universalist Chaplain, so she is very acquainted with death and as a UU has a unique perspective. She said that "Even when the miracle is of a life restored, it is really only a temporary restoration. But most of the time the miracle can only be the resurrection of love beside the unchanged fact of death." Of all the things I lost and found during that time in my life, I count my greatest gift as the beginning of my discovery of how to find peace with my inevitable mortality. The chaplain points out that if you decide that the most important thing is life, defined as breath in a body, walking around wearing clothes "then you've lost, because we are all going to die. But if you decide that the most important thing is love, then you have something to do."
The Tibetan Buddhists speak of "practicing dying". I have had the opportunity, through my Shamanic studies to do just that and it was the final nail in the coffin of my fear around the actual physical process. I managed in 1993 to get to a place of accepting that I ultimately had no say in the matter and learning to allow it all to be ok on a religious understanding level, although inside I could still panic at the thought of being told the end was in sight. The panic wasn't so much about me leaving, but about how I'd manage the task as a young mother and the effect on my children. I had a scary plane ride during my first pregnancy that left me an anxious flyer thereafter, for years. Not to the point that I wouldn't get on a plane, but I also never really relaxed and was hypervigilant listening for sounds, etc. It wasn't until last year that I finally completely overcame it and can now just relax and enjoy. I was able to do so through practicing the Buddhist philosophy of saying, "Today would be a very good day to die". Without boring you with the actual practice, I can now say it and mean it.
I had a teaching on Wednesday around security. I was leaving for work and as I approached my car I saw that a spider had spun it's web between a nearby bush and my side view mirror. Quite an intricate web at that. I'm one of these weird people who don't kill bugs (unless they are hurting me), so I felt a pang of regret that I'd have to move my car. The teaching was about what we attach to, and a remeinder that I not attach my security to 'things that can/will move'. Certainly, I've struggled with the loss of my townhome due to it's movement, and was way more attached to what it offered and represented than I ever knew, but I appreciated the gentle reminder. My Shamanic mind reasoned that it was possible that the spider observed my car there for quite some time without moving, and deducted it as a safe and stable anchor. My car had been parked for almost a week when I used it that morning, so it wasn't an altogether crazy assumption on his part that it was a good choice.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Welcome, Summer!
With the rising of the sun, today is Summer Solstice; the longest day of light of the year. Most of us welcome in this season with more anticipation than any other. It allows us to play outside and enjoy the light of the sun more often than at any other time of year (in Portland). And yet, I realized for the first time, that the arrival of the most popular season is also the beginning of the return of the darkness. Even though it's only one minute per day, hardly perceptable, it's happening....the arrival of the warmth also brings with it, the return of darkness. And with Winter Solstice...the cold brings the return of the light. Nature is so ironic, yet holds perfect symmetry and cycle within herself. Perhaps we can glean peace from that? Perhaps acknowledge that nothing ("no-thing") is just one thing; good or bad, beautiful or ugly, dark or light, happiness or sadness.
How often do we have some form of external or internal toddler-like tantrum, bitch and complain to our ever-patient friends, or host a solo, self-imposed pity party at the arrival of something unexpected and inconvenient. Or find ourselves in shock sadness as we rail against the departure of something or someone we considered a positive thing in our life? That up until it's loss, if we are totally honest, we have to admit we were deluding ourselves to think that there is any real promise of permanence. Somehow, for what seems like a crazy reason, if you think about it, it all seems so unnatural to us when things "change", yet we pretty much accept and allow Nature to bring both her darkness and light without much of a fight. Humans love watching the sun rise and set; even consider it romantic to sit and witness when it happens in the sky. And yet...we do not peacefully allow our lives the same cycles.
Tonight I will gather in community to celebrate the arrival of this new season. I am so grateful to mark the cycles of the earth and the sky. To be aware of the energies and cycles that surround me, and acknowledge and accept, even embrace, the ways nature has an impact.
I am thankful for the rising awareness of the ways I impact my environment, not only emotionally and spiritually, but increasing in all the physical ways I am being called to consider alternatives to the ways I have previously chosen to live on a daily basis...what I eat, where it comes from, and what it took to get it to me, how I get where I go, what I dispose of. It's a slow process to untie the knot I've created and at times I feel embarrassed and impatient with my progress. The truth isn't attractive and the answers aren't necessarily easy or initially convenient, so it will take time. I accept that. But, with each tiny shift, I'm surprised how in actuality, rather than it being burdensome and inconvenient, I feel more freedom and lightness. The discomfort is not in making the change, but in realizing how blind I was before.
I especially love riding my bicycle to work and taking public transportation. Believe me, I am acutely aware of how weird that makes me, but that's the gift of being in my 40's....I DON'T CARE! In my experience, in judging another, we only darken our own countenance and environment And seeing with compassion and forgiveness bring light and love.
What I notice is more a feeling of connection to the rest of the world and life itself when riding amongst other Portlanders. It's honestly hard to describe, but to contrast, I realize how isolated, even disconnected, I felt when I leave my cookie cutter house with the blinds over the windows and get in my comfortable, climate-controlled car, with the windows up, that is only a few feet from my door and drive to virtually the front door of the office to work with the same few people, who generally live socio-economically similar to better than myself. Then at the end of the workday, I return to my car with my choice of music that drowns out the sounds of life and the world I fly right through without even noticing what and who I passed. Then I walk a couple of feet back to my same 4 walls of routine (not that I don't love the precious people who I share them with).
When I'm on my bike I hear and smell and feel EVERYTHING. The beautiful, the putrid, the unexpected. I'm always surprised by something. Life, death (roadkill), light (morning), dark (sunset), hot, cold, wet (rain), dry. I see the contrasting lifestyles and hearts and minds of people I never even noticed or stopped to consider before. I'm pretty sensitive to others internal happenings, and it's sacred to me how a few moments sitting across from someone I don't even know, or don't even talk to, can rearrange my attitude or perspective, for the better.
So today I celebrate this day speaking of this new awareness; that summer, while warm and sunny, has darkness as a twin. And so, in each of us, let us take time to see and welcome in the irony of this season; and therefore our own irony, our own warmth and our own darkness. Not only internally, in the love that surrounds or eludes us, but also in the external happenings that bring in both warmth and darkness. May you be blessed in it all.......
I ran into this "Blessing" from John O'Donahue this morning that seemed fitting. It is my "Summer Blessing" to you.
"May you know that absence is full of tender presence and that nothing is ever lost or forgotten.
May the absences in your life be full of eternal echo.
May you sense around you the secret Elsewhere which holds the presences that have left your life.
May you be generous in your embrace of loss.
May the core well of grief turn into a well of seamless presence.
May your compassion reach out to the ones we never hear from and may you have the courage to speak out for the excluded ones.
May you become the gracious and passionate subject of your own life (I LOVE THAT ONE).
May you not disrespect your mystery through brittle words of false belonging.
May you be embraced by God in whom dawn and twilight are one, and may your belonging inhabit its deepest dreams within the shelter of the Great Belonging.
Have an amazing summer........ Alder
How often do we have some form of external or internal toddler-like tantrum, bitch and complain to our ever-patient friends, or host a solo, self-imposed pity party at the arrival of something unexpected and inconvenient. Or find ourselves in shock sadness as we rail against the departure of something or someone we considered a positive thing in our life? That up until it's loss, if we are totally honest, we have to admit we were deluding ourselves to think that there is any real promise of permanence. Somehow, for what seems like a crazy reason, if you think about it, it all seems so unnatural to us when things "change", yet we pretty much accept and allow Nature to bring both her darkness and light without much of a fight. Humans love watching the sun rise and set; even consider it romantic to sit and witness when it happens in the sky. And yet...we do not peacefully allow our lives the same cycles.
Tonight I will gather in community to celebrate the arrival of this new season. I am so grateful to mark the cycles of the earth and the sky. To be aware of the energies and cycles that surround me, and acknowledge and accept, even embrace, the ways nature has an impact.
I am thankful for the rising awareness of the ways I impact my environment, not only emotionally and spiritually, but increasing in all the physical ways I am being called to consider alternatives to the ways I have previously chosen to live on a daily basis...what I eat, where it comes from, and what it took to get it to me, how I get where I go, what I dispose of. It's a slow process to untie the knot I've created and at times I feel embarrassed and impatient with my progress. The truth isn't attractive and the answers aren't necessarily easy or initially convenient, so it will take time. I accept that. But, with each tiny shift, I'm surprised how in actuality, rather than it being burdensome and inconvenient, I feel more freedom and lightness. The discomfort is not in making the change, but in realizing how blind I was before.
I especially love riding my bicycle to work and taking public transportation. Believe me, I am acutely aware of how weird that makes me, but that's the gift of being in my 40's....I DON'T CARE! In my experience, in judging another, we only darken our own countenance and environment And seeing with compassion and forgiveness bring light and love.
What I notice is more a feeling of connection to the rest of the world and life itself when riding amongst other Portlanders. It's honestly hard to describe, but to contrast, I realize how isolated, even disconnected, I felt when I leave my cookie cutter house with the blinds over the windows and get in my comfortable, climate-controlled car, with the windows up, that is only a few feet from my door and drive to virtually the front door of the office to work with the same few people, who generally live socio-economically similar to better than myself. Then at the end of the workday, I return to my car with my choice of music that drowns out the sounds of life and the world I fly right through without even noticing what and who I passed. Then I walk a couple of feet back to my same 4 walls of routine (not that I don't love the precious people who I share them with).
When I'm on my bike I hear and smell and feel EVERYTHING. The beautiful, the putrid, the unexpected. I'm always surprised by something. Life, death (roadkill), light (morning), dark (sunset), hot, cold, wet (rain), dry. I see the contrasting lifestyles and hearts and minds of people I never even noticed or stopped to consider before. I'm pretty sensitive to others internal happenings, and it's sacred to me how a few moments sitting across from someone I don't even know, or don't even talk to, can rearrange my attitude or perspective, for the better.
So today I celebrate this day speaking of this new awareness; that summer, while warm and sunny, has darkness as a twin. And so, in each of us, let us take time to see and welcome in the irony of this season; and therefore our own irony, our own warmth and our own darkness. Not only internally, in the love that surrounds or eludes us, but also in the external happenings that bring in both warmth and darkness. May you be blessed in it all.......
I ran into this "Blessing" from John O'Donahue this morning that seemed fitting. It is my "Summer Blessing" to you.
"May you know that absence is full of tender presence and that nothing is ever lost or forgotten.
May the absences in your life be full of eternal echo.
May you sense around you the secret Elsewhere which holds the presences that have left your life.
May you be generous in your embrace of loss.
May the core well of grief turn into a well of seamless presence.
May your compassion reach out to the ones we never hear from and may you have the courage to speak out for the excluded ones.
May you become the gracious and passionate subject of your own life (I LOVE THAT ONE).
May you not disrespect your mystery through brittle words of false belonging.
May you be embraced by God in whom dawn and twilight are one, and may your belonging inhabit its deepest dreams within the shelter of the Great Belonging.
Have an amazing summer........ Alder
Sunday, June 15, 2008
"Where am I blind?"
A great spiritual teacher (who I don't recall his name at the moment) had a tradition of asking his closest friends to sit with him annually and ask them to tell him where he was blind, meaning where was he so close to his own life that he was not seeing the forest for the trees.
We all have those times and places within us when we feel stuck or confused or lost as to how to view something, what, if any action we should take or where we are selling ourselves or our loved ones short.
After returning from Ireland, life soon took on a frenetic pace preparing the home I live in to be placed on the market, which required some major spring cleaning after months of neglect after my knee injury, and this time of year is full of celebration with birthdays and graduations at every turn. All good things....but hence, no quiet time for contemplation or stillness.
So many great milestones, especially this year. Amber graduated from High School and is preparing her life to move out into the world on her own. Laura completed Elementary School and steps into the new activity of being a cheerleader....can you believe it? So many things still float just above the ground, refusing to pick a spot and stay there.
I've certainly learned so much during this 2 years of proverbial 'homelessness'. I have spent this last month contemplating what I have learned from this time and decided that in losing personal ownership of a physical dwelling, I have had to find a new way to feel at home. Ungrounding me as never before, it caused me to be at home in my body, at home in my soul, at home in the unknown.
As I watch so many others in the world lose so much more than I have, I realize that this time on the planet is offering us all the opportunity to discover what is unchanging and important within a world with rising waters and shifting plates; and it is only through wearing blinders or blindfolds that any of us can really feel any sense of ownership or permanence in anything physical whether that be our bodies or our houses.
For me, it has brought me to a deeper look inside, to what can never be lost and even travel with me beyond this reality.
And so I sit, a quiet breeze blowing through the blue sky and ask you, my friends and fellow travelers, to the same question;
"Where am I blind?"
As you watch me move through my life, and hear me talk, what am I missing that is right in front of my face? Where am I my own worst enemy? Where am I keeping blessings back and calling trouble in? Where can I be more open and where do I need to close doors? Where am I blind to my gifts and selling myself short?
I'm not so much asking to be told what to do or think, but where to look further at myself, inside, at my motivations and fears and where is my vision so focused on one thing that I cannot see other things?
We all have those times and places within us when we feel stuck or confused or lost as to how to view something, what, if any action we should take or where we are selling ourselves or our loved ones short.
After returning from Ireland, life soon took on a frenetic pace preparing the home I live in to be placed on the market, which required some major spring cleaning after months of neglect after my knee injury, and this time of year is full of celebration with birthdays and graduations at every turn. All good things....but hence, no quiet time for contemplation or stillness.
So many great milestones, especially this year. Amber graduated from High School and is preparing her life to move out into the world on her own. Laura completed Elementary School and steps into the new activity of being a cheerleader....can you believe it? So many things still float just above the ground, refusing to pick a spot and stay there.
I've certainly learned so much during this 2 years of proverbial 'homelessness'. I have spent this last month contemplating what I have learned from this time and decided that in losing personal ownership of a physical dwelling, I have had to find a new way to feel at home. Ungrounding me as never before, it caused me to be at home in my body, at home in my soul, at home in the unknown.
As I watch so many others in the world lose so much more than I have, I realize that this time on the planet is offering us all the opportunity to discover what is unchanging and important within a world with rising waters and shifting plates; and it is only through wearing blinders or blindfolds that any of us can really feel any sense of ownership or permanence in anything physical whether that be our bodies or our houses.
For me, it has brought me to a deeper look inside, to what can never be lost and even travel with me beyond this reality.
And so I sit, a quiet breeze blowing through the blue sky and ask you, my friends and fellow travelers, to the same question;
"Where am I blind?"
As you watch me move through my life, and hear me talk, what am I missing that is right in front of my face? Where am I my own worst enemy? Where am I keeping blessings back and calling trouble in? Where can I be more open and where do I need to close doors? Where am I blind to my gifts and selling myself short?
I'm not so much asking to be told what to do or think, but where to look further at myself, inside, at my motivations and fears and where is my vision so focused on one thing that I cannot see other things?
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