tying myself to the mast...

In Greek mythology, Odysseus is warned against the songs of the sirens on his sea voyage which would lure him off course into dangerous water. Initially, their songs are beguiling and irresistible. When they begin to sing he orders his men to put wax in their ears and tie him to the mast. Thus, he can steer his course home. 

What siren songs lure me off-course? What mast do I tie myself to? Oddly, I find my songs are sung in the seemingly little things. My sirens meet me on waking. Too often coffee has more allure than meditation. I forget I am putting my feet down into six inches (at least) of Love merely getting out of bed. After coffee another song begins its seduction. "Get on with the day, you have places to go, chores to do." Then the morning is gone -- lost in forgetfulness and distractions. I dive into routines, habits and become myopic, just trying to get by. 

When I lose my connection with feeling, life becomes robot-like. Spending an afternoon with Brother David Steindl Rast, a Benedictine monk, and knowing how hard it is to stay mindful, aware of the love that waits in our breath, our steps, and the dishes we do, someone in our small group asked him why he stopped each afternoon at three for meditation. His reply was, "To stay alive." I didn't quite get it then but felt the weight of his words. Now, years later, I want that kind of aliveness, that joy-filled purpose and happiness in the momentum of the day.  

Another enticement are the best chewy cookies in Tucson. The sirens say "Eat five," and I easily could but a god-sense knows, one will do or maybe two. 

What do I have to Do, to love where I am standing, to hum a finer, higher frequency in the moment and to know essence when night-falls? Tie myself to the mast, try to practice disciplines I know will bring me a sense of well-being, moving my body to self-love and Other.  Then I settle down feeling a wholeness that I don't want to end.  Everything looks sweeter, not from a song outside but one from within. On good days, I leave my meditation with an inner smile, walk in this velvet feeling of expansiveness.  Now I hear the yellow finches singing three feet from me in the mesquite tree and am moved by the sentiment of an old hymn, "You speak and the sound of Your voice is so sweet the birds hush their singing..." 

photo source: fotolia.com

the solitary bird...

The conditions of a solitary bird are five:

The first, that it flies to the highest point;

the second, that it does not suffer for company, not even of its own kind;

the third, that it aims its beak to the skies:

the fourth, that it does not have a definite color;

the fifth, that it sings very softly.

San Juan de la Cruz, Dichios de luz y Amor

The first winter I came to the south west by myself, after thirty plus years of marriage, family, and community, presented me with an intimidating challenge - - loneliness.  Any phones calls were measured by dollars and letters took two weeks (no iPhone, no Skype). And I knew no one.

During my marriage I had a wonderful relationship with alone-ness. I could never get enough of it. Words such as solitude, silence were easily romanticized. Although as a child even though I liked being alone, loneliness could leave me feeling desolate and disconnected from others.

Here in the south west, almost four thousand miles from home and community, loneliness scared me again. Like a diver coming up from the depths, changing one’s pressure drastically ideally needs to be done in stages, to avoid an attack of the bends. My question was, do I have enough inner resources, personal security to generate and sustain a healthy, creative, balanced life on my own? How would I respond living without the daily physical presence of community? The answer scared me, I did not know. What inner demons, what old wounds and messages would haunt me left solely to my own company?

What is meaningful alone-ness? What is holy solitude or a deep diving into loving silence rather than loving community?  Besides I needed time alone to write. I wanted space to meditate, to know myself in a larger way.

Then, weeks later,  in spite of the odd hike, saying a passing hi to a new acquaintance, a telephone call or email from home, I was lonely. Not even my writing provided me with joyful purpose. I had a manuscript ready on the shelf unpublished, rejected -- a little like I felt myself. The demons messages were there. I felt isolated, defeated, and scared by my helplessness. I am not an instant friend maker.  The TV is a great reliever of loneliness so I unplugged it and put it out in the shed. Who was I without any “props”? I had questions to be answered.

I discovered the night. Dark comes early here in the southern desert. Often I turned off the lights, wrote by candle light, listen to a solitary bird’s final note for the evening, heard the coyotes hooting from the sage.  Some nights  I stretched out on the warm sand, losing my lonely self in the stars or remembering  some poetry, ”Be alone, and feel the [Oleanders] silently growing... Be alone, and feel the cosmos silently rocking." (author unknown)

Christmas day. Three months had passed. My daughters were flying in for the holidays.  As I looked out the bus window taking me to the airport I was excited. I had missed them dearly. Yet somewhere in those past months, like the solitary bird, I must have reached high, for even in the night I no longer suffered for company or from my alone-ness. As the bus pulled into “airport arrivals" I was in a faceless Love. Through the bus window, I whispered, “I won, thank you.”

photo source: fotolia.com

*written when I first came to the southwest, alone...
                                                                             
                                  

the messenger...

"Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels/messengers unaware."*

My wallet is gone this afternoon. Several credit cards, vehicle registration, insurance and health cards with it. Where did I last use it?  I had it this morning.  A frantic search of house, car, coffee shop, plus a call to the police confirms the loss.  With visions of someone having a splendid time spending my credit, I cancel the cards.

Supper is a down cast affair. A knock comes to the rarely used front door which tells me it’s a stranger. Opening the door an older women with the broadest smile and missing several teeth burst into the vestibule. “Augusta”? she queries. I nod.  "I have good news for you." She gleefully holds out the wallet. Excitedly, I keep thanking her. She assures me everything is there.

Her name is Lilly.  Apparently, she saw several teens pick up the wallet from the sidewalk and start rifling through it. She told them her aunt lost the wallet so they gave it to her. Then she spent part of the day searching me out as my new street address was not on my licence.  Watching her tell the story, she appears work-worn rather than old. I wonder if she had to think twice about returning money. Her bills may be more pressing than mine

She certainly seems as thrilled as I. We take each others hands, and instantly move to a hug.  As we step away our eyes are moist. She virtually glows.  Joy, relief, and love flood the vestibule. I give her half the money in the wallet. We hug again, and she is gone.  My friend, who observes our encounter reflects, “I think I've seen her picking the plastic bottles out of the garbage around town.”

Several days later:  I still feel warmth from this messenger of honesty, integrity, and goodness.  I think people do glow when doing lovely acts. This encounter was not about credit cards, licence or money. I am still feeling her caring, her spirit. Yet what is disturbing is -- if she had come to the door for anything else would I have even been friendly? I also wonder how many times I passed her on the street, making split-second social judgements, staining my spirit.


*Hebrews 13:1-2
** written several years ago
*** image resource: painting by Raffael, commonswikimedia.org

climbing the liquid mountains of a night sky...

"It's wonderful to climb the liquid mountains of the sky. Behind me and before me is God and I have no fear." Helen Keller

The evening was Tucson-warm. On the deck no street light lit the night. The mesquite tree rested, barely detectable, against the dark sky. Countless times I've raised my eyes to this gorgeous display of a billion, twinkling stars. And I have marveled and wondered.

Yet this night was different. The stars, acting like a large, sky-vacuum cleaner swept me up -- transporting me into a trillion little pieces as numbered as the stars themselves. Mixing and mingling, I felt an exquisite sweetness, an astonishing merging with love. What can one say about the indescribable?  Yet, I knew instantly, this feeling is what it will be like when I "die". I just knew.

This was not a cold dark sky embedded with twinkling distant planets, unknown lifeless solar systems, out there. This place was different. No cloud cover here in this intimately known vast beauty of milky ways and black holes of twinkling lights and pieces of me. I was not separate, there was no two. I was a billion pieces free.

Moving back into my skin I felt the comfort of the solid deck under my feet. I still wanted that form in the dark to be the mesquite tree when morning came. However, I also knew I had just "climbed the liquid mountains of the sky," experienced life without my bones, old habits and conditioning. I was here, there, in, out -- countless  little parts of me yet one beating-heart.

The starry night feel will dissipate, yet let me remember to experience it again when my "dying" comes. Then "behind me and before me" is love's Presence and I will not fear.

photo source: fotolia.com

the car-care clinic...

"The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected." Robert Frost

The other night I attended a women's car-care clinic. Surprisingly, twenty others showed up. The person who gave the workshop gathered us around a car on the heist.

I learned about transmission fluid, air filters, and all good car-care practical stuff. After her talk we each went to work. Lifting the hood we checked the oil, fluids and battery terminals. As I hunted for the psi number to check the air pressure in the tires my picture was taken as it had been rather frequently.

Arriving home two hours later, still feeling the excitement of the power I now had over my little Toyota, I was happy I had gone. As I washed the grease off my hands, I caught a reflection of myself in the bedroom mirror and remembered how many times the camera, during the clinic, was pointed my way.

Why?  The face in the mirror with it's wrinkles, sags and spots was not gorgeous or young -- nor was my mechanical expertise impressive. The other participants were younger by a decade or two or three. Then it dawned, "They think I am old!" It was such a ridiculous thought I started to laugh.

Apparently, a "slight of... eye" trick was played on them and maybe on me. I was so engaged learning, exploring, researching how to maintain my car I hadn't noticed age. I felt inspirited just wiping the grease off my hands.

After the mirror visit, I said to my daughter, "They thought I was old tonight." Then added. "I think the universe tricked us because, I am not old." Silence. She looked at me cautiously, not quite wanting to deny the truth that stood before her. Catching her look, I modified my statement, "I am old yet I am not old." All the great life running through me felt ageless -- a bit like the "energize-bunny"  but not quite.

I knew I had presented her with a quandary. Observing each other in silence, she contemplated this life-force with the wrinkles standing before her. What could she say? What could I say? We both started to laugh. (I am not sure at what.) Yet, maybe the afternoon does know what the morning never suspects." Maybe...


*image resource: fotolia.com

stepping out of thought...

"When you no longer believe everything you think, you step out of thought and see clearly that the thinker is not who you are." E. Tolle

Then who am I if thoughts are not my identity? What is left? I think constantly? My descriptions of who I think I am, my identity, are endless. One time I think, "I am good, generous, and thoughtful, another time, "I am neglectful, selfish, and thoughtless depending upon mood or event. Morning, I feel one thing, evening another about the same situation. Thoughts, feelings, emotions, change like the decal flashing a bird or a dollar sign on my credit card -- depending on which way it is tilted.

Thoughts  are quite willing to manufacture me an identify. As an artist there are times in a painting where it feels/thinks like "give-up-time", I am no artist. The colors or composition are off and the waste-basket is handy. Yet when staying with it, saying no to the "I can't" or "I am not a ..." the painting works. I am an artist again. Similar thoughts like, "I am bad, good, fat or gorgeous" imprison me, thus creating a false sense of self connected to my emotional history or social conditioning. I need to allow the imperfections without making them an identity.

What is "real" in me that does not change.  Who is behind or under my thoughts, feelings, emotions, skin?  How do I find out? Tolle instructed a young man who asked a similar question, to feel inside himself for the one ingredient that doesn't change, to listen in alert stillness, listen in a moment of inner spaciousness and find oneself beneath it all -- not thinking but aware in timeless Presence.

"Live a life without thought." an ancient friend also instructed me a few years ago. Puzzled, I began observing my thinking. Her suggestion was to "Briefly step out of the voice in your head, stand back from these thought-processes and their reflection in the body as an emotion. Breathe consciously, center yourself in the moment and a rising inner spaciousness manifests where before there was the cluster of thoughts and the turmoil of emotion." I discover thought is separate.

Stepping out of the voice in my head, into a heart place that never changes, into a Presence that is always here and an awareness that watches this personality called Augusta, I know "the thinker is not me." To paraphrase Lao-tzu, if I name God I haven't got it. If my thought says, "I am sad, happy, artist, grandma with a period at the end...," I haven't got it either yet sacredness always waits in each for my presence.

photo source: fotolia.com

a thought has weight...

"Thought is reality, if you think it is beneficial, it will be. If the situation is seen as negative then you will move into that." Continuing, my ancient friend leaned forward and pointed her finger at me, "It is how each one thinks reality is, is how it goes. Thoughts are concrete. As you think, you are."

After talking with her, I wrote in my journal, "Imagine, thoughts being as concrete as the chair I am sitting on. If I can believe that, the implications are enormous. My prayer for another person could be as real as a physical hug. However, my negative thought or judgement might be felt in another's being like a physical punch. That is sobering. (This conversation and journal entry were written several decades ago.)

The idea that a thought is as concrete energetically as an object was shockingly new to me, then.  Today such an awareness is a common fact. Scientists, shamans and my own experience bear witness. Thought has weight, form, and a life force strong enough to create our realities. Just because we can't see it's form, like the kettle on the counter, does not mean it doesn't exist. When I think of biting into a lemon, the mere thought of it causes my saliva glands to start mobilizing for the coming onslaught of sourness. A friend of mine is scared of heights. To merely think of looking down from a high building produces beads of perspiration on her hands.

Thoughts also have the power and weight to change our feelings and our perceptions. When thinking I cannot do something, I generally can't. Playing the piano these past two years after decades of "can't" proved that. However, if I think I can do something the thought leaves me feeling more intelligent, able and accomplished. I might muff some notes but I love playing the keys. Also when experiencing creative, caring and loving thoughts a largeness of spirit often follows and presence waits.

Yet, I am appalled at how often my good nature let's loose a weighty-thought in the form of a judgement, label, or opinion toward someone. And worst still, I do this knowing what I know. The neighbor whose dog barks too often, the relative who is critical and the homeless man on the corner are all in danger of losing their sacredness -- muzzle the dog, the guy is dirty, the relative is destructive. These thoughts sail around as if they owned the air.

Yet the good news is -- no matter how heavy the thought, "The thinker is not who I am."* Humans are much larger than their mental concepts. We have a deeper and vastly more intelligent heart from which to choose, alter or guard-against any thought we produce. An old sign reads, "Be alert, we need more lerts." I will continue to try.

*Eckhart Tolle

photo source: fotolia.com