"never send to know for whom the bell tolls..."

Every (person) is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less... Any [person’s] death diminishes me because I am involved in (humankind); and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
                                                                                         From Meditation 17 by John Donne 1624

I love the "Meditation" by John Donne three centuries ago and was reminded of it, again last week when a friend lost her mother, unexpectedly. I did not know her.  On hearing the news I felt loss. It also reminded me of a journal writing in August of '04. "A 'part of the main' broke off last week and I am less for it. Sergio Viviera de Mello, who many people identify as "the conscience of the world" and who has worked “miracles” to help reconstruct shattered societies in Lebanon, Kosovo, and East Timor, died yesterday in Baghdad when terrorists blew up the UN headquarters there."

And now, 15 years later, when I check the news, I still hear about  bombings in Syria and Baghdad before I have walked one block. And then there are the faces in rubber dingus trying to escape war that also leave me sad. Why should I feel loss? I didn’t know Viviera de Mello nor did I know the others. Yet my feelings tell me “a part of (my) main” has broken off.

These same feelings also shout, "Augusta, from the sages and enlightened hearts through the ages, you know you are not an isolated enclave of separateness." The scientists also confirm our connectedness. Jeff Kimble, a Caltech quantum physicist, finds that on separating two entangled particles, when one is tickled it is like the other particle laughs at the exact instant, no matter if one is on another planet. I suspect a similar event happens when we focus the higher qualities of human feeling: love, wisdom, understanding and a felt compassion toward a situation on the other side of the world.

We are all particles. Imagine, how one and connected we are! However, I do live in a fractured world. Humpty Dumpty falls off the wall every hour and for the most part I still feel hopeless to put it together again. Yet, I do (as we each do) have the power of the universe in my particles and heart-tip. I am a part of this earthy-main. The invitation is out; I need not be a bystander. I know too much to live in hopelessness and impotency. I can Be in my sacred self; flesh and heart the higher human qualities of wisdom, compassion and justice. I can Be those particles that tickle other particles in this fracture world. And maybe, I can shift, change and influence what happens. 

So the Sergio Viviera de Mellos' and the Putins' still have me asking, what energy am I releasing into the world? What kind of emotion, passion?  How am I affecting those around me and those on the migration from Syria and Iraq?  Maybe my energy can help tip the balance of Humpty’s precarious position on the wall. I am a global citizen. Maybe I can help to create a new world. I need not “send to know for whom the bell tolls”; it does toll for me.

a most honored state...

"Doing the human (emotional/spiritual) work is the most honored state."
                                                                                                            an ancient friend

My grands are back in school. At five and seven a new world of learning and challenges begin for them. They move from one grade to the next until they supposedly "finish" their education. Yet, having lived a life or three, I discover, there is no "finish". Human experience can be dense and hard and yet wildly liberating. This earthy-school room is packed with soul-lessons which offer me constant invitations to become more than I was yesterday.

However, in order to move from one grade to the next I do need larger containers of understanding and compassion to rescue me from myself.  Where are my blind spots, my insecure places and my judgments? What battered world or sacred wound is their source? What inner-parts are hidden which must be identified and healed if I am to live authentically? New ways of seeing, feeling and doing allow the emotional clutches that feel prison-like today, open to be freedom's path tomorrow.

And, here, is my school room -- where living into and answering such questions are my "home work." As my ancient friend informed me when I was overwhelmed by my own density, " Human work is the most honored state."  Yet, isn't it rather ironic, these are the places one never wants to expose to the light. In fact, this denial, this hiding from ourselves keeps the gates to our healing, freedom and expansion locked shut.

Generally I "hang on" when the kids go back to school.  Lessons are in the air. And, one would think a person who is aging like rather "passable-wine" would have said good-bye to home-work. However, not so and September didn't let me down. I got my (confidence) "feathers ruffled", again. Several days ago, I went to a near-by community to play piano. I had great fun. After, I was informed I had played too loudly and missed some downbeats. And that is probably true. The person may have wanted to help but it had the potential of feeling like an old "put down".

Yet, surprisingly, I had no emotional reaction, no gut-punch and no hurt feelings. I was still in my music glow.  Feeling around for some reaction, I could fine none! Quite frankly, I felt around all the way home and still no reaction. I was elated. Past "homework" (struggling with the questions above) had paid off.  I was detached from the old, confidence-taking messages. Congratulations were due. I probably had done as well or as worst as any of the other "wanna-be" musicians.

An hour later, while taking a solitary walk and mulling over the event, an old voice from a damaged past crept in. "I am not good enough. I don't know enough. Maybe, I'd better not go back and play, again." A confidence wipe-out, hurt feelings and a dose of self-pity attacked. By the time I came back from the walk I, me alone, had wrecked my still, very tender-shoot of a budding, music "career".

During the night, a dream told me, a self-criticizing part of myself was deceiving me. On waking, I instantly knew, in allowing those old, eroding messages a space to re-run, I had actually, betrayed myself!

This morning, reclaiming the soul-work I had accomplished in dismantling those old voices, I am alive and free again. My head has dropped down into my heart's understanding. Tonight, I am off again to dance those eighty-eight keys with joyful purpose and a hard earned confidence.

We have a rendezvous -- our soul's lessons. Where are the "blind spots" and what betrays the inner voice? The hard work is asking the hard questions -- "our reply to the soul's urgent query: 'Do you value what I am showing to you? Shall I show you more.'"*

And indeed, my answer is, let the angels come in their disguise...

photo source: fotolia.com
*Susan Shaughnessy from the book, Walking on Alligators

the will-full wind...

a playful wind

"We stayed around the house all day on account of the 'wind'. Don Juan explained that we had disturbed the wind deliberately and that it was better not to fool around with it. A sudden gust of wind made don Juan get up in one incredible agile jump.

“Damn it,” he said. “The wind is looking for you.”

I can’t buy that, don Juan,” I said, laughing. “I really can’t.”

I was not being stubborn, I just found it impossible to endorse the idea that the wind had its own volition and was looking for me, or that it had actually spotted us and rushed to us on top of the hill. I said that the idea of a “willful wind” was a view of the world that was rather simplistic.

“What is the wind then?” he asked in a challenging tone.

I patiently explained to him that ... different pressures ... made the masses of air move vertically and horizontally. It took me a long while to explain all the details of basic meteorology.

“You mean that all there is to the wind is hot and cold air?” He asked in a tone of bafflement.

“I’m afraid so.” I said and silently enjoyed my triumph.

Don Juan seemed to be dumbfounded. But then he looked at me and began to laugh uproariously."

                                                                                           Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda

A number of us stand huddled together in the still, cold, fall air, surrounding the casket. Our friend, a master schooner builder and winner of many  international schooner races, died suddenly a few days ago. He was a remarkable man and had won many honors in his eighty-plus years. In spite of his many accomplishments, he still lived in his old farm house by the sea and was always up at four milking his cows. His daughter now tells me no matter who has milked them in the past few days, from the barn comes a continuous, mournful dirge.

My husband,* who worked some week-ends on the schooners with him, has spent the last few days, since we heard of his passing, creating a three and half foot, sail-high schooner model. Other boat models line the grave site as well. A scripture is read, several people offer remembrances. The ocean can be heard in the distance. I look up at the tall cathedral pines amidst several white birches. The air is so still not a needle or a leaf flickers.

To my left a woman moves to the grave side. She reads about the intimate knowledge and  partnership this schooner captain has had with the wind. I am amazed at how she has captured the detail of this wonderful man. Her paper flutters. She continues pointing out how his relationship with the wind has helped him win many international racing cups for Nova Scotia.  A loud whooshing sound makes me jump.  Looking up, the trees tops are suddenly churning in all directions. The reader raises her voice. 

The ship models cannot resist. down goes one, then another.  In seconds, the only schooner model left upright is my husband’s -- probably because the sails are made of  chicken wire filled with flowers.  The gusts reach a crescendo. Now even the chicken wire gives way. All the models lay flat. My daughter, husband and I look at each other. Others are glancing around with disbelief on their faces, as well.  I catch my breath. The wind subsides.

At the reception and like Carlos, I know that “all there is to the wind is hot and cold air.”  However, people cautiously bring up what happened. His daughter brings it up again on the phone several days later. The wind's entrance was perfectly synchronized with the words being read. Not one boat model was left standing, even the one with lead in its keel. And, then the wind left as quickly as it came.

Dare I wonder, was this another honor bestowed on our friend or was this merely coincidence and a remarkable example of synchronicity? Or could it be, don Juan is still laughing?

* now, my lovely ex of some years...

Note: don Juan was a Yaqui shaman whom Carlos Castaneda (allegedly) apprenticed with in the art of shamanism in the 1960's 

the unnoticed prayer...

"If you put your soul against this oar with me," he begins, "the power that made the universe will enter your sinew from a source not outside your limbs, but from a holy realm that lives in us."
the Sufi poet, Rumi

What if prayer is not necessarily bowing one's head, kneeling or positioning one's hands in front of the chest? What if much of prayer goes unnoticed?

My friend has injured her foot so I have been doing some "work" with it.  Before beginning, I rub my hands on the sides of my shirt to waken them, to make them more sensitive to the patterns of energy coming from her foot. Then pausing, I briefly focus and feel into a larger space than the coffee I just brewed. I don't want to see the foot as damage but as whole or maybe, even as a new foot all together. Since I know nothing about bone, ligament or muscle, I truly am blind and at the mercy of the gods and those invisible helpers that some call guides, angels or entities.

Suddenly, I have an impression of myself from about ten feet away. My head is bent; my hands are folded against my chest in the middle of the kitchen. My friend is sitting there looking out to the lake, waiting for me to align my feeling and thought. Anyone coming into the kitchen would think I was praying. I share my impression with her, exclaiming, "And I wasn't even praying!" We look at each other. Pause. We start to laugh. Yet, wasn't I?

I am attempting to change my vibrations, shift my feelings to a higher level. I definitely have to lean my "oar" against something greater if any healing is to happen. I have to trust the "other side", the side I cannot see; as life experience tells me, this is a place where healing lives, breaths and has Being. This is the place I need to access: I need to ask. Not beg -- merely ask. And even then, I still know the invisible is a trust walk accompanied by a good dose of blind-faith.

Surely, the feeling is the prayer and must take many natural stances, as well, as religious. A lovely visit with a friend, listening to the loon in this early morning light or taking a few minutes to sit and color, at a request, from my Grands -- am I not hearing and sharing in a larger spirit with them and they with me. This must be praying, too.  Their energies invite me into a deeper-me and a more caring space.

The ancient Christian scripture also encourages us to "pray without ceasing." Now, how do I do that with my hands in the dish pan, digging in the garden or raising ten kids?

My grandmother who was born in the 1800's often told me her greatest accomplishment was that she raised ten children and not one of them had died. Yet, how many miles did she walk, how many nights comforting children, too hot from fevers, willing them to live.

She also did another round of "unnoticed prayer" with me. My mother and I lived with my grandparents during the war.  When I was four years old I contracted German measles and chicken pox at the same time. They kept my bedroom darkened as it was felt the pox in or around my eyes would leave me blind.  I remember them rocking and walking me for hours. I remember being lost in fever. Yet, there was something in their voices, the way they held me which kept wanting me, willing me to get better.

We each have that "oar" Rumi refers to, that power, that "holy realm that lives within".  We can lean body and heart into this "within" and transform our cell structure, our circumstance and even possibly,  heal a foot. The Tibetan abbot was right when he stated, "You have never seen our prayers because a prayer cannot be seen."* The unnoticed prayer resides in the heart.

photo source: scabrn, fotolia.com

* Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer by Gregg Braden

essence is always essence...

Recently,  on a lovely summer day I dropped in on an old friend I had not seen for years. We had been estranged somewhat when we parted; not because we did not care but life-stuff had gotten in the way. However, her essence many times had brought her to mind with a warm heart.

This particular afternoon, I am passing through a town I had heard she lived in a few years ago. Not being sure if she still did, I ask a woman walking down the street if she knows her. Following her directions, I find her house. Two care-givers meet me at the door. As soon as I enter her room, I know. We look at each other and understanding cascades between us. Then we hug, the old hug. Yet this time I hold bone. Neither of us is letting go. Breaking from the hug, she looks at me with a strength, a stillness, saying, "I am dying."

"I know, I can see and feel it." Then she asks how I found out and who told me. As I hadn't visited her for the last decade, she is sure someone has. I reply, "No one." A little smile touches her lips. She understands.

"Then, your coming is an answer to my prayer." And, I understand.

"I am glad." I reply softly.

We catch up on our lives and families. She does not want to leave her grand children. For periods of time, we just sit and look at each other. She is too weak to talk. Yet, her eyes at moments are alive with the twinkle I remember.  I ask if she recalls how dense I was when developing my "inner-seeing" those many years ago while walking along the railroad tracks, in front of her home. Knowing she was always better at it than me, she giggles a little giggle that is so uniquely hers. After another story from our past, she looks at me gently and states, "It is still here, our caring."

I nod, "Yes, isn't essence always essence."

Looking at my watch, it is well-past time to go. She insists on seeing me to the door which costs considerable effort to her helpers as she is beyond the wheel-chair stage. Walking in front of her, I wonder what I will say and in that moment, know she is waiting for me to say, something.  As the screen door is closing behind me, I turn. There she sits. Some moments in life hold no words.  Then, I bend toward her in a slight bow, "My friend, I will see you again in a better world." Later, I wished I had said, "Thank You..."

photo source: Lisa Teryl

a very simple secret...

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.    Antoine de Saint-Exupery

When I was eight a thought kept coming to me. "What am I missing? What am I not seeing? What is around the corner?" A childish, nonsensical question? Maybe, but somehow I did trust there were magic gardens and another side to the moon.

As I grew I kept discovering there were various sides to life and that most were invisible to the human eye but not to the human heart. The latter seemed to have had its own intuitive powers of seeing. I also learned, if I wanted to claim life's freedoms, its sacred heart, I could not put my trust, merely in the side I could see.

In early adulthood, wanting to learn how to draw, I found a classically-trained art teacher who lived near our home. With pencil, paper and enthusiasm I arrived at his door. Ready to draw that first line, his first instruction stopped me as he said, "I am not going to teach you to draw. I am going to teach you to see. Puzzled I thought, "but I can."  As I drew and painted, I learned I had to account for the whole head, the whole tree and not just the visible part. That line under the cheek bone, for example, had to take the eye around the unseen part of the head and come out relating to the other cheek bone for it to complete its natural wholeness.

I proceeded to learn when seeing "rightly", everything natural completes a circle from visible to invisible. There is the other side of the moon, the earth and the rainbow. Winter is invisible to summer but summer will come. The sun cannot be seen nor its warmth felt through the clouds but it never falls from its orbit in the sky.

I continued learning. Another side of anger is sadness and of fear is love. Then, there is the other side of me. What does encompass my wholeness? What is beyond this one-sided self that is always in danger of poster-like living? As a writer I depend on the the next word, the next thought that comes from seemingly "nowhere". What is the other side of speaking; where do the words come from? Is there a language of the invisible? Maybe, it is our intuition, instinct, imagination and a knowing deeper than logic and reason. Maybe, the wind speaks at the exact moment of a deeper thought telling me to wake up, pay attention.

However, most times, this living is a trust walk or I might never take pen in hand. My ancient friend who was more on the invisible side than this one, used to say to my doubt-ings, "You don't need to see oxygen to know it is there." I only recognize wind exists when it moves the trees or cools my cheek. The white caps on the lake are dancing to something. When feeling moves me I know it exist and no longer have to wonder, "What comes next?" In fact, it all existed before I sat at the computer this morning. I merely have to "join the dots" from one side to the other.

Yet, I still ask "my eight year old" questions?  What am I missing? What can't I see? Where is my wholeness when drinking my morning coffee or suffering from inner and/or outer wounded-ness? Trusting only one side too often leaves me flying on less then one wing or maybe on one little feather.  Yet if I peek in, through and beyond the visible, there it is with it's palpable joy and a love force which cannot be measured but can transform one, instantly.* This magical garden where the heart beats and the rainbow points echoes through the canyons of my life.

Yes, there is a secret, a very simple secret... We are always larger than our stories. What is essential is, it's the sun's birthday,** the birthday of life, love and the invisible-visible...

photo source: us.fotolia.com
* paraphrase: Barbara de Angelis
** paraphrase: e.e. cummings

The Gift...

"This little flute of a reed (me) thou hast carried over hills and dales,

and hast breathed though it melodies eternally new.

At  the immortal touch of thy hand ... my heart loses it limits in

joy and gives birth to utterances ineffable."  Rabindranath Tagore

“My breath” I have always claimed as mine. I am healthy so I take it for granted. It moves in and out of my lungs unnoticed like a trusty old pump. Yet following my breath in meditation often leads me to a love of Presence.

Breath is a gift given to me at birth, taken from me at death. Even though, it is a life force of its own, independent of me, I think of it as merely air - lifeless and inanimate. Every living thing breathes.

A new thought startles me. What if my breath is not mine? What if breath is animate, a life force that the mystics call the Beloved. Many of the world religions connect spirit to breath. Tagore was a Hindu witnessing, “thou has breathed through {me}  melodies ever new....”  The writer of the old Christian hymn implored, “Breathe on me breath of God, Fill me with life anew....”  Both are a lover’s witness and a lover’s request.

So it is not me breathing, it is me receiving. Imagine, ordinary breathing is the breath of Presence which lives with me, acknowledges me, accompanies me and loves me unconditionally. Can it be, when I breathe in, the Spirit makes love, when I breathe out I make love?

As my fingers dance on these keys, I accept this Gift.  I draw this Breath in slowly, release it gently. I hear the bird songs which a minute ago, like my breathing, were ignored. And, I feel love.

Photo source: Lisa Teryl