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Musings
Day Lilies
From Journeying in Place
July 12, 2010
Height of summer. The day lilies are budding. They will soon come out. There are three varieties that will stagger their blooming from no until the beginning of August. All three are yellow: bright yellow. Butter yellow. And salmon yellow. They are a celebration of the sun at its zenith, their brief life an acknowledgment that each day is a unique blossom.
There is a ring of them near the crescent bed of peonies. There is a bank of them along one stonewall. And since they are profuse and readily multiply I have moved some to the bare place near the brook. I could have day lilies everywhere there is sun, just as I have impatiens everywhere there is shade.
Their stalks are thick and woody. Each one has several buds . . . the size of ladyfingers. One can eat these flowers. They have a mild, delicious flavor, as if one tasted the sun. Their tubers can be dug up, and the small rhizomes they produce are also edible. They are nutty and white when young . . . like new potatoes.
Middle of summer is yellow-glory time. These lilies are bountiful. When I bring one in and put it in a vase, it illuminates my table, as though the sun were shining inside my house. Saint Glow. The lily will stay large and open until midnight. By morning, however, it is limp and wizened, and leaves a clear, round drop of moisture on the table. My finger touches it and I remember touching the corpse of my mother — the mystery of life passed on. I do not take these flowers for granted. It is all here together — my mother, this lily and this day.
The solstice has passed. Now the year turns again toward the dark. More than ever I treasure these days as they grow shorter. In my own life, I know I have fewer days left now than I have lived.
I look inside the yellowest of the lilies. It is trumpet-shaped. Looking deep I see the stamen, the pistil, and I see the mysterious darkness in the neck of the trumpet. Is it from there that all this yellow light pours out?
One Step at a Time
April 1, 2010
The Vernal Equinox has passed. Spring is just beginning here in New England. The crocuses are up. Birds are calling and chirping at four in the morning. The trees have delicate, feathery buds. There’s warmth in the air, and it feels as if one could step outside with confidence . . . perhaps even step into something new altogether.Growing up I watched my artist mother step back from her painting. She would hold up a thumb, close one eye and see what she couldn’t see up close. “The little step backward” as she used to call it was a step to gain perspective. Such steps in life help us see. They give us the space to realize a larger picture. A discrete, conscious step backwards whenever we are too enthusiastic, or overwhelmed, or confused is a wonderful and helpful step.
We can more readily “step forward” if we have perspective. Our forward step then becomes a step of conscious intention. Having a refined focus, a worthy goal or a meaningful purpose we can move towards our heart’s desire without confusion. Steps taken with conscious intention are full of energy and momentum. When we feel right about where we are going it is contagious. Often people want to join us or help us in some way.
Sometimes we have to “step aside”, take a back seat and let someone else have the floor. This requires humility and a sense of timing. To move to the sidelines can be a generous gift we can give. Then, too, it may be that we need to step aside to protect ourselves. The wise move at such times is to get out of harms way. Stepping aside is not cowardly. It may be the best thing we can do for ourselves and for others.
There are also moments when we must “step up” to the plate. Such moments are ones when we accept a responsibility or a commitment. We may be making a marriage vow or take on the guardianship of a child. We may be asked to assume the burden of some difficult work whose full import we do not know ahead of time. Or we might have to make a painful confession. We are in a solemn place and have the opportunity to face the challenge with willingness and love . . . to “step up” to the task. Those are the moments when our true character determines our fate.
Then there is “stepping down”, something many of us do not like to embrace. We step down when we retire. We step down when we leave a leadership position we have held for a long time with a group. We step down when we move to another community. We step down when we no longer can do something we used to be able to do with ease. Stepping down we lose our roles and sometimes we lose a sense of worth in the process.
Such stepping down can lead be beneficial. New doors open. New roles can be taken up. Perhaps some needed relaxation can be ours when the pressure of too much business is released.
There is one step, which when taken daily, is the wisest step of all. It is when we “step in”. The steps mentioned before are all in relation to something or someone. This step is a unifying step in which we align ourselves with our center. It is not in reference to anyone else or to anything in particular. It is a step into that place of silent interiority where all action begins. It is the home of action. All steps are born there. It is there where we are profoundly renewed and can find a new spring to our steps.
Love Is In The Air
February 8, 2010
It’s February and love is in the air — chocolates and roses. We want to honor those we hold dear and not just on Valentine’s Day. But love is so complex. Anything we say about it can also be contradicted. Musing on this, a quote by the philosopher and mystic, Simon Weil comes to mind. She says to love is not a state, it is a direction.
Direction? The word direction can mean both a path or destination and a guidance or command. The word direction has dynamism and movement to it. We follow a direction — gain guidance from it and also an indication of what path to follow. If we agree with Simon Weil that love is a direction then love is never static. It asks us for deep listening, for attendance and for action.
Any time we are confused by a situation in life, could we stop to ask, what would love do here, or not do, now? Asking it, we sound that question though our being the way a sailor might sound the depth of water to know where bottom is. In fact, it is a good question with which to begin any day. Practicing this sounding question over time we would without doubt live more in our hearts, from our hearts and so be heartened.
All of us know love will not protect us from suffering. It may even bring us suffering. The great poet, John Dunne reminds us that Love’s direction guards us not against grief but against hardening of the heart. It is love that makes us human and love that give us meaning. There is in us, whether we acknowledge it or not, a deep, intrinsic human longing to become so much part of the love stream that we would come to know it both as the guidance and the destination of our lives.
The Miracle of Breath-Breaks
November 11, 2009
The Holiday season is fast upon us. The “to do” lists grow longer. First Thanksgiving, and then soon after we’ll hear carols in the stores and Hanukah songs on the radio. We see candles of every shape in the windows, and glittering lights on houses and in trees. We are getting ready to make merry, and we’re secretly, if not openly, tired. But for most of us there’s no time to even feel our tiredness or to take care of it. Soon it will be the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year. It is a time of stillness where nevertheless change is brewing. Almost imperceptibly the days will grow lighter, but just now they are growing darker. This is the time of the year when we need to turn inward, to rest and be quiet. All of nature is closing down in order to open again in spring. We know that in winter great changes are happening out of sight. Deep in the ground bulbs are storing up strength. Tree sap gathers in order to rise, but we in our technology-driven culture do not rest. We are “on” and more so than ever around the holidays. Our souls cannot catch up with our bodies and so our stress mounts. Many people handle stress by artificial means: drugs, alcohol, endless computer games, hours of TV and many other strategies. These strategies are not rest. They are distractions — ways to make believe we are off the treadmill for a little while.
To give our selves true rest is a deep wisdom and a hard practice in our go-go-go culture. But it is in rest that we can feel our lives, sense what is out of harmony, acknowledge what wants to be given time, experience what it is to be alive and to be in communion with Spirit. The practice of honoring the Sabbath — that whole day carved out of the week to do no work, to go within, to dwell with the spiritual dimension of life and to be with family — is not observed. This kind of day does not happen for many. But we can learn to pause, to take small breaks. With such pausing we give ourselves a little time for time, a needed space for our true being and the rest that comes when we turn towards Spirit.
Learning to pause is one of the best, natural stress relievers. We can practice taking breath breaks instead of coffee breaks. We can learn this self-courtesy. A habit of pausing is a little like the courtesy of offering a bus seat to a pregnant woman. It is giving our selves a sit-down time for that which needs nurturing in us.
Of course, we know all this in our heads, but we often don’t know how to implement a resting and renewing practice in our days and weeks. We tend to crash instead, to have to stop. We forget that it is in stillness that we find strength, and in quiet that we will hear the still small voice that speaks to our souls. It is almost always in silence that we humans come to realize the deep things that matter to us.
Most people have a hard time changing an established habit. In the months and years that we have conducted our lives at top speed, the grooves have grown deep. Most of us are habituated to hurry. In a culture that asks us to do more, get more, and be more, we become entrained to achieve, to acquire and to do. Making any small change around these habits in our lives can become a revelation and perhaps in time a revolution. But we must both need to do it and want to do it.
Picture a train track and that one of the rails is moved out of its parallel position a mere millimeter. Down the line these rails will be miles apart. A first move can seem insignificant — only a millimeter. But the good news is that by making little changes we can in time experience great, positive changes.
Let’s look at the benefits of a breath break. It costs nothing. It is available anywhere and is not only doable, it is easy. Taking breath breaks is a new habit that only needs our intention, our willingness, and practice. We all know the last condition is central to change. Intention, willingness and persistence are the three fundamental ingredients to any true accomplishment. But in the end it is sustained practice that will make it happen.
Let’s look at what goes into a breath break. First, it is fully understanding that time is a sacred gift given to us and that our lives have countable days. It is also remembering that we have choice. We are deciders first and then doers. We have a say in how we live if we will only realize the power of that fact. And lastly making any fundamental change takes time and is best done one small step at a time. With these perceptions under our belts we can approach the nuts and bolts of what a breath break might be.
- It is stopping for two to five minutes. We actually do it already whenever we glance at a magazine or look out the window. Though in these ways of stopping we are probably not aware of being with ourselves.
- It is taking the time to roll our shoulders backwards a few times as if we were shrugging off a backpack. As the shoulders go up we inhale, and as they go down we exhale as deeply as we can. It will sound like a sigh. Doing this we encourage ourselves to of let go. Then it is continuing by simply breathing in deeply until the lungs expand but are not straining. It is imagining that we are breathing in Spirit.
- It is holding that sacred breath at the top of the inhalation for a second and really noticing it.
- It is exhaling deeply and at the bottom of the exhalation allowing for a rich, empty moment of resting.
- It is repeating these deep breaths for at least two minutes. Closing our breath break, it is acknowledging that we are breathtaking creatures in both senses of the word.
- And when our five minutes are up, it is consciously deciding to re-enter our day with more mindfulness and gratitude.
Let’s look a little more closely to see what this kind of sacred pausing does. First of all, it locates us in time and space. We cannot so readily be ahead of our selves or lag behind in daydreams or procrastination. When we pay attention this way we can feel that we are both physical creatures and beautiful spirits. After a time of practicing breath breaks we will sense how we are filling ourselves with inspiration in both meanings of the word. We will start to live our days with more poise and comfort instead of so much rush and dread.
Another thing this pausing helps create is an understanding that, though we have roles in life, we are not our tasks, our positions or our affiliations. We may have these things, but before all of that, we are unique and particular persons. There is no one like us. For just these few minutes of conscious breathing our lists of obligations and responsibilities move from being foreground to being background, and we remember that we are human beings instead of human doings. These moments of conscious breathing can restore us to the sacredness of being.
Breath breaks re-orient our minds, too, and allow us to turn inward. At a breath break we might enter a deeper level inside and ask a question such as this one: Is there anything I should know or be aware of now? The question gives our intuition a little time. That can make a world of difference. If we get no answer we are good to go as we have been going. But often these pauses allow our gut sense to speak up, and then we are alerted to things that may be of importance to us. When our gut sense is overridden continually it tends to shut down its text messaging to us. Allowing our intuition to have some attention becomes a courtesy call from one part of our being to another.
We can extend this self-courtesy by asking our selves another question. For instance, this one: Is there something small and doable that can enhance my self-care today? Because we either over-ride our bodies or indulge them we lose our ability to sense intuitively.
Pausing to ask a question like this can give us a new perspective. Done a few times a day it will begin a habit of self-nurturing which then lowers the need for compensatory substances of every stripe. Most people find that simply listening carefully to themselves can change their inner mood from one of being burdened to one of being valued and considered. They also tend to find that the answers that are given are simple. Intuitively people hear things like this: Sit down a while. Drink some water. Close your eyes and rest in Spirit’s grace. Go for a walk.
Our habit of self-courtesy will naturally extend to others in our lives as well. We will find that we are doing small thoughtful things for our friends, our families and our co-workers. When a conscious breathing practice becomes more and more of an established habit it also tends to bring us into more spiritual awareness. People report that they find themselves wondering and then really asking: What does Spirit want of me today?
The experience of sustained joy comes when our bodies, our minds and our feelings are aligned and unified in living our spiritual truth. We do not have to fear that we cannot or will not discern what this truth is for us. Taking seven, small breath breaks a day we will be shown a way as surely as the sun rises.
A natural disposition towards thankfulness seems to happen of its own accord as well. In fact, it cannot help but happen. In this kind of practice we are brought to gratitude without effort. We discover more and more as we learn to pause, to receive, to intuit, to care and to savor that we are thankful. Our breath breaks may become longer. Our depth dimension may begin to take over more. Our breath breaks become Spirit breaks.
Something as small as this practice can lead to a complete transformation of our lives. By taking little sips of holy leisure seven times a day we will not only reduce our stress we will become inspired to be more and more who we really are. What a wonderful Holiday gift is that!
Bon Appétit
September 20, 2009
The last musing described the many plantings of beans at the beginning of this year's rainy summer here in the North East. A lot of the plantings failed because of the weather. In time though, one of those bean rows did bear fruit. An ample crop eventually grew. Now fall is upon us and the equinox is only a few days away. As the bounty of the harvest is evident everywhere, nourishment continues to be an interesting theme.
Nourishment of the body, though essential, is not the only kind of nourishment there is. We need nourishment for our feelings, our minds, and our spirits. What do we need to feel fed as whole persons? Over the years working with people around the subject of nourishment, a simple image has emerged as a helpful diagnostic tool – the humble sandwich.
There are four distinct areas of nourishment a person needs to feel satisfaction. There are four parts of a standard sandwich. Linking these can give us an idea of how much we are being fed in our present circumstances.
An ordinary sandwich usually has two pieces of bread, some kind of meat and one other ingredient such as cheese, lettuce, or tomato. Let's call one of the pieces of bread the state of safety. We need safety to flourish. We usually feel secure when we have stability - a roof over our heads, clothing, food, work and a routine that sustains daily life.
Let's call the other piece of bread the need for adventure. For many of us, when we have chances to grow, to learn, to explore and to expand we feel excited. There is a sense of adventure. Our lives seem full of possibility.
Then there is the meat. Let's call it the need to be acknowledged for what we do. Lots of people work as much for acknowledgement as for money. We feel enriched when our contributions are noticed and well received. Without acknowledgement joy seems to go out of our doing.
What of the cheese, the lettuce and tomato? Let's call them the need to be appreciated for who we are: our humor, spirit, spunk, kindness, curiosity, steadfastness and so on.
When we have all four of these ingredients we have a full nourishing life. We are satisfied. We can even get along with an open-faced sandwich – three of the ingredients – and still feel fed well enough. But when the sandwich diminishes to two ingredients or less, we are hungry for more meaning and satisfaction.
Using the sandwich image we can readily see what is missing in our life's diet. We can then try to fill in the missing elements. As human persons we are meant to be acknowledged and appreciated and to live in safety with many possibilities to grow. We are also meant to help provide this for each other at home and at work. The curious thing is that when we begin to provide this kind of nourishment for those we love we are also somehow fed.
Rain, Rain Go Away
Come Again Some Other Day
Come Again Some Other Day
June 16, 2009
It has not stopped pouring for very long the whole spring here in the North East. Planting a garden in these conditions is an act of faith to my mind, and it has set me to thinking a bit about the difference I experience between hope and faith.
I can hope that the sun will shine. I can hope that the bean seeds won't rot in the wet soil, and that the slugs won't chomp up the young lettuce. I can hope that if I wait patiently another day something will germinate after all, even though it is now almost the end of June. I can hope that all my efforts will not be wasted.
Hope has certainly motivated me to begin planting a garden, and many other activities as well. Hope has also helped me to wait on results, at least for a while. But how many times can I hope the beans will sprout when there is no evidence of anything green poking up out of the ground? At some point I have to face the fact that the beans I have planted have not germinated, and that they are not going to. I need to give up on that particular hope.
Having faith, however, is something very different. Faith is, in fact, practice. It commits me to take action, and to trust in the deep laws of life. This is spring – a wet one to be sure – but Spring nevertheless. It is the growing season of the year. There is infinite evidence to trust that growth can happen in spring. It's time to plant those bean seeds again, and to do it many times after that if need be.
Having a spiritual practice seems to me to be a lot like planting a garden. Hope might get us started doing it. With hope we may begin to believe that we can find inner peace and a new foundation of meaning for our lives. Hope may motivate us, but it rarely seems to sustain us. We know growing takes time, and we will run into foul inner weather every now and then . . . perhaps even for long periods of time. We will probably give up hope then, but that does not mean that we need to give up on our inner gardens and the spiritual practices needed to cultivate them. Spiritual practice is like the promise of spring. There is infinite evidence that prayer and meditation change lives for the better, and that with faithful practice we can discover deeper levels of meaning and peace.
It is faith that calls us back into working with our spiritual ground. With faith we can let go of “how things are supposed to be” and just take up the next moment of practice. It is faith that does the step-by-step work. It approaches each day as another opportunity for practice whatever the circumstance happen to be. And then in time, almost as if we had nothing to do with it, our inner gardens flower and bear fruit. Then we realize that in faith the garden and the practice have somehow become one.
Fishing
April 7, 2009
Recently I talked with a young man with a passion for fishing salmon and trout in Lake Ontario. On summer weekends he drives many miles from home to fish the lake. How his eyes sparkled as he described the thrill he feels when there is a strike, when the rod goes down and he is hanging on for dear life! He finds the speed and strength of these huge game fish exhilarating. It requires quite a lot of skill to bring one of these creatures over the side. His description was so vivid that I could feel his excitement, and how, in the moment of catching a big fish, everything else in his life is forgotten, how the drama at hand is the only thing that matters to him. These are the moments in which he feels really alive.
Later in the day I began thinking about how any one of us might be struck by something big in life: a professional setback, a death in the family, a misunderstanding, a financial loss, a mysterious longing or an emotional flare-up, a passion, a new idea or opportunity, and so on. When this happens we are compelled to try to haul the experience over the side, into conscious realization and acceptance. Grappling with something that is big and difficult to get our hands around takes focus and willingness. It requires that we be really alive and engaged. We soon find that if we shirk in this willingness, we are the ones in deep water, pulled along by what we refuse to understand and will not assimilate.
In fishing, to bring a catch over the side is just the first step. The fish also needs to be gutted, scaled, cleaned and put on ice. But even these are not the final steps. Eating and digesting are also to be done.
In life, as in fishing, what we land and bring to awareness needs to be opened up, and we in turn must open ourselves to it. Only then can we cook, eat and be nourished. We must assimilate the entire process in order to be fed. Properly handled, our depth experiences can become nourishment for years. In time we might wonder if these apparently wild strikes in life, which once seemed to take all our power to manage, were not random but were somehow a meaningful part of our development and wholeness. Perhaps what belongs to our fullness is in some mysterious way always swimming around us, waiting for our engagement to bring it's meaning out of the depth and into lived awareness.
Fragments in Winter
February 10, 2009
Outside, the sound of the plow -
inside, candle light
dances on the wall.
Under the ice-battered shrub,
a white carpet -
the snow drops are in bloom.
While crows sweep the tree tops
I wash the floor -
pine scent permeates the air.
The Wrapping of Gifts
December 15, 2008
The holiday season is here. Shop windows are full of glitter and enticements to buy. The wrapping paper bought months ago as a fundraiser from a girl scout has arrived. The sound of crinkling paper is in the air.
The way we make obvious that the objects we have bought for friends and family are gifts is by wrapping them up. The paper sets them apart and makes them distinct. The bows, ribbons and glossy colors announce - this is special and it's for you.
But there is another kind of gift-wrapping. It is one that has to do with loving and with awareness. Let me give an example. When a mother notices her baby's ability to grasp and gives the infant a rattle or her finger to hold she has surrounded the baby's potential with her awareness. This is much like wrapping a gift. By repeated games having to do with the baby's hand opening and closing she helps to make grasping real until it is as natural as breathing. It has then become a realized ability.
Wrapping the things we love in people is like wrapping gifts. It is wonderful and it is empowering. As we are able to notice, to value, and to further potential whenever we see it, we turn ordinary days into holidays.
Two Poems for Fall
November 18, 2008
Late Season
I've been out walking a long time
in the brown rustle of autumn.
An oak leaf rattles down the hill, dry
against the pavement, done
with its green past and happy I think
to be free from hanging on a limb.
No mowers in the neighborhood
I smell smoke, pull my coat close
around me. Every day now is fire.
Geese on Tickle Naked Pond
Ten of them circle near the shore.
White necks. Brown and black feathers.
They mill around a noise they are making -
something like a grunt, a bleat or the pitch passed
around in an orchestra. They take their places,
heads to the South where the land fades
the way light does in a theater. Quiet.
Then music. Twenty wings bow up the sweet air.
On Being in Our Prime
October 27, 2008
Coming into wholeness, into a fullness of being, is an ongoing process. Sometimes we call it being in our prime. But that implies that there is only one time that we are at the peak of our capacities and then only for a limited time. Why not consider instead that the wholeness and peak of capacity that a three-year-old might have is a prime that is different from the prime someone at eighty-three might have? Learning to tie shoelaces or put on a coat may be a prime for a toddler while cradling a great-grandchild may be experienced as a deep and poignant prime for an octogenarian.
We reach peaks of being and knowing throughout our lives. At one time we can be in the peak of our earning power and at another time at the peak of our wisdom and compassion. If we can learn not to be nostalgic or regretful about the past or unduly worried about a future we cannot control, we can appreciate the richness possible in the wholeness and holiness of the moment. Living with that appreciation we can move from one prime to another through all the phases of our lives.
We usually talk about people being in their prime by some means of evaluation and comparison. We assess that such-and-such was true then and that such-and-such is true now. Appreciation, on the other hand, is not a process that compares. It is rather a process that includes. There is within it enjoyment, realization, value, knowing, delight and approval. When we evaluate, we measure, which often tends toward a sense of diminishment. When we appreciate, we enhance and participate.
Taking a soulful moment we might wonder what prime are we in now? What needs to be deeply honored? What is the rich, good news of now? To make a habit of tuning into our current prime is to learn to experience many primes. This process allows our emotional bank accounts to appreciate naturally with the passing of our years.