31 January 2006

Sometimes
there is so much data
pushing in on us
that we are overwhelmed
we resort to patterns
templates
all turtles are green
to sort things out

I went to the park Friday
turtles lining the broken branches
jutting from Barton Creek
8 here, 13 there
some gray, some moss green
some were blue black
basking in the sun

The next turtle you see might be green
or it might not.

One could do worse
than bask in the sun
turtle to turtle
when overwhelmed

One could do worse
than waltz in the kitchen
run a couple miles
peel an orange

breathe
and let the data wash in wash out
collecting where it may
without thought

I would say
one might do
anything but worry it with words
except that I am typing words now

30 January 2006

Venus blazed in the east before dawn. I didn’t even recognize her, her light was so furious over the hill.

Scorpio was up in the southeast--the promise of summer.

And now, late in the day, after the sun has set, the new moon is glowing in the west, a platinum sliver of sunlight on a plate of mirrored blue. Blue from sunlight rerouted via Earth. In effect--the sun still shining after the sun has set.

29 January 2006

I was located near the route for the half-marathon today--so walked over there around 7 AM to cheer on first the wheelchair competitors, then the hundreds of runners.

I have been among the runners many times, rarely on the sidelines. I know how it feels to have someone clapping, saying Looking Good! as though just to you.

Now, from the other side, I know what it is like to clap and cheer, to receive the most beautiful smiles I have ever seen, from faces creased and damp with effort, people truly appreciative of your applause. Faces that light up at the brief connection. People out of breath still managing to say, Thank you!

You’d think just the act of running is enough, in and of itself. But no. At least some of us seem to find some part of our courage and endurance through the clapping and ‘good girl!’ from others.

While on the sidelines, I met a young man from India, a techie there to cheer a team from a company-sponsored charitable organization. This man told me of India, of its dense populaton, of its many religions.

What he had to say reminded me of a quote a friend sent the other day:

“Even as a tree has a single trunk, but many branches and leaves, so there is one true and perfect Religion, but it becomes many, as it passes through the human medium.”
Mahatma Gandhi.
 
He also unasked recommended a meditation group nearby that meets weekly.

So, maybe the race is not just for the runners.

There were a couple runners in the race who are very special to me--I almost missed them they were running so fast, but they called my name and I called theirs, and then they were gone.

28 January 2006

It poured--just poured--as I drove to Round Rock this morning. Water sloshing down embankments. Pooling in low spots on the highway. A gullywasher.

I drove past fields of brown grass and leafless trees. Just getting plastered down--not revived--by the rain. A cemetary's grass had turned a true yellow. I hadn’t realized just how dry it has been.

With the water finally pouring down, the grass and trees didn’t seem to quite get it--they have been so long deprived. They were coming out of a daze, opening one eye into the waterfall, saying listlessly, maybe even irritably, what is this? Just leave me alone. Then opening the other eye--Is this for me? Is all of this for me?

There is no thought of spring, not yet. No thought of anything. Just the physical response to water. Relief. Wonder.

By noon the sky was clearing; by sunset, the air was fresh and moist, the sky pink and sensual as a Gauguin painting.

27 January 2006

We have a lousy western tradition of humbling ourselves before God, whining about our unworthiness, sins and trangressions. Even before we make our first mistake, we are saddled with original sin. Mea culpa, mea culpa.

When we have children, do we like them to hang their heads and tell us what sorry pathetic excuses for human beings they are? Or do we want them to stand confident? When they stumble in life, do we want them to feel like shameful failures, or do we want them to learn and move ahead, stronger and more creative and resilient for the challenges? Do we want them to grovel at our feet, or do we want them to shine their light?

Then why would we think God enjoys our guilt and groveling? We invent such limited deities.

I’d like to shine with whatever light is in me, and I’d like you to too. I’d like to be happy, and I’d like you to be too. (Hey--my life would be more fun if you were happy and full of yourself rather than humble and small.) The difficulties and pain of life are hard enough to juggle without throwing shame into the mix. When we diminish ourselves, we diminish the utter beauty and elegance of this strange existence. We are here for our moments and we are each great fascinating works placed on difficult paths. Do your best with the game piece you were given and enjoy the game.

I’ll try to do the same.
There is no diminishing of self in acknowledging a teacher.
I had a dream the other night. An ugly frightening dream, slightly different shape, but same hard-to-see truth that has surfaced again and again over the last three decades. Only this time I get it, finally. And this ugly dream is a gift because it says yes, you have reason for the changes you are making and yes these changes are necessary, not a lifestyle choice. You are a good girl, Linda. And daisy or not, you have extraordinary courage.

26 January 2006

Guess I did meet my inner bitch at least once. Actually, I brought her with me to Thanksgiving, knowing I might need support.

It was liberating. It was like having a clean inner flame burning. I wasn’t hostile or irate. I felt power and the very opposite of damaged or depressed. It was as though I were making clear to all, “Mess with me at your own risk.”

I can hear her now saying, “Bitchin, Baby! Bitchin!”

25 January 2006

Listening to Nanci Griffith sing 'It's a hard Life' I came across this quote at www.jengray.com

I don't know who Martha Beck is--and can't say for sure if I've ever met my inner bitch before--but I suppose she could come in handy now and again--(as could one's inner bastard I suppose:)

"Whenever you feel shame, consider it a signal to
act forcefully—not by beating yourself up,
but by siccing your inner bitch on the shame itself.
So you've made mistakes? "Big, fat, hairy deal,"
your inner bitch will say. Learn from your errors and
do better next time. Afraid you'll fail and look stupid?
Your inner bitch doesn't give a
damn how you look; she'd rather try and fail
than not try at all. Let your bitchiest side
attack your shame, actively and aggressively,
until you are certain that no choice you make
is based on either the fear of being shamed or
the intent to shame anyone else.

One thing's for sure: If any woman unleashes her creativity,
her world will split open. She'll find unprecedented ways of
solving problems, bridging gaps, and expressing her soul,
and her corner of the world will be irrevocably changed.
I'm not sure what the changes will be, but I know the words
I'd use to describe them: Bitchin', baby. Bitchin'. " martha beck
We walked and talked and walked and talked until, just after the sun set, we heard the whinny of a screech owl. We stopped and listened--to the call and response between two owls.

The silhouette of one of them was visible in an oak near us. We stood and listened to its eerie song. It dropped and glided straight to us, nearly touching our bare heads.

It landed in the oaks on the other side. And we stood amazed.

24 January 2006

I didn't mention Jizo is also the guardian of travelers. I guess that includes us all.
A few weeks ago, in surfing photoblogs, I came across a photo taken in Tokyo of a bas-relief of a figure called Jizo. The photo was nice, not terribly remarkable but I did something I’ve rarely done with an online photo. I bookmarked it.

Every few days I’d check in on him, his tilted head resting on the palm of his hand, the worn writing in the background in the emblems so lovely and mysterious to me. I learned there are Jizo figures all over Japan. That he is considered the guardian of women and children. That before reaching Japan, he had an earlier incarnation in India--where originally he was she.

This month I had a good visit with a friend who spent much of her autumn in Japan. Yesterday, she emailed me two photos she had taken. Jizos near monasteries where she stayed.

I look at these statues, so different from each other and from the first. These are standing figures, one looks old and primitive, the other elegant and elaborate. And yet, they are so the same.

They look to me like the embodiment of a quiet mind.



http://boxman.awazo.com/archives/2005/12/relaxing_jizo.html

23 January 2006

I’ve been disconnected from the internet last night and today and it’s an eerie feeling.

Not like when you are on a trip where you are doing things outside of your ordinary routine and don’t miss the computer. But to be within your routine--and disconnected. I feel like a single nerve cell--and what’s the point of a single nerve cell? A nerve cell disconnected from other nerve cells, disconnected from sensory input or motor output--disconnected from the brain--the master collection of individuals and information hooked up online at any given time.

My one nerve cell just ticking alone today.

This is one of the most tremendous changes of the last century--how even when alone, we with our internet and cell phones and text messaging are no longer truly alone ever--unless we so choose.

There are few in their teens and early 20s so choosing. Few interested in the kind of aloneness where there are no electronics. In the kind of aloneness where if you are still, you might experience that great connectedness to all things. That connectedness that requires no technology.

Well. How I got so disconnected today is the phone is on the blink again (thus no internet). The strange phone problem leading to two more sheriff visits like the one in December because of false 911 calls--ah, technology--one at 2 in the morning!

When the doorbell first rang I woke up--but wasn’t sure I’d heard a doorbell or dreamed it, so looked to the cat for a clue. Her ears were not on alert, her fur was not on end--so I assumed--no doorbell.

Until it rang forcefully 3 times accompanied by loud banging on the door.

What’s with this cat? I’ve always relied on superior feline hearing and sensitivity to give me clues when something’s awry. This our only pet now apparently thought a stranger at the door at 2 AM is not awry.

And early this morning, was it Jupiter hanging with the waning crescent moon? Such a brilliant pair in--yes--again a clear sky--though Austin did get nearly a third of an inch of rain yesterday--what a stange and lovely unfamiliar experience that rain was--

Then there was the phone call from a neighbor boy--his cell to my cell. He was out of gas on Fitzhugh Road. And then the subsequent rescue. Ah, to be needed.

And the arrival of another sheriff--this one a blonde gal-- responding to another false 911 call.

And there are birds at 2 PM all over the oaks and feeders right now: Chipping Sparrows and Cardinals, and a Carolina Chickadee, and a Bewick’s Wren, and a Golden-fronted Woodpecker, and a single American Goldfinch, and a species I don’t recognize--I must look it up--and Tufted Titmice. All at one time. And earlier there were Blue Jays as well.

Perhaps the new visitor was a Lincoln’s Sparrow.

How can I feel disconnected?

And now they are all gone, not a single bird, and the cat asleep with her back to me.

They’ve all gone offline.

22 January 2006

It's raining. The good, slow, quiet kind of rain that sinks into the earth.

You can almost see the trees reaching upward.
I did have rather a bad night last night.

Oddly, I have read somewhere in my surfing that January 24 is traditionally the worst day of the year for despair. The article spoke of continued winter weather and holiday bills and of New Year’s resolutions already broken. I think it is more primitive, the body protesting the continued rationing of sunshine. I think like bears we’d all fare better were we permitted to sleep through late December to early February.

Well, the stars neither shine nor die based on our unhappiness. The sun will rise. The deer will run.

Might as well let go of it.

21 January 2006

last night
lying on my mattress
I heard voices
below my window
educated voices
forceful and restrained both

I couldn’t understand a word
and wondered about the state of my hearing
that I could no longer distinguish words
until I realized-oh
they’re speaking Japanese
arguing
his voice mellow, emphatic
hers like song
she spoke in single syllables
in counterpart to his stream of notes
neh
she said
neh

and the footsteps in gravel,
and then on the steps
and a gust of wind
rattling the tree
these sounds against a backdrop of silence
I was hearing a song
a symphony I would have missed
had I been distracted by words.

19 January 2006

What if I were meant to be soft?
Meant to bloom on an island
with no droughts, no foraging deer?

What if I were a daisy?
Would you have me grow thorns?

What if I were meant to be
a lullaby

would you judge me
against the rock anthems, the Ride of the Valkyries?

What if
I’m designed to be sweet
a pear ripening on the bough

will my worth be gauged
against the sausages and salsas?
the bitter arugulas?

will my gentle humor
be matched against sarcasm?

I like cynics, and spiny artichokes
falcons and hawks and cats with claws

I like Tabasco and Teenage Wasteland
Slaughterhouse Five, lions on the prowl

I get the plight of the scorpion:
sting, or starve and be eaten.

do I have to be like them to appreciate them?
May I have the compassion without being the fighter?
The warm lap without the sharp tongue?

Is it weak for a daisy to be a daisy?
Is it ok for pink to be pink?

I’m not meant for the sword, except to dance.
I’m not meant for the fight, except in defense of others.
I’m not meant to be fire, except in bed.

I’m not meant to be bitter.
I’m not meant to be cruel. Period.

There’s a place in the world for me.
Whether you think so or not.

Of course tomorrow I may change my mind
ride in on a panther, spear in hand.
The leaves of the live oaks in my yard don’t rattle as I reported yesterday. I was wrong. They don’t even seem to have much contact with each other, firmly molded into position on the branch. The dry boughs do creak though.

The primary sounds of the wind gusting through the trees this morning are ones I have no words for. Soft angry wordless voices of tortoises the size of houses? Sometimes we hear what we expect to hear rather than what meets the ear.

Speaking of the turtle family. Once upon a time, a red-eared slider was crossing the road. While their shells have proved to be an evolutionary success in the sense that turtles and tortoises go way way back without being taken out by predators, those shells are no match for the automobile. I pulled over, carried it to the car--happy it wasn’t a snapper--and took it to preschool where I was headed to pick up the boys.

The teacher was delighted, and within moments, the kids were all outside, with paper and crayons. They formed a circle around the turtle, with instructions to look at it and draw a picture of it. Tomorrow, they would write about what they saw.

The kids were excited and talkative and they seemed happy with the big beautiful live model, the diversion, the task. I watched with pleasure as each child lay in the dust and grass to draw, each reaching for crayons out of the bowl. Each trying to draw what he or she saw.

Except that every drawing was green. The cartoon greens the kids were familiar with from their story books, funny papers, and TV cartoons.

This turtle was a definite brown.

They weren’t being artistically expressive with the color choice (eg ‘Purple Turtle--it spoke to me!’) Perhaps even at so young an age, their brains were programmed to go with an assumption rather than data. Turtle=green.

It is so very hard to hear. Even as the sound is vibrating our ear drums. It is so very hard to see. Even what is right in front of us. So essential to pay attention.

What else am I not hearing? What else am I not seeing? What else am I assuming?

18 January 2006

In my pajamas to fetch the paper from the driveway, the pre-dawn sky above is a flawless pale bowl, not a cloud nor jet trail to ripple the glow of its clean grey surface. No dew nor fog. Only a waning moon in the southwest, fading as daylight increases. A gusty breeze rattles the dry leaves of the oaks, the dry grass crunches beneath my feet. The bird bath was overturned in the night. No drop of water anywhere.

17 January 2006

I wrote about Martin Luther King, about Katrina, about my aunt’s coffin floating in the floodwaters.

I wrote about kaleidescopes, broadcloth, and the eternal conversation.

I mixed metaphors and messages. I tried condensation, I tried elaboration.

I quoted Lady MacBeth, and I looked up the word ‘baste’.

I have nothing to show for all that. None of what I wrote made much sense, and the words were not beautiful enough to float the meaningless content.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll be more in touch. Today I looked within and could not open the truth jar. The label read: ‘Hermetically Sealed For Your Protection!’

16 January 2006

‘The marvel of marvels was that there on the rounded back of the planet, between this magnetic sheet and those stars, a human consciousness was present in which as in a mirror that rain could be reflected.’

Antoine de Saint Exupéry
Wind, Sand and Stars
(Lewis Galantière-translator)

It did rain here today. At last.

Hardly enough to pock the dust or quench the thirst of a fireant but the scent enough to arouse the memory of rainfall, the desire for more.

15 January 2006

The message of the oranges is:

Wake up!
Wake up, sleeping beauty.
Wake up to what is here, what is now.

14 January 2006

Well.
I wrote about oranges one day—and because of that, I was more aware. More awake to oranges a day or two later and the next day as well. Took advantage of a theme during a busy week. No sense of synchronicity or connection. Just a small literary and perhaps psychological device. A bit of laziness.

I was going to write today of the de Menil museums in Houston. Of chapels. Of art.

But first we visited the Whole Foods flagship store. I stood as my friend examined an oddly named fruit--plumagos? I stood at ease, preoccupied, detached. Some fifteen feet away, a small movement in a pyramid of oranges attracted my gaze. No one was standing near them. There was no one between me and the stack. A single orange dropped from near the top of the pile to one layer below.

A pause, then one and another and another, they rocked then rolled in a narrow fan of directions, bouncing from the stack to the floor. Such a quiet racket. Maybe 25 of the oranges. I was too far away to stem the flow. They pushed toward me.

Two workers appeared from opposite directions and started to pick them up. I stooped to help. One genial fellow who tossed them like softballs to the stack said, ‘They were chasing after you. They know a beautiful woman when they see one.’

He took his knife, chop chop, offered us crescents of the plumago to sample. We thanked him, pitched the peel into a shiny metal trashcan.

As we walked away, it hit me. Oranges.

I don’t know why I am writing about this. I don’t know why oranges might take on life and ambulation in my presence. I don’t know the point of the story.

I thought I was in charge of the orange stories. The orange stories are in charge of me.

13 January 2006

My father late in his life is growing citrus. This winter, he has a tree laden with grapefruit. So many grapefruit. Bountiful. More than can be counted.

We picked them together on a cold sunny afternoon. He gave me two baskets of them to bring home. We have already shared them with neighbors.

My friend and I ate one yesterday. It was juicy. Intense with flavor. And not bitter.

The orange tree was past its peak, but I took home a small box of those as well. Oranges from my father.

12 January 2006

I’ve got a picture of God the Father with his Orange.

I don’t know if that’s actually true or not. The caption is in German and it reads: Gottvater mit der Weltkugel

I know. I can Google it and I suppose I will, but right now I want to stick with the orange because it seems to be a theme this week--and because this postcard of a stained glass window by Giacometti does look like God holding a most marvelous orange. One the size of a soccerball. One filled with light and rich dimension.

I took out the postcards, looking for the one of the monastery in Einsiedeln with the confounding pink excess of Rococo, and found this other from a Cathedral in Zurich. It’s beautiful.

A strange God in synch with the strange composition of the universe, of our earth, of this single human. Yes. God the Father with His Orange is a comfort. A God at ease with the absurd.

It’s the only postcard I bought two of. I now have them propped against the bedroom wall: Two Gods mit Oranges watching me type.

11 January 2006

I wrote about Orange, Texas--but that fizzled. I’m tired of hurricane and disaster processing and making solemn intonations about darkness and light. No matter how spiritual I can make it sound.

I had a big fat needle shoved into my shoulder yesterday afternoon. I told them at least they could disguise it in a Scooby-Doo costume or something--but no one laughed--and they still waved it about in front of me. It was sort of funny--one more surprise assault.

But I also got a surprise phone call, and learned of aunts I never met who sought out adventure, new relationships, aunts who danced, who had a drive for life.

And maybe flying along the interstate past Orange, Texas in awe of the broken pines and roofs and utility poles is less about the disaster that everybody knows about but more about the adventure of the flying past. That I have choices about disaster zones and adventure zones. Choices about relaxation zones, work zones, and retreats. That having responsibilities and unhappy situations is not the same thing as being stuck. That I have wheels and curiosity and the two of them will carry me far.

10 January 2006

A compass in a magnetic storm, my needle spun erratically. I had to close the door and stand before the mirror. I had to remember true north or risk spinning into collapse. Remember the people who know the direction of the magnetic pole as well as I do, the people who have recognized in me the intention of truth, though I may sometimes lose my inner fight and have to retreat.

Gallileo Gallilei, a courageous and honest man, folded under the pressures of the church to not see what he saw, what he understood to be logical, to be fundamental. I hope he had such a room, such a door, such a mirror and such friends.

09 January 2006

We walked up and down the length of the northern edge of the property looking for a way out. Winter grasses knee high. We spooked a cottontail. No breaks in the fence.

One spot though was crushed by a fallen tree, felled so long ago the trunk was rotted. We held back limbs and with our feet crushed branches and vines entangled in the fencing. I pulled back once, my palm studded with thorns, then again with thorns lining the forefinger. We pushed up over the brambles and fence and were free, but no joy in the escape, now sweaty and drained of energy. We walked on comparing notes on what we’d endured these last two days. Domestic ducks with red faces met us at the edge of a pond, but we were listless and distracted. There was no place to go but in circles along sterile streets lined with brick houses. Then she said, lets cross the highway.

Cars and trucks roared before us, exhaling smoke. They were fast and hard to see. We darted across and without energy walked again.

I spied a bough laden with oranges hanging over a wood fence. The branch was in a public area above the sidewalk. She said, shall we have one? I reached for an orange radiating color in the sun. She chose one hung low from among the glossy green leaves. And we peeled the oranges as we walked on, and were refreshed and nourished and the talk grew more heated as we dropped bits of peel and spoke of the dark now decades past, compared stories of isolation and petty humiliations.

We crossed the highway to return to the place of our punishment, certain to receive more of the same. Our escape an impermanent one, even when we are hundreds of miles away from the site.

But then we shrugged, we laughed, bought hand lotion of hemp and coconut oil, each to give to the other. Two brown bottles of balm and wordless solidarity.

07 January 2006

The Seed Market

Can you find another market like this?

Where,
with your one rose
you can buy hundreds of rose gardens?

Where,
for one seed
you can get a whole wilderness?

For one weak breath,
the divine wind?

You've been fearful
of being absorbed in the ground,
or drawn up by the air.

Now, your waterbead lets go
and drops into the ocean,
where it came from.

It no longer has the form it had,
but it's still water.
The essence is the same.

This giving up is not a repenting.
It's a deep honoring of yourself.

When the ocean comes to you as a lover,
marry, at once, quickly,
for God's sake!

Don't postpone it!
Existence has no better gift.

No amount of searching
will find this.

A perfect falcon, for no reason,
has landed on your shoulders,
and become yours.

Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-1273)
Coleman Barks-translator

05 January 2006

I have been a fan of the ‘here and now’ since a visiting Gestalt psychologist in college led us through the peeling of an orange. We felt the weight of the orange, observed its color, felt its texture. We watched the first spray of citrus oil as a fingernail slit the outer skin. Felt the sticky juices on our fingers. Smelled the intensity of its fragrance. And so on until we touched a plump juicy segment to our lips, tasted, and swallowed. Then the class was over.

I walked across campus from the classroom building to our apartment. Or floated, for my mind was liberated of care, my body was light and pain free. Trees, sidewalks, people were fresh and unfamiliar. I was unbound.

High for hours. Because of an orange.

Self versus self-less. I have been fixated on this issue for so long now. In yoga, we get in touch with ourselves and gain this egoless state*, the loss of self. Get in touch with self and achieve the loss of self.

In the same way, the writings of Rodney Yee with Nina Zolotow suggest to avoid suffering, follow your pain. Stay with the pain. Feel pain and achieve the loss of suffering.

It’s about the here and now, the living in the moment. If you are alive to the sensations within your body, and alive to what is around you, there is no space for suffering, for what if, for if only, for what’s wrong with me.

There is no longer the passage of time, the loss of the past, the fear of the future.

And there is no longer loneliness, that wall between self and what is around you.

You are one with the orange.



*(I was given these words ‘egoless state’ in September--an unexpected gift, a key. I want to acknowledge this gift, and that the coalescence of the ideas within this writing has resulted from exchanges with Patrick Bouchaud, a teacher of Shintaido and a friend.)

03 January 2006

I went to a soccer game tonight.
I saw the setting crescent moon.
I saw red faces and passion.
I heard fuck and shit from the sultry bored voice of a fresh-skinned teenage girl.
I heard the chink of the fence when the ball slammed into it.
I saw joy running down the field on long legs.
I saw two faces light up to see me when I walked to congratulate their play.
I watched a ball rocket through the football goal posts,
a player limp to the field, then run flawlessly in pursuit of a loose ball.
I heard three shrieks of a whistle.
I felt my hands sting from clapping.
I smelled fresh-watered grass.
I heard a man say, sometimes you gotta be selfish and go for it.
I saw the clock stuck on 1 second.
This is the third time I’ve started this sentence. I don’t know how to write about what happened this morning, except that it was spiritual and deeply reassuring.

Of course after i experienced the gift, i started to take it apart and doubt its veracity. Analyzing how the brain might work to ignite such an experience. I tried to dismiss it, not wanting to be called crazy, but now I’m trying to be honest.

All I know is that i was close to a source of love and light, and I got to know that love and light for a few moments.

That sounds trite and new age and so be it. If it sounds that way, it’s just because my resources of description are inadequate.

An experience of not being alone, of belonging, of being cared about. An experience of all-understanding comfort.

If it was God, it was God in a surprised form, a small female human form. A God with shabby dark bangs and unaware of her light.

02 January 2006

the heart is a greedy unreasonable thing. It wants what it wants when it wants it. The owner of the heart may pay attention to extenuating circumstances-- You know that the person you love gets the flu or involved in work projects, or grieves the death of someone close. Perhaps the person you love is dead, or disinterested, or only exists on a TV screen.


but the heart doesn’t care. It has no manners. There are no rules. There is no guidebook. Each person’s heart is governed by its own intricate history and composition.

That’s what makes love such an absorbing terrible mystery. The heart is a wild animal situated in a civilized home.

01 January 2006

"How does one become a butterfly?" she asked pensively. "You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar."

~Trina Paulus