31 January 2007

I’m studying dissociation. Yesterday, the pieces of my path puzzle fell together in a way that suggested that this might be a way to move forward. Single subject observation started first thing this morning whether I was ready or not.

I couldn’t find my keys. The clock was ticking and I’d looked everywhere three times: my purse, the pockets of the pants and jacket I wore last night, the bag that carries my gi, the counter and table where I set stuff down last night. No keys. I sat on my bed and took a breath and consciously looked around, thought about other places I hadn't considered. No keys.

I was going to be late or even miss my commitment.

I knew I was ambivalent about going. There are always reasons to go anywhere, and also reasons not to go. But I was acknowledging that in my head--did I have to hide my keys from myself to make it even harder? It felt like my brain was playing tricks on me so I wouldn’t go. But my conscious desire and intention was to go. So I was aware of all this, and still couldn’t find the keys.

I unhappily left the front door unlocked, and used a spare car key to drive instead of walk, the only way to get where I was going on time. And it was a convivial, straightforward experience.

I just returned through the unlocked front door. I walked into my room.

The keys were there, right there at my feet, in the open. Impossible not to see. I remember looking at them last night--not just a glance, but seeing how oddly one key caught light, glinting as though on fire. I deliberately left them there on the floor instead of putting them in their usual spot by the lamp. So I had actually focused on my keys--and then couldn’t find them in plain view ten hours later?

The brain keeps hidden from ourselves what the brain wants hidden. This is going to be an interesting study.

30 January 2007

‘Every six to eight weeks in the warm months, the garter snake prepares for the ceremony of renewal peculiar to its own kind: It sheds its skin. The process is a curious one. The snake seeks a dark, sheltered, confined spot—inside a stone wall, say, or in a brush pile or a stack of cordwood. There it rubs its head and jaws against some rough surface until the outermost layer of epidermis, which over the past few days will have become soft and dull in color, has torn. The snake then hooks or catches the loosened covering on some projection and slowly crawls out of its own skin, turning the skin inside out behind it as it goes, much as a woman removes a nylon stocking.

The cast-off skin is a remarkable thing, a kind of airy, gossamer replica of the snake itself. Every tiny scale and plate, even the empty lenses that covered the eyes, is present. Weirdly, the snake seems to have departed, leaving behind its hologram, the ghost of a garter snake…’

The Old Farmer’s Almanac
2007

28 January 2007

Some days
you need space to be bad.
you head north to Ukiah, meet a friend,
drink dark ale
tell tall tales
laugh a lot cry a little
and don’t do anything bad at all

But there’s space to if you need it.

27 January 2007

It’s a terrible word
and just a place
I say it twice
to be sure I have it right
And my body freezes
with the speaking
my face disanimates
time stops within me
though sunny breakfast chatter
warbles on and on
and when I return
my hand bright white
against the green coffee cup
a knife point pivots
on a paper mat
light glinting
my chest is big
something enormous
more than 60 years distant
sends shock waves
across the table

26 January 2007

Stephen Gough is in jail again.

He’s the fellow who sat up one day in 2003 and decided he was going to walk across Great Britain naked.

He was arrested several times, and pelted with tomatoes. Both cheered and jeered.

What did those very first naked steps feel like? Those very first steps before anyone noticed, before becoming famous just for being his uncovered self?

He’s decided to go for it again, and is now doing time in Edinburgh.

Second time around, he’s a personality. He has a bit of an entourage.

Does he let go of his clothes but have to struggle now with ego? Or perhaps he is about simple intention. Either way, can’t be safe nor easy to trek Scotland without clothes in winter. And who knows what the jails are like. I hope at least he keeps warm at night.

Here’s to you, Stephen Gough: a sheaf of poppies, a Guinness, and a bowl of hot and divinely delicious food to sustain you on your way.

25 January 2007

I put the cup to my lips and failed to block the descent of coffee. I missed my mouth. My gi, obi, and new white vest were splashed with dark spots.

I looked across at my teacher and acknowledged the lesson. For me, and for anyone aiming to be all light with no shadow.

If I were to design my own Shintaido uniform, it would have a swath of black, perhaps along the jacket placket. To maintain awareness of the ever-presence of shadow, of darkness. The partnership between light and dark. That we will not get rid of darkness, so we will honor its beauty and existence and give darkness a home with its bright partner.

Without the one there is no other. And to recognize only light permits the dark to angrily run rampant behind the curtains like an injured stepchild.

24 January 2007

Last night, I drove home with elated mood despite dark situations that have arisen of late. As I drove, making a zig-zag course to avoid the no-left-turn problem, I came upon the moon low in the west, like a pale heavy slipper. The ocean beyond it.

Though it was late, I decided to follow the moon to the sea. I wanted to see the beautiful moon over the ocean. I haven’t been at night since I’ve been here. And, as I’ve said, I was in a good mood.

By the time I parked, walked a few blocks, and stood on the dune looking out to sea, the moon was near the horizon, had turned from pale silk to deep blood-orange. City lights behind me, dark darkness before me. A mild breeze considering the month and the time of night. I could see the lines of sea foam, the white against the dark water.

The dark moon had no reflection on the water. I guess there was a reason. I don’t know what it is.

I walked back and drove home, not upset but disquieted. As I parked, I side-scraped a monster truck, and alarms went off, the kind that squeal then whoop then beep. I couldn’t disconnect my car from the truck at first, and I thought geez. But then we pulled apart. No damage, but an understandably irate sleepy owner to appease. I felt very little—just calm—oh, well. I went inside, brushed my teeth, and found a Rob Brezsny entry about the Frankenstein within, the monster in need of attention and compassion. At risk for rampage if ignored.

What I’m trying to say is, it’s 5:30 in the morning. I’ve been awake for a bit, following my own advice about laying in bed, and paying attention to the work my body does in the night.

I try to be very honest in my writing. The reason for this blog’s existence was the need to release shattering pain. Pain whose source was blindspots. Shadow. Disconnection. Dissociation. Truths we know and yet still manage not to see even when we are trying very hard to see.

So, in pursuit of truth, I write in here sometimes, and I don’t know where it’s coming from.

I have learned much from this week. From sticking to my intention to post entries that feel genuine, even when my brain’s senior editor is going, what’s this?

It’s a good, sometimes taxing path. I hope to put what I learn to good use. To examine blindness about sex, death, extraordinary experience, war, neglect of our children’s needs. To understand how it is when we strive hardest to be good, we commit our little cruelties, sometimes our atrocities.

23 January 2007

To call for help is never something to be ashamed of. Human beings are social animals. We’re not meant to take care of every little thing on our own. But it’s so hard for some of us to do!

Early in my years of work in a dangerous setting, I found myself mute when a tiny woman immobilized me by grabbing my hair in her fist. After the incident was finally over, I went home and practiced the words, ‘I need some help!’ I was thankful to her. Because of the sore head, I was ready when true crises arose.

So practice your line. Call up a nice firm voice. ‘I need some help!’

Maybe you won’t have to use it. But if you are a human being on this complicated planet, I suspect there will be times that line comes in handy.
In some countries, orgasm is known as ‘the little death.’

If sex is the little death, can we extrapolate from there that death is the big sex?

Does that make death more attractive to anybody?

22 January 2007

He sat holding the barely conscious man. He reminded the man of the joy of eiko dai. He told the man he should approach death in just that way, the way of eiko dai on the beach.

To run full tilt into horizon.

Reading that article by H. Ito in the Body Dialogue archives many months ago--before I had attended any classes--stunned me. I read no more. I’ve read it only once. It was enough. I knew that is exactly what I would wish to hear. It is exactly how I wish to live. It is exactly how I wish to die.

21 January 2007

It’s like something very big is blooming within you
And this is a place that is safe to see where it goes
You don’t know what it is, who or what you might be
You can close it down, keep a lid on it
or trust.
There were a lot of people blooming in a lot of ways
They may have looked like a field of rain lilies
all in white
But no--it was light broken into flowers of many colors:
each the same
no two alike.

(post-kangeiko
01-16-07)


01-21-07
Today I followed a car down 19th Avenue. It had fresh stickers on the rear and front windows: FUNERAL

Since January 1, death has been my companion theme, I don’t know why.

Perhaps it reached a climax yesterday when I discovered incorrectly that death was at my door: Sweetie, he said, it’s your turn.

I got the opportunity to experience my reaction to such momentous news. Though I was stricken, there were no tears or self-pity. Some regret about not learning how different story lines turn out, some concern about my kids and about the expense and inconvenience of the obligatory fight against death. Otherwise I was flying full velocity: Cool! So this is the next adventure!

I can’t believe I’m writing that. I can’t believe it’s true. But that indeed is what happened.

20 January 2007

‘I have lifted my plane from the Nairobi airport for perhaps a thousand flights and I have never felt her wheels glide from the earth into the air without knowing the uncertainty and the exhileration of firstborn adventure.’

Beryl Markham
West With The Night

That’s how I feel before each Shintaido class.

19 January 2007

This is how a human being can change:

there's a worm addicted to eating grape leaves.

Suddenly, he wakes up, call it grace, whatever, something wakes him, and he's no longer a worm.

He's the entire vineyard, and the orchard too, the fruit, the trunks,
a growing wisdom and joy
that doesn't need
to devour.



Rumi
translated by Coleman Barks

18 January 2007

The closing party…


‘Go to your darkest place. You will find cookies there.’

And castanets. A shining flute. And a red fan.

Two pianos, dungeons and grace.

If I am mortal, this is the way to go.

Ahhh. Life so sweet, so sharply focused, at the point of death!

sword of death, sword of life

beginning and end

angel and jester

ushered by song.

Face mortality, defy mortality,

never mind,

as long as you are not alone,

and you are not alone not alone not alone…

We take it apart

but in the end

you eat your cookie and go out into

the night the light

with the rest of us partygoers.

17 January 2007

As I walked back from bo class today, I came upon a school playground, boys playing basketball, the asphalt fresh and clean from last night’s rain. The dark surface was reflecting brilliant light beneath the boys. Everything in sharp focus. A paradise kind of beauty.

An idea for a new year’s game came to mind during that walk. You write a statement of truth as you know it at that moment. Send it or give it to someone else who wants to play. Someone you trust. The receiver does not reply to it. Doesn’t pass it on to anyone. Perhaps does not even read it. You do not know. Your truth goes nowhere except out of you toward another human being. Do this 5 days in a row.

Sometime during the new year, perhaps some action will grow from your truth. Perhaps not.

Either way, the expression of truth has its own rewards.

16 January 2007

You work and work
with heavy sword
arms extended

and then
put the sword to rest.
Your open hands now light before you
you fly

13 January 2007

I am awake
and it is 3 AM
and my mind is playing counter-melodies to The Greek Song.

The golf ball is still hurtling through space.

I am heading to Kangeiko, winter practice, in a few hours.

It wouldn’t hurt to get back to sleep first.

12 January 2007

The mirror is no rescuer.

It can show us things about ourselves we might not otherwise see: a stain on the seat of the pants, a beautiful smile, an open fly, what is creeping up from behind, runny mascara, a cowlick.

No. The mirror only reflects. We decide if we want to look or not. We decide if it’s an honest mirror or a warped mirror. We decide if we want to do something or not about what the mirror reflects.

A rescue mirror would quickly break.

11 January 2007

her office is up in a tree
a place of safety
my God she is beautiful
with her spiky dark hair
part saint
and part rodent
(she'd scrinch her face at saint
laugh at the compliment of gerbil, mouse or rat)
she saw something in me so fast
had such trust in my vision
that I doubt her intelligence and judgment
she who is as brilliant as sunshine on water
as sharp as a laser
her deep understanding
that the crazy things brought in
from my self-confinement
words and stories and dreams
trophies and bird pix and
dirty pink ribbon
were neither false nor crazy
that differentness was gift not problem
that it's ok to bloom
whatever it will look like
whatever the timing
brought breath back to body
and swung open the prison door

10 January 2007

a cold wind is blowing in the sunshine, and in my moccasins, i walk down the hill, and walking feels foreign to me and all that will do is this running skip trot of joy, the sunshine breaking like firewhitestars off of car chrome and windshields like giant sparks to the heart and I’m running skipping flying past bus stops and couples and gangs of three and I run up the white line where the cars rumble in hold where the red pedestrian signal flashes: …6, 5, 4, 3…

09 January 2007

When the boys were little and shared a room, I sang to them at night before they slept.

"As I walked this evening
with the smell of wood smoke clinging
like a gentle cobweb hanging
upon a painted teepee..."

It was a natural thing between us and it came easily. I didn't think about it then but now it seems my voice wove around and within them and kept them feeling safe through the night. Even though we were not in the same room, I was present. We were connected.

As we grow, when we have learned to care for ourselves, when we have felt secure in the love of our parents, we don't need that same level of interaction, but the invisible connection remains.

We are in different cities now and talk once or twice a week. The bond is there, the talk refreshes the connection.

In the study of love, we are eager to talk about and explore passion,
romance. It's tempting to start where the most energy is. Isn't making love the study of love? It's good though to study also the foundation of how a human experiences and expresses love.

I am studying love. I start with the observation of mothers with
infants, our first experience with human love. I look at them in stores and washrooms, airplanes and coffee houses. Moms with good eye contact, unresponsive moms. Moms with gentle voices, bossy moms. I look at what the child needs to do to get this mom's attention.

I start with my mother and me.

The study of love occupies many lifetimes. Such a vital trip!

08 January 2007

crossed the Golden Gate Bridge four times yesterday.

twice on foot

less momentous than expected

more companionable than expected-having found a good friend to cross the great orange structure with me

more painful than expected too-the traffic noise ferocious

on the south end, we found a quiet trail that wound above the sea. we sat upon a ledge in the afternoon sun and watched the waves roll back and forth. rested near the heartbeat of the sea.

there was a great white naked man far below us, striking poses for a photographer. Flexing muscles, arching back over a wet black rock.

I was mesmerized.

Not that he wore no clothes.

There were other naked people there, enjoying the beach.

But the exhibitionist part. I couldn’t understand that.

I don’t have that in me, I told my friend.

But now I see perhaps I do-just writing this blog.

No. I don’t think that's what this is about. Exhibition. That’s the part I don’t like. The part that puts me into temporary shock every time I hit the ‘post’ button. Exhibition is part of the process, nourishing for some people but not for me.

The part I do like is when I can be naked-or transparent-like clean clear water. When after all the hiding I have done, I can express something that feels like-even if only for a moment-truth.

That’s when this writing-this nakedness-feels good.

I know there’s lots of bullshit in here. But it’s a practice, not an accomplishment, this recognizing truth.

We walked back across the bridge. The problem with a bridge that I did not foresee is that you can only go foreward and back. That felt confining.

My friend said if he could be any animal, he would pick a bird, a big bird.

Yes. A bird could fly-not just two directions in two dimensions-but all directions in 4 dimensions, a whole radiating traveling sphere of choices.

06 January 2007

This week has been a piece of work.

a predawn meditation series such a living passion, i cannot see it yet

the discovery of cuts that don’t just cut away but let in light

a dark epiphany, a cerebral epiphany, and a light epiphany all in this one day

joy in rose-patterned fabric and roses on a wall

a sundance of teachers

they dig so deep, they give so much

a friend on familar ground with familiar family and familiar dog--such a deep curious heart, and game to offer her extra eyes

a shimmering Little Shop of Horrors--that intangible magic structure of moments of performance

it’s all awfully like love isn’t it

05 January 2007

Do you think about death? Do you avoid thinking about death?

Do you think about sex? Do you avoid thinking about sex?

Both happen pretty regularly on our planet earth, right?

I really haven’t written about human sexuality or death here.

I plan to remedy that.

Just not right now--

04 January 2007

excuse me if i seem aloof
can’t seem to connect
detached in a big way
i can see, i can hear
so much very clear
if i'm
a little slow
to respond to your inquiries
please be patient
you might be sluggish too
were you wearing my shoes
i can't write because I'm dead tonight
and have been all day
i don’t expect it to be a permanent situation

03 January 2007

“While their owners sleep, nervous little dogs prepare for their day.”

I’m looking at the old Far Side cartoon on the wall, the dog on a stool preparing espresso alone in the kitchen.

Nervous Dog Coffee

How happy I am to be here. The natural light, the cozy couch and colorful pillows, the clean wood floors, the cheerful slight big-hearted owner who knows everyone who walks in, the ginger cookie. Wow. The ginger cookie.

Not to mention the wireless internet.

A skateboarder with a crocheted hat, shades of gray, passed me on the sidewalk as I walked here. If you want to see someone who’s in touch with his or her body, watch a skateboarder.

I have learned more about the seeming contradiction between the Shintaido practice of martial arts and the practice of peace.

One teacher when I asked how they were related said, Try it!

The other teacher said something to the effect that the ritualized metaphorical cutting with a sword or bo or the hand is a cutting away of unwanted baggage, dead skin, dead weight, old suffering. That the cutting of one’s partner is a freeing, a release from layers that hold them back, keep them from their true self.

I like both answers. I needed both answers. I asked the question weeks ago, and accepted the response without overthinking.

Two cheerful women and I spent the end of one community class last night on high school grounds, cutting the moon. I spent the hour before dawn on a hilltop with two other women, a new year meditation, cutting fog and sky. And in class this morning, I practiced cutting my teacher instead of just bruising her. (No blood. No broken moon. Metaphorical!)

Hey. Try it!

02 January 2007

Dare you see a Soul at the White Heat?
Then crouch within the door—
Red—is the Fire's common tint—
But when the vivid Ore
Has vanquished Flame's conditions,
It quivers from the Forge
Without a color, but the light
Of unanointed Blaze.
Least Village has its Blacksmith
Whose Anvil's even ring
Stands symbol for the finer Forge
That soundless tugs—within—
Refining these impatient Ores
With Hammer, and with Blaze
Until the Designated Light
Repudiate the Forge—

Emily Dickinson

01 January 2007

Last night, looking out over the lights of San Francisco, a small crowd of partyers burned in a wok squares of paper on which each had written one thing they would be rid of. Then, a Mexican tradition: at the stroke of midnight, each of us ate 12 grapes, washed with a little champagne, each grape a desire for the new year.

Well-the champagne part wasn't Mexican tradition but the grape part was.

That was fun.

A woman I'd just met gave me spontaneous instructions about what I am not to worry about right now. As though she knew without knowing anything about me that I am on a good path.

So far, we'd only really talked about potato salad.

Last year, a dream pointed out The Possible. I grow more and more surprised to find with each step, the possible continues to unfold 360 degrees around me. There is never only one choice.