Month: December 2016

I spent most of my adult life trying to lessen the impact of the waste of Minnesota society.   Apart from some focused successes, I can mainly look back on mournful monuments of discarded waste in the land, water and air.  I see now a wide range of memorials to parts of the earth we altered and destroyed in a frenzy of consumption.   I don’t see how this can continue.

All this dumped waste surrounds us as our accusing souvenirs of a land pillaged by us and our recent ancestors.   The piles of waste and rubble are reminders of how we took from the earth more than we could truly use in reasonable time and in a respectful manner.   We attempted to satisfy our immediate wants and cravings, then quickly moved on.   The ephemeral benefit has been bought at the sacrifice of materials that took many life-times to fashion.

We no longer satisfy our needs by simply consuming the plants and animals that come from the earth.   We now consume the earth itself in an effort to give substance to the objects of our craving.   These monuments to our grasping are not things of beauty.

Now I can begin to relax, at least a little.    My two sons have survived just over twenty years and are now young men.   I am relieved that they are now launched into young adulthood, alive and without serious scars.

For me, there is no more anxious driving on winter roads, constantly attentive to that tiny, precious cargo in the back seat, going home from his hospital of origin.   There is no more standing next to his bed, listening to his rhythmic breathing, assuring myself that he is still alive.   I’ve not yet done anything tragic.  He survives.

I no longer stare at the young students getting off the school bus, looking for that familiar face and coat that assures me that he has made it through another perilous day at school on his own.   I am almost ready to admit that my vigilance has prevented his drowning in the lake at my cabin.   Childhood, lake and cabin are finally proven compatible.

I may be ready to give up lying slightly asleep in bed, half-listening for the assuring slam of the back door that announces that my son has survived another late-night trip home on the bus.

Parenthood is a perilous time for vulnerable offspring, and it is such a relief that success is in sight.   There were no multiple eggs in a nest, most of whom were destined to be food for others.  There was just a solitary tiny baby boy, one at a time.   Each needed constant attention, routine feeding, and vigilant protection.   The attention, feeding and protection has gone on for many years, even though the level of vigilance has gradually diminished.

It is a relief that, though the fledglings may return to the nest, they have proven that they can survive on their own without a vigilant parent.  Whew!

I know my body houses memories.    That is where the memory of the cereal I just ate will be for the rest of my time.   Within this husk of skin, supported by bones and muscle, are a seemingly infinite number of memories.   Where else are they if not in this body.   Unless I have some kind of spiritual external hard drive that stores a back-up supply of memories, everything is inside this aging skin.

I don’t know how I hold in this body all the traces of past experiences, the joys and sorrows, the pleasures and pains, the hopes and disappointments.   I know that I cannot intentionally recall all past experiences.  But I unexpectedly see the images of my past when an experience  spontaneously retrieves the memory of a previous one.  I draw upon my past when a dream pulls images and events from my storehouse of memories.

I wonder how much of a memory the cells of my body have.   Can they remember what it was like before they multiplied repeatedly to form this cooperative collection of cells that makes up my body.   Within them, and certainly in my DNA, is the memory of what it was like to form fish then reptiles and other primates.   These were the senarios of past events that were played out in the early weeks of my body when it engaged in genetic recall of what it was like to live with a previous form.

So how far back does this body memory go and is there a way that I can get access to these stored memories?  I would like it if my body could remind me of what it was like before its form could support human intelligence.   It would be such an adventure if my body could recall what it was like when molecules discovered they could join and support the spark of life.   I wonder what it was like when cosmic dust spread throughout the universe, and eventually formed our planet.

I think my body knows.    All those memories are stored deep in the fibers that make up the cells that give my body form and support life.   Somewhere inside of me is the memory of that act of intelligence that launched this whole event.   Maybe I’m thinking it right now.

For me, any words that capture and convey experience is poetry.   Poetry is more than describing an experience or telling a story.   It is an invitation to experience the same thing that the poet has experienced.   It draws me into the inner life  of the poet.

Poetry cannot be forced or made up, it must be felt with all the depth and power of being actually present.   A poet does not simply observe but enters into the source of inspiration.   The poet then offers the same experience to the reader or listener in the art form we call poetry.

For me, as the reader or listener, it is a whole body experience, felt through an open heart.  Poetry is a sensuous experience, and it is best if I not shy away from it.

Poetry conveys more than a feeling.   Poetry conveys the experience of actually being there, of being present.   This is not the work of the mind trying to understand a poem, but the work of the heart absorbing the experience.   If the analytical mind has to be relied on too much, it obscures the experience of the poet.

To hear the voice of the poet, my rational mind must first quiet down.   Then I can listen to the voice that rises from within.   Heard this way, poetry allows me to listen too my own inner voice which at that moment has become one with that of the poet.

Poetry asks me to let go and be present in the sound and images of the words.   I become present as I would be in a majestic valley or velvet forest.   Every cell of my being is called to attention and summoned to tingle with excitement.   The words of the poet urge me to yield to a reality that the poet experienced.

Through poetry, I am able to enter into the awareness of another.  I experience the self of the poet.  I enter into their bones, their blood-stream, their skin.   We share our connective oneness.

When I become totally open to a poem, I make  the poet present.    The poet’s experience is at this instant my experience.

Every reading of a poem is a new experience.  A poem when read is a new encounter, never to be exactly repeated.   When I bring myself to a poem, it is a new reality each time.

Being a “poet” may be a license to write, but no one is truly a poet until their experience is felt and absorbed by others.    I am not a reader of poetry until I feel and absorb the experience of the poet.

My son talks about developing super powers.   His imagination has been influenced by what he has seen in myths like “X Men”.  I like to think that he simply has a craving for abilities that he already has but hasn’t yet uncovered. I am thrilled that he is willing to explore what those abilities might be.

It has been my life-long search that finally recognized the abilities I had but never used.   My practice of mindfulness, aided by meditation, has helped me realize that I have power I never anticipated.   I am gradually beginning to learn how to see beyond appearances, and sometimes it seems that I have entered another, alternate reality.    Things are no longer what they seemed a year ago.

I am learning to see and hear with my whole body, not just my eyes and ears.   A touch with my hand is no longer an isolated experience but something that resonates through my whole physical self.   A hug is an experience of someone’s presence that radiates awareness through my entire body.

I know this is not a discovery of some kind of super power but a simple realization of what I can do as a human being living in the 21st century.   For so much of my life I have practiced at living in a world of appearances.   I have been content and become adept at it.   I am just beginning to learn how to be aware of what lies beyond appearances.   I walk through my garden with a new kind of vision.   I enjoy it so much more.

I am learning that by not staring, I can see beyond.   I am able to see with a relaxed vision that has developed only by practice.   It is an ability I was born with, but only partly used.    Now that I have lifted the corner of the veil, I am excited to see what is really there.

I have only recently been paying attention  to my places of refuge. I lately saw how my sitting meditation offered me a refuge from the pain of letting go.   There I could practice Tonglen and absorb the pain without its barb.   I found refuge on my cushion.   It was a safe place where I could accept the pain and struggle.

I often find refuge in my sangha.   It is a small community of companions, we are attentive of one another, we create a safe place to unfold and expose our inner awareness if we choose.   We are deeply accepting and support the unique, but similar, path each of us is on.

I take refuge in my friends.   Their attentiveness assures me that I matter, that I exist, that I am of value.   I want to be a refuge for each of them.   I want to be a place of recognition and assurance for them.   I want them to  rely on me to be a refuge where they can be themselves and feel my unconditional acceptance.  I want to mirror their goodness for them.

My garden is a refuge, in both summer and winter.  The constant animation of the garden is like the soothing embrace of a warm down comforter.   We give one another life and renewal.  We cleanse one another of anything that restricts our growth.    While my cabin is only an occasional refuge, it is like my garden and is always on the margins of my mind.

I am learning to become my refuge.   There are many times that I take refuge within my own skin.   This is one of the benefits of meditation.   I learn and practice how to feel refuge in myself, from my head to my toes.   Sometimes I find total acceptance in this refuge;  sometimes there is a deep peace.

 

Every letting go is practice for the moment when I must let go of life.   Death is part of my future as sure as the sun will set this evening and plunge today into darkness.

It is a paradox that loving prepares me for my ultimate letting go in death. Loving anyone means respecting their basic impermanence.   At first glance it would seem that loving is a kind of embracing, clinging.   It has become clear to me that love of someone also means letting go, not expecting them to be within the circle of my existence.   It means allowing them to be totally in their own orbit, independent of mine.

It is sheer delight when the orbits are adjacent or even matching.   But I can make no attempt to shape their reality into mine, as attractive as that might seem.

Being wholly present while at the same time fully letting go is preparation for the larger letting go yet to come.   Then I will be drawn to let go of the life I think I have come to know so well.

I forgot to mention that letting go, even when accepted, can be painful.

I’ve become convinced of the importance of maintaining walls.  There are times that a wall gets built without my awareness of its progress.  But once built, I want to recognize its presence, perhaps its importance.   I think that Brenda and I built a wall over many years, but now that same wall is a part of the landscape that we both respect.   It serves me well, and I  suspect her experience is similar.

A wall does not mean a lack of compassion.    In fact it allows for more respect.   In my case, the wall between Brenda and me recognizes that our lives are no longer co-mingled, except for our mutual interest in Nathan and Sorin.   Her side of the wall is a foreign country, another universe.   What happens on either side of the wall stays there.

I have no interest in what goes on beyond the wall, except perhaps for catastrophic events or matters that affect Nathan and Sorin.   I am relatively sure that the same is true of her.   Like me, she would rather not know.

The wall is an important feature of my secret garden.   Only select people are allowed to enter, and only by my choice.  The wall protects and contains.   It helps me focus on  the tasks I want to do.

For similar reasons, I build other walls.   For two months, I have walled myself off from news on the radio and newspaper.   I finally realized how illusory and misguiding the news had become, and I want to live separate from that news.   While I am interested in the true nature of events, I know that the representation of those events in the news is false.

The same its true of religions.   I have gradually come to see that religions show me a fantasy, a make-believe view of the world.   I shield myself  from the illusions of religion.   I prefer to become more mindful of the world as I experience it, illusory as that is.

Until they no longer serve their purpose, I think my walls must remain.

 

 

 

We are tumbling into a new and bright future. However the process promises to be difficult for most of us and we will hardly recognize the outcome.   Looking around, it appears to a casual glance, that the structures that have supported our way of life are bending if not crumbling.   A great change has begun.

 

The daily news reports that the pillars of our stable climate are at least shifting if not disappearing.   The vast amount of ice which is a basis for the current world climate is melting.   This is the climate we have evolved to prosper in, and we too will need to change as our climate changes.

 

The forces of nature, in their own time, have been adjusting, making corrections in response to this new-comer on the planet we call homo sapiens.   It has only been about 20,000 years since humankind began showing a new level of intelligence and influence on the earth.   We humans set in motion forces we barely understood then or now.   When we made changes to our environment , the forces of nature adjusted, in their own time.   Nothing personal mind you, just the basic laws of physics.

 

Something about action and reaction.   Because of our new intelligence, we humans have been empowered to make changes and have impacts that are huge.   You might even say earth-moving.   The mechanics of the earth are gigantic in size.   It is a testament to our intelligence that we have been able to leverage aspects of the earth causing them to shift, to move, to adjust. All this has happened in only 20,000 years.

 

Until now, those changes have been minor, even masterful.   Early on, we brought about changes such as getting rid of competing species of humans.   Replacing mega fauna like bison, mammoths and great cats with domesticated animals were also some of our early accomplishments.   So was changing vast prairies and woodlands into farm country.   The earth adjusted, but in small ways.

 

At some point we began to get out of hand, and humans began releasing carbon giants from under the ground.  Then we lost control of the direction of human development and the laws of nature began to respond.   The forces of human intelligence began thrashing out of control and required a serious response from nature.   What seems like nature running out of control is simply a natural reaction, a counter balance to the lack of control by human intelligence.   Mother nature has to grab the wheel, take control because humans have lost control.

 

If we’re lucky, that won’t mean that we have to be eliminated to make the necessary adjustments.   That is uncertain.   What is certain is that the laws of physics, the natural laws will win out and prevail.  In the end, there remains physics.

 

Unfortunately, the human forces of greed and consumption have become so strong that the corrective response by nature will likely be equally strong.   The adjustment will be great.   Many will suffer and die.   That includes humans and other forms of evolved life.   All will have to adjust. It is the same scenario that has played out for over 3 billion years.

 

The future will belong to those who have learned to live in balance with the forces of nature.   That includes plants, animals, and humans.   We have evolved a great intellect and powers no one could have imagined even a hundred years ago.   Our Prometheus Fire has served us well and has given direction to our own evolution.   Now it is forcing great changes in nature and in us.   We unwittingly, perhaps blindly, are forcing our own evolution.

 

We seem incapable to accurately predict the adjustments nature is making.   There is little history to base accurate predictions on.   We can make some general predictions about our environment, changes such as shifting weather, sea levels, melting ice.   We can also make some broad predictions of the adjustments that must be made by surviving humans.

 

As we look around, some of the seeds of those adjustments are already being sown by mindful humans.   We can predict that it will be a future much less dominated by consumption. Humans will follow a common, simpler lifestyle that no longer feeds the personal furnaces of the greedy few.

 

Our mega houses of cards will crumble, and we will build on a smaller scale.   We will live in smaller communities, closer to our sources of sustenance. Growth in technology will be governed by conscious needs and not by consumer fascination with new things.

 

Large government is already showing its inability to promote the welfare of its citizens or the earth.   Large government worked when there was cooperation among the leaders, when there was common purpose in support of the many.   In so many places, the personal interests of the leaders, including their clinging on to power, have eclipsed the welfare of the human race, and we are seeing and feeling the crumbling effects.   We know in our hearts this is not working, and the time of the large dinosaurs has once again passed.   Big is no longer better.

 

We are entering a new time when smaller communities will better serve the survival and sustenance of the many.   It is a future of smaller communities, local rule, formation of loose confederations of cooperation rather than rule and competition.   We will recognize we are joined together in the interest of survival and create social structures that make that happen.

 

We have already seen and felt the effects of the inability of humans to agree, cooperate and compromise.   The process of governing must be put back into the hands of humans who have a vision of cooperation and survival.

 

The strident and bull-headed humans are not the best of our species, and they are destined eventually for extinction because their way is not the way of survival for this species.  This is nothing but the forces of evolution at work.  If we don’t cooperatively adjust to the changing world, we won’t survive.

 

We don’t succeed when we try to force biology, when we work against the inherent intelligence and compassion of our species.   These are traits that have served us well so far.   We succeed most profoundly when we stir and enhance the forces of our humanity, when we support the unique powers we have.

 

This is nothing new.   It has happened many times before when a subset of a population, capable of adjusting, survives and becomes the dominant species in the next era.   It is the law of nature, as best we understand it.   That is hopefully our future.

I’ve noticed that love opens a place where pain can enter in.   Accepting that is how I grow.   That is the message I sometimes hear from Rilke, and it is an awareness I carry in my heart.   I carry a lasting memory of those I have loved.   You might say I refuse to “get over” them.

To be clear, I am not referring to romantic love, but a deeper  penetrating opening of my heart.   Romantic love can be a messenger of smiles and laughter, inviting grasping.   It is perhaps the bait for entering into a place of deeper love.   The deeper open-heartedness is an invitation, without strings, to be present.   In romantic love, it may never occur, or may heal over after a time.

The openness is in reality a wound, an exposure to pain.   I tell myself, “Don’t let it heal over.”   I do not want an insulating barrier to form.   The wound, including the pain, may be my personal passage to becoming present to the vast world.   The paradox is that my open-heart provides entry to others, and gives me expansion, freedom.

I am still wondering if I have to become covered with wounds of love to be wholly connected to the world.   Is that how I become closely connected to my companions and beyond?    Must my heart be pounded and pierced by love until it becomes all-loving?   Is this what opening my heart really means, and that the searing pain is about to come?  Perhaps.

As much as the process  of open-heartedness is difficult and sometimes painful, with acceptance I do seem to grow.  It actually gets easier.    I also learn to let go, not cling and grasp.   Sometimes I rebel against all this, but then I seem to find my way again.

I am determined to continue on this path.