Barry Garden Path

When I invite friends into my garden, I learn about them and I learn about me.    I learn how I react to their presence, even while I become more aware of their presence.    If I am not aware of their presence and mine, I lose out on both fronts:   my awareness of them and my awareness of me.

If I am unaware of my reaction to their presence, I don’t truly understand what is real.    I am out of touch.    Even if I touch them without being aware of them and myself, I hardly understand what is going on.    Reality is in the interaction.

As I become aware of my friends and how I am connecting with them, I am aware of the only true reality.    That is the reality of our coming together.    I miss out if I am only aware of then, without being aware of myself.    I also miss out if I am only focused on myself and how I am reacting.

There can be times that my grasping is so strong that it dominates my awareness and how I relate to a friend.    Grasping is not wrong.    I simply suffer by losing out.    There is no true awareness of how we come together, how we relate.

I spent time with a friend yesterday and it was a time of simple joy of being together.    We shared stories of how we are living our lives.    I was so aware of her presence and of my own presence as we walked, listened, talked.

We are both a balm and a delight for one another.    We are in a common spot together because we are not wanting to be someplace else.    We are aware of ourselves, one another and our mutual autonomy.     I am aware of the shared pleasure we experience in the time we spend together.    It is an awareness that I carry with me when we are not side by side.

The friends that are most able to enjoy my garden are those who are free from grasping and from being grasped.    For us it is a simple shared awareness of one another and our common presence.   We are acutely aware not only of one another but of our individual selves as well.

We are most in touch when we know both one another and our individual selves.    That is how I recognize and relate to my deepest friends.

I heard it a long time ago, but I have only now begun to really think it is true.    It was a rather simple concept, perhaps too glib to invite much of my inspection or acceptance.    I once heard that when you love someone, you are really loving an image of yourself that you can see in them.    I never realized how profound a statement that could be.    I’ve been peeling back the layers.

I’ve had many experiences in recent years that have been gently nudging me into this notion of a mirror.   However, it was a recent jolt into awareness that opened my mind on mirroring.   I met someone at a time I was experiencing a much deeper kind of open-heartedness.    This was someone whose life is far away, separated from me by an international boundary.    But the kinship I felt was so intense that the notion of separateness was insignificant.

As I slowly let go of what I realized was a nearly impossible situation, I was amazed by what I discovered in myself.    First, it was an intense lesson in what grasping feels like.    Second, it opened my eyes about mirroring as I asked myself repeatedly, “Why her?”

I think my answer is a bit ego-centric because I realized that I had felt an instant kinship because I saw and presumed a deep kinship.    We seemed cut from similar cloth.    I saw a kind of reflection of the kind of person I imagine myself to be, or want to be.   I felt a deep open-hearted engagement with what I thought I saw.

I saw mirrored in her the humanity that we have in common, and it seemed to be quite extensive in how similar and familiar it felt.    I was the Golden-haired Boy who was both curious about and fell in love with his reflection in Iron John’s pond.    For a brief time I recognized the common grounding we share in the absolute.    It was so easy to grasp because I thought I saw a reflection of the universal world I am familiar with.

That encounter taught me much about mirroring and gave me much to think about.     I think I sometimes experience the same kind of mirroring in people not obviously like me, and those are the ones who reflect the hidden part of me, the part of me yet to emerge.    I can also fall in love then, but perhaps not so easily.    It is a little more of a challenge.

More significantly, I recognize that this same thing happens with rocks, plants and people I may only casually meet.     My heart is open and ready, and they move right in because I recognize the common aspects we share.   I see that a rock and I are somewhat the same.    I am part of plants and they are part of me.    The affinity is natural.    I have a shared experience of humanity with everyone I meet.    All are a reflection of what I experience in myself.     What I experience in them opens my awareness of what I am able to see in myself.

I also know that I need not grasp what I see.   It already exists in me.

Perhaps the image of a mirror is not apt because, after all, a mirror only reflects what is real.    The image is not typically seen as real, only the reflected object.

But what if it were the other way around and the only reality is the image.    Perhaps seeing the image is the only real experience.    The only reality is actually the interaction between the observer and the observed.   All else is populated by imagination.

The stars appear to shine in the night sky.   Perhaps they are a chance to see what we already experience here in our historical world of earth.

I actually like thinking about mirroring this way because it deals with my uneasy feeling about being ego-centric.    It actually doesn’t feel very ego-centric when I recognize in other people, plants and rocks what I know from my deep experiences of myself.    For me it all blends together and the reality emerges somewhere in the middle.

Neither am I  troubled by the experience of loving what I see reflected in rocks, plants and people.    All of us, after all, are all part of the same singular entity.

To some, I may have the appearance of a normal, very typical human being who has been around for quite a few years.    But I am aware that I am living an absolute life in an historical world.    I know and feel it.   I have begun to be in touch with the absolute, formless aspect of myself, even while I function daily as someone with real flesh and blood.

I am discovering that it is not enough to have intellectual knowledge or awareness of this absolute aspect of reality.    I have had to get a feeling for what it is like.  I am aware that I  have only a tiny experience of this alien aspect of myself.    And it grows day by day.

Some days I even feel like an alien in a foreign land.

I have entered a phase of life dominated by being in joy.    I am stepping into a time of life characterized by in-joyment.   I am beginning to live in an in-joyed life.   It begins in the morning, and infuses the rest of the day.

As I sit here on the side of my bed, listening to the softly falling rain, I feel the pleasantness of living in joy.    I know this will follow me throughout the day.

I have experienced other phases of living.    I lived the life of a monk for over a decade.    Then there was the phase of living as the companion and helper of an artist, a bit of an experience in abstraction .    I then helped raise two boys to adulthood, a time of work and being in struggle much of the time.

My time of tasks has passed now, and I am beginning to live in joy.    I  am free, but recognize that I am rooted in a world I hardly knew existed for me before.

I wake each morning, grateful that I have another day to in-joy living.    Even the tasks before me attract me with the enticement to in-joy them.    Listening to the rain falling on the trees outside my window is but the beginning of an in-joyed day.

I am learning that simply accepting what exists, what presents to me, is a throbbing source of joy.    Seeing and knowing the prickly seed arrays of aging coneflowers transports me into joy.    Being aware of the touch of a companion is a loving moment of in-joyment.

Today, I am aware of promised visits with two friends later today and the thought alone of their presence is a source of joy.    The actual experience, I know, will offer so much more in-joyment.  This is the beginning of a day of joy.

I will soon sit on my cushion for a while, and the feeling of in-joyment will wash through my body.    My mind will again open to an awareness of sitting in undefined space.    Whatever enters my mind will be infused with the warm glow of awareness and offer an insight I have only begun to in-joy. Those few moments of alert awareness will follow me as I step through the day, reminding me again and again that I am living in an in-joyed time of my life.

On a typical day, people may ask me many times how I am.    The joy of the day is often so present so much a part of me, that past days of in-joyment are a faint memory by comparison.    So while I can only reply, “It’s a good day,” I am fully aware that I cannot think of a day that has been more in-joyed than this one.    Even when I am tired and hungry late in an overly-active day, the glow of an in-joyed day is with me.

I often think these days of how Rilke wrote: “I live my life in widening circles that reach across the world.   I may not complete this last one, but I give myself to it.”    I have entered an in-joyable circle  of life and it may well be my last one.    Then again, there may be another phase yet to come.    For now it is good to be in the swell of in-joyed time.

I’ve had a couple of experiences recently that have caused me to think about what I offer to my friends and companions.    What is the offering that I bring to any relationship?    As I sit near someone on the bus, or next to someone in class, or by the pool in my garden, what is it that I am offering?   What do I see myself giving?

Above all, I can  show them a reflection of the beautiful person they are.  They can know themselves as an amazing human being because I can tell them that in many subtle ways.

The interaction is primarily about them and not about me.   I tell them what I see, what they embody.    When this is affirmed by me, they can recognize the wonder in themselves.    They can accept and embrace the awesome beauty of who they are.

I especially am able to reassure them of their awesome beauty in times of doubt and uncertainty.   I know that I rely on my friends and companions for this affirmation.   I also know that I have the growing ability to look inside and directly experience the awesomeness in me.   It is so nice for me to receive this gift from others.    I now also give it to others, just as I can give it to myself in moments of quiet and stillness.

I offer a loving place of refuge and comfort to my companions.    I listen to them, I hug them, I invite them to share their deep aspects.    I embrace all manner of their joys, grief and fears as I accept them with my own focused awareness.   I offer a place and opportunity to be their full, unprotected self. I offer freedom.    They are released to be full, free and independent human beings.

I give them my own ardent presence and awareness with few expectations.    I don’t make any promises or demands for the future, but I do offer my own full and fearless presence right now.    I not only am attentive to them, but I can also be very aware of myself and my on-going experience with them right now.    Because of that, I can be present, sit and stand with them.

I can be a fully adult me with them.    As I have learned to unfold more and more, become more in love with myself, I have much more to offer.   I can present a person who is aware of himself and of the world around him.

I am learning how to know myself and how to allow that knowledge to grow fearlessly.   I can invite others into that place of awareness.    They only have to decide to relax and experience it.    This is an offering I make to all my companions.

 

 

Telling people my age can be tricky business.     I may have traveled around the sun a certain number of times, and that is precisely defined by the calendar.    But I think my own true age is something quite different.

For over a year, I have stopped checking the “white” box on forms that want to know my race.    I think it is time to stop checking the “over 60” box as well.

I am aware that my calendar age speaks one message, but my whole notion of self is on a different track.    My mind just doesn’t conform to my number of trips around the sun.    My body shows some of the traits of my age related to sun trips.    That includes grey hair, thin skin and stiff legs when I get up.   But I don’t think all my body has aged at the same rate as the calendar story says it should have.

I admit that I get a little internal glow when people tell me that I don’t look my age, or they fein surprise when I tell them my age.

I try to throw out all the myths about age and rely on my own reality.   I typically choose a path of my own.   I hardly ever use “age” as an  excuse, except that I now avoid wanton climbing of ladders.    Mostly, I will not be a vassal of the tyranny  of the Julian calendar.

I think calendar age is simply a comparison with what we know about most people who have made a measured number of trips around the sun.    It actually tells me nothing about all the traits typically associated with age.    It only says that such and such is typical of someone my age in calendar years.

Because of my lifestyle, I have traits unlike someone who has made a similar number of trips around the sun.    There are even times that I say that I have lived multiple lives in the calendar space of one lifetime.    Maybe I have actually aged far beyond my calendar years.     I feel rich, abundant and joyful.    None of that can be understood by knowing my number of trips around the sun.

I experience a kind of insight that I seldom see in someone else who has made as many trips around the sun as I.    I think most of my generation is severely lacking in insight.    A friend has pointed out that the insight I experience may come from having been alive in other ways or other times.    She suggests that I may have been here before because some experiences seem so familiar to me and are not typically learned just by making trips around the sun.

My body is more agile and stronger than it was several years ago.    That hardly means that I have made reverse trips around the sun.   Just knowing my trips around the sun has little relationship to my agility or strength.

Knowing my trips around the sun reveals little accuracy about how I think.    As a friend told me, I sometimes think more like a millennial than a baby-boomer.    My mental agility is so much more flexible and unbounded than most of my wearisome contemporaries.   The trips around the sun have had very different effects on us.

My trips around the sun have been accompanied by great freedom from so many social, cultural constraints that typically seem to bind so many of my contemporaries into compliance.

My open-hearted approach to plants, rocks and people is more typical of  the discovery experience of one who has made either far fewer or many more trips around the sun.    Where I see others my age closing in, I see myself as opening up.

I now recognize that when I tell others that I am “old” it is to mock the presumption of age.    I do not see myself as fitting into the mold of someone my age in trips around the sun.   What does telling my age describe except to define what category of humans I belong in.  I clearly don’t see myself belonging to any of them.

So from now on, I will not check the box that says “over 60”.    I may simply choose another age that better matches my attitude that day.

 

 

It has been somewhat of a gradual process, but in a little over three years, I have suddenly learned a lot about how it feels to be non-dependent.     Even though I had spent decades knowing about dependence and how stifling it could be, I was apprehensive when it came time for me to actually choose to be non-dependent.   I was somewhat tentative about taking that step, but I gulped a deep breath and took the plunge.

Now my feeling about being non-dependent is robust and firm.    My intent is clear.    My experience is affirming.

For me, being non-dependent is not quite the same as being independent.   Being independent implies a kind of aloofness which is not at all what I want or experience.   I want and appreciate closeness, especially an intimate and open-hearted connection with my companions.    I have been learning what it means to have a non-grasping relationship with them.

I am gradually settling into the feeling and acceptance of being alone.    There still are times that feeling alone is unsettling, even de-stabilizing.    I am learning that there is a place of stability inside of me that I can reliable go to.    I only have to relax and concentrate into it.    I can be my own port of refuge from the anxiety of being alone.

I also have a small group of friends and companions who I know are there and with whom I am connected.    Most of them reliably respond when I text, email or call them.    That small circle has been slowly growing and I want it to continue to expand.

When I am in contact with them, I can offer them a mooring line as well as receive one.   I have become very comfortable and at ease in being fully present.   I am happy that I have companions with whom that is easy, possible and accessible.

I recognize that my own stability in being non-dependent has made me  a more reliable and stable port for others.    I am very comfortable in inviting others to enter my private garden.    It is a place of joy and refreshment, and I feel at ease in sharing those delights.    My own stability can be a source of refuge for those who choose it.

I sure like the feeling and effects of being non-dependent.

I am having a wondrous time uncovering what it means for me to be fully present with someone, especially someone I significantly care about.   These people are all those with whom I have had a lovely  exchange of open-heartedness.

I see that there is no small amount of fearlessness about the experience.    I need to plunge fearlessly to be truly present.    I am finding, however, that the courage to be present is so much more a facile action when my emphasis is on the now.     The future is irrelevant, the past is interesting but only in as much as it embellishes or explains the present.

It is a moment when I am most acutely aware of what is happening now, and I can be deeply present.    I am not paying attention to  building a structure or foundation for the future.    Even if that may actually be happening, and I may be obliquely aware of it, my focus and intention is on the present, what is going on right now.

How freeing it is when there is no intention or presumption on continuance.   We are attentive only to what is happening right now in this present time together.   I am starting to think that perhaps some lives are best lived as a string of airplane conversations.    Plunge then come up for air.    Then plunge again.

This experience reminds me how unfortunate it is that the societal tendency and intention is to focus on continuance, the future.    It is grasping in a culturally enforced form.    I have been taught to grasp the experience and grasp the intention to continue it.    People ask ‘where is this going, what is your intention?’

Being present is often not enough in my society and I am encouraged to  attempt to preserve it rather than simply being open to being present again and again.

I think society has, in fact, created a damaging structure that often erodes the experience of being present by promoting marriage.    This institution and practice attempts to enshrine the wonderful experiences of being present in a structure that just doesn’t work for most.

We are encouraged to enter into a relationship that guarantees that we will “always be together, present for one another, to death…….”     This is such a lofty promise that it is beyond the realistic reach of most humans.    It is a promise that actually is undermined by being constantly physically close to one another.

There are practical reasons for living together.    Economics encourages it.    Raising kids requires close cooperation, presence and effort.    But the actual being together makes it more difficult to be fully present to one another.    It is possible, but hard.    My experience has convinced me of this reality.

This, of course, is a good reason for me to choose to live alone.   I get to come up for air.     I hope that there will be individuals in my life with whom I can take the plunge and  be fully present.    I hope to share the joy that rises from being fully present.   But for me, this will have to be on terms that offer little security, little assurance of permanence.

Any assurances to the contrary would be illusory and false anyhow.

I think that this approach actually makes me more capable and available to be present.   I can be much more focused on the here and now if I am not constantly thinking of where this will lead.    I rely on my awareness and insight into what is happening now.    And then I take the plunge to be present.

My response to a question of ‘who’ I am has certainly changed.    There was a time that I myself pursued an answer to that question, and now that is beginning to seem so irrelevant.    As my notions of self continue to evolve, it is all becoming more of a blur.   At the same time,  the response of ‘who’ I am seems to become all-embracing.

On the outside, I imagine myself as appearing as a hollow sphere, a ball inflated to a certain size, even distinct and distinguishable.   I imagine myself as appearing defined and occupying a place in space.

From the inside, however, all I see is the surrounding, all encompassing inner surface of the ball.    My world is both all around me and is also all of me.    There is no other, I imagine very little beyond what I see.

On the outside, I imagine myself appearing to others as a labyrinth of human traits.    I am defined, actually, by none of them.    I like to refer to myself as a Gardener.     It is a simple term, and it is what I see on the inside of the ball.    So it has become a useful term to use when I describe ‘who’ I am.

In a broad sense, Gardener is an apt metaphor  both for ‘who’ I see myself to be, and for how I see myself interacting with the world.   I walk through the world with all the tenderness and care a gardener extends to the beds of plants.   I am not afraid or hesitant to stoop occasionally and pull out weeds that I think are not part of my sense of Beauty.    I rearrange plants so that they may relate differently to one another and to me.

‘Who’ am I?    I feel like an alien to this world.    I have abandoned a good part of my illusory relationship with reality, and I am beginning to see all things and people with fresh, alien eyes.     I am living inside, but I have outsider’s eyes.   As I look about, I have a paradoxical notion of no longer being part of my surroundings.    At the same time I have a most intimate relationship with plants, rocks and people.   It is an intimate relationship with basically all I  encounter.

I feel like I am less and less of this world.    I am on the outside, looking all around inside.    All the while I am aware that I am a great song that has penetrated all that exists around me and I am part of all I can see.

I suppose I am less of a ‘who’ than I once was.    ‘ Who’ I am has become hard to describe, but I still attempt to do it to help others understand.     All the while, however, I am perhaps no one.     I have this growing notion of being no one and not needing to be some  one.

It is not so critical any more that I be a ‘who,’ that I be some one.    Perhaps that is because I am gradually becoming aware that I am in everything and every one that I touch.

Some days I feel like I am standing at the entrance to a worm hole, inviting all passers-by to enter with me.    It is a strange place to be since the last couple of years have been so transformative for me.    I feel like I am living in an alternate reality.    The world I am walking in is no longer the same as it once was.    I cross the street at 9th and Hennepin and it feels amazingly different than it once did.

The disappointment I sometimes feel is that I now know what is possible, and when I invite friends or even casual acquaintances to enter this world with me, they decline.    They are not ready.    And at that moment I remember all those years that I was not yet ready.

I clearly want to have companions.    I prefer not to feel the aloneness that my alternate world seems to demand.    I still have this notion that it is a place that can be shared, and I want to share it with as many companions as is possible.    It is not an easy step for them to take.   I am painfully aware of this.

I still want others to experience the bliss and delight that my alternate world offers.    It is a place where illusions are  questioned, where teachings are doubted, and where the awareness of reality is sharpened.    I want others to be able to experience this world in all its  wonderful splendor and excitement.   Above all others I want my sons to know what it is like.

And so I repeatedly invite others to enter this worm hole.    I suspect that it is a one-way trip.    Once entered, this alternative reality may from hour to hour lose its sharpest and vigor.     But there really is no turning back.   Maybe others realize that and do not want to give up all they must leave behind.

I invite others to join me, fully aware of the danger I am inviting them to take on.    If they join me, it will demand that they shatter old concepts, give up old comforting illusions, perhaps adjust their human relationships.    It is not a step for the faint-hearted, and perhaps even seems weird and off-balanced, contradictory and uncertain.    All that is true.

I still will continue to invite others to join me.    I offer an invitation with my words, my eyes and my presence.   It is a good place to be.   I hope that neither they or I  will be completely alone.