Barry Garden Path

I consider it a successful day when I have dispelled yet another untruth taught me by my culture.    I have spent so much of my life unlearning what I have been taught.   And yet, I continue to be surprised, then disappointed, when I discover that yet another thing I have been told is a lie.

Almost nothing is as it is made to appear.  I feel I am living in a cultural world that has been shaped by the unenlightened  interests of humans around me.  Sadly, so much of that cultural world denies access to the beauty of who we are, the grandeur of reality, the wonder of what it means to exist.

I only can trust what I have directly experienced, and that routinely contradicts what I have been taught by my culture.

I could make a list of examples, but that would sound like the rant of someone who has been disappointed by life.   Actually, it is just the opposite.    I am so grateful that I have lived a life that has slowly but surely separated me from the grasp of what I have been told.   I have made my own choices, eventually, based on my own grasp of reality.  For that I am very glad.

I so so grateful that I have lived these seventy and five years, allowing me time to unlearn so many untruths.   The world I have discovered is beautiful and so much more vibrant and full of joy than I had been told.

 

 

 

I use a small gong to begin and end my meditation.    For me it is more than a simple ritual to identify a beginning and an end.   The sound of the gong has for a long time been an audible voice “calling me home,” in the words of a Sangha member.  My experience of that call has taken an interesting turn.

It begins with my touching the gong, feeling the cold and silent metal forged from brass.   I lift the striker, feel its weight and hard handle.   I touch the gong lightly with the striker then bring it to life with a sharp blow on the side.    The metal sings out, flowing through my whole body.   I feel its vibrations in my head, in my torso, in my hands and feet.

The gong is inviting me to a home that use to be tiny and inside of me.   My home was confined to the space defined by my body.   Now my gong invites me to a wide and spacious world, much larger than tiny me.    I feel the summons to a limitless universe, an ocean of reality.    I enter the timeless world of no time.    The metal of my gong vibrates and I follow where it leads me.

The sound of my gong fills the room and carries me to a widening expanse beyond me and my room.   When it is finally quiet, I have expanded beyond the limits of my tangible world.   I find myself settled in a place far beyond my limited vision.   This truly is my home, and I have been brought here by my gong.

My home extends to all that is, and I am carried there by the sound of my gong.   This is where I belong.   This is where I let go of everything I think sustains me, all the things I think I need to survive.   Here I can abandon all my security, all my certainty.   I can yield to the lack of assurances that shape my past and future.

My gong allows me to find joy.  I love its sound and what it may bring.

Every day, I still pass up opportunities because of my caution.   On top of it, every day I also seem to miss opportunities because of the caution of others.   Where is the boldness to be in the moment?   I sure would like to live out each moment to its fullness, but hesitation seems so stifling for me and my companions.

I am getting much better about simply acting, trusting impulse, leaping in.   Sometimes it feels like a dam has just broken when I allow the energy to rise from some deep spot inside me, and I just “do it.”

But I am finding it is hard to find other people who are able or willing to reciprocate that energy flow.    Allowing the moment to flow, not resisting what the moment brings is hard enough to do on my own.   Finding others who are able to do the same, without caution about the future, seems nearly impossible.

How often have I heard or sensed a caution because of what they think “I expect” in an interaction   I wish people would just do what they want to do, and I will do what I want to do.   It is best not to meddle in one another heads.

Maybe that is part of the curse of my being on the autism spectrum:   I am much more inclined to take things on face value, and I don’t try to adjust to what I think is in someone else’s head.  I try to pay attention to what is in my head, not theirs.  Frankly, I find what is in my head much easier to understand.

I know that being able to interpret or anticipate someone’s malicious intentions may have been an aid to my survival.   However, I prefer to use that skill very infrequently.   It’s not the way I want to live my life.

Trying to interpret what is in someone else’s mind is such a stimulus of caution.   It means living in my imagination and not in the reality I actually experience.   Imagination, especially the imagined future, is such a fertile ground for fears and caution.

I am trying very hard not to live in my imagination, especially not to live in an imagined future.   I find that I experience caution a lot less and joy a lot more.   I seem to have survived just fine.

 

Every day I make an abundance of decisions.   At least I seem to.   Some are huge, but most of them are trivial and small.   I wonder how free I am in making those decisions.   They seem like they are truly MY decisions.   Nothing or no one is forcing me to act.    Yet the debate over whether we have free will has been around for a very long time.   I also think about it.

I no longer think that I make decisions in a totally “free” manner.    But I also think that my decisions are wholly mine.   Any decision I make or action I take is an accurate expression of who I am.    My so-called “free will” arises as an impulse deep inside of me.   It is a convergence of many factors that define me.   My history is there, my biology is there, my habits are there, my aspirations are there.   Above all, and having the most influence,  my awareness is there.

In a real sense, I am not free to make whatever decision I want.   My decision options are limited and defined.   Even my choosing is defined and somewhat predetermined.

I think that my decisions and my actions are a convergence of all the factors that define me.   Most significantly, they are an expression of my evolving awareness.   They are an expression of the order, the information, the intelligence present in me, in whatever state that happens to be at that moment.

My decisions are an energetic impulse coming out of my core self, and are rooted in a raw form of eroticism.   They are an expression of the energy that constantly stirs in my living self.   Probably, my decisions are the most reliable and transparent manifestation of my true self.

So do I have free will?   I don’t think that anything I do is totally “free” in an isolated way.   Everything ultimately comes from within, and is an expression of me, so it is shaped by who I  am at that moment.   Nothing I do is totally isolated because I am connected in so many ways to the world around me, my past and my future.

So I am not free.   But I do think that the decisions I make are truly mine, and an expression of who I have chosen to become.

As I look at the bench on my deck and feel its presence, feel its  color, feel its woodiness, I experience an intimacy with the bench.    Another day, I might describe this as I am aware of the bench.   I think they are two words to describe the same event.

Whenever I am aware of something or some one, I am taking down the mental barriers that separate us.    When I am aware, I am relaxing the shield that protects me.   I am experiencing a certain vulnerability in order to see something or some one just as they are.    I have to put aside all imagination and expectation.   I abandon a safe place and ignore caution.

It seems to me that when I describe awareness this way, I am also describing intimacy.   When I am aware, there is a certain energy that seems to flow both ways between me and the object of my awareness.   We are connected.   A oneness is affirmed and recognized.   We effectively merge.

Awareness is not an activity as much as it is a state.   Being mindful is not an effort, it is a letting go in order to be a receptive sponge.    If anything, it is a cessation of all activity, all mental effort.    Awareness is a blending, a connection, a relaxed state of no barriers.   Mind and senses become one.

There seem to be many ways to speak of intimacy and it takes many forms.   For me, it seems that one thing they all have in common is a heightened level of awareness.

 

It came clear to me while I was purging a riotous patch of Virginia waterleaf from a front flowerbed:   Mind and body are one.    It doesn’t make sense for me to see them as separate.    The same energy that animates one animates the other.    Seeing them as separate is an illusory convenience.

The health and well-being of one is the health and well-being of the other.   Mind and body are but different aspects of who I am.    Much as particles and waves can be the same.

What drove this home was the sudden realization, in my garden, that Ron, my brother, has been sick for a week.   No clinic or emergency room has been able to arrive at a diagnosis.   It suddenly became clear to me that he has been apprehensive about the pending visit by Mary Ann, our sister, and her spouse, Bob.   We even talked about how his being sick might discourage the visit.

The situation has been sitting there in front of me for a week, and I never recognized the convergence between what was going on in Ron’s mind and what was happening in his body.   Not only has one reflected the other, but I also think they are one and the same.    His “body” sickness is real, not imagined.  So is his “mind” distress real.   Both are an aspect of the same reality.

I am aware that the entity that I call “me” is a convergence of many things, many entities, many fields.   I am an event that happens because of interactions that I scarcely understand.   I seem to move through a day in steps one after another.  It is an expression of a constant coming together of information from many sources.   I am slowly becoming aware of certain aspects of that convergence.

The more my awareness grows, the more I see how all is connected, all is part of a whole that simply “is” and goes to the depths of the universe, to the core of all that is.

I have been saying to friends that I see the body as a gateway to awareness.   I like to say that body awareness is the stimulus and pathway to mind awareness.    One comes before the other.    I breathe to become aware.   I now think this is only partially true.

Today I think that body awareness, such as breathing or any sensation, and mind awareness are the same.    Each is an aspect of the same event, the same happening, the same awareness.    Body and mind are not separate, they actually are aspects of the same reality, intimately one and the same.  For this reason,  I do not think that I can have mind awareness without body awareness.

It is possible that this can make sense to me because I spent so many years thinking of how the Trinity expressed three aspects of God.    I don’t think about that much anymore.    But I do think about my sick brother while I am gardening, and because of him I understand the unity of body and mind much better.

I also think I can see a slight glimmer of what it means for all things to be one.    I am learning how my garden and I are one.    There is more to come.   Convergence is a joyful event.

I want to learn better how to visit someone else’s garden.    The more I understand what it means for me to garden, what an active / interactive event it is, the more I understand how to be engaged with a garden not my own.   I see that I am entering into an intimate space where the gardener and plants live together.   The life of one is not separate from the other.

As a visitor, I am invited to participate in that intriguing dance of gardener and plants.   I can choose to stand aside and observe or I can join in the exuberance of the dance.   For me, this is like gardening of the mind.   Not that gardening is a rational activity, but my mind must be open, I must be aware of what is happening if I am going to join in the dance.

Garden is not an outcome, it is an experience and an activity.   A garden is not a trophy case of collected plants on display.    It is an interaction between the plants, the gardener and the visitor.   It is an event, and I am careful not to close my mind to that reality.

The plants are all an expression of the energy of the sun, the substance of the rain and air, the presence of birds, the work of life in the soil, the vitality of last season’s compost, the hand of the gardener.  The temporary nature of the event is so fleeting, it is easy to miss its many features.    All are contained in the exuberance and impulse of the plants, an expression of the web of inter-being in a way I can experience it.

As a visitor, I have the opportunity to enter into the joy of being a plant.    The display of that joy is unmistakable.    Even a casual visitor easily gets caught up in the thrill of plantness.   The exuberance of the plant display of voluptuous sexuality  can be totally engaging.   Except for plants like hosts, most plants have been selected for their ability to display their sexuality with bold enthusiasm.   I reach deeper into this display and become engaged with the plant eroticism, the urgent impulse of being alive in all the plants.

I am aware that any garden I visit is alive in ways I can only barely comprehend.   It is an experience I offer to anyone curious enough to visit my garden.   A visit to my garden is a shared experience, full of surprises,  that leaves neither the visitor nor the garden quite the same.

 

 

Most of the time, a garden is thought of as a place where plants grow.    For me, “garden” has slowly become less of a noun and more of a verb.    It is something I do.   I garden.   It is an active verb, “to garden.”    What am I doing today?   I plan to garden.   I enjoy my garden, and I constantly invite people into my garden.    Even more so, I am thrilled to garden, and I invite people to join me in that active engagement with plants.

I prefer not to regard a garden as some kind of end product, something to make or fashion.   For sure, a garden is never something that is  done or complete or static.    Garden is something I  do when I step into the place where plants have chosen to grow in my yard.    Some of them have been invited, some have not.

As a gardener, one who gardens, my role is to establish and maintain a relationship with plants.    Neither I or they are passive partners in this relationship.   We each decide whether we are going to cooperate with the other.   I cannot make plants do anything, and they cannot effectively demand anything of me.    We can each opt out of the relationship.

I like to tell other people who garden that they have the power over life and death in their garden.   They can decide what plants to invite, which plants get to stay, which plants must be relocated or eradicated.    What I don’t tell them is that plants have the same option and power over their own destiny.

In fact, many plants have found that they don’t like the way I garden and have disappeared.   This seems to happen with some frequency.  I have a working relationship only with the survivors.   When you walk thru my garden, you only see the compatible plants with whom I have an agreement for companionship.

I suppose it is the give and take of what it means to garden.   Some plants don’t seem to believe me when I say that they can only grow in certain places.   Part of gardening is the removal of wandering plants or plants that have shown up uninvited.   Even gardening that seems random has a number of boundaries and hidden order.    Fortunately, most plants know where those limits are and how to behave.   They know very well that plants never grow in straight lines or in even numbers.

As much as control plays a part in how I garden, I also act on impulse.  In this way, gardening is erotic.   It rides and thrives on a subtle but clear wave of energy that rises deep inside me and the plants.   To garden well depends on reliance on trusting this impulsive energy.

Rational dominance when I garden makes for a weaker dynamic, and a less vibrant outcome.    I often am unaware of how things will turn out, and rely on the impulses of plants as well as my own.   I can feel a gardener’s energy when I walk into someone else’s garden.   A garden benefits from having an emotive element.    It is not a highly rational activity.

This means that when I garden, I let go.   I am thrilled to see the vibrant energy of my plants and I grieve when a plant I love has died or been ravaged.   Every day is different and full of surprises, whether I am down on my knees digging or walking among the plants feeling what they are up to today.

 

 

 

 

 

I use to think of my getting older as a time to learn new things.   I’m finding out that it is also a time to unlearn many of the lessons of my past life.

For starters, the way I have learned to see the world has been horribly inadequate, even wrong.    Reality is not what I have been taught.   Newtonian physics doesn’t quite explain what my eyes see and what my hands touch.   I have learned to live in an illusion, and it is so freeing to begin to shatter that learned illusion.

The new experience of unlearning illusion goes further into my cultural and religious mythology.   So much of what I have considered the natural order of things has been a fabrication created by humans who are around me or lived in my past.

I find it interesting that I have spent so much time and energy sorting through the mythology of religion, trying to understand better how religion made sense.   I might as well have been playing a game of Skyrim or Civilization on my computer.    It has had about as much relationship to reality.    I am happy to at last uncloak the myths of religion and see them for what they are.

Cultural myths have been no less illusory.    The roles of men and women.    The nature of marriage.   The restrictions on loving one another.  The role of economics and ownership.   I have pushed back against all of these as I have come to see how they are constructs of society, and have very limited basis in reality.    They certainly are not going to be a large part of my future.

So many of the habits of nutrition, my learned likes and dislikes about food, are all lessons out of my past.    Putting these illusory principles aside is not easy, and they seem to be a daily challenge.    I know I am unlearning, as I must, my old way of eating.

Above all, I am unlearning what I have been taught to expect about getting older.   Old age is a time of improved mental awareness as I learn the new ways of mindfulness.   It is a time of mental sky-diving.    This is a time to learn more about gardening and geology.   It is a time to look deeply into what others can tell me about the nature of reality.   It is a time to free up my interest in writing.

The list could go on, but I know that old age is not the myth told to me by my society.   Old age is a good time to unlearn and shovel out all the junk teachings of my past.

 

 

The past is a terrible place to get stuck.  I sometimes like to look back at experiences of my past, but I only like to make short visits.    It is not a place I want to spend much time.

I am aware of how the traces of nostalgia provide content to my dreams. There is hardly a dream that  does not have fragments of my past.   Nostalgia flavors my dreaming, whether I am awake or asleep.   Rather than adding zesty savor to my time awake or asleep, memories seem to dampen my current experience.   Nostalgia shapes and limits my alertness, memories stir up anxiety.

When I seem to be clinging to memories of my past, I shy away from an unknown and unexplored future.   I retreat to the past, and shrink back from the present.

It is tempting to dwell on the known and fear what is yet to come.   Nostalgia urges me to cling to the worn and familiar.   Memory becomes a measure by which I can judge the present.   It seems like a chilling sense of loss that falls on many who enter old age.

For me, it is a new experience even if any one of my days enters into twilight.   When my day slowly leaves brightness behind and slips into darkness.    I want to avoid looking back at the clear daylight with either longing or regret.    I prefer to embrace  the unknown mystery of darkness.

I could easily take refuge in the shuttered realm of rest when faced with the bright invitation of a new, wakened morning.   Each new day calls me forward into a new day of adventure, delight and discovery.  Why would I choose a future that is only a reassemble of what I have known, a reconstruction of past experience?   Nostalgia urges me to reach back, when I would rather lunge forward.

Life, for me, is not a merry-go-round showing me the same again and again.     I would rather it be a roller-coaster, hurling me into an uncharted, unknown future.   I know it will plunge me into terrifying depths and frightening heights.  I know that most of that ride may leave me exhausted with delight.

To do any of it again would not be the same.  Nostalgia is too numbing.   It is time to turn the page and find what awaits with bright, searching eyes.