Barry Garden Path

It all began when I was rummaging through a box of old photos, looking for images of my family and ancestors.  In those treasured photos of people I once knew or hardly knew, I saw images of my younger self.  Almost in a glance, I saw all those years of my former self.   It seemed like many lives rolled into one.   Some felt so familiar I could reach in and touch them.   Others so strange I hardly could find myself in them.

The memories of having “been there” were nevertheless so strong.   I sat on the couch, and it was a piercing vantage point from which to review  where I’ve come from, where I have been, who I have been.

So who am I now and who am I becoming?   The caterpillar has entered the chrysalis and the transformation has begun, but the outcome is so shadowy.   Some things I can decide, perhaps even determine.    So much is outside my control and will be shaped by events yet to come.

I know that I do not intend to hand my changes over to someone else, as I have done so much in the past.   I have often allowed, even invited someone else to be a significant part of my formation.   Their way became my way.   I soon figured out  that one of us had to be in control, and I acquiesced.

I want to find my own way, even though I do not have a clear idea of what that involves.    I know that I want to experience my presence and the presence of  others in a more aware manner.   I know that I do not want to  continue to use my imagination to shape my relationship with the world.   I am willing to continue to change, but not reshape reality to conform to some kind of image, whether friendly or not.  I may even want to be surprised.

I want to have open eyes this time as I emerge from my changes.   It is a beautiful world, and I want to see it, neither change it nor be changed by it.  I intend to be prepared to love what I see.

 

I think that I once kind of knew what it meant to be normal.   All I had to do was look around and see what human beings were like, and that became my measure of what is normal.   Now I’m not so sure.  In fact, I’m not at all sure what it means to be normal.

I recently heard from a friend that what I was experiencing through my growing mindfulness was not as normal for humans as I had claimed.   I’ve thought a lot about what she told me.   I think I’ve lowered my expectations for my fellow humans in the process.

The joy I’m experiencing in so many moments of the day may not be normal.   I think that I’m OK with that.   I don’t think my abnormal practice by which the searing blade of joy is whetted to a sharp edge is very common.   Cultivating awareness and the joy it brings is not a soothing balm for me.   Awareness comes from persistent effort and diligent grinding to remove the entanglements I have clung to.  It is work.

The illusions I have unknowingly surrounded myself with have to be unbelieved.   I have to keep shutting my eyes and deliberately step through my familiar illusions. Only then do I find that my eyes had actually been closed for a very long time, and I am struck with a brilliance I never knew stirred behind the fantasies.     My two dimensional world leaps at me in 3-D.

Perhaps pursuing joy is not for the faint of heart.   It largely comes to those who decide to let go of assurances and consolation and step through the mirror.  For me it means not getting caught up in the fantasy and drama of the news.   Last week, I listened to the news for only two days before I realized I was being drawn into the illusory world the news creates.   I am challenged by my wanting to be aware of what is happening without being  distracted and drawn into the fantasies.

For me, it also means not getting drawn into my imagination.   I am so easily caught up in the imaginary world of memories and plans.   It is not until I give up that world of images that I find joy in what is happening right now.

The path that I am exploring may not be normal, but I think it is what I want   I also hope to have companions along the way.   I know it means giving up the stability of permanence, but I am not prepared to give up having a place I can call “home”.   It means I will wander thru mystery and give up the indulgences of certainty.   It means that while I will have no “committed” companion to salve my loneliness,  I hope I will walk with others.

It may mean departing from normal and leaving the assurances and illusion of normality behind.

I’ve been struggling for some time to understand what time is and the effect is has on me.   Over a hundred years ago, space and time were linked together.   I don’t get it, even though some explanations give me a passing illusion that I may understand a small part.    One thing I am sure of is that time plays a significant role in my life.    I’m wanting to change that.

This morning, as I was going through the movements of my daily Tai Chi Chih practice, I kept thinking about how pleasant it would be when I finish and can spend pleasant time sitting on my cushion, awash in the delight of awareness.   So I began to rush what I was doing.   Suddenly I realized that my Tai Chi Chih movements could give me the same joy of awareness.   No need to rush.   Put time aside.   Enjoy what I am doing.

I live my life in a framework of time.   I don’t think I can escape that, any more than I could decide to live in a two dimensional world.   I think that I have given time too much of my attention, to the point that it becomes a distraction.   I do like to be on time.   However, I can still be on time with proper planning.   I want not to  focus so much on time.

The more I experience the joy of awareness, the more slowly I seem to be moving.   I walk slowly from the bus to the Light Rail.   It’s three blocks, and I know if I walk slowly, I will still be able to be on time for the train.   Walking slowly isn’t deliberate, but it seems to happen if I am paying attention.   I see and feel the sidewalk, I feel my whole body, I see all the people I pass, I notice the store-fronts.   It is a three block walk of joy-filled awareness.   The sidewalk is dirty and the activity is chaotic and loud, but I enjoy it.   I have put time aside, time is on hold.

Right now, if I am paying attention to time, I am usually not paying attention to much else.   If I don’t pay attention to time, I’m actually more aware of what I  am doing.   I wonder if in the future, I will move more quickly and still be as attentive to what I am doing.

I don’t think so.   I seem to be in a natural pattern of slowing down when I step outside of time.    When I become a watcher, I seem to enter into and take my own time.

 

There was a recent time when I was sure that mindfulness was a withdrawal away from the senses and into the mind.   What a mistake!  I am both surprised and thrilled that the senses are a natural gateway for me into the joys of meditation.    And it is a gate that swings both ways.

When I first learned to feel without touching anything, it was the beginning of the deep experience of letting go.   It was only a short while before I could stare without seeing anything, and I began to suspect that my mind was actually in charge of my senses.   Now I could choose to put myself in a state of mindlessness, immersed in a relaxed state with no imagination at work.  I often tell my imagination to take a break, sit this one out.

The paradox for me has been that my senses then seemed to come alive and vibrant, ready for action.    I soon could focus all my awareness on anything that I wanted to touch or gaze at.   For me, it was as if I was feeling more than the surface of my large maple or the coolness of the granite counter top.   The sidewalk suddenly leapt up to meet me when I walked on it, the road in front of my car took on a substance I had never seen before.

With this awareness came an immense feeling of joy.  It was like being swept away with a wave of open-hearted affection.    I realized that I had accidentally begun to learn how to look with a loving gaze, to touch with a loving touch.   The gate of my senses did in fact swing both ways.

Now, when I am paying attention, every action I take becomes sacred.   Touching the sidewalk  not only affects me.   That touch becomes my act of love, respect for what the sidewalk is, an acknowledgment of what it really is.

I can see more things as they actually are, and not as I imagine them.  I see the granite top in my bathroom as it emerged from a sleep of millions of years in the ground.   I touch my large maple and feel its massiveness and old age.   I watch people getting on the bus and see so much more than I use to be able to know.   To see and touch in this way is a warm gift I often receive.  My senses bring me great joy.

Once I tell my senses to touch or see this way, the outcome is inevitable.  Learning to be aware is not only a wake-up call to my senses.   It also awakens my heart.   My mindful act of respect is equally an act of love.   My sight and touch are so much more vibrant and my heart falls into love so often each day that it almost seems normal and commonplace.

I actually think  that what I am discovering is normal for humans.

I now realize that the world as I experience it is all part of a dream.   My imagination plays such a commanding role in my awareness.    As much as I attempt to go around my active memory of what things should be like, I think I am still in a world of dreams.

Having a relaxed mind and an open heart, frees me from a tyranny of my imagination.   I think I get closer to seeing things as they really are the closer I get to my sensory awareness.   The less my imagination plays an active role, the more relaxed I am in how I interact and become aware, the closer I am to filling my mind with the actual presence of my world.    I get outside of my head.   I am living less in my imagination and actually living in my world.

Knowing what that world is really like is another level of awareness.  My perception of the world as being solid is, of course, a fabrication of my own mind.   If I had eyes that could see the granular nature of the world, I would be even closer to knowing things as they really are.

For now, I will be satisfied to live in my senses and what they tell me about my world.   Even then, I am pretty sure that the people around me are characters in my own dream.   For me, they are truly my experience and real.   Even though my body doesn’t know it yet, I am aware that my companions are present because I am aware of them.   They are as real as I am.

Who knows.   Someday I may wake up and come to the realization that I am part of someone else’s dream, an entity of their dream.   I intend to say, “Dream on.”

I think I have an over-active memory.    I know that it occasionally doesn’t cooperate when I’m trying to remember someone’s name.    But most of the time my memory is in over-drive shaping my thoughts and what I feel.

I am learning more and more how to better connect my attention more directly to my senses.   My awareness of what my eyes see, what my ears hear and what my skin touches is frequently becoming a direct experience.   I am a little surprised to notice how much my imagination is active in shaping and giving meaning to what my senses pick up.   It is as if my imagination is a translator that explains and also shields me from what I am seeing or hearing.   From a practical aspect, this is a useful function.   My imagination gets me through the day.   However, it also reduces my level of discernment and enjoyment.

My imagination is heavily reliant on my memory.   Memory supplies the  content and context.   I remember my past experience with what I think I am seeing, and that allows my imagination to fill in any blanks.   I remember how I felt when I heard a certain sound in the past, and my imagination makes instant reuse of that past feeling.

This is probably a useful ability and can help me to react to situations that could possibly be harmful.   It is also very limiting because memory is limited to my past experiences, and can easily make associations that are not applicable or desirable in a current situation.   Fear and prejudice are blatant examples of where the memory of past experience can interfere with my awareness of what is going on right now.

When I dream, all those memories are given free reign to fill my imagination with fanciful images and feelings.    Without sensory input, my imagination relies totally on my stored experiences for content.

When I am awake, I want to encourage my imagination to take more of a break.  I want my memory to function more on an “as needed” basis and not have such an influence on what I imagine is real.

I’m working on more of a direct sensory experience that bases my awareness less and less on my imagination.    I want my imagination to enhance the energy and input of my senses, not filter them.

I love to think of my garden as in constant motion.   I smile to remember all those times I was told that animals move, plants don’t.   My plants never have heard that, so they are free to ignore it.   So do I.

I walk through my garden at least once a day, visiting and greeting all its residents.   It can be a rowdy bunch.   Some of those perennials have no reserve about constantly venturing into their neighbors’ area.   That Lysimachia has no respect for personal space.

There is hardly a hosta in my garden that is not reaching out  for a better place in the light, no matter that they are shading their companions.    I am routinely corralling the roaming Tovara into one corner of the garden.  So much Wild Ginger has ended up in the compost bin that I’m surprised that it still is so obsessed with wanderlust.

I watch my garden twist and turn, without the help of the wind.    I think of all the activity in the cells and internal structure.   I watch them slowly stretch and change shape between my visits.   I see their leaves breathing in carbon dioxide and exhaling oxygen.    I join the circle and take a deep breath of their constant flow of oxygen.

I’m convinced that everything is likely in motion because of the energetic nature of things.   Everything around me is alive with activity, even if I don’t have the eyes that can see it.  This desk, this keyboard, this chair, my space;  all are vibrating with an enthusiasm I can only imagine.

My garden, however, makes no secret of its vibrant activity.    It is in constant and exuberant  motion, internally and before my eyes.   Some of its action is a slow-motion dance.    I love when I get invited to join in the dance.

I’v escaped into the realization that there really are no answers.  There is only the probability that something is ‘such and such’.    Dogmatism always did bother me anyhow, and it is such a relief to be convinced that certitude is probably a mistake. It’s at least an illusion.

Even being certain that there are no answers is probably a stretch and not true.   I can only say that is likely that there are no real answers.

So is the railing on my deck cold, or does it only give me the experience of coldness when I touch it?   In all likelihood, the railing is cold, but I only have my experience of coldness to rely on.   The railing is probably in a state of coldness, but there is a certain ambiguity about my touching it.

I can use some kind of instrument to mimic my senses and try to determine how cold the railing is.  Even then, my instrument cannot directly communicate its finding.   It can only give me an image, a read-out perhaps that relies on my sensory experience.   Again, what is the likelihood that I am correctly reading the instrument?   My reading the measurement can only tell me what I am likely to feel if I were to touch the railing.

All my instruments can only relate back to  me what I am likely to feel, see  or hear if I were to use those senses directly.    Even my sensory experience can only imply something about an object, and not much more.   My senses can only go so far to imply that something is likely present and it likely has certain properties.  That experience, uncertain as it is, is all I have to rely on.

All around me there are fields of surging energy, manifesting in so many ways that my senses experience.   I seem to be constantly living in the illusion that something is actually there, and my imagination fills in the gaps of information.   It is a marvelous creative world of no certitude, no answers.

 

It seems such a waste to move through the world unmoved and untouched.  Yet, that seems so common.   Like me, so many people seem shielded and protected from the world.   The fear of being moved and touched by the world has been with me as long as I can remember, and I see it all around me.

I remember very well that time when I was 20 years old and first realized that this was not the way I wanted to live.   The process of changing has been going on for over 50 years.   Some things take time.

For a long time, I was focused on making a large part of the connection through one individual.   One at a time.   That did not work well for me or for them.

I think that I have been helped by a continuing and subtle connection with the natural world.   I have always been amazed and moved by the living landscape.   I was not exactly swept away by it, but the wonder of it has kept my attention and a small part of my heart.

A lot of this has changed.  As time goes on, I feel so much more free to be moved and even absorbed by the world around me.   I lean into it and smile in wonder.   I am touched by the living and non-living landscape in ways I never before experienced.

My heart reaches out to the humans on that landscape`in a much more open and fearless way.   I am choosing to touch and be touched.   I enjoy waking up and seeing the same happen in others.

I have a deeply rooted fear of loss.   It is a scary place that I am reluctant to face and enter into.  This fear alone is reason for me to pay attention.

I want to be able to enter into and allow myself to steep in loss.   I want to be able to accept the sadness of loss, to feel the empty space, to allow it to envelop me.

I don’t think I can make room for whatever else might enter in unless I have burnished the empty space with sorrow.   I want to become friends with the emptiness, become familiar with its depth and breadth, accept it in all its unpleasantness.

I have seemed to go to great effort to avoid the pain of loss.   The loss might be for something that has been or even for what might be.  Perhaps this is because the taste of loss encompasses so many memories,  I must swallow again the bitterness of losses already felt.   I know this and yet I must swallow and go on.

I should never gamble or go to an auction.    The pain of possible loss could cause me to do things I would regret.

I want to become open to the sadness of loss.  Fearing it does not serve me well.