Rising

“If I could distill all the great writings on suffering down to a few words, I would simply say that suffering and crisis transform us, humble us, and bring out what matters most in life.” Elizabeth Lesser

What matters most in life? That question that rages in me as I sit here, feeling blue, feeling as if the things that matter most to me right now are trivial things: getting the location of the nearest store that has a Wii in stock, figuring out how to generate income (yes, right now that seems trivial), writing this piece, and finding a way to sit still long enough to breathe…to feel joy! Ah, that’s it for me. Joy matters most.

Okay, I found the quote I referenced before: “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” Confucius

I have a Word document that’s filled with quotes. I use them as uplifting mantras when I feel the need for outside intervention. Reflecting on this piece, which could be called “Inspiration” as well as “Rising” I spent almost twenty minutes getting uplifted by what I found in that word doc.

Considering suffering I get that sense that I am just starting on my journey, I am just now learning how to learn. I remember hearing that this journey gets longer as you progress on it. The more you know the more you realize there is to know…but you shouldn’t be daunted by that. In fact you should be open to it. Being open isn’t about knowing so much as it is about experiencing things, making the connections between what you’ve been told and what you actually go through. Without processing through the litany of experiences I’ve had, I can say I have known the joys of falling and then rising.

At times, I greedily tried to hold onto joy, tried to increase it even but one begins to understand that: “Only angels know unrelieved joy-or are able to stand it.” Ernest Becker.

Okay, I’m just playing with words now, how clever? But what am I truly trying to uncover? And, just as importantly, what can I say here that would be at all meaningful?

Well, here are some more words I found in an article on Buddhist meditation, from Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, “…We might not understand that cheerfulness is in fact an inherent quality of mind. Within the meditative tradition, cheerfulness is considered to be the natural, harmonious and wholesome expression of our truest self.”

Wow!

Okay, I’m equating joy with cheerfulness, gimme that for now, alright?

Recently I completed a purpose-work course with my teacher, mentor, and friend Melissa M. who has whispered wisdom to me for almost ten years now. We spent six months examining the roots of our being, the quests that each of us are on, and, happily, forming a community of both reflection and support for one another. In spite of some rather unpleasant emotional turmoil that I have been going through the entire class describes me as someone who brings joy…interestingly, after the class ended, we traded singular words among ourselves. Pardon this self-indulgence, but I was alternately described as: audacious, warm, delicious, beaming, etc.

But, back to the question: what am I trying to uncover here?

I know, me, just basic me. I don’t know if any of those words could describe me. Sometimes they are just things that ramble around in my consciousness; confusing shades of a ‘me’ that really have no definition. Rather they get in my way, my attaching to them in any way leads me away from joy, from cheerfulness.

The article on Buddhist meditation says simply that when we create space in our minds we find that natural cheerfulness. Create space, what a concept! For me this is a perpetual journey, something that requires me to be persistent in this ‘feng shui’ of my mind’s space, clearing the clutter of daily life, sweeping the insatiable desire for life’s pleasures and distractions out the door. Hiding my disappointments in the dark corners or the shadows lurking just beyond my awareness I find that which I resist the most.

Simplicity.

What others have seen of me, what I feel in those moments of reflection and, more importantly, in those moments of picking myself up and dusting myself off-the joy in me, that’s all I need to carry. What matters most to me is me, being alive! I can’t healthfully deal with much else without an emotional enema every few days. I needed to suffer to know I was alive, to know I was human. That was what I believed. That was what I thought the world needed of me…

That and playing whatever role I needed to play at the appropriate time. Now that I think of it, playing those roles was a part of my suffering, of my falling down, regardless of whatever joy they may have brought to others. Or even to me.

"Don't ask what the world needs. Find out what makes you come alive, and go do that. Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive." Howard Thurman

Quotes, exercising, writing, meditations…all good, but…

All these tools I have explored are, as a new friend wrote me, ways my soul can access and demonstrate its persistence in the face of my life’s challenges. But it’s me that rises. Grace may fill me, and hopefully it will always be there when I need it. But I can count on ‘me’, even after I’ve let myself down. I can always rise. Because, even without the exact words for it, I can tell you I know that I am alive and I don’t have to suffer to prove it.

Falling Down

For the past several years I have rejected just about everything I’ve learned about making my life less miserable. I studied yoga with the most gentle of teachers, being ushered into a practice which demonstratively eased the pains my body was experiencing as it rushed head-long in its sixth decade. After taking three, six week classes with her I not only stopped enrolling with her but stopped any semblance of yogic exercises on my own.

This in spite of knowing in my bones, tendons, and muscles as well, that it was the best thing I could do for my body’s flexibility.

I dove into Buddhist meditations, finding that the simplest of them was perfect for me…just sitting and maintaining a focus on my breath. Wow, I was hooked after the first time it took. I saw and felt the powerful truth of the Buddha’s admonition that ‘we are our thoughts’ and, more so, understood first hand how damming my ‘monkey mind’ was to my accomplishing anything of value in my life. I am the original example of attention deficit disorder in adults (self diagnosed, of course. An amazing rationale for not having accomplished much in comparison to the gifts I was born with and developed over the years!).

Ask me how often I meditated after this discovery. Okay, at first, pretty often, each day as a matter of fact. But, like the dilettante I apparently am, after awhile that beneficial practice fell by the wayside.

Then there was qui gong. Do you know this thing? It’s a gentle way of energy. You know those pictures from China (or major China Towns from around the world) where in the dawn hour there are multitudes of folks doing their Tai Chi or Kung Fu? Off in the background you can see people apparently standing very still, barely moving if at all. They are practicing Qui Gong.

For a lazy ass like me, the perfect physical practice! Especially one form called “stand like a tree”, right? I mean those suckers hardly move at all, and even then only when there’s bit of a breeze, right?

Dropped after the weather got chilly; I mean hot coffee is better than catching a cold isn’t it?

I should point out that while I am being somewhat irreverent in the retelling of these things, dear reader, I experienced some major and profound benefits from each of these things I eventually dropped. So profound, in fact, that I’d like to say right now that as I sit here and input these words into the computer I am resisting the regret of those wasted years when I wasn’t in serious practice.

Even now I am not engaged in daily practices. Sporadically I do my sitting exercise, occasionally I go out and stand with the tall pine in front of our house here, and, here’s one I haven’t mentioned, each day, or at least four to five times a week, I write.

Last summer, Chris Abani, the novelist, uttered words that struck me more deeply than any of the teachers I’ve been blessed to have (and sadly ignored). In a seminar at a writers workshop he said, “Writing is a spiritual practice.” And with those words I realized I haven’t been as lazy as I had thought. I haven’t been as neglectful as I’d thought I’d been.

I write.

But, and here’s the rub, to what purpose? Who, and what, has my writing served aside my own vanity, or more profoundly, my own relief from the pain and suffering I have endured and still carry as I go through each day?

It serves me, certainly. And, again, as I sit here and input into my word processing software I fight the regret that comes over me when I think that I have yet another gift I haven’t used to better myself or others.

Why regret? Because it is one of the primary sources of my suffering and I have come to require it so that I can know that I am human. Boy, it amuses me now, inputting these words how much that almost became my mantra…I am required to suffer to know that I am human.

My Philly personality wants to say something so profane to that but I will not write it here. Suffice it to say this, “What nonsense!” But realistically, that’s what we all do, find our way of suffering and practice it. It is hard, if not impossible, for us to break out of that cycle once we find it.

Writing has been a constant throughout my life, ever since I wrote essays and poems as a teen. But looking back on it, there are huge holes, huge gaps of time, for example, in my journals.

I’m reminded now of the statement a sage gave us, I believe it was Confucius, who said something like, “It doesn’t matter how many times we fall as long as we continue to rise.”

So, let me tell you about getting back up, about rising.

(TBC in my next post…)

No More Guns II

Last year there were over 10,000 deaths from gun violence in this country...ten thousand lives lost to guns.

No more guns...tell me that my right to bear arms is worth even one of those lives...go on try to.

I dare you.

No More Guns

People in and around DC will be lamenting the death of a fabulous football player, Sean Taylor. His death at 24 is sad, shocking, and disturbing. A couple of years ago I may have added: but it is no surprise. Taylor had a bit of a bad boy aura around him coming out of college and some of his actions landed him in trouble with the law and with a bad public image.

But he changed that. People have lauded him for his turn around and, aside from his incredible play on the field, he was becoming a figure worthy of emulation.

But he was shot last night in his home. As I write this all I know is that he was shot by an intruder.

Shot!

Dammit, I have heard all the arguments in support of the second amendment right to bear arms and for just this once I will say I agree that it means that ordinary Joes and Janes can arm themselves as opposed to my reading of the Founding Fathers' desire to have a nation and its states capable of raising instant citizen militias.

Okay...let's just say you and I have a right to own handguns as well as automatic assault rifles.

So what the hell are we gonna do with them besides go out to the range and get our jollies off wasting gunpowder and lead by blasting paper targets?

Sean Taylor was shot by a hand gun. Thirty-three people died last April in Blackburg (the shooter was dead at the end of the shooting too! We need to count him as the perpetuator and
a victim too!) and countless young people across this country die every year because of gun violence.

Tell me then why we need guns...

I'm in favor of 'em, but see no need for 'em.

Do you?

This is my friend Jenn...

She's flagging and I caught this in a horse paddock in Palmyra, PA the second week of September.

She made me think of butterflies.

More on flagging next post.

Searching 4 Joy

Sunday Morning 7:20 AM and the damn phone is ringing. WTF? Who the ...would be calling here that early. Find out later on the voice mail, right?

Around nine Robert is complaining that he can't get on the internet. I show him how I get the damn thing going when the, oh shit, I can't think of the name of the device now...not the wireless router, the thingie the connects to the phone line that separates the DSL....fuck it, you know what I mean. Anyway, I use the phone, call the Verizon voicemail box and there it was (oh, BTW, the light that was blinking goes solid and then you can log onto the internet) a sweet, pre-pubescent girl's voice that only said, "hi".

Then silence...

Sweet little nuisance woke my snarly, bear-like self up. Couldn't work up much distaste for her. Probably Robert's "I'm-next-in-line" girl friend calling and then realizing it was way too early to do such a rash thing that early in the morning...

It's almost 11:00 now. I'm clearing the clutter from my office, finishing what I started when I got back from the retreat in PA and clearing space for my major project: Joy!

Joy

Joy is the center of my focus right now. Finding joy, leaving breadcrumbs along the trail for others to follow....mapping joy.

I woke up with a sad feeling, then an annoyed feeling. But hearing that softly spoken 'hi' changed that.

Oh, yeah the freakin' word is 'modem'. Whew, the mind still works...

Happy Sunday morning!

Happiness Is...

Ah, simplicity is having a cute bunny to snuggle. Does it matter how old you are? Does it matter who sees, or what they may think of you?

And isn't it the best thing on the planet when that 'bunny' is a breathing, warm, and loving human being?

Thank the divine for each and every person who gives you hugs. Thank the universe for those upon whom you are privileged to bestow hugs.

Who has hugged you lately?

Who have you hugged?

Baltimore office view

My client had to step away from our session for a moment and I sat gazing out the window. I was remembering he had told me a moment before that two people had been shot on that street since my last visit.

I stopped wondering why there were bars on the window after that...not that I had really given it that much thought.

My client is a Roman Catholic pastor. He is very passionate about helping the neighborhood become a decent place to live and raise families. He works in this room, in this parish office and is surrounded each day by reminders of the work he has before him.

It is a joy spending time with him and a challange as well. Going there every two weeks is almost like going home to the projects in Philly where I grew up.

How does the light get in?

Dispatch from Cape Cod

Some adventures you never realize you're on until they stare you in the eye and tell you a story you find incredible. Or in my case, several stories, that is until you realize that you know most of them, they sounded familiar as the words were being spoken...you saw some of them in the paper or on the news, and you saw the movie, remember?

While not a photo of any great note (I'm still learning, just got the camera out of the box soon before I left for vacation!) this is my favorite of one Ed Walsh, retired Deputy Superintendent of the Boston PD. He runs a sports cards shop on Cape Cod and he's holding vintage Mickey Mantle cards in this shot. Unseen are the shots of him with Bobby Orr, Ted Williams, and some of the assorted 'bad guys' he busted over the years. Unless you spend time paying attention to the history of the Boston PD you may never have heard of him. But, as my mother-in-law loves to point out, my head is chock full of trivia.

Actually meeting someone as famous in investigative accomplishment as Ed Walsh was a rush. He joined the Boston police in 1955 and retired in 1987. I will not bore you with the number of times he won their medal of honor and other citations. The guy is a walking history of those years in Boston.

The two hours I spent with him in his shop were worth the twelve hour drive back through the remander of tropical storm Ernesto (if I thought I had made bad decisions driving up to the Cape it was just prep work for the drive back!). He should write a book!

I doubt I'll equal Fotoboy's work any time soon...but here's to trying!

Dispatch From Chadds Ford

We left Annandale late in the afternoon and I made just about every bad traffic choice I could have getting here. First day of vacation was still fun, it just didn't matter cause we were on the road, headed north to see some of our favorite people and visit some of our favorite places.

Leon's house in Chadds Ford is situated just south of the Brandywine battlefield. It is visited by deer, fox, and various forms of wildlife. His daughter Rachel, Esther's godmother, is currently living there, Linda, his wife, came in on the train from New York City soon after we arrived. Only Grace was missing, she is apparently well on her way in relationship with a certain 'Adam' (I wondered aloud if Adam knew that he had yet to pass my approval test?).

Robert is in hog heaven right now, showing Leon his game playing skills in the 'cave'. I'm up stairs in the guest suite, listening to Susana Baca through Breath of Life's web portal and trying to repair my lack of attention to my writing. I've slipped off the wagon. I have struggled to complete my thoughts on 'Labels' to the point of realizing that it is more than a series of scribbling notes on a blog.

Perhaps it's a serious article, maybe a book. Perhaps a grounding concept for a photo montage or even a video presentation...a poem?

Regardless, I do have many thoughts that have spiraled out of control and I've decided to just give in and see where they take me.

Right now I'm gonna head down to the cave (Leon, like me, has his toys in the big room all the way downstairs...)his lair. Big screen TV is the major attraction. Computers, games....big boy toys. He has decided to play the grandfather role with Robert. We have had a good time ushering Robert into bigger boyhood. But right now I'm just gonna go down and play. At some point we'll eat breakfast, figure out when we'll head further north.

And go play on the sands of Cape Cod's beaches.

And eat fresh seafood, good lobster, cold crisp beer...

Why am I sitting here still?

Back attcha soon