Tag Archives: detachment

parenting by powerpoint

17 Mar

Everyday bad things happen, so-

I’ve drawn you a flow chart

to take you from point a to z

with arrows to the short cuts

so roughly won by me.

Let me help you jump over ditches

and avoid the dead-end streets.

Watch my greatest hits of

heartache, thought addiction, faux pas, shame, fear, regret,

so you can save yourself the trouble.

Look, simply, I can help you

avoid the ramifications of not heeding good advice.

I didn’t even know I had it in me, as non-linear as I can be,

to map it out for you, but I did;  I’ve a crash course on not crashing.

But I’m being asked another task, much different than what I’ve done.

The night now asks me to have a courage I don’t know how to muster –

I’m now to be the watcher and not the player and not the coach.

I’m now to calm my plotting mind.

I’m instructed not to imagine trains flying off of their tracks

even while I feel the lurch and screech

of the metal momentum – see sparking in the air.

I’m to observe as boats sink, as elevators release and fall,

as villains creep most uncartoon-like in dark shadows when you pass by;

who orchestrates such visions – where are the views of nature walks, of laughter,

of joy?   Why the fear, why the wrecks, why the destruction?

Why am I thinking of how my parents must have ached and quaked

sitting in hospital rooms, listening to white coat protocol-

powerless

except to release a real-life child to death, to unthinkable death.

I mouthed the words but I didn’t register the meaning –

because I’m still on the simpler fare—

that love is holding the tongue

and squeezing my own trembling body while

I watch and allow.

I am unable to live for another,

unable to undo words,

unable to iron out the wrinkles

of the kinks forming in the plan.

The night brings what the day allows me to hide.

The learning is only ever mine

and it can only be postponed, never avoided altogether;

now or later is  the only choice I get to make.

 

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A Selection of True Awakening Experiences Part II

13 Feb

When beautiful Barbara asked if I wanted to participate in A Selection of True Awakening Experiences Part II,   I took a few days to think if I could participate because the flow is especially pressing to me right now, and writing at all, let alone reading others, has gone to the side.  I am teaching many classes which require lots of grading, so taking time for anything beyond eating, sleeping, and brief, brisk walks is rationed.  To have tasks that require my full focus is just what is needed now, because this is what is happening.  This squeezing  will perhaps bring me awareness that l need to transition to something new that leaves more open spaces for body and mind.  Or perhaps I will be able to continue to find the spaciousness of opening as needed within a challenging flow of time.  As this post is due today, I wake again at 3 AM, with a desire to write again, just in time.

I thank Barbara, who gives space for words and a place for connecting back during these February days.

Where I find myself now:

All instants are opportunity for returning to me, again and again,

second by second.

Who is this me I am returning to?

Good question.  That is the one I ask.  Who is the me I am returning to?  The non dual teachings are the ones speaking to me now.  Who is the one observing the one thinking?  The more I return to the presence the less the attention lost in the game feels okay.  Returning home becomes a known and effective possibility, even when I think I am drowning or being blown about in this life storm.

What does this observing look like in real life?

An example, one morning, as I was driving and thinking worry thoughts  about my daughter, (lost in an idea I had that moment about who I am in relation to my role as “mother”), I got on a bridge that does not lead to my workplace.  There was no turning about on the bridge, of course, so I had to carry on the road until I could do a u-turn on the other side.  My life choice to get lost in thoughts while driving forces me to WAKE UP!  One moment I was lost in worry, the next moment I was back in the present moment, on a road that forced me to return.   No curse words were uttered; there was no worry of a late arrival.  This wandering girl is loved in her lost moments.  The second I missed my turn and realized there was no way but to go forward over the bridge, I was offered many long views of water meeting ocean, the light and fog mixing to a rapturous view that was invisible a moment before.   I can, in an instant, return to being bathed in the morning light.

The world  says to me “be here;”  every road leads back to me.

When I am hurrying, confused, thinking that something is wrong, I am gone for seconds, moments, hours, sometimes.  But the returning is becoming more the normal.  The space of no thoughts, no agenda, no worry is often steady.  Joy.   The outer world dances with me – and my flow is as easy as what (and who) appear next.

My thoughts lost are mirrored to me with such compassion.  The bridge which takes me far from my destination, brings me back again.  My thoughts play back to me on the stage of the world.

The title Life as Improv becomes an ever more real instant to instant thing.  I can go about as the perceiver who meets even old friends without an idea of how the moment will unfold.

Who is appearing on my stage right now?

You.

 

I can see and feel your shifts

as subtle as snow’s first flakes, as dramatic as seizures.

You are me, I see, as you pass by,

your face, your expression, my mirrored image.

I feel your heart squeeze and know not the cause

but it is my heart, too.

Better with no words-

Better quiet now,

but instead it can be still loud, at times — as the thoughts built towers yesterday and now towers fall, regularly.

There is still the demolition, my house is still falling down.

Everyday I get to tear down another idea, closer and closer to the invisible veil.

I’m in the dungeon shining light into the corners

where the hidden dust of old ideas needs sweeping.

But I am happy to report,

the air has lost its smell –

and god willing I will build no more towers.

I  will not build new religions for the key that opens my door today.

I am comfortable in huts.

I will ever be a nomad,

even if I stay in one spot.

Beginning again again, each day,

do I see the flawless avocado for my toast?

Do I savor tea as it is sipped;

do I meet you with no yesterday story of me?

My today is frighteningly simple, even in this busy time,

as I’ve lost my yearning for most things.  The middle path was not a distant philosophy but a real clearing out and daily practice.  Now the subtlety of  desire and aversion becomes apparent – the consumptions of body and mind, clear.  The addictions of the subtlest nature are rooting out and getting dropped bit by bit.

Awakening is a heavy word – to me it is just the beginning, one dawn at the start of many days.

In vigilance and joy, driving to work, talking to students, juggling chores, buried in all the paperwork that life generates, losing my focus yet gaining it again, with less and less time in between…

remembering myself

to be

water

who doesn’t need instructions to flow

down to the sea.

Up tomorrow:  Brian at  middle pane

 

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I’m incapable of love

17 Nov

I have never loved another.  I am incapable of this task alone.

I have not even loved a cat, a dog, a tree, myself, no one.

There may be channel for love through release, but I don’t have to look around that corner.  That corner will come to me, not my business.

It is arrogant to imagine I know what love is.

The ones I am supposed to love by all earthy definition walk by me and at times I feel nothing but annoyance.  I might get a painful inner heart squeeze even at the sight of them, but is that love?  At times I only see reflection.  At times I don’t even see.  I am unable to define and perform in accordance with what I think that love is.  I love no one, no thing, nothing!

I release this idea of love.  I release the word.  I release.

And when I do, I am just here.

I can get still enough to stop doing what I think love should look like.

I’m left with only the senses, not the thought.

I am free to not love ever again as me.

Yet I am still here;

nothing has changed visibly,

though perhaps I sit up more as the weight of performance is taken off my back.

Mirrors mirrors on all sides

you magnify what is not

and let me simply be here.

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need want both

20 Sep

the movement to fill the belly is a vow

at least for now

to continue on in the journey of the body

to fulfill the need

that being human

makes me have.

we play the game

we all must do the dance of chewing

and swallowing

and pleasuring in taste

but at times

it is just a chore

like bathing and peeing

like flossing and dentist tripping

part of the musts for taking care of this bod

this minivan – no  truck

I’ll look under the hood, and change the oil

get enough fuel to do the things I want to do.

I cannot hike or paddle or swim without reserves –

eat to live

live to eat

I remember those days

when going without I thought would make me faint

and now sometimes I forget,

I forget and get the signal from the gauge

hey girl, you’re riding on empty

and you got miles to go

you know…

and then at times

a taste,

a whiff even, is enough

to begin a longing

to flood the tongue with taste

and the brain – endorphins

what is this drug?

the charring, the sweet and salty?

the perfect meal

a bit like heroin, never quite measuring to that first high

but definitely worth the try –

so many roads to go down

some necessary, most by choice

I enjoy the pleasure and the denial

I am a ambidextrous consumer

I can dive into pleasure

without needing it to show up daily

and I can dive into denial

without a nagging voice of need

yet still,

a cup of tea is champagne

a basil leaf,  a boat to shangrila –

may we ever hunger for that which truly fills.

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doors and windows

10 May

I come here

as the officiating observer of this life form,

me, the eyes in the cave behind the waterfall of activity,

who watches impassively –

it is a fact that there are eyes behind

even these so deep into the cave,

i only perceive them in my dreams

nevertheless, this is not the point of typing words today

the point is closer along the lines of trust

of openings and closing

of movie reels of life happening

of living through a body so entirely

that the wheel of time allows forgetting

and just being

of reaching out to feel if I have hair

form

am I still here, as she?

waking in rooms, piecing it all back together

an identity necessary to walk around

to get to work

yet expendable enough to be left on the closet

floor every night, and even more often of late

and still this is not the point either

gather yourself darling

your point,

it seems the point that motivated you

to type at all

was this idea of doors and windows

the clichés of our day that get us through

the idea of rejection –

when we’ve already agreed, nothing real can ever be threatened,

in lesson one –

this idea of rejection is not real…

still the slamming door in the face can cause an imaginary sting

enough to make

the body ask, Why me?  or maybe more like, Why not me? 

And tears can be a natural release.

But man have the windows been flying open around here

windows we didn’t even know we had – whole floors

above this single story house are being built –

hear the carpenter hammering away as we talk?

The sky is the window these days.

One momentous slamming door for dear Eden in April

felt, traveled through,

a tumble down stairs

into a bell jar basement cavern,

followed by an attic visit and skylight opening

onto the showers of blessings of possibilities —-

will i ever doubt again?

the blessings in waiting,

dolled out of god’s pocket

candy in the sky

bitter greens in every field

breezes on every back

dorothy’s red shoes

showing that every place

is a home –

and we can fly out from every nest

we’ve ever made,

every moment an open window.

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we’ll see, won’t we

4 Apr

The bell of truth will never stop ringing.

I may try to silence it, hanging out where I hear no truth, trying to mingle and fit in, but the authentic self will never let me settle for less than what is real – BUT real is strange.

Real can look so many different ways – real can look the exact opposite of what was expected or wanted.  The me who went to the party and met the expectations looked more the part. I’m addressing that one.  Nope.  Not it, not for you.

Praying certain prayers, signing up for the truth at all costs, handing over the reigns to the ineffable, brings about a certain intensity.  The one who makes this prayer finds herself first in line for the ride that starts at the mouth of a dark cave with an imperceptible track, which starts out with a stomach dropping descent  – which would be exciting if it didn’t look and feel so much like death.

My path doesn’t let me hide in my bed,  for long.  My trajectory doesn’t allow me to tie security down or live a life for safe keeping – it allows the reality of what naturally unfolds to rule – which might mean giving away my last dollar, or giving up the dream of what I thought would happen, or standing at the fancy party unavoidably in dirty, inappropriate clothes, sneezing embarrassingly in public so the woman next to me can hand me a tissue, crying in empathy or standing open yet unmoved.

This path might give me a million dollar house and have the wind carry it down into a gaping abyss the very next second.   There is not a way to keep all safe, to bank it away, to know what is next.  I cannot know.   Rhyme nor reason cannot be had.

To not know what is next is the truth for everyone – but there are certain ways of being that seem to shield one from that reality.  Uncertainty will visit everyone, nevertheless.  For those involved in the reckless signing over of the control, there is a flow found in stepping into the great unknowing in every minute.

I woke this morning to find that my college roommate has cashed her chips in for this life.  She had a series of events in a short time that caused her to employ her human right for self-determination, and now she is gone.  I send her and her family love and peace beyond what seems possible to muster, beyond the boundaries so seemingly solid on this locked-down earth.

Defining of what is good and what is bad is way beyond my skill level.

The old buddhist teaching about the farmer and his horse comes to mind; We’ll see  is always the clear view of the swings of good and bad fortune.

Who can ever really know anything at all, with certainty?  Isn’t there great freedom in this not knowing?  Do you ever meet anyone along the way who looks you dead in the eye, full tilt into the I don’t know, one who is more enticing than the ones who think they know, the accredited, the acclaimed?

I would like to meet you in courageous unknowing!

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spooky parent

22 Mar

world overlook

A few weeks ago:

My heart hurt – viscerally – i felt tight and achy deep in the chest

and it wasn’t my own pain.

I felt around my world, trying to find the source.  I knew, but I couldn’t help wondering how I could feel the pain of another so personally within.

It seems the journey of a parent is the experience of heart ache, in joy and sorrow.  The physical connection is ridiculous.

I think the cells of my two daughters and my cells mingling in the womb still have action at a distance all these years later – what a spooky happening!

Their cells mingle among my own and go off in alarm patterns in their times of stress or hurt or worry or in life crushing/life growing experiences and in big, joyful times, too.   Each intensity of theirs sends signals to the hormone fire stations in my body, who then rush out with the fight or flight chemicals in me.

How come I am tumbling through 16-year-old emotions instead of holding a steady opening?

How come I feel elation, walking through the aisles of the florescent lit grocery?

Sometimes the phone will chirp, and I find out the answer.  Or I may have to wait until the teary face or bounding joy comes bursting through the door, later.

I found myself typing words out, without a care for structure or meaning, just to take the edge off of my achiness, to sooth the hurt of my inability to change outcome or to walk through with them or even for them.  Each girl has all the tools she needs to deal with rejection, depression, re-creation, but it physically hurts in the process – me.  Detachment flies right out the window, of late.

I was overwhelmed again for just living this life, even as the sky hinted of a spring to come.  Two cardinals outside sang and flashed bright red in the bare winter tree for  me as I ran out in pj’s to take the girl downtown so she could teach little ones hebrew, releasing a song in my heart once again.

These girls and I will learn together about carving out the experiences we wish to have.  We will learn and relearn about finding our passions, our energy, our focus, our innate ability to create our thoughts and watch our thoughts turn into our flow.  We learn to find joy in the smallest of things, again.

My heart may take to aching again.  My hands are tied in this.  I allowed the souls of others to grow in my body and nothing I can do will stop the little cells from circulating in my system as these beings walk on through their own time tunnels.

I want to grab their hands and force timeline jumps – to sunny and cloudless skies – but they both get to choose for themselves.  I will walk my path forever entangled with the gift of these overlapping trajectories.

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walking on the fields of slaves

24 Jan

Closing eyes while facing the setting sun,

over marsh and salty creeks,
provides a primitive script
on the inside of my pink-skinned lids.
i was the cave dweller who carved
notches for the ones I’ve been.
i run my cursor over the alligator skin
encoded with the story of all time,
left here for me –
thinking there is no way
she will miss it, this time.

i see the structure of my mundane thoughts
solid like walls built on each side – but i can
push them back with my
shadowy arms.
my house is
a cardboard house, with folding lines preset
to make it gone in a new york minute.
WOLF may huff and puff –
but i tell him,
put your predatory mind at rest:

i

give you my house
and my piggie flesh too
no need for a scene.

i
listen to the drone of rush hour traffic
while my feet touch the land of original settlers.
blood and sweat in the dirt and air,
they are for dinner, whole.
I am thinking again
and the mind conjures
up a rule that I am only pulled down
by that which i have not healed – what
does that mean?
do I/i remember my days as slave,
as master,
beast and bird?

when i move in the world,

i have become
a piece of the sky
in a sports bra.
there is room for every
crazy thing that i can imagine.
the I has forgotten,

but now i remember

the very next person/animal/plant/or insect that i cross
has chosen to cross my path for a holy encounter.
There is only now to

pray as i enter the post office –
talk to my sliver of chocolate –
and study the morse code of the dishwashers whirring
moving my hips to the swoosh:
no need to escape to the cave
any more.
The cave moves within me
as dark and silent
as can be –
a black hole
in motion –
swallowing
time behind her curving path.

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the one writing this post is so annoying

21 Oct

for s:

oh, do tell

of losing the self?

even for just a moment,

losing it

drops the muscles in my face;

makes me forget my name.

if i’m not a consistent thang

then why don’t i wash down the drain?

why do my cells keep hugging and clinging,

to the one they think they are?

why does my phone ring?

why do i still wear clothes?

can non dual get me out of taxes

out of traffic

out of laundry?

no reason

not to drift away,

but it does only

seem fair

that I I I I  can get off.

are you with me?

everyONE?

you birds must share your flying,

you rhinos, your horns;

the siren (hear it, here it!)

rushing to the accident

calling us all

to flow together in one soup

to fill the belly,

for there’s a

the wHole in the bottom of the sea –

when I am no longer me.

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the sauna

14 Oct

Not sure why,

but I am compelled to cook this body.

As my skin pinks, I feel

my thoughts leaving –

squeezed out in beads of sweat.

I hear the racquetball bouncing so loud off the walls

that I think the sounds I hear

may be coming from the walls of my cranium,

being played like an instrument.

I am a hollowed-out gong,

listening to the ricochet off spine vibrating

low to high notes of emptiness.

The glue that holds it all together has melted

and a heel bone is floating free.

A recurring conversation is heard

(by whose ears?)

in the women’s locker room outside,

between a motherless girl and a worker.

They are searching everywhere for the small girl’s mother, Mary.

Mary may be in the pool – they leave to go see.

Mary is not in the pool.

Mary may be in the spin class – they leave again

and return.

Mary may be in the sauna.

I feel their eyes as they peer through the glass door at me:

Are you Mary?

No. I say.  I am not Mary.

Are you this girl’s mother?

No. I say, as the girl stares in my face

as if she is wondering if I may be Mary, if I may be her mother,

transformed.

Could the sauna be a high-tech machine

from the future?

In you go as you,

out you come as another?

Am I only half-baked into my new form?

I feel unsure.

I could be Mary after all.

Who is now sitting in this little, hot box?

They leave again to go search.

For Mary.

A woman appears in the glass,

fiddling with the heat button.

Catching sight of me,

she beams – white teeth, bright eyes;

she goes

to the mirror to fix her hair.

I feel this face still beaming back at her long after she has left.

Soon this body moves to leave;

where does the will to move begin?

I am sure in this moment that the body moves

and the mind follows, like a dog following its master

and not the other way around.

What life am I returning to?

Stepping from the heat,

as the girl and I are reunited,

my thoughts are full of ice cream

and balloons, and she shall

tell me where we live.

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