Sunday, July 31, 2011
relief of rain
sleepy-eyed morning, refreshing dewy quiet stroll. the green of grass, moss, leaves, weeds popping out even more vibrantly after last night's storm. i sat out on the front porch and took in the torrential pounding, stepped out into it for a few moments. oh...feels so good on skin! then a little toad...perhaps the same one who snuck into the house a few nights ago that i had to scoop back out hopped by the puddles that were forming by the front steps. kirby was shaken with fright by the thunder and lightening. so we went in and watched the movie, The Social Network.the music very effective at building drama and tension, it was hard to take sometimes. i know it's a fictionalized account and i am hopeful that these guys aren't so immature and ridiculous in real life??? maybe--i was very immature and selfish in my college years and that is a lot of ethical responsibility for someone to suddenly get thrown into...the way it changed our social context in unpredictable ways to require new thinking on what is private. i can appreciate the way social networking has changed our world and created more opportunity for international connection and communication and self-production, equalizing media more than concentrated in the hands of the few...just want that to be balanced with face to face, slow interaction with depth. less internet has been more peaceful and happy for me.
4am barred owl. 5am chinchilla visit--she was squeaking and i was concerned, curious. i do have a hard time with cages. read up online about chinchillas as pets. learned that they love to gnaw and it's good to have lots of things in their cage to chew on--wood blocks, mineral rocks....plus they need lots of exercise, have lots of energy, so an activity wheel is good. makes me want to go chinchilla shopping, and i may pick up some wood, but there's not even enough room for the activity wheel. i think the cage needs to be bigger. what can i do? strange creature rabbit-rat like. i kept her company trying to make a little game of feeding hay and marigolds (apparently DELICIOUS) by making her run from level to level to get more tasty snacks, to give her more exercise. she was into it. and then i went to bed again...hazy dreams.
saw a hawk yesterday that i thought might be a Cooper's but after looking at allaboutbirds i am not positive...was excited, nevertheless, to see a hawk i've never seen before. i see lots of red-tailed and red-shouldered around carrboro.
spent a couple hours last night reworking this morning's mix a little bit. i feel pretty good about its pathway through the rhythms. going to head into town now to bring this mix to ecstatic dance at the flowjo. maybe i will try to figure out how to upload the playlist and post it later!
love!
4am barred owl. 5am chinchilla visit--she was squeaking and i was concerned, curious. i do have a hard time with cages. read up online about chinchillas as pets. learned that they love to gnaw and it's good to have lots of things in their cage to chew on--wood blocks, mineral rocks....plus they need lots of exercise, have lots of energy, so an activity wheel is good. makes me want to go chinchilla shopping, and i may pick up some wood, but there's not even enough room for the activity wheel. i think the cage needs to be bigger. what can i do? strange creature rabbit-rat like. i kept her company trying to make a little game of feeding hay and marigolds (apparently DELICIOUS) by making her run from level to level to get more tasty snacks, to give her more exercise. she was into it. and then i went to bed again...hazy dreams.
saw a hawk yesterday that i thought might be a Cooper's but after looking at allaboutbirds i am not positive...was excited, nevertheless, to see a hawk i've never seen before. i see lots of red-tailed and red-shouldered around carrboro.
spent a couple hours last night reworking this morning's mix a little bit. i feel pretty good about its pathway through the rhythms. going to head into town now to bring this mix to ecstatic dance at the flowjo. maybe i will try to figure out how to upload the playlist and post it later!
love!
Friday, July 29, 2011
swampy summer sunset dreams desires disappointments delusions discoveries
a dusk sky lit by fireflies, air thick with cicadas, crickets, and sticky wetness. an owl calls in the distance, a dog howls, and kirby and i are walking alongside a quiet road. occasionally a car whizzes by at such an incomprehensible speed in contrast to the slowness here, amplified by the molasses night. mailboxes dotting the grassy edges where the country road meets the half wild/half tamed land. being walked by a sniffing animal. finding a spot to roll and massage himself, relief all over the body. a reminder to check into mine...stiff and rigid with the tension of the day, sitting in over air-conditioned cybrary, can i soften and melt into the liquid humid air? why is my jaw tense, my shoulders frozen forward? am i remembering to breathe? i often find i am holding it. fear?
"When traumatic events are cumulative, the pattern is engraved into our nervous systems, thus becoming the nucleus of all our strategies and compensations. Memory, encapsulated in ice, now perfectly preserved. Memory will govern from its frozen throne, particularly maintained in the entrapment of breath. After all, the message is do not move, remain invisible, the enemy is close by!" ~from Life on Land by Emilie Conrad
this habit of holding in my breath...it's young, as in old, meaning been around since i was young and now it's old, outmoded, outdated, and hard to break. keep coming back. inhale, exhale. besides the fear and intimidation in the family dynamics of childhood, a very potent memory is my mom warning me with a horror story about someone accidentally swallowing a bee that flew into their coke can and getting stung multiple times from the inside. i decided to defend myself from these deadly bee stings by stopping, standing still, holding my breath for as long as i could so as to go undetected. those phantom stings that had me trapped in fear were much worse than any actual sting, i'm sure. still haven't been stung yet i can be very relaxed and conversant with a bee these days.
i am so glad to stay out here on this land. the two horses are amazing. i went out to say hello, pony and horse, and the older came over, warm big body touching mine...waiting for me to climb on? or touch? or feed? or just say hello. i wanted to know and not knowing took me over in an embrace. she seemed to like it. how healing to have this 8 and 1/2 pound heart beating near mine. it calmed my anxious disappointment. sinking in, the frustration, the loneliness, letting it enter me and feed me, then overwhelm me with its lovingness. teaching Nia with that stirred up energy in me was a perfect practice, and i allowed it to shape the class focus: allowing, feeling, and expressing and releasing the emotions...but i was also moving into head space during the dance, which came out as a glitchy twitchy confused choreography that my student (only 1!) didn't notice. as long as i keep moving i guess it doesn't matter if i know the steps are technically "wrong." the ending was an elixir for the heart, sounding and squirming as if embryonic, lying on back, sides, stomach, nurturing the self. dramatizing hurt feelings with whiny wailing sounds interrupted by laughter at my ever-romantic lalaland of a life i live in my head. semi-confirmed by the enneagram. my absurd tendency to fall in love with an idea and live it out in my daydreams rather than risk the lived reality of it. relationships in my head are safer, less vulnerable than in the flesh.
i picked up this book as bedtime reading at my housesitting gig: Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery and it has me riveted. i was sure, sure from reading the book that my type is a number 4: the Individualist...until i got to the final type covered, number 1: the reformer....uh oh. i read the pages with dread...still reading.
i attended a workshop in february on the enneagram personality system and what the trainer said that day about 4 resonated but i wasn't positive. and now reading the detailed description of each type in the book i am unsure between the 4 and 1. i remember the trainer describing her experience being convinced she was a 3 for many years until realizing with great horror that she was actually an 8...i think this may what be happening. i want to be a 4 (more romantic) and it's painful to recognize so much cruelty of the one in me. a lot of my dad in me, is another way to say it. of course, there is a spectrum for all types and self-awareness brings out the healthiest aspects of each, none is all good or bad.
the enneagram is so powerful and much more instructive than some of the other systems i've encountered because it isn't just a description of the psyche but offers insight into the subconscious drive that motivates our habits, actions, reactions and can help us become aware of unhealthy patterns that arise from core beliefs associated with our type. As the workshop blurb put it: "The Enneagram Personality System offers a map of nine personality types, their perspectives and blind spots and the direction for individual growth and transformation. Life is a journey to the divine heart and we have different paths and specific barriers depending on our personality type." In other words, Enneagram illuminates what is hidden in us--not focusing on our preferences but the motivation behind them of which we may not be conscious.
found some info about a tritype. this offers that instead of just being 1 core type we have one dominant and 2 subtypes one from each center (heart, head, gut). in that case i could be a 1-4-_ or a 4-1-_ not sure which gut type...none of them ring true. maybe the 5.
the fact that i am expending time and energy trying to solve the mystery of me is BIG evidence that i am, indeed, a 4:
Type 4: the Romantic (different authors use different names to categorize)
World View: Something's missing. Others have it. I'm different from them because I don't.
Basic Desire: to understand self
Basic Fear: of being defective
and then there's
here it is 4 that feels right
see: http://www.9types.com/
thanks for indulging in 4's self-absorption
"When traumatic events are cumulative, the pattern is engraved into our nervous systems, thus becoming the nucleus of all our strategies and compensations. Memory, encapsulated in ice, now perfectly preserved. Memory will govern from its frozen throne, particularly maintained in the entrapment of breath. After all, the message is do not move, remain invisible, the enemy is close by!" ~from Life on Land by Emilie Conrad
this habit of holding in my breath...it's young, as in old, meaning been around since i was young and now it's old, outmoded, outdated, and hard to break. keep coming back. inhale, exhale. besides the fear and intimidation in the family dynamics of childhood, a very potent memory is my mom warning me with a horror story about someone accidentally swallowing a bee that flew into their coke can and getting stung multiple times from the inside. i decided to defend myself from these deadly bee stings by stopping, standing still, holding my breath for as long as i could so as to go undetected. those phantom stings that had me trapped in fear were much worse than any actual sting, i'm sure. still haven't been stung yet i can be very relaxed and conversant with a bee these days.
i am so glad to stay out here on this land. the two horses are amazing. i went out to say hello, pony and horse, and the older came over, warm big body touching mine...waiting for me to climb on? or touch? or feed? or just say hello. i wanted to know and not knowing took me over in an embrace. she seemed to like it. how healing to have this 8 and 1/2 pound heart beating near mine. it calmed my anxious disappointment. sinking in, the frustration, the loneliness, letting it enter me and feed me, then overwhelm me with its lovingness. teaching Nia with that stirred up energy in me was a perfect practice, and i allowed it to shape the class focus: allowing, feeling, and expressing and releasing the emotions...but i was also moving into head space during the dance, which came out as a glitchy twitchy confused choreography that my student (only 1!) didn't notice. as long as i keep moving i guess it doesn't matter if i know the steps are technically "wrong." the ending was an elixir for the heart, sounding and squirming as if embryonic, lying on back, sides, stomach, nurturing the self. dramatizing hurt feelings with whiny wailing sounds interrupted by laughter at my ever-romantic lalaland of a life i live in my head. semi-confirmed by the enneagram. my absurd tendency to fall in love with an idea and live it out in my daydreams rather than risk the lived reality of it. relationships in my head are safer, less vulnerable than in the flesh.
i attended a workshop in february on the enneagram personality system and what the trainer said that day about 4 resonated but i wasn't positive. and now reading the detailed description of each type in the book i am unsure between the 4 and 1. i remember the trainer describing her experience being convinced she was a 3 for many years until realizing with great horror that she was actually an 8...i think this may what be happening. i want to be a 4 (more romantic) and it's painful to recognize so much cruelty of the one in me. a lot of my dad in me, is another way to say it. of course, there is a spectrum for all types and self-awareness brings out the healthiest aspects of each, none is all good or bad.
the enneagram is so powerful and much more instructive than some of the other systems i've encountered because it isn't just a description of the psyche but offers insight into the subconscious drive that motivates our habits, actions, reactions and can help us become aware of unhealthy patterns that arise from core beliefs associated with our type. As the workshop blurb put it: "The Enneagram Personality System offers a map of nine personality types, their perspectives and blind spots and the direction for individual growth and transformation. Life is a journey to the divine heart and we have different paths and specific barriers depending on our personality type." In other words, Enneagram illuminates what is hidden in us--not focusing on our preferences but the motivation behind them of which we may not be conscious.
found some info about a tritype. this offers that instead of just being 1 core type we have one dominant and 2 subtypes one from each center (heart, head, gut). in that case i could be a 1-4-_ or a 4-1-_ not sure which gut type...none of them ring true. maybe the 5.
the fact that i am expending time and energy trying to solve the mystery of me is BIG evidence that i am, indeed, a 4:
World View: Something's missing. Others have it. I'm different from them because I don't.
Basic Desire: to understand self
Basic Fear: of being defective
and then there's
Type 1: the Reformer
World View: The world is an imperfect place. I work toward improvements
Basic Desire: to be right
Basic Fear: of being condemned
here it is 4 that feels right
see: http://www.9types.com/
thanks for indulging in 4's self-absorption
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Lioness with less is more
oh! been having such a blast today...just lovin' it. had such a silly time bowling with just a few of my sweetest dearest of friends...i'm a terrible bowler but much improved since my last bowling attempt some 10 years ago in oakland--at a fundraiser for a prison moratorium group i was in. that time i actually won a prize for being the worst bowler--lowest scoring. i won a winter cap. today i won lots of love from friends...plus some fancy chocolates!
me Leo, 32 years--not all of them easy or wanted at the time--my 31st being among the most challenging in recent (actually in all) memory. phew!
today meditation that got me out of bed at 6:30am after not much sleeping:
Taking, Wishing Love, Giving, Bodhichitta
we did 'Taking' = taking the world's suffering into the heart and purifying it.
the gateway into this meditation was actually more visual for me--black smoke in the heart burning up suffering--so it was seen and felt and with monkey mind jumping bumping racing around pulling me out of the center. then returning to smokey cinders of ash, dust of broken dreams, heartache, physical, psychic pain washed away in cleansing flames of dissolving love...and of course, back i went, drifting out spacey mental fantasy land and then reeling myself back into the vision and feeling of taking taking taking. was definitely more in my mind today and meditating in the mind is not fun for me. the difference, i guess, is caring, almost an undercurrent of anxiety or worry that comes from the thought (erroneous) that i am not supposed to have such an active mind during meditation, that the monkey mind is a problem, because really, its not. it's simply mind being mind. allowing all to be as it is....that's love. but, i get stuck there, in resistance, just like anyone else, and then the anxiety feeds more activity and then i feel exhausted and that is when a break into true meditation might happen, falling through the cracks of strain or effort into giving up and not caring. hahahaha. we are funny creatures. oh to be a tree or a sea anemone...though i love the play of being aware of awareness and would miss it. a la the "Descent of Species" --fascinating reincarnation story.
m, the gentle kind woman at the center, then gave me a discount on a cd for my birthday. i chose a sadhana prayer and meditation practice to Medicine Buddha, for healing ourselves and others. perfect. i listened and sang today until sleep swept me away for an afternoon siesta.
it's such a strange feeling to run my fingers through my hair and feel how light and less of a mane i have. been visualizing my golden tresses growing, singing spontaneous songs of love to my locks, and eating hamburgers. yes, grass-fed hormone-free lean red meat for IRON.
i do not equate ahimsa (nonviolence) with vegetarianism and am all for life feeding on life cuz that's what it does in reality. anyone remember that Tool spoof about the carrot massacre? all life is alive and to be grateful and in reverence to all life that gives so we may live is my way. though by being an american, consumer, white privileged, means i am a participant, ahimsa would mean to me not participating in violent exploitation, torture of animals or plants or people. which, from my pov means some plants that have been harvested are borne of more violence than the local grass-fed cow endured because of questionable labor practices, land grabbing, pesticides, foreign aid policies (WTO/World Bank) that force countries to grow for US rather than themselves, etc. actually, this afternoon i listened to a satsang that Judith sent me by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche about the importance of grokking non-duality because it is the key to being Awake...it is from a dualistic view that rules of morality, good and bad, right and wrong arise and harden, and from where we make assumptions that compassion looks nice, docile, and doe-eyed rather than spontaneous, and paradoxical, true to what the moment calls for. want to watch this whole talk again, much more i will blog about it later. very provocative. also, i loved when Adya encountered a monk in a monastery kitchen long ago who upon learning Adya was not vegetarian told him "Buddhists don't eat meat." He didn't say it out loud, but it helped to clarify for him he was not interested in being a Buddhist, just in knowing Truth. and for me, it is to know myself intimately, to see things as they are, accept what is with gratitude, and help ease the suffering of others as i have eased my own. anytime i attempt to say anything more here i move into belief, which means i do not know. beliefs exist when we do not know something. so instead i will admit: i do not know. how would i have the authority to say who is suffering and who isn't? how would i know what someone else needs? maybe the moment would guide me in each encounter, but as a generalization? how can i say that relative suffering matters any less just because it is part of samsara and not the absolute reality when for so many, it IS the reality with which they are identified and experience? and so whatever someone most needs in a moment to be released from pain, suffering, and feel love, i pray for that. just saying that the view from where i sit, is not so simple a morality as meat-eating bad and in fact, i am grateful for living in an area with small, ethical farms. i do choose cows over poultry or pigs....partly because of taste but mostly because cows are generally in the most favorable humane conditions from what i have read. anyway...
for anyone who doesn't already know, i have been losing hair pretty rapidly and noticed bald spots earlier this month. i was told i have Alopecia Areata, an autoimmune condition that causes the body to attack the hair follicles and leads to patchy hair loss. i have a few bald spots but still enough hair to strategically cover them up, though my hair continues to thin. i really enjoy my wild femmy hair and would love to create the conditions for it to re-grow but from what i've read it's unpredictable how much hair goes, if it grows back, when, and people don't seem to know why it falls out or grows back.
i first started noticing large amounts of hair coming out the week after my Adya meditation retreat when i was at my mom's house in ny state. thought it curiously much but had so much hair it didn't seem to matter. this was after spending an intense weekend in a car with my dad and uncle, very stressful on my nervous system, triggered all childhood subconscious coping responses leaving me fragile and frayed. leaving the week of silence i was so open and innocent, anticipating the embrace of reuniting with my dad after many troubled years...and the child-like openness saw my dad waiting for me across the parking lot and met....uh, my dad. same dad. in a rush, ready to go, no time for a hug or kind words, just, "You about ready to go? Where are you bags?" focused on getting on the road. Instead of staying in my broken heart and falling into the pain of dashed dreams of reconnecting/emotional intimacy and dying into the connection with Self, i went to my head. first thought? "maybe he doesn't like my hair." then i moved to my pants, earrings, other possible reasons for the felt rejection. why hair? because my dad stopped speaking me during college for 3 years when, during a visit out to colorado after my freshman year, he suggested i cut my long untamed mane and i stood firm, saying "it's my hair and i like it this length." he went back to NY and turned his ringer off. then told my mom i needed to pay him back for the cost of a wasted plane ticket trip to visit me. growing up i knew exactly what length would please and kept at that parted in the middle no-nonsense unfeminine shoulder length to stay a good girl. but how i love it long and crazy and i hope it knows it is welcome to grow and shine! of course, bald would be an enormous adjustment but it is not life-threatening, just self-esteem threatening and so i can handle it with grace, as friends have encouraged me. LOVE.
night night (in the early morning) bed time. sleep.
me Leo, 32 years--not all of them easy or wanted at the time--my 31st being among the most challenging in recent (actually in all) memory. phew!
today meditation that got me out of bed at 6:30am after not much sleeping:
Taking, Wishing Love, Giving, Bodhichitta
we did 'Taking' = taking the world's suffering into the heart and purifying it.
the gateway into this meditation was actually more visual for me--black smoke in the heart burning up suffering--so it was seen and felt and with monkey mind jumping bumping racing around pulling me out of the center. then returning to smokey cinders of ash, dust of broken dreams, heartache, physical, psychic pain washed away in cleansing flames of dissolving love...and of course, back i went, drifting out spacey mental fantasy land and then reeling myself back into the vision and feeling of taking taking taking. was definitely more in my mind today and meditating in the mind is not fun for me. the difference, i guess, is caring, almost an undercurrent of anxiety or worry that comes from the thought (erroneous) that i am not supposed to have such an active mind during meditation, that the monkey mind is a problem, because really, its not. it's simply mind being mind. allowing all to be as it is....that's love. but, i get stuck there, in resistance, just like anyone else, and then the anxiety feeds more activity and then i feel exhausted and that is when a break into true meditation might happen, falling through the cracks of strain or effort into giving up and not caring. hahahaha. we are funny creatures. oh to be a tree or a sea anemone...though i love the play of being aware of awareness and would miss it. a la the "Descent of Species" --fascinating reincarnation story.
m, the gentle kind woman at the center, then gave me a discount on a cd for my birthday. i chose a sadhana prayer and meditation practice to Medicine Buddha, for healing ourselves and others. perfect. i listened and sang today until sleep swept me away for an afternoon siesta.
it's such a strange feeling to run my fingers through my hair and feel how light and less of a mane i have. been visualizing my golden tresses growing, singing spontaneous songs of love to my locks, and eating hamburgers. yes, grass-fed hormone-free lean red meat for IRON.
i do not equate ahimsa (nonviolence) with vegetarianism and am all for life feeding on life cuz that's what it does in reality. anyone remember that Tool spoof about the carrot massacre? all life is alive and to be grateful and in reverence to all life that gives so we may live is my way. though by being an american, consumer, white privileged, means i am a participant, ahimsa would mean to me not participating in violent exploitation, torture of animals or plants or people. which, from my pov means some plants that have been harvested are borne of more violence than the local grass-fed cow endured because of questionable labor practices, land grabbing, pesticides, foreign aid policies (WTO/World Bank) that force countries to grow for US rather than themselves, etc. actually, this afternoon i listened to a satsang that Judith sent me by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche about the importance of grokking non-duality because it is the key to being Awake...it is from a dualistic view that rules of morality, good and bad, right and wrong arise and harden, and from where we make assumptions that compassion looks nice, docile, and doe-eyed rather than spontaneous, and paradoxical, true to what the moment calls for. want to watch this whole talk again, much more i will blog about it later. very provocative. also, i loved when Adya encountered a monk in a monastery kitchen long ago who upon learning Adya was not vegetarian told him "Buddhists don't eat meat." He didn't say it out loud, but it helped to clarify for him he was not interested in being a Buddhist, just in knowing Truth. and for me, it is to know myself intimately, to see things as they are, accept what is with gratitude, and help ease the suffering of others as i have eased my own. anytime i attempt to say anything more here i move into belief, which means i do not know. beliefs exist when we do not know something. so instead i will admit: i do not know. how would i have the authority to say who is suffering and who isn't? how would i know what someone else needs? maybe the moment would guide me in each encounter, but as a generalization? how can i say that relative suffering matters any less just because it is part of samsara and not the absolute reality when for so many, it IS the reality with which they are identified and experience? and so whatever someone most needs in a moment to be released from pain, suffering, and feel love, i pray for that. just saying that the view from where i sit, is not so simple a morality as meat-eating bad and in fact, i am grateful for living in an area with small, ethical farms. i do choose cows over poultry or pigs....partly because of taste but mostly because cows are generally in the most favorable humane conditions from what i have read. anyway...
for anyone who doesn't already know, i have been losing hair pretty rapidly and noticed bald spots earlier this month. i was told i have Alopecia Areata, an autoimmune condition that causes the body to attack the hair follicles and leads to patchy hair loss. i have a few bald spots but still enough hair to strategically cover them up, though my hair continues to thin. i really enjoy my wild femmy hair and would love to create the conditions for it to re-grow but from what i've read it's unpredictable how much hair goes, if it grows back, when, and people don't seem to know why it falls out or grows back.
i first started noticing large amounts of hair coming out the week after my Adya meditation retreat when i was at my mom's house in ny state. thought it curiously much but had so much hair it didn't seem to matter. this was after spending an intense weekend in a car with my dad and uncle, very stressful on my nervous system, triggered all childhood subconscious coping responses leaving me fragile and frayed. leaving the week of silence i was so open and innocent, anticipating the embrace of reuniting with my dad after many troubled years...and the child-like openness saw my dad waiting for me across the parking lot and met....uh, my dad. same dad. in a rush, ready to go, no time for a hug or kind words, just, "You about ready to go? Where are you bags?" focused on getting on the road. Instead of staying in my broken heart and falling into the pain of dashed dreams of reconnecting/emotional intimacy and dying into the connection with Self, i went to my head. first thought? "maybe he doesn't like my hair." then i moved to my pants, earrings, other possible reasons for the felt rejection. why hair? because my dad stopped speaking me during college for 3 years when, during a visit out to colorado after my freshman year, he suggested i cut my long untamed mane and i stood firm, saying "it's my hair and i like it this length." he went back to NY and turned his ringer off. then told my mom i needed to pay him back for the cost of a wasted plane ticket trip to visit me. growing up i knew exactly what length would please and kept at that parted in the middle no-nonsense unfeminine shoulder length to stay a good girl. but how i love it long and crazy and i hope it knows it is welcome to grow and shine! of course, bald would be an enormous adjustment but it is not life-threatening, just self-esteem threatening and so i can handle it with grace, as friends have encouraged me. LOVE.
night night (in the early morning) bed time. sleep.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
very simple
i saw a recipe that includes cayenne, too
unfocus
attended this morning's meditation as part of the Lamrim mini-retreat.
the intent of the session today was
Developing equanimity, Recognizing that all living Beings are our Mothers, Loving Kindness meditation, Equalizing self and others
Developing equanimity, Recognizing that all living Beings are our Mothers, Loving Kindness meditation, Equalizing self and others
we said some prayers--the Liberation Prayer and the Prayer of Meditation and then sat for 30 minutes. riffing off my earlier musings about how meditation whose goal is to focus is mentally taxing and exhausting, i noticed in my sit that meditation happened not when i focused but when i unfocused.
for me, focusing is shrinking around an object, closing in the field of awareness around an object, and is what causes headache and a sense of efforting. the meditation intro instructed us to return to the recognition that all living Beings are our Mothers. for me, Recognition is not a concept or a thought, certainly not rational or logical. it is a resting. it is an "oh, yeah!" feeling that holds all of me. i found that feeling in my belly and heart. a relaxing away from the thoughts and objects in mindstream, not as resistance or pushing away, but unfocusing into wide expansiveness, dropping down to the feeling of recognition in gut and chest...a warmth, softness and yet very stable and supported, strong, too. and then mind is free to do as it pleases within that support and unfocused openness.
i felt this to be, paradoxically, my innermost center and also so spacious that its reach was body-less, beyond any boundary. of course my attention would occasionally concentrate on an object of thought, or even indulge for awhile in some mental fantasy about how i was going to invite the young homeless Burmese refugee who sat near me, who i know from the Cybrary, over for breakfast afterward (he already ate and showered and is okay, thank you) but then i would let go again and drop into unfocusedness. meditation felt good this morning. thankful for the beautiful, peaceful place and people who make the sits possible.
* * * *
today is pee in an orange-fluorescent-jug day. this urine test is the final that the Nurse Practitioner ordered...not even sure what she is testing. she was not the most communicative. i did get a letter yesterday that all my bloodwork came back within normal ranges...thyroid, cortisol, B12 (though 400 on a scale that goes to 900 something...so a bit low). my mom keeps worrying i have lyme disease though all the ticks i removed this season were the lone star tick, not a lyme disease carrier. i suppose i could get a blood test to rule it out. still feeling dizzy each time i stand up, pretty much...a sign of anemia, but still baffled why my hemoglobin read at 14.1 when i donated blood a month ago. i am eating more since my naturopath visit, and more iron in particular...hoping this helps. hair is still coming out...more than normal, not as significant clumps as before. such a Grandma Viola thing that i happened upon on a natural remedy site for hair loss--rubbing Vitamin E ointment on bald spots. so i did that last night...sticky! would love my hair to grow back in abundance, really i really enjoy my hair. and yet if it continues to fall out that is what will be and it will be an interesting experience from which, even if hair isn't growing, surely i will from all of it.
* * * *
today is pee in an orange-fluorescent-jug day. this urine test is the final that the Nurse Practitioner ordered...not even sure what she is testing. she was not the most communicative. i did get a letter yesterday that all my bloodwork came back within normal ranges...thyroid, cortisol, B12 (though 400 on a scale that goes to 900 something...so a bit low). my mom keeps worrying i have lyme disease though all the ticks i removed this season were the lone star tick, not a lyme disease carrier. i suppose i could get a blood test to rule it out. still feeling dizzy each time i stand up, pretty much...a sign of anemia, but still baffled why my hemoglobin read at 14.1 when i donated blood a month ago. i am eating more since my naturopath visit, and more iron in particular...hoping this helps. hair is still coming out...more than normal, not as significant clumps as before. such a Grandma Viola thing that i happened upon on a natural remedy site for hair loss--rubbing Vitamin E ointment on bald spots. so i did that last night...sticky! would love my hair to grow back in abundance, really i really enjoy my hair. and yet if it continues to fall out that is what will be and it will be an interesting experience from which, even if hair isn't growing, surely i will from all of it.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
party in the us of a
jay-z and britney...top 40 and teen pop unites us all. transcends boundaries. i used to be a Hater. but my love of dancing won out now i can't deny the power of great hooks and good beats. so, yes, jay-z, britney, miley, enthusiastically rihanna...and more reluctantly, katy perry, whose song "Firework" was strangely satisfying to dance to in Kate's Nia routine today. exploding my arms up with the chorus. damn does Nia feel good. danced last night and today...remembering to remember myself. plus community feels supportive and comforting these days. goodnight.
p.s. how pop songs work by Charles Hazlewood is a neat documentary that looks at the components of those catchy songs and what makes them successful. what are your favorite pop songs? though rihanna and britney satisfy my dancing desires...there's my beloved Joni Mitchell at a different (more poetic/profound) end of the pop spectrum.
the cure for pain is in the pain (Rumi)
same for anger.
a hard-learned lesson from trying to be good, and failing miserably!
hmmm....is what we need are some nice automatons? pleasant positive spiritual egos being good all the time?
bleh!
there is really something genuine and honest about anger. anger is an energy. neither good nor bad.
and guess what...life, GOD, universe, Presence, true self, whatever we call the mystery, can handle it...really! because Life (God, the universe, etc) is totally inclusive.
anger, depression, frustration, grief...they truly have a message and are gifts.
and going into it, not with psychoanalysis or mental strategies for ridding ourselves of it, or rehashing it from an egoic "me" that concretizes around a victim story, but really going INTO it, through the BODY is the cure. ...First very FIRST is FEELING it--without any goal, without looking for a cure, but just to FEEL.
then connecting from that awareness of sensation...where is this anger, what does it feel like, is it heavy, is it sharp, swollen, is it pulsating, spinning, whirling, does it have a color, and what does it say...when I truly Listen from my most open SELF what message does it have for me? of course, i sometimes skip this process and try to ignore, suppress, escape my anger, and am learning that it usually gets louder and more insistent. like the child who is sad or upset and no one listens and it turns into a tantrum...what does that child (anger) need? nurturing and acceptance. the freedom to be as it is...what we all need. unconditional love.
so when i hear a teaching on compassion that advises us to avoid "negative" or "base" emotions, i feel sad and confused. why??? why tell this to people? this was the message i heard tonight--presented as if it were somehow different from repressing emotions. the teaching was we "should control" our reactions...to me this is another way of saying resist what is and feeds into the whole reason why spiritual seekers are as we are. on the path for what...the promise of a way out of the vicissitudes and pain of being human? on the path for our image of what a compassionate or enlightened person looks like. an enlightened person doesn't get angry?? or never expresses it??? hmmmm. majorly suspect to me that this person is still alive.
i'll speak for myself...i had been chasing...outside and inside, looking, looking for a way out of LIFE. i never would have seen it that way, of course, but really, all my attempts to CONTROL what i was feeling, what was happening inside and outside of me (el mismo), were ways i tried to reach this goal of being the perfected human. i used to see it as a mark of my progress when i was happy and my failure when anger or sadness arose. having a background in Vipassana and as someone who has benefited from self-awareness and meditation i see tremendous value in these practices if they are used as an end in and of themselves. the goal of sitting is just to sit and be with all that arises. not to still the mind, not to control or focus. this only gave me headaches. just abidance in the LIFE we are where everything happens without judgement. we find as we inhabit that space our reactions do fall away, and we are less likely to react and more likely to respond, but this can't be the goal, just a side effect of the sitting. it's no less likely that anger would the spontaneous response arising within us but the anger would be clean, unsticky, free because there is no resistance or guilt or control with the anger...just pure authentic anger...allowed to come and go.
from my experience, if there is any use to these teachings on effort and control it is that it leads to absolute exhaustion and the admission finally that we are not in control...that Life is what has always has been and always will be in control....and so there is the irony, as we are--at our core--Life, We not the "we"s we identify with but the WE the person as embodiment of it all, are in control and are choosing everything. may we surrender to THAT.
hallelujah!
of course, i am certainly hearing this teaching from my level of consciousness and so i am aware that maybe there is something i am missing...something more subtle...and the teaching is not direct but came paraphrased from guru to devotee. i am skeptical by nature (and nurture :) and here my annoyance arose, moved me to get up and leave, and was expressed herein. voila.
thankful for the path that Judith and Susanne both brought me into, into myself. sometimes called tantra or vajrayana but i cannot claim to be a practitioner of either, nor want to be, strictly...i have no facts or knowledge of these, just some books that have helped, somatic therapy techniques, and the (inner) body itself (which, mysteriously, when i am really IN is actually so spaciously OUT it is mind-blowing)
a hard-learned lesson from trying to be good, and failing miserably!
hmmm....is what we need are some nice automatons? pleasant positive spiritual egos being good all the time?
bleh!
there is really something genuine and honest about anger. anger is an energy. neither good nor bad.
and guess what...life, GOD, universe, Presence, true self, whatever we call the mystery, can handle it...really! because Life (God, the universe, etc) is totally inclusive.
anger, depression, frustration, grief...they truly have a message and are gifts.
and going into it, not with psychoanalysis or mental strategies for ridding ourselves of it, or rehashing it from an egoic "me" that concretizes around a victim story, but really going INTO it, through the BODY is the cure. ...First very FIRST is FEELING it--without any goal, without looking for a cure, but just to FEEL.
then connecting from that awareness of sensation...where is this anger, what does it feel like, is it heavy, is it sharp, swollen, is it pulsating, spinning, whirling, does it have a color, and what does it say...when I truly Listen from my most open SELF what message does it have for me? of course, i sometimes skip this process and try to ignore, suppress, escape my anger, and am learning that it usually gets louder and more insistent. like the child who is sad or upset and no one listens and it turns into a tantrum...what does that child (anger) need? nurturing and acceptance. the freedom to be as it is...what we all need. unconditional love.
so when i hear a teaching on compassion that advises us to avoid "negative" or "base" emotions, i feel sad and confused. why??? why tell this to people? this was the message i heard tonight--presented as if it were somehow different from repressing emotions. the teaching was we "should control" our reactions...to me this is another way of saying resist what is and feeds into the whole reason why spiritual seekers are as we are. on the path for what...the promise of a way out of the vicissitudes and pain of being human? on the path for our image of what a compassionate or enlightened person looks like. an enlightened person doesn't get angry?? or never expresses it??? hmmmm. majorly suspect to me that this person is still alive.
i'll speak for myself...i had been chasing...outside and inside, looking, looking for a way out of LIFE. i never would have seen it that way, of course, but really, all my attempts to CONTROL what i was feeling, what was happening inside and outside of me (el mismo), were ways i tried to reach this goal of being the perfected human. i used to see it as a mark of my progress when i was happy and my failure when anger or sadness arose. having a background in Vipassana and as someone who has benefited from self-awareness and meditation i see tremendous value in these practices if they are used as an end in and of themselves. the goal of sitting is just to sit and be with all that arises. not to still the mind, not to control or focus. this only gave me headaches. just abidance in the LIFE we are where everything happens without judgement. we find as we inhabit that space our reactions do fall away, and we are less likely to react and more likely to respond, but this can't be the goal, just a side effect of the sitting. it's no less likely that anger would the spontaneous response arising within us but the anger would be clean, unsticky, free because there is no resistance or guilt or control with the anger...just pure authentic anger...allowed to come and go.
from my experience, if there is any use to these teachings on effort and control it is that it leads to absolute exhaustion and the admission finally that we are not in control...that Life is what has always has been and always will be in control....and so there is the irony, as we are--at our core--Life, We not the "we"s we identify with but the WE the person as embodiment of it all, are in control and are choosing everything. may we surrender to THAT.
hallelujah!
of course, i am certainly hearing this teaching from my level of consciousness and so i am aware that maybe there is something i am missing...something more subtle...and the teaching is not direct but came paraphrased from guru to devotee. i am skeptical by nature (and nurture :) and here my annoyance arose, moved me to get up and leave, and was expressed herein. voila.
thankful for the path that Judith and Susanne both brought me into, into myself. sometimes called tantra or vajrayana but i cannot claim to be a practitioner of either, nor want to be, strictly...i have no facts or knowledge of these, just some books that have helped, somatic therapy techniques, and the (inner) body itself (which, mysteriously, when i am really IN is actually so spaciously OUT it is mind-blowing)
Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict by Tsultrim Allione
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