We have returned from the mountains and the lake... in the end we had such a wonderful time. I did a lot of writing, Jimmy did a lot of resting, in between we swam and kayaked.
Back home life is continuing to weave a new strand for me, one I'll have to observe and nurture and give time to grow, before I want to publish any of it.
So, here is where my tale ends for now.
I still intend to collect and write down everything that feels relevant and see if in the very end it will be a book worth publishing. I will keep you posted.
In gratitude to life in all it's splendor!!
Monday, August 17, 2009
Escaping into Middle America
Thursday, August 13th
It's the first night of our writing retreat.
We are in the Adirondacks, in Piseco, at the Irondequoit Inn.
At first, the place is a bit of a disappointment. On the website the rooms looked more well cared for, the landscaping more spacious, the beach more secluded, and the parking lot and tennis court right next to the building had not been completely visible at all. Yes, the view is utterly beautiful, and yes, the inn has historic charm... BUT... there are a LOT of little buts... and I watched how each of us got tangled up in several of them.
On arrival we ran into a group of people sitting on the front porch celebrating happy hour with drinks, pretzel sticks and potato chips. Friendly as they were, something repelled me, was it that they talked a little too loudly with alcohol infused voices? Was it that they acted a bit too much like they owned the place? Was it that their way of communicating was long winded in an irritatingly impersonal way? While waiting for the Innkeeper to appear we soon learned that all of them have been coming here from their respective home towns around New York City for years, every summer...
Next Jimmy found the smell in the house objectionable... it reminded him of a gas odor... while I though it merely an old house smell. The room was quite too bare for his taste, and the colors too muted. The interior a bit too run down.
Then the seats in the sitting room downstairs looked pretty worn out... when I tested one of the cushions, I could feel the wooden structure underneath my butt, and I started wondering whether there would be be a comfortable enough seat anywhere in this inn where I could be sitting for long stretches of time in order to write...
Walking down the little trail downhill to visit the beach, we passed four cabins. They were built, even though mostly out of sight, right smack below the inn, each with view of the water... walking past them I felt all of a sudden like we were going through other peoples front yard, all of a sudden the remote beauty of the lake below the inn was inundated with various large groups of unexpected strangers, who had spilled out of their small windowed brown cabins, complete with barbeque smoke and beach towels spread out to dry... maybe worst of all too many car tires had violated the soft ground and had turned it into an unkempt dirt road which cut through the natural grass area in front of the beach. What I had imagined as an uninterrupted flow of lovingly tended nature from the steps of the inn all the way down to the beach didn't exist.
I had pictured myself walking down to the lake to go for a swim at night before going out for dinner, but now that somehow didn't feel inviting any longer.
Our boisterous new friends had informed us of the dining options and discouraged us from visiting the Ox Bow Inn, which Chad, the owner, had recommended as a place with good and inexpensive food, a place where one can get "all that good stuff". All of a sudden I remembered he had used the same phrase on the phone when I had asked him what they serve for breakfast, and he had said: Oh... eggs and omlets and waffles and pancakes and "all that good stuff". Curious little phrase. And what was it again he said when he showed us our room? Pointing at the small stack of white towels: These are your towels, we give you fresh ones every day and "all that good stuff". Hmm... Anyway, the good stuff he alluded to at the Ox Bow Inn didn't sound all that good from their experience and they directed us toward the Speculator Inn for better dining. There were other choices too, but how they distinguished themselves had been lost in the longish drawl of the advice. One place served tex mex... Jimmy liked that. We thought it was the Inn.
The first thing I noticed when we entered, was a worn out dark wall to wall green carpet which in the path of the entrance had been reduced to it's gray backing. A fleeting thought crossed my mind: don't ever eat in a restaurant with a dirty old carpet... but I ignored that warning. The walls above the paneling were dark green too. So were the blinds, half of which were drawn... and... below the ceiling... yes, there were last winters season decorations: plastic pine garlands entwined with christmas lights...
When we took a look at the menu it was clear this was NOT the tex mex restaurant. Jimmy made a feeble attempt to talk me into leaving, but didn't pull me out of my hesitation. My hesitation in turn didn't stem form wanting to be here, but from a purely strategic worry: if this was indeed the best place in town and we now left for the other restaurant and it was even worse, and we wanted to come back here, then it could be embarrassing, more embarrassing even than leaving now.
So we stayed, and we regretted it.
I realized something. I realized how spoiled we are. How much we take good eating for granted. I had forgotten how unsettling it is not to be able to eat at least good, nourishing, fresh, simple food. The outlook onto three days of malnourishment, of carelessly, uninspiredly prepared meals began to seriously depress us. It didn't help that the waitress was just as unengaging as the food she brought us. The one and only highlight was a truly wonderful homemade blueberry pie Jimmy needed to order to bring himself back to life after chewing through the awful meatloaf with ungracious amounts of mystery gravy, and the glob of watery mashed potatoes.
On the way home we checked out the other restaurants and concluded that we must have indeed ended up in the worst place of them all. Even the ominous Ox Bow Inn looked cheery with its red and white checkered curtains and its sun washed wood paneling. Looking forward to a peaceful night in our little old fashioned room, we found the sitting room of our Inn occupied by the same group of people, still with glasses in their hands... had they been drinking all night long? I was surprised by my own judgement when I noticed that they actually annoyed me, even ever so slightly. What was it about drinking I objected to?
We could still dimly hear their voices upstairs in our room. After the first five paragraphs of writing I ran out of battery juice for my computer, and discovered that the electrical outlets in our room had never been upgraded to the three prong plug. Wondering if that might be enough reason to leave the Inn the next day I laid down to sleep. Jimmy was already twitching in his dreams next to me. The bedframe is a bit screechy, but the mattress nice and soft, the pillows a bit too thick and puffy, but the sound of the summer crickets and the soft gurgle of a mountain stream made up for it with it's sweet lullaby.
We woke up to a white fog shrouding the trees outside our window and footsteps and vigorous voices coming up from the porch. The shared bathroom is cute enough and only steps down the hallway, but ran out of water as soon as I wanted to brush my teeth in the morning. The omlet I had ordered with a choice of tomatoes, scallions, mushrooms and cheddar cheese, featured the tomatoes and mushrooms in their canned version, the orange juice of course was not fresh either, not even make belief fresh with pulp, but at least they had some herb teas.
But right now... all woes are washed aside.
Now I am sitting with my labtop on one of the brightly painted green chairs on the front porch. The flowered pillows provide just enough cushioning beneath me, Chad has given us some very "good stuff": a plug adapter and an extension cord, feeding my computer with new energy, I have just enough shade to be able to see the screen clearly and I have this enchanted view in front of me: over the lawn to the right down to the silvery water, the sparkling treetops straight ahead just low enough to see the mountains at the horizon in their blue silhouettes... the sky is filled with a boundlessness of white fluffy clouds, the warm breeze plays a soft music with two little chimes, some human voices wafting up from the beach now and then, some teenage boys are playing tennis on the court all the way over to the right, and our friends from yesterday, who at times seem to gravitate annoyingly to all the same places we want to be in, have finally left this part of the porch.
Half an hour later, after reading some e-mails, the weather has changed, the breeze has turned into chilly gusts and rain is falling out of the sky.
Oh, how fragile, our little thin zones of comfort. How hard we work to match something around us that makes us feel GOOD. That makes us feel safe... and at home... and healthy. How many nuances there are that we think we need to reject in order to feel that we have been true to ourselves.
Now it's beginning to pour, and people are coming back from everywhere to find shelter under the roof of the Inn. We had considered taking the double kayak out onto the lake to paddle to the little island... now I am glad writing took up more time and we stayed in.
Somehow it seems we needed to leave the comfort of our home in Old Chatham, the almost prefect way in which it fits our lives, and surrounds us with comfort, in order to encounter the different needs and habits of middle Americans escaping from their daily life, enmeshing themselves into this timeless idyllic land, this eternally beautiful spot of nature. If that is so, we are in the right place after all.
It's the first night of our writing retreat.
We are in the Adirondacks, in Piseco, at the Irondequoit Inn.
At first, the place is a bit of a disappointment. On the website the rooms looked more well cared for, the landscaping more spacious, the beach more secluded, and the parking lot and tennis court right next to the building had not been completely visible at all. Yes, the view is utterly beautiful, and yes, the inn has historic charm... BUT... there are a LOT of little buts... and I watched how each of us got tangled up in several of them.
On arrival we ran into a group of people sitting on the front porch celebrating happy hour with drinks, pretzel sticks and potato chips. Friendly as they were, something repelled me, was it that they talked a little too loudly with alcohol infused voices? Was it that they acted a bit too much like they owned the place? Was it that their way of communicating was long winded in an irritatingly impersonal way? While waiting for the Innkeeper to appear we soon learned that all of them have been coming here from their respective home towns around New York City for years, every summer...
Next Jimmy found the smell in the house objectionable... it reminded him of a gas odor... while I though it merely an old house smell. The room was quite too bare for his taste, and the colors too muted. The interior a bit too run down.
Then the seats in the sitting room downstairs looked pretty worn out... when I tested one of the cushions, I could feel the wooden structure underneath my butt, and I started wondering whether there would be be a comfortable enough seat anywhere in this inn where I could be sitting for long stretches of time in order to write...
Walking down the little trail downhill to visit the beach, we passed four cabins. They were built, even though mostly out of sight, right smack below the inn, each with view of the water... walking past them I felt all of a sudden like we were going through other peoples front yard, all of a sudden the remote beauty of the lake below the inn was inundated with various large groups of unexpected strangers, who had spilled out of their small windowed brown cabins, complete with barbeque smoke and beach towels spread out to dry... maybe worst of all too many car tires had violated the soft ground and had turned it into an unkempt dirt road which cut through the natural grass area in front of the beach. What I had imagined as an uninterrupted flow of lovingly tended nature from the steps of the inn all the way down to the beach didn't exist.
I had pictured myself walking down to the lake to go for a swim at night before going out for dinner, but now that somehow didn't feel inviting any longer.
Our boisterous new friends had informed us of the dining options and discouraged us from visiting the Ox Bow Inn, which Chad, the owner, had recommended as a place with good and inexpensive food, a place where one can get "all that good stuff". All of a sudden I remembered he had used the same phrase on the phone when I had asked him what they serve for breakfast, and he had said: Oh... eggs and omlets and waffles and pancakes and "all that good stuff". Curious little phrase. And what was it again he said when he showed us our room? Pointing at the small stack of white towels: These are your towels, we give you fresh ones every day and "all that good stuff". Hmm... Anyway, the good stuff he alluded to at the Ox Bow Inn didn't sound all that good from their experience and they directed us toward the Speculator Inn for better dining. There were other choices too, but how they distinguished themselves had been lost in the longish drawl of the advice. One place served tex mex... Jimmy liked that. We thought it was the Inn.
The first thing I noticed when we entered, was a worn out dark wall to wall green carpet which in the path of the entrance had been reduced to it's gray backing. A fleeting thought crossed my mind: don't ever eat in a restaurant with a dirty old carpet... but I ignored that warning. The walls above the paneling were dark green too. So were the blinds, half of which were drawn... and... below the ceiling... yes, there were last winters season decorations: plastic pine garlands entwined with christmas lights...
When we took a look at the menu it was clear this was NOT the tex mex restaurant. Jimmy made a feeble attempt to talk me into leaving, but didn't pull me out of my hesitation. My hesitation in turn didn't stem form wanting to be here, but from a purely strategic worry: if this was indeed the best place in town and we now left for the other restaurant and it was even worse, and we wanted to come back here, then it could be embarrassing, more embarrassing even than leaving now.
So we stayed, and we regretted it.
I realized something. I realized how spoiled we are. How much we take good eating for granted. I had forgotten how unsettling it is not to be able to eat at least good, nourishing, fresh, simple food. The outlook onto three days of malnourishment, of carelessly, uninspiredly prepared meals began to seriously depress us. It didn't help that the waitress was just as unengaging as the food she brought us. The one and only highlight was a truly wonderful homemade blueberry pie Jimmy needed to order to bring himself back to life after chewing through the awful meatloaf with ungracious amounts of mystery gravy, and the glob of watery mashed potatoes.
On the way home we checked out the other restaurants and concluded that we must have indeed ended up in the worst place of them all. Even the ominous Ox Bow Inn looked cheery with its red and white checkered curtains and its sun washed wood paneling. Looking forward to a peaceful night in our little old fashioned room, we found the sitting room of our Inn occupied by the same group of people, still with glasses in their hands... had they been drinking all night long? I was surprised by my own judgement when I noticed that they actually annoyed me, even ever so slightly. What was it about drinking I objected to?
We could still dimly hear their voices upstairs in our room. After the first five paragraphs of writing I ran out of battery juice for my computer, and discovered that the electrical outlets in our room had never been upgraded to the three prong plug. Wondering if that might be enough reason to leave the Inn the next day I laid down to sleep. Jimmy was already twitching in his dreams next to me. The bedframe is a bit screechy, but the mattress nice and soft, the pillows a bit too thick and puffy, but the sound of the summer crickets and the soft gurgle of a mountain stream made up for it with it's sweet lullaby.
We woke up to a white fog shrouding the trees outside our window and footsteps and vigorous voices coming up from the porch. The shared bathroom is cute enough and only steps down the hallway, but ran out of water as soon as I wanted to brush my teeth in the morning. The omlet I had ordered with a choice of tomatoes, scallions, mushrooms and cheddar cheese, featured the tomatoes and mushrooms in their canned version, the orange juice of course was not fresh either, not even make belief fresh with pulp, but at least they had some herb teas.
But right now... all woes are washed aside.
Now I am sitting with my labtop on one of the brightly painted green chairs on the front porch. The flowered pillows provide just enough cushioning beneath me, Chad has given us some very "good stuff": a plug adapter and an extension cord, feeding my computer with new energy, I have just enough shade to be able to see the screen clearly and I have this enchanted view in front of me: over the lawn to the right down to the silvery water, the sparkling treetops straight ahead just low enough to see the mountains at the horizon in their blue silhouettes... the sky is filled with a boundlessness of white fluffy clouds, the warm breeze plays a soft music with two little chimes, some human voices wafting up from the beach now and then, some teenage boys are playing tennis on the court all the way over to the right, and our friends from yesterday, who at times seem to gravitate annoyingly to all the same places we want to be in, have finally left this part of the porch.
Half an hour later, after reading some e-mails, the weather has changed, the breeze has turned into chilly gusts and rain is falling out of the sky.
Oh, how fragile, our little thin zones of comfort. How hard we work to match something around us that makes us feel GOOD. That makes us feel safe... and at home... and healthy. How many nuances there are that we think we need to reject in order to feel that we have been true to ourselves.
Now it's beginning to pour, and people are coming back from everywhere to find shelter under the roof of the Inn. We had considered taking the double kayak out onto the lake to paddle to the little island... now I am glad writing took up more time and we stayed in.
Somehow it seems we needed to leave the comfort of our home in Old Chatham, the almost prefect way in which it fits our lives, and surrounds us with comfort, in order to encounter the different needs and habits of middle Americans escaping from their daily life, enmeshing themselves into this timeless idyllic land, this eternally beautiful spot of nature. If that is so, we are in the right place after all.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Passing the Test
Thursday, July 30th
My father keeps struggling after his return from the hospital. It's now been five weeks and he is weaker than a couple of days after the surgery. Ted has worked on him twice without any lasting results, I have tried to help him via other channels, through Byron Katie's work, and just talking and being there and holding him in nothing but love and trust and knowing that this too shall pass... as his condition remains the same... week after week.
Mami, interestingly, has tapped into an unexpected source of strength feeding her. Throughout this period of non-recovery she has been remarkably strong, without doubt or despair. She, who felt so weak in April, who was sure she wouldn't survive the summer herself... now is able to take care of Papi and the house and the garden and the shopping and the cooking and the cleaning without ever running on empty. She is resting in the knowledge that he will get better. She also firmly believes that for some undiscovered reason this is something he has to go through. He wants to believe this too, but it is so damn hard for him... all this weakness, all this numbness, all this pain in his skin, and his back, the ringing in his ears, the intestines so sluggish, the appetite for food so small... the body's troubles keep him from sleeping well... and this lack of good sleep has now accumulated since they first put a tube into the old kidney when I was there in May... that's over two(!) months ago... a long time to be losing sleep. He tries to catch a glimpse of: why, oh WHY is this happening to him... again...??? and receives no answer... he envies Mami's and my ability to communicate and receive guidance and resolution and an understanding of purpose for what is there in front of us... but no matter how hard he tries, he can't receive such messages, can't create such lasting peace of mind.
Oh, I feel with him. There is a peculiar added layer to his suffering, a part within me that feels I should be able to find something that helps him. If I can't reach him through the Journey, why isn't there something else showing up that works? And... is it for me to find that for him? As it is I can do nothing but reassure him that what IS, must be right. That has become my conviction through my experiences.
Last night Mami received one of her messages through her Christ energy. She heard: he has passed the test, now he can recover and he will. She heard: I too have passed the test. Papi is relieved to some degree, much of him trusts these messages that come through to Mami, mysterious as this source that communicates to her is to him, it is so close to him, it speaks out of her mouth, and in her loving voice. But... He doesn't know what the test was.
I myself wonder if for my part this was another exercise to let go too, to come anew face to face with my desire to relieve suffering, and to have to just... let it be. To imagine that this indeed is what is best for him right now, even when he can't feel that.
Tuesday, July 25th
Daily Practices
Much to catch up on.
In the meantime I have been to one very, very different kind of workshop at Kripalu... the divine feminine weekend, and then back to another three days of teaching Mahamudra practice with Mingyur Rinpoche at the Monastery in Woodstock.
When Jimmy and I got back from Garrison we started a new daily rhythm. We wake up and sit right up in bed and meditate for 20 min. The getting up part is usually the hardest, even more so when I don't have a schedule forcing me to jump out of bed. Without school, without any regular work, the temptation to just linger and stay curled up daydreaming under the soft flannel sheets is almost irresistible. Meditating in bed tricks us both into doing it pretty soon after the alarm goes off at 7:30.
Ideally we are done and out of bed by 8:00 and on our way downstairs to then do Yoga. If we use the yoga CD we began using last year, we are busy twisting our limbs for another 45 min, even after editing and cutting some of the very slow bits out of the sound track. If we are in a hurry, we either skip one or two exercises or we do a spontaneous variation which I talk us both through... a combination of Uwe's favorite Yoga postures and our CD. That's the new part of the morning.
Next I take Jacky for her eagerly awaited morning walk, while Jimmy starts making breakfast, faithfully after over 3 years that still consists of buckwheat, or more precisely: cooked kasha over copped up celery, cucumber, tomatoes and avocado. All of it gets a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, Braggs aminos, and tahini. We love that stuff. It's from our alkaline diet. Zippy breakfast. That's what they call it in the book. Mmmm.
If we are not under too much time pressure, we read after breakfast, which really means Jimmy reads out loud to me, whatever book we are currently savoring.
And that completes the morning portion of our daily program.
At 6:00 pm we intend to stop whatever we are doing and meet in the living room for another 20 min of meditation. I say: we INTEND because we don't always manage to keep this in our schedule, but hey, those days are the exception right now. On top of that Jimmy had intended to stop work at 4:00 and put in some physical exercise, but that has not happened yet. Not once. Shows you how much work he's had.
I am really proud of us. Adding meditation and yoga in every day feels like a huge accomplishment. I have been wanting, and trying, and attempting to meditate daily for years and years, and never managed to keep it up. Now it's all of a sudden soooo easy. Thanks to Mingyur Rinpoche.
What I have learned from him about meditation has turned my world almost upside down. It seems as if what I am doing now is almost the opposite of what I was aiming for in the past. Then I thought meditation was there to give the brain more examples about living in a more right brain state of being, going for the totally expansive and source like state of mind... somehow I think I imagined that at some point your brain experience reaches a critical mass and it simply switches over for good and at that point judgements and striving and pressures are all left behind for ever and then you'd be... almost enlightened.
Now I have a new understanding of meditating. "Resting in awareness". I wont attempt to explain this in more detail here, Mingyur Rinpoches does a much better job at this than I ever can... suffice it to say that his way of teaching meditation has not only made it easy to do twice a day, but has also created the possibility to transform any other activities into meditation. So, I do a walking meditation when I walk Jacky, a driving meditation when I drive around, a watching or listening meditation when I am around other people, a thinking meditation when my brain idles without a job... whenever I think of it, I do whatever I do with awareness.
It's amazing to me how much useless stuff constantly washes through the brain with my unfocused thoughts. I am noticing the categories that return over and over again: Improving some situation or helping someone... things I could do to create success for my work... things I could have said in a better way to explain myself... or things I could say or do that would make me more seen or respected... hmmm... yes, those come back over and over again. Interesting.
I wonder if this expansion of awareness, this surrendering into the simplicity of self in action in the moment, has a similar effect as surrendering into an emotion when we do a Journey. The emotion disappears... successively all layers of emotion disappear until there is nothing but the vastness of source. I imagine that in a similar way the continued surrender into the self might cause all the layers of the self to disappear. Woooosh... gone.
Well, much slower of course. We'll see.
My father keeps struggling after his return from the hospital. It's now been five weeks and he is weaker than a couple of days after the surgery. Ted has worked on him twice without any lasting results, I have tried to help him via other channels, through Byron Katie's work, and just talking and being there and holding him in nothing but love and trust and knowing that this too shall pass... as his condition remains the same... week after week.
Mami, interestingly, has tapped into an unexpected source of strength feeding her. Throughout this period of non-recovery she has been remarkably strong, without doubt or despair. She, who felt so weak in April, who was sure she wouldn't survive the summer herself... now is able to take care of Papi and the house and the garden and the shopping and the cooking and the cleaning without ever running on empty. She is resting in the knowledge that he will get better. She also firmly believes that for some undiscovered reason this is something he has to go through. He wants to believe this too, but it is so damn hard for him... all this weakness, all this numbness, all this pain in his skin, and his back, the ringing in his ears, the intestines so sluggish, the appetite for food so small... the body's troubles keep him from sleeping well... and this lack of good sleep has now accumulated since they first put a tube into the old kidney when I was there in May... that's over two(!) months ago... a long time to be losing sleep. He tries to catch a glimpse of: why, oh WHY is this happening to him... again...??? and receives no answer... he envies Mami's and my ability to communicate and receive guidance and resolution and an understanding of purpose for what is there in front of us... but no matter how hard he tries, he can't receive such messages, can't create such lasting peace of mind.
Oh, I feel with him. There is a peculiar added layer to his suffering, a part within me that feels I should be able to find something that helps him. If I can't reach him through the Journey, why isn't there something else showing up that works? And... is it for me to find that for him? As it is I can do nothing but reassure him that what IS, must be right. That has become my conviction through my experiences.
Last night Mami received one of her messages through her Christ energy. She heard: he has passed the test, now he can recover and he will. She heard: I too have passed the test. Papi is relieved to some degree, much of him trusts these messages that come through to Mami, mysterious as this source that communicates to her is to him, it is so close to him, it speaks out of her mouth, and in her loving voice. But... He doesn't know what the test was.
I myself wonder if for my part this was another exercise to let go too, to come anew face to face with my desire to relieve suffering, and to have to just... let it be. To imagine that this indeed is what is best for him right now, even when he can't feel that.
Tuesday, July 25th
Daily Practices
Much to catch up on.
In the meantime I have been to one very, very different kind of workshop at Kripalu... the divine feminine weekend, and then back to another three days of teaching Mahamudra practice with Mingyur Rinpoche at the Monastery in Woodstock.
When Jimmy and I got back from Garrison we started a new daily rhythm. We wake up and sit right up in bed and meditate for 20 min. The getting up part is usually the hardest, even more so when I don't have a schedule forcing me to jump out of bed. Without school, without any regular work, the temptation to just linger and stay curled up daydreaming under the soft flannel sheets is almost irresistible. Meditating in bed tricks us both into doing it pretty soon after the alarm goes off at 7:30.
Ideally we are done and out of bed by 8:00 and on our way downstairs to then do Yoga. If we use the yoga CD we began using last year, we are busy twisting our limbs for another 45 min, even after editing and cutting some of the very slow bits out of the sound track. If we are in a hurry, we either skip one or two exercises or we do a spontaneous variation which I talk us both through... a combination of Uwe's favorite Yoga postures and our CD. That's the new part of the morning.
Next I take Jacky for her eagerly awaited morning walk, while Jimmy starts making breakfast, faithfully after over 3 years that still consists of buckwheat, or more precisely: cooked kasha over copped up celery, cucumber, tomatoes and avocado. All of it gets a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, Braggs aminos, and tahini. We love that stuff. It's from our alkaline diet. Zippy breakfast. That's what they call it in the book. Mmmm.
If we are not under too much time pressure, we read after breakfast, which really means Jimmy reads out loud to me, whatever book we are currently savoring.
And that completes the morning portion of our daily program.
At 6:00 pm we intend to stop whatever we are doing and meet in the living room for another 20 min of meditation. I say: we INTEND because we don't always manage to keep this in our schedule, but hey, those days are the exception right now. On top of that Jimmy had intended to stop work at 4:00 and put in some physical exercise, but that has not happened yet. Not once. Shows you how much work he's had.
I am really proud of us. Adding meditation and yoga in every day feels like a huge accomplishment. I have been wanting, and trying, and attempting to meditate daily for years and years, and never managed to keep it up. Now it's all of a sudden soooo easy. Thanks to Mingyur Rinpoche.
What I have learned from him about meditation has turned my world almost upside down. It seems as if what I am doing now is almost the opposite of what I was aiming for in the past. Then I thought meditation was there to give the brain more examples about living in a more right brain state of being, going for the totally expansive and source like state of mind... somehow I think I imagined that at some point your brain experience reaches a critical mass and it simply switches over for good and at that point judgements and striving and pressures are all left behind for ever and then you'd be... almost enlightened.
Now I have a new understanding of meditating. "Resting in awareness". I wont attempt to explain this in more detail here, Mingyur Rinpoches does a much better job at this than I ever can... suffice it to say that his way of teaching meditation has not only made it easy to do twice a day, but has also created the possibility to transform any other activities into meditation. So, I do a walking meditation when I walk Jacky, a driving meditation when I drive around, a watching or listening meditation when I am around other people, a thinking meditation when my brain idles without a job... whenever I think of it, I do whatever I do with awareness.
It's amazing to me how much useless stuff constantly washes through the brain with my unfocused thoughts. I am noticing the categories that return over and over again: Improving some situation or helping someone... things I could do to create success for my work... things I could have said in a better way to explain myself... or things I could say or do that would make me more seen or respected... hmmm... yes, those come back over and over again. Interesting.
I wonder if this expansion of awareness, this surrendering into the simplicity of self in action in the moment, has a similar effect as surrendering into an emotion when we do a Journey. The emotion disappears... successively all layers of emotion disappear until there is nothing but the vastness of source. I imagine that in a similar way the continued surrender into the self might cause all the layers of the self to disappear. Woooosh... gone.
Well, much slower of course. We'll see.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Attachment
During our retreat in Garrison, I understood something about attachment. For the first time.
Before each meditation segment we recited a dedication prayer. The fourth line was : May they (all sentient beings) dwell in great equanimity, free from attachment and aversion to those near and far. (You repeat the four lines of the prayer three times whenever you sit down on a cushion.)
Free from attachment.
At some point it dawned on me that included myself.
Attachment? This is something I had never paid attention to.
Wanting something, hoping for something, that's attachment, isn't it? All the dedication and work and effort I have put into building my Journey practice, hoping it would grow, hoping it would serve a lot of people, hoping it would support me, hoping it would confirm to me that I am on the right path, that I made the right choices... that's an attachment I think. And a big one.
Over the last weeks I had already been in the process of shedding more and more of this particular attachment, and I have been feeling the breath of letting go, a gentle, loving liberation.
On the last day Mingyur Rinpoche said something very casually, that hit me with a burst of incredulity: When your meditation becomes an amazing experience, that's when you stop.
What? That's when I stop???
I thought this was the whole purpose of meditating, to reach those wonderful transcendent states of being, to go into those states of oneness, beingness, free from ordinary thought, resting in just pure awareness... wasn't that the goal? Practicing that?
No, apparently it was not. Not at first. Because at first you get attached to the result.
All of a sudden that makes sense. Of course! You get attached... to a goal. You start to rate yourself. Without noticing you are drawn into your personal version of the inner drama of your own judgement... swinging forever back and forth between good and bad.
So yes, I think I understand.
Attachment is as much part of our illusion as aversion, as any form of our story that makes us get upset, depressed, angry, or afraid. Either one tells us we need something in order to... xxx ... and in each habit of thinking we believe we'd be really happy, IF we only had... xxx. All along we miss the truth that we are chasing something... very temporary... impossible to reach because it forever keeps changing names.
I had never noticed how much of my thoughts evolved around making something happen, or rather: yes, I was aware of that, but in my mind I was working with the law of attraction, I was matching my vibration to something I desired. Now I am seeing this use of my thoughts a little differently. Very possibly I was setting myself up for the ongoing duality of failure or success. If something didn't happen, it was because I had not done a well enough job in attracting it. That never feels good. On the other hand, once success is there, it is not a stable state of being either. Maybe that's why life had felt like so much effort at times, maybe that's why I have those regular experiences at night when my energy just deflates from my body like a punctured balloon... there used to be lots of days when I was so tired I could hardly get myself into the bathroom to brush my teeth... and all I had done was sit at my desk all day.
Maybe life doesn't have to feel like that.
Struggle. No, that doesn't need to be here any more.
Something of that may have drained from me. In a mysterious way. On the last full day of the teaching we practiced a "watching meditation" by watching a video of a performance Mingyur Rinpoche had given in Taiwan earlier this year. A combination of teachings and sound through music. We were given the assignment to watch this: with awareness. That was all.
Big stage. Mingyur Rinpoche sits on a little pedestal on the right side of the stage, a Chinese translator sits on the left.
He speaks briefly, very simply, in short, chopped up segments about meditating and using music to help the mind from running all over the place, he makes a few jokes, and instructs the audience what to do when the music begins... in a moment of silence we see the word of the first theme: EXISTENCE... and then a blueish light goes on behind him in the center of the back stage, an orchestra becomes visible through a veil on the raised platform, and the music begins: a beautiful, yearning melody, sung by a flute, wrapped in the sound of all the many voices of the full orchestra, magically washing us with a sound... so complicated, so touching, so precise, so skillfully, so passionately drawn from each of all these different instruments... oh, all these people all joined together in the service of this sound. This moment, this achingly beautiful music contained all of the dedication, all the years of learning... the hours and hours of daily practice on their instruments... these intricately crafted objects that had each been created with such knowledge, a knowledge grown into a mastery that had evolved out of centuries and centuries of perfecting the art of instrument making, fueled by an eternal love for sound and music... born out of the striving for a creative expression of beauty and truth and joy and exaltation, all of that which had forever provided a counterbalance, a healing nectar for the lives outside... the daily life in the world... the human life that has throughout the eons, jolted us through fear and anger and pain and frustration, and greed and hardship and suffering... Suffering... so much suffering.
All of this washed over me in one fell swoop within the first few moments of this sound entering my body, and tears began rolling down my face. I gave in.
I wasn't able to put what was happening in those exact words I just gave a wooden handed attempt to describe it with. I just looked at my teacher... There was Mingyur sitting in a soft, warm spotlight on his little pedestal in his deep red monks gown, his face still, his eyes closed, his hands resting in his lap... so small. His head hardly as high as half of the big cello bathed in blue behind him. He so still, so peaceful.
And behind him all of human existence, with all it's fragile moments of utter love and beauty and all it's striving and all it's millennia of suffering, present in this sound of this orchestra, recorded months ago on the far side of the globe for me to witness in this moment.
Something unraveled inside of me. I don't know what it was. I just kept weeping.
Maybe my soul understood the different between attachment and freedom in that moment. I don't know.
I know it came to an end when the piece was over. I know it didn't return when the next piece started. Beethoven's fifth, the first movement. This was called EMOTION. But no emotions flowed. Maybe I knew it too well. I know there were a few more tears with the next piece: FREE, a Mozart piano concert... and that was all.
The next morning at about the same time I entered the small private sitting room Mingyur Rinpoche was using during his stay with four other people and took refuge.
Now I am giving my being the space to learn there is no goal. Not in meditating, not in life. I do this every day. Twice. For 20 minutes. That's a lot of learning.
I imagine ... the ease... the of being present... breathing with unhurried gentleness... moving from one simple task into the next... collecting each little completion like a pearl that slips up on the string of memory, collecting like a precious necklace in the soul.
Before each meditation segment we recited a dedication prayer. The fourth line was : May they (all sentient beings) dwell in great equanimity, free from attachment and aversion to those near and far. (You repeat the four lines of the prayer three times whenever you sit down on a cushion.)
Free from attachment.
At some point it dawned on me that included myself.
Attachment? This is something I had never paid attention to.
Wanting something, hoping for something, that's attachment, isn't it? All the dedication and work and effort I have put into building my Journey practice, hoping it would grow, hoping it would serve a lot of people, hoping it would support me, hoping it would confirm to me that I am on the right path, that I made the right choices... that's an attachment I think. And a big one.
Over the last weeks I had already been in the process of shedding more and more of this particular attachment, and I have been feeling the breath of letting go, a gentle, loving liberation.
On the last day Mingyur Rinpoche said something very casually, that hit me with a burst of incredulity: When your meditation becomes an amazing experience, that's when you stop.
What? That's when I stop???
I thought this was the whole purpose of meditating, to reach those wonderful transcendent states of being, to go into those states of oneness, beingness, free from ordinary thought, resting in just pure awareness... wasn't that the goal? Practicing that?
No, apparently it was not. Not at first. Because at first you get attached to the result.
All of a sudden that makes sense. Of course! You get attached... to a goal. You start to rate yourself. Without noticing you are drawn into your personal version of the inner drama of your own judgement... swinging forever back and forth between good and bad.
So yes, I think I understand.
Attachment is as much part of our illusion as aversion, as any form of our story that makes us get upset, depressed, angry, or afraid. Either one tells us we need something in order to... xxx ... and in each habit of thinking we believe we'd be really happy, IF we only had... xxx. All along we miss the truth that we are chasing something... very temporary... impossible to reach because it forever keeps changing names.
I had never noticed how much of my thoughts evolved around making something happen, or rather: yes, I was aware of that, but in my mind I was working with the law of attraction, I was matching my vibration to something I desired. Now I am seeing this use of my thoughts a little differently. Very possibly I was setting myself up for the ongoing duality of failure or success. If something didn't happen, it was because I had not done a well enough job in attracting it. That never feels good. On the other hand, once success is there, it is not a stable state of being either. Maybe that's why life had felt like so much effort at times, maybe that's why I have those regular experiences at night when my energy just deflates from my body like a punctured balloon... there used to be lots of days when I was so tired I could hardly get myself into the bathroom to brush my teeth... and all I had done was sit at my desk all day.
Maybe life doesn't have to feel like that.
Struggle. No, that doesn't need to be here any more.
Something of that may have drained from me. In a mysterious way. On the last full day of the teaching we practiced a "watching meditation" by watching a video of a performance Mingyur Rinpoche had given in Taiwan earlier this year. A combination of teachings and sound through music. We were given the assignment to watch this: with awareness. That was all.
Big stage. Mingyur Rinpoche sits on a little pedestal on the right side of the stage, a Chinese translator sits on the left.
He speaks briefly, very simply, in short, chopped up segments about meditating and using music to help the mind from running all over the place, he makes a few jokes, and instructs the audience what to do when the music begins... in a moment of silence we see the word of the first theme: EXISTENCE... and then a blueish light goes on behind him in the center of the back stage, an orchestra becomes visible through a veil on the raised platform, and the music begins: a beautiful, yearning melody, sung by a flute, wrapped in the sound of all the many voices of the full orchestra, magically washing us with a sound... so complicated, so touching, so precise, so skillfully, so passionately drawn from each of all these different instruments... oh, all these people all joined together in the service of this sound. This moment, this achingly beautiful music contained all of the dedication, all the years of learning... the hours and hours of daily practice on their instruments... these intricately crafted objects that had each been created with such knowledge, a knowledge grown into a mastery that had evolved out of centuries and centuries of perfecting the art of instrument making, fueled by an eternal love for sound and music... born out of the striving for a creative expression of beauty and truth and joy and exaltation, all of that which had forever provided a counterbalance, a healing nectar for the lives outside... the daily life in the world... the human life that has throughout the eons, jolted us through fear and anger and pain and frustration, and greed and hardship and suffering... Suffering... so much suffering.
All of this washed over me in one fell swoop within the first few moments of this sound entering my body, and tears began rolling down my face. I gave in.
I wasn't able to put what was happening in those exact words I just gave a wooden handed attempt to describe it with. I just looked at my teacher... There was Mingyur sitting in a soft, warm spotlight on his little pedestal in his deep red monks gown, his face still, his eyes closed, his hands resting in his lap... so small. His head hardly as high as half of the big cello bathed in blue behind him. He so still, so peaceful.
And behind him all of human existence, with all it's fragile moments of utter love and beauty and all it's striving and all it's millennia of suffering, present in this sound of this orchestra, recorded months ago on the far side of the globe for me to witness in this moment.
Something unraveled inside of me. I don't know what it was. I just kept weeping.
Maybe my soul understood the different between attachment and freedom in that moment. I don't know.
I know it came to an end when the piece was over. I know it didn't return when the next piece started. Beethoven's fifth, the first movement. This was called EMOTION. But no emotions flowed. Maybe I knew it too well. I know there were a few more tears with the next piece: FREE, a Mozart piano concert... and that was all.
The next morning at about the same time I entered the small private sitting room Mingyur Rinpoche was using during his stay with four other people and took refuge.
Now I am giving my being the space to learn there is no goal. Not in meditating, not in life. I do this every day. Twice. For 20 minutes. That's a lot of learning.
I imagine ... the ease... the of being present... breathing with unhurried gentleness... moving from one simple task into the next... collecting each little completion like a pearl that slips up on the string of memory, collecting like a precious necklace in the soul.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
New Update from Hamburg
This is the next chapter in my fathers journey through his current health challenge.
While still at the retreat with Mingyur Rinpoche I spoke with Ted, who I had learned, works over the phone and is able to shift many things long distance. Ron in Ottawa had been impressed that his back pain, which had kept him from bending down and doing the unavoidable spring yard work, found this pain had completely disappeared. Natalie, his sister in law, who had joined us for the weekend, had apparently worked with Ted more than once, and referring to the speed he works with, she described she has a whole list ready to go through with all the little aches and pains she wants to address.
Enough recommendation for me to try him out, especially since he had a very low hourly rate at the time.
Ted talks very fast, almost in a hurry, and it takes me a few minutes to realize he is not just summarizing for me what he sees, but he is also adjusting and releasing things at the same time. I take notes and try to be present with all he is detecting and unraveling simultaneously. Within the hour he had swept through several past lives, death by poison, karma with the surgeon, acidity levels in the body a clogged lymph system, habits and beliefs of needing to do things alone, old stories trapped in the bowls, disempowering beliefs in connection with the second kidney, emotions within the family in response to these events, my mother's source of strength, and even a little bit on my own story with the cysts... Phewwwhhhh...
Papi got better, although slowly and with setbacks. His bowls again were the main stumbling stone.
On Wednesday they sent him back home, where he arrived happy but still very weak.
By Friday his bowls had come to a halt yet again and his family physician, a wonderful woman, who Mami describes as someone with a rare willingness to take her time to listen and be present with her patients, strongly recommended to him to go back to the hospital. She felt staying home over the weekend he might risk another locking up of the colon. Not a good thing. He experienced that four years ago. Nothing you want to repeat.
So, on the third day home from the hospital, he went back into the emergency room one more time. Anyone who has ever been through surgery knows how much of an effort it is to be up on your feet for more than 30 minutes during the first 10 days of recovering, but to go back into the emergency room, with all the waiting, the in and out of examination rooms for blood and urine tests, and new examinations. ... It was another four hour ordeal, but at the end of it all he was sent home ... after the bowls did come back to life through some simple magic.
It was only then that he felt he is finally on a steady way to recovery.
Knock on wood...tok, tok, tok... the old bowls have been doing fine since.
While still at the retreat with Mingyur Rinpoche I spoke with Ted, who I had learned, works over the phone and is able to shift many things long distance. Ron in Ottawa had been impressed that his back pain, which had kept him from bending down and doing the unavoidable spring yard work, found this pain had completely disappeared. Natalie, his sister in law, who had joined us for the weekend, had apparently worked with Ted more than once, and referring to the speed he works with, she described she has a whole list ready to go through with all the little aches and pains she wants to address.
Enough recommendation for me to try him out, especially since he had a very low hourly rate at the time.
Ted talks very fast, almost in a hurry, and it takes me a few minutes to realize he is not just summarizing for me what he sees, but he is also adjusting and releasing things at the same time. I take notes and try to be present with all he is detecting and unraveling simultaneously. Within the hour he had swept through several past lives, death by poison, karma with the surgeon, acidity levels in the body a clogged lymph system, habits and beliefs of needing to do things alone, old stories trapped in the bowls, disempowering beliefs in connection with the second kidney, emotions within the family in response to these events, my mother's source of strength, and even a little bit on my own story with the cysts... Phewwwhhhh...
Papi got better, although slowly and with setbacks. His bowls again were the main stumbling stone.
On Wednesday they sent him back home, where he arrived happy but still very weak.
By Friday his bowls had come to a halt yet again and his family physician, a wonderful woman, who Mami describes as someone with a rare willingness to take her time to listen and be present with her patients, strongly recommended to him to go back to the hospital. She felt staying home over the weekend he might risk another locking up of the colon. Not a good thing. He experienced that four years ago. Nothing you want to repeat.
So, on the third day home from the hospital, he went back into the emergency room one more time. Anyone who has ever been through surgery knows how much of an effort it is to be up on your feet for more than 30 minutes during the first 10 days of recovering, but to go back into the emergency room, with all the waiting, the in and out of examination rooms for blood and urine tests, and new examinations. ... It was another four hour ordeal, but at the end of it all he was sent home ... after the bowls did come back to life through some simple magic.
It was only then that he felt he is finally on a steady way to recovery.
Knock on wood...tok, tok, tok... the old bowls have been doing fine since.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
The Question of Refuge - Update on Papi
Sunday, June 28th
I have the unanswered question hanging over my head whether or not to ask to take refuge with Minguyr Rinpoche.
I have talked with a few people about this during the last couple of days.
And today I have gained some clarity about my hesitation.
Yes, here it is with some surprise: This hesitation has its roots in fear.
I am afraid of some things!
I am afraid that once I make this official commitment, that I might fail to meet someones expectation, that I wont be considered a good enough Buddhist, that I could disappoint or fail in some way, because I am aware that I don't think of myself as a Buddhist and maybe never will, but I am thinking of myself as someone who is on a path toward enlightenment.
I am afraid that I will loose my freedom to explore other spiritual parts of life, of locking myself in.
I am afraid some people around me might have some kind of a judgement about me choosing the Buddhist path.
Yikes! Good to know what's been hiding in there.
Later...
After our second teaching of the day, the Rinpoche sat for a while with the discussion group I am in (about a third of the participants), to answer questions ... . The first two groups had their meetings with him earlier today. I had been chewing on my question for a long while and when the time came and I had the microphone, I said:
"I have been carrying the question of taking refuge with me. How do I know it is time to take this step, and how do I know I am not making a mistake?"
I was wondering if he might ask me what I was afraid of doing wrong, but he didn't.
He simply said: "When you are ready to accept the Buddha and the Darma and the Sangha as your path, then you do it."
and I thought: "Shit, I don't even remember exactly what the Dharma and the Sangha is." but I was too embarrassed to say that, and my next thought was: "Well, clearly... until I don't really know what it is I am committing to, I guess I am not ready to do it." and I was a little at a loss what to do with his answer. He said a few more words to expand the explanation... I don't remember right now. I noticed I felt a little... disappointed.
After dinner Jimmy and I walked to the edge of the little park that overlooks the river. Upstream, perched on the cliffs of the opposite bank we could see Westpoint Military Academy. What a curious placing of contrast! Then we saw a little trail leading into the forest that we took, that became a bigger trail, that joined a bigger path, that led over a bridge across the railway tracks and past a tiny beach onto a group of rocks with a bench on it. Crossing the railway we had seen a family of foxes play on the tracks! Was this a good omen?
Returned to our Institute there were 30 Min left of the evening meditation practice. As I sat on the double cushion, I practiced what we had learned today: a gentle surrender into whatever catches the meditative awareness away from simple, non thinking spaciousness... let that be sound, sight, thoughts, physical sensations, or emotions. Whatever shows up, you simply watch passing through by bringing it into your awareness. Toward the end I drifted into the emotions surrounding my decision about refuge, or lack thereof. I felt the fear, became aware of it and something started unraveling.
I sat there tears rolling down my face as I felt what it would be like to say YES. To say yes, in spite of all that I don't know, in spite of all that I have doubts about, in spite of all worries about what this might ask of me that I might find hard to meet... I felt this YES in my body and I sensed that the time of saying MAYBE was over, that life, yet again had put something in front of me... and that living fully meant, yet again, saying yes. In the same way I had said yes to becoming a Journey practitioner, I had said yes to the surgery, and I had said yes to going to Ottawa. Did it matter that I saw my mentors lining up and bowing to me? I don't know. Maybe I wanted to see them that way. What mattered was the intensity of the emotion and the sense that something old, timid and limiting was leaving with this decision.
I will have to wait until silence ends tomorrow to speak to someone, and to find out if this little ceremony can actually take place before I leave on Tuesday.
Saturday, June 27th
Dearest friends, just a little update on my father...
Not all continued they way he had wished. In spite of many offerings of pain medication, both orally as well as by IV, his pain did not subside during the first night. It was in fact quite unbearable. The pain pump could not be repaired as the clog was located in the surgically inserted portion. Not sure what the heck they were giving him... I had raved about Delauded, but their stuff has different names... so I don't know. Only know the pain stayed with him during the next day and into the next night. Yet again hardly any sleep.
I heard about it after we came out of morning silence here at the retreat. Gave him a call via skype and heard his tired and exhausted voice, he didn't even want me to lead him in some guided meditation, he was too worn out to give energy to anything. I contacted an energy healer my hosts in Ottawa had raved about, and also checked in myself... saw something like a crab. an entity, in his belly and removed that. There were some disempowering beliefs that had been lodged into this area and a new awareness that opened up when it was gone... not sure how much that actually affected him, but today he is overall feeling a little better. Later tonight I will work with Ted from Canada via phone on Papi and we'll see how that goes.
Now back down again into my discussion group.
Otherwise we are having a great time here!
Love you all
Tomma
I have the unanswered question hanging over my head whether or not to ask to take refuge with Minguyr Rinpoche.
I have talked with a few people about this during the last couple of days.
And today I have gained some clarity about my hesitation.
Yes, here it is with some surprise: This hesitation has its roots in fear.
I am afraid of some things!
I am afraid that once I make this official commitment, that I might fail to meet someones expectation, that I wont be considered a good enough Buddhist, that I could disappoint or fail in some way, because I am aware that I don't think of myself as a Buddhist and maybe never will, but I am thinking of myself as someone who is on a path toward enlightenment.
I am afraid that I will loose my freedom to explore other spiritual parts of life, of locking myself in.
I am afraid some people around me might have some kind of a judgement about me choosing the Buddhist path.
Yikes! Good to know what's been hiding in there.
Later...
After our second teaching of the day, the Rinpoche sat for a while with the discussion group I am in (about a third of the participants), to answer questions ... . The first two groups had their meetings with him earlier today. I had been chewing on my question for a long while and when the time came and I had the microphone, I said:
"I have been carrying the question of taking refuge with me. How do I know it is time to take this step, and how do I know I am not making a mistake?"
I was wondering if he might ask me what I was afraid of doing wrong, but he didn't.
He simply said: "When you are ready to accept the Buddha and the Darma and the Sangha as your path, then you do it."
and I thought: "Shit, I don't even remember exactly what the Dharma and the Sangha is." but I was too embarrassed to say that, and my next thought was: "Well, clearly... until I don't really know what it is I am committing to, I guess I am not ready to do it." and I was a little at a loss what to do with his answer. He said a few more words to expand the explanation... I don't remember right now. I noticed I felt a little... disappointed.
After dinner Jimmy and I walked to the edge of the little park that overlooks the river. Upstream, perched on the cliffs of the opposite bank we could see Westpoint Military Academy. What a curious placing of contrast! Then we saw a little trail leading into the forest that we took, that became a bigger trail, that joined a bigger path, that led over a bridge across the railway tracks and past a tiny beach onto a group of rocks with a bench on it. Crossing the railway we had seen a family of foxes play on the tracks! Was this a good omen?
Returned to our Institute there were 30 Min left of the evening meditation practice. As I sat on the double cushion, I practiced what we had learned today: a gentle surrender into whatever catches the meditative awareness away from simple, non thinking spaciousness... let that be sound, sight, thoughts, physical sensations, or emotions. Whatever shows up, you simply watch passing through by bringing it into your awareness. Toward the end I drifted into the emotions surrounding my decision about refuge, or lack thereof. I felt the fear, became aware of it and something started unraveling.
I sat there tears rolling down my face as I felt what it would be like to say YES. To say yes, in spite of all that I don't know, in spite of all that I have doubts about, in spite of all worries about what this might ask of me that I might find hard to meet... I felt this YES in my body and I sensed that the time of saying MAYBE was over, that life, yet again had put something in front of me... and that living fully meant, yet again, saying yes. In the same way I had said yes to becoming a Journey practitioner, I had said yes to the surgery, and I had said yes to going to Ottawa. Did it matter that I saw my mentors lining up and bowing to me? I don't know. Maybe I wanted to see them that way. What mattered was the intensity of the emotion and the sense that something old, timid and limiting was leaving with this decision.
I will have to wait until silence ends tomorrow to speak to someone, and to find out if this little ceremony can actually take place before I leave on Tuesday.
Saturday, June 27th
Dearest friends, just a little update on my father...
Not all continued they way he had wished. In spite of many offerings of pain medication, both orally as well as by IV, his pain did not subside during the first night. It was in fact quite unbearable. The pain pump could not be repaired as the clog was located in the surgically inserted portion. Not sure what the heck they were giving him... I had raved about Delauded, but their stuff has different names... so I don't know. Only know the pain stayed with him during the next day and into the next night. Yet again hardly any sleep.
I heard about it after we came out of morning silence here at the retreat. Gave him a call via skype and heard his tired and exhausted voice, he didn't even want me to lead him in some guided meditation, he was too worn out to give energy to anything. I contacted an energy healer my hosts in Ottawa had raved about, and also checked in myself... saw something like a crab. an entity, in his belly and removed that. There were some disempowering beliefs that had been lodged into this area and a new awareness that opened up when it was gone... not sure how much that actually affected him, but today he is overall feeling a little better. Later tonight I will work with Ted from Canada via phone on Papi and we'll see how that goes.
Now back down again into my discussion group.
Otherwise we are having a great time here!
Love you all
Tomma
Friday, July 3, 2009
Realizations
Friday, June 16th
During the meditation practice after breakfast I had a whole series of realizations.
When Jimmy and I arrived last night and sat down in the old dining hall for dinner, I was aware how I observe people I don't know. The two women across the table were talking and talking and didn't look at us at all. Now, I am almost embarrassed to write this down, but this is what I paid attention to: I noticed the jewelery they wore, both more than me: rings with many sparkling stones, a watch, and yes, that could have been an expensive watch, the hair: well combed and cared for with fashionable sunglasses pulled up over the forehead on one while the other hair was rather fluffy and out of bounds, the gestures and body language of the first: relaxed and selfassured.
I wasn't naming those observations to myself, I just took them in and a little later I noticed that I was reminded of watching the really cool girls one grade above me during the break at school - from a distance. And I thought: This is really an old habit that creeps in here.
So, this morning during meditation I thought back to this experience at dinner and all of a sudden it became very clear and I saw what I have been doing for most of my life. I am evaluating people. In this old way of looking at a fellow human being, I try to read whether this person is wealthy, powerful or influential, valued by others, educated maybe, creative or interesting looking, and... here comes the conclusion: I am doing this, because I want to find out whether this person ranks above or below me... if this is someone who has something I don't have, something to GIVE to me... or if it is someone who has nothing much to offer.
And the following confession is embarrassing too. Next I realized that I have played a game over and over again, a game in which I will pick a person somewhere above me and make it my goal to be recognized by this person, in fact I don't rest until I have worked my way up so that in the end I am able to give something to this person, all the while I dream of being someone important to them. And I don't always succeed. Wow. THAT'S what I have done?? Yep. I think so. More than once.
What if I could meet another human being without all this old crap? Just free. Just in complete welcome. Seeing the perfection of this meeting. No matter who. NO MATTER WHO.
That was # one.
Next I thought that it would be really nice to speak with Jimmy about our intention for this retreat. To massage some juice into a really good experience. What am I hoping for is not only to learn something about meditation, but also... to meet people, people we might both have some synchronicities with, some interesting and inspiring conversations with, maybe even people who will end up leading me further in my life. And then I stopped myself and thought: Ho, wait a minute! WHAT am I doing here? Am I not setting myself up with a whole set of best, ok and disappointing results from this retreat? Am I giving myself a goal here? Isn't that what I did with my cysts? And wasn't I totally turned upside down? Yes. So why don't I absolutely let go of that? Why don't I just leave it up to life to give me what I need. And I wont care if I don't meet a single new person.
That was # two.
And finally, just before Mingyur Rinpoche came in for the first teaching of the day, I had another realization. About my work, my private practice. All of a sudden I understood something about why the first years have felt like such a struggle. It goes back to the question of giving. While it looks like I showed up with something to give to my clients, I really started from a place to needing them to need me. It actually feels like my need to be needed was bigger than my ability to give... of course that creates a mixed up energy! How would it have been if I had been able to give my work with pure generosity from the very beginning... with pure compassion? Doesn't really matter now, does it. What matters is that I now see the difference. It's not that I had a hard time interacting from that place once someone sat down with me in my living room. That was easy. I am talking about the process of attracting clients. Generosity and compassion, It feels like those could be a true anchor for my work and I will not forget that.
And that was # three.
During the meditation practice after breakfast I had a whole series of realizations.
When Jimmy and I arrived last night and sat down in the old dining hall for dinner, I was aware how I observe people I don't know. The two women across the table were talking and talking and didn't look at us at all. Now, I am almost embarrassed to write this down, but this is what I paid attention to: I noticed the jewelery they wore, both more than me: rings with many sparkling stones, a watch, and yes, that could have been an expensive watch, the hair: well combed and cared for with fashionable sunglasses pulled up over the forehead on one while the other hair was rather fluffy and out of bounds, the gestures and body language of the first: relaxed and selfassured.
I wasn't naming those observations to myself, I just took them in and a little later I noticed that I was reminded of watching the really cool girls one grade above me during the break at school - from a distance. And I thought: This is really an old habit that creeps in here.
So, this morning during meditation I thought back to this experience at dinner and all of a sudden it became very clear and I saw what I have been doing for most of my life. I am evaluating people. In this old way of looking at a fellow human being, I try to read whether this person is wealthy, powerful or influential, valued by others, educated maybe, creative or interesting looking, and... here comes the conclusion: I am doing this, because I want to find out whether this person ranks above or below me... if this is someone who has something I don't have, something to GIVE to me... or if it is someone who has nothing much to offer.
And the following confession is embarrassing too. Next I realized that I have played a game over and over again, a game in which I will pick a person somewhere above me and make it my goal to be recognized by this person, in fact I don't rest until I have worked my way up so that in the end I am able to give something to this person, all the while I dream of being someone important to them. And I don't always succeed. Wow. THAT'S what I have done?? Yep. I think so. More than once.
What if I could meet another human being without all this old crap? Just free. Just in complete welcome. Seeing the perfection of this meeting. No matter who. NO MATTER WHO.
That was # one.
Next I thought that it would be really nice to speak with Jimmy about our intention for this retreat. To massage some juice into a really good experience. What am I hoping for is not only to learn something about meditation, but also... to meet people, people we might both have some synchronicities with, some interesting and inspiring conversations with, maybe even people who will end up leading me further in my life. And then I stopped myself and thought: Ho, wait a minute! WHAT am I doing here? Am I not setting myself up with a whole set of best, ok and disappointing results from this retreat? Am I giving myself a goal here? Isn't that what I did with my cysts? And wasn't I totally turned upside down? Yes. So why don't I absolutely let go of that? Why don't I just leave it up to life to give me what I need. And I wont care if I don't meet a single new person.
That was # two.
And finally, just before Mingyur Rinpoche came in for the first teaching of the day, I had another realization. About my work, my private practice. All of a sudden I understood something about why the first years have felt like such a struggle. It goes back to the question of giving. While it looks like I showed up with something to give to my clients, I really started from a place to needing them to need me. It actually feels like my need to be needed was bigger than my ability to give... of course that creates a mixed up energy! How would it have been if I had been able to give my work with pure generosity from the very beginning... with pure compassion? Doesn't really matter now, does it. What matters is that I now see the difference. It's not that I had a hard time interacting from that place once someone sat down with me in my living room. That was easy. I am talking about the process of attracting clients. Generosity and compassion, It feels like those could be a true anchor for my work and I will not forget that.
And that was # three.
Listening to my Body again
Friday, June 26th
It is our first morning at the Garrison Institute, the first morning of our meditation retreat.
I am looking out the window onto a small strip of the Hudson river framed by massive oaks and maples. Green everywhere. Morning fog still hangs in the branches. It's going to be a hot day today. We are on the third floor of the building, it's an old Capuchin monastery, a grand old stone structure built in the 1930s, with tall ceilings, bone white walls, and dark wood everywhere except for the blond parquet floors. The vegetarian food last night was delicious.
Last night we also had our first opening teaching with Mingyur Rinpoche. More than before it struck me how funny he is. What a sense of humor!
This morning we had a choice between an hour of meditation practice and an hour of unsupervised yoga... from 7:00am to 8:00am
I took a short bath in the lovely hot tub and then went to yoga.
When I did my postures, I couldn't fail to notice how much stiffer I am. No regular practice since last winter, clearly, and I noticed how I wanted to stretch to reach my old marks, and then I thought: No, I want to listen to my body, I want to find the point that feels absolutely delicious, the point where my body says: this is where you are right now, right at this moment in your life, and this is perfect. And then I thought: I should do this practice as if I have never done yoga before, as if there is no past. Oh, of course: no past!! Isn't that how we would live, when we have left all of the old baggage behind? Without a past?
Reaching for a standard instead of listening to my body. To reach for an outside standard by comparing myself to another person or following an instruction is one thing, and I have been letting go of that for a long while now, but today I noticed that the standard and measurement I put up for myself from within my own body, from my own memory... is yet another matter, and just as destructive.
So I think I want to do this yoga practice now as if I had just been born and I am exploring and experiencing this body for the very first time.
It is our first morning at the Garrison Institute, the first morning of our meditation retreat.
I am looking out the window onto a small strip of the Hudson river framed by massive oaks and maples. Green everywhere. Morning fog still hangs in the branches. It's going to be a hot day today. We are on the third floor of the building, it's an old Capuchin monastery, a grand old stone structure built in the 1930s, with tall ceilings, bone white walls, and dark wood everywhere except for the blond parquet floors. The vegetarian food last night was delicious.
Last night we also had our first opening teaching with Mingyur Rinpoche. More than before it struck me how funny he is. What a sense of humor!
This morning we had a choice between an hour of meditation practice and an hour of unsupervised yoga... from 7:00am to 8:00am
I took a short bath in the lovely hot tub and then went to yoga.
When I did my postures, I couldn't fail to notice how much stiffer I am. No regular practice since last winter, clearly, and I noticed how I wanted to stretch to reach my old marks, and then I thought: No, I want to listen to my body, I want to find the point that feels absolutely delicious, the point where my body says: this is where you are right now, right at this moment in your life, and this is perfect. And then I thought: I should do this practice as if I have never done yoga before, as if there is no past. Oh, of course: no past!! Isn't that how we would live, when we have left all of the old baggage behind? Without a past?
Reaching for a standard instead of listening to my body. To reach for an outside standard by comparing myself to another person or following an instruction is one thing, and I have been letting go of that for a long while now, but today I noticed that the standard and measurement I put up for myself from within my own body, from my own memory... is yet another matter, and just as destructive.
So I think I want to do this yoga practice now as if I had just been born and I am exploring and experiencing this body for the very first time.
Leaving an old Duality behind
Monday, June 22nd
One of my big experiences during this weekend was a vow process that we exchanged very much at the beginning, on Saturday. The plan was to remove any beliefs or limiting vows that keep us all from being successful in our business. I had not really thought much about that... we had just done some guided meditative pieces and some elicitation, but not a lot had come up for me... and as fate had planned it, I was paired up with an older woman, small, with short white hair and tight lips and a slight air of resignation hovering about her, and I remember thinking, oh well, this will probably not bring me a whole lot.
Normally, when you do a vow process you go back to a time earlier in your life when something happened that caused you to make a vow, take on a new belief or when the perception your reality changed ... in a way that was necessary at the time, because it offered a solution to the situation you were in... but now it has become unwholesome, unhealthy, or unnecessary for your life.
Now, to my surprise, Ann, my partner had also just done a shamanic workshop the weekend before... and when her time machine had landed, she said;" oh, I am back at the akashic records. I am in that very same library I went to last weekend, and there is my book, my record... We ended up shifting an irrational feeling of fear, a fear of exposing herself. A story unfolded that gave us glimpses of experiences when she had be prosecuted and hated by a lot of people. When her life had been in danger or even lost. Possibly all of this goes back to a lifetime when she had been executed for being a witch. When we were done and had cleared out the past, the image in her book had changed from one of a black witch to one of a lovely fairy. This was very unusual! I am mentioning her part mostly, because her process may have set the tone for something more unusual to happen for me too.
So when I started going down the stairs the first thing that was really different were the stairs. In a vow process you only have five steps, and as I got ready to step down the steps, they started expanding, started widening at the bottom and for a moment became something like a grand staircase, and then they kept on expanding until they had created a full circle, so that I was now standing on nothing but a little itty-bitty round spot at the top and steps were leading down all around me, so that there was no coming from or going toward, other than a going deeper and wider in all directions. Very unusual, something I had never seen before.
I had two mentors a male and a female... and our time shuttle was a human size version of these little cylinders that transport messages through little air tubes... where you put a little capsule in it and then: puff!! it gets shot into another part of the building. So, my time machine was a large cylinder, big enough for us to step into, and ready to shoot us to wherever we needed to go. And when we pressed the button to take us to a vow or a belief that was in the way for me building my business, I felt this capsule shoot us up into the sky and circling the earth and within moments we had zoomed around three times, with incredible speed obviously... faster than a rocket... and after three round trips it came straight down, voomm!! and landed in Egypt.
In Egypt, I arrived at an elevated, rectangular garden that was connected to the palace. It was built, balcony like, raised up from the ground, supported by high walls on three sides... and somewhere beyond the garden to the left was the temple, and the palace itself was over to the right.
Curiously this garden looked almost identical to a place I had seen during a journey with one of my clients in Germany, when she uncovered a time in Egypt where she had been a priestess at the temple. This was the same kind of garden... I though this was peculiar, almost as if I had landed in someone else's story. Didn't quite know what to do with that. My mentors had no information for me... they were just standing by my side on the gravel path, next to the lush flowers... I could bring the image of my client as a priestess and her soul mate into the picture... they could be there... or they could not be there... and it didn't really make a difference. Strange!
Then there was this slight pull into the palace and I wondered whether this journey had to do with the lifetime when I had been a member of the royal family and I had committed all these atrocious cruelties against the Jewish people. But none of that really showed up, it only hung there as a question, but didn't materialize as an image or an emotion. So, I kept wandering through the palace for a while and kept asking: ...what is this about? ... what is going on here? The first thing I finally heard was that it was about a duality of power... and I thought maybe it was about the duality of the religious or spiritual power on one side, and the power of the palace on the other, maybe there was a separation, or a conflict, or a competition of power... but no response on that... so we kept moving... and before long we wandered into the cellars of the castle, following a certain pull to go deeper. The castle was carried by many columns that were all black... The foundation of power? Again I wasn't sure what that meant... and before I could get an answer, we started sinking into the ground, and I let it happen. We sank deeper and deeper and finally arrived... in another time zone... an archaic or stone age time of human existence.
Here I felt myself to be male and I felt myself holding a big club and sensed that this was a moment of discovery, a discovery of a new, physical power through the use of the club. I could feel the surge and the excitement of that new power rushing through my body.... the exhilaration and the expansion of my life force and my territory. Here was the root of the duality: this club, this physical power, was being used against someone or something: against animals to be eaten, or against enemies to be killed or injured or threatened... and I could feel the imprint that this power came with. This power was made up of two parts: while something was gained for me, something was always lost for someone else.
I understood that it was time to remove this duality from my being. I sensed that it might have been this very duality that has kept me from using my power, because in this lifetime I don't want to use it against anything any longer, but up until now I hadn't been able to separate the power for something from the against something. I sensed I must have been brought here to remove the paradigm of this duality from my consciousness, or from my vibration, or my identity... hard to put into words. The image that represented the old energy was one of a large root growing inside my whole body. A root with two strands that separated at the end and reached down into my legs, one side white, one side black. Somehow I knew this old duality would be removed by pulling this root out of my body... and indeed, my two mentors took care of that, and as they did, I felt an an unexpected wash of emotion, of sadness, of pain, of old stories, of suffering, and suffering, and more suffering... so much suffering had been held in that duality of power being linked to gain and loss. Took a long time until this root was all out, almost as if it was extending as it was being pulled... stretching the ends of the root longer and longer, a stickyness, a sucking that pulled out all these old emotions with it... quite an experience... When it was done, and it was time to replace the old with something new. But what? There was no answer from my mentors, no words, no image... but after a while I became aware of the presence of a sound. A sound both audible and then also visible... that washed through everything... almost dissolving the boundary between me and everything on the outside. Melting away the separation, and what remained here and there was as thin as a membrane. This was the sound of oneness. Oneness in a sound... quite indescribable.
And that was the conclusion to the vow process.
The future integration was interesting, I could feel a spaciousness the next day.
A week into the future I knew I would be sitting in the middle of a Buddhist meditation retreat Jimmy and I had registered for, and I could feel experiencing the oneness in that environment, it felt almost as if I could slip into the experience of the teacher there, and the expansiveness of that state was quite exhilarating. The retreat appeared like a playground to experience this oneness in, in interactions with other people, in the experience of meditating, of doing yoga, or of eating.
Interestingly Anne skipped over the one month time line and went straight to asking me to step into the future six months from now... and that felt sooo far away... it was so different, it was almost as if my brain couldn't compute what it would be like, and instead just slipped back into what it had always been. Initially that was a bit confusing and then I understood it as a range of possibilities. Again, I kept asking: What IS going on in six months? ...close to Christmas, what IS life going to feel like? And it seemed the answer was: there is a very big range of possibility at that time, depending on my choice, depending on how I choose to use this oneness in my life. It could not have a big impact, it could not create a big difference, if I didn't chose to use it all that much... and life could slip back into something very similar as it has been in the past. But I could also use it a lot, and the endpoint of that was almost not visible... if that makes sense.
When Ann asked me in the second, one week integration : Did you integrate it? In that moment, that was a odd question, because it didn't feel like a ME was integrating anything, it felt like a ME was not there so much. A ME was falling away. It was not something that was added to a ME but something that I was blending into. At six months I couldn't even make that out any more.
Very curious to experience this unfolding. Much mystery ahead.
One of my big experiences during this weekend was a vow process that we exchanged very much at the beginning, on Saturday. The plan was to remove any beliefs or limiting vows that keep us all from being successful in our business. I had not really thought much about that... we had just done some guided meditative pieces and some elicitation, but not a lot had come up for me... and as fate had planned it, I was paired up with an older woman, small, with short white hair and tight lips and a slight air of resignation hovering about her, and I remember thinking, oh well, this will probably not bring me a whole lot.
Normally, when you do a vow process you go back to a time earlier in your life when something happened that caused you to make a vow, take on a new belief or when the perception your reality changed ... in a way that was necessary at the time, because it offered a solution to the situation you were in... but now it has become unwholesome, unhealthy, or unnecessary for your life.
Now, to my surprise, Ann, my partner had also just done a shamanic workshop the weekend before... and when her time machine had landed, she said;" oh, I am back at the akashic records. I am in that very same library I went to last weekend, and there is my book, my record... We ended up shifting an irrational feeling of fear, a fear of exposing herself. A story unfolded that gave us glimpses of experiences when she had be prosecuted and hated by a lot of people. When her life had been in danger or even lost. Possibly all of this goes back to a lifetime when she had been executed for being a witch. When we were done and had cleared out the past, the image in her book had changed from one of a black witch to one of a lovely fairy. This was very unusual! I am mentioning her part mostly, because her process may have set the tone for something more unusual to happen for me too.
So when I started going down the stairs the first thing that was really different were the stairs. In a vow process you only have five steps, and as I got ready to step down the steps, they started expanding, started widening at the bottom and for a moment became something like a grand staircase, and then they kept on expanding until they had created a full circle, so that I was now standing on nothing but a little itty-bitty round spot at the top and steps were leading down all around me, so that there was no coming from or going toward, other than a going deeper and wider in all directions. Very unusual, something I had never seen before.
I had two mentors a male and a female... and our time shuttle was a human size version of these little cylinders that transport messages through little air tubes... where you put a little capsule in it and then: puff!! it gets shot into another part of the building. So, my time machine was a large cylinder, big enough for us to step into, and ready to shoot us to wherever we needed to go. And when we pressed the button to take us to a vow or a belief that was in the way for me building my business, I felt this capsule shoot us up into the sky and circling the earth and within moments we had zoomed around three times, with incredible speed obviously... faster than a rocket... and after three round trips it came straight down, voomm!! and landed in Egypt.
In Egypt, I arrived at an elevated, rectangular garden that was connected to the palace. It was built, balcony like, raised up from the ground, supported by high walls on three sides... and somewhere beyond the garden to the left was the temple, and the palace itself was over to the right.
Curiously this garden looked almost identical to a place I had seen during a journey with one of my clients in Germany, when she uncovered a time in Egypt where she had been a priestess at the temple. This was the same kind of garden... I though this was peculiar, almost as if I had landed in someone else's story. Didn't quite know what to do with that. My mentors had no information for me... they were just standing by my side on the gravel path, next to the lush flowers... I could bring the image of my client as a priestess and her soul mate into the picture... they could be there... or they could not be there... and it didn't really make a difference. Strange!
Then there was this slight pull into the palace and I wondered whether this journey had to do with the lifetime when I had been a member of the royal family and I had committed all these atrocious cruelties against the Jewish people. But none of that really showed up, it only hung there as a question, but didn't materialize as an image or an emotion. So, I kept wandering through the palace for a while and kept asking: ...what is this about? ... what is going on here? The first thing I finally heard was that it was about a duality of power... and I thought maybe it was about the duality of the religious or spiritual power on one side, and the power of the palace on the other, maybe there was a separation, or a conflict, or a competition of power... but no response on that... so we kept moving... and before long we wandered into the cellars of the castle, following a certain pull to go deeper. The castle was carried by many columns that were all black... The foundation of power? Again I wasn't sure what that meant... and before I could get an answer, we started sinking into the ground, and I let it happen. We sank deeper and deeper and finally arrived... in another time zone... an archaic or stone age time of human existence.
Here I felt myself to be male and I felt myself holding a big club and sensed that this was a moment of discovery, a discovery of a new, physical power through the use of the club. I could feel the surge and the excitement of that new power rushing through my body.... the exhilaration and the expansion of my life force and my territory. Here was the root of the duality: this club, this physical power, was being used against someone or something: against animals to be eaten, or against enemies to be killed or injured or threatened... and I could feel the imprint that this power came with. This power was made up of two parts: while something was gained for me, something was always lost for someone else.
I understood that it was time to remove this duality from my being. I sensed that it might have been this very duality that has kept me from using my power, because in this lifetime I don't want to use it against anything any longer, but up until now I hadn't been able to separate the power for something from the against something. I sensed I must have been brought here to remove the paradigm of this duality from my consciousness, or from my vibration, or my identity... hard to put into words. The image that represented the old energy was one of a large root growing inside my whole body. A root with two strands that separated at the end and reached down into my legs, one side white, one side black. Somehow I knew this old duality would be removed by pulling this root out of my body... and indeed, my two mentors took care of that, and as they did, I felt an an unexpected wash of emotion, of sadness, of pain, of old stories, of suffering, and suffering, and more suffering... so much suffering had been held in that duality of power being linked to gain and loss. Took a long time until this root was all out, almost as if it was extending as it was being pulled... stretching the ends of the root longer and longer, a stickyness, a sucking that pulled out all these old emotions with it... quite an experience... When it was done, and it was time to replace the old with something new. But what? There was no answer from my mentors, no words, no image... but after a while I became aware of the presence of a sound. A sound both audible and then also visible... that washed through everything... almost dissolving the boundary between me and everything on the outside. Melting away the separation, and what remained here and there was as thin as a membrane. This was the sound of oneness. Oneness in a sound... quite indescribable.
And that was the conclusion to the vow process.
The future integration was interesting, I could feel a spaciousness the next day.
A week into the future I knew I would be sitting in the middle of a Buddhist meditation retreat Jimmy and I had registered for, and I could feel experiencing the oneness in that environment, it felt almost as if I could slip into the experience of the teacher there, and the expansiveness of that state was quite exhilarating. The retreat appeared like a playground to experience this oneness in, in interactions with other people, in the experience of meditating, of doing yoga, or of eating.
Interestingly Anne skipped over the one month time line and went straight to asking me to step into the future six months from now... and that felt sooo far away... it was so different, it was almost as if my brain couldn't compute what it would be like, and instead just slipped back into what it had always been. Initially that was a bit confusing and then I understood it as a range of possibilities. Again, I kept asking: What IS going on in six months? ...close to Christmas, what IS life going to feel like? And it seemed the answer was: there is a very big range of possibility at that time, depending on my choice, depending on how I choose to use this oneness in my life. It could not have a big impact, it could not create a big difference, if I didn't chose to use it all that much... and life could slip back into something very similar as it has been in the past. But I could also use it a lot, and the endpoint of that was almost not visible... if that makes sense.
When Ann asked me in the second, one week integration : Did you integrate it? In that moment, that was a odd question, because it didn't feel like a ME was integrating anything, it felt like a ME was not there so much. A ME was falling away. It was not something that was added to a ME but something that I was blending into. At six months I couldn't even make that out any more.
Very curious to experience this unfolding. Much mystery ahead.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Driving Home from Ottawa
Monday, June 22nd
A rich and full weekend is behind me.
What a privilege to stay with too highly successful Journey practitioners, Don and Marie-Sylvie, both psychotherapists who have both adopted the Journeywork into their practice.
Marie Sylvie didn't take part in our NAJPA weekend, because she was participating in a shaman training, a healing practice she was speaking about with highest praise. She had also just returned from a Journey event for a native American Indian tribe further north in Canada. A community that has an extraordinarily high suicide rate, where sexual abuse among children and teenagers is at a rampant 90%, and alcoholism has dissolved much of the foundation of the social fabric. They had a translator there who had to translate the work into "inu", their native language. It was a four day workshop, held for the entire tribe. The chief who had asked for the Journeywork to be introduced to his people had also just before banned all alcohol from coming into the community, so the upheaval was enormous and the anger was palpable, but in the end the transformation, the way she described it, was stunning.
It was an inspiration and a gift to experience this weekend from the vantage point of their lives... and to see such a different approach to working with clients, as they have pretty much maintained their schedule of one hour sessions and don't often go beyond that. The most they will schedule is a two hour session with a client. So there is not that long intensity of a process that tries to clean up everything that presents itself at once, but there is a more gradual, a more continuous and a more ongoing rhythm to the work... and that seems to serve their clients more than these big "all packed up in one" processes that take a long time to digest and have less of a continuity. Bob Levy, who presented at the weekend has the same approach. He sees clients for short amounts of time and his practice is overflowing. He is also a very gifted speaker and he gives a lot of intro talks. That's how he attracted all the people into his practice. He only completed the accreditation two years ago and he has already become a new presenter for the Journey Intensive Weekends. I understand why they picked him. His example is so very inspiring - very different, but very inspiring. I will have to restructure the way I do my work from the ground up, redefine my whole approach, including my follow up system, and my intake with people. Hmm, a lot to think about, a lot to digest, a lot of inspiration.
A rich and full weekend is behind me.
What a privilege to stay with too highly successful Journey practitioners, Don and Marie-Sylvie, both psychotherapists who have both adopted the Journeywork into their practice.
Marie Sylvie didn't take part in our NAJPA weekend, because she was participating in a shaman training, a healing practice she was speaking about with highest praise. She had also just returned from a Journey event for a native American Indian tribe further north in Canada. A community that has an extraordinarily high suicide rate, where sexual abuse among children and teenagers is at a rampant 90%, and alcoholism has dissolved much of the foundation of the social fabric. They had a translator there who had to translate the work into "inu", their native language. It was a four day workshop, held for the entire tribe. The chief who had asked for the Journeywork to be introduced to his people had also just before banned all alcohol from coming into the community, so the upheaval was enormous and the anger was palpable, but in the end the transformation, the way she described it, was stunning.
It was an inspiration and a gift to experience this weekend from the vantage point of their lives... and to see such a different approach to working with clients, as they have pretty much maintained their schedule of one hour sessions and don't often go beyond that. The most they will schedule is a two hour session with a client. So there is not that long intensity of a process that tries to clean up everything that presents itself at once, but there is a more gradual, a more continuous and a more ongoing rhythm to the work... and that seems to serve their clients more than these big "all packed up in one" processes that take a long time to digest and have less of a continuity. Bob Levy, who presented at the weekend has the same approach. He sees clients for short amounts of time and his practice is overflowing. He is also a very gifted speaker and he gives a lot of intro talks. That's how he attracted all the people into his practice. He only completed the accreditation two years ago and he has already become a new presenter for the Journey Intensive Weekends. I understand why they picked him. His example is so very inspiring - very different, but very inspiring. I will have to restructure the way I do my work from the ground up, redefine my whole approach, including my follow up system, and my intake with people. Hmm, a lot to think about, a lot to digest, a lot of inspiration.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Meadows
Friday, June 19th
I am getting closer to Canada now. There are these meadows, these soft green yielding surfaces, luminescent even on this overcast day. I can't take my eyes off of them. I cling to the little spots of color sprinkled in. All the flowers known and unknown... daisies for sure, yellow little fluffy things, bright yellow clover, these yellow flowers that look like mini sunflowers with their straight up stems and that same type in a reddish burnt orange. Other white fluff stuff.
Meadows, all these meadows here! Vast openness! This land looks very different. I am so draw to meadows, I m not sure why. Most of these meadows are just that, nothing else, not sure if they are being used for hay, or if they are just growing wild like that. A meadow is a land welcoming you to walk through it, to see through it. Meadows have always felt to me like the open arms of a landscape. I love these meadows here, I can't stop drinking them in. Sometimes there is a little brook running through, just now... sometimes there are trees, single ones or little clumps, sometimes the meadows have given way to shrubbery.. low and still open and you can see for miles. Stone looks different here too. On the first leg of the trip, where passages had been cut into the rock, it was a dark blackish shale. Here the stone is light gray and warm, and softer looking. Good land.
I wonder about Montana. I have seen pictures of Montana, seen these wide openings, those grassy slopes crowned by soft hills. I would like to go there sometime. Other people are drawn to the ocean. Not me. I am drawn to the hills and the meadows. It's always been like that.
I am getting closer to Canada now. There are these meadows, these soft green yielding surfaces, luminescent even on this overcast day. I can't take my eyes off of them. I cling to the little spots of color sprinkled in. All the flowers known and unknown... daisies for sure, yellow little fluffy things, bright yellow clover, these yellow flowers that look like mini sunflowers with their straight up stems and that same type in a reddish burnt orange. Other white fluff stuff.
Meadows, all these meadows here! Vast openness! This land looks very different. I am so draw to meadows, I m not sure why. Most of these meadows are just that, nothing else, not sure if they are being used for hay, or if they are just growing wild like that. A meadow is a land welcoming you to walk through it, to see through it. Meadows have always felt to me like the open arms of a landscape. I love these meadows here, I can't stop drinking them in. Sometimes there is a little brook running through, just now... sometimes there are trees, single ones or little clumps, sometimes the meadows have given way to shrubbery.. low and still open and you can see for miles. Stone looks different here too. On the first leg of the trip, where passages had been cut into the rock, it was a dark blackish shale. Here the stone is light gray and warm, and softer looking. Good land.
I wonder about Montana. I have seen pictures of Montana, seen these wide openings, those grassy slopes crowned by soft hills. I would like to go there sometime. Other people are drawn to the ocean. Not me. I am drawn to the hills and the meadows. It's always been like that.
Diamonds
Still in the car on my way to Ottawa. A while ago I passed by Herkimer and I remembered there is something called the Herkimer diamonds and I wondered if this is where they had been found. I could tell that something different had happened in this landscape.
There were those remnants of industrial exploit: iron skeletons of some died away rusty use, large lots of with heaps of gray rubble, pebbles and rocks... a particular quality... of something forlorn and discarded. And seeing this float by my window and melt back into the green waves of the pregnant summer landscape I thought: isn't it true that we humans live like this with the earth ... wherever there is something valuable, we run to use it up or take it away. And then: isn't it the same with those humans among us who have something valuable to offer: others come and want to take it. Isn't this a form of exploitation too? Examining this idea I realized there are nuances both on the earth and among us humans. Yes, there are places on the earth that hold something valuable that hasn't been discovered by that many people yet, places that have remained more secret, more hidden, less exploited, less run over, less visited... less SEEN. And it was also true that the amount of visibility or exploitation has nothing to do with the value that place holds. In fact there might be places of enormous value that are still completely hidden.
And my thoughts wandered into applying this to myself: did I want to become someone who was more hidden or someone more visible? If I had the choice right now would I want to become someone as visible as a Byron Katie, whose face is pasted on book covers and book covers and more book covers? Who travels around the world offering her message, giving something of herself that feels valuable to other people to those other people. That is her life. At least much of it.
I had always thought of that as a beautiful way to live, but all of a sudden, for the fist time, I could see the beauty in being a more hidden person. Just like a landscape that has remained unspoiled and lives in a more gentle harmony with the fewer people that walk through it or live in it. That becoming well known and run over wasn't the ultimate best thing that could happen to me; that the measure of who I was, was not determined by how visible I would manage to become; and that I could probably lead a exhilaratingly happy life in obscurity. This realization is new in it's quality... like with so many things these day this is not a thought I hadn't had before, or rather this is not a conclusion I wouldn't have been able to draw in my brain, but the feeling of ease and groundedness it comes with is new. A different resting yet again.
There were those remnants of industrial exploit: iron skeletons of some died away rusty use, large lots of with heaps of gray rubble, pebbles and rocks... a particular quality... of something forlorn and discarded. And seeing this float by my window and melt back into the green waves of the pregnant summer landscape I thought: isn't it true that we humans live like this with the earth ... wherever there is something valuable, we run to use it up or take it away. And then: isn't it the same with those humans among us who have something valuable to offer: others come and want to take it. Isn't this a form of exploitation too? Examining this idea I realized there are nuances both on the earth and among us humans. Yes, there are places on the earth that hold something valuable that hasn't been discovered by that many people yet, places that have remained more secret, more hidden, less exploited, less run over, less visited... less SEEN. And it was also true that the amount of visibility or exploitation has nothing to do with the value that place holds. In fact there might be places of enormous value that are still completely hidden.
And my thoughts wandered into applying this to myself: did I want to become someone who was more hidden or someone more visible? If I had the choice right now would I want to become someone as visible as a Byron Katie, whose face is pasted on book covers and book covers and more book covers? Who travels around the world offering her message, giving something of herself that feels valuable to other people to those other people. That is her life. At least much of it.
I had always thought of that as a beautiful way to live, but all of a sudden, for the fist time, I could see the beauty in being a more hidden person. Just like a landscape that has remained unspoiled and lives in a more gentle harmony with the fewer people that walk through it or live in it. That becoming well known and run over wasn't the ultimate best thing that could happen to me; that the measure of who I was, was not determined by how visible I would manage to become; and that I could probably lead a exhilaratingly happy life in obscurity. This realization is new in it's quality... like with so many things these day this is not a thought I hadn't had before, or rather this is not a conclusion I wouldn't have been able to draw in my brain, but the feeling of ease and groundedness it comes with is new. A different resting yet again.
Faith and Masters
Friday, June 19th
A few days ago I read my mothers memoir.
She had not intended to cover her entire life, she had been interested in writing down the steps and the stages that had brought her to the place of faith she is in today. She wanted to record the unusual, mysterious and sometimes unsettling experiences she has had, to put it all together in one place... I believe mostly to give to my siblings, because I imagine she thought in writing these things down they can be taken in and digested at a time when my sister and my brother would be ready to do so.
I think you could call my mother a Christian mystic of sorts. She hasn't always been that, but has been led very clearly and very steadily into this direction for decades.
None of the experiences she describes were new to me. She had always been eager to share with me what was going on and valued the welcome, the understanding and the feedback she got in return, I was in fact one of the few people she could talk to. So while the stories were not new, it was new to read them all at once, in one fell swoop, to get an overview of their entire map... and when I was finished I felt something almost like envy... that this path had been so clear for her. That there had never been a question which religion to follow. It was always the Christian faith and increasingly the Christian mystical path that she was here to walk.
I have never experienced that kind of clarity in my life.
I look at other people, other friends like that Lilia and her love for her teacher Tai Situ Rinpoche and her faith in Buddhism, Uwe my yoga teacher and his faith in the Yogic tradition and his master Guru Mai, and Martha, who was probably the first person I encountered who had a master, who already then did meditation daily... Stefanie and Adnan Sarhan. Eileen and Valerie and my friend Joan, who are all connected to the same master form India: Maharishi. Even more recently Annabel found Traleg Rinpoche. I had always been curious about a master, been curious about meeting someone in whose presence I would feel something like a calling, a place of home maybe, a trust, a knowing, a sense that this is "my teacher", this is "my guide"...and... it has eluded me.
I am recalling now the many places I have looked for this experience.
I remember as a teenager - still living in Hamburg - I went to an Indian master, or healer once, I don't even remember how I heard about him, don't even remember what I went to him for, but somebody told me, somehow I knew he was there, and somehow I ended up going. It was in the eastern part of town, Klein Flottbek maybe? An undistincive place, not a church... someones home, or maybe a center of some sort... in a low, modern, one story building. I remember waiting in line and I remember entering the room where this master was sitting and I guess I must have told him my request, and then I remember being taken aback by something ... by a lack of response, a lack of connection, a lack of understanding, a lack of significance really... I think I was struck by the brevity and simplicity by what this person was doing... and thinking "this might all be a fraud" "this person might not have any healing powers after all, might not be what he had been advertised as"... that must have been my first encounter of that sort.
In America, after I had moved there in my twenties, I got caught in a group around another master... I met these people at some convention I think, a woman in particular, I now don't remember her name, she was in a booth with some other people at this fair... and I remember making a connection with her, she seemed to reflect something back to me about who I was. I recall words like:"you are such a bright spirit, such a bright light, such a this, or such a that " Fairly flattering. I think I felt recognized, I felt called maybe, and curious too, and so I got instructions on how to work with this master. There was a certain ritual you had to do. There was a photograph, there was a candle and you had to sit and and look at the eyes in the photograph... and meditate with open eyes... and recite something... I don't actually remember the details.
I even went to a gathering where this master showed up and people were all excited about her arrival. They were talking about the wave of energy that would flow through the room when the master would enter . A lot of people: hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands - it was somewhere on the upper west side - and... I didn't feel anything. She walked into the room and down the aisle, not far, past the row I was sitting in, and... I didn't feel all that much, it left me disconnected. At some point I thought it odd to be looking at somebody's face and into their eyes, almost as if I was being hypnotized by a photograph. It began to feel a little cultish to me... at the time, and I stopped doing it.
Then for a while I had been to the Daoist center on 22nd St. During my last years in the city. Greg had been going there and they served a nice lunch. Sophia and Anina were still very small and I could bring them along. And again the people there praised me for the quick learning of the meditation style and my consistency in showing up and my progress. After a fairly short time they offered to do a ritual with me that would release me from the chain of reincarnation, that would set me on a path to... as I recall... complete my life in this lifetime. It seemed like an honor to do be asked to do that, it seemed like it would be adventageous to not have to return into a cycle of suffering, and... so I did that. I still have a certificate somewhere I believe. Did I feel different afterwards? I can't tell you. Maybe. Maybe not.
After I moved to the country, there were the years I went to weekly Sufi classes in Great Barrington with Stefanie and to some longer workshops with her master Adnan. I loved the classes, and the workshops even more. Those were my first experiences of deep meditation, maybe even transcendence, and connection to a larger energy. But no feeling of connection with him either. Lise, who was also going there for a while, described it very accurately: "When you hug him, it feels like you're hugging a rock."
Then there was Yoga with Uwe and his path and very clear communication about choosing a master. Not entering into a path of enlightenment without a guide. He would talk about that repeatedly in his classes. The huge difference it makes being connected to an enlightened master. And here too I was waiting for a sign to go to the Ashram, to see Guru Mai. And somehow that sign didn't come. Somehow I didn't feel the call.
Now there's been the time with Lilia and studying Buddhism. Which initially I did out of curiosity, out of fascination. I also did it because Lilia was so blunt in her description that yes, she was here to reach enlightenment, in this lifetime, on this earth. I had never heard anybody say this so boldly. And I admired that. I admired her dedication and her clarity and her path and I loved to go to her house once a week to meditate and to study some Buddhist scripture.
There are some things within Buddhism that don't connect for me, that leave me sceptical, or distant, and so I had never felt the urge to take the first step and take refuge with one of the masters, or one of the teachers. It is only now that I am contemplating to do this on my retreat next week. Maybe I will.
A few days ago I read my mothers memoir.
She had not intended to cover her entire life, she had been interested in writing down the steps and the stages that had brought her to the place of faith she is in today. She wanted to record the unusual, mysterious and sometimes unsettling experiences she has had, to put it all together in one place... I believe mostly to give to my siblings, because I imagine she thought in writing these things down they can be taken in and digested at a time when my sister and my brother would be ready to do so.
I think you could call my mother a Christian mystic of sorts. She hasn't always been that, but has been led very clearly and very steadily into this direction for decades.
None of the experiences she describes were new to me. She had always been eager to share with me what was going on and valued the welcome, the understanding and the feedback she got in return, I was in fact one of the few people she could talk to. So while the stories were not new, it was new to read them all at once, in one fell swoop, to get an overview of their entire map... and when I was finished I felt something almost like envy... that this path had been so clear for her. That there had never been a question which religion to follow. It was always the Christian faith and increasingly the Christian mystical path that she was here to walk.
I have never experienced that kind of clarity in my life.
I look at other people, other friends like that Lilia and her love for her teacher Tai Situ Rinpoche and her faith in Buddhism, Uwe my yoga teacher and his faith in the Yogic tradition and his master Guru Mai, and Martha, who was probably the first person I encountered who had a master, who already then did meditation daily... Stefanie and Adnan Sarhan. Eileen and Valerie and my friend Joan, who are all connected to the same master form India: Maharishi. Even more recently Annabel found Traleg Rinpoche. I had always been curious about a master, been curious about meeting someone in whose presence I would feel something like a calling, a place of home maybe, a trust, a knowing, a sense that this is "my teacher", this is "my guide"...and... it has eluded me.
I am recalling now the many places I have looked for this experience.
I remember as a teenager - still living in Hamburg - I went to an Indian master, or healer once, I don't even remember how I heard about him, don't even remember what I went to him for, but somebody told me, somehow I knew he was there, and somehow I ended up going. It was in the eastern part of town, Klein Flottbek maybe? An undistincive place, not a church... someones home, or maybe a center of some sort... in a low, modern, one story building. I remember waiting in line and I remember entering the room where this master was sitting and I guess I must have told him my request, and then I remember being taken aback by something ... by a lack of response, a lack of connection, a lack of understanding, a lack of significance really... I think I was struck by the brevity and simplicity by what this person was doing... and thinking "this might all be a fraud" "this person might not have any healing powers after all, might not be what he had been advertised as"... that must have been my first encounter of that sort.
In America, after I had moved there in my twenties, I got caught in a group around another master... I met these people at some convention I think, a woman in particular, I now don't remember her name, she was in a booth with some other people at this fair... and I remember making a connection with her, she seemed to reflect something back to me about who I was. I recall words like:"you are such a bright spirit, such a bright light, such a this, or such a that " Fairly flattering. I think I felt recognized, I felt called maybe, and curious too, and so I got instructions on how to work with this master. There was a certain ritual you had to do. There was a photograph, there was a candle and you had to sit and and look at the eyes in the photograph... and meditate with open eyes... and recite something... I don't actually remember the details.
I even went to a gathering where this master showed up and people were all excited about her arrival. They were talking about the wave of energy that would flow through the room when the master would enter . A lot of people: hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands - it was somewhere on the upper west side - and... I didn't feel anything. She walked into the room and down the aisle, not far, past the row I was sitting in, and... I didn't feel all that much, it left me disconnected. At some point I thought it odd to be looking at somebody's face and into their eyes, almost as if I was being hypnotized by a photograph. It began to feel a little cultish to me... at the time, and I stopped doing it.
Then for a while I had been to the Daoist center on 22nd St. During my last years in the city. Greg had been going there and they served a nice lunch. Sophia and Anina were still very small and I could bring them along. And again the people there praised me for the quick learning of the meditation style and my consistency in showing up and my progress. After a fairly short time they offered to do a ritual with me that would release me from the chain of reincarnation, that would set me on a path to... as I recall... complete my life in this lifetime. It seemed like an honor to do be asked to do that, it seemed like it would be adventageous to not have to return into a cycle of suffering, and... so I did that. I still have a certificate somewhere I believe. Did I feel different afterwards? I can't tell you. Maybe. Maybe not.
After I moved to the country, there were the years I went to weekly Sufi classes in Great Barrington with Stefanie and to some longer workshops with her master Adnan. I loved the classes, and the workshops even more. Those were my first experiences of deep meditation, maybe even transcendence, and connection to a larger energy. But no feeling of connection with him either. Lise, who was also going there for a while, described it very accurately: "When you hug him, it feels like you're hugging a rock."
Then there was Yoga with Uwe and his path and very clear communication about choosing a master. Not entering into a path of enlightenment without a guide. He would talk about that repeatedly in his classes. The huge difference it makes being connected to an enlightened master. And here too I was waiting for a sign to go to the Ashram, to see Guru Mai. And somehow that sign didn't come. Somehow I didn't feel the call.
Now there's been the time with Lilia and studying Buddhism. Which initially I did out of curiosity, out of fascination. I also did it because Lilia was so blunt in her description that yes, she was here to reach enlightenment, in this lifetime, on this earth. I had never heard anybody say this so boldly. And I admired that. I admired her dedication and her clarity and her path and I loved to go to her house once a week to meditate and to study some Buddhist scripture.
There are some things within Buddhism that don't connect for me, that leave me sceptical, or distant, and so I had never felt the urge to take the first step and take refuge with one of the masters, or one of the teachers. It is only now that I am contemplating to do this on my retreat next week. Maybe I will.
Back to Ooms
June 19th
Last Sunday Jimmy and I went back to Ooms for a walk.
Oh those wonderful summer meadows! Oh, the smells of summer in the air, of moist earth, lake water, and flowering plant life everywhere! The grasses were hip high now, strewn with daisies and clover and other blossoms I have no names for, the water had already bloomed with algae. There was a family standing at the bank, each of them holding fishing rods in their hands. Birds singing in the trees, meadow larks jubilating in the air, the wind wafting through the grasses. They are too tall for Jacky to run through, so she has to stay on the mown paths. The sky was clear, the clouds were luminous white and puffy, the temperature perfectly beautiful.
The last time I had been here with Jimmy, Constantin, Sophia and Anina, it had been so cold and windy it made my ears ache, and I hadn't been strong enough to walk around all of the lake. Now nothing of that was left. I walked past the pear tree the bird had perched on that had arrested me with it's singing and thought back to that timeless moment of slowness when I was gliding by under it's branches... now they were laden with leaves, sparkled by the sun.
It's good to feel strong again.
Yoga is a bit of a different matter. I haven't resumed a regular practice and a week ago I went back to Karen's Yoga class at Kripalu. This is a more vigorous class than the practice I do at home, but in the past that had been fine. This was the first time I had been back here in over six months, and, yes, my body feels different. My muscles just didn't want to work that hard. My brain kept saying "it's all right, you can take it slower", or "go ahead, you can sit this one out". But there is that odd pull of the group, the odd need to participate with what everybody else is doing, the strange power that holds you back from doing something different than everybody else. I made it through that class but my bones, and my flesh, and my muscles did not like it all that much. There may be a time in the future when that pace will be right for me again. For now it seems my body wants to move more slowly and less vigorously, and I will honor that. If I go back I will simply tell Karen that I am going sit a few exercises out in between, just so that I know I have an "ally" in the room and that ally will be the instructor herself in front of the room and that'll help.
Two days ago I worked in the garden most of the day. It started out being chilly, then it got warm, then it became colder again and I changed my clothes accordingly. I just puddled along all day with what I wanted to do. This does feel different! In a good way. There is a new luxury in the availability of the thought that I can let it go, that I don't have to meet the hypothetical goal I have set for myself. I can leave things half done, and time will embrace all of it lovingly. It doesn't matter if not all pots are planted; it doesn't matter if one flower bed never gets weeded this year. Time has become more of a friendly companion than an anxious competitor.
Last Sunday Jimmy and I went back to Ooms for a walk.
Oh those wonderful summer meadows! Oh, the smells of summer in the air, of moist earth, lake water, and flowering plant life everywhere! The grasses were hip high now, strewn with daisies and clover and other blossoms I have no names for, the water had already bloomed with algae. There was a family standing at the bank, each of them holding fishing rods in their hands. Birds singing in the trees, meadow larks jubilating in the air, the wind wafting through the grasses. They are too tall for Jacky to run through, so she has to stay on the mown paths. The sky was clear, the clouds were luminous white and puffy, the temperature perfectly beautiful.
The last time I had been here with Jimmy, Constantin, Sophia and Anina, it had been so cold and windy it made my ears ache, and I hadn't been strong enough to walk around all of the lake. Now nothing of that was left. I walked past the pear tree the bird had perched on that had arrested me with it's singing and thought back to that timeless moment of slowness when I was gliding by under it's branches... now they were laden with leaves, sparkled by the sun.
It's good to feel strong again.
Yoga is a bit of a different matter. I haven't resumed a regular practice and a week ago I went back to Karen's Yoga class at Kripalu. This is a more vigorous class than the practice I do at home, but in the past that had been fine. This was the first time I had been back here in over six months, and, yes, my body feels different. My muscles just didn't want to work that hard. My brain kept saying "it's all right, you can take it slower", or "go ahead, you can sit this one out". But there is that odd pull of the group, the odd need to participate with what everybody else is doing, the strange power that holds you back from doing something different than everybody else. I made it through that class but my bones, and my flesh, and my muscles did not like it all that much. There may be a time in the future when that pace will be right for me again. For now it seems my body wants to move more slowly and less vigorously, and I will honor that. If I go back I will simply tell Karen that I am going sit a few exercises out in between, just so that I know I have an "ally" in the room and that ally will be the instructor herself in front of the room and that'll help.
Two days ago I worked in the garden most of the day. It started out being chilly, then it got warm, then it became colder again and I changed my clothes accordingly. I just puddled along all day with what I wanted to do. This does feel different! In a good way. There is a new luxury in the availability of the thought that I can let it go, that I don't have to meet the hypothetical goal I have set for myself. I can leave things half done, and time will embrace all of it lovingly. It doesn't matter if not all pots are planted; it doesn't matter if one flower bed never gets weeded this year. Time has become more of a friendly companion than an anxious competitor.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Questions and Dreams
Friday June 19th
I am speaking into my little digital recorder in the car on my way to Ottawa... to a NAJPA weekend (NorthAmericanJourneyPractitionersAssociation) to rethink my practice.
There are questions. There are things I wonder about... how to use this time after the surgery, the pain, and the recovery... and my failed attempt to use the journey for my cysts. I am wondering if people are shying away to use this work because they know about this failure. I am wondering if I am being led into a different direction... a different way to run my practice.
Life seems to give me a big opening right now. I have not had a single client since I am back from Germany. And the two workshops I had scheduled at the center in Delmar didn't get ANY registrations either. That surprised me, because back in January, when I presented the Journeywork to them, they seemed to be so excited about it. It seemed they couldn't wait for me to start working there. And now there wasn't a single person who wanted to do the workshop. Curious.
Maybe I am just given time to write this book. Maybe that's what I most need to do right now. Who knows. Most of the time I can relax into that awareness. Once in a while the old fear of not doing enough for my practice, not doing enough for Journeywork, not finding effective enough ways to spread the word about the Journey catch up with me. Then I do get a little nervous, then I do get a little restless.
More often though I can remember what I learned: that life never makes a mistake. It seems that's the word that fits for me these days. I don't call it God any more. I call it LIFE. I don't call it universe any more. No: LIFE. Life never makes a mistake. And if life doesn't make a mistake, it's giving me a lot of time right now without work. It's giving me time to trust that I am being taken care of. It's giving me time to trust that the support that is coming from Constantin is enough right now. That's beautiful. In many ways. The timing of Constantin's business doing well matches in a peculiar way with where I am with my work. And if it is so that this was the time where he was meant to support me and I was meant to be... off the hook... if this was the time to release - at last - the pressure of making a living, it is curious that that time seems to be now. Why would it be now? Why not a couple of years ago? The struggle was painful enough then, wasn't it?
I don't know the answer... and I guess it doesn't matter. Now is the time. And now I do have a story to tell.
I also still have this desire to bring Journeywork into the school system. It's a big dream to do that. I would love to find a way to make that happen... or rather: I'd love to find a way to participate in the process. I don't imagine it will be me by myself. I imagine there will be more involved.
To have Journeywork in all public schools in America. Just imagine. So many of the problems in the schools would be addressed, so much could be shifted, so much could be set into motion for an entire generation of students, so much could be opened up, so much could be released. God... just imagine!
Questions continued
So what are my questions for my practice?
I am passing this big river, wide and quiet it flows in a soft curve right next to the highway. The landscape green, rising up on both sides of the bank. This is not the Hudson. this is the Mohawk river I think. Rivers have shown up so often in my experiences of source... images of rivers, rivers as metaphors... those feelings of being carried... by a stream of energy that flows like a river... and now I see this river... hmmm...
What are my questions for my practice?
Do I need to redefine my focus with my clients? Do I need to enter into client relationships with a new clarity that the healing the journey provides is not always physical... even when that is what someone is looking for? That the healing the journey offers is not always a direct response to what someone is looking for. Sometimes the desire is for a physical manifestation, and the journey will not make that happen. Sometime the desire is for an emotional shift, and the journey will not make that happen, because sometimes the journey heals away the outer layers first and doesn't get to the core right away. Sometimes... very rarely, a client will not feel a difference. This is rare, but it happens.
Sometimes a client has big hopes and is disappointed when the journey doesn't create the fast and miraculous healing that has been expected. It does happen. I always try to let someone know that they have just started... that even though they don't perceive any change ... things have been set into motion... that there is more they can do if they stay with the experience... if they keep using the work with what is surfacing after the first session. Often these very people don't seem to believe that it is possible... they give up... they don't stay in touch with me. I feel bad about that. In such situations I always wish there was a better way for me to reach them, to pass through the layer of disappointment, through the veil of hopelessness.
I wonder if I have put too much hope into providing change - in the past. When there is hope, there is the seed of disappointment. It seems I can only hold a door open. It is not up to me if someone walks through it or not, it is not my job to make someone walk through it. I just have to hold it open. There are a few clients in my life who have not walked through the door. I still sometimes talk to them in my mind... long afterwards. I still try to reach them. - Interesting.
The knowledge that this is not my responsibility is not new. What I am moving toward is possibly more of a clarity, more of a constant knowing, more of a restedness, more of a visceral being in that awareness that it is not up to me... that I am just a facilitator. Maybe it really doesn't matter. I breathe differently.
If I think about my practice now in an ideal way, it is not seeing myself working every day, week after week. An ideal practice for me would be to have three or four clients a week, and to be able to write. I love the writing. I hope there is a need for my words, no, a place for my words. I also hope I can make some money with my words... I hope I can write more than one book. Books are powerful... even in this computer age.
I am speaking into my little digital recorder in the car on my way to Ottawa... to a NAJPA weekend (NorthAmericanJourneyPractitionersAssociation) to rethink my practice.
There are questions. There are things I wonder about... how to use this time after the surgery, the pain, and the recovery... and my failed attempt to use the journey for my cysts. I am wondering if people are shying away to use this work because they know about this failure. I am wondering if I am being led into a different direction... a different way to run my practice.
Life seems to give me a big opening right now. I have not had a single client since I am back from Germany. And the two workshops I had scheduled at the center in Delmar didn't get ANY registrations either. That surprised me, because back in January, when I presented the Journeywork to them, they seemed to be so excited about it. It seemed they couldn't wait for me to start working there. And now there wasn't a single person who wanted to do the workshop. Curious.
Maybe I am just given time to write this book. Maybe that's what I most need to do right now. Who knows. Most of the time I can relax into that awareness. Once in a while the old fear of not doing enough for my practice, not doing enough for Journeywork, not finding effective enough ways to spread the word about the Journey catch up with me. Then I do get a little nervous, then I do get a little restless.
More often though I can remember what I learned: that life never makes a mistake. It seems that's the word that fits for me these days. I don't call it God any more. I call it LIFE. I don't call it universe any more. No: LIFE. Life never makes a mistake. And if life doesn't make a mistake, it's giving me a lot of time right now without work. It's giving me time to trust that I am being taken care of. It's giving me time to trust that the support that is coming from Constantin is enough right now. That's beautiful. In many ways. The timing of Constantin's business doing well matches in a peculiar way with where I am with my work. And if it is so that this was the time where he was meant to support me and I was meant to be... off the hook... if this was the time to release - at last - the pressure of making a living, it is curious that that time seems to be now. Why would it be now? Why not a couple of years ago? The struggle was painful enough then, wasn't it?
I don't know the answer... and I guess it doesn't matter. Now is the time. And now I do have a story to tell.
I also still have this desire to bring Journeywork into the school system. It's a big dream to do that. I would love to find a way to make that happen... or rather: I'd love to find a way to participate in the process. I don't imagine it will be me by myself. I imagine there will be more involved.
To have Journeywork in all public schools in America. Just imagine. So many of the problems in the schools would be addressed, so much could be shifted, so much could be set into motion for an entire generation of students, so much could be opened up, so much could be released. God... just imagine!
Questions continued
So what are my questions for my practice?
I am passing this big river, wide and quiet it flows in a soft curve right next to the highway. The landscape green, rising up on both sides of the bank. This is not the Hudson. this is the Mohawk river I think. Rivers have shown up so often in my experiences of source... images of rivers, rivers as metaphors... those feelings of being carried... by a stream of energy that flows like a river... and now I see this river... hmmm...
What are my questions for my practice?
Do I need to redefine my focus with my clients? Do I need to enter into client relationships with a new clarity that the healing the journey provides is not always physical... even when that is what someone is looking for? That the healing the journey offers is not always a direct response to what someone is looking for. Sometimes the desire is for a physical manifestation, and the journey will not make that happen. Sometime the desire is for an emotional shift, and the journey will not make that happen, because sometimes the journey heals away the outer layers first and doesn't get to the core right away. Sometimes... very rarely, a client will not feel a difference. This is rare, but it happens.
Sometimes a client has big hopes and is disappointed when the journey doesn't create the fast and miraculous healing that has been expected. It does happen. I always try to let someone know that they have just started... that even though they don't perceive any change ... things have been set into motion... that there is more they can do if they stay with the experience... if they keep using the work with what is surfacing after the first session. Often these very people don't seem to believe that it is possible... they give up... they don't stay in touch with me. I feel bad about that. In such situations I always wish there was a better way for me to reach them, to pass through the layer of disappointment, through the veil of hopelessness.
I wonder if I have put too much hope into providing change - in the past. When there is hope, there is the seed of disappointment. It seems I can only hold a door open. It is not up to me if someone walks through it or not, it is not my job to make someone walk through it. I just have to hold it open. There are a few clients in my life who have not walked through the door. I still sometimes talk to them in my mind... long afterwards. I still try to reach them. - Interesting.
The knowledge that this is not my responsibility is not new. What I am moving toward is possibly more of a clarity, more of a constant knowing, more of a restedness, more of a visceral being in that awareness that it is not up to me... that I am just a facilitator. Maybe it really doesn't matter. I breathe differently.
If I think about my practice now in an ideal way, it is not seeing myself working every day, week after week. An ideal practice for me would be to have three or four clients a week, and to be able to write. I love the writing. I hope there is a need for my words, no, a place for my words. I also hope I can make some money with my words... I hope I can write more than one book. Books are powerful... even in this computer age.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Papi's Surgery
Today Papi had his kidney removed.
He arrived at the hospital yesterday. He felt ready and confident.
He liked his room, he liked the dark wood parquet floor, he liked his roommate, he liked his bed by the window and the view too.
I did the surgery prep session with him that Lori had done with me from memory, and he was open and able to imagine this whole experience unfolding in a very clear and beautiful way... he felt so much happiness and gratitude at the conclusion.
Friends were praying for him in Hamburg, Theda all the way down south in Chile, and here along with me even some of my mooncircle sent him prayers and good thoughts. Mami saw him in a peach blanket surrounded by a beautiful violet light.
Today most went well. The surgery itself very well. The cut ended up even smaller than predicted, only a bit over 10 cm, and he didn't have to wait all day like his room mate yesterday to be taken into the surgery.
Some lack of communication. The staff sent my mother home from the hospital where she was waiting for him to come out of the wake up room. They told her it could be another two hours and she should just go home, which she did - by bike - she doesn't know how to drive a car - and when she got there, she found a message on their answering machine from my father, he had just been released, and had already called her from his room upstairs.
Some unfortunate malfunctioning. Interesting that this should happen. His pain pump. It's supposed to pump medication right into the tissue surrounding the surgery. It sounds like it never worked when he was starting to use it. Clogged. Pain quite uncomfortable. Not a lot of response to this situation from the nurses. He was given some drops, but they didn't make a difference. And instead of demanding higher dosages, he resigned to wait until the anesthesiologist would get back out of the next surgery she was in. When I finally spoke with him around 8:45pm he was still waiting and the pain had increased even more. I encouraged him to keep ringing that bell until they had given him a high enough dose that would blanket the pain. This is not a time to suffer. This is a time to be pleasantly plunged into a fog of medication. I made him promise me to do this - first thing after we hung up.
He is glad it is over. Mami said he looked quite well. She is glad it is over too.
He arrived at the hospital yesterday. He felt ready and confident.
He liked his room, he liked the dark wood parquet floor, he liked his roommate, he liked his bed by the window and the view too.
I did the surgery prep session with him that Lori had done with me from memory, and he was open and able to imagine this whole experience unfolding in a very clear and beautiful way... he felt so much happiness and gratitude at the conclusion.
Friends were praying for him in Hamburg, Theda all the way down south in Chile, and here along with me even some of my mooncircle sent him prayers and good thoughts. Mami saw him in a peach blanket surrounded by a beautiful violet light.
Today most went well. The surgery itself very well. The cut ended up even smaller than predicted, only a bit over 10 cm, and he didn't have to wait all day like his room mate yesterday to be taken into the surgery.
Some lack of communication. The staff sent my mother home from the hospital where she was waiting for him to come out of the wake up room. They told her it could be another two hours and she should just go home, which she did - by bike - she doesn't know how to drive a car - and when she got there, she found a message on their answering machine from my father, he had just been released, and had already called her from his room upstairs.
Some unfortunate malfunctioning. Interesting that this should happen. His pain pump. It's supposed to pump medication right into the tissue surrounding the surgery. It sounds like it never worked when he was starting to use it. Clogged. Pain quite uncomfortable. Not a lot of response to this situation from the nurses. He was given some drops, but they didn't make a difference. And instead of demanding higher dosages, he resigned to wait until the anesthesiologist would get back out of the next surgery she was in. When I finally spoke with him around 8:45pm he was still waiting and the pain had increased even more. I encouraged him to keep ringing that bell until they had given him a high enough dose that would blanket the pain. This is not a time to suffer. This is a time to be pleasantly plunged into a fog of medication. I made him promise me to do this - first thing after we hung up.
He is glad it is over. Mami said he looked quite well. She is glad it is over too.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Fate and Perfection
Sat, June 13th
I am back home from Germany for more than a week already.
Yesterday my surgery was three months ago.
Last week I finally saw Suzi, whose surgery is now almost two weeks ago.
And one week ago we got this vague e-mail from Lise that she has "a man down again" ... and we wondered a bit about why she didn't show up at the moon circle, small as it was this month at Peggy's house... just Annabel and Mary and Lydia and me. Patrice had been there briefly for abundant hugging and then took off to another meeting.
Time passing... and strewn in between other life changing experiences are unfolding for my friends. What a most curious accumulation of those in our circle.
On Tuesday night we got this in response from Lise to Lydia's question posted on Monday: "waddaya mean, have a man down again?":
"3 days of hell, schuffling to the Sat. matinee, down for the Gala, schuffling to Aniela's graduation, with appendix erupting inside apparently, tore him away to the Emergency yesterday at 4PM, needed to get him hooked up to an i.v. bag, really going downhill, surgery last night at midnight, erupted appendix encapsulated by a twisted intestine holding all threatening toxins somewhat at bay, in for a week?, so much emotion, won't go there just yet, have to keep moving and figure out my new life for the moment, felt you all there, each and every face there holding me being with me last night as I waited, your strength beauty humour, I was strong
xoxoxo
L"
OMG!!!!
He landed in the very hospital I first went to thinking it was my appendix that was about to rupture, and now his actually did.
Each of our experience in some way eerily similar... yet so different.
When Suzi found out about her cysts in her uterus, it seems it was clear to her from the beginning that it was time to say good bye to this part of her body. I don't recall her questioning this decision. But I will need to ask her again about this.
And look at how she went about to celebrate this departure... giving a good bye party for her uterus two days before surgery was just the culmination. What amazes me is that she was able to keep her ovary. I thought this wasn't possible. But no, it is still inside her body happily producing hormones, which is why she has not been plunged into menopause like I have.
Makes me wonder if my ovaries really had to come out. Dr Morrissey never spoke about the ovaries, he only referred to the tubes. Cysts were grown into the tubes and that's why the ovaries had to go too. At the time that seemed logical to me, in my mind the ovaries were the end point of the whole reproductive shebang and attached to the tubes, so of course they would come out... like an apple hanging on a branch... when you cut the branch the apple goes with it. Not actually true for the ovaries. They have their own attachments in the body and the space between tube and ovary is OPEN. Of course! That's why they call ovulation EISPRUNG in German: "Eggjump". Because it has to jump. I had known that at some point, I had just forgotten.
So why the heck did Dr Morrisey never speak about the ovaries? I think these surgeries are such a routine procedure for these surgeons, they maybe do not deliberate all that much. They don't even remember afterward what they cut out of which body. At least that was my experience with Dr Morrissey. When I saw him for my first post op check up 11 days after the surgery I had wanted to ask him a few more questions about the two cysts. I had seen the two photographs he had taken and promptly e-mailed to Jimmy, but the description as to which one was the dermoid and which one was the fluid one and which one had done the twisting and caused the pain was still unclear to me. So I had wanted to print out copies of the photos and ask him. Of course in the turmoil of the first departure from home, I forgot the photos and so I thought I'd describe to him the two images, easy to do - dramatically different as they were - and get the information that way. This did not work. He did not remember. Like a child being questioned by an adult, and child who is on guard after having done something questionable, it felt like he was on guard with me sitting in that small examination room, as if he was eager to get me out of there as quickly as possible. So when I asked him which was which he said the dermoid was the one that had been on the left, the one that had been football size.
"FOOTBALL size?"
"Yep, football size. It was really good we had taken that one out. It had been hight time."
I didn't dare to say: are you SURE?, or: I really think you are mistaken... that seemed impolite, but I ventured:
"I was under the impression from all the previous imaging reports I got that that one was the smaller one, kind of elongated... no more than 10 cm."
I showed him with my hands. I was sure he had made a mistake and I wanted to give him an elegant way to correct himself. But he didn't.
"No, no, that one had been football size. Really big."
"Really! "
"Yep."
My brain was in upheaval. Was it possible he was right? No. No, I had seen the reports, all of them, I had written down the numbers, I had even made the drawings. Should I press him further, would I have to prove him wrong? God, no I couldn't do that. Maybe he was right??? Could it have grown since the last imaging?? But then the photograph. You could see the fingers holding it, the proportion just wasn't of that size...? There were other questions I had planned to ask him, but all of this was erased from my consciousness.
A quick: "We'll see you again in three weeks, you can go and make an appointment at the counter. ...Here is your report from pathology, you can keep that. ...You're doing great. ...Good bye."
And before I could regroup my braincells, I was out of the room.
The confusion was still with me in the car. I took out the pathology report. After scrambling through the formality of this written piece of paper, there I saw, printed black on white:
2. Received fresh labeled "left tube and left ovary" is a multilobulated cystic ovary with a glistening tan gray outer surface, 7.5 x 5.3 x 3.8 cm. The content is... ... and so on.
Wow, there was my proof. 7.5 cm, that was less than 3 inches.
Couldn't he at least have said: I am sorry, I really don't remember so clearly any longer.. instead of just dumping a completely wrong image on me. Football size! Christ!
Maybe he also had forgotten I had wanted to keep the ovaries in?
This is what I thought of after talking to Suzi about the ovary question. Her surgeon had really listened to her. More like Dr Timmins. They had really been able to plan this event. And she had made the most of it. Nothing happened she had not expected or been prepared for.
Janusz of course has been spared at least these kinds of decisions or doubts. But on the other hand his was a more threatening emergency situation than mine... let alone Suzi's. He was actually lucky he made it through, his kidneys almost failed on him at the same time his appendix burst. You can die from that. Interesting how long it took him to make the decision to finally go to the emergency room. No food going down, projectile vomiting, pain, and more pain going on for days... and within all of that it was right for him to wait. Not only because of his daughters two big celebratory events it seems... then he would have gone after that was done on Sunday... but he stayed with this pain another day and didn't go until Monday afternoon.
Some decisions we make and some are being made for us. At least it looks like that's what happens. But these days I am less sure there is such a distinct separation.
Had Suzi been luckier than me? Or Janusz more unfortunate? No. I don't think of our experiences in that way any longer. What happens is perfect. I really believe that, no, even more so: I know that.
I am back home from Germany for more than a week already.
Yesterday my surgery was three months ago.
Last week I finally saw Suzi, whose surgery is now almost two weeks ago.
And one week ago we got this vague e-mail from Lise that she has "a man down again" ... and we wondered a bit about why she didn't show up at the moon circle, small as it was this month at Peggy's house... just Annabel and Mary and Lydia and me. Patrice had been there briefly for abundant hugging and then took off to another meeting.
Time passing... and strewn in between other life changing experiences are unfolding for my friends. What a most curious accumulation of those in our circle.
On Tuesday night we got this in response from Lise to Lydia's question posted on Monday: "waddaya mean, have a man down again?":
"3 days of hell, schuffling to the Sat. matinee, down for the Gala, schuffling to Aniela's graduation, with appendix erupting inside apparently, tore him away to the Emergency yesterday at 4PM, needed to get him hooked up to an i.v. bag, really going downhill, surgery last night at midnight, erupted appendix encapsulated by a twisted intestine holding all threatening toxins somewhat at bay, in for a week?, so much emotion, won't go there just yet, have to keep moving and figure out my new life for the moment, felt you all there, each and every face there holding me being with me last night as I waited, your strength beauty humour, I was strong
xoxoxo
L"
OMG!!!!
He landed in the very hospital I first went to thinking it was my appendix that was about to rupture, and now his actually did.
Each of our experience in some way eerily similar... yet so different.
When Suzi found out about her cysts in her uterus, it seems it was clear to her from the beginning that it was time to say good bye to this part of her body. I don't recall her questioning this decision. But I will need to ask her again about this.
And look at how she went about to celebrate this departure... giving a good bye party for her uterus two days before surgery was just the culmination. What amazes me is that she was able to keep her ovary. I thought this wasn't possible. But no, it is still inside her body happily producing hormones, which is why she has not been plunged into menopause like I have.
Makes me wonder if my ovaries really had to come out. Dr Morrissey never spoke about the ovaries, he only referred to the tubes. Cysts were grown into the tubes and that's why the ovaries had to go too. At the time that seemed logical to me, in my mind the ovaries were the end point of the whole reproductive shebang and attached to the tubes, so of course they would come out... like an apple hanging on a branch... when you cut the branch the apple goes with it. Not actually true for the ovaries. They have their own attachments in the body and the space between tube and ovary is OPEN. Of course! That's why they call ovulation EISPRUNG in German: "Eggjump". Because it has to jump. I had known that at some point, I had just forgotten.
So why the heck did Dr Morrisey never speak about the ovaries? I think these surgeries are such a routine procedure for these surgeons, they maybe do not deliberate all that much. They don't even remember afterward what they cut out of which body. At least that was my experience with Dr Morrissey. When I saw him for my first post op check up 11 days after the surgery I had wanted to ask him a few more questions about the two cysts. I had seen the two photographs he had taken and promptly e-mailed to Jimmy, but the description as to which one was the dermoid and which one was the fluid one and which one had done the twisting and caused the pain was still unclear to me. So I had wanted to print out copies of the photos and ask him. Of course in the turmoil of the first departure from home, I forgot the photos and so I thought I'd describe to him the two images, easy to do - dramatically different as they were - and get the information that way. This did not work. He did not remember. Like a child being questioned by an adult, and child who is on guard after having done something questionable, it felt like he was on guard with me sitting in that small examination room, as if he was eager to get me out of there as quickly as possible. So when I asked him which was which he said the dermoid was the one that had been on the left, the one that had been football size.
"FOOTBALL size?"
"Yep, football size. It was really good we had taken that one out. It had been hight time."
I didn't dare to say: are you SURE?, or: I really think you are mistaken... that seemed impolite, but I ventured:
"I was under the impression from all the previous imaging reports I got that that one was the smaller one, kind of elongated... no more than 10 cm."
I showed him with my hands. I was sure he had made a mistake and I wanted to give him an elegant way to correct himself. But he didn't.
"No, no, that one had been football size. Really big."
"Really! "
"Yep."
My brain was in upheaval. Was it possible he was right? No. No, I had seen the reports, all of them, I had written down the numbers, I had even made the drawings. Should I press him further, would I have to prove him wrong? God, no I couldn't do that. Maybe he was right??? Could it have grown since the last imaging?? But then the photograph. You could see the fingers holding it, the proportion just wasn't of that size...? There were other questions I had planned to ask him, but all of this was erased from my consciousness.
A quick: "We'll see you again in three weeks, you can go and make an appointment at the counter. ...Here is your report from pathology, you can keep that. ...You're doing great. ...Good bye."
And before I could regroup my braincells, I was out of the room.
The confusion was still with me in the car. I took out the pathology report. After scrambling through the formality of this written piece of paper, there I saw, printed black on white:
2. Received fresh labeled "left tube and left ovary" is a multilobulated cystic ovary with a glistening tan gray outer surface, 7.5 x 5.3 x 3.8 cm. The content is... ... and so on.
Wow, there was my proof. 7.5 cm, that was less than 3 inches.
Couldn't he at least have said: I am sorry, I really don't remember so clearly any longer.. instead of just dumping a completely wrong image on me. Football size! Christ!
Maybe he also had forgotten I had wanted to keep the ovaries in?
This is what I thought of after talking to Suzi about the ovary question. Her surgeon had really listened to her. More like Dr Timmins. They had really been able to plan this event. And she had made the most of it. Nothing happened she had not expected or been prepared for.
Janusz of course has been spared at least these kinds of decisions or doubts. But on the other hand his was a more threatening emergency situation than mine... let alone Suzi's. He was actually lucky he made it through, his kidneys almost failed on him at the same time his appendix burst. You can die from that. Interesting how long it took him to make the decision to finally go to the emergency room. No food going down, projectile vomiting, pain, and more pain going on for days... and within all of that it was right for him to wait. Not only because of his daughters two big celebratory events it seems... then he would have gone after that was done on Sunday... but he stayed with this pain another day and didn't go until Monday afternoon.
Some decisions we make and some are being made for us. At least it looks like that's what happens. But these days I am less sure there is such a distinct separation.
Had Suzi been luckier than me? Or Janusz more unfortunate? No. I don't think of our experiences in that way any longer. What happens is perfect. I really believe that, no, even more so: I know that.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Updates
Sophia finished her two days of acting workshop and found out it wasn't so hard, it wasn't so scary, it was ok after all. But she also found out that she doesn't enjoy exercises all that much without the purpose of a performance as a reward poised at the end of it. Almost as if it doesn't have enough meaning all by itself. Yes, she learned something, but it wasn't all that new, after all she had worked with the Michael Chekhov method with David and Fern, in fact that's pretty much all she does know about acting. But also she could see how this approach was something of a revelation for the other participants... and it sounded like that confirmed for her that this is valuable stuff she knows and now she was taking more of this good stuff in on a deeper level...
Not so bad a result.
Constantin reported this morning her mood is really up and down. Interesting that for the first time in 15 years he now has his finger on the daily pulse and sees her every day at work in his store. She apparently signed up for another longer workshop at the end of August. Two weeks long. She even met the person who runs this program at the event this weekend and walked up to him and introduced herself and found him to be super nice. That must have helped.
Over in Hamburg, earlier today Papi has gone to his second Cintigraphie (however you spell that)... which seems to be the word they use for MRI. This will reveal the functioning of his still draining kidney, and determine whether or not it can stay in the body. The best case scenario seems to be for her to just go to sleep permanently. The she could stay as a silent kidney in his body. If on the other hand she keeps on trying to work, even just as little has she has been spluttering along, passing no more than 20 ml of liquid per day, the ureter, which seems to be the cause of the problem, could clog up again. This would then create a backlog and could turn into more inflammations. In order to prevent that from happening she would have to go.
I think he is still a bit afraid of that. Soon we'll know more.
Not so bad a result.
Constantin reported this morning her mood is really up and down. Interesting that for the first time in 15 years he now has his finger on the daily pulse and sees her every day at work in his store. She apparently signed up for another longer workshop at the end of August. Two weeks long. She even met the person who runs this program at the event this weekend and walked up to him and introduced herself and found him to be super nice. That must have helped.
Over in Hamburg, earlier today Papi has gone to his second Cintigraphie (however you spell that)... which seems to be the word they use for MRI. This will reveal the functioning of his still draining kidney, and determine whether or not it can stay in the body. The best case scenario seems to be for her to just go to sleep permanently. The she could stay as a silent kidney in his body. If on the other hand she keeps on trying to work, even just as little has she has been spluttering along, passing no more than 20 ml of liquid per day, the ureter, which seems to be the cause of the problem, could clog up again. This would then create a backlog and could turn into more inflammations. In order to prevent that from happening she would have to go.
I think he is still a bit afraid of that. Soon we'll know more.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Sophia
My Sophia. My oldest one.
She had already e-mailed me for my birthday with a little s.o.s. cry.
"hey mom happy birthday!!! i wanted to call u but i didnt know where to call and i dont have any number to call!
hope your having fun!
i went to the country this weekend! and im feeling kinda homesick and stuff!
so call me when you can!
love you!"
Asking to be called means something. As our schedule and time difference had arranged the next couple of days, there was no time to have a longer conversation. We didn't end up speaking until Friday night after Jimmy and I had arrived back home.
"Every morning I wake up and I wish I hadn't" Woa, that's serious.
"You can't imagine how hard it is to do something, Mom. It's like I just can't. I am so afraid. ...so afraid not to be good enough." That means her acting.
"And now I have done the first day of this acting workshop I feel so accomplished, and once I am there I always discover it is fine, but that doesn't make the fear go away. The fear always comes back."
"And my job is just so... so boring. There is just nothing really interesting about it... and I hate living alone... I am so much alone... and now when I see my friends I am even alone when I am with them... and that is so depressing... and what if the acting doesn't work out, then I have nothing to fall back on..."
She is in despair. She cries. Throughout the call. That despair still sits deep in her guts even on this day of feeling accomplished again for the first time in a long time... probably since she finished her senior project over a year ago. That was an acting accomplishment she had performed brilliantly. A one woman show. I had cried each time I saw her play. Each of the four times.
I listen to her and I understand her pain. But I don't feel desperate with her. Somehow I am very calm, as if I already know she'll come out of this with all her passion, strength, and humanity in full force. As if this is a boiling point she needed to reach that will transform her and move her forward in a way nothing else would. Not so long ago I might have jumped right into this crisis with her, made it my responsibility to bring her out of it, taken on the burden to be the healer, or to get her to do what I would have deemed most powerful... and most likely that would have been the Journey. Not a successful strategy. In the past I have suffered when she wouldn't let me help her. Not so much now. There is a new humility here and with that a new freedom. A breath. She is walking her path, and as I stay present and slow and just listen, I can recognize that I don't really have a clue about what's best for her. She'll have to make that choice.
Sure I can make some suggestions... and I did. Write brags, gratitudes and desires. And express your feelings. Don't swallow them down. When we poked around in that subject, it turned out that she doesn't talk about her fears with her friends. None of them. When she tries, she doesn't experience a sincere interest... somehow her own story is always used as a springboard that jumps the conversation back to their stuff, their story, their problems. No wonder she feels alone in their company.
Being locked into being the listener... Ah... does that sound familiar? Man, I have done that all my life. I know how hard it is to expand relationships that have run so smoothly in the safely assigned separate tracks of who is the listener and who is the talker. Very, very, very scary to have to speak up and say: stop, hold it for a moment, I can't be there for you right now, I can't listen right now, I am overwhelmed right now, I can't take this in right now, I'm feeling xxx right now... I'm so sorry, I really want to, but right now I can't.
It seems frighteningly impossible to do. And yet it is.
Not only possible but also necessary. Because it creates balance. Because not only does the listener need to learn how to talk - just as much so the talker needs to learn to listen.
I'll have to talk more about this with her.
When she was smaller we used to have epic battles about some things she wanted that I felt I needed to say NO to. Epic. Battles down to the core of the soul. She would scream, and cry and talk and argue and not give up, as if giving up was a question of life and death. It started when she was three and continued for years and years and years. I thought this would never end. But I also though this child will never have any problems asking for what she wants. And now? Where did she lay this part of herself to rest? And when?
She says she doesn't have any memories from her childhood, she doesn't remember what it was like. Constantin used to say the same thing. And he is her dad. Hmmm. Memories always carry the building blocks to our identity. Even the negative ones. Because the part in ourself that can recognize something as negative is the part that knows "this is not right", the part that knows the truth. So... was there so little that held her truth, only so few building blocks worth carrying along? Curious - to say the least. What had happened on the receiving end of my intention to raise her with as much freedom, as much space and trust in her innate abilities, instincts and self expression as I saw possible? And as much unconditional availability of my body and my attention as I could give? Let alone love?
This is a big time for her now. And I so much want to be there for her and at the same time I know the limit... not of what's possible but really of what is good for her. Right now less of me is better. I believe that is true. It's important to remember that.
She had already e-mailed me for my birthday with a little s.o.s. cry.
"hey mom happy birthday!!! i wanted to call u but i didnt know where to call and i dont have any number to call!
hope your having fun!
i went to the country this weekend! and im feeling kinda homesick and stuff!
so call me when you can!
love you!"
Asking to be called means something. As our schedule and time difference had arranged the next couple of days, there was no time to have a longer conversation. We didn't end up speaking until Friday night after Jimmy and I had arrived back home.
"Every morning I wake up and I wish I hadn't" Woa, that's serious.
"You can't imagine how hard it is to do something, Mom. It's like I just can't. I am so afraid. ...so afraid not to be good enough." That means her acting.
"And now I have done the first day of this acting workshop I feel so accomplished, and once I am there I always discover it is fine, but that doesn't make the fear go away. The fear always comes back."
"And my job is just so... so boring. There is just nothing really interesting about it... and I hate living alone... I am so much alone... and now when I see my friends I am even alone when I am with them... and that is so depressing... and what if the acting doesn't work out, then I have nothing to fall back on..."
She is in despair. She cries. Throughout the call. That despair still sits deep in her guts even on this day of feeling accomplished again for the first time in a long time... probably since she finished her senior project over a year ago. That was an acting accomplishment she had performed brilliantly. A one woman show. I had cried each time I saw her play. Each of the four times.
I listen to her and I understand her pain. But I don't feel desperate with her. Somehow I am very calm, as if I already know she'll come out of this with all her passion, strength, and humanity in full force. As if this is a boiling point she needed to reach that will transform her and move her forward in a way nothing else would. Not so long ago I might have jumped right into this crisis with her, made it my responsibility to bring her out of it, taken on the burden to be the healer, or to get her to do what I would have deemed most powerful... and most likely that would have been the Journey. Not a successful strategy. In the past I have suffered when she wouldn't let me help her. Not so much now. There is a new humility here and with that a new freedom. A breath. She is walking her path, and as I stay present and slow and just listen, I can recognize that I don't really have a clue about what's best for her. She'll have to make that choice.
Sure I can make some suggestions... and I did. Write brags, gratitudes and desires. And express your feelings. Don't swallow them down. When we poked around in that subject, it turned out that she doesn't talk about her fears with her friends. None of them. When she tries, she doesn't experience a sincere interest... somehow her own story is always used as a springboard that jumps the conversation back to their stuff, their story, their problems. No wonder she feels alone in their company.
Being locked into being the listener... Ah... does that sound familiar? Man, I have done that all my life. I know how hard it is to expand relationships that have run so smoothly in the safely assigned separate tracks of who is the listener and who is the talker. Very, very, very scary to have to speak up and say: stop, hold it for a moment, I can't be there for you right now, I can't listen right now, I am overwhelmed right now, I can't take this in right now, I'm feeling xxx right now... I'm so sorry, I really want to, but right now I can't.
It seems frighteningly impossible to do. And yet it is.
Not only possible but also necessary. Because it creates balance. Because not only does the listener need to learn how to talk - just as much so the talker needs to learn to listen.
I'll have to talk more about this with her.
When she was smaller we used to have epic battles about some things she wanted that I felt I needed to say NO to. Epic. Battles down to the core of the soul. She would scream, and cry and talk and argue and not give up, as if giving up was a question of life and death. It started when she was three and continued for years and years and years. I thought this would never end. But I also though this child will never have any problems asking for what she wants. And now? Where did she lay this part of herself to rest? And when?
She says she doesn't have any memories from her childhood, she doesn't remember what it was like. Constantin used to say the same thing. And he is her dad. Hmmm. Memories always carry the building blocks to our identity. Even the negative ones. Because the part in ourself that can recognize something as negative is the part that knows "this is not right", the part that knows the truth. So... was there so little that held her truth, only so few building blocks worth carrying along? Curious - to say the least. What had happened on the receiving end of my intention to raise her with as much freedom, as much space and trust in her innate abilities, instincts and self expression as I saw possible? And as much unconditional availability of my body and my attention as I could give? Let alone love?
This is a big time for her now. And I so much want to be there for her and at the same time I know the limit... not of what's possible but really of what is good for her. Right now less of me is better. I believe that is true. It's important to remember that.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Berlin
(Written between Sunday May 30th and Friday June 5th)
These few days in Berlin went by in a flash.
When we arrived at Berlin Hauptbahnhof on Wednesday - a daylight flooded Glass structure that criss crosses train tracks of various kinds on about 4 different levels - and the train came to a halt... there were Anina and Alicia, accompanied by a third girl, exactly in front of our door outside the window.
A time for many emotions.
Tears rolled down Nini's cheeks on that platform. And again five days later at the moment of saying good bye. I had not expected this. I had lost touch with the sensitive, warmhearted girl she was before puberty pulled her into a fog of an expressionless distance and one syllable answers.
Tears also flowed when Iris thought of her dad on Saturday. It was the 30th of May - his death day, and she still misses him a lot 14 years later. She is my cousin, and Jimmy and I sat in her kitchen eating scrambled eggs with tomatoes when she told us the story of how he had died after his battle with throat cancer. I had never heard the details of her experience. She was surprised she didn't have to cry then. But later, after we had left her to go to the museum, she did.
My own tears almost flowed Friday night after we had gone to bed. I had asked Jimmy how the day had been for him and he voiced his discontent, his irritation over how I keep him out of the loop, don't include him in the decisions on how we were spending our time, how he felt separate and unimportant. I couldn't even see myself in his description of me, as if he was talking about another person, and instantly got irritated in return. But more than that I felt the suffocating pain to be the cause of such emotions. Justified or not. Those are the hardest to bear. For me.
The fear to disappoint.
The first morning in Berlin Jimmy and I took off with Anina to go to the museum. When we left, both of Ally's friends, who had stayed overnight, also departed, and all of a sudden Ally was the only one to be left behind. When I realized this, and asked if she wanted to come with us, she brushed the possibility aside: no... she wasn't even dressed... but then... yes she would like to meet us later... we could call her from the road.
By the time we sat in the subway, Nini and I deducted that in the morning mix of assumptions and foggy communication nobody had properly asked her if she had wanted to join us. And I started to feel BAD. As time elapsed and we advanced through the subway system, I began to try to call her from Papi's ancient cell phone to set things straight and clear up a possible misunderstanding that we didn't want her to come along. Ah, and as the infinite universe wanted it that day, I just wasn't able to get through. The number was not known. The number was not connecting. The directory information service didn't provide a solution either. In whatever infinite ways I tried to reach her, her mother, or her brother... nothing succeeded. Fascinating to watch yourself in a progression such as this one, fascinating how in the end one emotion wins out. In my case it was the one of needing to make sure I had not disappointed Ally. The overbearing need to make sure she felt included.
Nothing else mattered any more, not that we would have to wait to do what we supposedly rushed out of the house for: the museum visit... not that we had to take three subways back to her house and travel through Berlin for an extra 1.5 hours... nor that we had to separate and leave Jimmy behind, because he was hungry and needed to eat something...
So that's what we did. Nini and I made our way back and found a flabergasted Ally still in her pajamas at home. ...And we ended up having a good second part of the day with Ally along.
Yes... I will do pretty much anything not to disappoint, hurt or exclude someone I love or care for. This awareness is not new... but it was another clear experience how much this fear sits in my bones... still. How hard it is to tell myself in such a moment that everything is perfect as it is. If life doesn't make mistakes, is it possible that it wants me to just let Ally sit all alone at home when she possibly really wanted to come with us? In that moment life feels excruciatingly unperfect. And the best I can do is bring into my awareness that this experience has come up for liberation, that I am playing out some old emotional script.
When such fear of disappointing is met by an actual accusation from Jimmy as it landed in my gut on Friday night... no wonder it rattles me to the core, each time.
After a longish discussion that didn't immediately resolve anything, it helped me to remember that this not about who is right or wrong, but to notice how much we each are caught in our old games, and how Jimmy's fear of not being included fits so smugly with my fear of not doing enough for others. Perfect match.
And finally: waiting.
Another juicy subject.
On Sunday we concluded our time in Berlin with a visit to the Botanical garden. My re-germanized stomach had been happy with a slice of dark grain bread and honey for breakfast, but that didn't satisfy Jimmy's American wired digestive system and he longed for proteins - as in eggs, preferably with vegetables. Having failed to find something of that nature on our walk over there, we thought he could get a bite to eat inside the gardens, but once we found the cafe, we noticed that the line was both long and slow moving and that the menu didn't really offer anything that exciting worth waiting for. Right outside the entrance we had passed a bakery, and so the decision was made for Jimmy to go back out to grab a bite and come back to meet me in front of the tropical greenhouse.
So, when I heard Jimmy say:" I'll go and get something to eat there, I should be back here in 15 to 20 min." I thought, oh, he just doesn't remember how close this bakery is, he'll be back in much less time, in fact it might only be 5 to 7 minutes. I didn't say anything though, because I didn't want to openly correct him on his erroneous perception of time or distance.
In order not to miss him or make him wait, I therefor took a short stroll past the water lily pools and weaved my way back to the glass green houses pretty soon. No Jimmy.
I started reading the Latin names of the South African cactus plants assembled along the outside of the glass structure... then the Mexican ones... then the South American... I wondered if someone from one of these areas would have a feeling of home standing in front of their native plants, and not the others, while to me they looked like randomly similar indistinctive assortments of prickly shapes sticking out of the ground... No Jimmy.
I wandered down the straight alley toward the entrance. That would be a safe departure form our meeting spot: I would run right into him... No Jimmy in sight.
I veered off to the right to kill some time looking at the circular beds of native moss gardens. All strangely covered in green mesh. More randomness. So many same little splotches of fuzzy green bedded in dry soil. Were they under construction? No, they seemed healthy enough. The name tags were in place too. Then I spotted a sign: during the time of nest building the moss gardens are protected against the birds - robbing botanical property for their own home improvements. ...Oh... How long had I not watched the alley just beyond the bushes? Back on the wide path, looking up and down... still no Jimmy.
Maybe he had passed me and was looking for me back at the greenhouses? Close enough to walk back to check. No, no Jimmy in sight up there either.
Now I was starting to wonder where the heck he was. I had no watch on me, but this must have been at least 15 minutes by now! What could he be doing for so long? Could he get lost on this small straight stretch of the garden? Could there be such a long line in the bakery now? It had been totally empty when we walked by earlier.
Back to the cactuses, but now they didn't inspire my imagination any longer. All right, why didn't I make the best of this and just did what I came here to do and looked at more plants? There were the water plants further down toward the entrance, past the moss patches. I just had to be careful not to loose sight of the big path.
The old water garden was totally overgrown. A sign there indicated that this had happened on purpose to provide habitat for certain wild animals. The new water garden wasn't so new any more. Not much blooming here. The main attraction was an arrangement of three squarish granite boulders, shoulder high, that were spouting a fine mist of water into the air. Hmmm, nice effect. There was a wooden foot bridge over the swamp plant section featuring thin grasses with white fluff at the ends, which took me back to the entrance alley... Still no Jimmy.
This was really starting to be an odd experience. I thought the purpose of leaving the park had been to save time, and now this seemed to have taken longer that he would have ever waited in the cafe. There wasn't much more to look at on this now elongated meeting stretch. This here was just a beach tree forest. From a large sign I learned that a certain beetle had befallen the old beach trees, fungus would follow and before long they would die. Therefore steps had been taken to introduce new, younger trees into the mix while cutting down some old ones before their time, to ensure a more gradual transition into a new healthy forest. Were the young trees immune against the beetles?
Oh my God, were was Jimmy??? Had he not liked the bakery after all and gone on a trek for a better food source? What was he wearing again, his light yellow shirt, right? Oh, no! Now I remembered it was the black one. And all this time I had been scanning the crowds for the wrong colored shirt, black is so much harder to notice, maybe I HAD missed him? Back to the cafe, fast!
No. No black-wearing Jimmy either.
Should I just take off into the parts of the park that really interested me and ignore that he would have to wait for me here? Once he got here? No, I wouldn't be able to enjoy that. Why didn't I just surrender and sat down on the bench in front of the African cactuses and... waited and... felt what was here to be felt and... looked if there was something for me to discover in this odd experience. So I sat.
It was then that it hit me how much I hate to wait. How much I do to avoid waiting. How excruciating it has always been to be at the waiting end. So much so I assume it is the same for other people. So much so I will do something I really loathe in order not to make someone else wait. Hmmm. Interesting. Should I do a Journey on this? Right here?
But alas, now my wait was coming to an end... there was Jimmy strolling happily back up the alley.
When I asked WHAT happened? He said he ate. Ate?? Yes, ate right there at the bakery, like he had told me, had a nice egg something after all... no, he hadn't told me he'd come back with the food, he had meant to eat it there... what? You had waited? Oh, so sorry honey!
So many emotions. Strings of love and fear pulling us alternately.
Four days later it would be my father shedding a few tears on the day of his first return appointment at the UKE for fear of what would happen with his kidney, now that it had been hurting again for the past 10 days. And his voice cracking just a bit saying his sweet words of good bye into our hug, when the taxi pulled up in front of the house to take us to the airport.
These few days in Berlin went by in a flash.
When we arrived at Berlin Hauptbahnhof on Wednesday - a daylight flooded Glass structure that criss crosses train tracks of various kinds on about 4 different levels - and the train came to a halt... there were Anina and Alicia, accompanied by a third girl, exactly in front of our door outside the window.
A time for many emotions.
Tears rolled down Nini's cheeks on that platform. And again five days later at the moment of saying good bye. I had not expected this. I had lost touch with the sensitive, warmhearted girl she was before puberty pulled her into a fog of an expressionless distance and one syllable answers.
Tears also flowed when Iris thought of her dad on Saturday. It was the 30th of May - his death day, and she still misses him a lot 14 years later. She is my cousin, and Jimmy and I sat in her kitchen eating scrambled eggs with tomatoes when she told us the story of how he had died after his battle with throat cancer. I had never heard the details of her experience. She was surprised she didn't have to cry then. But later, after we had left her to go to the museum, she did.
My own tears almost flowed Friday night after we had gone to bed. I had asked Jimmy how the day had been for him and he voiced his discontent, his irritation over how I keep him out of the loop, don't include him in the decisions on how we were spending our time, how he felt separate and unimportant. I couldn't even see myself in his description of me, as if he was talking about another person, and instantly got irritated in return. But more than that I felt the suffocating pain to be the cause of such emotions. Justified or not. Those are the hardest to bear. For me.
The fear to disappoint.
The first morning in Berlin Jimmy and I took off with Anina to go to the museum. When we left, both of Ally's friends, who had stayed overnight, also departed, and all of a sudden Ally was the only one to be left behind. When I realized this, and asked if she wanted to come with us, she brushed the possibility aside: no... she wasn't even dressed... but then... yes she would like to meet us later... we could call her from the road.
By the time we sat in the subway, Nini and I deducted that in the morning mix of assumptions and foggy communication nobody had properly asked her if she had wanted to join us. And I started to feel BAD. As time elapsed and we advanced through the subway system, I began to try to call her from Papi's ancient cell phone to set things straight and clear up a possible misunderstanding that we didn't want her to come along. Ah, and as the infinite universe wanted it that day, I just wasn't able to get through. The number was not known. The number was not connecting. The directory information service didn't provide a solution either. In whatever infinite ways I tried to reach her, her mother, or her brother... nothing succeeded. Fascinating to watch yourself in a progression such as this one, fascinating how in the end one emotion wins out. In my case it was the one of needing to make sure I had not disappointed Ally. The overbearing need to make sure she felt included.
Nothing else mattered any more, not that we would have to wait to do what we supposedly rushed out of the house for: the museum visit... not that we had to take three subways back to her house and travel through Berlin for an extra 1.5 hours... nor that we had to separate and leave Jimmy behind, because he was hungry and needed to eat something...
So that's what we did. Nini and I made our way back and found a flabergasted Ally still in her pajamas at home. ...And we ended up having a good second part of the day with Ally along.
Yes... I will do pretty much anything not to disappoint, hurt or exclude someone I love or care for. This awareness is not new... but it was another clear experience how much this fear sits in my bones... still. How hard it is to tell myself in such a moment that everything is perfect as it is. If life doesn't make mistakes, is it possible that it wants me to just let Ally sit all alone at home when she possibly really wanted to come with us? In that moment life feels excruciatingly unperfect. And the best I can do is bring into my awareness that this experience has come up for liberation, that I am playing out some old emotional script.
When such fear of disappointing is met by an actual accusation from Jimmy as it landed in my gut on Friday night... no wonder it rattles me to the core, each time.
After a longish discussion that didn't immediately resolve anything, it helped me to remember that this not about who is right or wrong, but to notice how much we each are caught in our old games, and how Jimmy's fear of not being included fits so smugly with my fear of not doing enough for others. Perfect match.
And finally: waiting.
Another juicy subject.
On Sunday we concluded our time in Berlin with a visit to the Botanical garden. My re-germanized stomach had been happy with a slice of dark grain bread and honey for breakfast, but that didn't satisfy Jimmy's American wired digestive system and he longed for proteins - as in eggs, preferably with vegetables. Having failed to find something of that nature on our walk over there, we thought he could get a bite to eat inside the gardens, but once we found the cafe, we noticed that the line was both long and slow moving and that the menu didn't really offer anything that exciting worth waiting for. Right outside the entrance we had passed a bakery, and so the decision was made for Jimmy to go back out to grab a bite and come back to meet me in front of the tropical greenhouse.
So, when I heard Jimmy say:" I'll go and get something to eat there, I should be back here in 15 to 20 min." I thought, oh, he just doesn't remember how close this bakery is, he'll be back in much less time, in fact it might only be 5 to 7 minutes. I didn't say anything though, because I didn't want to openly correct him on his erroneous perception of time or distance.
In order not to miss him or make him wait, I therefor took a short stroll past the water lily pools and weaved my way back to the glass green houses pretty soon. No Jimmy.
I started reading the Latin names of the South African cactus plants assembled along the outside of the glass structure... then the Mexican ones... then the South American... I wondered if someone from one of these areas would have a feeling of home standing in front of their native plants, and not the others, while to me they looked like randomly similar indistinctive assortments of prickly shapes sticking out of the ground... No Jimmy.
I wandered down the straight alley toward the entrance. That would be a safe departure form our meeting spot: I would run right into him... No Jimmy in sight.
I veered off to the right to kill some time looking at the circular beds of native moss gardens. All strangely covered in green mesh. More randomness. So many same little splotches of fuzzy green bedded in dry soil. Were they under construction? No, they seemed healthy enough. The name tags were in place too. Then I spotted a sign: during the time of nest building the moss gardens are protected against the birds - robbing botanical property for their own home improvements. ...Oh... How long had I not watched the alley just beyond the bushes? Back on the wide path, looking up and down... still no Jimmy.
Maybe he had passed me and was looking for me back at the greenhouses? Close enough to walk back to check. No, no Jimmy in sight up there either.
Now I was starting to wonder where the heck he was. I had no watch on me, but this must have been at least 15 minutes by now! What could he be doing for so long? Could he get lost on this small straight stretch of the garden? Could there be such a long line in the bakery now? It had been totally empty when we walked by earlier.
Back to the cactuses, but now they didn't inspire my imagination any longer. All right, why didn't I make the best of this and just did what I came here to do and looked at more plants? There were the water plants further down toward the entrance, past the moss patches. I just had to be careful not to loose sight of the big path.
The old water garden was totally overgrown. A sign there indicated that this had happened on purpose to provide habitat for certain wild animals. The new water garden wasn't so new any more. Not much blooming here. The main attraction was an arrangement of three squarish granite boulders, shoulder high, that were spouting a fine mist of water into the air. Hmmm, nice effect. There was a wooden foot bridge over the swamp plant section featuring thin grasses with white fluff at the ends, which took me back to the entrance alley... Still no Jimmy.
This was really starting to be an odd experience. I thought the purpose of leaving the park had been to save time, and now this seemed to have taken longer that he would have ever waited in the cafe. There wasn't much more to look at on this now elongated meeting stretch. This here was just a beach tree forest. From a large sign I learned that a certain beetle had befallen the old beach trees, fungus would follow and before long they would die. Therefore steps had been taken to introduce new, younger trees into the mix while cutting down some old ones before their time, to ensure a more gradual transition into a new healthy forest. Were the young trees immune against the beetles?
Oh my God, were was Jimmy??? Had he not liked the bakery after all and gone on a trek for a better food source? What was he wearing again, his light yellow shirt, right? Oh, no! Now I remembered it was the black one. And all this time I had been scanning the crowds for the wrong colored shirt, black is so much harder to notice, maybe I HAD missed him? Back to the cafe, fast!
No. No black-wearing Jimmy either.
Should I just take off into the parts of the park that really interested me and ignore that he would have to wait for me here? Once he got here? No, I wouldn't be able to enjoy that. Why didn't I just surrender and sat down on the bench in front of the African cactuses and... waited and... felt what was here to be felt and... looked if there was something for me to discover in this odd experience. So I sat.
It was then that it hit me how much I hate to wait. How much I do to avoid waiting. How excruciating it has always been to be at the waiting end. So much so I assume it is the same for other people. So much so I will do something I really loathe in order not to make someone else wait. Hmmm. Interesting. Should I do a Journey on this? Right here?
But alas, now my wait was coming to an end... there was Jimmy strolling happily back up the alley.
When I asked WHAT happened? He said he ate. Ate?? Yes, ate right there at the bakery, like he had told me, had a nice egg something after all... no, he hadn't told me he'd come back with the food, he had meant to eat it there... what? You had waited? Oh, so sorry honey!
So many emotions. Strings of love and fear pulling us alternately.
Four days later it would be my father shedding a few tears on the day of his first return appointment at the UKE for fear of what would happen with his kidney, now that it had been hurting again for the past 10 days. And his voice cracking just a bit saying his sweet words of good bye into our hug, when the taxi pulled up in front of the house to take us to the airport.
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