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.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)