Jimmy and I are on our way to Berlin. We have picked seats in one of the little private six seat compartments German trains offer. This one is an "ICE" which has nothing to do with frozen water - as Jimmy pronounces it, but stands for "Intercity Express", and simply means it's faster. A single older woman has joined us, otherwise we have the place to ourselves. Jimmy has nodded off. So has the woman. Earlier we were served a container of mineral water and a "Laugenstange", a longish roll dipped into a salt solution, the "Lauge", and covered with sesame seeds, before being baked. It seems that was an extra service to appease us passengers over possible delays caused by current construction on our route to Berlin. These trains are so much more quiet than the rattly Amtrak, cleaner too.
Outside the window wheat fields are interrupted by corn, rye, and canola fields, now past it's bright yellow bloom. Rows of poplars, or low vegetation mixes of willow, elderberries, hawthorne, and birch, planted against the wind separate the large green planes. Small dense clumps of Forest too. As we travel further east those tall patches seem to expand. In the distance I see groups of wind turbines poking into the horizon now and then. We must now be in the part of what used to be the DDR - east Germany. There are still those buildings that ooze with a certain depressive greyness, architecture that holds in stone the attempt to enforce an equal averageness.
It is more than 19 years ago that the wall came down. I remember sitting in the living room among the large clan of my in laws. It was around Christmas. We were watching the news after an opulent dinner... and there they were: scenes from Berlin. The massive demonstrations, the uprising in east Germany. The wall had not come down yet, but it was already in the air, we could smell it was going to happen. I remember looking down at my belly, covered by a dark blue Romeo Gigly blouse I loved so much, round and bulging with a new life that was to become my first child, and all of a sudden I was moved by the magnitude of these concurring events. I had grown up with this wall separating our country. Grown up with half of the Germans locked up. It seemed this would never change... and now my child would be born into a world that had moved beyond the impossible. A world of people creating their own freedom. What beauty, what power that lay ahead of us!
Today am am on this train to visit my second child in this very city. A city reunited.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Sunday, May 24, 2009
News from the Baumkamp
To update you on Papi's wellbeing: The procedure did not take the route of approaching the ureter to the kidney via the bladder. When the surgeon saw him that morning he explained that only 2 out of 10 trials are successful when a patient has a neo-bladder like Papi does. They simply don't find the entrance. Instead they decided to poke into the kidney through the side. When they did they found it was well inflamed and nothing else could be done. To drain her, they installed a so called "Fistel", a small little tube that drains the kidney out to the side and into a bag that hangs strapped to the upper thigh.
So far so good.
The draining of the puss and the administration of heavy antibiotics has cleared the inflammation, and the disturbing backaches of the past months that have worried him as much as the announcement of his kidney's reduced life force disappeared almost instantly.
The new focus of worries became the amount of liquid the kidney now produces. This amount was small to begin with and has gone down steadily every day. It may point to the fact the this little organ is not recovering after all.
This is not really a cause for concern other than the attachment to how she is doing. A silent kidney can stay in the body without causing any harm. But Papi has put much of his hope into her picking up fuller functioning again... Both Mami and I remind him that it is all right... to me it almost feels like an extended tutorial to let go. To let go. And to let go. It's being put in front of him again and again.
I am so glad to be here during this time. To have so little work. To have all this space to be present with them. What a blessing!
So far so good.
The draining of the puss and the administration of heavy antibiotics has cleared the inflammation, and the disturbing backaches of the past months that have worried him as much as the announcement of his kidney's reduced life force disappeared almost instantly.
The new focus of worries became the amount of liquid the kidney now produces. This amount was small to begin with and has gone down steadily every day. It may point to the fact the this little organ is not recovering after all.
This is not really a cause for concern other than the attachment to how she is doing. A silent kidney can stay in the body without causing any harm. But Papi has put much of his hope into her picking up fuller functioning again... Both Mami and I remind him that it is all right... to me it almost feels like an extended tutorial to let go. To let go. And to let go. It's being put in front of him again and again.
I am so glad to be here during this time. To have so little work. To have all this space to be present with them. What a blessing!
Friday, May 22, 2009
A Different Emergency Room Visit
Monday night my mother and I accompanied my father to the emergency room of the "UKE", Hamburgs biggest hospital.
What immensely intricate weaving, what curious circumstances that brought about me sitting there next to him. In an Emergency Room, yet again, and this time so totally different.
It was his kidney that brought us there. The problem had been revealed by a routine test his doctor had performed in April, which required another test that showed no life in the kidney at all. Which prompted another test, a CT scan, finally taken Monday morning. This still didn't provide any explanation as to why the failure had happened, and why it had happened with such incredible speed in a matter of months, when apparently such a process normally takes years.
His doctor, dissatisfied with the findings of the CT scan sent him straight to the hospital, to put Papi into the hands of more experts. The hospital in turn, booked out as they are weeks in advance, suggested over the phone to use the route via the emergency room, to get in more quickly, and thus we arrived there the three of us on the same evening, not in a very emergency kind of way, properly fed by a German dinner of whole grain breads and various cheeses, smoked ham and liverwurst, a small overnight bag in tow neatly packed just in case, and a book, and chocolate covered rice cakes for more nourishment in my purse.
>From the waiting room I watched the ambulances through the glass partition and the large glass doors pull up in front of the hospital, delivering their patients, all older looking citizens in various states of coma or sedation, eyes mostly closed, white hairs ruffled, and I thought back to the moments when I had been wheeled through the entrances to the three emergency rooms I had been delivered to... not so very long ago.
The TV suspended from the ceiling in the corner of the room was silently showing a large patch of fertile soil, hands putting seeds into the ground, a program on gardening maybe. The check in desk flaunted a startling deep blue glass front, the wall behind the staff was of the same dark blue, surrounded everywhere by white and metal and glass... this building was brand new. The sun fell in at a low angle through the pale yellow vertical blinds behind us, bathing the space in the quiet golden light of northern summer evenings.
So quiet here. So little drama. The waiting room harbored five more people, none of them visibly injured or troubled. My father patiently next to me. Worried. Quiet.
Odd to be there on the opposite side of experience, as the support team. So much more clarity about the whole process, so much more overview, more detachment.
That day had started with an vigorous upbeat: after weeks of pushing away the worries over what might be wrong with his kidney, weeks of fending off fears of reentering the hospital system that 4 years ago had held him in an embrace so long and tight, he almost hadn't returned home, he came back from the CT scan beaming with the surprise announcement that his kidney was not completely dead. This sigh of relief turned into a silent dread after his regular urologist sounded the alarm bell and insisted he go to the hospital... instantly. Even my mother, who can be counted on to remind everyone that whatever it was, THIS was just what was meant to be happening, and who had kept a calm and cheerful attitude on this subject throughout these past weeks, all of a sudden grew unusually somber and small voiced, and I could hear the fear creeping into her imagination.
This anxiety was still with them in the waiting room, was still with them in the private treatment room we were led to were I ate more of the rice cakes and read to them from the book, a chapter on hunting with birds of pray. It was hard for my father to let himself relax, he wanted to see the doctor NOW and after we had waited in there for another 30 min, he went outside into the hall to inquire in his polite way how much longer it would be.
Another hour further into the evening the mood had shifted yet again, and we were merrily driving back home, playing out our little family jokes, and laughing our little family laughs.
The doctor had simply shown us the likelihood of new possibilities and a fairly easy way through this mystery. A tiny camera into the bladder, a tiny stick into the tube to the kidney, a little patience to let it drain out and the reasonable probability that the organ would recover. None of it sounded so bad any longer.
It's so interesting how easily we get pulled lockstep into the automatic alignment with anxiety, I had to consciously word out for myself a different perspective, because when I investigated closely enough I actually could find no harm in these events, and since Papi came back with the "bad" news I had looked for ways to pass through the barrier of gloom. To shake up my parents' instant evaluation of what this experience must mean... could mean. Of what was to follow. Interesting. All this up and down, all this fear and hope riding upon nothing but different interpretations. Spinning different stories into the future. His actual state of wellbeing had not changed, not a bit. The present moment had remained completely neutral.
When I woke up the next morning, it occurred to me what an enormous burden is hoisted into a crisis when we allow an evaluation to take place before something has happened. When we get sucked into wanting a certain development and rejecting another one. Because we THINK the first thing will be better for us than the second. What arrogance really! But more so: what ignorance! HOW in the world can we know??? We don't!!
When my journey began, I thought the worst thing that could happen was for the cysts not to respond. If they responded only a little - that would not be so great, if they shrank clearly enough - that would be good, and if they disappeared - well, that would be fantastic. I thought I knew what this whole thing was going to be about, as if it was a task that was testing my performance. Consequently I could excel or I could fail. What a huge misunderstanding! This may really be the biggest revelation for me, and it was yet again pointed out to me even more clearly over the past days watching my father stumble through his experience like I had stumbled through mine. Life never makes a mistake. I dare to think it may really be true that life offers us nothing but opportunities of expansion and greater wholeness, that we are held in this dance by a love so vast it is difficult to comprehend. That our power lies not so much in our ability to create what we want, from our limited, oh so limited perspective, but in understanding that what we encounter IS what we have created as the limitless oneness that we really are and that we only need to say YES.
I believe that's what I learned from my life when the worst thing I had feared happened to me. And I learned that it was good. No, actually more than that: Exquisite.
So, Papi's worst fear was to go back into the hospital where the nightmare of four years ago had begun. On top of that right now a hospital that, according to various reports, had not yet ironed out it's renovation chaos, after moving into the new facility... oh, fertile ground for a multitude of things to go wrong, for mistakes, poor coordination, miscommunication, malfunctioning this and thats...
As life had prepared this miraculously unfolding series of events for him, he had nothing but smooth alignment. Fast response in the Emergency room, swift transfer into the urology clinic the next day, instant admission into the beautiful outpatient facility the following day, and a successful procedure with the friendliest staff he had ever encountered. A surgeon who personally called back to see how he was doing two days later!
His journey isn't over, but now it is clear it WILL be different from last time.
What immensely intricate weaving, what curious circumstances that brought about me sitting there next to him. In an Emergency Room, yet again, and this time so totally different.
It was his kidney that brought us there. The problem had been revealed by a routine test his doctor had performed in April, which required another test that showed no life in the kidney at all. Which prompted another test, a CT scan, finally taken Monday morning. This still didn't provide any explanation as to why the failure had happened, and why it had happened with such incredible speed in a matter of months, when apparently such a process normally takes years.
His doctor, dissatisfied with the findings of the CT scan sent him straight to the hospital, to put Papi into the hands of more experts. The hospital in turn, booked out as they are weeks in advance, suggested over the phone to use the route via the emergency room, to get in more quickly, and thus we arrived there the three of us on the same evening, not in a very emergency kind of way, properly fed by a German dinner of whole grain breads and various cheeses, smoked ham and liverwurst, a small overnight bag in tow neatly packed just in case, and a book, and chocolate covered rice cakes for more nourishment in my purse.
>From the waiting room I watched the ambulances through the glass partition and the large glass doors pull up in front of the hospital, delivering their patients, all older looking citizens in various states of coma or sedation, eyes mostly closed, white hairs ruffled, and I thought back to the moments when I had been wheeled through the entrances to the three emergency rooms I had been delivered to... not so very long ago.
The TV suspended from the ceiling in the corner of the room was silently showing a large patch of fertile soil, hands putting seeds into the ground, a program on gardening maybe. The check in desk flaunted a startling deep blue glass front, the wall behind the staff was of the same dark blue, surrounded everywhere by white and metal and glass... this building was brand new. The sun fell in at a low angle through the pale yellow vertical blinds behind us, bathing the space in the quiet golden light of northern summer evenings.
So quiet here. So little drama. The waiting room harbored five more people, none of them visibly injured or troubled. My father patiently next to me. Worried. Quiet.
Odd to be there on the opposite side of experience, as the support team. So much more clarity about the whole process, so much more overview, more detachment.
That day had started with an vigorous upbeat: after weeks of pushing away the worries over what might be wrong with his kidney, weeks of fending off fears of reentering the hospital system that 4 years ago had held him in an embrace so long and tight, he almost hadn't returned home, he came back from the CT scan beaming with the surprise announcement that his kidney was not completely dead. This sigh of relief turned into a silent dread after his regular urologist sounded the alarm bell and insisted he go to the hospital... instantly. Even my mother, who can be counted on to remind everyone that whatever it was, THIS was just what was meant to be happening, and who had kept a calm and cheerful attitude on this subject throughout these past weeks, all of a sudden grew unusually somber and small voiced, and I could hear the fear creeping into her imagination.
This anxiety was still with them in the waiting room, was still with them in the private treatment room we were led to were I ate more of the rice cakes and read to them from the book, a chapter on hunting with birds of pray. It was hard for my father to let himself relax, he wanted to see the doctor NOW and after we had waited in there for another 30 min, he went outside into the hall to inquire in his polite way how much longer it would be.
Another hour further into the evening the mood had shifted yet again, and we were merrily driving back home, playing out our little family jokes, and laughing our little family laughs.
The doctor had simply shown us the likelihood of new possibilities and a fairly easy way through this mystery. A tiny camera into the bladder, a tiny stick into the tube to the kidney, a little patience to let it drain out and the reasonable probability that the organ would recover. None of it sounded so bad any longer.
It's so interesting how easily we get pulled lockstep into the automatic alignment with anxiety, I had to consciously word out for myself a different perspective, because when I investigated closely enough I actually could find no harm in these events, and since Papi came back with the "bad" news I had looked for ways to pass through the barrier of gloom. To shake up my parents' instant evaluation of what this experience must mean... could mean. Of what was to follow. Interesting. All this up and down, all this fear and hope riding upon nothing but different interpretations. Spinning different stories into the future. His actual state of wellbeing had not changed, not a bit. The present moment had remained completely neutral.
When I woke up the next morning, it occurred to me what an enormous burden is hoisted into a crisis when we allow an evaluation to take place before something has happened. When we get sucked into wanting a certain development and rejecting another one. Because we THINK the first thing will be better for us than the second. What arrogance really! But more so: what ignorance! HOW in the world can we know??? We don't!!
When my journey began, I thought the worst thing that could happen was for the cysts not to respond. If they responded only a little - that would not be so great, if they shrank clearly enough - that would be good, and if they disappeared - well, that would be fantastic. I thought I knew what this whole thing was going to be about, as if it was a task that was testing my performance. Consequently I could excel or I could fail. What a huge misunderstanding! This may really be the biggest revelation for me, and it was yet again pointed out to me even more clearly over the past days watching my father stumble through his experience like I had stumbled through mine. Life never makes a mistake. I dare to think it may really be true that life offers us nothing but opportunities of expansion and greater wholeness, that we are held in this dance by a love so vast it is difficult to comprehend. That our power lies not so much in our ability to create what we want, from our limited, oh so limited perspective, but in understanding that what we encounter IS what we have created as the limitless oneness that we really are and that we only need to say YES.
I believe that's what I learned from my life when the worst thing I had feared happened to me. And I learned that it was good. No, actually more than that: Exquisite.
So, Papi's worst fear was to go back into the hospital where the nightmare of four years ago had begun. On top of that right now a hospital that, according to various reports, had not yet ironed out it's renovation chaos, after moving into the new facility... oh, fertile ground for a multitude of things to go wrong, for mistakes, poor coordination, miscommunication, malfunctioning this and thats...
As life had prepared this miraculously unfolding series of events for him, he had nothing but smooth alignment. Fast response in the Emergency room, swift transfer into the urology clinic the next day, instant admission into the beautiful outpatient facility the following day, and a successful procedure with the friendliest staff he had ever encountered. A surgeon who personally called back to see how he was doing two days later!
His journey isn't over, but now it is clear it WILL be different from last time.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Applying a new way of thinking
I am in Waabs, Schleswig Holstein, about one and a half hours north of Hamburg, in my brothers new house.
The new house is really a very old house, thatched roof and all, sitting right smack next to a rolling wheat field, ancient oak trees residing on the little bank that nestles the end of the property, bright yellow canola flower fields glowing through more rows of majestic oaks a bit further in the distance. The Baltic Sea is but five minutes away on the other side. Quite the place to live.
My sister in law is a beekeeper among other things. She has 8 hives and intends to expand to 20 or more in the next years, now that she has the land to welcome them.
On Saturday we were invited to a fellow beekeepers home for "Maibowle", a traditional beverage of champagne and white wine enriched with the luscious aroma of sweet woodruff, which must have been picked just before flowering, wilted for a day, and then steeped in the wine for 12 hours.
The father, who is not only the beekeeper, but also the stay at home dad, and takes care of their three children who attend the local Waldorf School while his wife does the working, is also the main cook in the family. Native to the Black Forest area in southern Germany, he has brought with him a love for French cooking, and thus we were served warm buttery, crispy, cheese and chives cookies, alongside the cocktails, and a pizza-dough-like thin bread with onion and smoked ham sprinkled on top, completed by more exquisite German breads of different s grains. This accompanied platters of fragrant cheeses, and culminated in a homemade creme brulee their daughter had prepared for all of us.
They had invited another four of their friends and as the evening unfolded the conversations became more interesting.
After we had wandered through the topic of teenage drinking, which unbeknownst to me has apparently grown rampant in Germany, and reached the 13 to 14 year olds who now engage in something called "coma drinking", we landed on the related subject of disillusionment, loss of hope and future, and the expected environmental collapse of our planet.
The picture of course is very grim, the evidence and prognosis do seem pretty inevitable, and at our table all of this naturally funneled into an accusation of the people in power who hadn't done anything to turn it around. Why are they so blind, so short sighted, so egotistical?... which is most often accompanied, even if not outspoken, by a deep sense of helplessness. There is simply nothing that can turn this around, now that capitalism is reigning the planet, there is not even an alternative left, and the human greed in the end will have eradicated all human life.
At some point I noticed that something inside of me spoke up against this line of argumentation, against this way of thinking. Quietly at first and without a coherent counter-argument. Not knowing what my counter argument was, I just kept my mouth shut for a while. But I thought of what I just had been through. Thought of my conviction that anything "negative" only looks that way, but doesn't hold up if you start looking for something that is there for you, hidden at first, most of the time, but surprising and so immensely enriching when you find it. If this was true, wasn't it true always, for everybody and on any scale? I thought so. Personal as this belief was, it felt too fragile and insubstantial to voice in this circle of total strangers. But there was something I should be able to say, no?
Our planet "Gaia" herself jumped into my awareness, and I offered the view of her as a living organism, one that is perfectly capable to maintain her life force, as one that has an overwhelming amount of wellbeing in her capacity and as one who goes through periods of rebalancing and cleansing, much like the human body is capable of as well.
This window I had opened, was quickly shut again by the response that: Oh yes, or planet would certainly survive, but the human species would certainly not. The proponent was a teacher at the local public school, he had also been the one who had reported to us the alarming news of teenage drinking.
In this way we meandered through more territory, tossing a couple more balls back and forth. Dinosaurs had certainly gone extinct, hadn't they? They had been much too specialized. Yes, but look at the overall evolution of life. It's always become more complex. Hasn't life always expanded, and shouldn't we expect that this expansion will continue in some form? How can we think that the consciousness that has expanded in this way will cut itself off, rather than expand further?
Form there I hopped onto the evolutionary jumps, the theory that evolution does not always run along gradual developments but makes sudden and creative jumps. From water to the land... from the land to the air. Another participant offered the term of the creative gene that had been discovered in evolution... yes that was exactly what I meant. And who knows maybe we'll evolve very suddenly into a species that can breathe CO2?
It is hard not to get pulled into the realm of evidence, proofs, arguments and counterarguments... it was only at the very end that I was able to put into words more closely what I really wanted to say:
Yes, we can look at all the depressing data and conclude we'll go down the drain, but mustn't we look for something else? Even if we ourselves don't know of a different economical way to live as a society, even if we don't see a new model emerging somewhere, what we must hold up is the hope, and even the conviction that it... that we will go on. Because only out of this conviction and this consciousness will the very ideas and discoveries be born that we quite desperately need. Only in dreaming it up will we participate in this process, only in not giving into a fatalism, only by not fighting against what is, only by looking for the better ways, the new solutions, the possibilities, by holding love and life in our hearts will we be able to contribute something to it. That's personally what I want to do. Contribute something.
And at that point the hosts came back in from the kitchen with their daughter and served us the creme brulee.
The new house is really a very old house, thatched roof and all, sitting right smack next to a rolling wheat field, ancient oak trees residing on the little bank that nestles the end of the property, bright yellow canola flower fields glowing through more rows of majestic oaks a bit further in the distance. The Baltic Sea is but five minutes away on the other side. Quite the place to live.
My sister in law is a beekeeper among other things. She has 8 hives and intends to expand to 20 or more in the next years, now that she has the land to welcome them.
On Saturday we were invited to a fellow beekeepers home for "Maibowle", a traditional beverage of champagne and white wine enriched with the luscious aroma of sweet woodruff, which must have been picked just before flowering, wilted for a day, and then steeped in the wine for 12 hours.
The father, who is not only the beekeeper, but also the stay at home dad, and takes care of their three children who attend the local Waldorf School while his wife does the working, is also the main cook in the family. Native to the Black Forest area in southern Germany, he has brought with him a love for French cooking, and thus we were served warm buttery, crispy, cheese and chives cookies, alongside the cocktails, and a pizza-dough-like thin bread with onion and smoked ham sprinkled on top, completed by more exquisite German breads of different s grains. This accompanied platters of fragrant cheeses, and culminated in a homemade creme brulee their daughter had prepared for all of us.
They had invited another four of their friends and as the evening unfolded the conversations became more interesting.
After we had wandered through the topic of teenage drinking, which unbeknownst to me has apparently grown rampant in Germany, and reached the 13 to 14 year olds who now engage in something called "coma drinking", we landed on the related subject of disillusionment, loss of hope and future, and the expected environmental collapse of our planet.
The picture of course is very grim, the evidence and prognosis do seem pretty inevitable, and at our table all of this naturally funneled into an accusation of the people in power who hadn't done anything to turn it around. Why are they so blind, so short sighted, so egotistical?... which is most often accompanied, even if not outspoken, by a deep sense of helplessness. There is simply nothing that can turn this around, now that capitalism is reigning the planet, there is not even an alternative left, and the human greed in the end will have eradicated all human life.
At some point I noticed that something inside of me spoke up against this line of argumentation, against this way of thinking. Quietly at first and without a coherent counter-argument. Not knowing what my counter argument was, I just kept my mouth shut for a while. But I thought of what I just had been through. Thought of my conviction that anything "negative" only looks that way, but doesn't hold up if you start looking for something that is there for you, hidden at first, most of the time, but surprising and so immensely enriching when you find it. If this was true, wasn't it true always, for everybody and on any scale? I thought so. Personal as this belief was, it felt too fragile and insubstantial to voice in this circle of total strangers. But there was something I should be able to say, no?
Our planet "Gaia" herself jumped into my awareness, and I offered the view of her as a living organism, one that is perfectly capable to maintain her life force, as one that has an overwhelming amount of wellbeing in her capacity and as one who goes through periods of rebalancing and cleansing, much like the human body is capable of as well.
This window I had opened, was quickly shut again by the response that: Oh yes, or planet would certainly survive, but the human species would certainly not. The proponent was a teacher at the local public school, he had also been the one who had reported to us the alarming news of teenage drinking.
In this way we meandered through more territory, tossing a couple more balls back and forth. Dinosaurs had certainly gone extinct, hadn't they? They had been much too specialized. Yes, but look at the overall evolution of life. It's always become more complex. Hasn't life always expanded, and shouldn't we expect that this expansion will continue in some form? How can we think that the consciousness that has expanded in this way will cut itself off, rather than expand further?
Form there I hopped onto the evolutionary jumps, the theory that evolution does not always run along gradual developments but makes sudden and creative jumps. From water to the land... from the land to the air. Another participant offered the term of the creative gene that had been discovered in evolution... yes that was exactly what I meant. And who knows maybe we'll evolve very suddenly into a species that can breathe CO2?
It is hard not to get pulled into the realm of evidence, proofs, arguments and counterarguments... it was only at the very end that I was able to put into words more closely what I really wanted to say:
Yes, we can look at all the depressing data and conclude we'll go down the drain, but mustn't we look for something else? Even if we ourselves don't know of a different economical way to live as a society, even if we don't see a new model emerging somewhere, what we must hold up is the hope, and even the conviction that it... that we will go on. Because only out of this conviction and this consciousness will the very ideas and discoveries be born that we quite desperately need. Only in dreaming it up will we participate in this process, only in not giving into a fatalism, only by not fighting against what is, only by looking for the better ways, the new solutions, the possibilities, by holding love and life in our hearts will we be able to contribute something to it. That's personally what I want to do. Contribute something.
And at that point the hosts came back in from the kitchen with their daughter and served us the creme brulee.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
The Known and the Unknown
(Written on the airplane - Wednesday 5/6/09)
Another car experience, this time on my way to pick up Jimmy at the airport. Last Sunday.
Out of Nassau I turned on the radio. The program was "selected shorts", some oratorally talented person reading someone else's verbally talented writing that had culminated in a short story in front of an audience somewhere in New York City. They broadcast this every Sunday.
I only heard the the first couple of sentences the reader began the story with.
As I was listening I noticed I didn't really want to hear more. I wondered why. I had enjoyed this program in the past, not often, but often enough. Was it his voice? Too agitated? No. Not really. Hmm... I guessed I was simply not in the mood for this today. Now, wait a minute, what did this really mean? Not in the mood for what? Because truly, I didn't even know what the story would be about. Not a clue, right? Not in the mood... for what then? ... Ahh! To be taken somewhere without knowing where the ride would go. Yes! That was it. I wasn't in the mood for the unknown, not in the mood to surrender in some way.
All right, fair enough. And I switched the channel.
I typically only use two radio channels in my car: WAMC or WMHT. The latter one is the local classical music station, and it was in the middle of broadcasting a piano piece. A few chords, and within seconds I knew, that I knew this piece. A sonata. Mozart. I knew the cords that would follow, the melody, the tempo, indeed the whole thing. I owned the recording of course. It wasn't the first time I recognized a music piece on the radio, it happens all the time, but that morning I was startled by how fast my brain had processed the data. Three chords or so and my brain had located the entire memory file. How few combination of notes and sounds had it been that had entered my ears? And after those first seconds, there was no surprise left where this piece was going. How many times might I have heard it in the past? How many repetitions had it been that created this imprint, this knowing of every single note in this piece? I had no idea. Not THAT many though.
Wow! What an amazing capability really. To recognize something familiar that instantly. Hearing this music now I felt the difference between knowing something and how safe it makes us feel, and not knowing what to expect. I could feel it in my bones. It didn't matter that it was Mozart, that the mood was untroubled and sunny. It could have been Beethoven or Mahler. It could have been dramatic or dark. It would still feel safe. Peaceful in the gut. Recognition. Knowing what comes next. Must have served us during the eons of evolving into the species we are today. Staying on track, knowing your tribe, your home, your kin, your friends and your enemies. No wonder it feels safe, it must have been what helped us survive then.
Maybe that's why it is so hard to leave habits behind, even when they are unhealthy ones, even when they cause us some suffering. Rather keep what's familiar than surrender to something we don't know... even when this something is just a little short story.
Another car experience, this time on my way to pick up Jimmy at the airport. Last Sunday.
Out of Nassau I turned on the radio. The program was "selected shorts", some oratorally talented person reading someone else's verbally talented writing that had culminated in a short story in front of an audience somewhere in New York City. They broadcast this every Sunday.
I only heard the the first couple of sentences the reader began the story with.
As I was listening I noticed I didn't really want to hear more. I wondered why. I had enjoyed this program in the past, not often, but often enough. Was it his voice? Too agitated? No. Not really. Hmm... I guessed I was simply not in the mood for this today. Now, wait a minute, what did this really mean? Not in the mood for what? Because truly, I didn't even know what the story would be about. Not a clue, right? Not in the mood... for what then? ... Ahh! To be taken somewhere without knowing where the ride would go. Yes! That was it. I wasn't in the mood for the unknown, not in the mood to surrender in some way.
All right, fair enough. And I switched the channel.
I typically only use two radio channels in my car: WAMC or WMHT. The latter one is the local classical music station, and it was in the middle of broadcasting a piano piece. A few chords, and within seconds I knew, that I knew this piece. A sonata. Mozart. I knew the cords that would follow, the melody, the tempo, indeed the whole thing. I owned the recording of course. It wasn't the first time I recognized a music piece on the radio, it happens all the time, but that morning I was startled by how fast my brain had processed the data. Three chords or so and my brain had located the entire memory file. How few combination of notes and sounds had it been that had entered my ears? And after those first seconds, there was no surprise left where this piece was going. How many times might I have heard it in the past? How many repetitions had it been that created this imprint, this knowing of every single note in this piece? I had no idea. Not THAT many though.
Wow! What an amazing capability really. To recognize something familiar that instantly. Hearing this music now I felt the difference between knowing something and how safe it makes us feel, and not knowing what to expect. I could feel it in my bones. It didn't matter that it was Mozart, that the mood was untroubled and sunny. It could have been Beethoven or Mahler. It could have been dramatic or dark. It would still feel safe. Peaceful in the gut. Recognition. Knowing what comes next. Must have served us during the eons of evolving into the species we are today. Staying on track, knowing your tribe, your home, your kin, your friends and your enemies. No wonder it feels safe, it must have been what helped us survive then.
Maybe that's why it is so hard to leave habits behind, even when they are unhealthy ones, even when they cause us some suffering. Rather keep what's familiar than surrender to something we don't know... even when this something is just a little short story.
Latest Brags...
(Written at the Airport - Wednesday, 5/6/09)
I brag I don't feel the scar, or the belly, or my inside any more at all, other than in a normal way.
I brag I hiked up the ridge at the Audubon Society in Lenox with Jimmy, about 700 ft elevation and though still a little slower than my pace would have been in the past, I made it to the top and felt great!!!
I brag Dr Beth at the Center told me that I am doing FANTASTIC after not even two months of surgery.
I brag I created two events at the Center for Integrative Health and Healing, right when I return, mapped out time line, content, dates and space and designed two beautiful fliers.
I brag I plowed through all the departure obstacles that still hung over me, mercury retrograde style, three days ago: no tenant in my studio rental, no place nor a house sitter for Jacky, a ton of bills to pay, a garden in dire straights, and a million of those little insignificant things that I held in my awareness as something I wanted to get done before I left. - Now I have a wonderful tenet moving in on 5/15, a great place for Jacky to stay at a discount, our wonderful Yoga teacher staying at our house when Jimmy too leaves for Germany and a willing and multi talented young guy who will take care if the garden and the mowing during our absence.
I brag I stayed up until 1:15 last night to get everything done and caught up on sleep in the train down to the city.
I brag I even manifested a place to park my car and a ride to Amtrak in Hudson after dropping Jimmy off at Albany airport first thing in the morning.
I brag I will be on the road by car, Amtrak, NJTransit, Airtrain and Plane for 16 and a half hours before my father picks me up at Hamburg airport and I will be totally fine.
I brag I held a space open to have one on one time with our Suzi, who discovered there were cysts in her belly just one month and one day after my surgery, and who will have surgery herself on the day of Patrice's and my birthday on June 1st... and I brag I still hold that space to talk with her before then.
I am grateful for my body doing all this miraculous repair work all by itself.
I am grateful for having spent so much time on skype with my sister in Chile, and feeling so close to her.
I am grateful to be able to visit my brother and his wife in their now house in the country.
I am grateful for having a lot more free time during my stay in Hamburg than usual, the bulk of which will flow into being with my parents. I am grateful to know how precious that is.
I am grateful for Jimmy for interrupting his time in Florida and flying up home for 3 and a half days, just so we can spend some time together before I leave.
I desire to manifest just a couple more clients in Hamburg, just so the trip feels financially yummy and comfortable.
I desire to stay open to the unknown, the mystery and the joy of life.
I desire to create a very fulfilling time for Jimmy and me during our visit to Berlin.
I desire to have fun and a good connection with Anina when we are there.
I desire to have a beautiful birthday celebration in Hamburg.
I desire to have a glorious summer, with many projects that milk the possibilities of being without any children.
I desire to have a very successful double event at the the center in Delmar upon my return. I envision at least 20 people for the introductory event and at least 15 participants for the full day workshop.
I brag I don't feel the scar, or the belly, or my inside any more at all, other than in a normal way.
I brag I hiked up the ridge at the Audubon Society in Lenox with Jimmy, about 700 ft elevation and though still a little slower than my pace would have been in the past, I made it to the top and felt great!!!
I brag Dr Beth at the Center told me that I am doing FANTASTIC after not even two months of surgery.
I brag I created two events at the Center for Integrative Health and Healing, right when I return, mapped out time line, content, dates and space and designed two beautiful fliers.
I brag I plowed through all the departure obstacles that still hung over me, mercury retrograde style, three days ago: no tenant in my studio rental, no place nor a house sitter for Jacky, a ton of bills to pay, a garden in dire straights, and a million of those little insignificant things that I held in my awareness as something I wanted to get done before I left. - Now I have a wonderful tenet moving in on 5/15, a great place for Jacky to stay at a discount, our wonderful Yoga teacher staying at our house when Jimmy too leaves for Germany and a willing and multi talented young guy who will take care if the garden and the mowing during our absence.
I brag I stayed up until 1:15 last night to get everything done and caught up on sleep in the train down to the city.
I brag I even manifested a place to park my car and a ride to Amtrak in Hudson after dropping Jimmy off at Albany airport first thing in the morning.
I brag I will be on the road by car, Amtrak, NJTransit, Airtrain and Plane for 16 and a half hours before my father picks me up at Hamburg airport and I will be totally fine.
I brag I held a space open to have one on one time with our Suzi, who discovered there were cysts in her belly just one month and one day after my surgery, and who will have surgery herself on the day of Patrice's and my birthday on June 1st... and I brag I still hold that space to talk with her before then.
I am grateful for my body doing all this miraculous repair work all by itself.
I am grateful for having spent so much time on skype with my sister in Chile, and feeling so close to her.
I am grateful to be able to visit my brother and his wife in their now house in the country.
I am grateful for having a lot more free time during my stay in Hamburg than usual, the bulk of which will flow into being with my parents. I am grateful to know how precious that is.
I am grateful for Jimmy for interrupting his time in Florida and flying up home for 3 and a half days, just so we can spend some time together before I leave.
I desire to manifest just a couple more clients in Hamburg, just so the trip feels financially yummy and comfortable.
I desire to stay open to the unknown, the mystery and the joy of life.
I desire to create a very fulfilling time for Jimmy and me during our visit to Berlin.
I desire to have fun and a good connection with Anina when we are there.
I desire to have a beautiful birthday celebration in Hamburg.
I desire to have a glorious summer, with many projects that milk the possibilities of being without any children.
I desire to have a very successful double event at the the center in Delmar upon my return. I envision at least 20 people for the introductory event and at least 15 participants for the full day workshop.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
New Awareness
Monday, 5/27/09
I had a realization today.
In the car on my way to the city.
I don't recall what triggered this succession of thoughts. But they are important and I will try to recreate them here.
There are several experiences that came together like a mosaic, to allow me to arrive at this new realization.
The first one was the news that one of my German clients had died. Rose had still been young, in her thirties, mother of a small child and she was suffering from a recurring form of colon cancer. When she came to me a year and a half ago, the medical world had told her that she should put her things into order, because there was nothing much they could do for her. Yet she had felt this surge of conviction that she could make it through this third bout of cancer. I had only been able to work with her twice, in between I had been wondering whether I should have given her firmer assignments, whether I should have been more demanding in her using the Journeywork more often during the months while I could not be in Germany. Would it have made a difference? Who knows.
I was convinced, because I knew by example, that it was possible for one Journey to turn around any health situation - IF it hit the target. And over the years I had been waiting for an opportunity to "show off" with such a case of my own. Humbly and a little embarrassed I have to admit this now: I was looking to show off - with the best intention of course, because I believed that if I had only one spectacular case under my belt of somebody who got healed when there had been no hope, or of some condition that got turned around when nothing else had helped, that that would finally start to spread the word faster and farther than I had been able to on my own.
So, somewhat unconsciously, what I had been looking for was a situation with some public attention to show the power of the effect of the Journey, I was really still trying to demonstrate the power of healing, by delivering an undeniable proof of the result of doing this work. And the result to me was health returned, an illness conquered, a condition relieved. And while I did have lots of "smaller" successes in that way, I was never led to a situation where I had been able deliver the Journey as the cause for a major impressive victory. Victory. That was what success looked like to me. So in a way I had failed with Rose, even though the Journey brought her something she valued, though it may have even extended her life. I had failed too with William Ward, even though I only saw him once and rather briefly because he was already pretty weak. I had failed even with Alex Ballinger, because I hadn't been persistent enough to get in touch with her, and so I hadn't succeeded in at least creating a chance for myself to help her. Not all of that was there as a conscious thought in my head, but the taste of that feeling was present when I thought about Rose as I was driving down the Taconic Parkway.
And yesterday...yesterday I had gotten a letter from another client in Germany who I have worked with three times over the past years. She wrote that she had been diagnosed with tumors in her lymph tissue. That she wanted to work with me on this issue and was looking forward to seeing me again. She had decided against a medical path and, yes, she was scared. Translucent light green clouds of budding trees were streaming by outside my car window, as I remembered what I responded to her. It is a response I would not have given in the past. I wrote back saying that my first suggestion would be to examine if it really has to be an either or decision, if it might not be possible to include mainstream medicine in her healing process. That more than anything I believed this was about listening to her body, to ask her body who and where she could feel safe with, and if there were difficult decisions to be made she could imagine an image of each of the possible decisions and then merge each one of them into her body and check what that felt like.
Listening to our body. I had in fact just reminded Jimmy of that two days ago. He is down in Florida again for the big air show "Sun and Fun" - working really hard, running around on the airstrip during the day, sun beating down on the crowds, making connections and lining up photo shoots and then getting up at 6 every day to be in the air with the soft morning light, and often again in the evening. After a couple of days he is worn out, his voice so tired at night... but he wants to take every opportunity to schedule more work, and be able to deliver the written stories right away to the magazine too. So I had to remind him to stop. To say NO. To listen to his body. To not wear himself out... for what? To take a nap when his body is calling out like this. Wasn't that what we both had learned during the past months? Sure enough, yesterday he gave in and slept 4 hours straight in the middle of the day. Thank God!
Listening to our body. Maybe that was a major ability I needed to teach my clients from now on? Just as important as doing the Journey itself? It was, wasn't it? That's how I had learned what I needed to learn on my healing path. That's how I had made many of the major decisions.
Listening to our body and being open to discovering something new. Yes. That was the other big thing hat had happened. In the beginning I thought I knew where this path was going to lead me. I had expected to heal my body with the Journey and maybe other natural healing tools and to deliver my own proof of the power of this work. And then I had to experience that that's not what it was about. Had the Journey healed my body? No. But had it been the tool to help me understand what this passage was really about? Yes! And... had my body healed in the end? Yes, absolutely.
Discovering something new. Yes, that was the second piece. And this too should be an essential part of everybody's healing process. It makes sense doesn't it? After all if what we know and do and believe and understand so far contained the ingredients to help our body heal, it would have done that already. Just as Brandon discovered something totally new when she found the Journey, we too need to expect that there is something different out there for us to integrate into our lives, something we had not known before, not in it's fullness.
Our body is nothing but the messenger. Our illness is nothing but the doorbell ringing to let this messenger talk to us.
The is somewhat how the new awareness arrived in my thinking consciousness. And by the time I was crossing the bridge over the Croton Reservoir, the rosy sunset sky reflecting like liquid gold in the still water, filling the air like a soft haze that made you want to stop and touch it... this realization was there with utter clarity:
"As a healer I am not here to help your body heal. That can not be our primary goal. It is not our job to conquer your illness either.
Rather I am here to help you welcome this messenger and find out what your body and your life is trying to tell you. Your illness or your physical condition is not here trying to defeat you, it is not an error or a failure that it has arrived in your life; on the contrary it is here to help you discover something you have not be able to notice on your own, a different way of seeing, of understanding and living life. The success of any interaction between us therefore is not that the illness will disappear, but that you will reach an expanded, liberated and truer way of living your life. And most likely your body repairs itself or lets itself be repaired in the process."
Friday, 4/24/09
Oh, it is a glorious spring day outside. The kitchen door is open, the warm air is entering the house. The crocuses are long gone, the daffodils are past their peak and the tulips are starting to show the first hints of color in their green budding blossoms. The grass soon will need cutting. Bird voices float through the air again, everywhere. The trees are still bare and so the house is bright with sunlight, like at no other time of year.
I have slowly, bit by bit, raked and picked more leaves off the flowerbeds. I have done this almost leisurely, without any deadline pressure, stopped before finishing all of it and might not ever do more this year, liking that.
Amongst all this reawakening of life it feels odd to talk about death.
Last weekend I went to a funeral on Shelter Island. "Dad", as I would still call him in my mind, had passed away, 4 days after my surgery. I only was his daughter for 11 months, 32 years ago, when I stayed as an exchange student with him, his wife and four children. I hadn't know he was so ill. I hadn't even seen him in probably 10 or 12 years. I wasn't so close to him, and yet there was a sadness, yet I shed some heavy tears when I saw my brother and sisters speak about him from the pulpit in that little presbyterian Church. Life gone. Irreversibly. That day too, had been beautiful and sunny.
Three days ago my mother told me she believes she would not live that much longer. How she arrived at this conviction is a bigger story, and may be told another time. She is very certain about this. It didn't shock me to hear her say that, because I didn't believe her, it really just didn't feel right, as if this was clearly an error. Maybe I am too attached to her being around, even as far away as she is in Hamburg, that I could feel this out with enough neutrality to get a more accurate sense of the truth? Possible. But then she has given false alarm before. Why not again now? I sat with it for a while.
Yesterday I returned after a long break to my Buddhist study and meditation group. Lilia is standing by the stove stirring up some tea to make her delicious chai from scratch. She puts a book in my hand and says: I've been studying this with Susan, will you read to me while I finish making the chai? She opens up the chapter they are in: "Preparing for death, the Bardo stages of dying". (!...) Some synchronicity.
After reading I mention this coincidence. Lilia thinks I need to go to Bardor Tulku Rinpoche, after all he wrote this book that landed in my hands today, and ask him to pray, once it happens. To ensure her soul gets the ultimate highest opening and guidance for this transition onto the highest possible rebirth. Actually to have him pray for a long and healthy life first, but to be ready, just in case. It so happens there is an anniversary celebration tomorrow in Red Hook for the new monastery he is building. Wow. Everything she says kind of makes sense. Is that really what I want to do though? I don't get a clear answer from within one way or the other. Not for a whole day. Mami too doesn't really care whether I put this bid in for her or not, as long as it works for me.
Finally today I called the number on the pamphlet. A Tibetan monk answers and happily agrees to everything I ask for, until I realize he doesn't really understand at all what I am talking about. He gives me another number, but no one is there. I could just go and see what happens.
This morning Mami sounded so well on the phone, her voice so clear and strong. Her cough is almost gone, her strength has returned so much faster than she would have thought possible, she too has been in her garden, working alongside the rising juices of spring, surprised at how much she got done. Her conviction though remains unchanged. She thinks she might not make it through the summer. Not into the winter anyway. My siblings have no idea about any of it. Not yet.
I am surprised how calm I am. I think about it and talk to her without any inner drama. It feels curiously non-uncomfortable. Maybe because I can't really imagine it will happen so soon? But then I have considered she may be right...
The Buddhists really think of death as nothing but a passage into the next life. One we have made soo often since the beginning of time. They say if all the bodies we have ever lived in were all piled up, it would make a mountain taller than the highest one on earth. I do find that hard to imagine. And also: If we only remembered all that, death would seem like nothing more than going to sleep at night, when you know you'll wake up the next day. That of course makes total sense.
Saturday 4/25/09
I decided I would go to Redhook even without an interview lined up. I wrote a short letter making my request, printed out a picture of my parents, and wrote out a 60 dollar donation check. I surely would be able to give this to someone there.
When I arrive, nicely early by 30 minutes, in order to get one of the good seats right in front near the Rinpoche, I am greeted by two monks in the driveway. The house is small, and overlooks the empty building shell, shining through a stand of elm trees, that will become the monastery. Behind it rise the blue outlines of the Catskill mountains. Curiously there are no seats to reserve in the living room, people just wander about somewhat aimlessly, so I sit down outside on the entrance steps to call Jimmy. People are coming in in bigger droves now. A couple is taking off their shoes next to me. The young monk who had greeted me in the driveway starts chatting with them, and suddenly I hear him say: "There was a woman who wanted to have an interview, I hope she can get here early enough." What did he just...?... oh my God, that must be me!! I turn around, smile at him with utter surprise and jump up. Wow. He smiles too, happy. I am literally flabbergasted."Oh, that was you I talked to yesterday?! I though you hadn't understood me! I can see the Rinpoche?" He nods more smiles: "Yes, yes, please. Please follow."
And that's how life took care of me, not letting me miss my appointment. Well done.
On my way to his private chamber, I incidentally saw that the meditation room was upstairs, and did have cushions set up, so I was able to reserve a seat after all.
The Rinpoche shook my hand with kind eyes, nodded with a little smile upon hearing Lilia's name, listened to my little story, nodded knowingly, took Mami's picture, yes, of course he will pray, slipped it into a shelf right next to him, then my letter and the donation envelope too... and then I was done.
Afterward, on my way back over to our schools senior project presentations, with ample amounts of blessed and lovingly cooked food in my belly, and memories of several friendly and interested conversations with new people I met, I wondered whether this Buddhist community might be one of the "other", "bigger" groups I would get connected to. Maybe that was the real purpose leading me there today? Who knows.
I had a realization today.
In the car on my way to the city.
I don't recall what triggered this succession of thoughts. But they are important and I will try to recreate them here.
There are several experiences that came together like a mosaic, to allow me to arrive at this new realization.
The first one was the news that one of my German clients had died. Rose had still been young, in her thirties, mother of a small child and she was suffering from a recurring form of colon cancer. When she came to me a year and a half ago, the medical world had told her that she should put her things into order, because there was nothing much they could do for her. Yet she had felt this surge of conviction that she could make it through this third bout of cancer. I had only been able to work with her twice, in between I had been wondering whether I should have given her firmer assignments, whether I should have been more demanding in her using the Journeywork more often during the months while I could not be in Germany. Would it have made a difference? Who knows.
I was convinced, because I knew by example, that it was possible for one Journey to turn around any health situation - IF it hit the target. And over the years I had been waiting for an opportunity to "show off" with such a case of my own. Humbly and a little embarrassed I have to admit this now: I was looking to show off - with the best intention of course, because I believed that if I had only one spectacular case under my belt of somebody who got healed when there had been no hope, or of some condition that got turned around when nothing else had helped, that that would finally start to spread the word faster and farther than I had been able to on my own.
So, somewhat unconsciously, what I had been looking for was a situation with some public attention to show the power of the effect of the Journey, I was really still trying to demonstrate the power of healing, by delivering an undeniable proof of the result of doing this work. And the result to me was health returned, an illness conquered, a condition relieved. And while I did have lots of "smaller" successes in that way, I was never led to a situation where I had been able deliver the Journey as the cause for a major impressive victory. Victory. That was what success looked like to me. So in a way I had failed with Rose, even though the Journey brought her something she valued, though it may have even extended her life. I had failed too with William Ward, even though I only saw him once and rather briefly because he was already pretty weak. I had failed even with Alex Ballinger, because I hadn't been persistent enough to get in touch with her, and so I hadn't succeeded in at least creating a chance for myself to help her. Not all of that was there as a conscious thought in my head, but the taste of that feeling was present when I thought about Rose as I was driving down the Taconic Parkway.
And yesterday...yesterday I had gotten a letter from another client in Germany who I have worked with three times over the past years. She wrote that she had been diagnosed with tumors in her lymph tissue. That she wanted to work with me on this issue and was looking forward to seeing me again. She had decided against a medical path and, yes, she was scared. Translucent light green clouds of budding trees were streaming by outside my car window, as I remembered what I responded to her. It is a response I would not have given in the past. I wrote back saying that my first suggestion would be to examine if it really has to be an either or decision, if it might not be possible to include mainstream medicine in her healing process. That more than anything I believed this was about listening to her body, to ask her body who and where she could feel safe with, and if there were difficult decisions to be made she could imagine an image of each of the possible decisions and then merge each one of them into her body and check what that felt like.
Listening to our body. I had in fact just reminded Jimmy of that two days ago. He is down in Florida again for the big air show "Sun and Fun" - working really hard, running around on the airstrip during the day, sun beating down on the crowds, making connections and lining up photo shoots and then getting up at 6 every day to be in the air with the soft morning light, and often again in the evening. After a couple of days he is worn out, his voice so tired at night... but he wants to take every opportunity to schedule more work, and be able to deliver the written stories right away to the magazine too. So I had to remind him to stop. To say NO. To listen to his body. To not wear himself out... for what? To take a nap when his body is calling out like this. Wasn't that what we both had learned during the past months? Sure enough, yesterday he gave in and slept 4 hours straight in the middle of the day. Thank God!
Listening to our body. Maybe that was a major ability I needed to teach my clients from now on? Just as important as doing the Journey itself? It was, wasn't it? That's how I had learned what I needed to learn on my healing path. That's how I had made many of the major decisions.
Listening to our body and being open to discovering something new. Yes. That was the other big thing hat had happened. In the beginning I thought I knew where this path was going to lead me. I had expected to heal my body with the Journey and maybe other natural healing tools and to deliver my own proof of the power of this work. And then I had to experience that that's not what it was about. Had the Journey healed my body? No. But had it been the tool to help me understand what this passage was really about? Yes! And... had my body healed in the end? Yes, absolutely.
Discovering something new. Yes, that was the second piece. And this too should be an essential part of everybody's healing process. It makes sense doesn't it? After all if what we know and do and believe and understand so far contained the ingredients to help our body heal, it would have done that already. Just as Brandon discovered something totally new when she found the Journey, we too need to expect that there is something different out there for us to integrate into our lives, something we had not known before, not in it's fullness.
Our body is nothing but the messenger. Our illness is nothing but the doorbell ringing to let this messenger talk to us.
The is somewhat how the new awareness arrived in my thinking consciousness. And by the time I was crossing the bridge over the Croton Reservoir, the rosy sunset sky reflecting like liquid gold in the still water, filling the air like a soft haze that made you want to stop and touch it... this realization was there with utter clarity:
"As a healer I am not here to help your body heal. That can not be our primary goal. It is not our job to conquer your illness either.
Rather I am here to help you welcome this messenger and find out what your body and your life is trying to tell you. Your illness or your physical condition is not here trying to defeat you, it is not an error or a failure that it has arrived in your life; on the contrary it is here to help you discover something you have not be able to notice on your own, a different way of seeing, of understanding and living life. The success of any interaction between us therefore is not that the illness will disappear, but that you will reach an expanded, liberated and truer way of living your life. And most likely your body repairs itself or lets itself be repaired in the process."
Friday, 4/24/09
Oh, it is a glorious spring day outside. The kitchen door is open, the warm air is entering the house. The crocuses are long gone, the daffodils are past their peak and the tulips are starting to show the first hints of color in their green budding blossoms. The grass soon will need cutting. Bird voices float through the air again, everywhere. The trees are still bare and so the house is bright with sunlight, like at no other time of year.
I have slowly, bit by bit, raked and picked more leaves off the flowerbeds. I have done this almost leisurely, without any deadline pressure, stopped before finishing all of it and might not ever do more this year, liking that.
Amongst all this reawakening of life it feels odd to talk about death.
Last weekend I went to a funeral on Shelter Island. "Dad", as I would still call him in my mind, had passed away, 4 days after my surgery. I only was his daughter for 11 months, 32 years ago, when I stayed as an exchange student with him, his wife and four children. I hadn't know he was so ill. I hadn't even seen him in probably 10 or 12 years. I wasn't so close to him, and yet there was a sadness, yet I shed some heavy tears when I saw my brother and sisters speak about him from the pulpit in that little presbyterian Church. Life gone. Irreversibly. That day too, had been beautiful and sunny.
Three days ago my mother told me she believes she would not live that much longer. How she arrived at this conviction is a bigger story, and may be told another time. She is very certain about this. It didn't shock me to hear her say that, because I didn't believe her, it really just didn't feel right, as if this was clearly an error. Maybe I am too attached to her being around, even as far away as she is in Hamburg, that I could feel this out with enough neutrality to get a more accurate sense of the truth? Possible. But then she has given false alarm before. Why not again now? I sat with it for a while.
Yesterday I returned after a long break to my Buddhist study and meditation group. Lilia is standing by the stove stirring up some tea to make her delicious chai from scratch. She puts a book in my hand and says: I've been studying this with Susan, will you read to me while I finish making the chai? She opens up the chapter they are in: "Preparing for death, the Bardo stages of dying". (!...) Some synchronicity.
After reading I mention this coincidence. Lilia thinks I need to go to Bardor Tulku Rinpoche, after all he wrote this book that landed in my hands today, and ask him to pray, once it happens. To ensure her soul gets the ultimate highest opening and guidance for this transition onto the highest possible rebirth. Actually to have him pray for a long and healthy life first, but to be ready, just in case. It so happens there is an anniversary celebration tomorrow in Red Hook for the new monastery he is building. Wow. Everything she says kind of makes sense. Is that really what I want to do though? I don't get a clear answer from within one way or the other. Not for a whole day. Mami too doesn't really care whether I put this bid in for her or not, as long as it works for me.
Finally today I called the number on the pamphlet. A Tibetan monk answers and happily agrees to everything I ask for, until I realize he doesn't really understand at all what I am talking about. He gives me another number, but no one is there. I could just go and see what happens.
This morning Mami sounded so well on the phone, her voice so clear and strong. Her cough is almost gone, her strength has returned so much faster than she would have thought possible, she too has been in her garden, working alongside the rising juices of spring, surprised at how much she got done. Her conviction though remains unchanged. She thinks she might not make it through the summer. Not into the winter anyway. My siblings have no idea about any of it. Not yet.
I am surprised how calm I am. I think about it and talk to her without any inner drama. It feels curiously non-uncomfortable. Maybe because I can't really imagine it will happen so soon? But then I have considered she may be right...
The Buddhists really think of death as nothing but a passage into the next life. One we have made soo often since the beginning of time. They say if all the bodies we have ever lived in were all piled up, it would make a mountain taller than the highest one on earth. I do find that hard to imagine. And also: If we only remembered all that, death would seem like nothing more than going to sleep at night, when you know you'll wake up the next day. That of course makes total sense.
Saturday 4/25/09
I decided I would go to Redhook even without an interview lined up. I wrote a short letter making my request, printed out a picture of my parents, and wrote out a 60 dollar donation check. I surely would be able to give this to someone there.
When I arrive, nicely early by 30 minutes, in order to get one of the good seats right in front near the Rinpoche, I am greeted by two monks in the driveway. The house is small, and overlooks the empty building shell, shining through a stand of elm trees, that will become the monastery. Behind it rise the blue outlines of the Catskill mountains. Curiously there are no seats to reserve in the living room, people just wander about somewhat aimlessly, so I sit down outside on the entrance steps to call Jimmy. People are coming in in bigger droves now. A couple is taking off their shoes next to me. The young monk who had greeted me in the driveway starts chatting with them, and suddenly I hear him say: "There was a woman who wanted to have an interview, I hope she can get here early enough." What did he just...?... oh my God, that must be me!! I turn around, smile at him with utter surprise and jump up. Wow. He smiles too, happy. I am literally flabbergasted."Oh, that was you I talked to yesterday?! I though you hadn't understood me! I can see the Rinpoche?" He nods more smiles: "Yes, yes, please. Please follow."
And that's how life took care of me, not letting me miss my appointment. Well done.
On my way to his private chamber, I incidentally saw that the meditation room was upstairs, and did have cushions set up, so I was able to reserve a seat after all.
The Rinpoche shook my hand with kind eyes, nodded with a little smile upon hearing Lilia's name, listened to my little story, nodded knowingly, took Mami's picture, yes, of course he will pray, slipped it into a shelf right next to him, then my letter and the donation envelope too... and then I was done.
Afterward, on my way back over to our schools senior project presentations, with ample amounts of blessed and lovingly cooked food in my belly, and memories of several friendly and interested conversations with new people I met, I wondered whether this Buddhist community might be one of the "other", "bigger" groups I would get connected to. Maybe that was the real purpose leading me there today? Who knows.
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