I am a tree.

Did you think I was a woman?

Oh, no. I am a tree

Rooted and immovable,

impossible to conceive the scenes

that I have seen.

Now gnarled and warped,

weather and aged,

wrinkled and withered

bent to the ends of recognition

too rigid to give in

to the whim of man.

I stand true to the tune 

of the wind echoing

my own inner rhythm

persistent, consistent, constant

Perhaps every tree

was once a woman........

only a woman could stand so long

fall so proud

when the axe of age claims her

and earth sets a bed for her.

Helen Bar-Lev

 

In our lives, we can have the unfortunate experience of meeting malevolence; absence of humanity in a sentient being with a human form. I think it is almost impossible not to brush up against this darkness, if we walk through our lives with trust and love.

This experience leaves us with fear, doubt, and confusion. Our reaction to this de-humanizing experience can be obsessive. It can impact all of our other relationships with the world.

Our trust has been lost. Our loving innocence numbed.

In this way, we give this exchange authority over our perceptions of ourselves and give it agency over our lives.

How is it that we can de-commission this permission, and disengage this authority to retrieve our humanity?

Name it!

Give it a name so that it is easily recognizable as something we have encountered that is not part of us.

I see you! I recognize you! You are not me!

I forgive you.

And you are not allowed near my life. You can remain living in the darkness.

I choose the light.

nx

 

 Joy Chose You

Joy does not arrive with a fanfare

on a red carpet strewn

with the flowers of a perfect life.

Joy sneaks in

as you pour a cup of coffee

watching the sun

hit your favourite tree

just right.

and you usher joy away

because you are not ready for her

your house is not as it should be

for such a distinguished guest

but joy, you see

cares nothing for your messy home

or you bank balance

or your waistline

joy is supposed to slither through

the cracks of your imperfect life 

that's how joy works

you cannot truly invite her

you can only be ready

when she appears

and hug her with meaning

because in the very moment

joy chose you.......

 When Death Comes

When death comes

like a hungry bear in autumn

when death comes

like the measle pox

when death comes

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades

I want to step through the door

full of curiousity, wondering:

what is it going to be like?

that cottage of darkness?

And therefore, I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood

and I look upon time as no more than an idea.

and consider eternity as another possibility.

And think of each flower, as common

as a daisy field and as singular

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth

tending, as all music does, toward silence

and each body a lion of courage

and something precious to the earth.

When its over, I want to say, all my life

I was a bride married to amazement

I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don't want to wonder 

if I have made my life something particular and real

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened

or full of argument.

I don't want to end of simply having visited this world.

Mary Oliver

 My Mother

There is a room in my head to which you often come,

Orchid gifts wet with rain in one hand,

In the other your love

Wrapped up in a cut out newspaper piece

You'd saved just for me

Or maybe sealed tight in irregular pots

Of homemade orange jam.

You come in and we quickly leave behind

the thorny rose gardens of our grown up fights

I smooth out the creases in your gentle face

I know I've often caused,

While you, keeping me from the shabby coldness

of the outside world,

Put the last stitch on my coat.

Enda Wyley

 Again.

With determination.

Snowdrops outside my front door.

nx

 

One can still hear the voice of this land. 

An ancient voice in a forgotten language. 

One continuous deep throated howl

Declaring its relationship with the sea and the wind

and time.

Enormous things. Long long time.

One voice.

The relationship manifests in its green top fringe

 of strong misshapen trees 

rooted perilously on the blackened rocks, 

whose deep furrows and cracks 

harbor small bits of ancient stones,

And shelter the most delicate and sensitive of life.

Everyday, this sea, this land and this wind

join with one strong voice.

It may be that

my ears have become insensitive to the voices of other landscapes.

Who is listening? 

Nx

One Story...

 From the moment of our birth we are energy moving forward to find the fullest possible expression of ourselves. All that come make this journey.

 In this way we are one story.

Richard Wagamese

 You can't really get a picture of it.

Not with the sound.

That deep soft roar that runs tirelessly on the wind.

Not with the smell of it.

That ancient smell that rides on the waves,

And crashes on to the shore.

That wind that is cooling one side of my face.

A picture of the wind

Would include the smell and the sound,

and the mist,

that is running helplessly in its arms

across the ocean and on to the land.

I will take a picture 

Of what the wind has left behind,

and capture the bits of old forest

half buried in sand

Scattered like bleached bones on the beach. 

And the shadows that chase the little birds

Chatting and scurrying at the shimmering

tide line.

Besides the bones and birds and the shimmering,

What about the eagle sitting on top of the tree

Above me?

All he watches is the wind,

And what it leaves behind.

Nx

Grief...the love that persists after loss

 I have a wish.

I have a wish for you.

I wish I could take from you

Your grief.

And carry it down to the river

And gently dip it in the cool water.

And you could have 

The whole day off. 

Grief reflects our connection to the energy of  the cold, clear water that snakes through the underground caves in the earth. Grief will grab a hold of you and plunge you in the river. It is a true, deep focused dive into the river of all souls.  

We dive deeper in the water with grief than we do with sadness. The water is clearer; there is more focus. 

This breathless swim is our connection with the collective consciousness.  You stand with all of the losses of all humans in all time and all space.  

Here, this is the place we live all together with our human impermanence. This is where the roots of compassion are nurtured. No one is immune to this swim.  

Grief invites you to survive your loss by immersing yourself in the deep river of compassion that constantly flows underneath our feet. 

 It is a very natural and deeply meaningful human experience. When we sink down into the waters of grief, we will feel the pain of loss, but we also discover our sacred position in the dance of all souls. 

Grief is a downward motion. Like sadness, there is a heaviness. The weight will help us to stay grounded and encourage us not to run away.

 If you leave your body behind, you'll lose your ability to grieve masterfully. It is this heaviness that anchors you to the spacious compassion revealed in everyone's suffering. This compassion is the only worthy opponent to the suffering of grief. 

Your body is a brilliant mourner. The body  has a visceral understanding of death and loss. Our arms miss. Our hands miss. Our legs miss. Our face misses. It is visceral. Our bodies know what has been lost. Our hearts know what has been lost. Initially, part of your body and part of your heart is gone.

 If your grief is not quite finished, you'll know by the wrenching physical connection that still remains. 

The downward movement of grief can take all your energy. 

We live in a grief impaired culture. We turn away from the manifestations of deep sadness. We are not connected with our bodies. We do not want to feel anything deeply. Most people cannot get near enough to their bodies to experience grief. We are lost in our logical and linguistic mind. It is not the nature of the logical mind to dive down underneath life the way the body and emotions can. The intellect does not know how to dive deep. Your intellect only rationalizes and explains. The intellect will have us out of the water and dried off before we are actually submerged.

 Over time, one loss stacks up on top of the last one. We move further and further away from ourselves. 

Look to your heart. You will feel pain. But the pain will not crush you. Your heart will break open but not apart. Your heart will not be emptied; it will be expanded. You will have more capacity to love and more room to breath. 

Breath deeply and relax your body. Grief can then begin its journey through your body and into the ground, where it will nourish all souls. 

Nx

approval

 I write these things today to know them more deeply myself. I will share.

"Often, people who perform really well are some of the loneliest people in the world. The better your performance is, the less people actually meet you. They come and tell you, "what a wonderful performance! Thank you." But as a performer, you feel very lonely and you can get quite desperate for a relationship. So I thought......

Why would I want people to like me and approve of me anyway? Well, with enough approval, I might be convinced to like and approve of myself. If enough people like me, then maybe it will convince me  that I am likable.

So I am suggesting today that you will never get enough evidence of other people's approval to persuade you to love yourself. You'll never be able to succeed at liking yourself by getting others to approve your behaviors and decisions. At some point, you know you are doing it for others, and then you resent them for making you do all these things to get their approval----while all too often they seem to be withholding their approval!

How much are you going to be able to like yourself for abandoning yourself to that scheme?"

It never works, does it? Abandoning yourself to gain recognition. Has it been working lately? You go through life putting on your best performance, yet something doesn't work. People may still not be happy with you. You are not the way you are supposed to be.

If you got all that approval. What would it be good for? Who cares? How will you get out of the worrying about the audience approval?

You think, I could love myself if I got enough approval. And when will that be? Maybe you could just go ahead and love someone who doesn't quite measure up---the person you are---who doesn't quite measure up. Maybe you could go ahead and have a kind feeling, a tender hearted feeling for this poor miserable person who still does not measure up, still hasn't gone anywhere, still isn't calm, patient, tolerant, blissful, buoyant, cheerful and kind. 

Beyond your performance, who are you? Maybe you can find a tender, vulnerable, good hearted person---also boundless and vast----who is ready to see and be seen; someone who is smiling and welcoming the world into their hearts".

The Most Important Point by Ed Brown

The feeling of what happens.....

This passage from Peter Levine's book on trauma is very revealing. It was interesting to me as I have been reading and writing on the flow of emotions in our lives and how our body is the conduit that is bringing us the truth of "what is happening".

This passage was written by Antonio Damasio.

"We use our minds not to discover facts but to hide them. One of the things the screen hides most effectively is the body, our own body, by which I mean, the ins and outs of it, its interiors. Like a veil thrown over the skin to secure its modesty, the screen partially removes from the mind the inner states of the body, those that constitutes the flow of life as it wanders in the journey of each day.'

The emotions are the flow of life. The word "emotion" has its roots in the water. It means to flow outward. Emotions inform you about your capacity to flow and meander; to stop in unusual places; to experience startling and troubling things; and to fully engage with what you encounter. The central property of both water and emotions is movement and flow.

By thinking about the properties of water, we can more fully understand the processes of emotions. 

Water is soft and flowing, but it can wear down boulders and mountains. Emotions are strong and persistent. They gently ask for attention and persist until you acknowledge them. Water and emotions will move and flow around any obstacle put in its path. 

Water is a great conductor of heat and energy. It can support weight and create buoyancy. Water can carry things. You may get knocked down by some of your emotions, because the realm of water is extremely lively and, frequently turbulent place. But the water will hold you. It is buoyant, you will rise to the top. It can carry you for a while. 

Water embraces its environment. It always finds its way to the deepest, grounded places. Water fits comfortably in all the cracks. Emotions find all of our shadow places. It takes a light and an intimate investigation to find all the places it resides in our bodies. I love the images of the caves in the earth that flow unseen. I always believe that the water is very cold and clear there.  Water can travel upwards. From the bottom of the cave to the light of the sun. 

Add energy to water and it will change its form. Add energy to an arising emotion and it may change form too. As water changes to a vapor and disappears into the air, it can just as easily freeze into a block of ice. We add our own mental energy to emotions. They freeze. We add a story that we have written in our heads or a strong remembering of another event that was accompanied by these sensations. The movement is impeded by our minds.  It is no longer in the form of an emotion; it is now in the form of an emotional state.  It is better to just let emotions flow. No need to get into details. The mind just panics. Not helpful. Let it all flow through. Just notice them, welcome them and watch them leave. 

Water is the great container. It can hold you. 

Nx

emotions

 Humans are emotional beings. Emotions move through our bodies every minutes of every day. They carry massive amounts of information with them. These diverse messages can be distinguished with absolute certainty. Emotions are our native language. 

We receive these messages as sensations in our body. These sensations give us a remembering. The familiar emotions that remain at low intensity are just the stuff of our everyday life. Emotions communicate with all of our intelligences. What we see, we feel in our body. What we touch, we feel in our body. What we hear, we feel in our body. Without our emotions we are stripped of our intuition. We cannot make decisions or set proper boundaries. It is difficult to behave skillfully in relationships. 

It is possible to become disconnected with our emotions. We disconnect when we do not feel our body. The conduit for the messages is unplugged. Trauma is one event that can cause humans to dissociate from their bodies. Dissociation is the experience of leaving the body. This separation is triggered again and again by the conditions of our environments. So it happens that we practice and get quite good at leaving our bodies. We are not home to receive the message. 

Learning to work with your emotions will require you to focus on your body, even when unheard emotions become very loud indeed. If we do not pay attention, they will find a way to get our attention. 

Emotions are not a sign of imbalance. They provide protection and security from the ever changing realities of our lives. They increase people's ability to stay focused in their bodies. We are just embodied spirits. Our bodies are our native land. 

Unfortunately, we do not grow up as emotive people; we grow up as people who learn not to emote. Our reactivity to emotions reflect our cultures displeasure with emotions. The socially accepted view is that there are good ones and there are bad ones. The good  ones make us easy to be around. The bad ones make us difficult to be around and all the ensuing consequences of that. The good emotions are happiness, pleasantness, joy and some appropriate sadness. There is quite a list of bad emotional states. There is sadness that lasts too long, anger, depression, rage and fury, hatred, jealousy, fear, shame and guilt. How are you doing with maintaining the good emotions? 

One of the more unskillful ways we have used to not feel or listen to our bodily sensations and the messages they bring to us is to transform them. Transforming an emotion usually means repressing the life out the real but unwanted emotion. Then fabricating a better one. Completely missed the message. Nothing but confusion. 

Emotions only come in a boxed set. Each emotion has its own valid place in our lives. It is a beautiful continuum of colors. One supports the other. Interconnected. Working as a team. 

How lucky are we? It is a brilliant plan. What could possibly go wrong? 

Nx

sadness

Sadness moves forward to question our outdated or hollow attachments in a slow and persistent way. It asks you to respect the flow of time. Life is constant change. We are changed by our personal experiences. We are changed by time.

When you move into sadness, you move into the softened release of contracts that you have made with yourself and others. Sadness arrives when it is time to  uncouple yourself from your own worn out personal beliefs. These beliefs may not reflect the realities of your current life. 

You may then be able to move forward to release yourself from situations or people that are no longer healthy or wholesome to the new you. Sometimes these relationships are with people that we have been close to for a long time. This is a loss. These losses are sometimes necessary to create space for our new self. 

A change in our relationship with ourselves and the world usually requires a boundary shift. That is where sadness calls upon some anger. Anger is good at constructing new boundaries. Anger and sadness are intimately connected. As you respond to the request from sadness to release the old contracts and beliefs, anger will now step forward to help you restore your boundary and protect your new position. In doing so, anger helps you maintain the important change that is happening in your life. 

There is a natural emotional progression between sadness and anger. It may startle you. Anger will often move forward during times of sadness to help you maintain a connection to your strength and validate your intuition, while there is tremendous change happening inside you. 

Too much anger and you are unable to cry. You simply cannot release. Too much sadness and you cannot stop crying. You have no protective boundary. 

Anger and sadness dance together. You will need to learn to dance. 

It is all about balance. 

Watch the dance between anger and sadness. Listen and learn the dance of protecting yourself while you release and let go of that which does no longer serve. 

Nx

How I go to the woods.......

 Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend,

for they are all smilers and talkers and, therefore, unsuitable.

I don't really want to be witnessed talking to the carbirds or hugging

the old black tree. 

I have my way of praying, as you know doubt have yours.

Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible.

I can sit on the top of the dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,

until the foxes run by unconcerned.

I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing.

If you have ever gone in the woods with me,

I must love you very much.

Mary Oliver

The grasshopper

Who made the world?
Who made the swan and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean --
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face,
now she snaps her wings open and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is,
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass,
how to knell in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed,
how to stroll through the fields- which I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done.
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver

The Broken World Awaits You

Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world.
All things will break.
And all things can be mended.
Not with time, as they say, but with intention.
So go.
Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally.
The broken world waits in the darkness
For the light that is you.

L.R. Knost

Great Mystery,
Teach me how to trust my heart,
my mind,
my intuition,
my inner knowing,
the senses of my body,
the blessings of my spirit.

Teach me to trust these things,
so that I may enter my sacred space
And love beyond fear,
And thus walk in balance with the passing of each glorious sun.

Wakan Tanka

dharma dog

She arrived on a Saturday. 


Surprising us all.


Her full and open heart

Like the return of an ancient tide.

The water sweeping through the house, 

Gushing into every corner and crevice,

Falling into the deepest parts.

Shifting the heaviest things

And dismissing anything unnecessary.





There may have been a calling.

A knowing.

A not knowing.

We could find no boundaries.

It was unimaginable that this love

Was meant for our undeserving hearts.

As the water encircled our feet,

The fear to be discovered as flawed,

And unforgivable was visceral.

This would be no half measure.




She was a sentinel. 

Her devotion to me was full and effortless.

Her faith in my kindness and care unwavering.

Everything I was and everything I was not.


She was a tunneller.

Diving into the darkness of my reluctant heart

With the skill of generations of diggers, searchers, finders.

I was her precious cargo.

She challenged me to see what was right there

My own pure unconditioned devotion.



Her departure was so sudden. 


The water drained from the house.

Our lives became unrecognizable.

In the end, she had surrendered everything.

Effortlessly.

No longer needing a painful body

And having no possessions,

All that was left

Was a very deep dive into her brown eyes

And a free fall into the boundless blue.



She came to us with a message.

Open your heart, it is safe.

We could love and were deserving of love.

our hearts were not so irreparably broken.

There was some capacity left over.

Our love was capable of healing her.

And her love was capable of healing us.

And so we did. 
And so she did.

how to paint a bird

It was, once again, my honour to attend this year's annual spring sesshin at Stowell Farm with the sangha of Salt Spring Zen Circle. It is my yearly habit to attend this sesshin, both for the kind company of the humans who practice there and the profound dharma of Peter Levitt.

At the first day dharma talk, Peter asked us to reflect on our "deepest inner request" and suggested that this request may have informed our desire to attend this seriously rigorous meditation retreat. There it is. The first question on the first day.

What is your "utmost deepest inner request"?

Peter asked us to question, "what do you really want"?

And then drop deeper.

And then ask, "what is your true intention"?

And then drop deeper.

Now......"what is your utmost deepest inner request"?

What is it?

Peter gave us this beautiful poem by French poet Jacques Prevert. This poem had some useful clues for our elusive search.

How to paint a bird

Paint first a cage
with the door open
next paint
something pretty
something simple
something lovely
something of use
to the bird
then put the canvas near a tree
in a garden
in a woods
or in a forest
hide behind the tree
say nothing
don't move
sometimes the bird will come quickly
but it can just as well take many years
before deciding
don't be disheartened
wait
wait years if need be
the pace of the bird's arrival
bearing no relation
to the success of the painting
When the bird comes
if it comes
keep very still
wait for the bird to enter the cage
and once it has
gently shut the door with the brush
then
paint out the bars one by one
taking care not to touch any of the bird's feathers
next paint the tree's portrait
choosing the loveliest of its branches
for the bird
paint likewise the green leaves and the fresh breeze
the sun's scintillation
and the clamour of crickets in the heat of summer
and then wait until the bird decides to sing
if the bird does not sing
that's a bad sign
but if it sings that's a good sign
a sign you can sign.

by Jacques Prevert

The sangha sat with "what is this?' for the next few days. At the end of this time, all I knew was that I had painted many birds that did not sing. In fact, I was seriously wondering if any of my bird portraits had every sung.

I continued the hunt after I arrived home. Having some awareness of our deepest inner request would enrich our relationship with ourselves. It was a worthy study. The path that lead to this "request" was going to be elusive. I noticed that every time I seemed to get close to the path, I would be left with an empty hand. An empty hand in an empty field. Maybe, I was, at least, in the right place.

My mental skills would be of no use in this search. The answer would not lie in the mental world. I could not even pretend that I had any direct control over whether the bird would arrive or not. All doing or trying was fruitless in this endeavour. There would only be the open door of the cage and the "allowing" that this would provide. I was waiting on the bird.

I was aware that on the path to realizing this "request", one would have to practice a new way. Unfortunately, a less practiced way. It would require patience and discipline. I would have to engage "action" that was actually no action at all.

Us and the request are really just one thing. It is here that the intimacy lies. To have the experience of the bird singing would require full engagement with the bird. Any separation between myself and the bird would only create another bad painting.

I needed to listen to Jacques Prevert's directions carefully.

First, I would paint the cage with the open door. The bars, which create obstacles between the real world and myself, were created by me for safety. I would paint them with compassion for myself. The cage needed to be kind, modest and useful to the bird. And I would paint the open door. We are "allowed" to leave the cage. Allowing would be a necessary ingredient in the singing of the bird.

Trying or knowing would not be useful.

Then, I must create the right conditions for the bird. To have a chance for the bird to arrive, we need to go to the places where birds live.

Now, I had to get out of the way. If the conditions are wholesome and helpful, the bird will arrive. I need to know nothing, do nothing and make no sound. Now we just wait. This is the action of no action. And full surrender to waiting suspends time. It is the patience to fully understand that we have everything we need right now.

If, by chance, the conditions are just right. The bird may arrive. Bow deeply with gratitude for the arrival. The bars can now be removed, as these illusions of safety are no longer necessary and, just extra. Still, do not interfere with even one feather of the bird. Have faith that it has come whole and does not require any containment. Open your hand.

Wait for the bird "to decide" to sing. Again, get out of the way. Any expectation at this point and the bird will not sing.

But if all is surrendered and full faith is applied, you and the bird will be one thing. You and your "deepest inner request" will just be you. Just be the bird. All in one. No separations. Full intimacy with yourself.

Thank you, Peter, for the extra instruction.

Deep bows to the practice of this new way.

Norma